The usual Halloween stuff, getting pumpkins at the last minute and walking over to the breeder neighborhood to check out the decorations.

At the range the other day, there was this random chicken walking around. Nice looking rooster, wonder if he escaped or if (like Briggs did) someone dumped his noisy ass 'out in the country' and now he's just living out here until eaten?

The woman says my nose is broken, but it's not. It would hurt WAY more if it was broken; it's just lightly bruised.

Went to Panera today to write for a bit, just wanted to get out and less distracted. Worked for a while, got some stuff written and map work done (trying to describe stuff from 'other places' and didn't want to have to go back and figure out where I made those random references so I made the places first and got them on the map).

From the creeper files, which haven't been updated since I lost touch with Vareck, there was this chick at Panera. On Sundays there is sometimes this (fake) redhead who wears the most amazing white jeans. She's not 'all that' but man she can rock those pants. Today, there was a different chick, older (50s) but still rockin' those style pants. Kept distracting me! :)

The Jeep as seen in the gym parking lot with the new wheel covers. Looks pretty good. It was cold that morning, you can see the frost on the rear panels even after driving it there.

Went for a walk around Bass Lake today, and am now sitting at a Panera attempting to write. Mostly just wasting time and not actually writing, just not feeling it. I would update this with photos... just need to setup the phone to allow photosync to hit the site from the outside.

OK, did that and now I can update from anywhere. So first a totally random photo, the inside of the Genesis service bays up in Durham. Just sent this photo to the woman the other day when she wanted to know where I was. Why keep it? I dunno man, we're weak on content these days.

After 6 months of driving, my first manual transmission. It's a 2012 Hyundai Elantra.... but it is a 6 speed. Just moving it from Subaru up to service, and it wasn't a total POS like most the trade-ins we move. The whole day was kinda magical, the shuttle was right there when I got in first thing, all 3 cars I drove were not broken and had gas, and the shuttle was right there to take me back after work.

The phone sleeve that mom made me years ago is only being held together with gaffers tape and the 3+ year old tape was finally falling apart itself. A few minutes of work with the tape roll and now I'm back to as good as new... or well as good as it gets. Eventually the holder will be more tape that 'leather' but for the next few years we're good. Maybe some day I'll upgrade to a larger format phone and it won't work anymore. Maybe some day.

We found a dead hawk in the yard over by the pond. No sign of what killed it.

Testing two methods of making better crust on the pizzas. First was to pinch some of the edge up a little, as seen on the 1-2 o'clock position on the photo. Second was to fold over about 1/2" as seen on the 10-11 o'clock position. The woman liked the pinch, I liked the fold. I like a bread like crust on my pizza, so I'll be doing that again for sure.

The results of my walk earlier today, took a screen shot so no reason not to upload it here.

OK, enough stalling at Panera, time to go home. We have PT tonight and it gets dark around 5 and the woman is in session until the last second before we leave so I'm on goat patrol.

Also, iCloud isn't updating my obsidian changes from today so I need to fire this laptop back up when I get home to let it all sync. Sometimes that happens.

Watching Sanderson videos from the BYU lecture series and wearing my mouth guard to try make me not randomly gag on it. Ah, multitasking.

Fight club guy wants me to fight in 2 weeks. Against him, so I'm not going to win or get hurt (hopefully) but he's setting up a ring in the other room at the gym and is going to have us do 3 rounds, with timed breaks and corner coaching and everything. Like a dress rehearsal for a fight. I don't think he's thinking I'm going to fight for real, but he's gotta justify setting things up for as many people as possible to the 2-3 real fighters aren't monopolizing classes. That's my theory anyway.

Best match results ever. Toss those two PCC guys out of the way and I'm 5th. However, some good shooters were not there so.... I should be closer to 10th but still in the top 10. Down 1 for the whole match, that's either an improvement or the targets where really close. Kinda both, there was only one slow mover and one 20 yard target since this was setup for the day/night match and they don't want to make it too hard for the night shoot guys. I didn't do that part.

There is another jeep at work, but it's really really trashed. Clearly owned by a woman based on the level of stuffed animals and glitter inside.

At Panera writing, and I'm not happy with it today. I've been watching the Sanderson lectures and have his book summary he shared; it shows exactly how he 'pitches' a book to his publisher before he writes it. It details out the story, setting, characters and all the plot arcs before he writes anything. I'm trying to do the same thing for my story and it's not turning out quite right. I kinda know what I'm doing but it's hard to summarize or things are undefined. Just gotta keep working on it, but it's frustrating for today.

