So out of curiosity I tried to hook up to the free wireless in the Embassy Suites in Orlando, and well... what connection? It was slightly there, but not enough to use&emdash;the comp thought it was intermittent and that I might not be able to connect. When Google doesn't come up, well, you're pretty screwed. It's always there, right?

Anyway, I thought before we left that we could maybe use it so I could go on the Onyxia run Wednesday night since we were just calling an early night of it anyway. However, the DVD-ROM drive on this damn thing won't open (I know it worked at some point; J actually got WoW installed using it when we went to TX, though that was way back last March). So, though I took the CDs with me hoping it'd start working again (it didn't) I didn't I'd be doing that. Plus I wouldn't have been able to stay awake that late that night anyhow; a drive to Orlando from St. Louis that starts at around 7:30, 8pm CST or so and doesn't stop until arrival at... what was it? 2pm or so EST? doesn't really bode well for staying up late staring at a computer screen.

I'll talk more about our trip later, but for now I just wanted to say that while the "wired" part of the promised sign stating "wired and wireless internet" didn't seem to work, the wireless connection in this Super 8 wherever we are along I-10 that's just 10 miles or less west of the timezone change, but east of Pensacola, is much superior to the Embassy Suites connection. Perhaps it's the smaller size of the building, I dunno, but I'm online. Room's bigger than I thought it'd be, too. It's a damn good thing we called ahead while on the road though; we apparently got the last couple rooms, since they said when we arrived that they're now full. There appears to be some college football game going on tomorrow in the area (J said something about U of Florida vs. Florida State but wasn't 100% sure) and places all over are booked solid.

A quick summary: we spent from a little after 9am to a little after 11pm Thursday at Disney World, wherein some surprise dream fast passes made us able to hit every ride in the park along with a few shows. We went to a place called Homosassa (State Park? Wildlife Preserve? something like that) where they had manatees (!!) that come up the river some miles to avoid the colder and thus deadlier gulf waters for warmer river waters. Tomorrow we'll be heading to Pensacola to potentially check out some naval aircraft museum and spend some time being beach bums. Then Saturday afternoon or evening we'll start the trek home. It was 1040 or so miles to Orlando from St. Louis, but it's roughly 300 less back to St. Louis from Pensacola, so we won't be in the van in one sitting nearly as long. Then, it'll be crash time.

Seriously, I didn't realize how much of a pain in the ass it is to rip up grass growing in a place you don't want. Our one tree in our backyard had a nice little border of bricks around it, but grass had been allowed to grow both under and over, thus practically burying the bricks and havving grass right up around the tree. What's the point of such a nice border if there's grass in it, right? Plus I want to ring the tree in irises and maybe a few other things. So, Sunday afternoon I set to work. I ended up having to pull up the bricks just to get all the grass roots. I ended up putting them in on end instead of flat, to give me more plant growing space. This meant they went a little closer together, and I ended up being two bricks shy, plus I couldn't use two bricks because they were missing large chunks. I bought four replacements at Lowe's, and put 'em back in. Then, I used the entire 40-50lb (not sure) bag of dirt I'd bought to fill in&emdash;I'd ended up losing a fair amount while pulling out all the grass and its insidious roots, and anyway I wanted some good growing soil there. Since I want some for the sides, and then later in the front (the dirt there's pretty crappy and I'm tired of just mixing in small amounts of potting soil in it) I'll have to pick up another bag.

No bulbs got planted, because I didn't start digging around until, I dunno, 3 or 3:30 (we ate a late lunch and I swept leaves off the porch first), and I wasn't done till after dark. So they'll have to wait until after Thanksgiving, probably the weekend after that. It's nice that I can pretty much plant them anywhere between now and March or so (or even back in October if I'd had them then).

