Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in danohead's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, February 16th, 2012
10:55 am	Transfer Goodbye, LiveJournal. (Comment on this)
Friday, February 10th, 2012
5:47 am	Coolio Put a deposit on refrigerated air install for next weekend. This summer we'll be coolerating in style. Dad got in last night. Staying the weekend and doing a 5k with Carrie. And now we have and extra registration since Julie can't make it, so I might get enlisted to push the stroller. Tonight, we Flament! Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
8:05 pm	Meemaw Exercise, done. Only 2 miles but every little bit helps. I'm back in the exercise challenge. Or more appropriately I'm not knowingly failing the exercise challenge this year. Plus it gets some exercise for Piper who I feel guilty about not giving enough attention to more often than not. I found an old chat with Ben from '09 today in which we talk about Burrito Quest and gaming. And then I sign off by saying 'grandmas!'. Must have been when Mo Waldon was here....maybe. Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 7th, 2012
9:48 pm	It Cometh with Snot The past week has been sickness all through the family.  Near as I can tell Owen was our own patient zero, followed by either Carrie or I, with Paige bringing up the rear.  It hit me last Sunday/Monday and lasted till about today.  Still not completely over it but much better since yesterday. This past weekend we toted the kids out to Carlsbad for Julie and Rosss birthdays.  Was good to get out there and see 'em but also tough what with everyone not feeling well.  Made for a tiring weekend.  So much so that I came home from work after a couple of hours on Monday. Managed a session of Flamentations Friday before last.  A mini-dungeon crawl followed by a survival scenario and finally returning to a town beset by chaos.  Next session this Friday. Still considering moving this thing over to blogger, but I kind of feel like there should be more focus if I do that. Pulled a 12-hour at work today.  Surprisingly, not that bad.  But then a 3 hour nap yesterday and staying busy all day today probably helped. Oh, and I got a new nook.  Carrie was wanting to do more reading so she took my old one and I upgraded to a nook Simple Touch.  Very small, and very nice.  Still working through Dance with Dragons, but taking large chunks out at a time.  Carrie's been reading Bossypants and enjoying it, so I may hit that up next.  Or maybe Ready Player One, not too sure. Current Mood: tired (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 21st, 2012
10:22 am	Sinu-balls Some kind of sinusitis has descended upon me. Out of work Friday and still feeling worn out and sore. Friday Flamentations were booshed by sickness. And it looks like no gaming for the next two weeks for other reasons. May have to see if Ben and Amy are interested in something during the week, to ablate the seemingly inevitable once-a-month gaming schedule. Kids have been getting more and more "getting into things.". This morning they moved the 'fencing' we have in front of the trash can and retrieved a mostly empty cup of ranch dressing. It was, undoubtedly delicious. I, being sick and tired (of sickness, not kids) got a bit frustrated with the situation, when Owen's ranch smeared mouth clearly called for humor. So Carrie bundled the kids up and took them for a walk. Next time I'll just go back to bed like she suggested. Been thinking about getting a new nook. I may have mentioned this before, but with the old one working just fine, not sure it's warranted. Maybe if I sold the old one... Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad. (Comment on this)
Monday, January 16th, 2012
1:36 pm	Flament! We got the house refinanced on Friday.  The new lower rate is going to result in enough of a monthly difference to almost pay half of a car payment. Speaking of cars, I sold the red truck.  Got less than I had settled on originally, but I call it a win since when the guy came to pick it up he had some trouble starting it and still drove off with it. Julie and the kids came into town this weekend for the balloon rally.  The rally was ok, but mostly made everyone just want to go up to Albuquerque for the big one. And I ran the first session of Lamentations of the Flame Princess.  I'll assume there was much and more lamenting going on by Ben and Amy, likely directed at wondering why they had agreed to play this lousy system.  There were little to no flames or princesses.  The characters had been dispatched to a crummy swamp town to bring back or find out what had happened to a merchant who had been dispatched there.  I tried to work in random tables a bunch and it seemed to work ok.  I did have some confusing moments trying to deal with a system that is not directly designed (and only kind of modded) for the type of play encouraged.  There were some generally unexpected and cool moments (both the characters getting mind whammied and almost murdered by a wacky cultist, Ben almost killing one of their friends/henchmen while trying to save the guy) though, and I'm planning on at least six sessions.  Need to do a recap write-up, to allay some of the inevitable, "what happened last time?" Current Mood: content (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 11th, 2012
