(Blows dust off of the virtual furnishings...)

*muttering* Man, did I let this place go to hell while I was gone....

Ah, there you are!

Hello to everyone out there in LJ land!  I'm back from a Glorious three-month stretch of stress, flu, holiday retail, and uppity co-workers.  But it wasn't all a glorious land of professional responsibilities and self-perceived shortcomings, I also experienced some of those times of "happiness" and "goodwill towards others" I keep hearing about.  So, as I work on getting this place back into shape, I'll leave you with a summary of events (in no particular order) from my time away:

#1  One Flu Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
For the past few years, I had gotten through the worst of the "flu seasons" with nothing but a few sniffles.  I had gotten to a point where I believed my immune system was being bombarded with so much on a daily basis that it had gained an almost titanium-like strength.

Apparently, Titanium is quite brittle under the right circumstances.

Anyway, my constitution failed during Day Two of my End-of-2006 celebration (starts on December 29^th and goes through January 2^nd.  Trust me, it just works.) in such a way as to make me think that I had one too many shots.  It’s a truly agonizing experience to feel a next-day hangover WHILE shivering and sneezing from the Flu and a nasal infection; a trifecta of pain that my doctor had never before seen all at once.

“Anne” was the sweetest girl to me during that time (even if the best she can do in the kitchen is microwave soup), and was even willing to explain quite a few times to me just how incredibly pathetic I looked.  I, in turn, could only sniffle, nod, and motion for more blankets.

#2  Gaming for a Good Cause
I’ve done a variety of volunteer work in my life; Children’s Museum, Boy Scouts, and helping with my high school’s daycare program just to name a few.  It’s not a regular thing for me, but I do like lending a hand to good causes when I can make a personal difference.

This year, our shop was able to put together a charity event for Toys for Tots, complete with donations from some of the best companies in the hobby game industry.  And what did we do at our charity event?

Gaming.  Lots and lots of gaming.

RPGs, board games, minis, card games… we even got some advance previews of some of the season’s hottest releases.  I was there for 10 hours running quite a few of the events, teaching new games, getting photos of the Marines picking up our donation, and generally getting a great feel for the gamer community in my area.

I’m looking forward to doing it all over again next year.

#3  Hell is Other People (that also work retail)
Do I sometimes obsess over details?  Is “sometimes” an understatement?  The answer to both of these is quite probably YES.  But I also have never asked anything of anybody I work with that is more than I myself would or have done.

Nothing brings my faith in humanity down more than listening to people complain that work would be so much easier if expectations were just lowered.  After all, that work can just be done later, just like we said six months ago, right?  And why do we have to do this stuff every day?

Not everyone I work with is saying this, and those that do aren’t even saying it all the time; but when someone complains that I don’t share enough of the responsibilities with them, I’d like to first see them finish some of the basic everyday procedures before I can trust them to finish tasks which are more important.

#4  If You Can’t Take the Heat…
Between the craziness of work and the complications that Real Life loves to throw in my way (as it seems to love to do to us all), I found some time to indulge in my second-favorite hobby: Cooking.

The kitchen of my apartment has taken on a Mediterranean flair with an easy Feta Chicken dish I threw together recently.  Nothing special, just boneless chicken breasts rubbed down with olive oil and basil, wrapped with prosciutto, and laid out in a pan with feta generously crumbled over the top.  There are some variations I’m working on, such as stuffing the breasts with the Feta or adding some aromatics to the pan to cook with the meat, but as it is right now the dish is tender and moist and goes great with a white wine.

If you want to try it out for yourself, just put the ingredients together as above and bake at 325 degrees for about 35 minutes.  If you want to make it ahead of time you can prep the dish in a disposable foil pan and freeze for a few days.  Just let it thaw for an hour or so and bake for the first 20 minutes with foil on top of the pan, then bake for another 20 – 30 minutes as normal without the foil.

#5  If the Computer is my Friend, why does it keep breaking up with me?
My trusty laptop is not dead, but it has gotten to the point where a desktop has been secured to act as the main machine in the apartment.  This has signaled to my laptop to glitch and wig out even more.

Vapula (my pet name for the laptop) will be refurbished into my writing machine primarily, doubling duty as my GM Screen o’ Doom.  The Doctor (as in Who) is becoming my Gaming/Writing/Media machine.  I’m privileged to have 3 months free on EVE, so I’m trying that out at the moment.