Kind of a delayed start to the reset week last night, but for good reason – was working on a small semi-emergency project in the home office that just took a bit longer than I was anticipating. I have no idea why I do that still as every project always goes way over time-budgeted.

Probably going to pull the trigger and initiate the next task this weekend, but try to weave it between miscillany tasks around Eorzea and the Saturday Dinner Evening routine. It kind of has to be done by said dinner, otherwise it may end up being a repeat of last weekend, which I absolutely do not want to happen again for a very long while (or Labor Day weekend, whichever).

Not much else, just going through the days. Still trying to get a timeline for the rest of the year at least penciled out, but with Hurricane Season looming, it could end up making it look like a bowl of spaghetti again like last year.

Time will tell, but in the mean time, y’all have a wonderful Wednesday!

Now that I’ve gotten a bit of rest and reverted back to the weekday schedule, hope everyone had a lovely Monday!

The weekend was 50/50, well probably more 75/25 (good vs rough). The NAS showed up early so I was able to get that together, which was actually really good since that took a lot longer to set up than I had anticipated it to. Mostly on the settings side: the actual getting it up and running was a breeze. It’s something I should have done years ago after Vladimir passed away. Better late than never for certain, but with this, I can continue to either go Windows 11 (Rufus or not) or Linux Mint depending on scenario – and I only have 2 devices left thankfully. However, I fear the Home Office overhaul is coming up sooner than later.

The rough patch of the weekend was trying to outroot a syncing issue across devices, that just didn’t make any sense and I spent way too much time into the early morning hours trying to fix it. I never really did, but I ended up with only 3 hours of sleep because of it, which caused a huge rush of frustration at myself to stay awake. It was really trivial in the overall scenario of things, but when my determination goes into something, sometimes I have a hard time stopping until all conclusions have been exhausted. I think I would have been less frustrated if I wasn’t working so much these days.

Started watching the new season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (season 3 as of this writing), and it’s so good to be back! Missed the show and it’s been a blast thus so far! When it’s all said and done I’ll be a bit bummed to see it go, but Starfleet Academy does look pretty good from the trailer.

OmOneko has been 100% completed: all achievements, all routes, and all endings good, bad, and indifferent. I really enjoyed the entirety of it and really am excited to see more of this world’s universe in the future. Some of the indifferent endings were pretty comical, and boy howdy the bad ones are very much that. Team Clawdia all the way and no one can stop me. They also have two soundtracks from the game(story?) available, for in which of course I’m going to get those and have them on the media server – they’re really good.

That should cover it for now, last week before Patch 7.3; let’s make it an awesome one, and y’all have a wonderful Tuesday!

I’ll… make remarks throughout the week – so no Monday Morning Recap. The weekend had a huge hit, and a fairly big miss. The miss is kind of overshadowing the hit unfortunately.

Hopefully y’all had a wonderful weekend, and here’s to just such a week ahead! Kick lots of tails!

First and foremost, happy Friday y’all! Hope everyone has had a wonderful one this week!

Mostly just the usual here, a lot of busy and a little sleep – still trying to work on that one but eventually I suppose. Aside from the usual Final Fantasy XIV weekly routines, been slowly reading OmOneko either to unwind or to get the evening started up.

OmOneko-wise, last night I cleared another story path’s route, but kind of both unintentionally and intentionally got to a point that I probably should have waited until I finished all three paths. Will probably try to make this a major objective for this weekend as I’ve really been engrossed with the setting and the characters – assuming what minor project tasks I need to address don’t take too long.

Final Fantasy XIV-wise, we’re pretty close to being as ready as possible for 7.3, which drops in about 2 weeks now. From what I’ve seen on the trailer, looks to be pretty climactic with what’s going on so far and the new Final Fantasy XI raid appears to have us going to at least San d’Oria, Qufim, and Delkfutt’s Tower while also dealing with a couple of familiar faces from Aikirees’ First Life. Will be interesting to see what else in there awaits, and the story itself.

Well, back to it, but y’all have a very wonderful day and weekend ahead!

I catch myself asking this from time to time, and probably other folks & friends do too: ‘Do you do this on purpose?’

The short answer is no; sometimes yes, I’ll get on a roll with working on tasks/projects and just want to keep up the momentum, rest be darned. This time, however, I had to really reconsider if this was what I wanted to do. So basically, instead of the big finale home project being planned for early next year, that’s more than likely being pushed out till early spring.

The reason for this is to do some much needed work around the home office and get everything ready for end of October as I thought I was doing alright. It’s not a huge undertaking but it’s something that I should have probably researched a lot better shortly after Vladimir passed away. So, now it’s just all rubber-banding back to now where it kind of matters. The nudge for all this came from a (albeit minor) data loss scare, which also happened 3 years ago. The one 3 years back wasn’t too rough thankfully, but still – this needs to be addressed as some of my hardware is really aging out now.

It’s really not a major delay in what I had planned, but does take away from more recreational time that I thought I would have in the fall on top of long work days. No rest for this Viera I suppose.

Y’all have a wonderful Wednesday! Kick lots of tails! Y’all got this!

I could have sworn I talked a bit more last week – was it really that much of a blur!?

Well aside from that, the weekend was a mix of hazy resting, and working on smaller tasks. Saturday I did tinker with the server a bit, and finally cleaned up the trains to get them moving again. Forgotten how much I enjoy them rolling around their circuits. Dinner’s movie was another Studio Ghibli movie: The Cat Came Back, and that was great.

In between that and just usual weekend tasks, playing a game Sirena recommended ‘OmOneko‘ on Steam – well started it over the span of the previous week, but got into it a lot more over the weekend. I’ve gotten engrossed into the story paths and the universe it has built, and mostly overall been really enjoying it.

Just wish I did get a smidgen more sleep, but that’s par for the course for me I suppose. A little Final Fantasy XIV in to take care of some loose ends before reset, and we’re now just in the last couple of weeks before Patch 7.3 kicks it up again. Like it’s been, might be quiet here or more blogs like these, it just depends.

In either/any case, y’all have a wonderful Monday and week ahead! Kick so much tails! Y’all got this!

I know it’s only been two weeks, but it really has felt like forever upon landing home last night, taking care of the usual evening routines and then just… nothing but relaxing. With the borked system fixed (mostly, to a point of content), and the other one humming away, it was just a rather nice relaxing evening of just Horizon II: Forbidden West and catching up on some videos.

It was also a double-edged feeling, but the ‘sad’ part of said feeling never necessarily lasts due to lack of time to perceive it or just it fading fairly soon after it appears. It might have just been a combination of letting it be ‘held’ up with everything always moving so fast, or thinking about Vladimir again after listening to some nostalgic songs. It happens, and it’s fine for the most part.

Back at the usual today though, but I might, might, just be able to have a similar evening stretch out for an afternoon Saturday right now as I don’t think there’s anything on the Horizon (not meant to be a pun) that needs to be addressed. Possibly some more server work, as I’ve neglected adding more goodies to that for a bit now, or perhaps looking over the poor trains again. Guess I’ll know more as the week unfolds. I know there are bigger projects looming ahead, but maybe taking a bit of downtime voluntarily would be good.

Kick some tails today y’all! Have a wonderful one!

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!