I never, so long as I live, ever want to have any more problems with any backmost molars. Ever.

Went to the dentist Saturday for my 6-month cleaning and such (pussed out and had 'em swab my gums with novocaine which made it much less unpleasant). Dentist checked my teeth at the end, found another pit cavity in a molar crease like my first two he found. It was in the top right back molar. I went back in today to get it filled.

Since it was the back molar they had to be fairly far back in my mouth to drill & fill. The fat suction tube ended up hitting the back of my tongue and I just couldn't hold back that gag reflex. Took it out, let me swallow & calm myself a bit. I only ended up gagging a couple more times, and not as profoundly as the first one, though there was a period of about 2-3 minutes straight where I was digging my nails into my palms and tensing every muscle in my body to fight it.

I think if I ever have to have that kind of work done again I'm going to ask for some good swabbing of the back of my tongue and the back of the roof of my mouth so I can't feel anything back there. Ugh.

I just grabbed a crapton of fonts from a font site I didn't know about before, called SimplytheBest Fonts archive. Twenty-five of them, to be precise. Total, between all the fonts XP comes with, others I've downloaded over time, and the ones I've grabbed recently, I have 321 fonts installed this PC. My home desktop I'd have to check; I'm definitely going to upload the ones I've downloaded today to my webspace so I can remember to grab them for use on it.

I wasn't going to make anymore Chuzzle icons, but I couldn't help it when a rainbow chuzzle randomly showed up with shades. That was just too cool to pass up.

First the slurping, now the openmouth chewing! Whyyyy?!

(Yes, I know I'm being spammy. I'd apologize, but that implies trying to be better in the future. Which I can't guarantee I'll do...)

... one of our contractors said if given free reign to do a web layout he'd still do it with a table layout. Welcome to five years ago...

Then our longest running contractor made it all better by being emphatic about our new development staying miles away from using tables to lay out any of our pages. Logically structured content, strict xHTML 1.1 and CSS 2 all the way.

My Favorite Coworker sent an email to the three of us asking us to review some HTML document he's supposed to have been working on. Problem: He was testing it in his browser, right? He copied the link to the local file (file:///D: etc. etc.) and that's what he emailed to us. I wrote him back (w/ reply all) and told him that wouldn't work, he'd need to attach it. He wrote me back (no reply-all) and asked what I meant by that, and for instructions on how to do it. ??? He's attached files to new emails before. Gaaaah!! I wrote him back and said that a link to HIS file on HIS computer won't work, it would try to look for the file on MY computer and not find it. I then told him to click the little paperclip icon and browse to the file.

Seriously, how can you be in IT for 15+ years and even done what I asked him to do before, and not know how to do that? Or that you need to do it that way? I can understand a computer neophite not knowing how to attach a file to an email. Totally, no problem, no confusion or anger from me. But... this man has been in IT for a long enough time, using email a long enough time, that he knows how to do this and shouldn't forget that he knows it. I mean, seriously, is this the first stages of Alhzeimers or something? If so, can one be in the first stages of Alhzeimers for several years untreated and undiagnosed without ever getting advanced stages where you don't know where you are? 'Cause from my five years here, he's always been this way. From a coworker's 2 more years here, he was that way for those too. I. Don't. Get. It.

Anyone wanting to understand why he's been excluded from development of the new system, and relegated to answering (very, very badly) support emails, this should pretty much clear up any last shred of doubt.

One of our coworkers in another project suggested Pirrone's pizza for today, so we all sent him toppings we wanted or liked, and he matched everything up assuming half a pizza for each, putting together how many and what kind of pizzas to get, figured price, and divvied it all up. It was goooood.

Now I just want to go home early and take a nap before exercise class. I'm still a little sore from Monday night's class, 'cause it was a super hard one, and I woke up at 1-something am with the tiniest, most annoying gob of dry phlegm lodged in my throat. I had to get up and go down the hall to get some water. So yet another night of interrupted sleep.

We watched Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy last night. I loved it. And it was nice that I only read it relatively recently so I knew what he used that was the same, what was new, etc. The casting was great and worked quite well, and it was worth a lot of giggles. It's not Academy Award material, but it was so incredibly fun. (FYI for those who honestly don't know the stories, or only know one version: before the novel and its successors, it was a radio program. Every iteration of the story he did, he fully intended to change it in some way. He didn't want it to be the same every time. So if you've seen or read or heard any one version and are planning on checking it out in another format, be prepared that none of it will be identical, and that this was on purpose.)

Buuuut... that means I wasn't in bed till 11:30. So tired, feeling so snippy and stuff. All the snippiness has been in my head, but it's amazing the running dialog I have going on up there, now snarky it is. Things that were already kinda vaguely getting on my nerves are just that much more emphasized.

From this image found at this site, I made these:

Given my limited toolset whenever I end up making these, I think I'm getting better by baby steps at this icon thing. I'll probably never do anything fancy with it, especially given LView's piss-poor support for layering capabilities as well as other things, but it seems to placate my creative side.

Edit: Aaaand one more. I promise I'll quit spamming now.

(source here)

Another coworker and I periodically let loose a "fuck 'em" or whatever. We cuss. It's not been a big deal, no one has said they're offended and everyone knows if they don't like it they can say something.

Mr. Slurp has a particular affectation where he'll cuss but either he'll say "oh, excuse me" before he's quite finished the word ("Shi -- oh excuse me.") or he'll know he's gonna do it and put his hand to the side of his mouth and sorta stage whisper it. And then yesterday he half-jokingly commented on my coworker's potty mouth, and I think he's noted it with me as well. He's not offended by it, that's pretty obvious, but to me it sounds all affectatious (is that a word, when someone has an affectation they're affectatious?) and kinda hypocritical. I guess I just don't get it. And I'm in a pissy mood, he was living up to the nickname I used in full fashion, and we get to go to a meeting in person in a few minutes where we get to go over the survey results for our boss (company wide survey asking us question, results broken down by results of just her employees... there were a few rather abyssmal results) and I'm not really wanting to do that.

My mom now has a resident card for the city of Florissant. She came and audited the toning class I'm taking since the instructor extended the offer, and is now signed up for the session that starts a week from this Wednesday. She ran into 3 people she knows: two from the time she spends at various grade schools in the district, and one who's a student in the toning class who was in the inner city outreach program they both participated in while in high school. We're talking 35+ years ago for that last one, heh.

Toning class last night was rough. Instead of doing the usual routine where one muscle group at a time is worked with various exercises, with stretching in between, she had us doing a "circuit" where she went back and forth with different exercises with no stretches led by her till the end (though she told us we were welcome to stop and stretch anything we needed to if we had to). Mannn... hurt this morning. I knew I was tense, though, when we did arm circles at the end during cooldown and they were difficult, especially on my neck. Later I asked J give me a shoulder and neck rub and he said I was very tight. I'm not grinding my teeth at night, but I'm pretty sure I'm clenching (just not moving my jaw while I do it). I'm also snoring most nights. I'm not on my back, but doing it lying on my left side like I usually sleep. Usually I only snore when my sinuses are super screwed up, but they've only been doing their usual minor shit lately and I'm snoring anyway. I'm going to pick up some breathe rite strips and see if that helps.

