Life is fun and expensive!

Phew, the last few weeks have been a whirlwind!

I had the ARBP chat a while ago, and it went really well. Over 20 people showed up, and the hour long Q & A ended up lasting over two hours. I'm always happy to talk shop though, so it was a blast. Heck, some people even stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, coming all the way from Africa just to chat!

The book has been going really well. Amazon has been a bit... different... to work with, but as I get more used to dealing with them, I think things will go better. The book was listed as out of stock for ages because of a shipping snafu that we're still trying to rectify. But at least they got the new shipment of books and it's back in stock!

I went deer hunting last weekend with my dad. When I live in the area, I try to go with him every year -- but I've not actually carried a gun since I was about 15. This year I decided to try actually hunting again, and it's been fun. Unfortunately, it's also been exasperating since we're not seeing any deer. In fact, thus far the only deer either of us has seen was the one that strolled through the driveway while our guns were 10 yards away from both of us! We were outside, eating lunch and BSing -- not even remotely trying to be quiet. And a doe walked right in front of us... go figure! I told dad that I may hunt from the comfort of the cabin since that appears to be the only place we're seeing em! ;-P I'll be going up again this weekend, and really hope one of us gets a deer. I love venison. ;-)

Elissa and I ended up having to buy a new car this past week. Her 95 Escort needs a new heater core and we're not interested in putting that kind of labor into the car. So we got a 2007 Pontiac Vibe, and love it. We wanted another station wagon because they're so handy, and this one worked out perfect. 35 mpg, tons of cargo room, and I got it for a steal! And then the truck died. It's in the shop, being worked on for the past week... but it's looking like it's going to be a pretty spendy repair bill for it. Don't you love how car troubles seem to come in twos? I sure don't. But the truck is still in good enough shape where repairing it makes sense, so repair it I shall. The exhaust manifold's actuator rod broke and the PCM died. I was actually pretty lucky the vehicle was still in a drivable state when I got it in to the shop.

Life at 4D is going well. I've been switching gears off of my previous project, and starting to work on something I find a bit more exciting. I'm not certain how much of either project I can talk about at this point though. But I may babble on about it now and then regardless. :-P