For no apparent reason:

Click to see chart

I guess I'm mostly normal. Whatever :-P

Most people who know me know this already, but I'm no longer a resident of Melbourne, FL. I have moved to Kent, WA. It was quite an ordeal, trucking about 7000 pounds of stuff approximately 3400 miles. Here's some fun highlights and statistics:

1. The move took seven days, and to avoid excessive danger traversing mountains we routed through South Dakota on I-90. This was a good decision, but because of the Sturgis motorcycle rally (last year's attendance numbers were over 400k) lodging was difficult (and expensive) to procure.

2. Budget may have been the cheapest option, but they gave us a shit old truck that couldn't go over 60 without sacrificing steeply on fuel economy. It also had a governor that prevented it from accelerating over 70 mph. Maybe that's standard for the industry, I don't know I've only rented a moving truck on this one occasion.

3. My car, a 2002 Toyota Prius was driven along with the truck. Driving at these slower speeds gave superior fuel economy. The Prius consumed 59.6 gallons of unleaded gasoline for that entire distance. The fuel cost was $205.71. That works out to about 59 miles / gallon.

4. The 24' diesel moving truck was (unsurprisingly) quite a bit more "thirsty." It consumed 378.4 gallons of diesel fuel at a cost of $1431.01. This calculates to about 9 miles / gallon.

5. I am a servant for a domestic feline (anyone who keeps a cat knows you don't really own them). We were concerned that our little "princess" would be very distressed and difficult on this journey. We were lucky, and she adapted surprisingly well to the constantly changing environment.

To wrap up, I'm happy with the move. I'm closer to family and I've always loved the pacific northwest's climate.

Sure, why not. It's one of those meme diseases that FA seems to have caught recently. Comment below requesting a response from me and I'll post stuff back.

1. Tell you something I'll learn about you by looking at your FA page for 13 seconds.

2. Tell you which color you remind me of.

3. Tell you my biggest memory of you.

4. Tell you what Cartoon character you remind me of.

5. Ask you something I've always wondered about you, and your answer has to be as vague as possible to keep the suspense.

6. Tell you my favorite thing about you.

7. Give you a weird nickname.

8. Tell you what you make me hungry for.

9. Challenge you to post this on your journal.

It took quite a bit of time to get all the (correct) parts together but I got them and after that assembly only took a few hours. I used 1/2 inch polycarbonate which I selected for it's machinability. Also it's tensile and flexural strength is higher than plexiglass. And it doesn't cost much more. The pump is a standard vacuum pump that you can get for air conditioning systems. Hose and brass fitting and pressure gauge are also used for auto air conditioning systems. I used some silicone rubber that I mixed and poured directly on the polycarbonate for the seal. The whole system works great, and there's some photos on Picasa that I posted.

https://picasaweb.google.com/quincy.....eat=directlink

Yeah, I shrunk a marshmallow. May have to "space" some peeps when the time comes around >:-3

I think advantages that I see with this setup are that I can place the lid over any vessel that is airtight and will support the pressure difference, which makes it flexible in application.

Some photos of some cups and pots I made over the past few weeks. I've been taking a pottery class. It's an on-and-off hobby over the years, and it's been seven years since I last threw.

https://picasaweb.google.com/quincy.....owell/Pottery#

http://myfur.net/profile/Quincy

We'll see eh? Maybe it'll flop, maybe it'll do OK. *shrugs*

So I get woken up this morning at 6:50 by my spayed female cat, Harley Quinn. She's in the living room making a terrible ruckus, it sounds like she's in a fight. I get up and go investigate, Harley is at the sliding glass back porch door yelling and hissing at a big tom on the other side. Tom looks pretty big, about 20 lbs and maybe with some Maine Coon in him. Harley is so worked up that she repeatedly charges and attacks the glass separating her from Tom. As I go outside to chase Tom away Harley seems to settle down. When I arrive on the back porch Tom is long gone, but he has left a gift; a dead rodent of some kind (I think it's a mole or vole or other burrowing sort). I take a couple photos of Tom's romantically intended gift and heft it into the undeveloped land behind my house with a shovel. I hope Harley's courtier doesn't come calling anymore, I really don't care to be woken up that way >:-\

One photo of my cat, with two of the afore mentioned dead rodent.
https://picasaweb.google.com/quincy.....17471732418770

Just being silly with the title there..

