{"id":609,"date":"2011-07-28T14:30:57","date_gmt":"2011-07-28T14:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/?p=609"},"modified":"2011-07-28T14:30:57","modified_gmt":"2011-07-28T14:30:57","slug":"nothing-day-vacation-work-eq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/?p=609","title":{"rendered":"Nothing Day! (Vacation, Work, EQ)"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s so good to be home and back into my routine, sort of.\u00a0 My vacation was awesome, but…and I have said this for many years…it doesn’t matter where you go or what you do, it’s always good to get home.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My awesome vacation week started two Thursdays ago.\u00a0 I got to the airport in more than enough time.\u00a0 In fact, I had over an hour to kill before my flight.\u00a0 Conveniently, there was a little niche with four little sub-niches in it designed for laptop use.\u00a0 And free wireless.\u00a0 So I played a little EQ in the airport while waiting for my flight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The flight from Colorado Springs to Dallas landed early.\u00a0 However, after riding around on the tarmac for a little bit–the pilot said he hoped we enjoyed out tour of the DFW airport–we finally got to a gate and had to wait for another plane to leave it.\u00a0 Our arrival gate changed once or twice before we reached this gate and, by the time we actually pulled up to it, we were on time instead of early.\u00a0 That was okay, I had texted with my daughter, Shoes, and she agreed to get me some food, as we expected our departing flight would not give me much time to eat.\u00a0 Got off the plane, got on the tram, got off the tram and found our departure gate was right there where the tram let off.\u00a0 Except that as I was walking up to my daughter they announced a gate change for our flight.\u00a0 We took a fast walk to our new gate only to discover we did not have a plane yet and things were delayed.\u00a0 That meant I got to have some frozen yogurt, which I finished just before we boarded.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That night, we had dinner at Mom’s with my Dad.\u00a0 Friday, we got our rental car.\u00a0 In the evening, we had dinner at the home of my brother, Doc.\u00a0 My other brother, Tucker, and my parents were there, so it was a good mini-reunion thing.\u00a0 They had a birthday cake for my son, Spiff, as his birthday was Sunday.\u00a0 Shoes announced to everyone (Mom and Dad and I knew already) she was going to move to Alabama \/ Georgia to be with her most consistent boyfriend of the last few years.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Saturday, I met my friend from EverQuest, Frosty, and her husband (also an EQ friend), Navi, at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum.\u00a0 I apparently got in just ahead of them, but they saw me and she shouted out my EQ nickname, Shaka (short, of course, for Shakatma).\u00a0 I am not used to be called by my EQ name in public, but I heard the shout, processed it, and realized it was for me.\u00a0 We had a great time wandering around the museum, having lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, and wandering the Museum a little more.\u00a0 Our waitress was a cutie:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Shes<\/a><\/p>\n

As I had met one of my other EQ friends just two weeks earlier, it felt extra good and fun to be meeting Frosty and Navi.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sunday, we went to the play my mother assistant directed, Curious Savage<\/em>, which was very funny.\u00a0 The ending was poignant, a little out of character for the rest of the play, but nonetheless appropriate and good.\u00a0 My niece, Flower, had a non-speaking bit in this ending.\u00a0 After the play, we went to Dad’s for dinner.\u00a0 It was, as I mentioned earlier, Spiff’s birthday, so I gave him and my daughter gifts (one each).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On Monday the kids and I went to our rental cabin in Brown County.\u00a0 We passed the rental office twice, parking in its parking lot before realizing we had found it.\u00a0 The office was closed, however, so Shoes went where a sign saying “Cabins” pointed, hoping to find somebody helpful, and she did.\u00a0 There were a couple of flirty guys (my daughter is<\/em> twenty-two) and a helpful woman who gave Shoes a couple of numbers to call.\u00a0 Shoes got ahold of the rental person, who directed us to where our cabin was.\u00a0 It was unlocked and waiting for us, with the keys on the dining room table.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The cabin was amazing.\u00a0 It actually looked like what the website pictured it as.