[Gossamer's Scrapbook] The Ethereal Canyon I

[Gossamer]

. ER Visits I put my mom in the hospital last night. I don't think its too bad but when you're 72, any little medical thing needs to be taken seriously. I'll need to visit her regularly and she's another town away, so I'll be scarce on Miza for a bit. Light posting... I'll keep you all informed. .

[Verilian]

I'm glad to hear it's not serious. Hope she gets better soon!

[Tabarnac]

Made me think Cytali. :

[Gossamer]

. This Week Coming into this week I was tired from driving on Saturday which made my sixth work day and a long one which was sort of angering. Why? Because after putting in long hours during the week, when you crawl in a semi-truck to go anywhere to help out the crew you get mileage instead of straight OT which gives me half of what I would make if I continued hostling on that sixth day. There's only so much bitching you can do about 30 bucks an hour whereas .50 cents a mile is grounds for a lot. Anyhow, last week was a roller coaster. I can't tell you how badly it sucked because it was beyond words. One of our drivers stopped showing up for work, one I was very close too, and his land lady found him dead around last Wednesday. My second favorite driver, one I dearly love, was rushed to the hospital for a heart attack Thursday and died twice on the operating table before they managed to get him patched up and stable. Then, during that mess I was supposed to be training two new drivers.. one Thurs/Friday of last week and another Mon/Tues. These drivers were to be filling our empty trucks because we were already down drivers. So we have new drivers but are already short two once more. So then, Sunday night at one am my mom called me. We jokingly call each other this late sometimes because shes retired and stays up to watch some late night TV and I get off about that time. So when she called me I jokingly answered "You'd better be dying..." And she gave this old lady kind of sob and said...."I might be..." It really scared me. She then went on to tell me what happened. At ten pm she had a huge bowl movement that was solid blood. Again at eleven that happened... again and midnight then again at one am. When someone is 72 you take this serious. When someone is in their twenties you start making hemorrhoid jokes and throw in some witty Preparation H ones on the side... so I drove the 40 miles to her house, took her to the hospital, and played the 'Sit in the ER' while nothing happens game. They gave her an exam, found lots of blood, and decided to admit her the next day around noon. They kept her there for three days poking and prodding and watching her diet, stool, and finally sending a camera up. I think this is probably the ultimate humiliation and scare for someone her age especially when they start batting around terms like colon cancer etc. Turns out she has instead something called Diverticulitis - bulging sacs on the side of the colon that sometimes get infected, burst, and bleed. A simple change in diet (more fibre, less nuts, etc) can stop this and its non-serious and not life threatening. It sure as hell was scary though. They released her last night, I took her poodle back to her and made sure she was all settled in, got her some groceries, and care package for in-home pampering.. then went home for some sleep myself. I'm EXHAUSTED. Half cause of work last week, half because a friend is dead, half because I was so worried about my mom, half because another friend is seriously reconsidering his life, and half because I've been training. If I don't have to drive Saturday I'll take some Mizahar time (after I get more sleep... I'm waking up so early when I don't need too and can barely post this groggy) and get caught up. I've just been bombed with demands, questions, folks needing notes on this notes on that, especially gnosis'... I'll get to them people. I promise. My responses will just take some time. Plus, a lot of stuff isn't decided yet.. like where Sylir is going to HD or what his gnosis is going to fully look like. So a lot of the questions I can't answer. Truthfully I'm not letting anyone do gnosis/god writeups for me, so stop asking okay? It will get done when it gets done and like everyone else, you'll simply have to be patient. Morwen's folks in Avanthal waited absolutely the longest for Ice Reaving and it was fine in the end... no one else will have to suffer just because Tyveths isn't in etc. Just be patient. I know there is a lot of Svefra waiting for Oceanus, but truthfully all its going to let them do at level 1 is drink salt water and not have negative effects. That's it. Not a huge impact gamewise on their day to day basics. Also, please note, I'm making RF stuff - since I've madae a real commitment to that city - priority over writeups in the wiki as well. So that's all I wanted to say. Lots of personal stuff and lots of game stuff. Just give me some time and no one get too outrageously mad if I spend a little time posting for my PC too along the way. I'm kinda in the mindset right now where a lot of people can go jump off a bridge if they don't like it and instead of the squeaky wheel getting the oil, its just going to be parked in the garage for a long time where no one can hear it squeak because it got busted back to the bottom of the list. .

[Indigo]

Now that things are a little better with your mom, have a snack in bed,



Tell the world to kiss your ass and have a well deserved nap,


Spend some time with your honey,


And come back to us smiling.

[Gossamer]

. Konti Love I'm definitely going to use her with the scales as some prominent NPC in Riverfall. I just have to figure out where.. perhaps the Pearl House or the Blue Gem. This is probably one of the closest actual 'Konti' pictures I've seen out there. Its sometimes so hard to fit a vision. .

[Paragon]

I for one am thankful you gave us such a beautiful, unique, and intriguing race. I adore the Konti.

