Well, what I thought would be a foray into the shooter genre has quickly become a long-lasting love. I spoke most kindly of Dead Space and when I finished it, I was left wanting for more. I perused our library of existing games and settled on Half-Life 2. I'm playing it on the PS3. We have the PC version as well, but I'm spending so much time on my computer for work that I can't bring myself to use it for gaming right now. So, what I give up in the graphical presentation, I am more than making up for by being able to sit on the recliner

I've decided that I really, really like to shoot things. That sounds a little disturbing, huh? Oh, don't be that way, I know that most of you like to shoot things, too. I just got the crossbow and there is huge satisfaction in that soft thwack followed by someone crumpling in the distance. I think my favorite weapon thus far though is the shotgun. It's very satisfying to shoot those head sucker things.

One aspect of the game that I LOVE is the puzzling. Stack some boxes up here, throw some blocks on that ramp, jump on the rocks to avoid the antlions - grr @ that one. It's not just a hack and slash or a plain ol' shooter. One has to think while playing the game. While that can be frustrating, it is huge amounts of fun!

So, as I delve deeper into the shooters, I'd like to know what your favorites are. What did you like about it? Let me know and you'll be helping me pick the next one.

Sorry for the excitement over something that is probably old hat to most of you who have been playing shooters for a while, but it's new and exciting to me!

~Toni

Heya fellow Gamespotters. I have decided I'm tired of looking at my old blog (makes me angry every time) so like many of you, I'm blogging to get rid of it!

So, yeah, my laptop is smokin'. Why you ask? Well, because I get to do this super awesome thing called running a computer modeling program for work. Yeah, truly, it's awesome. It works my poor machine to death and it's so hot that I keep expecting smoke to come out of it.

I'll explaina little for anyone wanting to listen. The program is called XPSWMM and it's a modeling program that will simulate what's going on in a sewer system. That's right, I'm a poop engineer Anyways,a localcity (like hundreds of cities across the country) needs to stop sending sewage out to the river every time it rains a bunch. Yeah, I know, it's gross, but I'm really, really trying to help them stop. The one obstacle is money. It would cost about $150 Million (yes lots of zeroes) to fix it completely. The City just doesn't have that much cash laying around.

Anyways, the program lets me simulate how much raw sewage is going out to the river during a specific rainfall and letsme change things soI can figure out how to minimize how much hits the river. The program isrunning right now and takes about 20 minutes to run through a month's worth of rainfall. It seems to take longer, but that's it. (And I know, I'm probably slowing it down by being on the internet). So, I enter some data...let it crank for 20 minutes...check it out...change some things...start all over. Yay! Yes, that's been myworklife lately. Well, it was broken up today by a conference call with the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). That's always exciting.

I do get all kinds of pretty graphs and things and tons and tons of text files of data. That definitely makes my work very satisfying the one really, really great thing about having to do this work is that I scored a new laptop and it's pretty sweet. I even managed a 1 Gb graphics card and 4 Mb of RAM. I can run anything we own in terms of pc games. Right now it's got L4D, Doom 3, AOE IIIand Chessmaster installed and not a problem with anything.

Ok, that was my day...how was yours?

~Toni

(Yay, my old blog is gone!)

Well, what exactly do you think when you see a blog title laike that? Sorry, random musings, I can see this is going to be hard to follow already. Feel free to not read on. I'm ok with that.

Anyways, something about tprezzy - I can't communicate very well in emotional or interpersonal situations. Have me stand in front of a town board/city counciland talk about their stormwater project? Check! Have me present a paper on a new type of wastewater treatment system to a very large group of peers? Check! Have me interview with a group of people to get more work for my company? Check! Talk about my feeeelings - eww. No. Not going to happen. But see, if you don't let things see the light of day once in a while, you end up being not a very nice person. And yes, sometimesI can be a not very nice person. Sooooo, I'm trying to speak up more (it's hard - and surely a result of my childhood, but I'm not ready to blog about that) and it's going ok, but it's been suggested by a few people that writing might be easier. So, I'm giving it a go.

