Liralen's Adventures Through Life

A UGC Steel team, even. And people seem to be trusting me with it. So. Since about April, I got involved in the TF2 (Team Fortess 2) gaming community. It started with joining the failing Team Play First Community, and getting pulled into the staffing because someone found out that I could play with computers and get them to do what I wanted them to do.

We've been in San Diego for our annual visit for Thanksgiving. It's been a little crazy thinking it's been a whole 'nother year. I've also been very absent from these pages. I think it was mostly because of the habit of keeping private the happenings at UCC Longmont, and it went even further now that I am friends with dozens of very Internet-active men in their teens and twenties. They're all great people, but are very private about their private names, they keep very strictly to their gaming labels, and they've seen what fame can do both bad and good. So they're careful about not giving out private information, and I respect that. Plus, nearly all of them are in the tldr camp, it seems. So I just don't. Or haven't. *laughs* Don't like being boring, in some ways, but it does seem like I've left the places I used to frequent all the time.

We woke up when we wanted to wake up, on June 28th, as there wasn't really anything we had to get to, and after the last two early mornings, it was nice to laze in and sleep. But I did get up eventually, and we'd done a little research the night before about the various breakfast places in town. One seemed a little too posh, relying on "Best Breakfast in Radium" advertising along with lots of types of Eggs Benedict and fancier dishes. There was one that was just around the corner from our hotel, so we went there, instead, and were very glad of our decision.

One June 27th, we came up with a great plan and it worked out really well, and it was a lot like the one that we used to get to the top of the tramway in Jasper. We basically got up early, left the campsite before nearly anyone else had even gotten up out of their tents, and we hit the local bakery before heading up to the parking lot at Lake Louise.

... you really can see forever. If you get high enough.

When we were in Banff, we'd found out that the next two days were going to be cloudy and rainy, so we decided not to be that ambitious on the 25th. Besides, it had be cold enough during the night, that I actually put my stocking cap on for sleeping so that I'd be warm enough. John let me sleep in while he built a fire and made coffee and had his breakfast. So I didn't get up until nearly 10 am, to a beautifully overcast day. *grins*

So after our night in Banff, we headed north along the diagonal highway that goes through Banff and Jasper National parks. When we arrived at the park last night, John bought a pass for five nights, and the lady at the booth said that we could add on a night any time we wanted if we needed to do so. The hotel had a hot tub, which we happily used, and then served us a full pancake, bacon, sausage, scrambled egg, and toast breakfast, so we ate our fill.

The stay in Harlowton was wonderful. The little motel had a set of rooms behind the main building, off the busy main highway, so our room was quiet. It was large, clean, and wonderful. We even found an amazing breakfast at the local grocery store, where they had a bunch of breakfast sandwiches and burritos as well as coffee in vacuum urns instead of a heater plate.

So for the last couple of weeks, we've been prepping Jet for his Colorado Music Ambassador's to Europe trip. He's going with Voyager's, a group that solely sets up high school bands, orchestras, and choirs for trips to Europe. Yesterday, we managed to get Jet checked in and off through security with 500 other kids. It was pretty crazy, and took four hours to get through the whole thing.... ... and then we packed the Eurovan, got our stuff together, and this morning we headed dead North along I-25. We've just driven from 9am until about 9pm with stops for lunch and dinner, and a few bathroom breaks and gas stops, and we're now in Harlowton, MT at the Country Inn Motel, which is superbly clean and comfortable for only $55 a night for the two of us.

And now I am unofficially done with being moderator. I actually wrote my position out of the official governance, and when the present moderators got it put into effect, I was finally out of the job. So, some of it was that the Moderator Past (yes, I used to do a lot of Christmas Spirits jokes about the Moderator Elect, Moderator, and Moderator Past) was officially a part of the Cabinet for the years following their time in office. And in rewriting the governance, I wrote that position out.

Back in the 80's, when I was fresh out of college, I read Emerald Eyes by Daniel Keys Moran. At Caltech, the student bookstore always stocked the latest in science fiction as a matter of course and steered my pleasure reading in that vein.

I got my breathing capacity test today at the allergy clinic. I knew that I needed a checkup with my doctor to continue getting a couple of my prescriptions refilled; so I called this morning and the receptionist said that Dr. Murthy had an opening at 10:30, so I just up and went. And I now have 75% lung capacity, when four years ago I had only 67%. This is good news. I've been running around a lot, I guess. *laughs*

Lots of socks. From Noro's Silk Garden Sock yarn, it's amazing stuff, and I've made Jet a pair and myself two pairs, and it's all because I got sucked into One Last Thing. The Governance retreat went really well, though, so I'm glad of that, and it was so positive, and we made huge headway into making things more workable, simpler, and more powerful on all sides of the table. I'm so glad of Kimberley Sherwood at Third Sector Group . They specialize in helping nonprofits with fundraising and governance, and she really understands the difference between regular non-profits and churches. There are significant differences, too.

Jet got a snow day for his birthday, yesterday, and we got a whole foot of the white stuff. Our neighbors got stuck in it right in front of our driveway, and Jet and I got on our cold gear, found our shovels, and went out and dug them out and pushed them onto two carpets they'd found to put under the front wheels. It worked, and they got home and into the garage just fine, but we decided that we were just going to hang out in the house all day.

I am done with being moderator of the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Longmont, Colorado. It is official.