Once again, the time has come for me to write here. I hadn’t realized until I logged in and read my notifications that my last post was nearly a month ago- I guess I forgot.

Near the end of last month I realized that my summer was about half over, which was somewhat sad, and I have about a month and a week until my fall semester begins August 21, so that doesn’t help. Unfortunately, my computer has not been working for roughly the past two weeks, so my plans to play many hours of Stellaris have hit a roadblock and I’ve been badly suffering from withdrawal. Well, not really. Unfortunately, my most recent game of Stellaris (featuring my custom empire of theocratic xenophobic militaristic Space-Elves, and the story I had/have been planning based on the game) has suffered; I hope that I won’t have to completely reboot, but it’s possible that I may have to format the hard drive that all of my personal files were installed on, and I may end up losing some things.

Due to requesting last weekend off work (more on that in a moment), my work schedule for this week and last week was different; rather than working Thursday-Sunday nights, as I have been for the past several months, I requested last weekend (well, technically Thursday-Monday) off work, and as a result, the Powers that Be scheduled me for to work a Sunday night (July 2), Tuesday and Wednesday 11 AM-8 PM (July 4 and 5), and then a Tuesday night (July 11) before having Wednesday off and working this coming weekend.

Why did I request that weekend off? Well, my girlfriend’s mom went to Las Vegas for the weekend with her boyfriend (I heard something about his boss paying for a trip), and my girlfriend’s half-sister is not old enough to take care of herself (since she’s almost 5 years old), so essentially I requested time off to help babysit/spend time with my girlfriend. Unfortunately I only got to spend about 12 hours at home. It would have been nice to have had more time at home, and I didn’t get to see my grandparents or any friends, but I was told a few times that my help was appreciated. My girlfriend’s grandmother, who had been near death for at least a couple weeks (and I think I met her once last year, long before her recent illness), passed away Sunday night (maybe a day and a half since the last time my girlfriend and I had visited her). While it’s unfortunate, it wasn’t exactly unexpected, and so hopefully my girlfriend and her family will be less stressed now that they don’t have to take care of or worry about her, even while they’re grieving. While talking to my girlfriend yesterday afternoon, she said I should come to the memorial service later this week – I don’t think that would be practical, even if I do feel bad about not wanting to try to get the time off work.

In other news, I’ve been thinking about the After the End mod for Crusader Kings 2. As mentioned above, my computer has not been working, and due to being busy with school before the semester ended, I haven’t properly played CK2 since February or something ridiculous like that. I’m looking forward to getting my computer running again so I can boot up CK2 and Stellaris. In the After the End mod, I’ve been thinking about an idea I’ve long thought would be interesting- playing as a minor lord, swearing fealty to a much more powerful neighbor, and seeing what happens in the ensuring time. My current/most recent After the End AAR was supposed to be a narrative, but that has proven to be difficult, and the Monks and Mystics expansion coming out interfered (as new expansions usually seem to), as did being busy in real life. As far as my current idea, I really like it (for all that’s worth), and maybe a variety of perspectives (narrative, pseudo-history, etc.) could help maintain interest.

I have been feeling inspired, but uncertain how to proceed. I can’t think of much else to write here, but maybe I’ll try a writing prompt or something after I get up in the morning. We’ll see. I’ll try to write here again soon.