First off I’d like to congratulate MegaSilver on finally losing his dairy cows. It only gets better from there.
I worked on a dairy farm for six months. It was very hard work- when we weren’t milking and mucking and feeding – there was three cowless hours in the afternoon - we were clearing land.
I actually have very pleasant memories of my dairy time. But the memories are false memories- I honestly remember very little due to overwork and not enough rest. It was six months that passed in the blink of an eye. Somnambulistically.

I was very fond of the cows. I even spent a night in the barn with them- I was curious to see what they did at night. It was winter, and rather cold, but the body heat of the cows kept the barn warm enough. The farm was near a saw mill so we used saw dust everywhere in the barn to soak up all that stuff that came out of the cows and calves. So I bedded down in the sawdust. I don’t remember what I expected- it was twenty...

So I had a little heart trouble.... the next step, according to doctors, is the stress test. As if having a heart attack isn’t stressful enough.

If you don’t know the test involves putting the patient (me) on a treadmill while hooked up to monitors. I don’t like hospitals and doctors very much but I was looking forward to this. I’ve never been on a treadmill before. It sounds like fun, don’t you think?

My parents had a neighbour who was having heart trouble. He was an older man. He went for his stress test and died on the treadmill. I supposed if you’re going to have a heart attack, the hospital is the best place to do it. But it might be better not to have the heart attack in the first place.... (was I going to get the same treadmill that had killed my parents’ neighbour? I resolved to look for notches on the side...)

It was a snowy day and because I’m cheap I parked about six blocks away so I didn’t have to pay for parking....

I have happily renewed my site supporter status. As Alias QTip has said, there’s a separation anxiety that comes with being a non-supporter.

It has taken me a little while to renew. I don’t have a credit card and had to rig up some sort of way to pay. That took a little time and then about three I had a heart attack.

Having a heart attack really pissed me off. I am so not-interested in dying. I know I am overworked, over-committed and don’t get enough sleep, but there is a lot of games I haven’t played yet, Scape and otherwise and I don’t want to check out just yet.

This whole losing your job but not today maybe tomorrow is certainly stressful, but as time has passed I have learned to care about it less. I don’t really have any control over it anyway- so I might as well focus on things I like doing. I’ve enjoyed that. Stress is definitely one of my risk factors.

I’m not unhealthy. I’m supposedly slightly...

They have been named the Northern Crusades- Knightly orders and others thirsty for violence and plunder attacked pagans and Eastern Orthodox Christians, trying to spread Catholic swords throughout medieval Russia.

You have probably heard of the Teutonic Order- - powerful war horses and heavily armoured knights who usually defeated all who stood against them. One of the subgroups of the Teutonic Order was the Livonian Order. Originally they were an independent group called the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, but after a disastrous defeat at Saule, they were decimated and absorbed into the Teutonic Order. The Livonian Order retained all of its original colours and crests.

In the early Thirteenth century the Livonian Order crusaded throughout North Eastern Europe, eventually pushing into what is now Russia, capturing towns and villages.



the local...

Something was wrong with the municipal indoor pool last night and so swimming classes were canceled- that doesn’t sound like a good thing but in reality it translated to a sudden Scape night at my house.

My daughter is a life guard now and she hasn’t played with us in a long forever. School is intense and busy and with working now too- it doesn’t leave much time for playing Scape with her silly Dad and brothers. But the pool broke! So we got out the terrain!

We were all very excited to be playing together again- first time since summer 2010. We play a pretty simple game- a two on two with three hundred points per person. My daughter has customed an army of Mirkwood Elves and she said she wanted to take on my younger son’s custom Army of Arc. So the teams ended up being my eldest son and daughter (which almost never happens) and my younger son and me.

We decided the game would be a glyph grab- all our glyphs are treasure glyphs-...