December 2, 2011: Well Into Dragon Age II

Medifast Status: Day 214, Down ~70lbs

Today was a slow day at work.  I had to go in early because of Non-Farm Payroll announcements so I was in the office at seven.  The NFP was good and America has a lot more people working this month that we had previously believed. That is a good economic indicator.

After the numbers were done the morning was nice and slow.  We are only a week away from the winter financial freeze so certain aspects of work are slowing down even as other people are panicked to get the final changes in before we “take a month off.”

I went home for a late lunch and decided to just call it a day and spend the rest of Friday at home with the family.  I still had to work but at least I was at home with them.  Since I went in early this morning and I have the deployments tonight it really is not an issue.

This afternoon was pretty slow at work but my deployments lasted a really long time, until around eight or so.  That was annoying.  So even while it was slow it was actually a thirteen hour day for me which is a bit tiring.

Being home I got to spend some time with Luciana who sleep through so much of my time at home.  Our schedules really do not mesh very well.  She wakes up just in time for me to get ready to go to work, she is often asleep if I come home for lunch and she goes to bed about an hour after I get home in the evening.  So it is really nice to be home during the day and get to see her a little.

This evening, once work was finally done, I got to start really playing Dragon Age II.  I was a few hours into it already and tonight got me to around the eighteen hour point.  I am really into the meat of the game now and Dominica is really enjoying getting to watch me play.  I have a feeling that she is going to skip playing it herself just because she has seen so much of it with me playing.

Liesl is really enjoying DA2 as well.  She loves to sit with me on the couch and watch or do her own thing.  We are getting a lot more time together now because of the game.  She calls it the “dinosaur game” and calls all of the bad creatures dinosaurs but she recognizes spiders, dragons and other nasties in the game and points them out.  It made for a nice evening.

December 1, 2011: More Dragon Age 2

Medifast Status: Day 213, Down ~70lbs

It is Thursday and another really slow day at the office.  This is great.  There is so much going on at home that there is no way that I could put up with work being busy too.

I came home for lunch today and was doing errands for Dominica.  Ended up being a really busy lunch time running from one thing to another.

I got home and needed to do some work for a while.  Maybe an hour or so.  I had some dinner – eating lean and healthy again today.  I have to make up for yesterday with the pizza.

After working for a bit I put in some time on Dragon Age II.  I’m really liking that I am able to play a little bit each day.  That is how I like my video games.  It allows me to maintain the storyline in my head.  If you take too much of a break you have to spend an hour getting reacclimated to the game and you lose the thread easily.  Characters get forgotten, relationships are fuzzy, etc.  Doing it consistently provides a much better experience.

I am about eleven to thirteen hours into DA2 now.  Far enough to be into the meat of the game.  So far I am continuing to really like it.  I’m really liking that I am continuing to see references to decisions that I made long ago in DAO coming back in DA2.  Very good integration between the games – not something that you usually see at all.

Liesl spent much of the evening sitting on the couch with me.  I’m loving this new play room set up.

November 30, 2011: Sfuzzi Las Colinas

Medifast Status: Day 212, Down ~70lbs

This morning started off very busy and I ended up not managing to make it in to the office all morning.  It was busy with me helping Dominica and Danielle, not with office work.  The office was super slow again today, thankfully.

Since I had dinner plans for this evening I was unable to eat lunch today so instead I took what time I had at lunch and played some more Dragon Age II.  Dominica half pays attention as I play.  Part of her wants to watch it and follow along with the story because she wants to know what happens and part of her doesn’t want to know because she is going to play through it too and does not want it all to be spoiled.  Although I imported my old DAO game which had quite a different ending from hers so to some degree we want to see both of them so that we can compare how the DAO universe reacts to our different choices in the original game.

After lunch I went in to the office where the afternoon remained very slow.  At a quarter after five I left work to drive over to Sfuzzi where I am attending a private happy hour event to show off the new restaurant.

Tamara and Watson didn’t manage to make it over to Sfuzzi and Dominica was staying home with the girls since it was a happy hour event so it was just Jenn and I at Sfuzzi tonight.  It is a nice venue and we had a good time.  They provided free drinks and light dinner including tons of pizzas, portabella fries and whatever we wanted from the menu – all of which was excellent.

We hung out for a couple of hours both inside and outside at the firepit that they have there.  I swung over to check out Jenn’s condo and help her size a television.

Dominica had a tough evening with work and the kids.  Liesl was sent to bed early after an incident in which she put her hand into her potty after she had peed in it.

So we didn’t get to relax and hang out that much tonight.

November 29, 2011: The Portage Bridge over the Genesee River at Letchworth State Park

Medifast Status: Day 211, Down ~70lbs

I found out today that the bridge over Portage Canyon back home, the one going over the High Falls in Letchworth State Park that is such a significant piece of my childhood, is being torn down.  That bridge, straddling the Genesee River for the past 136 years, is a landmark in the region.  The current metal bridge replaced the older, and more famous, wooden bridge that burned down long ago.

