A long time ago when I was a wee slip of a lad, back in the 80s, I used to run around in parks all around the greater Seattle area lobbing bundles of flour and tennis balls and suchlike at other people. There was this game, you see, called The Fantasy Alternative, that I was part of, and it was LARPing before there was LARP. It predates NERO, though it never spread outside of Seattle, so it can't be called as successful. Anyway, it went underground for a great many years, and now, at long last, it's returning. I haven't played in 18 years, give or take a year, and haven't done any live gaming in a 7 years, and yet, here I am going to this thing. I'm not entirely certain why--to get outdoors and get some exercise, to recapture a bit of lost youth, to live again a game I once loved--but I'm pretty damn excited about it. Amusingly, I had kept all my old TFA stuff for a great many years, and only recently, when I got back from the Oral Assessment and thought it was pretty likely that I'd get into the Foreign Service, did I get rid of it, throwing away monies, spell components, bits and bobs of costume accessories, all the things I thought I was done with long ago. Only three weeks later, I heard that there was going to be another game. This is why people horde, I should think.

I just spent 48 hours at Umtanum, a little campground on the Yakima River. I've been going there for years, with old friends, now and again. We go, we float down the river, we play cards and charades, we have some barbeque, we build fires, we have some drinks. It's fun, it's relaxing, and it gets me out where there are stars and birds and running water.

This time the river was very high, higher than anyone had seen it this late. In April, sure, but in June, it's never this high. It was wild floating down on Sunday, the one run we did that day, because the river was fast and wild (at least, in so far as a very calm river can be fast and wild) and we had difficulty pulling of landings because the flow was so heavy. But on day two the river was down a foot or so, and it was calmer, slower, just lovely. This morning, for the last run, it was lower yet, and was becoming more the river we all knew. The weather was absolutely lovely, bright and sunny with enough clouds to keep it from being unbearable, and if there were masses of mosquitoes, at least they seemed to prefer my companions to me, and that was all right. At night the fires were brilliant, the stars were lovely, and the campsite was quiet and empty, in part because it was during the week.

I've been going on these trips, usually on Memorial Day Weekend, for about a dozen years. I haven't gone every year, and some years I've gone more than once, but I've been up there about 10 or 12 times. It is, I suppose, my camping spot, not that I've ever really thought of it that way. I'm not a camping person. But I've gone to Umtanum and floated the river many times, and it's always a good thing.

This was, in all likelihood, the very last time I'll do it. It's pretty good odds by this time that I'll end up in the Foreign Service, and if I do, I'll likely never be in the Yakima River valley again. So when the opportunity came up, I agreed immediately, knowing it would be the last time. And it felt final to me. My raft, the very same little Fashion 100 that I've been down the river every time in, sprung a leak in one of the inside seams, almost impossible to repair, on the first run of the second day. The campsite itself is so vastly changed that it barely exists, having been partly privatized some time ago, and that venture having collapsed, having been closed off almost entirely. So it was an end, and felt that way.

I'm kind of sad about it, but I realized also that this is going to be the case now. With some degree of certainty that I will eventually be hired, and depart, which I've never had before, everything will be a final thing at some point. Some I'll realize--like this one. Some I won't--will I know the last time I'm going to Ocho, or will I not? Do I get another HoP Christmas, or was last year the final one for me? I can't say. But I can at least try to be aware of it more often, that this time might, for any given thing, be the last time, possibly ever.

I'll miss Untanum. But at least it was the best final trip that it could have been.

It was long, it was pretty fun actually, and it was at times very intense. I passed it, though not as well as I might have hoped. What this means now is that soon an investigator will be in touch with me, and soon after that, will be in touch with a lot of other people, including perhaps some of you, who knows? If that and my medical check go well, then I end up on the hiring list, in some few months. Then it's just a matter of time and demand, and perhaps I could be in the Foreign Service proper in some few more months, or in a year, or just not make it off the list in my allotted time on it, which would mean I'd have to start over again. Let's hope not, yes?

And I know I did. In which case, you should go watch this: http://www.dailymotion.com/us/video/x93zji_the-hunt-for-gollum_shortfilms. It's pretty darn good for a fan film. Takes some liberties, but I can forgive it that.

I'm going to be having one of my irregularly appearing dinners next weekend, Sunday the 19th. It should be a five course rustic Italian dinner, all vegetarian. There will be wine. I have some spots available, don't know exactly how many as the roommates are still up in the air. If you're interested in attending, please get a hold of me. There will be a fee to cover costs, which I estimate at about 15 dollars per person (this includes the wine).

If you're a tabletop gamer, you should totally check out Obsidian Portal. It's a wiki/blog site that's super easy to use (that is, I can figure out what to with it, and I still like banging rocks together) and it tracks just about everything.

To see the campaign I'm about to start, and see what kind of work I've gotten done in just a few hours of off and on updating, check out http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/fall-of-the-warlock-kings , which is my soon to be new game, and is coming along nicely on the site. Players are already invited, and so on.

Did I mention it's free?

I know that I shouldn't watch any editorial content from Fox News and expect to think they're going to seem at all rational to me, but Glenn Beck, a few days ago, went far into Crazyland. Talking about how we're becoming a Fascist nation, he said it's been going on a long time, back to 1916 when (Democrat) Woodrow Wilson issued the Mercury Dime with depiction of fasces (bundle of sticks with an axes in them). Because, you see, the Italian fascists adopted that as their symbol, because it was the ancient Roman symbol carried by Roman magistrates, and they were trying to revive the old Roman Empire. And the name Fascism was taken from those very fasces. Which, of course, they didn't start to use until after the Mercury Dime was minted. But, whatever. The Mercury Dime means that Democrats have been trying to make us into a Fascist nation for almost a century.

