General

All the planning and research last week paid off as with the additional time being the weekend, getting the borked system up and running back to normal went a lot smoother. There’s still some minor issues (one I had to put a ticket into because my backup service just wouldn’t work) but aside from those, it’s pretty much about back to where it was before all of this happened.

Ultimately ended up learning a lot more about the software that was originally on it, and what it all did, but even with all of the weekend time, it was still a very time consuming process. Saturday movie was Back to the Future: Part III as planned, and that was a really fun time. Hadn’t watched Part III in a very long time, but can appreciate all of the references and nods in it far more than I did in the past.

Not much else aside from that, just in the ‘waiting room’ for Patch 7.3 now – not exactly where I was planning on being (as opposed to 6.3 and 5.3), but it’ll work out. Still really busy and just tired all of the time now, but still have to keep fighting the good fights, no time for extra rest.

I think this weekend I might just attempt to get some extra rest and not try to pull another all-nighter trying to fix something. Happy Monday y’all! We got this, kick lots of tails!

For whatever determined reason that got into my ears last night, decided to give messing around with the poor system-in-progress, and… progress was made! It’s not entirely where it was yet, but it was a pretty good leap in the right direction.

I just… really can’t afford to lose much more sleep, so might (should) just table it until Saturday where can spend the afternoon bonking at it with the assistance of other systems around the house. Weeks are still pretty hairy and doubt that will let up, so… really just need to get a bit more rest.

Happy midweek y’all! Have a wonderful one!

Boy howdy did I underestimate something that should have been a simple and straightforward process. To sum up the last 48 hours, I attempted to get another system onto Linux, which was ultimately welcomed with an absurd amount of resistance due to the amount of sole proprietor drivers & software, that I decided to take another route and head back to Windows… where a lot of the same drivers either didn’t work or are a pain to hunt down even on the manufacturer’s website.

It’s been a slow recover, and I’ve lost a lot of sleep due to it. With the days being so long it’s… been interesting. I doubt I’ll try to move the needle in any way until the weekend, but in the meantime I’m going to research why this isn’t going as smoothly as it should. I think thankfully this is the last major difficult one (it is a laptop after all) before messing around with much older desktops.

I am going to be so wiped out this weekend from work, the stress of this, and lack of sleep.

Any rate, we all got this; let’s give it our all! Have a wonderful Tuesday!

While it wasn’t fully planned, this weekend was pretty productive. One project I’ve been holding off on for years now was rearranging my office’s closet as it had become a game of Jenga whenever I needed something in there. After a whopping 12 hours and a hardware store visit, it got done. I did it over Friday and Saturday to not end myself trying to do all of it in one session – this was a wise idea.

Albeit a bit sore from standing most of the weekend, but I did get in some relaxing too: watched the first two Back to the Future, and will probably watch the 3rd one this coming weekend. Previously (the weekend I got back from my trip) watched Paddington in Peru and I give that 11/10 definitely recommend. The Paddington movies are all super wholesome and this was no different.

Next project(ish) is addressing Windows 10’s end of life on my systems that cannot proceed to Windows 11. I have a couple remaining, but the biggest hurdle is retrofitting a couple and building one that can out of parts since I have to have the primary office PC be Windows due to Adobe. Once they make a port for Linux, then I’ll have almost no reason to continue with Windows aside from some gaming that hasn’t jumped yet. Steam has helped a lot in this regards, but still need to do some testing – a lot of this is uncharted waters for me.

I don’t know if there’s to be much posts this week as the entirety of the weekend was chock full of doing things and tackling projects, but might be some blerps here and there as to how the week itself is going. Haven’t forgotten about the Status of Things, but just need a spell to think about that.

I think that’s all I got for this Monday’s recap; hopefully not fully quiet here all week, but that’s really going to depend on how it goes, and it’s going to be a really busy one again! Y’all kick tails and have a wonderful Monday ahead! Y’all got this!

Wanted to work up a new ‘Status of Things,’ but time has eluded me. Getting back into the swing of things from the trip last week, and it’s mostly been good. The mindset is there, but the body is having a little trouble readjusting – shouldn’t be but a bit longer and with it being a long weekend ahead that will help.

That ‘Status of Things’ might go out tomorrow, even with it being a lot less critical than the previous ones, but it’s just been too busy to put the thoughts into words; probably next week at the earliest.

Not much else right now, y’all have a wonderful Wednesday! Halfway there, and y’all got this!

I didn’t plan on being absent without any posts for this long; didn’t even realize it had been this long already. Time, to me, really is an odd flux where I think it’s only been a short time but in reality far longer time has passed.

