The Calm Before The Storm

This is likely to end up being one of the most photo-light posts I've done so far. The reason being that I was home most of the day and, once again, Rachel forgot to take the camera with her when she went up town. Either way, I hope to have many more to share tomorrow, so hopefully it will balance out.

This morning I got up, went through the normal routine, and then checked my e-mail. Mr. Armstrong (the owner of the house in Pond Casse) had let me know that the Internet situation was in hand. In fact, I should be able to got get it switched over to my name tomorrow without any problems. There should be no down time as the service won't actually be turned off. It's on now and is going to stay on. The only thing changing is the name on the account.

It turns out the electricity is going to be a trickier matter, but I think we're going to handle transferring it to my name after the move. For the moment we should be able to leave it in the Armstrong's name and just pay the bill. This isn't what we want in the long run obviously, but nobody wants to wait another to week to move into the new house. (Especially considering the fact that our rent here would be do on Tuesday.) So, we're just going to move and work out the details in the next couple of weeks.

Anyway, all this means that we may actually move tomorrow. Also, we have to file for our extension by Monday and I would rather do it Friday. That being the case tomorrow and Friday are going to have pretty big holes in them from a “work time” point of view. So, I needed to get a lot done today. Thank the Lord, I did. The discussions on our forums continue to add more and more to the game and help it take firmer and firmer shape. Worlds of Magic may be setting records for the amount of fan input that actually makes it in game. In addition the work on the Wiki moves forward day by day and I'm making strides on putting together the “building theory” document that specifies what buildings need to do what for each race. I also managed to get some coding done. All of it added up into a very fruitful day. However, it didn't make for many pictures...

At some point I did think the grab the camera and snap a few shots around the house.


I also got a few pictures from our sea bath today. They're not great. It was a lot better in real life. The water was very clear and several schools of fish (consisting of thousands) were swimming around. Either way, here's what I got:


I haven't mentioned it up to this point, but today is Alec's 15th birthday (Happy Birthday Alec!) and Aunt Rachel made him pizza. That's what he wanted rather than cake. She had to make a special trip to town to get the ingredients, but she did it :) I also took some more “around the house” pictures (mainly for the grandparents).


Rachel wanted me to take a picture of that because as the kids grabbed slices it looked like an AT-AT from Star Wars, lol.


Anyway, I hope to give you guys a lot more in the photo-department tomorrow. There's a lot to see in Pond Casse and with us moving there are going to be a lot of photo opportunities. Either way, that's it for tonight. I want to get some pizza and rest up for the days to come. Once again, goodnight from Dominica!

Inch By Inch

OK, so those of you who keep up with my blog know that we're trying to get moved to Pond Casse as quickly as possible. You also know that the main reason is that we don't have air conditioning here and we could really use it at night. During the day it honestly doesn't bother me. I get used to it. Real fast. Plus, it almost never makes it all the way up to 90 degrees here so it's not all that hot. The problem is that I don't sleep well when it's warm. And last night it was still good and warm when I went to go to sleep. There was a little breeze playing through the window, but not nearly enough.

I awoke around 4AM and couldn't fall back to sleep. By that time it wasn't warm, it just wasn't cool either. It hadn't been hot enough to be “hot” all night, it was just warm enough to keep me from sleeping well. I laid in bed for around an hour before I decided I might as well get up and mess around on the computer. I played a little Haven and Hearth and handled all my e-mail. It was nice to have gotten that early a start. I went through my normal morning routine at my normal morning time (with the exception of brushing my teeth which I always do as soon as I get up) and by 7AM I was ready to start my forum work.

Before I did that I stepped outside to take a couple of pictures though. It was raining and sunshiny and breaking dawn all at the same time. I thought it was worth a few pictures. The first picture is actually of the moon and I took it before 6AM (I think), but I stuck it in here anyways.


By 9AM I had taken care of the minimum forum work I needed to and even worked a little on the wiki. I'm really hoping that things will calm down a bit next week and I'll be able to get more done. There is still a lot for me to get done and lately I've been pulled in more directions than I like.

Anyways, right around that time I caught the bus and headed for town. Brother Selwyn was heading in as well, so we had a nice chat on the ride up. I had gotten together everything I'd been told to get in order to have the Internet turned on. Guess what. It wasn't enough... OK, I guess technically is was “enough”, but no more. With what I had they could have authorized new lines to be run out to the house and there would have been two active phone lines and two active Internet connections. One would have been in my name and the other in the Armstrong's name. Plus, we would have had a seven business day wait and had to have been out there for the guys when they came to hook it up.

