Vacation

With Resistance 3 wrapped up, and with me transitioning onto a new (SECRET) project at work, it was a perfect time to take a nice rest.

My parents came out to visit, which was great. I really am not quite used to only getting home at Christmas, so I get pretty homesick during the summer, and it was wonderful to see them. We did a few cool things: went to the botanical gardens, walked around El Pueblo and Little Tokyo, and saw a Dodgers game. Otherwise, we pretty much just sat around and did nothing by the pool, or took naps.

I had two days between their leaving and the MLG mini-vacation, which I spent sleeping for the most part. There were a few instances of taking Mr. Davis out for a walk, of course, and some reading, but the rest was blissful, blissful sleep.

This past weekend was MLG, and Nick and I stayed at a hotel down in Anaheim. It was super fun! I really love watching Starcraft in a great big riled up crowd, and man what a crowd it was! On Saturday I got there early to snatch a good seat, and Nick and I rotated out for food and breaks so that we could keep our spot. Everywhere else the chairs were packed and people were standing in the aisles, but the matches were fantastic!

We did decide to head back home today, though, and watch the finals on the stream at Nick's place. This was for two reasons: Nick lost his wristband and it would have been really expensive to buy another for just one day, and we surely would have had to get there at like 8am again to get a seat on championships day, but the matches go on all day, and it would have been incredibly exhausting to stay there until the grand finals. I don't mind, though, because I had great fun on Friday and Saturday, and would rather assure that this last day of vacationing is nice and relaxing.

Tonight I will mentally prepare myself for the return to work, and then tomorrow it's back to makin games!

More Christmas Stuff

This Christmas vacation so far has been just the right balance of lazy relaxing and fun adventures. After Nick left I spent the remaining days with family and friends (mostly being lazy) and had a lovely family Christmas.

I got:
- Donkey Kong Country Returns (played a bit here in Florida with Nick, it's super super fun!)
- Sonic Colors
- pre-order for Lost in Shadow, which should arrive in January
- a WoW trivia desk calendar
- Amazon gift credits, intended to be used for presents for Mr. Davis. I'm going to get him a cat condo/tree. I also used some of them to pre-order Okamiden
- Some cash monies
- a new pair of pajamas (I get one pretty much every year, which is good, because I wear through pajamas like crazy!)
- Betrayal at House on the Hill

A splendid collection of gifts if ever there was one! My brother and I got my parents Netflix, which they liked a lot. Hopefully they won't watch through the whole streaming library in a single month :P

After Christmas I flew down here to Sarasota to spend the rest of our break with Nick. We went to the Ringling Museum, which was pretty varied and interesting. Otherwise there has been a lot of lazing and meeting friends and playing games. I think it will be a relaxing way to see out 2010!

Thanksgiving

I'm sitting in the airport, waiting around for my red-eye to board. I'm very excited about going home! LAX is bustling with holiday travelers, and there's a guy sitting next to me using his dog to pick up chicks (well, I dunno if he's doing it intentionally, but he sure is attracting all the ladies!)

Anyway, I'll be happy to see my family tomorrow, and hopefully catch my friends before skipping back out here on Sunday. I'm mostly looking forward to getting back to Kentucky for a little bit. It always seems to recharge my roots when I spend time there. I miss its beauty more this year, I think, since I've spent the last 6 months in the desert. Well, LA likes to pretend real hard that it isn't a desert, but if you squint your eyes and tilt your head, you can see right through to the rocks and sand.

Even in the winter, Kentucky has a special beauty to it.


This year, probably more than anything else, I'm thankful for having a job. And I'm even more thankful for the icing on the cake, that I have a job as a game designer, in the games industry, makin games!! It astounds me from time to time, but here I am!

I know I don't have a real scope of how lucky I am to have a job that I love in the economic climate, but I have some idea of it, so I'm thankful for it every chance I remember.

I'm also thankful that I'm making it home to see everyone. I do miss Louisville. Stay safe, all!

