It's here... twenty weeks. I'm officially halfway through my pregnancy.
This also marks a momentous occasion - I'm not that ill anymore, and I actually got up before 8AM and was able to stay up past 8PM.
Here's some things I've learned along the way.
1. When I tell people "I'm pregnant", it conjurs up warm, soft, fuzzy images of a mother and child, soft blankets, cooing, and ah-ing. People's eyes get filled with nostalgia as they are reminded of when their own children were babies, and the world is once again filled with wondrous possibility.
If I instead change it to "I've been impregnated", it sounds like something from Aliens.
2. I'm not usually one to "get the dropsies". However, now that I am having trouble even getting my socks on in the morning, I seem to drop everything and have to find new and interesting ways to pick them up.
3. Much like lions in the African wilderness have only one focus throughout the day - "where is my next meal coming from?" - so do I.
4. There are some froofy, froofy things at Babies R' Us.
5. I don't mind people coming up and patting my belly, like some people do. But what's really starting to get to me is the people that say unproductive things like, "Your life is going to change." My friend April came up with a great response for me - "Nah, I plan on selling it on eBay."
I've been inundated with requests to see belly pics, so without further ado, here they are some in order.
But first, the little one. Our doctor added the note, he has our sense of humor! The baby rolled over halfway through the ultrasound today, prompting Matt to say "Look honey, it must get that from you. It's probably stealing the covers from someone as we speak!"
Magic: The Gathering... the lost art of fun
Posted by Matt in
The year was 1994 and I was off to college. I had a lot of fun my freshman year but what truly defined it was a little card game I was introduced to in my first couple of weeks there. The card came was Magic: The Gathering and it would be the second most important thing to me my freshman year. It actually started out as “the” most important thing and remained as such for about 6-7 months. In my time of learning the complexities of the game, another interest that would become more important caught my eye… but that is another story. Besides, I married that interest so if you want to know more, I am sure a trip through our archives will give you a good background.
As time went on, we moved off campus and the responsibility of school became a bit more important. It was easy to Balance Magic and Careful Study in the beginning but by the end of my junior year, I had switched from a Pharmacy major to Computer Science. That brought in a world of hurt because every gen-ed was filled. I had core classes the rest of my time at URI (3 years). With the lack-luster Magic expansions coming out and the new found love of programming, I had a new place to focus my attention. Also, by 97, Magic tournaments were becoming more popular. That was all well and good but it brings me to why Magic has become a lost art.
Now maybe it is just in my area but the conventions I have gone to and the tournament I participated in recently, nothing has changed. Sure the cards are different but the deck concepts are over 10 years old. I played against the counter deck. That is a deck that is purely designed to stop you from doing anything and when you are unable to retaliate, they bring out their forces and stomp on you. There is also the burn deck. That deck is designed to deal as much direct damage to you in the shortest amount of time and of course the weenie deck. At least there, there is a bit of thought in its design and some variety. Ultimately, the decks were cookie-cutter decks with well known concepts documented extensively on the net. The conversations at the tournament were centered around “how fast” they got the win but not about the true essence of what made Magic great… FUN.
I am not saying that playing in tournaments is not fun or that you are not supposed to win. It just doesn’t float my boat. At the time I started playing magic, tournaments were different. Pre-made Magic decks were not purchasable and Al Gore was inventing the internet. A tournament consisted of the then few year old concepts of burn decks and counter decks but so many other “ideas”. Some were not good or slow to get going and others would wow you with combo’s like Festival and Siren’s Call (ya, it is a well known combo now but imagine the surprise when you first see it). Also, people did not make a living off of playing Magic. When I buy one of the “pre-fab” decks, they usually come with a card of a “Professional Magic Player” and their stats. Some of em make over $200,000 just playing in tournaments! To the semi-pro’s and the novice players, it becomes something to aspire to. What could be better then getting paid to play a game. Somewhere along the lines, it becomes more about the win and that is what clouded the fun.
It wasn’t until recently that I began to play Magic again. It felt good. Dusting off the old binders brought back memories and my original “Revised/Unlimited” binder still had a 60 card deck written in the cover (one of my first decks ever). An old school, Sengir Vampire, Nettling Imp, Royal Assassin deck with some blue mixed in for Counterspells, Unstable Mutations, and Flying Men. I won many a game back then with that deck but with the power brought in with the new cards today, they would offer some fierce competition. I think that “power” in the new cards has revitalized the game because at the time I slowed down playing, the new expansions like Dark and Fallen Empires were lacking luster and Ice Age was good but the fad of “ice covered lands” wore off quickly. At least they reprinted the Icy Manipulator which found its way into that Black and Blue (Bruise) deck above.
I have Bill and April (really April) to thank for the revitalization of Magic with me. And of course, Brian who once he heard I was playing again, brought back to me what I showed him freshman year, tactics. The student became the teacher. 9-10 years away from Magic, except for the occasional game, left me in the dark about a lot of things. I did not know just how much power returned to the game over the decade but the past 6 months has revealed a lot. Slivers are, for lack of a better word, insane! I have not yet made a sliver deck but I have played against a few. The concept behind slivers are that they are a creature, who when brought into play, adds bonuses to all slivers in play. There are many different types of slivers that provide a multitude of bonuses so what looks like an innocent little creature to start quickly becomes a force to be reckoned with later in the game. Bill has already become known for his mastery of slivers and every week when we get together, there is mention of if he is going to be playing a sliver deck or not.
