Christmas and Boxing Week 2023
The 2023 year was certainly more return to normal than before. Less people were wearing masks, no more social distancing finger waging, being scrunched in large crowds was normal again, and not having to show your "vaccinated" screen capture at certain places (except at Smokeout, which I hope they do away with) meant that things were going back to pre-2020. The one thing that didn't improve was my workplace, which still integrated cleaning protocols from the pandemic that haven't really gone away. With shifts in classrooms and some teachers allowing big messes to be taken care of by your truly, the last quarter of the year has been stressful and will continue for over the next five months. For this winter break, I was split between Montecito and Rosser with me starting at Montecito for awhile and then the last two shifts are at Rosser. Thankfully, there was no snow to deal with unlike last year. This entry will cover from December 22 to January 7.
The morning of Friday the 22nd, I go on Amazon Canada to see some early Boxing Week deals. The only video game deals I purchased was a copy of Kirby and the Forgotten Land for Nintendo Switch and a Nintendo-licensed 1TB SanDisk Micro SD card for my Switch, all together $195.95 with taxes and free shipping. Both were about 40% off. When come time to play my Switch, at least I'll have plenty of memory for my games! After I slept and drove into Burnaby that early afternoon, I arrive at Rosser and find no one there. There may have been someone in earlier that day, but the alarm was armed when I walked in. David arrived shortly after me and he began some of the scrub downstairs, particularly in the day care and YMCA rooms. As it was a half-shift day, I thought I would only clean the special needs room. I dusted, damped wiped down surfaces, and thoroughly vacuumed the carpet. By the end, I came to the realization that the room will likely be repainted and perhaps reset what I have done. Nothing I can do about that when it happens. Dave let me know that he wasn't just taking all of next week off when we return from the Christmas and Boxing Day holidays, he remembered that he was going to take one more day off in the second week after New Years Day. So he will only get three whole days of working during the scrub. It looks like I will definitely be helping him with the Rosser scrub that week. While saying goodbye to Dave, Kevin from Fresno calls me and I talk to him on my way to Montecito in my car. He had just recovered from pneumonia, but he was having a bad reaction from a flu and Covid shot he just received! After some discussion on Knights stuff and how Anniversary went last month, we hung up not long after I parked my car. No one was also around and I would be alone for the rest of the shift. Jay likely was in until 2pm. Upstairs, I took out all my food scrap recycling and placed the tote at the usual spot near the washrooms back downstairs. I spent the rest of my shift high and regular dusting the last five of my classrooms upstairs plus the other smaller rooms. My Foreman texts me that he wants me to put up the entrance and exit chains when I leave. I got done on time and did the security check around outside the school. I peaked into the kindergarten portable and saw my handiwork the previous night and how clean it looked. I still had to fully clean the washroom and will do that later on in the scrub. When I finished my walk outside the school, I check to see if I can get my key into the entrance chain lock. It had dirt embedded into the lock as a lazy custodian just threw it to the dirt ground after unlocking it a couple Mondays ago and the rain got into it too. I wasn't able to do it the previous Friday so I thought I would try again. Nope, my key couldn't get in all the way and I didn't want to bend it more. I put up the exit chain, got back inside the school, and closed things up while taking a break in the staff room. I texted Leatherdaddy Steve that we were still on for dinner at 7:30pm. I also let my Foreman know that I couldn't lock the entrance chain. He suggested I just make it appear it looks up and locked and that he would look into giving us a new lock or whatever come Wednesday. By 7pm, I arm the school and do what he says. Anyone can come up and easily take the chain down if the look carefully, but nothing we can do about it. I then drive to Denny's on Austin Ave, which took about 15 minutes. Daddy Steve had already arrived and I sat down. We haven't seen each other in two years. I asked how he was as I was worried about him when he didn't reply to any of my messages. He had been going through some health problems and doesn't go on profile websites as much as he used to. We spent the next four hours chatting about stuff. I forgot what he had for dinner, but I got some curry chicken and rice dish that was pretty good. For dessert, he had some cookie and ice cream on a skillet while I had a slice of cookies and cream cake. I gave him his Christmas card with pictures from 2021 and this year (I don't know where I put my 2022 pictures), which he liked. Sometime after 11:20pm, we said goodbye and I drove all the way home. I didn't do much for the rest of the night and Saturday itself.
