WhiteGhost

I suspect this is true for the vast majority of traditional holidays across the world What? No! Of course not. At the very least he waits until we try to put the plan into action. It's only fair, though, because sometimes our plans are things like having the druid wild shape into a cockroach to slip into a hostile area undetected to do recon and gather intel for future blackmail. -------------------------- The last few days have been pretty busy. I have pretty much all of my documentation ready to submit my green card application, which will happen later this week. I haven't done a workout since my last update, so I am feeling pretty sluggish. I really need to get back into that routine, because physical activity is an important stabilizer for my mental health. Piano has been off and on, but overall moving in a positive direction. I have almost got my song for this challenge memorized. I can play through the whole thing while looking at the music but I still need to finish memorizing the last stanza. Also some updates on the cat front. It turns out that Ghostess was not being completely upfront with me about the arrangement she had with her friend. Apparently the discussion was that unless there were some serious problems integrating Wight in with our other cats, the plan was for him to stay with us permanently. It turns out that he gets along surprisingly well with the other cats and we only had to keep him sequestered for 4-5 days after which the other cats were fine with him wandering about freely. So I guess we have 4 cats now. Classes are going well but learning names not so much. We will be having mid-terms at the end of this month and I am nowhere near close to memorizing all of the kids names. My freshman class is the easiest because they usually sit in the same seats each week and have nearly perfect attendance. My law classes are harder because usually only about half of the students show up and then they move around all over the classroom. If I ever get most of them to show up for a class, I will have to take a picture so I can practice. Food has been abysmal, and I feel like I haven't cooked more than a couple of meals so far this whole challenge. It is so much easier to just order out so that's what has ended up happening. I don't feel like this is sustainable, though, so I am going to need to try and come up with a fix. Ideally something that also helps with the workouts as well.

I think what you say makes a lot of sense. For some reason, many talking heads in the West assume that because both China and Russia are authoritarian states that they must somehow be allies (or more specifically an "axis"). I suppose this narrative is easy to accept when you have the Chinese and Russian national leaders putting out statements that they have a "no-limits partnership". However, it it obvious living here that the actual relationship is more like you described, and the primary reason they have any kind of friendly relationship is because they both have a common competitor in the US. I initially dismissed the idea that the men were coming here seeking a long term place to avoid the war. I don't doubt they are trying to avoid the war, but the Chinese are sticklers about immigration and it is extremely difficult to slide through the cracks. However, I did some research and discovered that the Russians have almost the exact same policies and techniques, so folks from Russia probably are old hands at working the system and could probably navigate it far better than folks from Western countries. ------------------------ Today was a busy day. After dropping Ghostlet off for school I headed over to the park for a workout. When I got back I was gathering up all of my documents to prepare my permanent residency application but I got a call from Ghostess that she had an urgent business trip come up and needed me to pack her a suitcase and deliver it to her office. When I got back from doing that I headed over to the immigration office and had them review my packet. It turns out that I am mostly there but I need to have some documents notarized first, so I guess I won't be submitting anything until next week once I get all of that taken care of. I took a short nap in the evening and then when Ghostlet got home I made him dinner, watched a bit of Youtube and then finalized my teaching materials for tomorrow. I didn't get any piano practice in

here! (finally...)

Heya! Nice to see you around

I was thinking about you this last weekend as I was browsing the duty free store in the Bangkok airport and looking at all of the crazy foods they had there. I ended up picking up a bag of Reese's dipped pretzels, which I seemed to recall you having mentioned at some point in the last few years. They were really good

I'm sorry for your loss but glad to see you seem to be doing better

Sounds like you had a great birthday, that cake looked perfect for the occasion

I am suffering the same "affliction" and haven't had much time for gaming in what seems like a long time Hope the leg feels better soon

