Let’s delve into the realm of the spooky for a couple of music tracks, shall we?
“Rawhead Rex – End Credits”: this is from a gory, not-nearly-as-good-as-the-short-story movie from the ’80s called “Rawhead Rex”. This music at the end is perfect for a Halloween soundtrack or playlist!
“Poltergeist: The Legacy”: this was the theme, starting with Season 2 (if I recall correctly), of the TV series from the late 1990s.
- October 12th and 13th is a weird day-couplet: the 13th is my Dad’s birthday but the 12th was my Mom’s (she died in 2005). Happy Birthday, both!
- One of the best features of a cell phone that I finally started using a few weeks ago is the ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode. I don’t know if it’s true on all phones, but on the Galaxy S8+, you can customize the mode to turn off some (or all) alerts, messages, notifications, and alarms. That includes everything from text message alerts to phone call ringtones, calendar alerts to LED notification lights. I have about a 6-7 hour block where I will not hear or see ANYTHING. While it hasn’t eliminated all distractions, it has helped me stay asleep past 1:00, and that is a major victory.
- I pre-ordered the board game “Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate” about 10 days ago; it arrived on Tuesday. It combines most of the elements of my current favorite board game (“Betrayal at House on the Hill”) with the setting of my favorite PC video game (“Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn”). Can’t wait to play it with my Game Night group, some time in the next few weeks!
- I am slowly watching my way through “The Flash” series; I am currently on Episode 9 of Season 3. I will probably write more on it later but for now:
- WHY CAN’T TEAM FLASH OPEN THEIR MOUTHS AND COMMUNICATE?!? A lot of problems could have been solved/avoided if someone had said: “Hey! This just happened to me – what’s going on?”
- Barry Allen should be slapped once per episode, for now on. His stubbornness is ridiculous. Maybe [villain that I won’t name because spoilers!] was right when he called Allen “the true villain of this story”?
- Cisco Ramon may be one of my favorite TV characters! His interactions with “Harrison Wells” are hilarious, especially in Season 2!
- I should buy the “Wonder Woman” DVD or Blu-Ray and watch it before the “Justice League” movie comes out next month.
- It’s easier said than done: I need to remember to take a ‘break’ every now and then, even if it’s just for an afternoon. My staycation last month was OK but I ended up spending half of the week studying and doing HW. Studying and HW has been the vast majority of my non-work time since that vacation, also, although I’ve had some pretty fun Saturdays in the last 4 weeks (headlined by my first ever trip to a drive-in).
Speaking of HW: Midterm Week has been absolutely exhausting (mentally); however, barring a collapse with my Systems Development work, I should end this week in pretty decent shape in all 4 classes:
- Database Administration II: I got an 86.7% on the chapter exam that doubled as a midterm, and have a ‘B’ (83.5%) in the class. An early ‘0’ is hurting the average but an 88.9% Exam average is helping. I still have HW problems to turn in, and Discussion Board posts (ugh!!) to turn in by Sunday.
- Systems Security I: I got an 80% on the exam, have a ‘B’ (82.5%) in the class. The big looming grade is the Final, 1/3 of our grade. Got some work to do, to get this grade to an ‘A’.
- Telecommunications I (“On Demand” class): This class irkes me… and it’s my own doing. I got a 100% on the latest chapter exam but a very slow start and 2 early bad grades on Chapter Review Questions results in my ‘C+’ (78.5%) in the class. Thankfully, there are plenty of assignments left to not only get to a ‘B’, but to get up to an ‘A’, by late November. There are still 2 assignments that I should get turned in by Friday (with “On Demand”, there are no set dates to turn in Chapter assignments; you just have to turn in everything 2 weeks before Finals Week, if you are paying for the class via Financial Aid), plus another chapter exam to take.
- Systems Development I: there was no Midterm, thankfully; I currently have a ‘B’ (87.0%) in the class. There’s an assignment still to be graded, another assignment to turn in by Monday, and a 3rd assignment – Discussion Board posts! – to complete for, hopefully, partial credit.
- I think I had posted it before but this is my first semester where I’m working 40+ hours a week, while being a full-time student. For those who have done this before (and have done more than this), I raise my glass to you! This is possibly the toughest school-work combo I’ve had, even harder than the 2005 full-time school/30-hours-a-week work/band combo. The big issue is time. I simply haven’t had the available time to get HW done before work; I can do some stuff at work but, with most of our internet locked down, I can’t listen to video lectures during slow times at work, for example. nevertheless, I will continue to try to find ways to make things work!
Health-wise:
- My INR readings have been a tad high, but still good, the last 4 readings. This one was 3.4: in the 3.0-3.5 range that my doctor wants me in, but probably a little high, since Thursdays are the lowest INR numbers of the week for me.
- My weight is slowly dropping again but I think I’ve finally turned the corner with my War On Toning. Some pants are more comfortable now (compared to a couple of months ago), while a couple of pairs of shorts are actually really loose. A pair of gym/marching shorts that bought 10 years ago, nearly fell off on a bus; a long T-shirt and a very long drawstring saved me from further embarrassment lol.
- The right foot Plantar pain is gone! The left foot Achilles pain is still there; the right foot Heel Spurs pain is hit-and-miss now. The pain from a fractured wrist a few years ago has stopped by to say ‘hello again!’, however.
That’s about all that’s new from The Terrordome. I still do a podcast with J.R. on “Podicus Wrecks” on Sunday afternoons and work at TRIMARC is going well. The apartment and car searches have been frustrating but I’ve slowed down the car search and have cranked back up the apartment search.
I have an idea on a post called “Lucky One” that I hope to finish in a few days – stay tuned!
The Nexus 