Needless to say I didn't like that option. The other option was to have Mrs. Armstrong e-mail them notifying them that she was releasing the account to me. Then they will be able to change the name on the account without any problem. The benefit is that the Internet will be on immediately. For those of you wondering if I still have to make the EC$500.00 deposit, why yes I do. Having gotten what information I could I headed home and e-mailed the Armstrongs. I also mentioned the electricity to them. I haven't heard from them yet, but am hoping to soon.

I had gotten all this done so quickly (even with the hour or so delay at the Lime office) that I had time to get some programming work done when I got home. Sadly I only had enough time to find a hole in my former theory on damage immunity and special abilities in general. Of course, now that I know there's a hole I don't think it will take me long to rework it. I just have to get it in my head as I write it up in the doc and then code it out. I may still be able to get it finished this week even with all the craziness going on.

Either way, by early afternoon some of the kids wanted to go to the sea. Obviously I took them.


The water was so cloudy there will be no underwater pictures today (sorry folks). It was as if clouds had settled into the very top of the sea. A few feet down it seemed to clear up, but I wasn't going to spend an hour swimming around three feet under the water trying to take pictures. The day had already put enough strain on me, lol. We stayed just long enough to cool off and headed home.

Once we were back I got to sit down for half an hour or so before I had to carry a load of clothes up to the Bellot's to hang up to dry. (We've pulled our clothesline down for the moment.) Dilian was playing tanks when I got up there. I decided that was a great plan and that I would take some time to play with him. So, I walked back down the hill and launched the game. It immediately started downloading an update that ultimately took an hour to install. While I was waiting Gabriel and I watched cooking videos on Youtube. We're trying to add variety to what we've got down here. Fried chicken, corndogs, and key lime pie should all be very easy to put on the menu.

Tanks finally started up and I got to play for about an hour before it was time to blog. The heat is making us all a little loungey and lazy. Also, Rachel wanted me to show you a few pictures of Titus tasting an ice pop.


It's almost time for Church, so I'm going to pause here. I'll be back in a few minutes.

OK, so do to the magic of the Internet that was mere moments for you. I had to live it out over the course of almost three hours. There's a good chance this was our last service with the Scotts Head congregation for a while. They really are part of our family and we'll miss them (as we do all our family), but we have to get where it's cooler. Once we have our own bus we could come down every Sunday if we wanted to. The bus really is a priority. We just have to get the money to buy one.

Anyways, I took a few more pictures.


So, this blog might have been a little early, but at this point it's way late, lol. I have to take a shower and I really want to watch some TV before I go to bed. So, goodnight from Dominica!

The Time Factor

So, today went up like flash powder. It's almost a blur. I got up (once again about a half an hour late), skipped a portion of my morning routine, and jumped into work. There's a lot to do every Monday. This Monday, however, I had even more going on. Not only did I have my e-mail work (including the Monday morning e-meeting) and my forums work and what-ever-else-have-you, I had to run into to town and sign up for the Internet. Now, I called to find out what I would need before I went. I didn't want to have to make two trips. So, around noon (when I finally had my work under control) I hopped on the bus, loaded with everything I thought I needed and then some, and rode into Roseau. I even took a few pictures while I wandered around.


Once I got to the Lime office I found out that I didn't have everything I needed. Mainly I didn't have the EC$500.00 deposit required of non-residents. Now, believe it or not, I have no problem with the deposit itself. I completely understand why they need that. What I don't understand is why when I asked on the phone if a deposit was required I was told “No.” I left the building only moderately annoyed and headed home.

I got back around 2PM to find the house clean, somewhat rearranged, and somewhat packed up. Rachel is ready to move. It's not the house, the house is actually very nice. As is the neighborhood (late night music not withstanding) it's the heat and the lack of yard. If this house was ten degrees cooler and was on an acre of land we might have stayed for years. It's not, however, and Rachel is ready for the cooler climbs on Pond Casse.

I got a bag of chicken cooking before the kids begged me to take them to the sea. I was very tired, but also fairly hot, so we went.


I only got a few underwater pictures, and they're nothing too special, but I did swim over a giant school of fish.


As I was running a little low on pictures I took a few more on the walk home.


For a little over an hour I got to sit down and take a break. I took some photos of us doing that.


After my little bit of relaxing was done it was time to pull the chicken and boil down the stock.


It's a bit of work, but it will be worth it when I'm eating chicken and dumplings tonight. By the time I was done with that I was an hour late working on my blog, which is of course, what I'm doing now. I better wrap it up here in fact. It's been a short post, but a long day, lol. So, goodnight from Dominica!