The color of infinity inside an empty glass

A couple days before Christmas, I came home from work and Robert says "Hey, i smell smoke upstairs." So we look and, yes, we smell smoke upstairs. In fact, the smell comes wafting down to the first floor. No fire alarm has gone off, though.

I google what to do about it and google says to call the fire department and let them know what's going on, so I do that. The fire department comes in in masse and checks EVERYTHING, thoroughly, and finds no proof of fire. No electric short, no fire, nothing. Plus the smell and haze dissipated so they said if it comes back, let them know.

We go to Buffalo for Christrmas, we come home. 

The day after coming home and we start hearing a buzzing sound occasionally. Not sure what it is, but we eventually realize that it's happened when the heat comes on. Kristen does some quick googling and it might be the fan dead.. or the furnace dying. So we call a furnace repair company who comes in and looks at it. They test it and say it's the capacitor that's dying and they can fix it, and they do fix it.. That smoke we smelled? That was probably the blower motor not starting properly and blowing smoke through the duct work, instead of air. The repairman notes the furnace is roughly 20 years old, though, so we'll need to be prepared for a replacement soon. Well, he fixed the capacitor, tests everything and it seems OK..  for roughly an hour or two, and then the furnace dies.

The GOOD news is we ended up being able to talk to a company Friday and we bought a new furnace. Bad thing is with the holiday, the new furnace will be replaced Tuesday. The team shows up Tuesday morning.. but it'll take some time to fix. 

The GOOD news is we were able to call Robert's best friend's family who agreed to take Robert for a couple of days, so we aren't worried about a 13 year old in the middle of this. He's off playing video games with his best friend. Meanwhile, Kristen and I are trying to stay put, running space heaters, using the oven and just trying to keep the air comfortable warm for us and our cats.

So, I went to go see the new Black Panther movie last night... and.. that's the last Marvel movie I will see opening weekend. Because Disney Marvel entertainment has lost me.

So, I don't want to review Black Panther. Too many people haven't seen it and, honestly, the problem with Black Panther is... an issue with the entire Phase.

The thing about Phases 1 through 3 was that they remained a tightly plotted interwoven set of movies that felt like they were part of the same world. Phase 4 has traded a good well-thought out well-connected story for a veritable tidal wave of shows and movies of varying quality. Some have been GREAT (I'm looking at you Shang-Chi, Spiderman: No Way Home, Ms. Marvel), Some has been.. OK? Not bad? Some have been the Eternals movie which is bottom of the barrel for Marvel movies, under the original Ed Norton hulk movie.
And then there's the personalities, or lack thereof. Marvel keeps whiffing on characters I'm supposed to care about, but don't. Literally everyone in the Eternals movie, America Chavez, Echo, and now Riri Williams. 
Meh.

If you're looking for a movie as amazing as the first Black Panther movie, this isn't it. If you want a movie that checks in with Wakanda after Chadwick Boseman.. I mean.. Black Panther's death.. well, this may be the movie you want. There's honestly a good story in there.. it's just hiding behind some unfortunate bloat.

I was born and raised in a rich suburb of Buffalo. I grew up eating Buffalo Wings and cheering on the Buffalo Bills and being, in every way, a Buffalonian. I consider myself a Buffalonian, above all else.

I didn't know any of the victims. My youngest brother knew one of them. She was a coworker with him, working with suffering drug and alcohol addicts. She didn't deserve to die. None of them did.

I've come to realize that the problem isn't guns. Not really. Oh, don't get me wrong.. there are too many guns out there and too many guns specifically meant to kill people. 
And the problem isn't really mental health. 

The problem is Racism.

A man drove 3 1/2 hours from Binghamton to Buffalo just to kill black people, because Racism. Racism in a particularly ridiculous package, but Racism. Racism in a really disgustingly out there theory... but, let's be honest that the people who believe these ridiculous theories Pizzagate, Q, Great Replacement Theory... well, they don't bother to ask questions, don't bother to think, Someone they trust says some ridiculous thing and they believe it, as crazy as it actually sounds.

I'm angry. I'm angry that more people died, that the nation will do nothing, and meanwhile these ridiculous crazy ideas like the Great Replacement Theory are being spouted by government leaders (Yes, I'm looking at you Elise Stefanik. I sure wish your voters would trade you for someone less awful, though I don't really expect it.) and coming into the mainstream.

Last night's games against the Chiefs is going to have reverberations.

It's (finally) good to be a Bills fan.

I hope that this is the last post I ever write about Cub Scouts. It's sad that Cub Scouts has become stained with the drama of the last 15 months. Sad, but not surprising.

( (Hopefully) The Last Cub Scout Drama )

So a long-awaited game finally came out last week: Starbound.

If you like Minecraft or Terraria, you'll likely like Starbound. It's the same kind of exploration and building game.

Actually, Starbound can be compared pretty directly to Terraria. They're both pretty similar. With Terraria, you explore a single world, being able to explore more and more as you level up your gear. In Starbound, you explore a whole galaxy of worlds, being able to explore more and more as you level up your gear. Graphically, the game is a lot like Terraria as well.

The game is Beta now. A lot of things aren't in yet, but what I'm seeing right now is wonderful.

I love hopping onto a new planet and just exploring. You never know what you'll found. You'll find towers and prisons, sewers and castles. Some long abandoned. Some with NPCs in it. You'll explore forest planet, jungle planets, desert planets, ice planets, moons and such.

