Castle Magus

I just walked in the door to my Redmond, WA condo from the airport about an hour and a half or so ago. Up until then, I'd been in North Carolina, since December 22, 2013.

What I did during the past month-plus, in no particular order:

( What I did )

---

Here is what I plan to do now:

( What I plan to be doing )

Because I finally feel non-crappy enough, here is the obligatory "What I Did During Christmas" post. You know, aside from coughing up a lung or two (though, to be fair, the whole coughing up a lung thing didn't really set in until after I got back to Washington).

( Putting it behind a cut, because it is kind of long )

See you next year, Internet.

Well, technically, I will be leaving to catch the bus to the airport in about 3 hours. The plane itself won't be leaving until around 10:20PM PST (1:20AM EST). I will be arriving in NC at around 8:30AM EST (5:30AM PST). I will be taking both some Dramamine and some melatonin before getting on the plane, so hopefully I'll actually be able to sleep for once. Then again, I've never been able to successfully fall asleep on an airplane before (at most, I've only managed a vague, almost-sleep-like stupor), because every time I'm almost asleep, the plane will jar in turbulence, or they'll announce something over the PA, or there will be a small child either crying or kicking the back of my seat or both the whole time, etc.

I will be returning to Washington on December 31.

At least the circumstances surrounding my trip this time are (or at least will hopefully be) less sombre than they were last time.

I will be leaving in about 20 minutes or so to head to the transit center, then to the airport, and ultimately to North Carolina. As such, I'll be shutting everything down in a bit. Don't expect to see me online again until I get back next Saturday.

I was coughing and sneezing quite a bit yesterday but otherwise feeling mostly okay, so I went on in to work. Not so this morning, however. Woke up with a full on cold, it feels like. Still coughing and such but worse than yesterday, body/head aches, sore throat (though I'm not sure that that's a direct symptom of the cold rather than just a side effect due to me breathing through my mouth during the night because of stopped up nose, but it sucks either way), and so on. The time frame for this showing up is just about right with having caught something on the flights back last Friday, since it usually takes a few days before something like this fully hits, I think. I just hope I didn't spread this crap to my coworkers during the day yesterday. :/

A more in-depth blow-by-blow post my appear later whenever I get around to it, but for now this is just a FYI to anyone that may care that I'm now back in WA after spending two and a half weeks in NC.

For me, this manifests in my sister trying to finalize dates with me as for when I will be flying to and from North Carolina in December and how long I'll be staying.

I'm already beginning to dread the essentially two full days (there and back) that I will be spending on the process of traveling via airplane, which I absolutely loathe. This includes the trips to/from the airport and any sitting around in said airports that will be required, though it's always the flying itself that sucks the worst. Just thinking about it even now, over two months beforehand, makes me ever-so-slightly nauseous.

I'm heading out in about 30 minutes, so mostly going on radio silence for the next couple weeks or so. Be back around Jan 1.

My original plan for this week was to work two extra hours each day, Monday through Thursday, and then take Friday off, since that's the day my plane leaves for North Carolina. However, it really sucks staying around after work for two hours by myself. Therefore, I think I'm just going to work an extra hour tomorrow, then one on Wednesday, then a normal Thursday, and then do a half day on Friday. That'll still give me plenty of time to get stuff ready for the trip. Heck, even if I'd worked a full day on Friday, I'd still have had plenty of time to get stuff ready to go, given that the plane doesn't even leave until 11:00pm or so, but it'll be nicer to have more time to just chill at home a bit before having to leave for the airport.