Quantifuck

As always, things have been crazy. Unfortunately, a lot of it has had to do with my new house. They were way ahead of schedule for most of it, until Thanksgiving time rolled around, then they decided that they didn't need to work so hard on it anymore. That's why we are where we are now, because we're behind schedule. I was supposed to close on December 9th. 

That didn't happen. 

Then I was supposed to close today. 

That hasn't happened, and won't happen. 

It has been moved to next Friday, but I have been told that that is not going to happen either. 

Instead, it appears that it will be on the 23rd, which was my original contract date. In the end, it will be okay if it happens then. It means no Christmas holiday, rather Christmas moving. As long as I'm not thrown out of my apartment with my cats on the 30th, I'll be a happy camper.

It does mean no Myrtle Beach vacation (21st-23rd) and no Raleigh vacation with Hunter's family (Christmas Eve and Day.) Sad panda times :(

In good past news...!

My friend Bryan came to visit for the Thanksgiving holiday :D

We did a bunch of cooking and nerd shopping mostly! Did get out to do a little geocaching, so he was able to get his 100th cache here in Knoxville :) We went over to my boss' for Thanksgiving dinner so she could interview-not-interview him. I think he'd love it here, and I know we both wanted him to meet her. It went well! And all of the food was absolutely delicious. It was a mix of Venezuelan and American cooking :)

On the Saturday following, Hunter and I hosted a Friendsgiving potluck for Bryan, Balo, Bradd, Sara, and Brock! We provided the turkey and pecan pie; Bryan made his sister's famous stuffing and an oreo mud dessert; Bradd and Sara brought over ham, mini pumpkin bunt cakes, and green bean casserole; Balo brought mashed sweet potato casserole! I'm probably forgetting a whole bunch of other food, because we had pounds of it!

I'd never grilled a turkey before... and while some of it came out kind of black and burnt (we lost a wing!) it was still juicy and delicious. It was massacered by everyone :D

Balo assisted Hunter with a headstand XD

The kitchen looked like backstage at a performance with everyone in all black :)

Unfortunately, Hunter's Saturday game has been on hiatus due to so many other things going on :( Really hoping to pick that back up in the new house!

Giantslayer has been thriving! We have completed the first book as of this past Sunday, and I'm crazy excited to get them started on the second book. I'll have the opportunity to throw in some side quests, and they won't be so terribly locked down in the town any longer :D

Balo's roommate Matt had a birthday last weekend, so they came over to celebrate! We chatted, watched Gay Niggers From Outer Space on YouTube, and did Hunter and my very first Escape Game at Breakout. Matt had wanted to do the Museum Heist, but the next game wasn't until 7pm, so we ended up doing Island Escape... and it was a blast! We beat the local record for it and everything :D I highly recommend playing!

Afterward, we wanted to go out to eat somewhere we all hadn't been, so we ended up at Babalu Tapas and Tacos downtown. We picked out 4 tapas/tacos to share... and everything was pretty delicious :D The duck taco was my favourite by far! It just melted in the mouth... mmmmm ^^ Because it was Matt's birthday, they even brought out a sparkler to attract attention!

Matt and Balo are hilarious when playing competitive games XD

Work can be summarized by a single image:

Every new day is another chance to change your life.

Immunity to Neck Bullets

Had a game night earlier this month! Balo, Chelsea, and her husband Eric all came over :) Played a bunch of One Night Werewolf and threw in a little bit of Vampire. It's actually not so confusing, just enhancements to a lot of preexisting roles. Chelsea, of course, won the first game of Werewolf as a werewolf. She's so cutthroat! Played a round of Red Dragon Inn as well, and she and Balo were the last two in the running (speaking of cutthroat players!) Fun times :)

 

 

Hunter started using our new sign, too!

Our one year anniversary was officially November 9th, or as we like to call it "The Night of the Brewery." I had work and class all day, but Hunter had a surprise for me when I came home: brinner! :) He's so wonderful!

We had a really great date night on Friday the 13th: went to see She Kills Monsters, a theatrical performance at Pellissippi. Was about a woman who'd lost her sister who had been really into DnD, and her attempting to learn more about her sister by playing. At first it was pretty corny and it made me worry, but it picked up fairly quickly :) Actually ended up being pretty funny! Glad we went to see it :D

Afterward, we headed down to the VFW for Ultimate Werewolf! It'd been awhile, so I was pretty excited. Actually didn't run the first game, but I ran the remainder of the games. Surprisingly enough, people listened to me in the one game I played in, and I wasn't even a werewolf! :) In two of the games I moderated, I threw in the Tanner, who ended up winning both times. Maybe he's a bit more overpowered in Ultimate, since people are more willing to sacrifice each other. Also doesn't help that you don't necessarily know what cards are in the deck :d Maybe that's my bad, then.