No idea what my Big Stressor is. I mean, there was some stress a few weeks ago when our group at work first relocated to the web factory, what with the email bomb our boss kinda dropped right before she went out of town. But that's died down since then, and even the frustration with my Favorite Incompetent Coworker has been low lately. Could be my scalp, but I can't believe I'd be so bothered by and worried about it that I'd be all tight and tense and such. Plus it's already getting better. I'm not going to be "cured" by the followup appointment but I'm already improved after just having used the shampoo once and using the lotion twice a day starting Saturday night. Flakes aren't as hard and big and crusty, not as thick on my scalp, and I'm itching less.

This morning sucked though. Didn't get enough sleep, waking up a few times. (I can't remember the last time I went to sleep and stayed to sleep for more than 3 or 4 hours at a time without waking up at least momentarily.) Sneezing a bit 'cause I forgot to take my Zyrtec last night. Grabbed my other pants to get the change out of the pocket and into the pocket of the pants I was wearing, and it all dumped out so I had to dig for it amongst my other clothes. Got into the bathroom after dressing and found I'd managed to find a sweatshirt with a stain, so I had to dig for another one. Damn near ran out of the house without putting deodorant on. At least I remembered to bring something to work for breakfast. I just felt like biting someone's head off though.

Now I'm just tired, and wanting to be home curled up in bed.

I made level 60 on Sunday in Silithus killing tortured (tormented?) druids and sentinels, plus the bugs that show up when they die. Now I need to convince J to log onto Whisperwind and help me get together groups to do things like Dire Maul so I can do raid quests and get raid gear and stuff. And I still need to work on pet training in a big way.

Edit: I tried "repair table" one more time and everything is now kosher and happy. The below remains to explain what happened. The couple posts I've made during the problem will also be coming in, posted at their appropriate time. Evidently, once all the MySQL problems were 100% cleaned up repair was able to work just fine. (I probaby should've tried it yesterday.)

Edit #2: I also found that the post I was initially trying to make that seemed not to work, is now in evidence. Le-woot!

---

Short explanation: was in the middle of posting when all hell broke loose with the database, and now one of my MovableType tables is hosed and I cannot post.

Longer explanation: My webhost uses Fantastico within cPanel to maintain several installable scripts (i.e. scripts that it'll install for the user, rather than the user having to do it manually). One of those scripts is blogging software called b2evolution. I turns out this thing is absolutely riddled with security holes that allow things like SQL and commandline call injection, access to the server that shouldn't be reachable, etc. There are scripts out there that scan host after host looking for installation of said software by filename, and when it's found the script goes to town however it can.

Such an attack of CW happened yesterday afternoon. As soon as b2evolution was confirmed as the gateway, they started ripping it out. It was disabled from inside cPanel, and the few accounts that had it installed had it uninstalled by the staff immediately. Damage to MySQL had evidently already been done, and it had to come down & stay down for a while while it got repaired as well.

Everything's all better now. However, since I was in the middle of posting in MovableType when the shit hit the fan, one of the major important tables, mt_entry, is fucked. No matter how many times I try to make an entry, it fails to insert 'cause the table it needs to insert into is borked.

When you don't see this anymore, or you see that I've put an "edit" in front of it stating things are happy again, it's all fixed. In the meantime you won't see anything from me here. However, any post I make here is also made to my livejournal (though with a few modifications here & there where appropriate, such as links to here from there). So if you want to know what's going on for the next day or week or so, however long it takes to get the table situation fixed, head there instead. I'll probably copy this post into MT once it's all better, with the aforementioned "edit". Also, any posts that make it to the LJ during this time will get ported over here.

Obviously, I'm only editing the main index file. Until I can get MT running again, this post won't show up in the "this site" category nor will it show up in the month of October. Also, the October 2005 calendar isn't going to be updated to show that I posted on the 25th, and no comments of course can be made. Comments on LJ are screened when they're anonymous (i.e. not made by an LJ user) but they should be allowed, if you want to comment there.

After installing 126 more fonts I happened to already have, I improved on the texted icon from here.

Was in Un'goro to talk to Collie in order to get instructions for killing Blazerunner. A druid in gen chat asked if anyone wanted to kill 'im, I said sure once I got to the end of the chain. We totally owned him. She reminded me to get in the cave so as not to get knocked into the lava, I did so, kitty tanked, druid faerie/moonfired and healed kitty, and I DPS'd the hell out of him. He was dead in like 20 seconds. And I'd heard he was a huge badass, guess not so much.

Then headed back to the camp we ran into the Ironhide Devilsaur and whooped his ass too. Druid was a skinner so bonus devilsaur hide for her.

Tomorrow: Head to Valor Point in Silithus to talk to some dude who'll probably want me to do something there. Here's hoping I can get the remaining 23K XP to level 60 without getting my ass kicked.

Diagnosis: seborrhea, which is an eczema of the scalp with a specific cause. Basically, he said my head's producing a "bad" oil. This oil, instead of doing what normal scalp oils do, clumps together instead, forming crusts which irritate the scalp, which in turn causes itching, redness, and thinning hair. (I had noticed the top of my head was a lot thinner than it ought to be lately.) It's hereditary and not something that's specifically curable, but is treatable. Once I get it under control my hair will grow back in thicker and my head won't be scaly, flaky, and itchy. (He said he's seen people who dug at their scalp so badly because of it that they had sores all over their head!)

I have two scrips for it ($98 friggin dollars worth! Can't wait for the reimbursement checks...). One is a shampoo to use twice a week that will break up the clumps of the oil, the other is a corticosteroid lotion to use twice a day sparingly (6-8 drops is enough for the whole head) that I guess from reading the technobabble on the package insert will help with the offending oil and the scalp inflammation. I'm to use those for a month and then come back in for a followup (it's technically in 5 weeks, 'cause that's when their next Saturday appointments are). He said by then I shouldn't be 100% cleared up but should be showing noticable improvement; if not there are other things I can try. He said this usually does it though. I'll find out then what I'll have to do in the longterm (i.e. will I have to use this stuff periodically, will I have to come to his office every time I have a flare-up to get more of the treatment, etc.).

Now, off to play WoW. I respecced my hunter finally at the behest of, and with help from, Mark. I still ended up "majoring" in marksmanship, but now instead of spreading the other points more or less evenly between beast mastery and survival, the rest are all in survival. I'm gonna give her a spin tonight with J's help and see how she plays, and work on learning more pet talents by leveling some alternate pets.

The forums are suddenly trying to download instead of view as a webpage. Something's going on with PHP pages there that's sending a bad or wrong content type, apparently.