Tears

Whew! What a hectic week!

Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears swept into Louisville and rocked any sense of routine out the window. Will and I met with the band about our project, and they are all super enthusiastic and awesome guys. Each one is quite huggable, oh how I love those Tears! They played a fantastic show at the Pour Haus, followed by merriment and amusement and Lisa staying up far past her bedtime.

Today I went kayaking with my family. I won kayaking lessons from one of the teachers at a faculty/staff meeting as a door prize (each department submitted a gift to the door prize pool). Coach Judd used to be my crew coach back in high school, and it was really fun to go out on the water. Kayaking is much easier on the arms than canoing. I should like to own one someday!

Lastly, as yoinked from , this is one of the coolest things ever.

Kinetic Sculpture

Christmas Times

Merry Christmas times to all! The holidays have been really nice, if not shaken with the feeling of impending change. I think this year was a "transition" Christmas.

My parents sold their house (yaaay!) but found out that the condo they had intended to buy had been sold out from under them (boooo). This caused much undo stress, but they have found a place to rent for awhile downtown. Still, come January 31st, the house will be gone, items will be shuffled into storage, and madness will ensue.

On Christmas night we had a great get together at my parents' place. Normally Nancy would always host a dinner on Christmas night, so we decided to host a shindig in her honor. We must have lit every candle in the house (Nancy loved candles) and we had Oysters Rockefeller to toast in the New Year (another Nancy tradition). The party doubled as an official "goodbye" to our house, but in spite of sentiment, the evening was full of laughter and good times and no tears.

It was quite a practical Christmas for me, gift-wise, I got a bike mount for my car, which is exciting. I also got metal mixing bowls, which is very exciting, for now I can make meringue pies! My grandmother got me a silicon muffin tin...which...I suppose can't really be called a "tin" at all....muffin silicon? Anyway! This, along with Scott's gifts of a new grater and juicer, are indicative of much baking and cooking to come.

In spite of the rain and cold, it was a very warm Christmas. I hope everyone has had a pleasant holiday season!

Photos n such

I just wanted to share this picture because I think it's really good. It's of all the cousins in my mom's side of the family from Thanksgiving (and second cousins). Growing up, the cousins were quite close, so it's nice to have a photo of us all.




Also, did you know that I've gone all this time without ever linking anyone to my photo gallery from my Japan trip I took that one summer? I am a bad person. Here is most of them, I still have yet to upload them all. Oy!

Thanksgiving

Every year at the school I work at they have a Thanksgiving prayer service. Everyone writes letters to people thanking them for something and some of the students and teachers read their letters at the prayer service. This year one of the seniors read a letter to her mom, who is dying of cancer right now. It was very difficult for me to listen to.

In fact, I didn't want to go to the service at all, because I knew she would be reading it and I knew it would be hard. Will told me that it might be good for me, but that it would also be pretty rough to listen to. I responded that I wish the things that were good for me didn't always involve roughing me around. He said that if I didn't need to be roughed around, then it wouldn't rough me around. I hadn't thought of it in that light before.

Grieving is awful. Even the word "grieve" is a horrible sounding word. It sounds like the name of a damage-over-time spell that a warlock would cast on you. But I suppose the sound of the word is the most accurate means of describing what it even feels like. There are times when I feel like the lining of my throat, the inside of my chest, and the coating of my nerves will be grated away to nothing before the end of it. I know, though, because people have told me, that it doesn't ever really end, it just changes into something different. I know because they've told me, but I don't really know yet.

When all my weird physical pain stuff showed no signs of going away, and when I decided that it's just going to be something I'll learn to deal with, my Soke told me that one of the easiest ways to cultivate happiness is to start giving open thanks for the things I have. The tiniest things, here or there, or the big things, just on the spot when I happen to notice them be thankful for them. It helps to actively do this, rather than fret and worry because I know I'm taking so much for granted, which is what I tend to do. My boss at work is one of those people of the mindset that time is a human constraint, and that God is timeless, so it doesn't matter what you pray for and when, even if it's after the fact, because there is no time in the end. I suppose in that line of thinking it is not "too late" to say thank you to somebody after they've already died.