William Pryor Letchworth, namesake of the park, was living at his stately home, the Glen Iris, in May of 1875 and noted the last crossing of a train over the bridge which then, as now, is clearly visible from the porch of that still standing home.  The last train over the bridge was a passenger train which is surprising to hear today as passenger service in the area has long since vanished.  In the heyday of American rail travel the route would have been an important one being very close to Buffalo, one of America’s powerful rail hubs and largest cities.  Mr. Letchworth was able to witness the entire, glorious fire of the massive wooden bridge while sitting on his porch.  He wrote of his account and sent it in to the Buffalo Courier which published it and thankfully this account still exists today.

You can learn more about the Portage Bridge on Historic Bridges and on Flickr and again, on Flickr.  The new bridge was built in 1875, immediately following the burning of the original bridge.  So the new bridge that Norfolk Southern is planning to build will be the third bridge on the site with the current one having stood there for what is certainly by far the longest span of time.  Even if the new bridge was in place today it would not be the principle bridge at the location until after 2147!

The bridge that is there now has been a vantage point for countless visitors to see Letchworth State Park and the Portage Canyon from high in the air.  Norfolk Southern plans to block off the new bridge to keep people from going out on to it – which I understand from an insurance and liability perspective but it is sad as the existing 1875 bridge was built during an era when allowing people onto the bridge was an obvious way to go and it has been such a critical part of life in the region.  I found this great picture on Flickr that was taken from the Portage Bridge in Autumn.  I have been on the bridge many times myself and have taken several pictures from it as well.  That bridge was a part of my childhood and I will miss it.  I’ve even taken Dominica there when we were first married and living in the area.  Many people will miss that old bridge.  There is a lot of history there.

It was a very slow morning at the office and for the first time in months I am actually caught up on SGL.  I am writing today’s post “as it happens” rather than coming back to it later.  That is a good feeling.  I never feel up to par when I am behind on SGL posts.

I went home just after noon to have “lunch” with the family.  Lunch just being time to help Dominica with work since we normally eat our one meal at dinner and not at lunch.  Today is Tuesday so we are going to Brookhaven tonight for kids’ night.  Liesl loves Brookhaven’s kids’ pizza which is great because she really does not get pizza at home anymore because Dominica and I are never able to eat it.  Can you believe that I have not had “normal” food now for nearly two thirds of a year?  Two hundred and eleven days.  Just three more weeks to go to the two thirds mark.  No bread, only three slices of pizza in all of that time, etc. It is hard to believe that such a large portion of my life has past without eating the foods that I love so much.  That hardly seems possible.  I can still remember the taste of bread and wine!

The afternoon was really slow too.  The time really passed quickly and I am managing to get caught up on emails.  I got to leave a little before five from how slow it was and ran home, grab the family and we were down to Brookhaven for dinner a little before a quarter to six.  That worked out great.  We were all starving so getting there on the early side was nice.

Liesl did such an awesome job of eating tonight.  She ate tons of broccoli and the cheesy part of one slice of kids pizza leaving the crust which is the part with the calories and not the protein, so even that was good.  I got her more broccoli and pineapple and she ate all of that too.  She is one of the most impressive young eaters that I have ever seen.  After dinner she ate some of a cupcake too.

After dinner we went back home just in time for our weekly call.  That lasted less than an hour which was nice.  Then Dominica and I worked for a while, maybe an hour.

Later in the evening I put in Dragon Age II and played for a few hours.  I’m making good progress on this game.  One thing that is really noticeable is that Dragon Age II looks way better than Dragon Age Origins and just crazy amounts better than Oblivion.  Nice to see how far they can push the platform now that it has been out for so long (I am playing this on the PS3.)

I’ve heard that a lot of people did not like Dragon Age II that much and, admittedly, I am still at the beginning of the game and have a very long way to go because I know how good it may or may not be but at the current stage I am quite happy with it and am enjoying the story unfolding.  And Liesl is continuing to like watching me play as well.

Now that we have the real couch in the play room Liesl’s new thing is to sit next to me in the evenings and either watch the television with me or just sit next to me and use the iPad.  It would never have occurred to me how much more “family” oriented this set up of the room would be much the improvement is dramatic.  It feels like we are all closer while simultaneously having more space too.

November 28, 2011: New Playroom Setup

Medifast Status: Day 210, Down ~70lbs

I slept in a little this morning not getting up until nearly eight.  The sun is out and bright but there is a chill in the air.  We have been running the heat pump much of this past week with the Grices and their cold, Texan temperaments and we have gotten used to having the house a little warmer than we use to.  We are spoiled wanting to have our house at seventy degrees now but with Liesl potty training and Luciana being so little it makes sense to have it a little warmer, I suppose.  I do enjoy that I get to wear my fleece all of the time again.