Last week was the big family trip, and it was very delightful! It’s been six years since I’ve seen that side of the family, so paying them a visit was well overdue. We did a bit of running around, seeing the entire family that lived locally in the area, and caught up with what’s been happening in the time since.

I honestly can say I have no eaten that much in such a long time either! It was all very good food – some old haunts from way back when, and some new ones added into the mix as well. One thing I need to make sure for next time is to pack an over shirt, I was freezing practically everywhere we went in the middle of June.

Traveling went well and safely – I left insanely early in the morning, but got back in the evening. Usual airport expectancies one would have these days, long(ish) lines at the checkpoints marred with it being bustling with folks from all over. I kept to myself as much as possible, mostly to reduce any chances of getting sick (a lot of hand washing!)

At one point I was planning on a more grandeur trip seeing people I haven’t seen since I left ten years back, but decided against it as it would have overly exhausted me and just about everyone I’ve lost contact with in all of that time. I just hope they’re all doing well and are fine especially after the COVID Pandemic.

They do want me to try and return annually, which on paper will work, but there’s a few variables that come up annually that might inhibit that from being a realty. We’ll see however once we hit early January of 2026 and what the rest of the office has in mind.

I would like to go back more often, so it might end up being my typical summer trip assuming all other responsibilities are addressed and taken care of to allow for such. The extra rest was very lovely to get as well, as getting back into the usual daily routine will return me back to the old resting schedule for a time I’m afraid – this is still something that needs to be addressed.

Returning home and having the extra couple of days off to get back into the swing of things and take care of some home tasks was a good choice too. There is now a pretty concerning issue to deal with at the house, but at least I was home to see it happen. On that note, the trip was very wonderful but it is very much good to be back home as well, as I tend to be much more of a home body these days – the year of traveling kind of took any and all of my feelings for travel in general with it.

I do mean that in the both RL status as well as seeing and being able to rest in HQ once again. Hopefully more posts this week and continuing forward, but there are some projects fast approaching the horizon that I really need to work on now.

Y’all have a wonderful Monday ahead! Kick some tails!

Overall, this weekend was exactly what I was planning, a pretty relaxed and restful weekend with minimal projects or tasks to deal with. That’s not to say it was void of anything: as the usual weekend tasks were completed per the course, and only one provoked project, the rest was taking it pretty easy. The one project that was tackled either completely fixed some additional audio issues, or introduced another one. Not exactly sure yet…

Aside from that, finished this season of Doctor Who, and I very much enjoyed the ending to this season. The delay between now and the next season is probably going to be a bit of a long stretch, but it will be worth the wait once it arrives. Have been perpetually making progress on Horizon Forbidden West from the jump to PS5, and even at 20 or so hours into it, I cannot see nor fathom the end of this game yet. It’s just so freaken’ HUGE.

The last week really affected progress in Final Fantasy XIV, as I was hitting 11+ hours later in the week – not necessarily because of work related things, but I did stay late a couple of days to do both 1) finish up some work items and 2) work on a fun project that came to me – it’s kind of an annual tradition to keep setting the bar higher and challenge myself and my stills when I can. Even with that though, we doubled-down over the weekend and finished up all of the usual weekly tasks that we keep up with.

The catch is now we’re kind of falling behind in progress towards 7.3, and with my trip in two weeks, we may have to do a bit more catch up that I’d like to once everyone knows when the next patch is supposed to come out. Still trying to dance around burnout, and being away has really helped, but… still not feeling all that great about everything though. Time is definitely helping regardless.

Hopefully the work/life balance will start to revert this week with the owners back from holiday, but will probably continue to go in early at least for a bit more to help keep from leaving later, but we’ll see how that works: it may or may not help. Just thankful I like what I do, but I don’t want to hit the bigger reasons why I left the industry the first time.

Think that covers the weekend for the most part. Not really sure how busy it will be here, but this spell should end soon and more things hopefully will come back aside from daily Blog Stuffs.

Happy Monday y’all! Kick a lot of tails and have a really wonderful one!

Halfway through the 2nd very long week. 10-11 Days on 5-6 hours of sleep is really catching up. I used to do this like no tomorrow, but boy howdy the age vs mind are fighting right now for certain!

So far the weekend looks to be (mostly) void of arbitrary projects, which is good. The one train I still need to order the repair part – I’m pretty sure that drop damaged the motor… again. I may have to tinker with a technical setting if it becomes far more apparent, but might be able to relax a lot more on Saturday with some minor tasks to address.

In the meantime, just trying to get through the week. The cousins’ start to the week last night was one of the worse evenings this entire expansion cycle, which doesn’t help alleviate the current feelings towards the game in general.