Is anyone else seeing this? Is it more likely to be a problem with the internet DNS servers that are down (some Slashdot article mentioned that two major ones went down last night, making a lot of people unable to get a lot of pages) or is it more likely to be a problem with the web server?

I can get to everything else just fine. This just started in the last 5 minutes or so.

Edit: Back up again. Whatever it was, it didn't last long.

I really need to create a category to put icons and images and such in, since I seem to keep making them. "Life" doesn't really apply... Anyway, one is blank, one has text.

Had my toning class last night. Watched the game afterwards, quite disappointing to say the least. The Cards just didn't play like they wanted it, in spite of the momentum they had from last night's lategame surprise win and the fact they were playing at home. Oh well, I guess next thing to look forward to now that they can begin tearing down the old stadium (;_;) is to kick off the new stadium with a World Series win. Or something. Maybe next time (I think as long as we don't lose half the players we have we should be able to head for post season next year) it won't be Houston we have to face. Only thing that makes me not totally sad is that Houston has "lifers" (players who've been with them forever) who've never gotten to go. Specifically, there's Bagwell and Biggio who've never gone and seem to be good guys who do deserve to go. I'm still rooting for the Sox though, entirely because this is their first chance since the fated Black Sox season. Bagwell & Biggio may deserve it, but I think the Sox as a team deserve it more, and yes that's purely my personal opinion and I'm not feeling vicious about it or anything.

Stayed up too late last night. We cooked up one of the two steaks and split it before working out, with the intention of splitting the other afterwards. Well... we both ended up watching the game to conclusion, which was 10:30. Shortly thereafter my stomach growled. J made the other steak for us which meant staying up till 11 to eat it. Of course, I didn't head immediately to bed. Then I tossed off and on until 1:30. Listening to the rain with the windows open was awesome though. Woke up at least twice more, once at 3:40 or so and again at 4 something. Just... kept thinking my alarm might've gone off and I might be oversleeping. I hate that. It doesn't help that it's fully 100% dark when my alarm does go off now, with the days shortening. So I can't tell based on any vague light coming in whether I actually did blow off my alarm.

So I'm totally ready for a nap tonight. To hell with going to work out; I'm tired as hell. I started the week off OK sleepwise but it's just gone down hill the last couple days. Figure I'll nap, then we'll have dinner, then I'll get sewing again. Or jump onto my hunter in WoW to respec her, do some of the Halloween festivities that Blizzard has going on, and start grinding with other pets to learn the things I never got around to learning as I went (i.e. I was dumb and only ever had one pet so never learned all the good skills even before they added extra stuff, so now I have to do it the hard way). Both are kind of calling to me. The thing about the sewing project though, is that I want to get it done by Christmas and I already can tell it's gonna be close, so I feel like I'll fail if I spend a few hours playing WoW instead of sewing. Not that the sewing is a chore per se, or a hard and fast obligation, but I am making it for someone else and I'd like to give it for Christmas, so...

I created and uploaded a few sizes of wallpapers from the large infrared image of Andromeda found in this APoD article. I didn't do much. Cropped just the infrared picture, then made different sizes of it with different monitor resolution widths, which each then got 4px border top and bottom.

Sizes: 800px wide, 1024px wide, 1280px wide, 1600px wide. Anyone who wants the original crop so you can make a bigger one, or would like a wider one with the same borders and such (for those with dual monitors, widescreen monitors, etc.) let me know.

Then you might want to check this article. From the article:

Boston Communications Group Inc. suffered yet another legal setback Monday when a federal judge ordered the company to stop providing the prepaid wireless services that account for 70 percent of its revenue.

The U.S. Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted the injunction at the request of Freedom Wireless, which in May was awarded $128 million when an eight-person jury found BCGI's services infringed on Freedom's patents. Last week, the judge added $20.1 million in interest to the damages.

BCGI won't be allowed to provide any new service, and while it is allowed to serve existing customers for 90 days they will have to pay a 2.5¢ royalty per minute for all customers using the service, to Freedom Wireless.

The Slashdot article I got this link from mentions that both Cingular's Go Phone and Sprint-Nextel's Boost service use BCGI's services. So if you use either you may have to find some other option for your cellphone needs.

Side note: When did Sprint and Nextel merge? It sounds like there's some vague familiarity with that idea in my brain somewhere, but it's a very ephemeral notion. I don't really remember it. I wonder if they merged their networks or if they use separate tech still...

CARDS ARE GOIN' TO GAME SIX!!!

After being down almost the whole game, we pulled it out at the end. Pujols is the man! Oh yeah!

I'm totally posting this from in my bed. Figured I'd take the new work laptop for a spin and see if it'd connect to the wireless network here. It worked fabulously, with a very strong connection and everything. Just hadda tell Outlook to go fuck itself (I've had it in my startup folder; took it out now), and then tell Firefox and Semagic to direct connect instead of use the proxy and I was good to go. Only problem is the bedroom is like most of the rest of the house: no fully grounded three-prong outlets. So battery power only. Not easy to fix; if we wanted to do it right since there are no more circuits available we'd end up rewiring the whole house which is hella expensive. So, only using it limitedly this way. Just wanted to see if I could.

Went to grandfather's house... and everyone was there but him. Didn't think much about it first walking in greeting my mom's cousins, maybe he was in the study mixing a drink for someone. Nope. Mom said, "Granddaddy's in the hospital." WTF?! He was feeling funny and out of breath last night and called my mom and asked her to come by after the Cards game. She went over right away instead and they ended up taking him up. Initial diagnosis: congestive heart failure. ??? We're thinking it's more than likely the pacemaker; his brand is on the recall list but they're not sure of the model. He's been on a pacemaker for 30-odd years, and of course blood thinner to boot, plus regular checkups that go with that. So that's the most likely cause is something wrong with that. I'm still worried. He insisted that everyone have dinner anyway. So they didn't tell my aunt who was also coming until she got there either so she wouldn't decide not to come at all out of guilt or whatever. So we all had a decent time, and I suspect we all plan on visiting him tomorrow. As of this afternoon his cardiologist hadn't seen him yet but they'd run tests like an ultrasound and an ECG for the guy to analyze. Damnit, I gotta believe he's gonna be fine once they figure out the problem so they can fix it.

On a brighter, though much more minor, note, J and I were home before 10 so had plenty of time to get up to shenanigans before he got up to go run Onyxia. I even got my shoulders rubbed enough that they shouldn't keep me from sleeping tonight.

I'm craving the husbandy manmeats but cannot do anything about it. Not sure about after work either 'cause of the limited time between home arrival and grandfather's house departure, since there's the whole hairmussing thing and that I don't want my hair to be wet when I get dressed all nice and such. So we must leave early enough that we have time between getting home and the Onyxia run at 11pm our time that there is plenty of quality time available. Mmm. I hate when I get this way at work though, knowing I still have x hours before I can even consider fulfilling it. Grr.

