Epilogue of a sort (What, you wanted it in order?)

Today marks my somewhat annual trip to Chicago. I say somewhat because I actually came here in March this year, and so its twice in this calendar year, but that's merely coincidence because the fiscal year runs from May to April, so it's actually two fiscal years. My trips have varied: one was in the middle of December, one would have been November but I was hit by a car and unable to attend, then we didn't have one until a year around through to April, then we had one in March, now this one. And each time, on my trip to the windy city, the temperature is in the 40s during the day. There is a bit more wind this time than in the past, but generally it's been very steady, which is unusual. This trip is also sandwiched between unseasonably warm weather (it was in the 60s here yesterday) to snow (Saturday may have anywhere from flurries to 10 inches, depending on the model. Weird.)

As of 9 pm CST, I had been up 20 hours straight. I was so tired, and I've walked over 11,000 steps (that's over 5 miles for scale), and while thankfully I have ultra-comfortable shoes, my feet are a little swollen, tired, and hurt a bit. I put some of the Thann Aromatherapy Wood scent lotion from the hotel room onto my feet, raised it up, and then went to pains at first not to fall asleep because I wanted to blog, but finally decided that if I could just listen to some music for about 45 minutes with my feet up, I'd feel better, and if I fell asleep, that would have to be okay, too, so I set three alarms for tomorrow morning for 5 am and one for 10:30. I overshot that by about an hour, but hey, I'm awake (I got cold, as I'd fallen asleep on top of the bed covers), I carried this laptop through two airports, on a train, and on a bus, and by God I'm going to use it.

So let me start my day properly....

Apparently, the whole laptop has not been scanned

by AVG in months, and a shell extension scan was last done in early June--before I renewed my protection and upgraded to the 2015 version of Internet Security, and before the Windows 10 upgrade. I may need to work on the settings there as well. In the meantime, I have a whole computer scan going, and it's at 59 percent. It's not terribly slow or anything, but I think I'm just going to let it run and do the other things I mentioned. And maybe I'll check the desktop, too, although that should be okay, as it's not turned off like the laptop is most of the time. Okay, time to put the candles and the aquarium lights out. Good night.

Out in the lobby at a friend's appointment

I'm grateful that it's late enough that I don't have to miss work. A had called to see if I could give him a ride home, but it would really have meant cutting it close on getting to the appointment. I called to tell him that but there was no answer, so I'm afraid he'll have to make it home on the bus.

I brought the laptop originally because I thought I'd work on the game notes, and then I remembered that I have a book review due tonight. I did bring the book with me, but I'd like to have it handy, and the lobby lights are too dim in my corner to really refer to it easily. If I move, I can't charge my phone, which only has about 13% charge. So there you go. Meanwhile, I left the earphones out in the car and I've already gone out and in once to get the phone charger, and I don't want to annoy them back in the office, as the door chimes each time you open it. There's no one here, but I don't really want to play the game over the speakers, either. In other words, I'm finding excuses to put off both of them and just play on the computer instead.

Last night I went to bed early but the last four hours of supposed sleep-time were interrupted by cramping and nausea, courtesy of my impending period. As a result, I was really slow-moving today. But I eventually got going and did quite a bit today. I was also trying to help a co-worker with some Excel formulae. I don't use Excel that much, so it's a bit of a challenge. I know it involves IF, OR, and COUNTIF statements, but I'm thinking I have too many parentheses. After working on one cell for about an hour, I gave up, my brain turned to mush, and I'm thinking I'll look at it tomorrow again with fresh eyes, and maybe consult my over-1000 paged Kindle book on the subject. :)

It's hard to believe that it's October already, and although it's 7:38 pm, it's almost dark out there. I had to initial and date quite a few sheets today, and it was really hard to write '10/1'.

Okay, I think I'm going to move some files for the game over to Dropbox and then sign off. I'm using my phone's mobile hotspot, and I have 3.0 GB of data I can use for that (and unlimited on the phone itself), but I don't want to rack it up too quickly. Good night.