Also a little annoyed because there was some kids soccer team here taking over the place and making a shit ton of noise. I get it this isn't a library or anything but having 30 kids running around like it's a pizza parlor seems inappropriate.

I've been looking at water filter bottles to put into the vehicle bags, and really wanted this collapsible one from camel back but they were expensive. For some reason, Amazon gave me a 1 day deal for 500ff, so I jumped at it. You could only get the dark blue, but that really doesn't matter. Sean tried to get the same deal later in the day (he saw it on his phone from the link I sent) but it wasn't there by the time he got home. Bummer. They fold up really nicely:

Got one of the dealer driver's licenses I'm supposed to have for work. Each dealership is supposed to issue each driver one, but they only do it ever 6 months (or more). Probably illegal? Who knows, they do so many things that aren't legal (like having people sign pre-notarized docs, pretty sure that's not how that's supposed to work).

Also work related, they give out holiday bonuses so you can buy a turkey. Random, but I'm pretty sure it's the first actual 'holiday bonus' I've gotten as a check (vs. just weeks of time off at Apple).

The woman saw that Tractor Supply had goat themed wrapping paper but it couldn't be ordered. I went to the local one and dug through the bins of paper and found the 'cute' ones she wanted. Mission accomplished.

So small world. We went to breakfast with Rachel and Will and Will showed off his new Subaru from Johnson. He traded in an old manual transmission fit.... the same one that I drove from the Subaru lot to the service bay the day before. He bought a service loaner Subaru, so it's possible I drove his 'new' car before he did.

After the fit, I got to drive this back to Cary from service. It's fast for sure, but oddly the fit was more fun to throw around than the STI. The STI just had so much power I couldn't use, the fit I could flog within an inch of it's life.. and just be keeping up with traffic.

My capo keeps falling off the edge of the music stand and I don't have a good spot to put it on the counter where I can reach it without putting the guitar down. I wanted a basket of some sort to put things in on the stand and came up with this box solution. Works pretty well.

Also on the hack the music theme, I put some gaffers tape on the edge of the electric guitar to keep it from slipping off my lap. Makes it easier to play.

I quit watering the garden months ago (?) at this point because everything was dying off at the end of the season. Yet, these goofy tomato plants are still producing. Kinda crazy.

Drove this the other day up to Durham, it was just about as crappy as I recall from the rental car at Apple. The fit/finish/ride and handling are all actually fine given what it is, but that transmission is just... ick. Haven't they figured that out in the last 10+ years?

Some quick research shows yes, they have 'learned' and switched to a different shitty transmission on this 3rd gen unit. There is apparently a manual available which would make it super fun, but alas, Americans are too dumb for that.

Here's another oddball, what amounts to an Italian Miata. Apparently it shares the 'underpinnings' according to Car and Driver. It was pretty zippy, but an auto so just get a Corolla.

I got into Ben Berry's match at TSA. Registration opened at 8pm, I signed up at 8pm and by 8:02pm the match was full. Only two squads; it's a very short match with only 4 stages and only 54 rounds fired for me. Came in 8th out of 31, lotta race gun guys there so a good finish even though it's only 31 shooters. There was one dude there representing. He's 80+ years old, carries a J-frame in real life so.. he's going to shoot that J-frame at the match. No high speed low drag here, just grandpa shooting slowly but very accurately... 5 rounds at a time.

Had to go downtown Raleigh today to the sheriffs department to renew my CCW permit. I parked in the (mostly empty) convention center parking garage down the street figuring a private garage would do more to keep the scumbags out than any government run facility. The renewal paperwork was quick (you do it online and then they print it there and you sign it) and when I went to leave the parking garage the gate just went up as I rolled up to the payment kiosk. So... free parking or a malfunction or some sort of trap? In any case, I still have the tag right here just in case:

Trying to track down the source of that click in the Jeep dash when I start moving. It only happens from a dead stop, and doesn't matter which gear I use (first or second anyway, didn't try third) or how fast or slow I start out. Seems to click right as I get moving a certain speed. Thought it might be the Hill Start Assist thingy, so I used the procedure to disable that:

That wasn't it, but now at least it rolls backward like a proper manual and doesn't hang there when you're in neutral without the brakes applied. I kinda prefer that, all the manuals at work have been un-assisted and it's more natural feeling.