J is awesome. He hit the hardware store, Michaels, and PetCo. He picked up a new sink garbage disposal, flood lights 'cause I guess that's the kind that are in the ceiling downstairs, and a new heater air filter at the hardware store; grabbed suction cups at Michael's; and food for the cats at PetCo. I knew he'd been when I got home, headed downstairs to say hello to J and saw a very furry, nasty, disgusting air filter leaning against the back of the cabinets (kind of a peninsula deal demarking the sink/drawer area of the kitchen) that faces the stairs. I suspect I'll be itching a bit less in the house now that the filter is fresh. Plus now we have a disposal that, once we get it in there, we don't have to be so careful with bits of food going down the drain. The suction cups were intended for the bathroom, and J did his best, but they're not gonna work for that. The hooks could come off the nipples, but the nipples are too big to fit in the holes of the corner shelves and the cups aren't big enough around. He tried though. If I can think of stuff to hang off them in the windows I'll keep 'em (or at least a couple); otherwise we'll return them. I think we'll have to hit one of the big hardware stores (Home Depot or Lowes) to find cups that'll work.

I asked J if he picked out some new running shoes, and he said he waited so I could go shopping with him, which is awfully sweet. Since we hadn't headed down to the Bridgeton area to eat at Cancun in a while (at $3 a gallon for gas, 18 miles one way is a little far to drive to eat dinner when there are plenty of restaurants, albeit no really good Mexican ones, within 5 miles of us), we headed down there for dinner, which was yummy and fun 'cause we got to eat outside. Then we went in the mall via Dillards, found they were having a storewide sale, and magically J found a pair of running shows for $40 that fit and felt perfectly. Then we wandered more slowly back upstairs to the main level towards the entrance we came in, so I could look through the women's clothing section. I ended up buying a sweater twinset (both pieces sold separately) with a light tan/cream for the shortsleeved part and dark brown for a cardigan, plus a gorgeous long darkish faded red skirt for $100.

The skirt was a surprise; up until a couple months ago long skirts weren't "in" and hadn't for a while. Talk about bummed. But now I guess they're back in (for fall/winter, I suppose). This one looks and feels almost exactly like suede, yet is 100% polyester which makes it super awesome (probably won't have to take it to the cleaners if I get something on it). It's got a neat, simple embroidered flower/vine pattern thingy down the front, which they were nice enough not to ruin by adding beads or sequins. It looks like it has a slit all the way up the front, and while the front does fly open, the skirt still wraps all the way around the front from the other side so the wind can kick up and it won't matter.

I love love love that fall is here. Not only do I love the cooler fresher air and the return of things like pumpkin pie and snuggling into the blankets and such, I much prefer fall and winter clothes. I'm wearing the twinset today, 'cause even though it'll be in the upper 70s this afternoon it was chilly this morning and the room we spend most of our time in at work tends to be rather cold. Who needs a jacket for either when one is wearing a light cardigan? We have dinner tonight at my grandfather's since my mom's cousin and her husband are in town, so I'll probably wear the skirt tonight with a cream blouse I have.

---

At about 8:30 last night I was just feeling so, so drowsy, so I got off the comp and laid down on the bed, sorta nap style fully clothed without getting under the covers. Zephyr was all insistant on loveys for a while, but then I fell asleep and slept in and out with the bright overhead light on until about quarter to 10. Said the hell with that, went and turned off the light in the computer room, turned off the light in the bedroom, undressed and climbed into bed for the light. So while I could've slept a few hours longer this morning, I didn't feel miserably exhausted when I woke up, just a little tired.

I also think I'm pretty much done finally with my desktop at work. I spent the morning until we all got together making sure I had everything installed that I need on the laptop (there are lots of things we need specific to our system that don't come on the default install), and blowing away a bunch of stuff off the desktop. I went and uninstalled all the stuff I'd used that wasn't a 100% work tool (I used 'em for work) like my favorite text editor, DeskNotes (sticky notes for the desktop), etc. Deleted all my datafiles on there that I didn't need, etc. Granted, the comp is a Dell leased comp, so our company will probably do a full reformat to wipe away any company-proprietary stuff that might be on it, then it gets returned back to Dell. But I figure it's a nice thing to clean up after myself. What's awesome, is that things like Exceed (virtual window manager thingy that gives a windowy feel onto a Unix system, plus that comes with things like FTP) evidently stored their settings in my Windows profile. So even though I had to go install that stuff myself all over again, it was able to automatically pick up my settings. The same holds true for things like Firefox (full profile, with history, cookies, passwords, extensions, bookmarks, themes, and everything). So I had less work to do there than I thought I would. Thankfully for the few things I needed to pull over I have my handy-dandy thumb drive.

Since it appears to me to be fully functional and only missing a favicon, I went ahead and released the theme I had finished months ago: Blue Flexible Squares. Feel free to check it out.

James found my credit card. He drove to work lunch on Tuesday, and it was right after that standing in line when I noticed my CC wasn't in my pocket anymore. Because I'm stupid, I assumed it'd fallen out some time before lunch, say in the parking lot when I got out of the car, or somewhere in the building. It never occurred to me to look around in his car when we got in it to go back to work. I walked all over the building complex yesterday after lunch to talk to security guards at both lobbies, talked to the Boeing specific guard, looked all over... finally during that process towards the end of it, it occurred to me to go ask him to look in his car. *facepalm* Anyway, he just IM'd me to tell me he found it.

Wheee! Of all the places for it to have fallen out that weren't my own car, I'd have to say that's the best one. I'm very glad I didn't cancel it last night after all. I called to see what my options were (can't put it in to have a temporary hold put on it), found there were only two pending charges that hadn't been put on the bill yet that were both us (my gas station one that morning, then J using his card at Applebees last night) so I decided to sit on it until I talked to James. I was figuring I'd be making that phone call to cancel and get a new number after lunch today, but then it turns out everything's OK.

I said a couple weeks ago I should start cataloging the exercises we do in class, so I can do them on my own, etc. So here's a good start from memory of last night and whatever else I can recall.

Abdominal

All these should be done "belly button pulled in to the spine".

1. Basic crunches/curlups, hands behind head, bring shoulders off the ground. Optional: hold the last one for an isometric; do with knees up by chest, ankles crossed
2. Half-position crunches/curlups: done after regular crunches, come all the way up, then do them going halfway down instead of all the way down
3. Oblique crunches: same position as #1 but bring right elbow towards left knee, left elbow towards right knee. Optional: do with knees up by chest, ankles crossed
4. Rock & reach: similar to previous, but do half of them where you rock your elbow one direction, then the other direction you reach with your hand from behind your head to the outside of the opposite knee, then switch which hand you reach with.
5. Crunches with an exercise ball: same as regular crunches (or obliques, etc.) but put your calves up on the exercise ball.
6. Glamour move: start with one knee in, the other leg out but up some, with the hand on your in-leg side at your ankle and the other hand above your head but not on the ground (i.e. at an angle, say 30 degreesish off the ground), then switch everything; legs kind of bicycle while arms switch, touching the near ankle with that hand and the other arm out as in start.
7. Bicycles: hands behind head, one leg in with knee towards the chest, other leg out and up off the floor; as the pulled in leg pushes out, the extended leg comes in. Optional: hold shoulders off the floor.
8. Bicycles + obliques: after bicycles, immediately start rotating elbows, meeting knee with opposite elbow. Makes shoulders off the floor not be optional.