I don’t know if it’s just the content isn’t interesting and/or the difficulty spike that came with post 7.0 (albeit not too much), 7.1 (there was a little) & 7.2 is just catching up to folks, but… it’s really just not that fun anymore. It’s come down to just checking off boxes at this point and that’s not a good sign.

I feel bad feeling this way for various reasons, and I have appreciated the reach outs in regards to all of this. I know there’s also a lot of lingering little things to do too but just… don’t feel up to it right now. There’s really nothing anyone can do about it though, it’s a time thing, and with RL-creep getting worse I don’t know what to do until I get a moment to pause, plan, and figure it all out again like I did right before Endwalker.

It’ll happen, but right now just have to keep kicking tails like always. Y’all do so too, and have a wonderful Wednesday!

I did get rest, but… kind of reversed it while either playing games, addressing issues, or fixing audio files. It was fine, but really could have used actual rest away from all of this.

The good of it all is that the audio problems I was having have been squashed (at the very least to my knowledge right now), and we did do some nice catching up running around Eorzea. What I mostly wanted to do was more Forbidden Westing, but that was thwarted with the above and more train complications.

The train that I unintentionally dropped and repaired, seems to have had another anomaly appear. My guess is between the drop and getting it running again the motor’s damage became apparent. So, probably will have to get a new motor to get that poor thing back up into optimal running again.

Aside from that, watched more Doctor Who – down to what I believe is the last two episodes of this new season – so should be finishing that up this coming weekend.

Hopefully this upcoming one, I’ll be able to lay low with minimal interruptions caused by anything of concern unless I provoke it myself. Once I get one good restful weekend in, I’ll be good to continue pushing forward with all of these planned projects. Running out of time as Hurricane Season is approaching quickly.

Kick tails on this Monday y’all! Have a wonderful one!

It has certainly been a rather long week thus so far. Right now it’s tilted with a lot of work hours with a little amount of sleep. I believe this should start to lighten up next week as one of the deadlines for a project concludes tomorrow. Some minor items are starting to pop up for dealings with on the weekend, but honestly I think aside from the usual tasks that are to be dealt with, just going to lay low.

One of the concerns creeping up is addressing some corrupted songs on the server; more than likely this was caused during the initial copying process all the way back before/after Hurricane Milton last fall. It’s either one of two things: the discs have gone bad, or the copy process was too fast for said discs and just needs to redone at a slower speed. Judging by the sound issues being so similar across two albums, I gather it’s just the speed it was copied at.

Worse case I’ll go invest into the soft copy versions of them and place those on the server as replacements. It’s not something I’d prefer to do, but at least it’s pretty straightforward and doesn’t require much attention aside from when it needs to change discs. I’m really hoping this is a small/isolated problem, but will keep investigating over time and correct as needed.

Y’all keep having a wonderful Friday Eve!

Hope everyone had a nice long holiday weekend. Mine was pretty good – got a bit done in terms of the impromptu projects as well as being pretty prepared for how this week was going to start off. The end of last week ended fairly disastrously – in terms of work-related dilemmas. We did put together a recovery plan that will take hold this week, but wasn’t the best way to end a week heading into a holiday one.

I did sacrifice my Switch 2 preorder in favor of the PS5, which I think just after messing around with it this weekend was the better choice. Setting everything up again and transferring to the PS5 from the 4 was rather painless as well – now just to tinker with remote access eventually. Ended up watching more Doctor Who and finally got around to seeing ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,’ which was really good and wholesome. The art styled used I liked a lot as well with it.

Last week ended with us being down two days in Eorzea, so we had to scramble to get that all done on Sunday. It mostly worked out, but will have to adjust some things elsewhere to fully make it up – we’re still good and kind of on track for 7.3. With 7.25 just coming out, we’re about 2 months away from that happening.

Aside from that, just whenever I had downtime played a lot of Horizon: Forbidden West – that in itself has been an absolute joy. There’s some quirks and roadblocks the story puts on the player (way more than in the first one), but it’s just so big of a world that it doesn’t really hurt it so much overall. I left off on a big plot evolving part, so once I can get back to it, going to try and see where that all goes… well eventually knowing how I’ve been progressing through the world so far.

I think that’s all to start off with. Might be just a bunch of little blog posts this week as I haven’t had much time to plan out anything, not sure when I will again with how crazy it’s been.

Y’all have a wonderful Tuesday, and kick lots of tails!

Staved away and made it a far quieter evening last night, as I needed to be up a lot earlier today. It, kind of worked out, but since it’s a holiday weekend with the owners away on holiday, it just compounded how much needs to be done right now (and how much I need to be on top of it all). I think it was also part because I just really didn’t want to be online at all again.

