Coming Out Of Hibernation...

Okay... I've been away for a while. My apologies for that, but all the drama bombs I had spoken about previously pretty much paled in comparison to what has been happening lately... A great deal has happened as of late, much of which has had my guts tied up in knots.

I wish I could put things in nutshells to explain, but most of them are not short stories... Here are some highlights, though...

• Mostly due to the two of us being very much alike, I almost completely destroyed my relationship with my son. It is on the mend now, but it is not out of the woods, yet...
• We have another game store joining us in the confines of C-U. It is a franchise of a chain not known to be amiable to their competition. In this case I know one of the franchisees on a cursory basis, and we welcome healthy, friendly competition, as it makes the scene better as a whole. This does give us three game stores in the area, and I've never known the local scene to support that many for too terribly long. We shall see...
• In addition to trying to fix my Champions game, I am gearing up to run yet another set of games in my home-brew fantasy setting, Tai'eres. Yeah, because I have TONS of spare time lying around for that...
• One of my ex-roommates passed away in his sleep at the age of 52. We haven't been close for a while, but his passing was a blunt reminder of my own mortality. Stupid mortality...

In the middle of everything, I have become a big ball of stress, which makes me very prone to a heart attack. I have had heart issues all my life, and I can pretty much recognize when my heart is prime to start giving me problems. I am not where I was roughly fifteen years ago, but I am at a close enough stage where I could will myself into a heart attack should I desired to.

I did that a couple of times as an adolescent, with one time requiring defibrillation. I can say this with the certainty that comes from personal experience... Avoid being defibrillated at all costs. It sucks the high, hard one. Basically, every muscle in your body is electrically forced to contract simultaneously at the moment of shock, and let me tell you... That. Shit. Hurts.

So, as I have typed this, and writing has become catharsis, I have come to the resolution to care about only what I can control, which is the direction I take socially with my family and friends, how I react to adverse situations that require my attention, and the direction our business takes. Beyond that, well...

...it just isn't worth the stress and the energy...

peace... GopherDave

Checking In...

Another day, another thing full of stress... but it's minor stress, so  it's okay.

I spoke with the player whom was most affected by the darkness I instigated in the Champions game this past Saturday. While I have a way to return him an untainted version of the character, he still has reservation about it, so he would like to bring a new character. It's totally understandable to me, and this is a mistake I will learn from. The idea I had, though, can be modified to bring in his new character *AND* lighten up the tone of the current campaign, so, it's still viable, and is going to be used.

Tomorrow will mark the 22nd anniversary of my marriage to the lovely, Loquacious one. We've been through a lot of things in our lives together, both good and bad, but I cannot think of another person I'd rather weather those storms or bask in the sunshine with. Loquacious is a large part of what made me who I am today, and I am all the better for it. Love you, sweetness... now and always.

-- GopherDave (a.k.a. The Dude)

Birthday Wishes...

Gods, could I use a lint brush or what?

Normally, I use this spot to pontificate on various things. Usually, these things are trivial and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Today, it's not...

Today, I, GopherDave, would like to wish my darling wife, the beautiful and very special Loquacious, a fantastic 40th birthday.

There are a lot of words I could put here, but I am not her in the writing department, so I'll just leave it at this...

Happy Birthday, Sweetness... I love you more than mere words could ever express...

-- Dave

One Step At A Time...

Okay... Two days in a row has GOT to mean something, doesn't it? Although, yesterday damn near killed me as the temps went way above the forecast and hit the 97 degrees Fahrenheit area. Today isn't supposed to be as bad, but we'll see.

Got no gaming done last night, but I did help Loquacious with dishes. Seriously, we had all fallen behind in household stuff, and she was the only one trying to do anything about it. Bless her heart, she was doing her best, but she was getting frustrated that no one around her was helping, and the work was piling up faster than she could keep up. So, I did what I should have been doing in the first place and pitched in. Thing is, Loquacious deserves better than that from the kids and I, and last night was a humbling reminder. I've got a very special lady in my life that I have been married to for almost twenty-one years. I shouldn't take her for granted...

Other stuff is also going on, most notably Skribl's car got hit on Friday. No one was hurt. In fact he wasn't even in it. The car was parked on the street and someone backed out of our driveway and hit it when they did so. It's damaged enough that the driver's door will not open and is thus deemed "unsafe to drive". The person who hit the car is a friend of the family, and left us their information. Unfortunately, their insurance company is being difficult in certain areas, and nothing has really moved forward yet. It's frustrating.

At the store, we seem to have corralled all the virus issues on the point-of-sale machine, but we're going to keep it discreet and offline from here on out. To help with Internet issues, we went and bought a nice tablet. It's good and it will do what we need it to, but it is slower than we'd like, and doesn't quite have the full functionality we like. So we bought a store laptop as well. Now, two people can check card prices at once, and we have a machine that can run the ubiquitous WotC-designed tourney software as well, so we are not as reliant on MY personal laptop. We probably should have just gone with the laptop from the beginning, but we sometimes get hijacked to check card values while games are happening, and the tablet allows us that portability.

Until next time...

-- GopherDave

Twenty Years...

Twenty years ago today, I married the most amazing woman I have ever known.

We were quite young when it all went down. I was 24 and she was 18, and we were as passionate as two people could be. For better or worse, that passion came out in both love and anger. We have loved madly and fought insanely. Through it all, however, we’ve stayed together. I know there have been times when we each have wondered “what the hell am I doing here with this crazy person?”

I know a few of the reasons she has stayed with me, but the primary reasons I’ve stuck around are that she gets me and I love her. I love her smile… her laugh…her passion… the sheer JOY with which she tackles things at times. She makes me laugh, and look at life in a positive way, which something I have a difficult time doing.

Looking over our marriage, while there are some days I’d rather forget, there are a BUNCH of days that I’ll cherish forever…

• The birth of our son… after 36+ hours of labor… she was absolutely exhausted… and incredibly amazing, and so was he…
• The day our daughter was born… Less labor, more fun moments… also amazing…
• The day we bought the store… I would have never done it without her love and support…
• The first time I took her to see the Indigo Girls… Her joy was infectious…
• When I took her to see his royal badness, Prince… Her all-time favorite musician… To be the one to give her that moment was a privilege…
• The first time I bought her flowers… I’m not romantic, and we had been married for over fifteen years when I just did it out of the blue… the look on her face was amazing… I should do that more…
• The weekend we spent at Six Flags early in our marriage… We had such fun…
• Our 15^th anniversary celebration, where she played hostess for about 50 of our friends… bouncing from person to person… genuinely happy to talk and laugh them… and just being genuine as a person… My wife is real and honest about who she is and what she’s about, and that honesty absolutely shone that day…
• I remember when we got “the letter”… and how much we laughed and howled about it… and then almost caused a second letter to be sent…
• The day I flat-lined in the hospital… While it’s not wholly positive moment, I do remember coming to with her squeezing my hand until it’s blue. I came back for her…
• The day we were married… I didn’t have my glasses on, but I could tell she was gorgeous from a mile away, and her getting closer didn’t change that perception one bit. She was absolutely radiant…

Loquacious makes every day an adventure full of love, passion, and honesty, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  =)

I adore you my gorgeous, beautiful, vivacious, loquacious angel. Even though I don’t show it often enough, I cherish you immensely. You are a better woman than I deserve…

Happy 20^th Anniversary, Darling. Here’s hoping to many, many more…

Love, David