Arms

1. Triceps #1: start with feet wider than shoulder width apart, bend at the hips so back remains straight until back is horizontal with the ground; have a weight in each hand, elbows tucked into sides (upper arms are also horizontal with the ground), bent at right angles so forearms are vertical; without moving upper arm or elbow placement straight elbow so arm goes behind, alternating arms.
2. Triceps #2: Standing, sitting on a chair or ball, etc., hold a weight in one hand, arm up with elbow beside head; brace upper arm with other hand to keep it in close and from pushing forward, lower weight in hand by bending at the elbow until arm is bent in a right angle; do one set for one arm, one for the other.
3. Biceps curls: stand with feet shoulder width apart, arms at sides with elbows in close, palms up, a weight in each hand; bend elbows to curl hands up until they reach biceps, controlling the weights carefully back down to start.
4. Sitting bicep curls: Sit on a chair or exercise ball, feet apart on the floor; put a weight in one hand, rest the elbow an inch or two above the knee on the same side; lower arm towards floor with elbow not moving, then bend elbow to curl weight up to the shoulder; after one arm switch to the other
5. Shoulders: Put a weight in both hands, starting hands at one hip; raise weight straight up in both hands, then lower it diagonally to the other hip, then repeat on other side (basically making across the body).
6. Shoulders & pecs: Lie on an exercise ball with the ball under the mid to upper back & neck, or on the floor; with a weight in each hand start with hands above the chest; lower arms outwards to a T making sure not to reach too far backwards, then squeeze up

Legs

1. Lie on one side with head propped on one hand and elbow out, hips aligned vertically, knees bent; straighten one leg out straight with foot flexed; raise and lower leg; do both legs. Optional: use top hand to hold a weight on the thigh; pull leg back behind just far enough that you can no longer see it; hold at the full top in an isometric for a few seconds; switch from full lifts to halfs, going only halfway down
2. Lie down as in previous position; put top leg's foot in front of bottom leg with foot all the way on the floor and toes pointing away from the body at a right angle, bottom leg straight; lift bottom leg. Optional: use top hand to hold a weight on the inside of the bottom leg
3. Lie on back with legs straight up in the air, feet flexed; open legs then squeeze them shut
4. Start with both legs up in the air, feet flexed; using abdominals to keep back straight, lower one leg, then as tha tone raises again lower the other one, in a kind of scissors motion
5. Lunges: stand with feet together, arms at sides; step forward with one foot in a deep lunge, then come back up. Optional: hold a weight in each hand
6. Lie on floor, shoulders propped off the floor with elbows behind, knees bent; extend one leg straight, foot flexed; raise leg as high as bent knee and lower again. Optional: before starting, rotate toes outwards a little and do raises with foot turned; hold up in isometric; do a set after the full set only lowering leg halfway then coming up
7. Variation of above: raise leg to height of other knee, then write figure-8s in the air with foot, then switch directions of writing them

Other (butt, lower back, etc.)

1. Lie on the ground with legs bent to get feet somewhat close to butt, hands at hips; keeping abs tight, raise and lower hips. Optional: start with calves up on an exercise ball; hold hips up in an isometric
2. Stuff on hands & knees, back straight and abs tight:
   • One hand out, other leg out straight behind, hold then switch & repeat. Optional: before holding, put hand and leg out to their respective sides, then hold
   • Holding a weight in one hand, put that hand and the opposite leg out straight; curl knee and hand inwards without setting on floor, then push out again; switch for another set
   • Put one leg out straight behind; bend and straighten knee while thigh stays out behind
   • Put a weight behind one knee; keeping knee at right angle raise knee so thigh is horizontal then lower again; switch and do other side

Phew, that's a lot. All I can remember for now, but I know there's more I'm forgetting. I guess I'll come back and edit in things after each class after I get one I didn't put in here.

Good things

• Got gas first thing in the morning for $2.82/gal which means I was able to hold out long enough so it wasn't $2.99 anymore
• Got surprised with a laptop for work yesterday
• Laptop is mostly configured the way I like with all the stuff installed that I need, save a couple programs which I'll do tomorrow morning
• Didn't have my yearly exam after all 'cause it hadn't been a full year since the last one and insurance wouldn't cover it
• My Depo shot was higher than usual on my hip so the stuff didn't hurt flooding in and it's easier to avoid bumping the site or rolling over on it
• Lost 2 lbs from my last visit to the ob/gyn office, where I'd been either been steady or going up 1-2 lbs at a time for the last 18 months
• Had my toning class Mon. and will again tonight, which is always good
• Got WoW updated with the 1.8 patch already, plus added some yummy addons

Bad things

• Didn't have time to mess with the laptop at all 'cause it was still doing... whatever setup thingies it had to do to bring in my settings, when I had to leave, so I left it at work
• Didn't rate a flat panel monitor with this refresh after all
• borrowed laptop from the web factory was heavy but had a native res of 1600x1200; this one only even goes up to 1024x768
• Gas came down another 10 cents since yesterday
• BP was 130/75 instead of 120/70 or a bit lower... could've been from twitching my fingers on that hand but maybe not
• Got all ready to go and steeled myself for that pelvic exam, including no "foreign substances " (i.e. no sexxoring) for 3 days leading up to it, only to find I did it for no reason
• Reason the Depo went in higher 'cause it was an intern who was learning to give shots, and damn she stabbed me hard with that needle, ouch!
• Seem to have lost my credit card. I used it for gas at the pump, stuck it in my back pocket, then at lunch yesterday in Lion's Choice I reached back to finally put it away and it was gone. Checking front desks, security desks, and lost & founds at work haven't turned it up; still waiting to see if my friend & coworker who drove yesterday, finds it in his back seat. So far no odd charges, but...

So that's my life so far this week. Obviously some of the bads are more of a big deal than others (yay, I finally got my card # good & memorized and have had it for years and now I have to get us both new cards!) but it looks like that list is longer than the good. I don't know if that's objective or if it's that I'm cynical and couldn't remember good things 'cause I focus more on bad things. Doesn't help that I slept badly again last night, again with no real reason. It's not as though I've slept too much. Could be stress, I guess. You'd think having an exercise class would give me a positive way of reducing stress, but perhaps it isn't... active enough, or something. I'm working hard, sweating like crazy, sore the next day, but I'm not hitting anything (like a punching bag), I'm not doing anything fastpaced like various cardio possibilities. And it's only twice a week. Perhaps it's just not enough to help me out with reducing stress in a noticable way. All the more reason to get into a regular 3x week cardio routine in addition to the class...