\u00a0 It was spacious with two bedrooms, a patio, large living room with a futon, and it even had a hot tub on the deck next to the patio.\u00a0 We got “checked in” and looked through our options for dinner (there was an informational sheet in the cabin about places to go).\u00a0 We decided to go to a place called the Ordinary, but when we got to town we found it was closed on Mondays.\u00a0 So we went to another place we saw while looking for a place to park:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Holy Cow! was great.\u00a0 The food was excellent and the cost…well, it was a little<\/em> pricey but well worth it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tuesday, the kids got up late.\u00a0 As in after noon.\u00a0 They–mostly Spiff–made a breakfast-like meal when they got up, so all was good.\u00a0 We then went to Nashville (Indiana, not Tennessee) and took a tour on the “train” pictured in the Picture Post I put up earlier this week.\u00a0 It was interesting and started and finished, conveniently, at an ice cream shop.\u00a0 This is significant because it was hot as hell and so we were in desperate need of cool air and ice cream when we finished.\u00a0 After the ice cream, we checked out some of the quaint shops they had there, got a souvenir or two, and then went back to the cabin.\u00a0 I cooked steaks and we played some D&D before eventually going to bed.\u00a0 (I did sit in the hot tub once more before calling it a day.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wednesday, we went back to Indy and just relaxed.\u00a0 Thursday, we turned in the rental car.\u00a0 Actually, we had upgraded; it was a Jeep Liberty, which was good to have on the gravel roads of southern Indiana, not to mention the gravel driveway to our cabin.\u00a0 We went to a movie with Dad (Super 8; I highly recommend it) and then had dinner at his place.\u00a0 We watched a good old movie, Court Jester<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Finally, last Friday we headed our separate ways.\u00a0 Shoes told me her flight was a bit frightening thanks to extreme turbulence in a storm and the guy behind her who thought they were all going to die.\u00a0 My flight was boring, which, quite frankly, is a good thing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This past Saturday, I went into work early.\u00a0 I wanted to get all caught up on work-related email, etc., before I logged in.\u00a0 Well, one of those emails stated the uber overtime I had been doing was over.\u00a0 So I went home for ninety-ish minutes and came back.\u00a0 I also learned my paycheck (the one I got today) would be a little short.\u00a0 We get two weeks of vacation a year for the first few years, but it isn’t useable for the first six months of employment.\u00a0 I officially went on the company payroll (as opposed to being a contractor) in late January, so the two weeks for this year have not yet shown up.\u00a0 So my bosses used my remaining personal day and all the sick time I had, but there were still thirteen hours uncovered, so they went in as “no pay.”\u00a0 The good news is that I can retroactively cover those with vacation hours once they show up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On a brighter note, we had a little election this week and I was voted to be a team lead.\u00a0 I am replacing somebody who got promoted to a higher spot in our little group.\u00a0 This means that on Monday I will go in early for a meeting once a week.\u00a0 Well, it’s an hour early now, but that may be for only one week.\u00a0 We also have a shift bid going on, and I hope to get an earlier shift.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So now I am working eight hours a day, a normal workday again.\u00a0 This gives me more time to play EQ in the morning, at least until I maybe get an earlier shift.\u00a0 I have already gotten back to working on the tasks for the current expansion, and have completed several of them.\u00a0 As I have Thursdays off now, I am hoping to accomplish quite a bit again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That’s more than enough for today.\u00a0 My vacation was awesome but, as I said, it’s great to be home again.\u00a0 See you tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s so good to be home and back into my routine, sort of.\u00a0 My vacation was awesome, but…and I have said this for many years…it doesn’t matter where you go or what you do, it’s always good to get home.   My awesome vacation week started two Thursdays ago.\u00a0 I got to the airport in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=609"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":613,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609\/revisions\/613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}