I mean, it isn't a problem, per se. Just different. I think the set up we have kind of encourages this kind of cautious behavior because we are not just random murder hobos, but we own a pub in the city and have not only our reputation to consider but also staying alive to enjoy the fruits of our investment. The cautious nature of the game fits the setting. It probably doesn't help when you start each session with the D&D equivalent of "Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the Morning" on top of the fact that most of us have very nearly gotten ourselves killed on several occasions with one of us actually going through with it It is indeed a thing. Even in the traditional sense it was more about remembering family and ancestors than a funeral so "happy" can absolutely be appropriate, In the modern day it follows it's traditional roots about as well as Easter and Christmas have in the US. ----------------------- The trip to Bangkok went really well. Pretty much everything went as planned and only a few "story worthy" events happened. I tried to update while I was there but for some reason the mobile page wouldn't let me interact with the page so it was essentially "Read Only", We ate some really good food there and overall had a very good time. One of the story worthy events was on the flight out of Beijing. On the plane there was a large family (parents, several children and several grandchildren) who had booked out all of First Class and the first row of economy, We were in the row behind them and it was interesting to watch them all pretend the economy row was also part of first class. The interesting part of the story was that when we pulled away from the gate, we rolled up right to the side of the runway and stopped for an hour. The captain said we were waiting for permission to take off, but there were no aircraft in front of us, and other aircraft were clearly taking off as usual. Then at one point, the head of the household in front of us got up and walked to the cockpit, said a few words to the pilot, and then returned and sat down. Immediately after, we rolled onto the runway and took off. While I accept that it may have been coincidence, I couldn't help but wonder exactly who's permission we were waiting on and just how influential the person in front of me really was. The other interesting thing was coming back into the China. After getting off the plane we headed through immigration but the line was massive and barely moved. This is not an uncommon occurrence, but in this case it was surprising because we landed well after midnight and the rest of the airport was deserted. It turns out that there were a bunch of Russians on my flight and they were getting "special treatment" from the immigration officials. For every 1 Russian that got processed, 5 or 6 non-Russians went through. They were all getting grilled on why they were here, what they would be doing, how long they would be staying, what contacts they had in the country, etc. None of the rest of us got more than a cursory glance at our passports. I hear all the time in the US news about the "special relationship" between Russia and China, but I suspect that the two countries may not be as buddy-buddy as the US news makes it out be.

I think this is the most cautious D&D group I have ever been a part of. Usually it is half-assed prep discussion and then LEEEEERRRRROOOOOOOOYYYYYYY... ------------------------------------------ No park today because we have our cleaning lady come on Wednesday mornings. In the afternoon I had a nap and then it was off to class. I had a fun class today teaching them about the legal intricacies of corporate reorgs and then a lively discussion about the future of AI/robots in the workplace. I just finished packing my bags because tomorrow is a holiday here (Tomb Sweeping Day!) and Ghostlet and I are off to Bangkok first thing in the morning for a church youth group trip. Ghostess wasn't interested so she left this morning with her friends for a resort somewhere about 3 hours outside of Beijing. I may or may not report in while I am out, but if not I will be back Sunday.

Thanks, I hope so too ------------------------------- Sunday started out normal with church in the morning, but after that Ghostlet had his first real soccer match of the season. We didn't watch it in person but luckily they streamed it so we got to watch on TV at home. Unfortunately they lost 4-5 but Ghostlet played well and had a good time. In the evening it was D&D and we are quickly coming up on the end of our campaign. I was thinking we may finish everything up last night, but out party is exploring dwarven ruins without anyone in the party that can even speak Dwarven, so we had to take a pause and go hire a dwarf to join our party so we could make our way through the defenses. Monday I had a bunch of stuff planned and it started off well with a trip to the park where I got in a workout. I then proceeded to completely blow off everything else I had planned for the day and spent the rest of the day glued to my couch playing AC Valhalla. I bought the DLCs a while back but am only now just getting to them. Unfortunately, this game takes forever to get through the main quest so I have been on this playthrough for more than a month now and have only completed 1 of the DLCs (Dawn of Ragnarok) Today was somewhat more productive. I finished up preparing my teaching materials for this week, but I still haven't reviewed any homework from last week. I guess I will do that tomorrow. Piano practice is going well, food is not. I really can't trust myself with cookies in the house.