Sunday morning, I went onto Best Buy Canada's website for any early Boxing Week deals. There was Live A Live on Switch for $20 off it's regular price so I ordered it for $44.75 with taxes and free shipping. I saw my older sister as she was chatting upstairs with my folks. It was good to see them be cordial compared to what happened in November. My mom gave me money to go pick up my own supper: a Pizza Hut Triple Box deal with two pizzas and sides. I ordered it online with a Hawaiian, a Grilled Chicken Arrabbiata, 8 boneless chicken bites, bread sticks, and a Ultimate Hershey's Chipits Cookie dessert. After I picked up it up and took it home, I watched 1946's It's A Wonderful Life on Blu-Ray, the B&W version (my folks would borrow it the next day and watch the colorized version instead.) I picked up the Blu-Ray during last year's Boxing Week. After the film was done, I spent the rest of the night working on my annual Christmas email to bear and leatherbear buds, detailing my year and travels. I sent it out about 6:30am and went to bed soon afterwards.
Christmas Day - more like Christmas afternoon, I got up about 3pm. After dressing, I gave my folks their Christmas card. I got a card from them with a $50 bill in it plus new shoes and a a pack of undies. We had dinner after 4pm with my folks, younger sister, and niece. It was steak and lobster, veggies, asparagus, mushrooms, sliced potato fries, and garlic bread. I gave my cards to my sister and niece. My sister got an Amazon gift card, while my niece got cash and included an Amazon gift card for her father too. After dinner, I later went downstairs for just an over two hour visit with my older sister and brother-in-law. My sister was playing GrimGrimoire OnceMore on PS5, which I knew came from the same developer as Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade (which I played a few years ago here). We watched a few YouTube videos, manly a collection of video game-related skits from Robot Chicken. After coming back upstairs, I called Eugene via Skype and we talked for over an hour. He seemed okay with the surprise Switch gift I got him from Amazon. I explained that since he has never played a Kirby game before, Star Allies would be a good place to start and if he likes it, that there are other Kirby games on Switch to try out. After the phone call, I played Zelda: Oracle of Ages on my 2DS and was nearing the end. I then looked at Boxing Day deals from a few stores online and found them generally pathetic. Daddybear Clayton of Redding replied to my Christmas email, mentioning that he was needing surgery on his knees and that a friend of his he introduced me to at the last BiggerVegas, Chris of Virginia, had passed away! Sigh... another bear passed away in 2023. I went to bed just after 9am.
Boxing Day I got up about 3pm and had half a pot of freshly made pea soup that mom made. The other half I put into the fridge so it will be my supper later. I missed a WhatsApp video call from Daddy Rick of Seattle and left a message that I would be available later at night. I looked at my options for Boxing Day shopping and decided to go to where Walmart and Best Buy were. I arrived around 5pm and parked way in the back of Walmart, but at least I found a spot quickly. It was busy, but not the worst. I went to GameStop and while much wasn't on sale, I did see a 12-inch PVC statue of Daruk from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild from First4Figures for $200. With my Platinum Edge card, it was $20 less. There was a Kirby figure from F4F too, but decided on the Daruk one. With discount and taxes, it was $201.59. I asked about renewing my Edge card for another year as it expires the next day, but the clerk said that corporate was no longer renewing them as they are phasing out the program, with no plans yet to replace or bring in a new one. Not surprised, given GameStop's corporate reputation is absolute SHIT! Like last year, no bag was given to me so I had to walk it all the way back to my car. At least it wasn't raining that day. I then want to Best Buy and didn't find anything. Live A Live for Switch was there and while on sale as advertised, I was more surprised it wasn't sold out! I'm still glad I bought it online though. I walked back across to Walmart and in around the same spot near the entrance, found the same 36-pack Dayspring Christmas cards like last year, except with different art and messages. Discounted, it was $7.18. I go to where the Christmas cards were to make absolutely sure Hanukkah cards were still not being sold and... they're now being sold! I was just at this location over two weeks ago and they now sell Hanukkah AFTER it ended eleven days to this point? Fuck you, Langley Walmart! Sigh. I bought four cards for $3 each so they can be used for next year. I checked their toys and electronics sections in the back next. While some games for current consoles were on sale, nothing jumped out at me. Before finishing off, I grabbed a bottle of Sparkling Fruit2O lime flavour for a $1. The total at self-checkout was $22.58.