My brain hurts. I'm going to lie down for a bit.

I suspect I ate suspect tomatoes on Saturday, which led to me getting food poisoning. I have been in a very rough state for a couple of days now, but do hope to actually be able to consume a full day's worth of calories today, since solid food seems to be appealing once more, and my organs appear to have recovered from their shriveled state so that I can actually fill them with said food, instead of having a couple of bites and being full. So perhaps I shall be well-ish soon.

Stupid, stupid food poisoning.

This one's short, so it won't get a cut. Danny sprang out of bed early and rushed off to scuba dive, which he managed to do exactly on time, there being only one departure on Sunday, right when he arrived. I meanwhile lounged for a bit, got some breakfast, decided against going on the catamaran of doom (AKA the Booze Cruise, where there was meant to be lunch, but were instead Pringles, to soak up all you could drink beer, rum and 151), and instead got a cab into town. Grand Turk has one small town called Cockburn on it, was just hit by a hurricane 4 months ago, and is, in any case a very poor colony of Britain. So there wasn't much to do. So I and a friend named Meloni sat at the back deck of a little restaruant (no food that day) drinking Sprite in the shade and watching the waves roll in and out on the beach just across the railing, and talked about spirituality and death and India, and then were interrupted by the arrival of Arkansas bumpkins, so that we fled, and they fled right after, so that perhaps we shouldn't have fled. But in any case she had to get back to the ship, so we walked back toward the south side of town, and stopped in another place, the Osprey Hotel, and sat again at their poolside lounge, looking out at the ocean, and drinking Turk's Head Beer, which is local, and quite nice. Mel had to run, but I lingered for another hour or more, just watching the waves and reading idly from my book. Then I walked back to the ship, an hour and more in hot sun, stifling humidity, and blessed wind that took the worst edge off of both. I showered and napped, and then watched people straggle onto the ship in the warm subtropical evening, with the moon rising overhead and casting a silver glow over the harbor, and then we were away.

Semester at Sea reunion, Turks & Caicos, back on Tuesday night. Til then, don't be stupid, world.

Had a good party. Got the house cleaned up quick the next morning. Went to the Rickshaw, which was very, very slow. Perilously slow. Three and a half hours of slow. I could have cooked our food faster than their cook. It was worse than the year that only one grill was functional. But, it was about what I expected. We had fifteen people, and there were actually a good number of other customers, unlike most years we've been there. Then I went to play board games, and played a game called Android which took longer than the Rickshaw, and was somewhat less satisfying. Pretty, though.

A Wednesday night New Year's is not a big thrill, but here it is. And there will be a party, to the surprise of no one in particular. And there will, it turns out, be a super liquor cabinet, because our closet ate someone else's closet over the weekend. Hurrah, I suppose.

They haven't posted the New Year's Day schedule at work yet. If, somehow, I'm on it, there will be trouble.

Metro let out a 44 without chains. It became stuck on Market Street Hill. I walked into work this morning, thusly, after my bus was halted by this stalled bus, five blocks from where I boarded it.

Rain tommorrow, never rain today.

I have three people living with me, which means even after Trevor K. departed, we still had enough to play Blood Royale, my favorite game that no one ever plays at all.

I love declaring that my queen is dead, and does anyone have a marriagable woman? Cause that shit rules.

And so the snow commences again, this time tiny little dry flakes barely visible. Though increasing in numbers, by the minute. I expect I'll be staying home for the rest of the weekend.

Stay warm, all you chilled Seattle area folks.

Starts at perhaps noonish, for anyone who is perhaps going to show up. There's not even supposed to be snow. Sad, but happy.

This Sunday will be cold and snowy, perhaps, which is why it seems a perfect time to gather together for games and warm things, like fresh baked things and hot drinks.

So that's what I'm planning. Boardgames, baked goods, coffee and cocoa at my place, kind of all day Sunday. If anyone's interested, and the city isn't blanketed totally in white stuff. Which might happen.

I took the FSOT a month ago, that being the Foreign Service Officer Test. They said it would be 8-10 weeks to get a reply as to whether one had passed, and been turned over to the review board who then decide if you can advance.

So, five weeks from the test, I get to download my form letter and see that I've passed (it's so much nicer to download a congratulatory form letter than a dismal one). This is three weeks faster than minimum time. This is great. I love that the government, in all cases, plans for the worst so you can't complain when it takes that long, and then you feel great when it's quicker. Which is how I feel, great.

Still, this is no different than last year, except they changed the notification process, so that now I know I passed the same thing I passed last year, but only suspected I had passed.

But it's good to hear.

One of my Semester At Sea friends sprang into action and found me a roommate from among his numerous connections, so I'm all booked to be on my ship again. This makes me rather joyous. I also will get to add Turks & Caicos to the list of obscure nations I've visited. Which just keeps growing because of these things.

Is there anyone interested in a cheap-for-what-it-is trip? Because I could really use a roommate for a Semester at Sea reunion trip, which would end up costing whoever it might be about 500 dollars, plus airfare because you've got to get to Florida. But it's a four night cruise with meals and lots of truly amazing people. It must be confirmed by the 5th of December if anyone is actually, as I don't expect, interested.