12:50 pm	Housings Heard back from the bank about refinancing our house.  The deal's good to go, but the appraisal seems to have come in fairly low, which is not super happy news.  That means after being in the house for over 6 years we have very little equity, and not near enough to finally get out from under PMI.  The refinance should still reduce our mortgage payment in the short term, which was our goal in the first place, but the whole process has shed light on just how much the housing dump has hit us.  Again, we're not getting hit hard, but mostly because we're not planning on moving any time soon. In other house news, we had some rain the other night and some dripped down the exhaust and shorted out the flame sensor on the furnace.  This meant we spent the night without heat.  We put a small electric heater in the kids room and bundled up.  I tried the furnace again in the morning just before I was going to call in for a repair and it had dried out and is working fine.  Need to get some folks out to give us some estimates on converting the place to refrigerated air, which would likely involve a furnace replacement as well. Restarted Burrito Quest last Friday.  We're doing a vegetarian trek, what with Ben's dietary mores.  In the process of processing the recording I discovered that I had never posted the 12th episode from BQ3.  So, two recordings need to go up and I'm already almost a week behind.  More of the same. Gaming last Friday was mostly us sitting around wondering what to game.  I offered to run something and Ben seemed intrigued by the opportunity to play again.  Going to run some Lamentations of the Flame Princess starting (maybe) on Friday.  Should be interesting as it's a old school D&D revision that really doesn't provide much in the way of specific and/or useful bits for how to run it.  I haven't run something that was strictly sandbox in, well, maybe never.  It'll be interesting to see how it goes. Current Mood: okay (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 4th, 2012
6:29 pm	Yeasty and Lacking I decanted some of my first Mr. Beer batch when Dad was in town, but it was way too soon and I'd hoped the flavor and clarity would improve with more bottle time, both on the shelf and in the fridge.  I took some to Carl-Bad and it was similar to that first opening, somewhat cloudy and with a yeast flavor I'm not totally fond of.  Even more fridge time has improved the clarity immensely, but there is still an off note on the flavor.  Not undrinkable, but I hope the second batch turns out better.  And Isaac gifted me some cash to get some more brews.  Thanks, Saac! Speaking of Xmans.  We did pretty shabbily on the gifting to friends front.  I managed to get Legend of Drizzt boardgame for Ben and Amy but aside from that we had nothing to reciprocate with.  Not that it's strictly necessary, but still, this tarnishes our track record for gifting to pals.  We'll have to see what we can do to remedy the situation. Thanks to Sage and Sarah for the Woodford Reserve. Current Mood: chipper (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 27th, 2011
3:41 pm	Family Times Christmas went off well.  The new van was delivered on Thursday and we immediately packed it up and took off for Carl-Bad.  Luckily leaving a day early got us ahead of the storm.  I heard at least one coworker who headed out for Carl-Bad Friday morning say it turned the three hour drive into seven.  It started snowing Thursday night and kept it up for two days straight.  While there I got a look at Rocky's still and talked moonshining with him, built a snowman and snow fort with Ross, ate some delicious brisket (twice), got some gifts (beer, a necklace, and flatware), and generally had a good time around family.  Having kids of my own now I think having that kind of family time, like we did when I was a kid and we'd visit Mississippi, is getting more important.  Maybe we should have trucked on up to Colorado like last year.  