---

I read up on the demons whose heads I have to collect for my epic bow quest. I'm gonna have to learn how to kite better, do things like jump shots, etc. Plus I'm going to have to find a time for each when I have some guild members available in order to get various buffs and such so my life and mana are higher. (Greater blessing of Kings would be icing on the cake, of course, but I can live without that, heh.) I already have a wad of demonslaying potions. Hah, out of curiosity, and guilt-free since they all reset and become available once again in a mere 15 minutes, I thought I'd try Simone in Un'Goro with only Aspect of Nature on. I got her down to 56% including my stupid comp unexpectedly taking me back to Windows. She is primarily melee, but I'm going to try to kite her somewhat, kind of like the dude in BS requires, only instead of keeping her scorpid stung, I'll keep her viper stung instead, since it keeps her silenced which means no casting lightning or tempting-whatever. The dude in Winterspring should be interesting; it generally involves running full tilt down from the northern end of Winterspring towards Everlook, jumpshotting the whole way to stay out of range of his nasty debuff that pretty much signals end-of-fight if you get it. Gotta have a few folks aggroing all the mobs ahead of you in order for that to work; the video was quite interesting to watch.

Before I forget: in case anyone in the area is curious, the bookstore we went to before eating at Zoe's is a place called Left Bank Books and is on N. Euclid. Also, if you'd like it Zoe's Pan-Asian Cafe has its own website on Sauce Magazine. They have both their menu (lunch & dinner) and their drinks list there, plus their hours, address, & phone number.

---

The cats have their 5:30pm appointment for checkup and shots this evening. This weekend isn't slated to rain (or wasn't last I checked) so we'll be closing the pool for good (not that we've been using it; we just haven't dumped in the winterizing chemicals, lowered the water level, put on the winter tarp, or disconnected the filter). Also, I'll be trying to get all my bulbs planted, and snip the dead flowers off the mums. I think J's gonna have people over Saturday, since he does roughly every other weekend and last weekend he didn't.

Monday I have to finish flexing for the Wednesday morning I took off, but I forgot I have a 4pm chiropractor appointment, so I'll have to work the extra from home after workout class. I also will need to find time to pack 'cause we're leaving Tuesday early evening for Floriday w/ J's family for the holidays (OMG Disney World!), and I have my depo appointment at 4 Tuesday with no clue for sure when I'll be back. (If they're quiet and thus on time, I can be home by 5, maybe a little earlier. If they're backed up and running late, there's no telling. Usually I'm home by 6 those days, but once I don't think I got home till nearly 7. ;_; Reeeeally hoping I'm home before 6.) Then it's off in the van (I'm assuming) to Florida, presumably driving overnight but I dunno for sure. I dunno what we're doing the rest of Wednesday, just relaxing I think. We'll actually see Disney (and maybe Epcot?) Thursday, and spend Friday at the beach. No clue what after that.

WoW babble...

I guess Saturday and Sunday evenings I'll be getting to spend in WoW. Raiding for me is so far generally on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (alternating 20-mans and Ony), plus now every other Saturday (if we keep the MC schedule the same in the near future). Thursdays' 20-man raids start too late for me, and I'm not geared & experienced enough for BWL yet. Haha, J was saying I ought to sign up for this Saturday's Naxx run 'cause they didn't even have 30. I reminded him I'd probably die every pull, and he did admit I don't know any of the strats to make up for my lack of gear, plus I'm not even keyed yet (I don't have enough rep so I'd have to spend just about everything I have buying the non-revered item price), and I said that even if I could get into the place, they'd be better off with a partial raid than filling a slot with my sorry ass. I don't have a single piece of tier 1 yet, let alone anything better.

On a good note, I've turned in a few decent quests, and am complete for another. I did schlep all the way out to Duke Hydraxis to turn in "The Molten Core", and J took me into DM far enough to turn in my Greatest Race of Hunters book for my nifty hunter trinket as well as collect my Dire Pool water so I can now turn in Love Potion if I can get into a BRD run for it. I also turned in my Ancient Petrified Leaf in Felwood so I can finally start my Lok'delar epic hunter bow quest, wheee! We also had fun last night. J's doing the scepter chain, so we did a guild-zip over to Winterspring—OMG almost all of us were already there!—to help him kill Dr. Weavil's gorilla. Then J, Ches, and I went to Feralas (I hadda turn in a quest there first, and Ches had a Tanaris quest to turn in) to see if we could kill some Chimaeroks for meat for him. Found out that J and I can duo them with my cat tanking, but it does take a little while with J having to spend most of his time healing my cat, with me using mend pet when he gets silenced from an Arcane bugger. They kills we made with J tanking (or kitty mew-mew-mewing) them and Ches healing, with kitty just off-tanking on rare occasion and doing a little dps, went a whole shitton faster.