OK, now I'm rambling. I like the feel of the keys on this laptop, even if I don't like having my arms all up on the keyboard to get to them.

Slept like pure ass, for no obvious reason. I just couldn't get comfortable. Then I slept for a while, and J came in very obviously in bad pain (more on that in a moment), then at some point the crickets were driving me apeshit (crickets? in October?) so I shut the window in the bedroom. Finally fell back asleep until about 4 or 4:30 when Zephyr woke up meowing on the bed for no apparent reason. Ended up staying in bed till 6 instead of getting up with my alarm a half hour before. Then this afternoon I not only get stuck for my next Depo (eww needles, yay BC with no periods) but it's my yearly pelvic exam. Yeah, that's always a blast.

Anyway, so I said J came to bed in pain. He's been talking about needing new running shoes, and last Wednesday his heels were kinda puffy and sore. He ran in those shoes last night. No big deal at the time, but it turns out later last night one of them really started hurting. Like, stabbity pain throbbing hurting. So he elevated it and held a cold soda on it for a while, even falling asleep with it up. Unfortunately he had to come back up the stairs to go to bed and that really hurt it. So he's pretty much not gonna run another stride in those shoes, and I'm thinking running any time the rest of the week, at minimum, is probably out of the question. I hope hope hope he didn't give himself a heel spur (they often come from heel damage). Given I've dealt with it for over a year now (I would've gone to a doc again but it's been ages since I spent any time hobbly in the morning, so I just deal with it) and I know how bad it can get, and I know he wants to get back into decent running shape again, I know how awful that would be. Fortunately, my mom went to a doc a month or two ago whom she really, really likes and who really fixed my mom up, so she can give us both the name and number if necessary.

Though I will edit if I can come up with whatever that third thing was that we need from the hardware store.

Anyway, this weekend was interesting. Friday I ended up in bed earlyish. Saturday we slept in and then met up with a couple friends at the Augusta Brewery's brewfest. James is hilarious when drunk, I missed Steph being drunk though. Then we all drove first to their car at a winery to get their cooler, then headed to New Haven to a winery where her dad and stepmom were catering. Mmmmm, good brats! (I was one of the "heathens" and got it sans kraut.) Had I dunno how much vignoles. I know I helped James wipe out one bottle, and I think Steph picked up another bottle and I had some of that too, however much was poured to me.

Then we headed back towards civilization and and hit a mexican restaurant towards St. Peters or something. I dunno, I was pretty out there by then. Had a fuckton of water (we said we wanted big waters and got pint sized mugs given us), then had a couple enchiladas with beans & rice. It was good stuff. Unfortunately, I dunno if it was the volume of what was in my stomach at one time, gases expanding from the refried beans, or some combination thereof, but mannn... I started feeling bloated to the point where I thought my stomach was going to burst. Combine that with coming down from being drunk (i.e. slightly hungoverish) and you have the first time I've felt actively nauseous related to booze. But, I managed to keep it together. J and I headed back home, and I just put the seat back a notch and forced myself to pay detailed attention to the music coming from the CD player in J's car. By the time we got back the nausea was pretty much gone, and I was feeling quite parched yet not wanting to put a single drop of anything down my throat. So I sneaked down an allergy pill (they're nice and teensy) and pretty much crashed at, like, 10:30. It felt like 1am, but that's 'cause we started pretty early.

Saturday around 6 or 7 I felt well enough to at least haul out of bed for a potty stop, then headed straight back. Ended up getting up for good after 1pm. Sat around all fro-y and disheveled for a few hours. J suggested food, and as I looked at him wondering how to tell him there was no way I was getting public-viewable in a short amount of time, he said he was going to make stir fry 'cause the meat and mushrooms both needed cooking today or they'd probably go bad. Yay, my husband is awesome. Had stirfry with stewing beef, baby portabellas, onions, carrots, broccoli, and garlic. Mmmmmm, that's good eatin'. Then J and I watched the movie Constantine, which I enjoyed quite well. I haven't a clue how closely or not it jived with whatever (comic?) it was based on, but I liked it. And I need to look up the actress who played Gabriel so I can find out where else I've seen her.

After that I wandered up and finally dumped myself into the shower. Decided to take some olive oil and tea tree oil and slather my head with it afterwards, in hopes of keeping my scalp somewhat hydrated. Left it in for something like four hours. That was quite difficult to rinse out the leftovers though. J saved the evening by making spaghetti around 8 or so, which was also yummy. All I could muster the brain power for was to play Chuzzle (badly, I played 3 classic games and only made it to 200K once, the others not much more than 100K) and play spider solitaire in a mediocre fashion. Read my comics at some point, not sure when, probably before the movie. Ended up with the light out around 11pm. Slept more and better than the typical Sunday night, which is good, but not as well as would be ideal.

Since I showered last night (twice, if you count rinsing out my hair of the excess oils) I had plenty of time this morning to get ready and was actually a couple minutes early, even after remembering to water all the plants. So I have a feeling I might actually have a not-fucked-up week. Except for the whole yearly OB appointment tomorrow afternoon. Wheee, that's always a good time... (heh, right). I have to remember to drink enough fluids so that I can pee on demand, as well. Plus, my appointment is early which means I have to leave work 45 minutes early and make it up... I guess Thursday. Still, I feel a lot more awake today than I often do on Mondays.

Stuff we need from the hardware store:

• special ceiling lightbulbs
• sink disposal

Shit, I already forgot the third thing.

I hope we're breaking for lunch soon, 'cause I'm getting hungry and watching someone debug code in a group coding effort is definitely not my idea of a good time.

I found a way to make the aloe not burn so much, or at least it makes the burning feeling not bother me so much. I mixed tea tree oil with the aloe before I put it on my scalp, and that added a little soothing mintiness to it so it wasn't just burn. The bonus is that my hair didn't turn out... hard, kinda, when I woke up this morning. It was a lot softer. This is good, because my body decided I needed to sleep until an hour after my alarm went off so showering wasn't really an option, but combing out my hair and then thoroughly wetting it was. I still managed to only be 20 minutes late to work. I did the parts on my neck this morning the same way and it feels better that way. Dunno if the actual antibacterial properties of the tea tree oil are likely to make a difference, but that it's an oil and that it's soothing are both pluses in my opinion.

My scalp and neck are marginally better. Not... better. But none of the spots are weeping at all anymore, even the one horrible spot at my neck, and that spot isn't quite as painful anymore. It's all still flaking and itching like a bitch, and my willpower not to scratch any of it at all is definitely too weak and fails me all day long. But I have slight hope that it'll at least not be at its worst in a few weeks.