Oh Nancy, I am so grateful that you were a part of my life. There is a rough balance because when something is so important to you, and such a part of you, you just accept it as there and thus it's easier to take for granted.

I am such a lucky person, I had bonus parents! Some people don't even get any, and I was lucky enough to have another set, and to have you. For as long as I can remember you were just a given in my life. Didn't everybody have someone like you in their lives? Of course! It must be so, because it was just so normal, right?

Because of you I love unconditionally. I always assumed it was just stamped onto my personality, but looking back, you helped teach me to love and respect any living thing that wandered into my life. Dogs and cats and fish everywhere, and every one a beloved member of the family. I even remember the time you took in an abandoned litter of baby possums! They may be cute when they're little, but anyone who can unconditionally raise a handful of the ugliest marsupials on the planet, and do so simply because they are alive and need to be cared for, is a powerhouse of compassion. You helped teach me to be that way purely through your example.

As you were dying and after you had died, Greg kept coming to me and saying, through tears, "I want you to know that she loved you..." Then he would pause as if about to explain what he meant more precisely, but moved on instead. I know that you loved me. You were always there. You were there at birthdays, Halloweens, Christmases, and all of my graduations. And, of course, 4th of July. How we didn't burn down someone's house I don't know, but we made it all those years without any casualties! But you were also there on the normal days. The self-made holidays. So, I know you loved me through your actions, just as you taught me about compassion not through telling me, but through your example.

I am at fault as well, for I don't think I ever said the words "I love you" to you until the very end. I remember standing and touching you, and dad reassuring me that you could still hear me, because hearing was the last thing to go. And so I said "I love you," and it felt so fleeting, like I was trying to pack last minute things for you before you went. But I know that you knew I loved you, for all the same reasons, for all the time we had. Still, we humans feel that if we don't verify that time with a seal of words that it's missing something. I guess it's just a human thing.

I remember the last time I saw you before you went into the hospital for the last time. You were over at my parents' with Greg and Joyce and Jim, and you guys were having some kind of crazy wine tasting contest. I'm pretty sure Fleetwood Mac was blaring in the background. You guys were talking about music and when you said "I would totally do Roger Daltry," I knew it was time for me to laugh and head home and leave you guys to your party.

I miss you. I will miss you on Christmas, and it will be really hard for me. I miss you I miss you I miss you. I love you. Thank you.

Pre-holiday weekend cleaning

I bought the Triplettes of Belville yesterday on a whim, I think everyone is entitled to an impulse buy now and again.

This weekend we (my family) are going over to Virginia to help my aunt move into her new home. Her husband is in the army, so they and my two cousins have played the move-everywhere-across-the-world game for quite some time now, starting out in Germany, then New York, then Houston, then back to Germany again. They are finally finished and coming back to the States for good now, much to everyone's excitement (the entirety of my mom's side of the family lives here in Louisville, so it's been somewhat of a strain on them to have a family member so far away all the time. Granted, Virginia isn't exactly down the street, but it's closest so far!).

My mom went up there with my aunt earlier this week to help paint, so today I am clean clean cleaning so that when we come back my mom won't freak out at how dirty I let the house get, hehe! It's also for myself, though. As much as I hate to admit it, the dirtier and more cluttered my room gets, the less inspired I am to do work. My work on my puppet and new painting have dwindled this week because of how much stuff is strewn across my room. I guess it's not a terrible thing, at least it will inspire me to clean a bit more often.

Whenever my room is freshly cleaned I am inspired not only to work on current projects, but to start like 10 new ones (I suppose it's some entropy-driven urge to dirty up the room again). Maybe next week I'll start building another mask to sell at the con, or maybe some little sculpey dragons.

I really hope I can finish this new painting I started for Conglomeration, because I think it will be a nice one. We'll see, I guess.