That Saturday was Heroes for Heroes Pathfinder all day for Hunter and myself. We got to play with Bradd and Sara in the two new special tables where you play as kobolds in one, and Aspus Consortium agents in the other. Definitely fun times :) Although, I think I enjoyed the kobold one more.

Val (Sara's character) and Dee (my character) were reunited in the special event that night... and we kicked some demon ass! :)

Hunter's birthday was last Friday! :) Happy Birthday, love! We went out to dinner to Bonefish with his father on Thursday. I was a bit disappointed in the food, to be honest. Was my first time being there. He seemed really excited about his surf and turf tho :D Friday night I got to take him out to Icon, the restaurant on the fifth floor of the Sunsphere overlooking Knoxville :) Was not crowded at all, so it was really fantastic for a quiet dinner together. Especially considering I had no voice from being sick, so I was hard enough to hear as is :d

Like many (if not all) of my friends on Steam, Hunter and I both have obtained copies of Fallout 4, and have been playing relatively nonstop during our free time. It's crazy addicting, and tons of fun. The only gripe I have about the game is related to the power armor. I guess it's kind of neat that they made it sort of special, and almost mech-like, but I'm not a big fan of that concept. Oh well!

I'm really excited for this weekend! Bryan is coming into town to visit, tomorrow is a food holiday, Saturday is the friend group's Thanksgaming potluck, and I'll be running Giantslayer on Sunday! :D

The most intense camping trips are not in tents.

Welcome to Switzerland

So if this tells you anything, I began this post on October 6th. I have been crazy busy, but its all mundane things... work, school. Just normal; nothing super crazy.

Since I've been so busy, I've decided that I'm only going to take one class each spring/fall semester, maybe 2 in the summer, if I can swing it. 2 has just been way too much while working full-time, and I've been really stressing out. I don't like not having the extra time to be able to help at work, should we need it (which we really have.) Plus, I feel like I rushed to do anything recreational, like prepare for my game on Sundays. I haven't even had time to do any art whatsoever :( Definitely looking forward to the holidays.

Friday at work (a month ago) was a particularly stressful day. I felt like I was getting nowhere with some of the issues for the projects on my plate. However, by the end of the day I had everything resolved :) It was a relieving feeling, and I was so ready to be home. It'd been raining the past few days, and still was on my way home. Made it to the off-ramp at Cedar Bluff, and hit the rain water wrong enough to hydroplane into another vehicle :( I was okay (I really wasn't going that fast) as was the other driver. His car wasn't hurt at all, but Blue Thunder's passenger side by the headlight got a bit banged up :( The guy didn't want to stick around, so he left after checking on his car and me. I checked Blue Thunder to make sure nothing important was damaged; mostly just the body and the washer fluid container. Drove him home successfully, and he's been fine since (with regards to the accident) /knock on wood

Mom insisted I call USAA to put in an insurance claim, and they will cover it. I've had an appraiser check the car out to estimate the damage... to just over $2000. Which means that because the deductible is $1000 I get to pay about half of it. He also said the repairs would take a whole week, which means I would need to rent a car, otherwise I have no way of getting to work/school. Just more money :/ I'm debating as to whether or not this is something I want to have fixed.

Blue Thunder has been having some engine misfiring problems recently, or at least that's what I think it is. A few months ago while idling, the engine suddenly stopped receiving gasoline..? The accelerator didn't work at all. Thankfully, Hunter and I were able to coast into a parking lot where I shut the car off waited a moment and turned it back on again without issue. There's since been a second incident while we are on our way to Florida for my birthday... while in Atlanta rush hour traffic. We were going about 35 miles an hour when the engine did something weird, and the whole car started violently chugging. We were able to get safely to the shoulder, turn the car off, and turned it back on. He started working again fine, but obviously there's something wrong and the problems only going to get worse. I've done a little bit of googling, and I think it's related to the fuel injector? But I'm no mechanic. All I know is that its more money.

He's also due for a realignment and a transmission fluid flush. One of his tires has worn in a considerably misshapen way :/ Blue Thunder is only worth about $4,000, so I really don't feel like dropping half to three quarters of that back into him right now. It just doesn't seem worth it to me.