It was after 6pm so I couldn't go to the Willowbrook area to continue shopping as things were closing there. I went instead to Toy Traders as they would be open a couple hours more. I spent over half an hour inside, but didn't see anything within my price range and of interest. There was a nice Juggernaut bust I would loved to have gotten, but was $200. Of course, the super expensive busts were making my mouth drool, wishing I had hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy em'. I went home afterwards with my purchases. I then played and beat Oracle of Ages and would need to work on the review entry some more. I video called Daddy Rick back and chatted about Seattle Coronation. I found out it is during President's Day weekend - which was bad as I wanted BLUF Seattle to have their first post-pandemic gathering that Saturday. Rick is going to Coronation that night, which makes the timing even worse. boy (Alex) Zander will be in Seattle that weekend too and as a bootblack, I wanted to get him to do some bootblacking for us BLUF men. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with Seattle - I still plan to see Alex down there before he comes up to Vancouver for the rest of his mini-vacation. As for BLUF Vancouver, I haven't determined yet when we will have our next gathering. After our conversation, I went to bed before 2am because of the day shift change.
Wednesday morning, the first commute into Burnaby was quite good. At Montecito, Jay found that our autoscrubber wasn't working, despite being strictly electrical plug powered and not battery powered. He had to use the swinger machine for scrubbing, but discovered that we didn't have our wet vacuum in the boiler room! Our Foreman must have took it sometime ago and we didn't notice it. Calling him, our Foreman said he would drop it off the next day. As for me, I skipped first break and worked till lunch. In fact, I would keep skipping first break while at Montecito to give myself ample time to get everything I wanted done. I got three classrooms prepped and half of the fourth was done by the end of the shift. Chairs were wiped down quickly and stacked, desks were wiped with stains and adhesive taken off, classroom furniture; ledges; and other surfaces were wiped down, and the floors thoroughly swept and vacuumed. At 4pm, I drove to the Willowbrook area to continue Boxing Week shopping and parked my car at Willow Video. I checked inside and while they had a lot of stuff, nothing jumped at me on sale. They had a lot of great retro games as I guess some previous owners had to part with them in recent times - but a lot of good ones I already own. I walked over to the mall and found the same Kirby figure I was going to get at the previous GameStop and bought it for $101.07 with taxes. My platinum card just expired that day, but I got a discount (just not as much) with a free gold card that the cashier used in its place for free. There wasn't much at Toys "R" Us, so I returned to my car and went home. My Amazon order from the previous week arrived plus a Christmas card from Eugene. Purolator had my Best Buy package, but a note was left as no one answered to get it. I will pick it up after work the next day. Mom made a couple of steaks still leftover from Christmas dinner, fried potato slices, and veggies. While I was working on my Zelda: Oracle of Seasons & Ages review on Semagic, my PC crashed and the save file was corrupted. I had to start all over again. Groan.
At work the next day, I managed to finish cleaning just over three more classrooms, leaving one more for the following day. Jay hosed down his downstairs washrooms and they looked great. I can't do the same for my upstairs washrooms because of a leak that could appear in our custodial office downstairs. I think I tried that during the summer scrub of 2018 or 2019. Anyways, at the end of the shift, I took going south on 200th Street so I could go to Purolator and pick up my package from Best Buy. Since it was next door to a Dairy Queen, I grabbed a small Reese's Peanut Butter Cup pie Blizzard for a treat. At home, I put my new copy of Live A Live away and had the last steaks and veggies for dinner. I reworked on my Oracle of Seasons & Ages review but before I could complete it, Master Robert called me through Telegram and we talked for over an hour. He got my Christmas card and liked the pictures of me and the couple I took of him and his sub last summer when we first introduced. We talked about a number of things: his retirement - which he was getting used to, leather stuff, Pride weekends, and my possible travel plans for 2024. After we hung up, I finished and uploaded the review before midnight.
