Kitkowskiland!

So I’ve had a lot of interesting things go down lately. Two weeks ago was GenCon, a 5 day game and publishing extravaganza. I pretty much went to talk to friends that I don’t get to see all year, but really wish I had more time to spend with them.

Right after that I flew directly from GenCon to NetApp in Sunnyvale, CA where I spent about four days in fiberoptic training. Some decent learning and good food. On the plane ride over to Cali I just happened to sit next to the CEO (”Derek Liu”) of www.gaiaonline.com, a cute internet anime-inspired community. Pretty cool stuff overall, it’s actually making money: It’s basically a forum where you have an “avatar”, and responding to posts and threads gives you more “gold”, which you can use to spend on items to change the look of your character. Every month, if you donate money, you get these “donation items”. It sounds kinda flaky at first, but when you realize that there’s about 2 million users on that forum, you can see how they can rake it in. Pretty cool idea overall, and it’s getting better by the minute. Very overwhelming, though.

I spent most of my after-training time hanging out with Drew, who was kind enough to drive some 40 miles down from Oakland to visit. On my last day, I went up to stay with him, and we ended up going on top of a mountain overlooking SF, then down into the city for dinner at an all-vegan restaurant called “Millenium” (VERY good stuff, I might add). After that, Drew and I did some roleplaying (a game called Breaking the Ice) and ate some Demon Cookies.

The next day, I came back home, which had me at my doorstep at approx 11:30PM. I worked at 7:00 AM the next day. I’m just coming off of a three-day weekend, and I think I got enough rest in this time around, but my sleep scehedule is still really tweaked. I’ve been going to bed at 3-4 AM recently, which is no good for those 7 AM work shifts. I have one day to get it all in order again. That’s pretty much the bummer about my work schedule, and why I’m going to probably go back to a regular 9-6 schedule next year.

Now, on this last day of my break, I’m relaxing, playing some video games, doing some yoga (lost another 5 pounds, but many more to go), reading some of the games I bought at the Con, and writing in my Livejournal.

-Andy

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9063638/

God Bless America,
Land that I love
Stand beside her,
And guide her,
Through the night
With the light from above,
From the mountains,
To the prairies,
To the ocean,
White with foam,
God bless America,
My home sweet home.
God bless America,
My home sweet home.

My buddy in Japan Satoru sent me a care package with:

1 T-shirt that says “QUO”. (? Some kind of present)
12 manga books (Yakitate Japan and Hellsing)
1 PS2 game: ZERO 3 (Aka “Fatal Frame 3″), THE game I was looking forward to this year.

What came to my house was a fragment of the cover of the box it was shipped in, a note from the USPS saying “Oops, sorry, shit happens”, and the T-Shirt. It cost Satoru (that is, ME and ORIE) $30 to ship. About $100 down the crapper. Oh well, now we know to pretty much rely on EMS and insurance for overseas packages. The alternative just plain sucks.

This is the first time this has happened in over 8 years of shipping back and forth to Japan. Oh well.

Oh, als in the news: Tomorrow I go to GenCon for 5 days, after which I fly directly to San Jose/San Francisco for Storage Attached Network and Switch training for Network Appliance. I’m totally looking forward to both. Orie will be at home with the cats.

Gotta go, stuff to pack.

Tonight Orie made fried green tomatoes with roasted vegetables, gaspaucho soup (sp?), baked bread… great stuff.

For those not in the know, Orie’s been cooking since her mom died at 14… Been cooking as a housewife for some 18 years or so. So she’s always been able to cook well. Lately she’s been experimenting with Indian food, making killer tandori chicken, tikka masala, mattar paneer, etc. We’ve been cooking lighter and lighter these days.

Also, we’ve been making some killer bread lately with this, the Cadillac of Breadmakers:

Zojirushi
http://www.zojirushi.com/newproducts03_3.html

Really, REALLY good. If you’re into bread, this thing is the shizznit- Easy to setup, easy to clean, and makes terriffic bread.

Also, I downloaded the last season of Star Trek, TNG, because I heard about a few “great” episodes that I must have missed. I’ve gone through about 5-6 episodes now, and am filled with a sense of nostalgia.

But man, TNG was a really, really boring show. I guess we watched all this technobabble crap with high SFX and low drama because there was no other SF available back in the day. One thing, though… a lot of the performances by the “non main guys” seem really, really forced. But the Klingon guys that show up are always hamming it up, getting into it, doing… well maybe not stellar, but certainly above mediocre performances.

Man, in the days of Firefly and the new Battlestar Galactica, the bar has been raised to the point where old Star Trek is just painful…