While this is usually when we start to wind down, it’s been surprisingly consistently busy. There’s concerns forming as to what this holds for the future, but for now, just staying the course and kicking tails where needed. I’m just glad I like what I do, but would like the work/life balance to revert just a bit back to how it was.

Weekend has an impromptu project now, which it will be fun, but then definitely have to start the ones I planned shortly thereafter; it being a 3-dayer will certainly help as well. Hope everyone has a wonderful Friday and weekend ahead as well!

After last weekend’s Mother’s Day/Birthday extravaganza, this weekend was far more lowkey with more Forbidden West, media server work (408 albums!), and future project research. I did finally fix my broken locomotive as well, which I was dreading but it turned out to be a really easy process! It was about as happy to be moving around the track again as I was to see it going. Started the new season of Doctor Who for the Saturday evening dinner/show, and only being two episodes in I like it quite a bit so far. Next weekend will have a bit more Final Fantasy XIV lowkey planned (ideally) but with a healthy dosage of Forbidden West along with it.

I kind of want to give up my preorder for Switch 2 – assuming I get one – in favor of a PS5 mainly because of the amount of hours I just know Forbidden West is going to give me and I think Dawn Remastered is on it as well. There’s other projects I need to plan (and a vision examination) too, so this will be a strategically planned item if/when I go ahead with it.

This last week in regards to weekly reset was pretty pleasant, thankfully. Still kind of skirting trying to avoid full burnout, but with 7.25 around the corner, I hope it will rebound the empathy that I am starving to see return. Only time will tell and if the new instance area helps it. Aside from that, just trying to lay low and tackle weekly things really, but there will be a time when I’ll head back and simply rest on my poor neglected rocking chair – miss that poor thing.

That might be another reason for a PS5, but that’s a rather big investment and I’m not project clear until late 2026 – so we shall see. More stories this week and a few posts, possibly a full week’s worth again.

Y’all have a wonderful Monday, kick tails this week!

I did kind of have some impromptu posts for the rest of the week, but due to an oopsie in cloud saving, I… had to pause it until I get that all sorted out. Technical difficulties aside, week has been long and busy, but so far weekly tasks have been pretty decent overall within and around Eorzea. Got some plans for the weekend, including for here, so looking forward to all that before the final stretch leading into Memorial Day weekend.

Happy Thursday y’all! Kick some tails and have a wonderful one!

Mother’s Day weekend went very well: both celebrating Mama K’s birthday on Saturday evening and seeing her yesterday for an early lunch on the water was all very fun and lovely. Aside from the festivities, really just caught up on missing two days of not playing Final Fantasy XIV last week, which ended up working out well and being a rather pleasant experience.

Friday evening, I did hit the threshold of completing Horizon Zero Dawn after 85 hours spanning 13 months, it was over. I have not enjoyed a game like that in quite some time and did start Horizon II: Forbidden West, so we’ll see what the journey will entail this time around. It’ll probably end up taking me another year unless I get a lot more aggressive playing it on the downtime periods in a patch cycles; next one being about a month or so before 7.4.

Some small work was done on the server Friday as well, and my Super Mario RPG sound box arrived then also, which includes both the Switch version along with a remastered version of the original soundtrack spanning four CD’s. Playing those back to back once I got them on the server too was a really fun and enjoyable time.

Not much else really, and unless I can think of a few pop-up posts, it will probably be quiet here for the week again. I do have a bit of backlog to still get posted, and I kind of want to sit down and finish out the rest of Star Bunny, but that will take a good chunk of an afternoon, which right now all the time that is not allocated to RL/work is pretty precious. We are hiring new folks to help so really hoping this insanity starts to curve back to where it was before the new year.

Y’all have a wonderful Monday and week ahead! Kick lots of tails!!

So, starting off, the last couple of days, I decided to just.. well… disconnect from practically all online places. Along with that, after yet another 10 hour day, I came home and decided to just not play Final Fantasy XIV and as soon as I made that decision, a huge wave of relief came over me. It was late enough, and I just didn’t have it in me to deal with it. Instead I just plopped down, played more Horizon Zero Dawn, and enjoyed a ton of plot development from a story that has had me engaged for so long now.

The very blunt/near brash answer is just the overall negativity was starting to wear my outer patience down and once that happens, I know/knew it was time for a break from it all. Knowing that engaging in it and realizing it wasn’t going to 1) solve anything and 2) just add to it was enough – just not worth it as I have way way too much going on. It takes a lot for this to happen though, and the last time was around the time I left social media – so nearly 1.5 years now(?)

