It's been a horribly stressful week since my last update. My mom's in the hospital, she's still pretty sick, but is a lot better than she was. I took some time off work to stay with my grandmother while my mom's in the hospital, and I was supposed to be back to work by this AM. On my way home last night, I stopped to fill up my car, and discovered that the gas was coming out as fast as it was going in. Of course this was 8:30 PM on a Friday. And no where near home. One crumb of comfort - it happened the next town over from where I have family, and my cousin Kyler came and rescued me. My aunt and uncle have been on vacation for about a month, so he was glad for the company. We stayed up late talking about outdoorsy stuff, games, women and gaming, game design and mechanics, Firefly, anime, watched How to Train Your Dragon, and I watched him play a couple of levels of Sony Battle Royale before I had to call it a night. We continued the coversation the next morning, and he gave me some tips on how to use my DSLR (yes, Joe, I appreciate that you keep offering, but it makes more impact on my brain when I have it right in front of me). And he drove me back to my grandmother's this afternoon.
Playing: started playing Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse last week. Didn't get far, but enjoyed the little bit I played.
Watching: How to Train Your Dragon, The Eagle (mediocre movie on Netflix about a young Roman centurion in Briton out to restore his family's honor. I slept through half of it and didn't really feel like I'd missed much), Supernatural, and older seasons of The Amazing Race on Hulu Plus. I'm also really enjoying the current story arc in Agents of SHIELD.
Reading: Brought a bunch of books from my pile of shame down with me to my gramma's. Just as well, as it appears I'm going to be stranded for a bit. Read A Clockwork Orange last week, and I have Insurgent (book 2 of the Divergent trilogy) with me to finish, as well as Stormdancer (a steampunk novel in a fuedal Japan sort of setting). I found Stormdancer, which I started several months ago, under a pile of stuff on a chair when I was looking for something else. Bunch of other books that I'd started and haven't finished in that same pile. Oops. Time for spring cleaning, I think.
Listening: On the trip down here, I listened to some older Madonna albums, Bruce Molsky (Appalachian-style fiddler and singer), Social D, and Midnight Oil. I forgot my box of CDs at my cousin's, but I can get them when I go back through. Also went to my friends' gig in Portland (Maine, not Oregon) last Monday.
Ranger Stuff: Not much, really, as I've been gone from the park since last Saturday because of my regular days off, a holiday, my mom's illness, and my car crapping out. Did have a flock of yellow-shafted flickers (a species of ground-feeding woodpecker) hang out in my front yard for a bit, and two of them were doing this cool little dance. Not sure if it was two males doing some sort of territorial display or if was a male and a female doing some sore of courtship ritual. Unfortunately, the camera that does video was in the car and the flickers were between it and me.
So there's my week in review. Hopefully, my car doesn't end up costing more than I have in the bank, my mom feels better soon, and I can go home to my cat, my job, my own bed and my consoles soon.
aw, I'm sorry things have been rough. That really sucks about your car. Is it going to be expensive to fix. Everytime I see a Suburu commercial or someone mentions the brand I think of you. 
I also hope your mom feels better. Watching my mom get sick this past year was really hard.
Matt, I'm sure hoping the car isn't going to be expensive. It could vary from something as simple as a leak in the fuel line to something as complicated and expensive as a crack in the tank. I love my Subaru, it's a good car for those of us who live in snowy, icy places, and it's a station wagon that thinks it's a sports car :)
Mom's still physically very sick, but mentally, she's perked up a lot. Thanks for the good thoughts :)
Well I can certainly commiserate with the car problems except that yours seems worse than mine.
Positive thoughts to your mum okay?
I really need to finish all the Sam and Max episodes I have. I love the humour in those games.
Could be something as simple as a rotted-out fuel line. Whatever it is, it wasn't happening on Wednesday when my totally amazing and trust-worthy mechanics had it up on the lift swapping my snows for my summer tires (or tyres, if you prefer).