April has once again found the fun in white and green. Two of her favorite colors to play back in college and with the new sets, she has found the joy of life, creatures, and the pursuit of destruction. Matt & Jody, Bill’s sister and brother-in-law, have also been bitten by the Magic bug along with Jess. We play old school. We remember that the concept that started the game was two mages, each with spells and creatures that they can summon when they have enough resources to tap and cast them. We don’t focus on speed and the win as much as we focus on strategy. Some might say we “play nice” but we just play to have fun. The tournament decks that work so well one-on-one no longer have a place in the group games. There, we need to focus on surviving vs. multiple opponents and a land destruction deck can only do so much.
Well, it is Wednesday and I do have to think of some deck concepts for this evening so I should be on my way. Also, with Brian and friends coming to visit in April (the month silly, not Bill’s wife), I have far more thinking to do. He and his friends have stayed true to the essence of what makes Magic great. I have only heard a few words to describe the many decks they have constructed but the one that first comes to mind every time I think of it is “BRUTAL”. Lots of thinking ahead indeed!
I know it's late in the game, but sometimes acts of desperation lead to the best creativity. At least that's what I'll keep telling myself!
We all know the dilemma for R5 users (and yes, there are still R5 users out there). According to IBM's technotes, there is no timezone information stored in the fields on the calendar documents themselves, so there is no way to differentiate documents created BEFORE the system was patched vs. AFTER.
Well, I think there is.
I just gave up my computer repair business of four years, however, it seems to have it's advantages sometimes. Those Microsoft patches are durn tricky sometimes. In fact, sometimes you have to outright remove it manually, including all traces that it was ever installed (so you can reinstall it!).
It's those traces that are what interests me. All Microsoft updates have "KB" numbers. If you want to know what they are, you can go to Add/Remove Programs and click on the "Show updates" check box at the top. They'll all show up in the list. You can then cross-reference it to the technote on Microsoft's site, and it will tell you what it changed.
Whenever it installs an update, it puts a log file in your root Windows directory, such as "KB931836.log", which just happens to be the DST update patch for Windows XP. (Of course, I'm not sure about other Operating Systems, but you could look those KBs up if you had to.)
So, what does that tell us? When the log file was created, the patch was installed. If there's no log file present, the user is probably not patched at all!
For my R5 users, because time is so short, I simply created a view for them with all their appointments that fall between March 11-April 1, and October 20-November 4. (I TRIED so hard to get repeating appointments in the view, but gave up after too many hours spent on it to mention. So buyer beware, repeating meetings will NOT show up in the view below)
I then created an action button in the view for users to click on. They select a document in the view (one of the docs that falls in the extra weeks), and click the button. The button will tell them whether the calendar entry was created PRE operating system patch or POST update, and to update (or not) accordingly. It will even tell them if they don't appear to have the OS update at all.
Because time was short, I did it this way and made it so the users have to change the time back one hour themselves. If you like, you can easily transfer this code to be an agent that automatically will update only the affected documents. Of course, remember that it has to run client-side, as this is purely a relationship between the documents and a single computer! But we work with what we have. :-)
Enough talking, on with the code!
To make a short story long, the code checks the creation date of the calendar entry against the install date of the patch.
Oh, by the way - MANY thanks to Susan, our lovely NotesGoddess for taking the time out to help me with my R5 questions.
Sub Click(Source As Button)
'Declarations
Dim db As NotesDatabase
Dim collection As NotesDocumentCollection
Dim doc As NotesDocument
Dim session As New NotesSession
Set db = session.CurrentDatabase
Set collection = db.UnprocessedDocuments
For i = 1 To collection.Count
Set doc = collection.GetNthDocument( i )
If Cdat(doc.Created) <= CDat(ReturnDateOfPatch) Then
Msgbox "This document was created BEFORE your operating system was patched. " + Chr$(10) + "Confirm this appointment, you may have to move it up an hour!"
Else
Msgbox "This document was created AFTER your operating system was patched. " + Chr$(10) + "Confirm this appointment, but it's probably correct!"
End If
Next
End Sub
******
Function ReturnDateOfPatch As String
On Error Goto Handler
Dim fileName As String, fileNum As Integer
fileNum% = Freefile()
fileName$ = "C:\Windows\KB931836.log"
Open fileName$ For Input As fileNum%
Close fileNum%
ReturnDateOfPatch = Filedatetime(fileName$)
Exit Function
Handler:
Msgbox "Your operating system does not appear to have the necessary update needed to accomodate DST. Please use Microsoft Update to get the required updates!"
Exit Function
End Function
It's been busy these past few months. Being preggo is certainly keeping things interesting! The belly is big, I'll have to get a picture up soon.
I'm 17 weeks now, almost halfway through! I'm tired, very tired all the time. This is making me very behind in work, as I used to work during the day, and then take care of development projects and writing assignments at night.
Well, now that I'm pretty much useless after 7PM, I've lost a lot of working time. I may have to let go of some obligations at this point, but we'll see. In addition to all the jobs I have, I'm also a chairperson for an Advisory Council for a local non-profit organization, which takes up quite a bit of time.
My family has been wonderful, helping me get things done.
Of course, I still haven't driven in Eloise since January; the smell of the "leatherette" interior makes me so nauseous I had to switch cars with Matt!
But it's been fun so far, and the fun is only going to increase!