Friday morning at work, I finished the last classroom and had just over an hour left to clean up the three small rooms in my upstairs run. All the rooms upstairs -sans the washrooms- were done and all they needed was to be thoroughly mopped and the heaters vacuumed with filters changed. Daddy Jeff of Alton, IL texted me that he was in recovery from a work accident that shattered his funny bone and shoulder! Since it was our second half-shift, I left just after 11:30am while Jay had to finish something up. I went straight home, deciding to not stop anywhere for shopping or go visit anyone. I would talk to Daddy Jeff later on, but for the rest of the day, it was mainly relaxing and I even napped for over an hour in the early afternoon. For dinner, mom made me mac & cheese with minced bacon. I then started playing the Xbox 360 version of Red Dead Redemption on my Xbox One X for part of the night. I talked to Daddy Jeff for about fifteen minutes to learn about his injury. Afterwards, I stopped playing my game and watched an episode of Star Trek: TOS on Netflix sometime before bed.
I stayed home Saturday, watching YouTube videos and playing some Red Dead Redemption. It was slave Donovan's birthday so I wished him a Happy Birthday and was flirting with him on and off on Biggercity. Sunday, my Aunt Maria visited and my mom made turkey dinner. I had two full plates and a can of Coke Zero to drink. I spent some time upstairs in the mid-afternoon with my younger sister. The new cable box from Rogers (who has been replacing the Shaw stuff as they acquired them in early spring of 2023) is quite slow in performance and she cannot sign into her CraveTV account. She asked if I had any game consoles for her to borrow and I thought of using a hacked Nintendo Wii console I got from my older brother-in-law years ago. I eventually found it in my room, but couldn't find the hard drive of Wii games he had also given me. There was an NES emulator still on the hacked system, but it was buggy and not all ROMs were on it. I thought I would go look for some used physical Wii games for her the next day. During my search for the console in my bed room, I found an old external hard drive that I forgot about and didn't know what it was. Plugging it into my PC through USB (it must be old as you had to plug it electrically too), I discovered it was owned by both the late-Jim DeYoung and then his husband, the late-Paul Weston. I don't know why I didn't check it years ago. There was a Windows backup file from 2017 and I unpacked the files into my hard drive - and almost filed up my remaining memory to boot! There were two problems that came from the transfer: the first was about two viruses that still lived on the external drive had transfered to my PC; but Windows Security immediately discovered and dealt with them, and the second was that almost every file had a duplicate, which explains why so much of my hard drive memory was ate up. On and off throughout the week, I would delete many files and copy photos I didn't have into my archives. I also had access to Jim's emails as he downloaded them from MS Outlook. It was interesting reading some emails and documents, mainly relevant to the Knights. He also had the pictures I took through the years, which I deleted as I still have them in my archives. I still have a lot more to discover and delete, but it was a bit of a nostalgic trip at times. The New Year reigned in, saying goodbye to 2023.
New Year's Day, I had freshly made chicken soup from mom after I emerged from my bedroom. I decided to go back to Willow Video and look for Wii games for my younger sister. As I was leaving the house, I ran into my sister (plus a male friend of hers) and we chatted a little. Besides go to Willow, I was going to stop off at Shopper's Drug Mart nearby to get my Ozempic prescription filled. On my behalf, she called ahead about my prescription to see how much it would cost and if my health insurance will cover some of it (since she is a hospital pharmacist.) After the call, she suggested that I eventually switch my prescriptions to Costco as they have cheaper dispensing fees and that the Ozempic was going to cost almost $150. Ouch. I thanked her and drove off. After dropping off the prescription at Shopper's and letting them know I could pick it up later in the week, I continued onto Willow Video. I bought five games plus a used Wiimote for over $100: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Metroid: Other M, and Sonic Colors. Such a generous big brother I am! Back at home, mom and I later spent time upstairs in my sister's suite as she wanted to talk about a recent visit from her soon-to-be ex-husband the previous night. As she talked to my mom and showed text messages/emails in regards to their separation, I played and tested Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. They worked find and it was nice to play them again after so many years. Back downstairs, I played a little of Red Dead Redemption.
