Now that I’m and editor over at Purple Pawn, I occasionally get in some free review copies of games. So far, it’s been pretty great (with the exception of the really bad games) because most of the games have been smaller, easy to sit down and play games. It was also easier because I had people I worked with who were willing to play games over lunch.

Since I now work from home, things aren’t as easy. Toss in the fact that I’m receiving higher profile, larger games, and it gets down right tough. I have to schedule times to get together with people and give these games a shot.

Right now I’ve got a small pile to review, and I know the next two weekends are booked solid. Time to break out the calendar.

It’s nothing too fancy. Just a cheap drafting table from Walmart, and some monitor arms to hold my dualies, but I’m loving it so far. It’s amazing what a difference standing and working makes. First and foremost is that I don’t get tired as quickly, and I can keep my focus for longer periods of time. I’m also already feeling the burn in my legs.

I took a quick photo of the desk with my iPhone.

The only thing I really need now is to get a new Kinesis keyboard and a new ergonomic mouse and I’ll be all set!

Bobby slows down when we hit the Route 7 extension in Danbury, CT. He then points out a tree on the side of the road. Even though the tree has fallen it’s leaves are green and it continues to thrive. It’s a strange sight.

“Every time I see that tree I laugh to myself. Someday, someone should write a story about that tree.”

After looking around a bit we decided to look in both Mason, OH and anywhere in the North Allegheny school district in PA. The schools in both areas are top notch, the Autism support is great in both states, and the cost of living is VERY reasonable.

What does this truly mean for us? First, I’d have to leave my current job. My last day at Cronin and Company will be July 9th, and I’ll be moving onto Imbee, Inc to do telecommute system administration. Second, and the hardest pill to swallow for the both of us, is that we have no family in either of those areas. Right now both of our parents live fairly close by. Even some of our extended family is relatively close. In the end, we need to do what’s best for us as an immediate family. With both of us working from home, trips to see family can easily be accommodated.

We know it’s going to be hard, and we know there’ll be days where we wished we hadn’t moved so far away. In the end, it’ll be better for our children, and that’s the most important thing of all.

I need to be better about upkeep here, and I may actually have some interesting things to post about in the near future.

Until then, you can keep an eye on the weird stuff I post on tumblr or twitter.

The truth is, the more that goes on in real life, the less time I have to post. So, the times where the most interesting things are happening are the times I’m not posting about those interesting things.

What’s a boy to do?

Simplify!

I don’t know yet, but I may be replacing this site with my tumblr account, or maybe even a new tumblr account.  Hell, maybe I’ll write up something quick to aggregate multiple tumblr accounts and post them here.

I can’t say for sure. My time to do ANYTHING on ANY of my sites has been very limited. A new baby, trying to sell my house, an Autism Walk, and work tend to get in the way of pointless blogging.

There’s a scene in the beginning of the movie where’s Tiana’s friend Lotte asks her to make “Man-Catching” beignets for a ball that night that will be attended by Prince Naveen of Maldonia…

I could really go into detail here…but just go watch the movie.  It’ll be easier.

ANYWAY.  Tiana makes beignets. The kids see the beignets in the movie. The kids want beignets.  I try to make beignets and hope I don’t screw them up.

Thankfully, they came out great.

I’ve never had a beignet before, but they remind me of the zeppole my grandmother used to make.  Good stuff.

If you’re interested, this is the recipe I used.

Greyson Alexander Kalajian was born on March 28th at 12:08pm. He weighed 6 pound 9 oz, and was 19″. Both mom and baby were, and still are, doing great. Our first two just adore him, and it’s an amazing feeling to have a baby in the house again.

So yeah, we had a baby, and I didn’t post about it until just now. Of course, most people probably found out from my Twitter feed, Plurk timeline, or Facebook profile.

Autism affects 1 in 110 children and 1 in 70 boys.

There are many types of Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Our oldest son has a ASD.

We participate in Walk Now for Autism.  You can donate to our walk.

Thank you.

First, the 1TB hard drive I use with my hacked AppleTV went up in smoke.

500 GB of movies down the shitter.  That drive also housed my iPhoto backup. That really sucked.

Not 30 minutes later I went to get something from the car and stumbled. I didn’t fall, but somehow my iPhone came loose from the pocket I keep it in and went crashing down to the pavement.

Bye, bye glass screen.  Shattered.

Yay.

The phone still works, but I risk slicing my finger open if I dare try and use it.

At least I still have a 500Gb external drive to use, but I needed to clean it up and reformat it.  That meant transffering what I wanted to save onto my laptop, which meant me freeing up 60GB of space on my laptop to fit the stuff from the hard drive.

Needless to say 60GB wasn’t easy to free up, and I deleted some stuff I wish I didn’t have to. At least I have a temporary drive to use with the AppleTV, and to backup my photos.

That leaves the phone.  I don’t know what I’m going to do about that.  I can’t afford a new one, and the prices to get them fixed are insane considering what I paid for the phone, and the fact that our contract is up in November and I’ll be moving to Verizon. I also can’t see finding a cheap phone to put my SIM card in, because I’ll still be paying for iPhone service.