The Insert Title Here Post

Ever try to use your brain only to find a busy signal, or worse yet, an answering machine? That’s how I’ve felt so far this week. Fortunately for me it is only Tuesday evening and the rest of the week awaits. Life has seemed hectic lately, yet I think it is only my perception of things rather than it being busy.

Part of the vapidity I currently suffer from has much to do with being overly tired. I’ve been pushing my limits again and finding out that they have become more restrictive. Not encouraging, but I work with what I’m given. This time around, I made myself fairly ill the middle of last week by really overdoing things. Still, it could be worse.

The last two Sunday’s have been particularly interesting due to changes at church. Bidding farewell to those you are fond of is always a melancholy things, usually a little while after when it hits you that you won’t be seeing them around anymore. In this case, an older couple moving out to the West to be nearer the kids and grandchildren marks the end of an era to me.

Gilbert and Sylvia are both true characters, especially her. If you have ever known a gal at your church who has absolutely no concept of personal boundaries while simultaneously having a huge heart, she is the ultimate final form of such a woman. Her obsessive love of all things German might be the first impression, but it is her still girlish enthusiasm for all things and people she likes that stands out. So far the couple haven’t killed each other after about sixty years of marriage, so they can safely be declared a success.

Best thing about the couple is that you can say things like that around them. I’ll miss them.

Comings and goings are part of life, so an all too brief visit from some dear friends to the ward this Sunday left me wanting more. Leon and Carla I count as some of my dearest friends and I really need to go visit them before the year is gone. They were here because their oldest child, Scott, wanted to visit old tromping grounds before he goes on his mission to Brazil.

How do these kids get so old so fast?

It seems like many things are making me feel old at the moment. Realizing that Star Trek: Deep Space 9 debuted twenty years ago was a bit of a shock. There was something that was ten years old that surprised me, but I can’t remember what. Maybe the memory really is the first thing to go when you get old.

Meanwhile, I’ve been released from being a ward missionary and called to be a Gospel Doctrine teacher. The current teacher and I will be alternating Sunday’s so this should be fun. For some years now I’ve been teaching in Elders Quorum and Gospel Essentials (for beginners & investigators) which means I’ll be able to go deeper into the Gospel. Not only is that fun, teaching is the best way to learn.

Once again I feel indebted to the kindness of friends. Thanks to one, I was able to make it to a gaming session that felt like the first one in years. It has only been months, of course. Nice to get out of the house even if I was shaky to the point of worrying people. Amazingly, my character survived the campaign. Not used to that.

Ever since I installed the OPA2111K on the Xonar DSX soundcard I’ve been listening to a lot of music. It is stunning how much detail is coming out in the various tunes along with how expansive the sound is. There are times that I’m surrounded by the music despite it being unaltered stereo. Wonderful.

I hadn’t realized there were high pitched tones from a synth keyboard in Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” before. Discoveries like that makes listening to almost everything in my collection a new experience again. Perhaps that’s why I’m feeling so old, there is a lot of nostalgia to be had in playing music listened to for decades.

However, my headphones can’t match the speakers anymore and I’m hoping to get some money together for an AKG K 240 (probably Studio rather than Monitor version) set of headphones. Big problem is that I’ll need a headphone amplifier to get the best sound out of them even if I go for the 55 ohm version. First world problem there.

Hooked up an old Logitech Force Feedback Wingman 3D to try to fly in Battlefield 3. So far it hasn’t gone well, but that is one buggy game. I need to install a flight sim to see how well it still works, not to mention whether or not I remember anything about flying. Pretty amazing that there are drivers for Windows 7 64bit available given how old the joystick is.

Need to get another movie reviewed and have one in mind, an old favorite that isn’t anything brilliant – and I just realized how old it is and feel like an antique. Sigh.