CON.TXT

It's hump day! We're almost halfway there! We're one day closer to the weekend (which for us looks like it's going to be a weather filled weekend.

We're still about 3-4 days out from the storm, so I don't know how accurate the forecast is yet, but they're talking about upwards of 12", maybe closer to 20?!?! That's a lot of fucking snow. The temp is going to be in the teens, so they're saying probably powdery snow, with a decent amount of wind. I have nowhere to go after the projected start time. I do have to go get my hair cut on Saturday morning, but that should be fine. Then, we have game til 3. I think the snow is supposed to start in the evening, so we might have time to go grab dinner. It's restaurant week, but we haven't made it anywhere. Then we shall hunker down and relax and wait to see how much snow we end up with. It's going to snow all day Sunday, so it's a good time for hot cocoa and maybe some baking. We'll see. I've been low key wanting to make my cinnamon rolls again. I might need to get some more yeast first, though. I need to see how long it's good for. Apparently it's only good for a couple months, so yeah, I'll need another small jar of yeast. I want my rolls to plump up nicely.

Yesterday was busy at work. Mostly answering calls, though I did fill in a few cardiac slots. Apparently the Columbia office is going to start doing Cardiac MRIs, which is awesome. We're booking into April, so all the help they can give would be great. The tricky part is that they're only doing limited diagnoses. There's a list of about 15 things that they will see patients for.

Right now, that's perfectly fine, as I'm the only one filling these in, and I can read and follow directions. But in the coming weeks, they're going to open it to general scheduling. And then, it is going to be a clusterfuck. I like my coworkers, but some of them are dumb as hell. We're going to mess up the template right off the bat. And then there's the fact that some patients schedule through mychart. I have no faith that the system will be able to understand what Columbia wants. In this case, since these are my circus and my monkey, I'm a little bit nervous about how it's going to go. Because if it goes poorly, it's probably mine to fix.

While I wait for my "rather soon" pay bump, I did apply with another dept for a supervisory position. It's in our concierge office, which would probably be a handful. I don't want to leave Radiology, but I do want more money. I figure if I were to get it, I could come back to Radiology and ask for a counter offer. That's what the assistant manager suggested, at least.

We watched the first episode of Heated Rivalry last night. I really enjoyed it. Not sure if I'm going to end up fannish about it, but we'll see!

I'm very much ready for a vacation. I've still got 106 days to go. Though the NY day trip is in 87 days, so that's good. I'm looking forward to both trips. I've not been to a Broadway play in New York in *forever*, so that's exciting. I think our last one was to see Joey Fatone in Rent, probably...15 years ago? Maybe?

I do want to start going more often. I really enjoyed Phantom when we saw it in Baltimore a few months ago. I liked Rent. I want to see Hadestown and maybe Beetlejuice, so that'll be on my list.

And of course, I cannot wait for Alaska. It's going to be so relaxing and fun. I'm looking forward to every part of it, except the flights. I'm not a fan of flying, so that might be a bit sucky. I wonder what we'll be able to see from the plane, though. Will we fly south enough to see the Grand Canyon? Will we be able to see the Rockies? What does the Pacific ocean look like? I've never been further west than Texas.

If the flight goes well, I may consider doing more things in the future. Spur of the moment trips to different places. Like Boston or Toronto. Then, in the fall, we have CONfab in Chicago, which should be fun.

And on that note, I have some CONfab news to post, so I'm going to go forth and do that. Everyone have an amazing Wednesday!

It's Monday again! Today is Martin Luther King day, which is technically a day off for me. Buuut,the call center is open. We had the option to work or not. The benefits for working are pretty steep, though. First up, we get paid time and a half for any hours worked. Second we get the 8 hours of holiday pay as PTO. Which, when you add it up makes the day more like Double time and a half. Plus it's usually pretty chill. I enjoy working it, honestly. I like having a jump in my PTO right away, and time an a half is always nice. Which reminds me, I need to put in another vacation day using it for the cruise.

