Well, another week is left behind me.  What is there to share?  I think I might bounce around in this particular entry.  For some reason going in my usual chronological order feels wrong today. 

I just got home around 6:30 this morning.  My parents let me stay the night at their place after I went to their house warming party yesterday.  After the dinner they also held a sweat.  I was amazed at how quickly it cools off out there.  It must have dropped ten degrees during the sunset, and another ten immediately following sunset.  It's like going camping, but with a house!  And the stars!  You could see the arm of the Milky Way, tons of various stars and constellations, and all of this while standing right next to the porch light!  I can only image what I could have seen without the light drowning out some of the stars!  Truely awesome. 

The food was good too.  Dinner was from noon to four, and there was every food imaginable.  Even with the fifty or so guests that showed up (most bringing food with them) eatting several plates and bowls worth of food, everyone was forced to take more food home!  Heck, if it wasn't for the fact that my cats need litter, I don't think I'd bother going grocery shopping this week.  Because I was the last one to go home, Mom really packed her car with stuff she dropped off with me.  She even dropped off the celery I told her to keep, as I had almost a full stock at home!  How am I, one person, supposed to eat what is almost two stalks of celery before it goes bad?  I don't think it'll freeze well. 

Friday night/Saturday morning I had the most bizarre dream.  I was riding the Valley Metro bus (with my bicycle on the front rack) when suddenly I had this bad feeling well up within me.  So I rushed off at the next stop and hopped on my bike (I'm not sure why I was riding the bus if my bike was opperable).  Immediately thereafter the bus flipped over while going down hill and swerving to avoid a car.  I rushed back to help the passengers and driver, but being only one person many people were injured and some died.  Eventually emergency response vehicles came in response, and I gave my statement.  The bizarre thing was that I had this horrible survivor's guilt thereafter.  I'd just breakdown crying when something would remind me of the accident.  Maybe while at the grocery store.  Maybe while talking with Kitty and Lori before the D&D game.  Maybe while watching television news.  It was really weird, because even though I logically knew it was survivor's guilt, and that I couldn't have done any more than I did, emotionally I felt like I should have made everyone leave the bus when I did.  Then I woke up ten minutes before I was supposed to start getting ready for work.  Weird stuff.

I went to the 8am mass on Sunday, and the homily was an explanation as to why we needed to donate to the second collection.  That's why I hate going to masses other than Sunday afternoon (Teen/Young Adult mass at most Catholic parishes).  They seem so spiritually devoid, that its no wonder that the responses of the assembly seem robotic and weak and almost no one sings with the choir.  The Spirit seems so unwelcomed with the mass, that it makes me feel uncomfortable to welcome Him in to me.  Mass shouldn't ever be like that.

Kitty's Mom died this week, and so Kitty was in Louisana to bury her mother Friday.  That meant to Earthdawn on Saturday.  Trav, Lor, and Tom were too tired after moving on Friday anyway, so Steve ran his D&D game.  Next week he'll be adding two more players as we start regularly playing his game the first and second Saturdays of the month (when Lor, Tom, and Trav are playing LAV with Tithe of Souls). 

So our team of adventures left Cormyr for Sembia to pick up more members of their estranged group.  (You might remember that our characters are basically 1st level cohorts of an NPC mentor, family member, or family friend, so we'll obviously be picking up the two other players' characters in Sembia.)  Along the way we ran into some Zhent bandits who were demanding tribute for crossing a bridge.  The gnome paladin tried bargaining with them, with my changling druid of Lurue backing him up, but they demanded 14,000gp!  So we put the fear of the gods within them and continued on our way.  That night they attacked us again, but we got them to backoff again as well.  We eventually reached our destination, where we left off so that the new characters could join next week.  Steve isn't sure what they're making.  They might be a male dwarven fighter and a male half-drow monk.  We'll see.

Friday night we played Shadowfist.  Nothing too exciting there.  I made some pathetic mistakes (I think because I didn't have enough sleep the night before), but I think we all still had fun.  Jackson gave both Monte and I a new Hulk HeroClick which he bought at Game Depot for $.25 each. 

Work's still busy.  We're finally getting the maps which were held up by the Colorado blizzard in stock.  My great aunt Lucy who has lived in Fort Collins for thirty-one years said that it was the worst blizzard she'd ever seen there.  I guess there was a bad blizzard in 1973, but the 2003 blizzard was apparently much worse.  Some neighbors apparently dug out her driveway for her, but the streets weren't dug out so it didn't help her out at all. 

We found out that our Middle East raised relief map is out of print permanently.  It sells incredibly well, but I guess that a 1991 map of the region which doesn't even have any of the former Soviet Republics broken off yet isn't considered reprint worthy by Hubbard Scientific. 

Sunday night I ended up watching the Science channel untill I fell asleep instead of trying to find Stargate SG-1 on my parents' DirectTV.  It had this amazing mysteries of science program block.  William B Davies narrated and hosted one show called Critical Eye, which was inspired by the folks at the Skeptical Enquirer and CSICOP.  The episode I saw was about human energy field healing techniques.  Afterwards was another show (the name of which I have forgotten) which was about The Science of Sin.  In it scientists were showing a genetic link to the various seven deadly sins.

So anyway, that was my weekend.  I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.  Until next time!