I've had a pretty crap week. Ok, the whole summer has been kind of rough and there are a ton of reasons. I'm not going to say it was terrible because we definitely had some great times and some good moments, but I'm carrying around a bunch of baggage that I have to let go. Alright, catch! Here it comes...

There is one thing this week that has me really fried. You all know that our 15 year old is not seeing her not-so-nice dad at her own request....ok, no problem there. We live in a different school district than her dad and we wanted to let her continue at the same school she started her high school career at. Not only is she comfortable there with all of her friends, but her older sister goes to school there. I requested a permit about a month ago after speaking to the principal at the school. She had no issue whatsoever with Erin staying at the same school. Then yesterday I get an email fromher dad(the only way we communicate) and he said that he doesn't think it would be a good idea for Erin to continue at the school because there could be problems. Problems? What problems could he mean? He went on a little more in his message, but he didn't explain what problems he could mean. I didn't even respond I was so shocked.

So, I called Matt and asked him to meet me over at the school with Erin so that we could talk to the principal aboutthe permit. It hadn't been approved yet and with school starting next week, I figured I needed to get it squared away. We met with the principal and she started by saying that she hadn't approved Erin's permit yet because her dad had been in and had some concerns about her staying at the high school. I asked her if her dadgave any reasons and she told us that he had said that he was afraid Erin would have trouble with her sisters. Plural. Well, she only has one sister at north, but her dad's gf that he lives with has a daughter (Lexie) that will be a freshman. I asked the principal if he mentioned Lexie and she said yes, he had. So he's more concerned with his gf's daughter than he is about his own daughter? That's what I was getting out of this.

I was flabbergasted. The principal looked at Erin and asked her if she was going to have any problems and Erin told her that she had no problems and that she loved her sisters. The gf's daughter actually has a history of being in trouble at school and doing poorly - we'll see how she does in high school. The principal seemed to be a little confused by Erin's dad and flat out told us that she had no reason to deny the permit and that it would be signed right away. She's probably seen it all and saw thorugh his bull.

The question I keep asking myself is: What kind of person would try to force his own child away from her comfortable environemnta AND her sister just because he's mad and wants to teach her a lesson? (his words) I sent her dad's email to my attorney and he laughed. He said he'd like to see him go in front of a judge and try to defend this. It all ended up ok, but getting there was a pain. Why? Why do people have to be like this? I understand that he's upset that his daughter wants nothing to do with him. I really do. I've also gone thorugh times with them where they were unsure about being with me. But I worked my butt off to solve the problems and get past them. Their dad will make no effort whatsoever to try to fix this. He is sucha control freak and it's his way or the highway (also his words) and he can't even begin to admit that he has any fault in this.

I sent him an email telling him I'm saddened and disappointed in his behavior and that Erin would be attending the school unless I had a court order saying otherwise. That made him mad. He responded to me by saying that he was fed up and done. He said that all of the girls don't like either of us any more because of the fighting we're doing. Fighting? I'm not fighting. I just point things out as I see them. He HATES having faults pointed out to him or to be told that he's wrong. He HATES not being in control of a situation. I kind of feel like he's losing it a little because he's so mad. That's a little scary. Never know what people are going to do. I talked to all of the girls tonight and they still like Matt and I so I don't know where their dad is getting that. I cant help it that his relationship with them is just so screwed up.

Ok, I'm looking this over and thinking that it does feel a little better to let it out. (ok, ok, you were right ) Sorry if you guys feel like it's not worth reading - and really, that's ok. But I feel a little saner tonight and that's all very good.

Anyways, it's later and I need to get some sleep. Depression tends to make me sleepy and pent up emotions make me depressed...so I'm sleepy Wow, yeah, sleepy. Thanks for being the ear. I appreciate it more than I can ever tell this awesome random bunch of internet friends that I have