I'm getting to use a loaner laptop at work until I get one. Dunno when I'm supposed to get one, but in the meantime this makes it easier to keep my eye on internal work IMs and work email in case I get something I need to answer production wise. Word to the wise: one does not need admin rights on a PC to install Firefox. Woot. I updated it with a few extensions and an acceptable theme, so I can use it rather than IE while I'm in here. TextPad came on it, so instead of bringing a notepad and pencil and paper in here to doodle and take notes I can take notes and write my "random thoughts" type of crap into a text editor, then save the former and nix the latter.

Sounds like we're gonna do lunch soon. Woot. Though I did have a bigger breakfast than usual. We had St. Louis Bread Co. last night (Panera for those out of the area) and I did a Take Two with soup and half a salad, putting the soup in a bread bowl. I ran out of room for the bowl, so I scraped out most of the bread that was still wet with soup and took it home. Got a little cream cheese at the cafeteria and ate the bowl with that, mmmm!

That was a bit refreshing. Took a quick shower so I could rinse my hair and wash my face, then coat my hair and scalp in Bath & Body Works Skin Repair body butter (mandarin mango, yum!). That was a little difficult, 'cause while you'd think oilbased thinks would be all slick... they aren't. At least, not in hair. But I managed, I think I managed to get enough on my scalp at least in my trouble spots, and got my hair up off my shoulders. (The thickness of the stuff helps here, kinda glues the loose hairs in place, hehe.)

After that, I rinsed the tub down well and started a bath with some mandarin mango bubble bath, to hell with what my doc says about baths being in plain water only. Lit four yummy variously scented candles, cut the lights, and just soaked. Spent about 20 minutes turning this, that, and the other over in my head while I enjoyed the hot water and smells. Pele came in a couple times cute as a button, wanting to see what I was up to and explore the bathroom.

Then, it occurred to me that I wasn't really relaxed. I made a small attempt at meditation, picking calming things. Counted down 40 seconds in groups of 4 (clock was ticking, just kinda did 10 . . . 9 . . .) picturing all my worries sort of flowing out of me at my hands and feet. Then for a while I watched a ball bounce around a black screen slowly, then stopped it and slowly let it get bigger till the screen was just blue. Got kinda bored, felt my mind trying to think about things which just wouldn't do, so I put myself in a scene at a pond with random birds singing and a gentle breeze, no bugs to worry about. Cat wandering idly by, letting me pet it then curling up in a patch of sun. Then just... watched the birds and the distant trees and grasses ripple in the breeze. Decided I'd like the view if it were at sunset, so it became that way. So pretty and calming. Deep breathing the whole time.

Finally sat up and shaved my legs, nice and slowly, kind of continuing the meditation in a way by just thinking about shaving. Got out of the tub and put the same body butter on various parts of me that needed it the most while the tub drained.

So now I'm fairly calm, sleepy and feeling like maybe I can sleep. I finished a big glass of ice water, plan on getting one more since I chugged the first one kinda fast (must be a bit dehydrated), and there are storms that are headed here which should roll through overnight. If I hear them, it'll be nice to go back to sleep to, otherwise no biggie, it'll be much cooler tomorrow which will feel wonderful. Also, the storms like like they'll be stormy and maybe make a little noise, flash a few lights, and make things good and wet, but without all the OMG CRAZY SCARY happening. In other words, the perfect kind of storms.

Life is good, and I don't have to worry about tomorrow until it gets here. Just gotta remember to use the hall light as dim as it'll go.

If you have lots of crap, and have a hard time finding things in your bags and in the bank, etc., head to this thread for the Sanity plugin. The latest zip so far is version sanity 1.1. All the zips and screenshots so far are in this folder.

I'm seriously gonna grab this mod, and I'm not one who uses a lot of mods. The only other one I have right now is WowReader, which lets me upload character data to Allakhazam. I'm going to be looking for other ones probably if/when I ever get to do any endgame content, but in the meantime this one I'll find useful right now and will definitely go on my "must have" list of mods.

Heh, right. First, I was showering in the dark 'cause it was dark in the house and the bathroom lights are too bright to stand without easing into it with some other, dimmer light. I get to my tube of deep conditioner, get some, then when I'm putting it back I notice there's conditioner all over the top of the tube. ??? Figured there was a leak. Later, after the lights were on: hell yeah, there was a leak. There was a bunch of conditioner on the tub floor I never saw (conditioner is white), and there's a big gaping crack across 3/4 of the top of the tube!!! I guess I'll have to figure out how to get the rest of the conditioner into a small bottle to use that instead.

Also, after going from staring at my computer monitor to check email and weather and such, I went down the hall to the bathroom to turn on the light so I could do things like face moisturizer, hair product, etc. Yeah, well I was going to. I didn't see Pele sitting in the hallway and walked right into her. Scared both cats; Zephyr was freaked out totally 'cause Pele went skittering down the hallway quite suddenly.

I need to put a dimmer switch on the bathroom light. In the meantime, I need to start turning on the hall light since it is on a dimmer switch and I can put it quite dim.

... here's the grocery list of stuff besides the usual (milk, bread, etc.):

• Yogurt cups: a bunch, Prairie Farms brand, in strawberry banana, strawberry, red raspberry, and black raspberry
• fresh veggies
• baby portabella mushrooms

... Uh, that's all I can think of off the top of my head. We have plenty of TP still, at least (last time our need to shop was driven by the need for TP 'cause we almost ran out).

This page is so my scalp and neck.

Some quotes that stand out for me:

In more severe forms, eczema causes raw, broken and cracked skin. Scratching the irritated skin or ignoring treatment can result in oozing or weeping patches[...]. The condition is not contagious and may flare up an recede due to a variety of internal and external conditions. Eczema is also called dermatitis and may be a chronic condition.

No shit it's chronic. Been dealing with it, though not this severe in ages, if ever, since I was about 12. And it definitely comes in goes in severity.

Atopic eczema is a genetic condition related to other allergic conditions; those with asthma and hay fever may have a higher propensity for atopic eczema.

Heh, well that'd be me. My parents both had allergies; with my mom it was ragweed and with my dad it was (primarily?) oak. Both of them outgrew theirs... mine started at age 10, I still have them, and I'm allergic to lots more stuff.

It is often useful, in the cases of atopic eczema and contact dermatitis, to determine what allergens are irritating the skin. While it can be difficult to isolate specific allergens, it can be helpful since the first course of treatment is to avoid the offending substances. In addition, the sufferer should avoid exposure to abrasives including dust and sand, perfumes and cosmetics, soaps and detergents, wool and synthetic fibers and cigarette smoke as these can all exacerbate the condition.

Yeah, right... so just stop washing my hair then, got it. (I actually hardly ever use shampoo anymore, and this recent failed attempt at getting it controlled with T-Gel pretty much means I'm cold turkey for now, save for the once every 3 weeks my stylist uses it to wash out my color. And no, the coloring doesn't seem to be a cause of this, though with it really badly flared up it does hurt quite a bit.) I don't mind doing an allergy test, but no matter when I do it being off Zyrtec for 3-5 days to get an accurate test is gonna blow.

