The Tease of Things I Don't Need

Sunday Morning & Time For Other Things

A quick statement of intent and then a post on other things going on this weekend. Mostly pedestrian events.

While those who are interested can easily go to HCRealms and find a thread where photos of pieces from the upcoming Avengers set are being showcased, I've hit (and gone beyond) my list of spoilers for the set. Monday I'll be checking to see what the status of my main order is, but otherwise I'm going to wait until mid-week and the set's release and for my boosters to reach me. Beyond that I'm going to try giving the set a few days off. I've seen much more than I'd intended to prior to having them in my hands, and while I have plenty of comments to make based on what I've seen I'm going to attempt to hold those until I have pieces in hand and complete pictures.

If there's some striking news on the clix front, good or bad, feel free to pass it on to me, but I'm going to try to steer clear of the time-sucking black hole that is HCRealms for a few days, and let a little suspense re-build.

Looking ahead a few days to the release, I'm considering bringing a map into work by mid-week and see if one or more people will be interested in a quick lunchtime shot at trying highly imbalanced games once I get my first boosters, probably Wednesday. The intent will be informal test drives, where a player opens a booster and plays all five clix (and whatever card elements seem useful - possibly a sixth character via a bystander) as a team. Two minutes per turn time limit, perhaps, to keep it high speed. I'll have to make sure I have ID rings, dice and one or two copies of the PAC handy for reference. The character cards are expected to prove a tremendous boon in terms of keeping each player informed of what each piece can do.

But, that's for then.

The kids are well into the summertime swing. Nick has been spending exhausting days out and about with friends, and Trav ended up going to a newer friend's sleepover party yesterday - the parents came and picked him up since they live a couple towns over (the kids are in some of the same classes in a tech program), so I got to meet them. Based on a quick cell phone check in just before 6pm it was going well, so presumably he's having a good time.

The kids are still reacting, though, to word that some friends are going to be moving soon. There's something a little odd in the timing and the way this all came about, as the parents kept it a complete secret from the kids until Friday, springing the move and new house on them in one sweep. They've bought a place that from all reports is very much a fixer-upper, but they do seem to have friends and relatives with the expertise to handle the task. With the kids (there are several sons) mostly being into high school, though, it struck us odd that they'd uproot them at this point in the process. The move is not very far away by car, but it's far enough away that it will mean a change of school and the inevitable conflict between trying to maintain existing friendships and finding new ones.

While circumstances could dictate otherwise, I know that we'd be reluctant to move out of this school district this late in the process, disrupting the kids' world and path. In part it's because we dealt with another school district before moving here in 2001, and the local district was such a huge step up that we wouldn't want to risk another change. Mostly, though, I would be loathe to turn things upside down for the kids.

Anyway, the move is wearing on my kids as they were among the early friends made here and quickly became a big part of each others' lives. Their daily routines of casual time will be changed radically, and it's obviously a blow they can see coming at them from what's now, based on the latest report, a mere week away. With a high-speed packing session underway and so much work to be done on the new place, I suspect leisure time's going to be at a premium for them.

Yesterday I took Travis around in the morning so he could pick up a birthday card and I could drop off and have filled two new prescriptions for my wife. The former went fine, but the latter was complicated by a pharmacist who took every opportunity to complicate the doctor's instructions on each of the prescriptions. In the end, both will have to be clarified Monday, and one of them - which was just a reevaluation of the quantity on an existing prescription so that we could buy it once per month rather than twice and save us half the cost (the strange ways of insurance) - meant I had to get it filled under the existing prescription, meaning I'll be out an additional $60 I shouldn't.

Ah, well.

I sent out the latest three bills in a bid to get them paid almost as soon as they arrive rather than waiting closer to their due dates. While I was at the post office I picked up some of the shipping supplies and documents they have there, as I'm anticipating some ebay work over the coming week. More on that in a later post, no doubt, even if it's just to note that I've gotten something rolling.

I did some cleaning out of one of the vans, taking advantage of the sunny weather, so that's looking better. I still need to re-store the donut under the body of the van and get some shelving sections out of the back -- something salvaged, but without an immediate place I'd intended to use them it has been just as easy to use the van as rolling storage space, but I want to change that. If nothing else we have a shed out back where such things can go. It would be nice - and if nothing else novel for us - to have the vans clear enough that the interiors could actually be cleaned and vacuumed...

We hadn't been out to a local restaurant as a family (well, even 75% of one) so sans Travis the three of us went out and had a nice time. After getting back, Nick was soon off with a couple of his friends, Ari was reading in a chair out front, and I set to work getting the other van (once more) back on the road.

The Voyager's battery had given up the ghost somewhere between the 14th, when Ari last drove it and the 15th, when I attempted to start it the morning I was heading out to Wizard World East. No time for it until yesterday, I first checked to be sure there weren't any dry cells; I'd hoped refilling a cell or two and giving it a jump might do it, but it wasn't to be. No obvious problem there, I removed the battery and picked up a replacement. A short time later it was in place and the van started readily, so we're back to two vehicles again for at least the moment. I have to get that one in for inspection soon, as it has June stickers. (It's a good thing there's all this money coming from somewhere, isn't it?) I don't want to let that slide if I can help it because a)We're in the suburbs and out here expired inspection stickers seem to be a major, easy source of revenue for the police department, and b) the Windstar will be coming up for inspection by the end of July.

The old battery, it turned out, must have had a little leak somewhere as a splash from the water pooled in the base support for it ended up making swiss cheese of a the lower right quadrant of the front of the shirt I was wearing yesterday. It ate through it overnight, so I just noticed it this morning. I need to establish a spot for house-/yardwork clothes -- items that are still very much intact, and so not down to the level of rags, but are too worn or damaged to want to have mix in with clothes to be worn away from home. If I'm not careful I'll forget and this shirt will end up seeming to be a good option (it's a plain, black, pullover) and I'll forget about the defect until I catch someone staring at the weird constellation of too-white flesh peeking through the fabric.

Today I stayed in bed until around 7, fed the cats (who were becoming insistent) and decided to keep rolling with the day. An email check (some of the pieces requiring more thought are still lying in place) and some blog elements just about wrapped, the morning (and later in the day) is planned to be partially taken up by some chores. Nick and I may take an early break in this to go catch a 1:30 matinee of 1408, the likeliest of the recent releases.

Aside from that, I have some ebay checking to make of prices for a short list of items over the past 30 days, some reading I'd like to get to and some writing I really should.

More than enough for a Sunday.

Enjoy yours.