I’m saying this as kind of a reminder to the world that it is okay to disconnect or do something else and alright to not always be engaged or ‘in the know’ for a spell if it becomes costly to one’s health – it doesn’t help things and just makes matters worse. I fear a lot of the current internet/community (so many backhanded/negative articles go along with this) has forgotten this and it just keeps building up. If we lose all the good that I keep saying still exists to all of this negativity, then the evil has already won – keep kicking the good tails!

There is good and positivity out there; I will continue to say this even if I feel my words only go within earshot, and we just need to stop letting ‘the bad’ continue to be louder, it’s really tiring.

Having said that… leaving some reset items unchecked within XIV will require having to return sometime over the weekend to wrap it up, even if I don’t necessarily want to. During Endwalker there was a plan put in place for this sort of ‘just in case’ scenario, so it’s fine – might take a little bit to adjust. Even if I’m rather fed up with how things are feeling, I’d like to be ready for 7.3 as much as possible.

The weekend will be fun though, celebrating both Mama K’s birthday along with Mother’s Day throughout both Saturday and Sunday. Planning on getting some media server work done this evening, along with finishing up preparations for both events. Hopefully a smidgen of rest and downtime for a cup of coffee here and there too.

Tell some fun tales today, kick lots of good tails, spread happiness, and y’all have a wonderful Friday/Mother’s Day Weekend ahead!

Another kind of ‘on par’ weekend. Lots more media server work, rested a bit, and had the usual Saturday evening dinner with a movie. It was nice, and the last one for a couple of weeks as Mother’s Day weekend is fast approaching.

Movie-wise, sat down to finally watch Moana 2, and it was just a great if not more than the first one. Rather surprised to realize that it’s been a whopping eight years since the first one came out! I’m pretty certain I was still traveling the nation when it came out and watched it when I was home between travels.

Approached 400 albums on the server now, and while it is kind of slowing down, it’s still moving quite a bit. I do, however, need to really take care of other tasks on Saturdays soon – ideally before my trip in June. Else-wise, come the fall and Hurricane season, I’m probably going to end up in a crunch while beginning to phase in my 2026 project.

Should be a bit more activity here this week, and with that, y’all have a very wonderful week ahead! Happy Monday and kick some tails!

Kind of wanted to do a mid-week update, but was barely sitting down for the most part. It’s been just another chaotic week, and not sure it’s getting thinner for certain. Got some more audio work pre-planned for the weekend, but a bit of just downtime too. I think the weekend afterwards or the following is when the family is getting back together again for Mother’s Day festivities, so that’ll be fun.

Probably a bit more Horizon Zero Dawn over the weekend as well, if I can ever figure out how to seemlessly get those snapshots off the PS4, then I’ll share those too – the photo mode in that game is really robust!

Aside from all the usual, just tired mostly, and the inflammation/swelling is nearly gone too finally. One of these weekends I’ll get back to planning the big 2026 project that I still need to start on like really soon since it’s in phases.

Back to it then, y’all have a wonderful Friday and weekend ahead!

What I was hoping would be a relaxing weekend to mend the inflammation far better, and dabble around in the new Celestial Exploration turned into a run to get everything necessary to be done per usual.

I had to bring work home with me, the first time since I quit the industry the first time and just an ominous feeling with it, due to how last week ended. It wasn’t a lot and I knew I could get it done far quicker on my system at home than my work PC – which I cannot stand at all. The inflammation & swelling is starting to finally lessen; the pain is a lot more manageable with the swelling slowly following suit. It’ll probably be another few days until fully recovered but at least something is happening.

The PS4 upgrade went off without any major issues, and it got all up and running again with everything reinstalled where it was. There’s a noticeable difference, but I think it comes down to the speed of the rest of the hardware holding it back. It’s fine as it’s a bigger drive with the additional speed increase that has made traveling around Horizon a bit snappier.

Still kind of not feeling all that great about Final Fantasy XIV, sans space things, but just haven’t been able to get up there – I suspect it might be the next holiday weekend even before I make it up there just looking at how May is going to play out right now. In the meantime, just muscling through the weekly tasks hoping for something to turn the feelings about it all around still.

I may or may not get into the reasoning as to why, but it is kind of pushing me from wanting to be on as much right now. The longer breathers between reset are helping a bit.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was an absolute blast of a movie, by far the best of the three out now, so certainly gets my watch recommendation. Not sure what’s next to go and watch/catch up on, but got some time to ponder it until next weekend.

Going to be lighter on posts again this week as I had absolutely no time to figure it out again, and little to no time during the week to fill it out that I can tell right now. Y’all kick some tail, and have a wonderful last week/beginning of May ahead!