Thanks for the positive thoughts, Peter. We appreciate them.
I know how you feel about car trouble; I actually have both a bad rack&pin and a busted gasket it turns out; but it's cool you got to hang out with family. When you said you talked about women and gaming it reminded me of an article I saw on Facebook today ... that I will message you should you want to read cause quite frankly I don't want to read more blogs about it on here. It's still a conversation needing to be had, but since I come here to relax and shut my brain off, that horse is dead to me. lol
And honestly, it's probably for the best that you don't trust my advice on DSLR at this point. I haven't had one in my hands for some time now and with the expenses I'm expecting in the near future .... yeeeeeaaaahhhh. lol
Playing: Cary recommended I get Ridge Racer 64, so if I see it I'll play my own personal Cary recommendation as well. Of course, I'm playing Okamiden, which was his favorite 2011 game, so that counts too I think. I still need to play Beyond Good & Evil as per your recommendation.
Watching: I think I'll catch up on House of Cards today ... you got me beat. lol
Reading: I still need to read past chapter one of Divergent, but what I really want to read is The Fault in Our Stars, as its Google Books preview was hilarious.
Listening: I like that Social D and Midnight Oil appear in the same sentence. 
I've actually been listening to Stone Cold Steve Austin's podcast, in which he hilariously talks about wrestling field rats chewing up his ranch equipment.
Ranger stuff: Awesome.
Hope all goes and is well.
My cousin recently graduated from RIT with a degree in game design (or something similar) and he wanted my take on the issue of women and gaming, otherwise it wasn't something I would have brought up. You've read my take, so no need to rehash it here. I am somewhat curious now about the article, so feel free to message it to me. Depending on how old it is, I may have already some across it, but like I said, now you've got me curious.
I loved Okamiden, I played it around the same time as Cary, I think, or shortly after. And after his mention of Ridge Racer 64, I've added that one to my list, too.
ive been wondering about The Eagle..i'll avoid that flic now!
Dan, it wasn't bad, it just wasn't great. Not like Valhalla Rising, now that was a crappy movie. Two hours of my life I will never ever get back.
Ouch. I hope the good weather brings some good luck to you soon!
Things were going on a fairly even keel there for a while. Sigh. But I have been able to spend some quality time with the family that I might not have taken time to do otherwise.
My best wishes to you and your mom. =/
After this winter I totally know where you're coming from with the car bullshit!
Thans, Kate. And my car is normally so reliable, so whenever something like this happens, it's kind of a shock.
This is half still shots and half video. No sign of the male here though.
"Hey chickadees, I'm home. BARF!"
The flicker with the black mustache is the male. Adult females don't have the mustache. It's a cool vid, though.
Good to know.
I had to look it up myself to figure out whether the birds were courting or being territorial. It was two males being territorial and a female looking unimpressed by the whole show.
Good to hear that your mom is getting better but BOOO goes out to having car trouble, but good stuff because you got to spend time with some family and have good conversation.
Love SHIELD, I want to check out the Divergent books but I really need to finish the Game of Thrones books (it's getting good so I'm "reading" audiobook style as fast as the iPod lets me).
The first Divergent book is better than the second.
The car trouble was a good thing in its way. My gramma got sick on Sunday and I had to call the ambulance for her Monday morning. As of yesterday afternoon, she was still in the hospital.
I finished Tales of Graces f a couple days ago. Now I'm playing some of the extra stuff. I don't know what console game I want to start next. I'm also playing Dragon Quest 4 (DS). I'm about 15 hrs into it.
I always have that "Oh hey! I'm done, now what do I play?!" feeling after I finish a game, too.
That sucks about your car, hope it isn't a huge drain on your funds and doesn't take that long to get fixed.
I may not be eating again until next Wednesday...Got it back late Weds. afternoon (they promised me Tuesday), but not early enough that I could drive home and get some rest before going to work on Thursday.
That is the worst to have so many misfortunes all in a row. Hope you get them taken care of with the ones that you can.