I figure I'll see if I can get to the BRD bar for Love Potion this weekend, then probably end up spending the rest farming for random crap. I keep J stocked in Dreamfoil potions 'cause he makes stuff out of 'em for me that I can't yet (major mana pots and GFP potions), and I need to do a couple Dustwallow fade leaf runs (they aren't worth shit yet on our server, with so few doing Naxx and even fewer needing shadow protection, but they will be, so I'd like to have a crapton to donate when the GoG starts needing it). I'm also gonna go kill a bunch of fire elementals, either in Un'Goro or in Arathi, to get J hearts of fire/essence of fire to pay J back for all the ones he used making me GFPs. Plus I need to read up on strats for my hunter quest, now that I'm on it. I know where to find the dudes, as I've seen them around in the various zones and the petrified wood branch is a good enough reminder for that, but I'm clueless as to which bosses need to be battled which way, plus I would love help from guildies in the form of buffs and keeping the area clear of the generic mobs. Probably do the Silithus asshole last, 'cause damn, he's in about the nastiest part of the zone with lots of those spindly nasty spiders & crap.

Anyway, on to lunch. It's my coworker Tim's last day (sob!) and we're all goin' to Bandanna's.

A combination of having lots (both online and off) to do and feeling rather withdrawn makes for a severe lack of posts. Some basic, probably unrelated, bullet points that have to do with life goings-on:

• All the bulbs I ordered are now in as of this week. So this weekend I plan on digging around with various dirt locations to prepare them for bulbs, then snagging a bulb planter thingy and using it in the newly prepped soil.
• J and I are going to see Spamalot tonight with my parents and sister. Yay!
• I'm crash-coursing today back into my contacts after over a year (maybe two?) of not having worn them. This is because we have decent enough tickets that a fuzzy vs. clear stage will actually make a difference, and I'm too stubborn to find and wear my glasses. Thus, I'm vaguely nauseous and near headachy from the whole squinting thing I keep doing, though the slight nausea went away with the input of lunch. Otherwise, save for lots of teary-eyedness for the first 15 minutes or so, all is going well.
• Last Saturday was my first Molten Core run, and I'd like to say I wasn't a complete and utter nub, and even managed to live after being pitched into the lava and being unable to find my way out immediately, with no greater fire protection potion and < 200 fire resist (130 unbuffed, oh yeah!). I also used Ventrilo for the first time.
• At work some folks are trying to get a roughly monthly event going called "Bistro Night" wherein we all go to a restaurant most of us haven't been to before (a list of suggestions is being maintained). Last night was the first one, at a place called Zoe's Pan Asian Cafe. It was yummy, though a little pricy (to be expected for a restaurant in the Central West End).
• We'd determined to meet for said outing at 5pm, but the restaurant didn't open till 5:30. J and I went to the opposite corner to a bookstore we saw, mostly to get change for a dollar to put in the other 50¢ needed for the meter, and came back with four used books. One was printed in 1865, not bad shape given it's 140 years old and containing some pressed rose petals. Another is Stranger in a Strange Land, since neither of us had ever managed to read it, and which I am now reading. The bookstore is huge, and seems to be quite awesome, with a large amount of used books and pretty decent amount of new books given the fact it isn't a chain.
• I had a horrible time getting a decent amount of sleep during the week last week. I really didn't get a good, full night's sleep till the weekend. I suspect mainly going off DST was responsible, because I had a hard time the week before as well. I am sleeping better again now.
• So far I've been unable to consistently get up early enough (5:25 alarm) to walk the treadmill every morning, partially due to trying to start it right before the above sleep issues. I also have gotten in very little cardio in the afternoons or on the weekend. I lost 2 pounds right before the weekend before Halloween weekend, but then gained it right back. So I'm still right around 140 pounds.