Ah, well, next maybe next time. We got back in Xmas afternoon.  Got things squared away and even managed to fit the van in the garage with my car, but only just.  Until (or maybe unless) we get some stuff moved out of there it looks like I'm parking on the street.  This was the first morning and I've gotten spoilt enough that I probably ought to rediscover skills at things like scraping frost off of windshields. Managed to hang with Saac a little, what with his limited time in town.  Sunday I went over to Ben's and had some beers with the guys while watching very, very crappy movies.  Blew out of work early Monday and met Ben and Isaac for lunch.  There was much lamentation for Heftymetals and times when people who aren't Ben had a lot of free time around the holidays. Current Mood: okay (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011
6:44 am	Official: Dad We bought a minivan last night; a 2012 Honda Odyssey.  Truthfully, Carrie did most of the buying.  She texted back and forth with 4 car dealerships, getting them to one-up each other till we came down to (what we hope is) a reasonable price.  These kids are gonna be riding in style. Current Mood: awake (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 14th, 2011
9:10 pm	Whuff Let's see: Party at Ben and Amy's house.  I did not Rockband, but I got some quality time in with the grumpy old folks in the back room; my people.  Spent the evening talking movies, comics, books, and whatnot with Tony, Amy, Charles, others, and for a brief time Hon. Bill.  Was nice. Carrie went out of town to visit Alicia up in Denver, and Dad came into town to help out with the kids.  The two and a half days Carrie was gone went pretty smooth.  Had a good visit with Dad too.  Whenever he comes in to town he gets me off my ass and moving, at least a little more than I was.  After Carrie got back we got out twice, once with the kids on the desert trail in the middle of a neighborhood over in Sonoma Ranch, and once taking Piper up to the levee.  We also watched probably the funniest episode of It's Always Sunny ever ("Chardee MacDennis: The Game of Games").  Dad cooked a lot and I even cracked open one of my homebrews before he left.  It was early, but it still tasted pretty good, if a little yeasty.  I wanted to open one while he was in town, what with him buying me the Mr. Beer kit and all.  I'm letting them sit for longer than the kit tells you to, but more in line with what some of the fan communities makes better beer.  We'll have homebrew for Xmas at the very least. Things with the kids are good.  We are having some small issues with them not wanting to eat, but it could be they don't like the high chairs anymore.  At daycare they sit them in chairs at a table.  Anyway, we got them a chair and table set for Xmas, so we'll see.  We set up the Xmas tree and decorated while they were napping last Saturday.  When they got up they were mesmerized and adorable.  For safety, we extended the fence we have in front of the entertainment center and made a space in the corner for the tree.  Seems to be working pretty well so far.  Oh, and so far this week they have slept through the night, without waking up once, every night.  Nice. More holidays coming.  Carrie and I are taking the kids to Carl-Bad for Xmas, coming back Xmas day.  Aside from that I'm only taking a few days off around New Years, since Jon's likely not coming down this way. Current Mood: good (Comment on this)
Monday, November 28th, 2011
9:53 pm	Lots and Lots Thanksgiving: Lots of family time, also, unfortunately, lots of not feeling so great. Pulled some kind of sinus business Tuesday, and it lasted through Wednesday. Carrie and I both had some stomach bug Wednesday as well. Jon got in that night and I was well enough to have a few beers with him. We forwent Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Day and had it Friday instead. Jon was here, Agnes and the kids too, her parents, mom, the Sharons. I found a turkey recipe that knocks out the bird in 2.5 hours. Good food, good company, but with recent sickness and staying up too late (including a perfectly fine time playing MW3 till much too late with Cameron and Derek) I felt worn out all weekend. Saac, Jenni, Sage, and Sarah were in town. Managed to make time to get together a couple of times, including a nice outing to High Desert for both Carrie and I while mom watched the kids. Oh, and we got together a kickball game on Saturday. It was windy and cold, but we ran around and kicked balls with gusto. The past nine months or so of no exercise are readily apparent in the pain in my lower extremities. Nathan stopped by on his was to Tucson