And Ronan does too

[Gossamer]

. Donation Time! Hi Guys! It's my annual time to plug a fresh group of donations to the site. Once a year (this year its in April since Tarot is great at coupon clipping and we got a free month of service) we pay off all the site fees for the next year and make upgrades for what we anticipate our usage will be. I say 'we' loosely because in essence all I do is renew the domain names and Tarot does all the really hard work (but you guys knew that!). He did a fabulous job anticipating our needs and growth this year (at last year's upgrades) because when we upgraded last year, we're now using around 76% of what he allocated and anticipated. That means we need to do some upgrades and spend a little dough securing our site for next years anticipated things because we are still growing like wildfire. Now in the true Mizahar tradition, we never cry and beg money nor require anyone donate! Everything that goes into the kitty is all visible for everyone to see (minus those donors names that want to remain anon - which is cool). We should have enough to cover all fees at this newest upgrade and actually cover the domain fees so they don't come out of my pocket this year (yea!)... so all's good. But we'll pretty much clean out the funds account doing so. So in essence Mizahar will be up another year and running strong no worries because you've all been so generous already. I won't BS you or threaten to close like other sites do to bully people into donating! But if you guys feel the urge and like the site, please consider dropping a donation (five or ten bucks a person really adds up when you consider our pbase numbers!) into the kitty to help us refill over the course of the next year. That's less than .83 cents a month on the high end and less than .41 cents a month on the low end. I think its a steal! Some people have even given more, and that's beyond cool to us because it means the Founders then don't have to out-of-pocket our site fees to keep Mizahar running! So, if you've already donated to us, thank you so very much! Your money is going to 100% site operation expenses for 2012. If you haven't and can, please consider doing so. If you haven't and can't... We still love you anyhow and remember that you honestly give to others just by posting with others and that is so very important too! Without writers, we wouldn't have a site. Thanks guys! Its so cool we have a shorter fundraising drive (this post is pretty much it since you guys are great and always support us) than even National Public Radio isn't it? EDIT: I forgot! You can donate using the HELP US feature button at the top of each page! .

[Gossamer]

. Posting Verses Chat I've been lurking in chat quite a bit this week. I wanted to stress however that just because I'm in chat doesn't mean I can post on the boards. I have several moderation posts that have been waiting quite a while and I am simply not getting to them with any rapidity. My phone gets on chat just fine, but I'm usually at work when I do so. I do not whisper in chat when I'm on my phone because it generally epically fails and then your business is everyone else's business. So if you want to talk to me about something private or personal, try to pm me and then wait patiently alright? I'll respond when i'm back on the boards and can... not via my phone. If you are a newbie, its a thousand kinds of rude to demand your mod intervention be removed because you've made corrections and you want it removed NOW. I will remove it, honestly, just give me more than five seconds after you make your corrections and don't assume I'm lounging around the house in a moo moo after 5pm doing nothing here on the west coast. Just follow directions and pm me and when I can get to removing an intervention, I will. I'm rather grumpy. I just did a 65 hr work week and now I'm called in on a weekend I really needed to have off and more importantly have some down time from life during... to do a stupid run to Lake City Wa and Ballard. I really dislike Seattle. I like it when I'm not in it. I like the restaurants there and the people when they aren't driving, but when they are driving, its stupid crazy retarded. Nothing in Seattle is truck friendly. The yuppies in their little green electric cars try to die under semi's daily because they are too busy toying or talking on their tech. Then there's the bumper stickers. I used to love driving in places like Texas because the bumper stickers were awesome. I read them you know. But in Seattle they always have the most retarded liberal drivel that's possible. I like conservative bumper stickers. My favorite recently I saw on a truck was.. "When you move out of your parents basement, get a real job, and pay taxes - then you can vote." I liked that. I texted a picture to a few other peoples I knew (no not while driving) for their own amusement too. The sheer irony of it is that so many middle managers and low position Boeing and tech jobs are out of work in King County Seattle that some of those basement dwellers aren't teens anymore. They are adults. So... this leads me to think I need to stop whining because at least I have a job and my check for this weeks work and all the OT and mileage should be well into the four digits. I still want to slap someone though then crawl in bed and sleep a week. And being in this mood my boss hands me the keys to a 53 ft trailer and a truck that makes it over 65 ft... somewhere around 40,000 lbs and turns me loose on a freeway to head straight to my personal hell. Such a fucking brilliant man... ain't he? Why don't you people stop needing stupid crap... and I do mean stupid crap... so some of us folks in the transportation industry can take a load off at least for one solid fucking weekend. Mkay? Do you honestly need toilet paper, lipstick, a can of whatever the hell it is that's rattling around back in my trailer, a gazillion throw rugs, shelving, dirt for your pots (I have free horse poop at my house honest), tampons, dvds, towels, furniture, lamps, curtain rod hangie thingies, toothpaste, socks... can't you just give shopping a rest for a week or two? There's no holidays in site that we haven't already delivered all the crap for... so whats the deal? .

[Seven Xu]

I commend truck drivers on their ability to get the things we want to consume to their respective stores and warehouses. My dad's a long-haul truck driver and drove himself to a stroke a few years back, but he kept on (sorry) ... truckin' ... because he loves what he does. He's all over North America for weeks on end, I really wish I could put my life on hold sometime and go with him. It's a vastly under appreciated job that not just anyone can do; truck drivers are the backbone of our consumer culture. So, you know, good on you.