I'm going to be so close on the number of vacation days I have. I will have like 7 days,and I need 6. I'm spending most of my spring doing my best to stay healthy. We do have the broadway play in April, but we're masking and renting a driver up and back to minimize contact with people.

This was such a lovely weekend. I told you about Saturday's game, which ended with the players racing the clock (from the weapon that they rigged to explode) and in a fight against a high level cleric, thief and a demi-god. They're carrying along the king that they knocked unconscious who has a dead-man's switch that will do...something. He was pretty vague about the actual consequences, just that it would be bad for Arvandor. It was awesome, and so much fun. The players are really sweating it. After that, it was a day of rest, where I did exactly nothing.

Then, Boodle let me sleep til 6 yesterday! A whole hour late! I chilled, got McDonald's breakfast and did my thing until it was time to get the crab feast together. I threw three pans of crab into the oven, set up the table with crab accoutrements. Got drinks, and everyone settled in to eat.

I am on a GLP-1, so my abilities were minimal. I managed two clusters. I think everyone else managed at least three.

Just as last time, the Dungeness did not disappoint. My brother in law declared that he liked Dungeness crabs better than lobster. I would get three bags next time, I think. Or have enough space in the freezer for some. All in all, though, the taste is sweet and buttery with just a hint of the sea, and the shells are more like a snow crab, where it's very easy to crack them. We got a "deluxe crab picking kit." It's awesome. It has the hinged cracker which easily breaks even the toughest claw, plus the zipper type cracker, plus a little metal stick. On one end is a little fork, for stabbing meat. The other is a flattened and lightly curved thing that looks like a coke spoon. It's perfect for getting into those ends and getting all the meat out. The BIL seemed to really enjoy himself.

Afterwards, we talked a bit about the cruise. I printed out our itinerary. so he knows what's going on, and we discussed that a bit. I told him about our upgrade at the hotel, which he was wary about. He looked at the hotel's website and saw what their prices were, so he's concerned about how much it's costing. I let him know that I got a deal (Which I did) and that it was not $600. But we're going to start our trip out in luxury, dammit.

I had a full list of our vendors and where we would be and when as well as any landmarks we were planning on seeing, and what our transportation for the day would be for each land day. We talked about food onboard, and the various venues.

I will probably add to it over the next few months as I come up with other things to do. I'm still debating on Mendehal Glacier. On one hand, glacier. On the other, it's officially receeded enough that it no longer touches the water, which is sad, so I'm not sure. Probably will, but we'll see.

After the BIL left, I took a little nap, and then we got Lebanese food. I had chicken schwarma, which was excellent. Then, it was time to go forth and play our Prophecy of the Nine Omens game. The game was entirely made up of one battle, because poisontaster did not go easy on us. At one point, my bladesinger was down to 38 hit points, which was alarming since we were outnumbered. Still, we were victorious, and my wizard got to wreck shit. We're 11th level now, wich means a 6th level and two 5th level spellslots. I used them all, dealing a shit ton of damage. Steel Wind Strike is an awesome spell that lets you hit up to five people with decent amounts of damage. It's quickly becoming Irsu's signature. Which is thematically appropriate, since he is a bladesinger, which is a wizard who can use a sword. But with 6 level, now have Disintegrate, which I'm looking forward to using.

When I took my spells, I wanted to make him mostly offensive spells. Bladesingers live to deal damage, be it by their blade or by their magic. The character sheet came first. Then, much later, after playing him for at least a year and a half, the background and his reasons for being like he is came. Granted, his backstory is very close to that of William Laurence from the Temeraire series. (great books if you've never read them.) Before that, his backstory was that he was a bounty hunter, but not good at it. Later, his full story came out. Second son of a duke, bound for wizard school from the day he was born, so that he could serve as his brother's personal pet wizard and diviner. He got to school and found that he couldn't do divination to save his life. But offiensive magic, yes. Then, he found out what a bladesinger was, and that was that. Then, he left school to become a bounty hunter, and instead stumbled into adventuring.

Now, I have MLK day and then, I shall cook dinner. But for now, it's time to start getting myself together. Everyone have an amazing Monday!