I got to play with Luciana a little this morning before going to work.  Liesl woke up just as I was heading out the door.

This morning was pretty slow at the office.  After the long holiday weekend everyone is dragging.

I had to run home over lunch to help Dominica and Danielle deal with some stuff.  It made for a busy lunch break.  But at least I was able to help so it wasn’t that bad.

The afternoon was actually pretty slow as well.  I’m surprised that it is this slow heading into the December financial freeze.  Just two weeks to go before the freeze is on and we have a bit of a “vacation.”  The afternoon was slow enough that I was able to just leave at five which was great.  Often I get stuck late but I needed to run out and do some quick grocery shopping for Dominica as we have nothing in the house to eat and going out to eat every day is untenable.  Mondays are the toughest day since Brookhaven is closed.  Otherwise Brookhaven is so cheap, convenient and healthy that it is pretty hard to justify anything else.  But on Mondays we are left fending for ourselves.

On the way home from work I stopped off at Walmart and did some quick grocery shopping.  Mostly just frozen veggies, veggie burgers and coffee.  We both felt like a nice, lean dinner today and neither of us wanted to spend any money or to leave the house either.

I spent much of the evening hanging out with my daughters while Dominica worked on her laptop.  She has been doing a lot of Microsoft Office installs and even though the work is easy it takes forever doing it on remote laptops on slow connections.  She ended up doing this all night.

We did some furniture moving tonight.  We cleaned out the play room and we got the couch that Dominica and I have been using in our bedroom for the past nine months and moved it into the play room to replace the theatre furniture that we had crammed in there previously.  Even thought the couch is larger it fits into the room better and actually provides for more free space than the two seater had.  Now we can seat at least one if not two more people into the room and can do so much more comfortably.  The couch is way better for having Liesl and Oreo on it, for example.  The biggest win is getting the massive theatre ottoman out of there which was just so large that it took up all of the available floor space and actually made it impossible to get over to the love seat to sit down.  You had to “fall” into place every time.  Now it is much more comfortable to actually use the room.  It looks much better too with matching furniture that is appropriate for the space.

Dominica did have some work for me to do tonight but it was not all that much.  I did some work for her while she made dinner and fed Luciana and then she had maybe forty-five minutes of other work for me to do as well.

Around nine I sat down to play a little Dragon Age II.  I had to spend at least half an hour just downloading updates to the game and installing them.  There have been a number of patches since it first released and this is the first time that we are playing it on this PS3.  Dominica has her game started on the one in our bedroom but I am playing it out in the play room.

I did not get a lot of time to play but I did manage to get through all of the introductory background, get my characters created and get the actual storyline started.  Basically I did all of the game setup portions and am really ready to actually start playing now.  It took me quite a bit of time but, at most, it was probably about one hour of actual game time at most.  Next time that I play I can just sit down and get into the meat of it which will be more fun.

So far Dragon Age II looks interesting.  The graphics are a step up from Dragon Age Origins but only so much, I am still playing on the PS3 after all.  I am really looking forward to the next generation of consoles.  The current generation was not very impressive when it first released and it is certainly long in the tooth now.  The biggest complaint that I have is the complete inability to do anti-aliasing which is where the systems are really showing their weakness compared to PC gaming.  Oblivion, for example, looks awful when you get up close from all of the “jaggies.”

This is exacerbated by the fact that most games can only run at 720p so not only do we have the game running without anti-aliasing (a critical factor in making rendered games look good) but also running at a resolution that does not map conveniently to modern television monitors which almost universally run at 1080p today.  So magnified jaggies!  Not ideal at all.  Hopefully the next generation of consoles will have the requisite horsepower to run games natively at 1080p with a high refresh rate and do so with a lot of anti-aliasing.  Maybe we will get really lucky and they will come up with a way to play the current crop of PS3 and XBOX 360 games with an upgrade in rendering – but I find that to be incredibly unlikely.  It is just sad that because I want the convenience of Oblivion or Dragon Age on the console with the handy remote that I lose the amazing graphics of my workstation.  These games could look so much better just running on other machines that I already have in the house.

I’m excited to be into Dragon Age II now.  I’ve had this game for almost a year and it has been taunting me all of this time.  And I am glad to finally have Dragon Age Origins out of the way – or under my belt, so to speak.  That is my fourth game “completed” since we first got the current generation of consoles (and since Liesl was born.)  My fifth game if you consider Dragon Age Awakenings to be its own game which, in a way, it was.

Liesl was very excited to watch me play my game although she found it to be rather scary.  So she snuggled next to me on the couch.  It was very sweet.  This is the best way to play video games.  She was really into it and asking questions about what was going on.  She really paid good attention.

Liesl watched for probably an hour before her head drooped and she put her head on my lap and in a few minutes was asleep.  It doesn’t get any sweeter than that.