Hmm - three months between updates. You'd think I'd been busy or something.

Oh, I have. Here's what I've been up to:

• green card - it's not green and it's not made of card, but I have one now. No more farting around with visas, and I can go through the quick check queue on entry to the States.

• grandfather's funeral - my aged and eminent grandfather, who was 100 in August last year, passed away in early February. Obviously, given his great age, this was not unexpected but it was sudden, and I was much more upset by it than I expected. I wanted to go to his funeral (although it took some time to get a definitive date because of his wish to leave his body to science) but we realised that Russell needed a passport which more or less ruled out all of us going. Russell's passport then arrived two days before I was due to fly. After much toing and froing, Jen managed to find tickets for her and Russell on the same day as me, even following the same route, just not the same airline or the same flight. Anyway, the upshot was that I was away five days, Jen and Russell stayed on a couple of weeks.

  I have to add that my employer was great - very understanding.

  I miss him, and I an sad that Russell will not know him.

• sick - the compressed travelling schedule knocked me flat (five days away, and I was either in a plane or driving for the greater part of the day every one of those days). I was sick when I got back. Then Jen had some mild food poisoning that made her flight home so much fun, and she picked up a nasty sore throat in Britain which laid her low for the best part of two weeks after they got home (including a painful ear infection! It just gets better!). Then I came down with the same thing, although fortunately without the ear infection. And Russell has been sick and grumpy too.

  So overall we are still waiting for a time when we are all actually well at once.

• new car - loath as I have been to admit it, the TT is not a practical second car with a family. We sold it and got a Mazda 3 instead. It's alright, although I am annoyed that it is basically impossible to buy a decent European or Japanese car in the States which has a reasonably sized engine.

• work - there was a major release at the end of March which consumed a lot of time and energy, and although the pace of work has slowed to something more manageable it is still a time-intensive job. It's good, though. The job loss thing worked out pretty well in the end.

• roleplaying - I have started running Call of Cthulhu with my roleplaying buddies.

• writing - not a lot going on, although some decisions have been made. Unfortunately, one of best writing friends had to move away suddenly due to health reasons.

Posted by Dunx at April 25, 2006 09:09 AM