for a quick visit, Sunday. I was feeling poorly most of the day, then contracted a 102F fever in the afternoon. Ended up taking Monday off. Feeling much better, but with the recurrent sinus crap I decided to go ahead and take the antibiotics I picked up the end of last month. Could just be the dry weather but who knows. No gaming this Friday, again. There supposed to be a RockBand party instead, but I think Conner's 3rd birthday is happening then too, so we'll probably take the babies over to that. I crammed through Storm of Swords and am on to Feast for Crows. Enjoying it immensely, the story as much as being back in the habit of reading frequently again. I owe Kenny a callback. My apologies. Finally, I put up my first Mr. Beer batch weekend before last. Dad sent the kit to me for my birthday. I'll bottle it in the next few days and it should be ready to drink by the time Dad comes in to town next week. Current Mood: sleepy (Comment on this)
Monday, November 14th, 2011
8:45 pm	Surprise, Thard! Regular-type Friday gaming continues to elude. In its place we gamed some 4e with 4e-virgin Nathan, and Bill, with Ben running. I made a minotaur who worshiped a potbellied, tattooed, crocodile helmet-wearing god named Thard Harr. That was as far as I got in the description of the god before deciding it was definitely the god for Bjorkus. This, naturally, drove the game. Turns out Thard Harr is some kind of dwarf jungle god. Still awesome. Saturday was birthday day. Started with a nice little outing, just me, Carrie, and the kids. We Arby-ed the crap out of lunch. After Paige and Owen settled in for a long nap, which left me time to crack open (Carrie's gift) Modern Warfare 3 for two solid hours of shooting bad guys. After that, High Desert with Alex and Traci. After that, Carrie surprised me by hiring a babysitter so we could go out to dinner. We had a beer at the bar then headed out two Luna Rosa where we were met by Alex, Traci, Joe, and Ben. After that, we stopped briefly at Joe's then went home. That's right, we were home before 9:30. 37 and still rockin. Cooking chicken and dumplings tomorrow. Current Mood: chipper (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
8:36 pm	Crotchety Post, dammit! Last Friday was a lack of gaming, but an abundance of Novembrew. Headed out with Alex and met up with Jason, Lynn, and Steve Nelli. Drank lots of delicious beer in 2 oz portions. Almost didn't finish out all 30 tastings in the allotted 3 hours, but High Desert hooked us up at the end. Of note was the Chocolate Coffee Piñon Stout from Mimbres Brewing out of Deming, and Woodchuck's Summer Cider. Not usually a fan of cider but that stuff was mellow and tasty, without the bite I get from most cider (which reminds me of the ham/cider story from my trip to Seattle...Sage and Sarah had some cider in the fridge at the same time as a ham and complained that the cider tasted too much of ham...maybe you had to be there). After the tasting, we hit up Zeffiro's for some pizza, and Starbucks for some coffee. Made for an satisfyingly inebriated early evening. Saturday Carrie took the kids to Carlsbad. I jumped on the opportunity of an empty house (coupled with lousy weather) to spend a whole 24 hours eating fast food and playing through all of Gears of War 3, campaign and multiplayer with Cameron. Also spent hours reading more of Storm of Swords. A very quiet weekend. Unfortunately I missed out on both Saac and Renn Faire-ing. Paige has been tottering all over the place, even going so far as forgoing crawling despite falling on her butt repeatedly in a very short timeframe. Owen is taking his time catching up, but he's getting there. Last night mom had us over for delicious chicken stew and lots of kids exploring mom's house. Turning 37 on Saturday. Wow. Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad. (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 30th, 2011
9:57 pm	One Year Later This time last year I was learning how to change diapers on a couple of newborns. The past year has seen a hell of a lot of challenge and more feelings of confidence than I would have imagined. Can't wait to see what the next year brings. Yesterday we celebrated Owen and Paige's first birthday. Had a great turnout and passed a good time. Lots of changes with the one year mark. They start in the toddler room at daycare on Tuesday, which cuts a nap and bottles out of their daycare days. I expect we'll have some cranky babies for most of this week. On the plus side, all the other kids in the toddler room are already walking, so that means Paige and Owen will have lots of pressure to get in gear. Not that the haven't been making