⌠then I owe you an apology. I took a bit of a break from blogging when I got back from our family vacation travel, and itâs taken me a while to get back into writing. Iâm not exactly âre-chargedâ yet, but Iâm ready, so here goesâŚ
Demise of SplashBlog
As you can see, the widget in the sidebar that was displaying pictures has been disabled. See the text box for the current state of affairs, but never fear, the pictures will come back. I really like the immediacy of taking pictures with my phone and having them show up automatically in the blog. Itâs just going to take a bit of work to re-enable them.
Vacation Pictures
Speaking of pictures, I did get my vacation shots up on the web in my Gallery2 site — no, that link won’t work any more; I might replace it with something better at some point. You wonât be able to see them unless you log in, so if you want to take a look you can send me a note and Iâll tell you the password (if I like you. ;-)).
If you do check them out, watch out for The Black Spot. Unfortunately, the CCD on my camera developed a dark spot (while we were in Kingston) that is clearly visible in any of the images where that area is approximately a solid color â like the mist coming off a waterfall, for example. doh! I took the camera to Henryâs when we got back and they happily fixed it for free, but it was too late for the vacation snaps. Oh well.
A Rogue by any other name
One of my main âachievementsâ â if you want to call it that â during my vacation, was to level my horde-side rogue âCaltropâ to 63 [maybe 64 by tonight. ;-)] so that I could get back to playing with the guild on Sunday nights. It was a lot of work â sheâs 13 days played â but it was worth it. For those unfamiliar with the game, â13 days playedâ means 13*24 hours in front of the screen to get her to that level, although some of that was done before my vacation started.
I read books.
Over the course of my vacation, I got through seven new books â all in the fantasy and sci-fi genres, of course.
One in particular that I had been waiting for was the sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora, called Red Seas Under Red Skies. Iâm not certain I enjoyed this one as much as the first, but I will say that after two full books I still find the mix of grand scope and yet very personal story compelling. I just wish he would drop his habit of trying to fool the reader in the introduction; this time, I actually imagined a better outcome from the confrontation than the author did. Oh well.
I also picked up Lois McMaster Bujoldâs The Sharing Knife books. They were a bit too girly for my tastes, but it was probably good for me to read something where the people were more important than the action, for a change.
The rest of the books were just pulp. The sci-fi equivalents of the âpenny dreadfulâ â just what you need when youâre on vacation. Speaking of pulp, has anybody ever seen the E. E. Smith âLensmanâ or âSkylarkâ books in electronic form? Itâs been a long time since I read them, and Iâd like to ride that particular inertialess drive again.
Whew! I guess that about covers it. Talk to you soon.