Mary left for St. Louis yesterday afternoon leaving me and the dogs to fend for ourselves.

9:58 Wake, let the dogs out, cleanup up the Taylor-pee puddle on the kitchen floor.
10:05 Make fruit smoothie, read book in bed.
10:15 Run with dogs to golf course.
11:45 Return, eat left-over potatoes and make second smoothie, clean kitchen.
12:30 Full-court basketball at Wedgwood.
2:40 Weightlifting and soccer at Calvin.
4:20 Return, let dogs out, eat three bowls of SunChips, goof around on computer.

And I guess that’s what I’m up to now. Kind of feels like being in college again. Now, where’s that cereal?

I now by law own a couple of 100 foot tall cottonwood tree along with some oak, cedar, cherry, a whole bunch of pine trees and nearly an acre of dirt. I have my own mini forest. We met with the seller, real estate agents, and bank agents this morning, signed 850 documents, and turned over our down payment. I don’t think we could’ve asked for a better previous owner. Doug something or other, probably in his late forties or early fifties. He mentioned that he had a masters degree but just by looking at his paint-stained shirt and chapped gnarled hands you had to assume he had a blue-collar job somewhere. After all the official business, Doug handed us two thick folders full of papers relating to the property. Topographic maps, soil borings, requests to the city for zoning variances, sewer plans and so on. All things that I’m sure took him months of work and probably will save us a significant amount of time and expense when we decide to build. He even handed us a DVD containing most of the documents in html format. Very cool indeed. He then spoke with affection about plants and wildlife of the property, explained a little history, and encouraged us to really get a feel for the property before building a house.

I made the mistake a couple days ago of letting Trammell lick the smoothie remnants from my cup. Since then this has become a routine every time a smoothie is consumed and both our dogs have become quite attentive every time the blender clicks on. I’m assuming it’s the yogurt they like, but who knows? Maybe it’s the mango.

I installed Far Cry on my computer over the weekend along with Chronicles of Riddick. I only briefly fired up Riddick, but I’ve been completely immersed in Far Cry for the past couple of days. I can’t believe how much fun this game is. The environment is lush and vibrant, full of foliage, birds, and insects. It may not have all the physics of Half-Life 2 and some of the graphics feel a little cartoony now, but when I play I feel like I’m creeping through a tropical jungle. The gameplay feels very open-ended both in terms of letting me choose my own path and my own style of play. I just completed a stage where I had the option of leaping off a cliff into a pool of water, hang-gliding onto a beach, or simply walking down a mountain road. If I chose to go down the road I could either run down in plain sight, guns blazing, or sneak through the brush, picking off enemies one by one. Every approach seems to have several options although they all eventually guide you to the same destination. The enemy AI is a little rough I’ve found and initially I was frustrated when I died repeatedly on a couple of levels, but that was before I realized that Far Cry is not your typical run-and-gun FPS. The stealth adds a nice level of tension especially on the outdoor maps where if you’re not paying attention to sounds you might find an enemy standing right next to you as you walk through the brush. So far so good. I’m enjoying this game as much as any game I’ve played in the past few years.

We baby-sat a real live bear this weekend (see pictures below). She guarded our dog’s food bowls and growled at us when we approached. Strange beast.

We have a busy few weeks ahead. Next week Wednesday we close on our new property and Mary flies out the next day to see a friend of hers in St. Louis. I think I’m flying out to Vegas the first week in March, but I haven’t nailed anything down officially yet. My flight voucher expires March 9, so I need to jump on that as soon as possible. Really I should be doing that right now even as I type this, but I’m trying to find someone to go with me first. Initially my thought was a return trip to Joshua Tree (I can’t believe it’s been two years already!), but now I’m definitely leaning toward one of those caynon/desert environments in southern Utah. Zion or Bryce, maybe Grand Canyon. Maybe I’ll just pick one when I get there based on the weather report.

I’ve been meaning to start working on some of the static pages (about, contact, etc) on this site, so I’m writing this now to make myself do it. Maybe that’s something I can do to kill a few hours when I’m working third shift one of these days.