progress already. Paige tottered halfway across the living room yesterday. Julie and the kids came out for the birthday. Spent some small part of the weekend shooting up some Gears of War with Ross. We also took them down to the zombie walk at the downtown mall. Tried to build it up before hand, making it sound like there was some kind of weird sickness going on in Cruces, to get the kids freaked out. Ross was unfazed, but Jalie didn't want to get out of the car when we got there. In the end she had a good time taking pictures with the 'pajama zombies'. We were supposed to do up a Halloween party but by the time we got back to the house only Carrie and Jalie really had the energy for it. Ross fell asleep on the couch pretty early, and we tried to gather around him, Carrie and Jalie, costumed, Julie and I with masks or hats to get a sleeping picture to make him think he missed a party. Instead he woke up and was bewildered by all the weirdness around him. They are coming back next week for the Renaissance Faire. Traci came out too. She took some awesome pictures at the birthday party. Then this morning we got dressed up and she took some family photos. A lot to sift through but on a first pass through there are some pretty good shots. Thanks, Traci! Gaming continues to not happen. Friday, what with Amy and Kyle being busy, Ben and I played some shoot-em-up xbox (New: Call of Duty Black Ops, and Old: Rainbow Six Vegas 2). Current Mood: good (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, October 24th, 2011
5:05 pm	Pushers In addition to making small strides (ahem) in walking, the kids have started pushing things all over the house and walking behind as they do. They've made their way around the house with their walking toys for a while now, but recently other objects have started enabling their controlled falls across the tiled vastness of our open architecture. Of late these objects include a laundry basket, strollers, and a metal chair. Bought the first set of our new car seats today. We're getting a 'cheaper' set for everyday use (read: Carrie's car) and a set with more features (cup holders, really) for the longer trip car, or mine. These come in the waning days of their first year of life, and will replace the detachable seat & base version we've used up till now. Having to buy four is not inexpensive, even going with relatively 'inexpensive' seats. But, safety! Whatever settled upon my sinuses in the early hours of Saturday has continued its colonization attempts since then. Called in sick to work today, although I have high hopes that whatever it is will be successfully repelled in the next little while. Another day of the same may force me to seek outside biological assistance in this battle. For now, chemical warfare (sudafed and ibuprofen) My wife, wonderful lady that she is, has been masterfully handling most of the baby duties through it all. I read a bunch of Savage Dragon comics whilst recumbent with illness. Weird, the nostalgic relations there; Dark Sun and Rifts, reading the former waiting in a car outside Cody's house, picking him up to got to Ren's to play the latter, springs most readily to mind. I wonder if that timeframe's right. Anyway, it's not a very good comic. Made it through 30-some issues, then decided to get some more recent Marvel stuff, that is from the beginning Heroic Age, or last year this time. Read the 4-issue Heroic Age vignette series, now am looking at the Thanos Imperative. Not sure if I shouldn't rethink that and get at some Avengers or Fantastic Four instead. My recent foray into the DC reboot, and now this, just reaffirm that I fall solidly on the Marvel side of the comic divide. Although, weirdly, I historically tend to like the animated versions of DC characters somewhat better. Young Justice has been pretty cool lately, and I even admire the campiness of Batman: Brave and the Bold, though I have yet to really watch an episode all the way through. Current Mood: blank (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 22nd, 2011