So I have done a little bit of car searching, since Hunter is on the hunt as well. At first, I was thinking along the lines of the Subaru Outback or the Honda CR-V. Something AWD with 5 doors. But I started doing some research on all electric vehicles, and I'm really impressed and excited with them. The only drawback I see to an EV is long distance driving, which is only going to get better with time. I really think an EV would be a great investment, and that's probably what I will get after Blue Thunder, should he need to be replaced.

My birthday was a couple of Wednesdays ago. I took off the whole week from work (but then ended up working on my birthday anyway!), and spent most of the time relaxing at home playing Dead Rising 3 and working on the TPK Giantslayer podcast. I also had a calculus exam on my birthday (which I ended up getting 100% on!), so it ended up being like any other day XD Hunter and I did go out to Twin Peaks, since I'd never been. I think I prefer Hooters XP

Hunter surprised me with a bicycle he refurbished for me as my birthday gift! He's so wonderful :D

It gets even better because Hunter and I went down to Orlando on Thursday, so we could go to the Food and Wine Festival at Epcot on Friday! :D We had such an amazing time! I told them it was our anniversary (which was a little early, since it's actually this upcoming Monday), but they gave us badges to wear. Was pretty special :)

What a better way to start the day, than with beer and a Belgian waffle??

Florida craft beers... including Swamphead Brewery! :D

 

Even got to see Sugar Ray in concert :D

I think there was only one thing throughout the entire day that we consumed that we didn't enjoy, and it was an IPA beer (so no surprise there.) We stayed the whole day, 11 straight hours. Such a blast :D

Bryan had sent me a geocaching travel bug as a birthday present, so I brought it with me to leave near Disney property :) It's already been picked up and brought to Miami!

Attacked by a Stormtrooper in Publix! :o

 

After Orlando, Hunter and I stopped in Gainesville for the remainder of the weekend to visit with my family. Got to see Donna and Mike as well, and played some games :D Fun times as always!

For my birthday, my brother bought me a ton of games on Steam (just as I had done for his birthday a few days earlier), and my mother gave me some gift cards for Home Depot (for the new house! ^^ ), the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords, and a BlackWidow Razer keyboard :D Jackpot! Hunter and I have been playing the crap out of the card game, and have purchased a multitude of character boxes for it. We plan on buying the remainder of them on Black Friday :)

While on our Florida vacation, Blue Thunder surpassed the 100000 mile odometer mark :o 

Haven't worked on Hunter's jacket in awhile, but I got it pretty far before stopping!

Hunter, Balo, Brock, and I went in together on purchasing the One Night Vampire expansion a few months back, and it finally came in! Put the nice wooden box together, and just waiting to get a chance to play XD

Last week Hunter and I went on a date night on Thursday. It started off a little differently than normal, we went to see the Bill Nye lecture on UT campus. I thought his speech was really great, save for his little tidbit so random opinions that kind of took away from some of the points he was trying to get across. But other than that, it really was fantastic, and if you missed out you missed out big time. It's really amazing to get to see you a childhood hero especially one who's still so prominent in his field speak in front of such a huge group of people. It was really very inspiring. Afterward, we headed down to nama for half price sushi. Delicious as always!

Bryan will be coming to visit us for Thanksgiving this year. Really looking forward to it! In preparation, picked up some sake for us to share. I have a feeling he won't like it tho, since he's never had booze o.O

My name on Sundays has been going really well. And if you haven't already see my fluid Facebook post, we've become a real iTunes podcast! Subscribe and take a listen! I promise the recordings start sounding a lot better with the new microphone, and that our shenanigans are worth it!

Hunter Savage Worlds campaign has been going really well too. Although we don't get to play as often as I know he would like, or I would like. It's unfortunate that Brock still lives so far away from us -_-; We're having to make some interesting moral decisions in the game. And we've asked some intense questions: why are we here? What are we doing? What is the world doing? I'm not keen on just surviving, I want to live. And it doesn't seem like anybody in this world has been living so far. I'm not interested in helping those who haven't helped themselves!

The house is coming along beautifully! I'm really hoping it'll be completed way ahead of schedule :) I picked out all of my interior items about a month ago.

For Halloween, Hunter and I bought tickets to get on a Haunted Riverboat ride. Looked pretty fun! When we purchased the tickets (over the phone) we were told it was on Saturday night. Got all costume dolled-up and headed down to the dock... to find no boat. No cars. No body :( Thankfully, Balo and Taro were happy to have us over for some gaming! :)

I also dressed up as Brie (the terrorwerewolf) for work.

Hooray fall! :D

You know you're right for someone when they force you to be the best version of yourself.