I find it hits differently as an adult Pretty much everything goes better with cookies I checked the statutes and it turns out I don't have to commit the deed as long as I ensure it takes place My mom was a huge fan of Lehrer. My father was not. I think the only reason my parents stayed together was they agreed not to discuss politics at home Unfortunately nothing specific for now. I assume it will be a minimum of two weeks and if nothing is settled by then I will start pushing for some kind of resolution He is very slowly adjusting. He does better with Ghostess than with me but at least he has stopped hiding from me, You are not wrong Appropriate ------------------------------------------- Not much of note happened yesterday. Food was ok but not great, and I had more cookies than I probably should have, but nothing too outrageous. Piano practice happened but exercise did not. In the evening all of went out to watch a live comedy troupe. The troupe has been around for years but the members tend to move on so I think the entire cast was new since the last time we saw them. Unfortunately, it seems they are now recycling old material and the show we saw last night was stuff we saw from a different cast 6 or 7 years ago. I think the other guys did it better

That is great! Congratulations are in order

Yeah, doesn't sound optimal. I learned the hard way that Doritos are also not a great pre-workout, especially if doing a lot of cardio like a long run

I'm not sure I could pull that off. Right now I only play 2 genres: church hymn and ragtime. Which now gets me thinking that I should see if I can find the music for the Vatican rag... PF was one of the bands that I hated as a teenager (along with The Ramones) mostly because I thought it they were such a bad influence. I have come to appreciate them as an adult, though. ------------------------------- Pretty busy last couple of days. I can't go to the park Wednesday mornings because that is the day our cleaning lady comes. I thought about maybe going in the afternoon (I only have evening classes on Wednesdays) but just after lunch I got a call from Ghostlet to come pick him up from school because he had a stomach ache. I brought him back and he slept while I went to class and that seems to have eaten up my entire day. Thursdays I teach most of the day so I didn't do much besides that. Today I got up and went to the park and got in a pretty good workout. Just as I was finishing up, though, I got a call that the internet guys were at the church and needed me to come in and open things up for them. That ended up taking until late afternoon for them to get all of the cables run so I only just barely got home before Ghostlet. Food has been pretty bad. I haven't cooked since lasagna on Monday and to make things worse, have eaten close to a kg worth of chips ahoy. I am a sucker for chocolate chip cookies. Music has been pretty good and I have learned the first stanza of my selected song. In other random news, we are now cat sitting for a friend who foisted her cat on us for the worst reason I can imagine. It turns out that her daughter is not doing great in school and as a punishment the mom decided that the best way to punish her for it was to get rid of her cat. She says it is only temporary until the daughter gets her grades back up, but I suspect she might be just trying to offload the cat. At any rate, we now have another cat who is sequestered in a spare room, and for the last two days has holed himself up in the closet and only just got up the courage to poke his nose out tonight. His name is 77, but as long as he is living under our roof, he is going to have a proper name. I am calling him Wight (because he is white, see). #myhousemyrules

Probably easier to dissect when not frozen, but they don't seem to last quite as long. Maybe a jar of formaldehyde? Enjoy your game time! I have been waffling about getting BG3 but I have so many other games in my queue that I feel like I wouldn't ever get to it

One of my favorites

Massive congratulations to Liam!

I mean, I've had that as a goal before Be careful in your recovery, including taking care of your mental health along the way because not being able to do physical stuff can affect a lot more. You got this

It was a great day ---------------------------------- Yesterday was much better. I went to the park in the morning and got in a solid planche focused workout. As I was finishing up I got a call from the delivery guy who was bringing the new (electric) pianos to the church. Our old ones are more than 1o years old so we it was nice to have them,. but it meant I had to spend my whole afternoon there getting that taken care of. When I got back I made a batch of lasagna for dinner, which should provide some back-up dinner options for later use. I really wanted to have some cookies in the evening but I resisted. Big win there

I think all of us here have known this for years, but to get the nod from DR's parents is, from what I understand, no easy task. Given how awesome we all know DR is, can I safely assume that your folks were excited as well?

I used to love that show but had forgotten about it. Major nostalgia going on in here

I had to look that up. Call me intrigued Also, following!

Win!