8:15 pm	50/50 Weekend Had a fine Friday off. I slimed the tires of Carrie's new stroller. One had gotten a puncture and that machine is too awesome to be sitting around not strollering. I also got some Corner Deli. That's be becoming a Friday off thing. Also played some Gears of War 3 horde mode with Cameron, and some of the campaign solo. Oh, and they delivered the replacement freezer. Time to fill it up with frozen dinners and pizzas. In lieu of rpg'ing Friday night (Kyle was out) we played some King of the Elves. I think we were all more in the mood for just hanging out anyway. Made for a laid back evening that we wrapped earlier than usual, so I came home and played some more Gears. Woke up in the early hours this morning feeling feverish. That started a day of general crappiness; vaguely cold and/or allergy symptoms all day long. I was supposed to take the kids over to mom's this afternoon to get them out of the house for a Rendi thing Carrie was hosting. Instead I holed up in the bedroom and HBO Go'd and Savage Dragon'd on the iPad. Luckily mom was coming over for the party so she helped wrangle the kids, and they mostly napped through it anyway. Even now I still feel wrung out. Hopefully it will fade overnight. Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011
9:04 pm	Singleton Paige took another step last night. I almost caught this one, but I was unfortunately one foot away with my head turned the other direction. Put in a half day at work today. We kept Owen home with some kind of eye infection and Carrie and I split the day, with me pulling the afternoon shift at home with him. We don't get to spend a whole lot of time with just one of the babies, so that was kind of a treat. Been on a country/americana kick with music lately. Picked up albums by Will Hoge (Number Seven), James McMurtry (Too Long in the Wasteland), and Old Crow Medicine Show (O.C.M.S.). Great stuff in all of em. Kickstarted Void Vultures. Looks potentially cool. Current Mood: sleepy (Comment on this)
Monday, October 17th, 2011
7:20 pm	Walker Back from Seattle. Had a fine last day there, including Breakfast with the Gilberts a lovely Pilsner-soaked trip to Feierabend with Sage in which I did not get so hammered that I couldn't function (that's 1-for-1 for me and German pubs in Seattle) and finally getting to see Paul, even if just for five minutes Trip back went fine, and I was more than ready to get back to the family. Turns out, of course, that Paige took her first step while I was gone. It was bound to be either then or more likely while at daycare, so I'm more excited that she took that step than disappointed that I missed it. Don't think I ever posted about Carrie's birthday. We got a bbq put together last minute on the 9th, and I was worried we wouldn't have many people show up. Turns out there were a dozen adults and about as many kids. Alex, Joe, Joe and Melissa, two of Carrie's coworkers families, and even Todd and Traci, who I had waited late enough to text about iti; all with kids in tow if they had 'em. Turned out to be a great evening, which of course, Carrie deserves. Oh, and there was pralines and cream ice cream cake. A happy, happy birthday to her, even as late as this sentiment is hitting my journal. Just scheduled delivery of our new chest freezer. The old one went out a while back and I, figuring it was out of warranty, waited till the warranty was really almost gone before calling Sears to come look at it. Turns out it's getting replaced for free. Current Mood: okay (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 15th, 2011
9:23 am	So Many Gilberts Had a wonderfully relaxed morning at Sage and Sarah's yesterday. I stayed in bed late reading and then kicked back with those guys over a light breakfast. For the record, Trader Joe's instant coffee is surprisingly good. Once we lit out we hit up the Microsoft campus briefly, for a trip to the company store and to raid the snack room. Took a quick look around and then headed out to lunch. The perks one gets for working there are pretty impressive. For lunch we met Shannon in Seattle at Lunchbox Labs. I got a duck and pork burger called the Dork. Seemed appropriate, plus it was delicious. After lunch we trucked down to Olympia. Sage and Sarah stayed for a beer on the back porch with the Gilberts then headed back to Seattle. I spent the night catching up with Andy and Deanna and playing with Charlie and Tyler. I always felt like Andy and Deanna were great friends and pretty good role models as a couple, and that hasn't changed. They're doing great, have two great kids; I only wish, selfishly, that they were moving back to New Mexico instead of Australia. Playing with the kids was pretty cool. Charlie is a little guy for four but full of energy. Tyler, surprisingly, I kept forgetting was only two and a half, since he and Charlie are so similar in size. It's always pretty cool, though, to have a window into what the kids might be doing at an age not too far away. Today's plans are kind of up in the air. Unfortunately Andy's rugby match up in Kirkland looks to have been canceled, so he might not have as good an excuse for trucking me back up to Seattle. Oh, hey, happy birthday phargle! Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad. (Comment on this)