Over-the-counter creams and ointments such as corticosteroid cream can be used to treat mild eczema symptoms, but in some cases these medications can further irritate the sensitive skin. Over the counter and prescription antihistamines are also used to treat the itching. Extreme or long term cases should always be seen by a doctor.

Well, I use a prescription corticosteroid cream on my face and it does fabulously. Shame creams are a bitch to get onto a scalp when one has hair. And I'm already on a prescription antihistamine full time, and this shit has been itching to beat the band, so that's not going to help. My appointment is on the 22nd, so I've checked that last box there. J would definitely agree with the whole "extreme" thing... I just aloe'd the spots on my neck and at my neck just inside the hairline that I could get to that wouldn't show and wouldn't gunk up my hair, and holeeee shit did that burn. And make it all redder than it already was. I showed J a couple minutes after the fact and he walked away because it was so painful to look at.

The things that I'm pretty sure this isn't that the pages mention are nummular eczema ("crusty or scaly itchy coin-sized spots of irritated skin" - these are the biggest goddamn coins I've ever seen, if they're coin sized), seborrheic eczema ("yellowish and oily skin areas on the scalp and face" - it's on both places but there's no yellowing, and while it's weeping it isn't oily when it's not over irritated), and stasis dermatitis ("an irritation on the skin of the legs").

Also, according to this eczema page, "stress also serves as a trigger". That kinda gave me pause, let me tell ya. That's about the only damn thing that's gone up in recent weeks, so I'd say it's safe to make a guess that stress probably was a trigger.

Just in case you see an email starting with the following forwarded to you by some well-meaning person who has you on their email forwarding list, it's a hoax, so please don't spread the misinformation further:

I recently had a neighbor who had their 5-year old German shepherd dog put down due to liver failure. The dog was completely healthy until a few weeks ago. They had a necropsy done to see what the cause was. The liver levels were unbelievable, as if the dog had ingested poison of some kind.

The email text goes on to blame the Swiffer Wetjet, laughably stating that the "victim" called the company to ask about its contents and was told that it's a "compound which is one molecule away from antifreeze." Yeeeah... besides the fact that one molecule can make a difference of night and day in the land of chemicals, this is totally a case of hearsay 'cause it isn't true. Check the Snopes article I linked above, wherein they present all the legwork they did researching this sham of an email.

So don't go and pitch your Swiffer products just 'cause you have pets. They're not going to get poisoned by this stuff; if anything, it's almost a scam 'cause the stuff's made of almost all water, if not 100% water, so the only difference is that the thing can squirt on the floor itself without dipping the sponge into a bucket first. Your PineSol is a stronger floor cleaner by far, even dilluted according to its directions, than this stuff.

I got all the MT templates figured out, and how to get 'em working with non-templated code I wrote myself, in order to add onto my wishlist page. The main page is stuff I want, primarily so that family can go look come birthday and holidays, and in theory I keep it relatively cleaned up so items that aren't available anymore are removed, new stuff is added, etc. There used to be a section for my mom where I could put ideas for J as well. There still is, but now it's been expanded. I have a password for each family member (I haven't given 'em out yet) including J. I also have categories for each of them, and those category descriptions contain a list of users who can access them. So basically, my mom can see ideas for everyone but her, J can see ideas for everyone but him, etc. I, of course, have a master login so I can see 'em all (yes, I enter all these anyway, but this way it's in a nice easy format).

The only passworded area that has anything in it yet is stuff for J, but hopefully it'll become a useful way for fellow family members to catalog/online shop, or get ideas for offline shopping, should they want it.

---

I've hit my scalp with aloe for the first time. This is the only remaining OTC suggestion left that I haven't tried, to make my scalp less than miserable. It was weeping in places again today, ferchrissakes. Yeugh! So tonight I wet my hair with my spray bottle, figuring wet is easier to get around than dry, and just kinda went to town with the aloe gel, working it in and working it in. No clue how much got to my scalp and how much is "wasted" in my hair, though I did feel a nice burning sensation in a few spots so I know those got it. I definitely got the right corner of the hairline at my neck, 'cause that's the worst right now that's also easily accessible. That burned like whitehot fire, lemme tell ya. The burning's gone now, so that's something. I'll give this a go for a week, see how it goes. If I notice at least a smidge of improvement I'll keep it up; if not I give up and I'm just gonna go back to conditioner-washing my hair, etc., and nothing special for my scalp except periodic scrapes with my comb at the end of my shower, just to get the dead layers off and out of my hair.

---

J was a sweetie and did laundry tonight, so I have clean pants and undies and socks. Woo! They got a pretty late start in MC tonight, a good hour off their usual, so I don't expect him to come to bed any time soon.

We really ought to go grocery shopping tomorrow night, after we're showered post-workout. The final sign we're overdue for a shopping run is that there are no more paper bags for the trash can. So no throwing anything away in there until we shop, I guess. I'm low on yogurt cups, there are no PopTarts, and we probably need fresh milk. Plus more fresh veggies and maybe a small block each of real cheddar and mozzarella would be nice. Ooh, and some sliced baby portabella mushrooms. Mmmmm. K, now I'm hungry, but I've got to go to bed. (Only eaten one meal today, but since it wasn't until 3:30 or so I'm only just now getting hungry.)

A coworker (sort of... works on a group we interface with a ton, and that I have friends on) is moving to another job within the company, so a surprise sendoff was organized for her tonight. She was totally shocked, and loved it.

I had 2 hurricanes (Pat O'Brien's hurricane mix + rum + whatever else went into it) and a glass of wine... felt quite fun. Had there been less people who I wasn't really familiar with (not that they shouldn't have been there, of course) I would've probably ended up trashed; I've been kinda wanting to be since lunchtime Tuesday, which is a rare thing for me. It's uncommon enough for me to be in the mood to get drunk on any given night, but it's far rarer for that feeling to stick with me for more than that one night that I can and do take advantage of it. Usually if I don't take advantage of that mood when it arises it's gone. Definitely work stress. I have to say it's nice to hang out with coworkers in a nonwork setting, super familiar ones and not so much familiar ones alike.

Aaaanyway... got silly but not drunk, mostly sober (and thirsty -- water, not booze) now. Tired as hell. I was going to aloe the hell outta my scalp nightly starting tonight, but... yeah, I think I'm gonna crash instead. So sleepy, yawned a lot but I wanted to get caught up on friends' lists, email, etc. and I didn't fully before we had dinner and then I got ready & we left. Now... yeah, too tired to do much of anything. But... just enough alcohol and sleepiness and "don't-give-a-shit" to say that I can't wait to be well rested 'cause J and I need to get to some super personal TLC together. Yeah. That'll be niiiice...

On another note... whoa, it's October 1 already! And the heat has finally started seeping away. Got the first touches of fall this week, and I can't be happier.