So far, it feels like there's a near infinite variety of things to find. That may wear off at some point. Right now, it truly is all new to me.

Right now, there's always something new to see and a lot of it is really cool.

I can't recall what we did for July 4th last year. I suspect the answer is nothing. We probably tried to make plans, but ended up doing nothing.

This year, we did stuff. It was good.

At 9;00, in Edmond, which is half an hour or so north of us, we did the LibertyFest parade. It was a 1 1/2 hour parade of.. god, everything. Local Police and Fire crews. Local high schools. Local businesses. Even one of the local sports teams joined in. It really was a good time.

Then we came home, exhausted, and we ALL Napped.

Got up, puttered, and then we went outsides for our night time performance. There was no way boy was going up for fireworks, so we'd bought party poppers and snaps and we went outside and had a good time playing with those. We even let R pop some of both, with our supervision (and a lot of "No, you can't put your hand over THAT end of the popper.")
BEST TIME EVAR!

We also made a special holiday dinner: steak, garlic mashed potatoes and garlic apple tarts.

All in all, it was a really good day. We actually DID something for the holiday and it was good!

(/well-being)

Oh, DW, I haven't forsaken you entirely. I've mostly been posting a lot of very locked down entries. Mostly because no one wants to hear me whine about work.

I think R has hooked on to a new show: Bob the Builder. He loves all the trucks but he swears Scoop is his favorite (which shows that this boy REALLY loves diggers.) Boy is already a bit of a TV addict, so he'd watch nearly anything happily..

.. including, I may add, Futurama. One morning I had Futurama on and the boy woke up. I wasn't inclined to turn it off. R saif, afterwards, he wanted to eatch the Robot Show again.

Speaking of.. the boy's beginning to develop an appreciating for imaginative play. It's gone past him saying he's a bunny, or lately, a chickadee (I may be at fault for him saying he's a chickadee..) If I talk in a Robot Voice, he calls me Robot "What are you DOIN Robot?" "*in robot voice* I am tickling Robot Child."

.. actually the Robot voice kinda annoys my wife a bit, but she can get over it. I only do it to play with the boy and the boy loves it.

Robert's birthday came and went. He did well. He got some brand new books, some wooden blocks, TINKERTOYS (WOO!), Duplos, a metchbox Car Transporter, and a BRAND NEW Fire Truck. All of which are his very favorite toys EVER! ESPECIALLY the Car Transporter (K and I did well there..)

He also got some moneys for gifts, but we've decided it was high time to start putting some money away for him for college and opened him up his own savings account. As long as K keeps working, we'll add to it too, which.. I feel good about.

We're still happy K is working. It just works out well, for the most part, for everyone. Well, except for last week. Last week was crazy for me and I couldn't work from home, and K is being groomed to handle desktop support by herself since her coworker will be out of office for.. six weeks, I think? And R.. R had a fever. So he couldn't go to school. It was.. kinda crazy trying to make that work. But we got through it and the boy is on the upswing.

What else?

I've been playing a lot of Guild Wars 2 lately. I've got a guild I like that's active and fun and often silly. I've got a character I generally enjoy playing except for when I get surrounded. Thiefs are good for sneaking up behind you and sticking a dagger in your back, not for trying to take on a group of more than 2 or 3. I can generally use my shortbow on a small group, but if I overaggro.. and I still sometimes do.. I get squishy...

.. um.. yeah.. maybe two people care about that and I'm one of them. So.. yeah.

Posting and working some more.

So, I don't discuss them much, but we have, between the two of us, four cats. My mom, who was a total crazy cat lady, had six and when I left for DC, I ended up taking three of them with me as she was sick and couldn't take care of them all. K had one of her own she was finally able to bring down to DC.

Of our four cats, two of them are old lady cats. 15 or so. We've never had much issue with their health, as a whole. Possibly because they're inside-only cats.

On Wednesday, when I got home from work, we found one of the old lady cats, Smokey, laying down on the ground. K was nervous about this because she usually comes to say hello when we get home. We put out food and she still laid on the ground. K tried to get her to stand up and she fell over.

So, fearing the worst, Smokey and I went to the emergency vets. Of course, at the vets, Smokey climbs out of her carrier and wobbles around, so i'm thinking maybe it's a sprained muscle or something.

Nope. Her balance is off. This is something that can happen to older animals. It may get better. It may not. The vet did bloodwork, did a thorough exam and she is in fine health, except that she can't walk straight at the moment anymore.

They gave her an antibiotic, an anti-inflammatory and some pills to help her. And she was at least moving more this morning than she was yesterday: from a bed to the food dish, to in front of R's chair, to the other bed, etc. It was still movement.

So.. that's the good news.

On an intellectual level, I knew the cats were old. I knew something could happen. But you're never ready for it. Not even the threat of it, so...

That's the news.

At least she seems to be doing a little better.

2012 was a decidedly mixed bag. Work ate my brain and became my life, crowding out most other things. K and R were sick ALOT. We had a lot of hard financial times.
BUT I was employed the whole year long, went on two work trips, became an LRE and am appreciated by my company. K got a contract position she loves. R got to go to preschool, which has helped him develop socially, and continues to grow up to be a perfectly well-adjusted three year old who is asserting his authority, much to our frustration, occasionally.

( 2012 In Review )