So, basically I'm back in the USA. It took me a while of searching but I've got a lease on a place now. Melbourne, FL. I've got vague plans on having a small party sometime in January (waiting for the holidays to be over before I do any entertaining).

So a co-worker mentioned this (currently) freeware game I might enjoy. It's called Dwarf Fortress and it's quite fun and unique. The basic idea is your expedition of seven dwarves goes out into the world to establish a new dwarf colony (fortress). So you create a random world, pick a site that looks good to settle, dig into the side of a mountain and start building your new dwarf home.

The game is essentially an extremely complex economic system that you struggle to establish while you fight off challenges that come to attack you. The challenges become increasingly difficult as you hoard an increasing amount of wealth (a very dwarf-like thing to do). As your dwarves dig further and deeper into the earth you're increasingly likely to encounter other kinds of "fun."

The game has a brutally steep learning curve. The point of the game is to loose but have fun doing it. In that process you'll learn more about the game, and do something different and interesting next time.

The game seems to take inspiration from several other games. The economic system seems to be inspired by "The Settlers." The underground digging systems seems to be inspired by "Dungeon Keeper." The fundamental gameplay feel and end goal seems to be inspired by "Nethack." The significant departure from these possible sources of inspiration is that the complexity has been increased by something like a factor of ten or more.

You might like Dwarf Fortress if you enjoy those games I mentioned as possible sources of inspiration. If impressive graphics are your thing I'd recommend you stick with something else. If you can't stand loosing then don't play Dwarf Fortress, you cannot beat / win at Dwarf Fortress in the sense of "You win! Here's a cinematic followed by credits." I suppose if you were really good at the game you could fill the entire map with your civilization... anyway if you've actually read this far and are still interested just Google "dwarf fortress mayday" for a graphically more impressive version of the game than the default distribution. It's all the same gameplay but with a more intuitive to view tileset than the default one. If you actually start getting into it check out Dwarf Therapist. It's a third party program to help you manage your dwarves employment.

So here I am, at "an undisclosed location in SW Asia." This day marks 3 months of working 72 hours a week in high humidity and temperature highs around 115F. From what I hear this is a mild summer, as we haven't been hitting 120F often and haven't once topped 130F. Hopefully I'm not jinxing it here :P

Other than the long hours and hot weather this place has been okay, even fun at times. It's nice to break from my old work routine in many ways. It's been interesting to observe another culture, and sample the cuisine on occasion.

The worst thing really is feeling homesick. I miss my friends back home and look forward to seeing you all this fall and winter. If things work out I'll be back just in time for MFF and I'll spend Thanksgiving with a ferret who is very dear to me.

It looked like an awesome FWA this year, and I enjoyed what little I could make it out to. For me, it sucked because I came down with some cold on the drive to Atlanta and wound up spending most of my time snoozing in the room :-\

Where are you staying?
Atlanta Hilton (con hotel)

Who will you be with?
Daverab, Karri, and maybe a third

Do you do trades?
Do you like extremely bad drawings by people with little natural talent and virtually no skill?

What suits will you have?
Zangoose, maybe a Cherry Coke soda 'roo if I get it done in time.

What is your gender?
Male

How old are you?
28

Can I touch you?
Probably, I'm fairly gregarious.

Can I talk to you?
Sure, I might not talk much but that doesn't mean I'm not enjoying conversation. I'm just a kinda quiet person.

Can I buy you lots of drinks?
No.

Can I give you lots of money?
Maybe..

Can I hug or snuggle with you?
Can you chat me up first?

How tall are you?
5'11"

You look pissed off out of suit can I come up to you?
You may.

Are you nice?
I think so :)

Are you cliquey?
No, but I do have trouble "breaking the ice" as it were so I may seem less sociable than I'd like to be.

Can I stalk you?
I'd really prefer you not stalk me.. if you want to hang out ask.

How long are you going?
Thurs through Monday. Might go to the Aquarium on Monday.

Do you have an artist table?
No artistic talent here :P

Do you like parties?
Sometimes, I'm not a heavy drinker though.

If I see you, how should I get your attention?
I have bad hearing when there's a din of background noize so your best bet is to approach me, waive and say "Hi."