January 2nd the next morning I returned to work. I spent two hours vacuuming and changing all filters in my upstairs run - except for the portable which I would do the next day. I got a call from Kevin in Fresno that he was in the hospital, waiting for a bed as it was full of Covid patients. I couldn't quite understand him, but he said something has happened from cancer radiation treatments he got years ago. After the conversation, I was damp mopping the first four classrooms before breaking for lunch at noon. Jay was scrubbing the staff room so I had my lunch in the hallway. Later during lunch, he gets a phone call from our Foreman telling him that since the Sub-2 of Burnaby Mountain has been sick these holidays, he wants him to go to Mountain for the final two days and help the crew there. After phone the call, Jay got pissed because it meant he had to scramble to get his run done when he was supposed to have the whole week to do it. I reminded him about this being done to me during Spring Break 2022 and why I blew up at the time. It's the same thing: a custodian gets "sick" during winter/spring break, so one of us is forced out of our school to go help others instead of calling in a casual custodian to help. This is nothing more than penny pinching. But I'm stating the obvious. After lunch, I finished off the last four classrooms and three small rooms. I couldn't tackle the washrooms with limited time left, so I vacuumed them instead. The last job of the day was wiping down tables and chairs in the hallway and then moving them all into the nearest classrooms. I got most of it done before shutting down. I also wiped down and replaced the linings and bags in the food scrap bins. I told Jay before I left that he can continue to use the swing machine for his hallways and that I would just simply wash my floors the next day, for which he was relieved. No big deal. At home, mom fried some of the leftover turkey dinner for my dinner. I noticed Michael & Donovan's Christmas card finally arrived. I played some Red Dead Redemption and did little else.
Wednesday was the last winter scrub day at Montecito, so I had to get everything finished. I first finished off the portable in twenty minutes by changing the filters, scrubbing the toilet, and mopping the washroom floor. Back upstairs, I finished wiping and putting the last furniture away. I washed the washroom walls and stalls, scrubbed toilets and the only urinal, wiped down sinks, and washed the floors. With the washrooms tackled, I swept the hallway and vacuumed my dust mop before putting it away. This allowed me to change my vacuum bag and put the vacuum away, too. I then proceeded to wash the hallway floors. After that was done, I took a break in the alcove while it was drying, watching an episode of Unsolved Mysteries on YouTube. After it was mostly dry, I went downstairs and got the backpack vacuum to do the back stairs that is a part of Jay's run. After that, the floor was dry enough for me to put the hallway furniture back and do a final check of the classrooms. The only thing left upstairs was damp mop the back stairs I just vacuumed. Before 2pm, I shut down the second floor for good. Downstairs on the main floor, I changed all filters for Jay and found that he did not clean the rooms in my run - at all! He says he will do it Friday as he talked to our Foreman and that the Sub-2 is coming back after all, though he needed to still go to Mountain the next day and help them catch up. After the filters, I pushed out the recycling totes for Thursday morning. I finally got to sit down and have my lunch and run the clock out. Back at home, I got a couple of Christmas cards: one from Peter Coolen from Saskatoon, and Daddy Murph from Port Townsend, WA (he didn't know I lived in Langley and sent past cards to my Port Coquitlam address - even though I moved from there in 2016!)
Thursday at Rosser, I checked the special needs room and found it remained untouched by the painters, so it was smart of me to clean it those two Fridays ago. I worked in the gymnasium and its storage rooms while Dave did some of the downstairs classrooms and washrooms. While the YMCA was gone for the winter break, the daycare was not. But for that day, they were on a field trip. In the gym, I started with the stage before tackling the storage rooms next: dusting, wiping, then sweeping. Like at Montecito, the autoscrubber couldn't be used. While it seemed okay before, this time we found it was leaking water from the hose portion likely as it has become more brittle. That's now both autoscrubbers in both of my schools being broken down. I do hope they will be fixed by spring break. I was going to autoscrub the gym floor, but will have to damp mop instead. It would have to wait the next day as I instead went and cleaned the office and art storage rooms. I got a call from fellow-Knight Wayne T. and made plans to meet the next day to sign some things and get my belated Christmas gift from him.
The last day shift of winter break. There wasn't much to do throughout the day as most of what could be accomplished during the break was done. I finished off the gym, which ended my portion of my run. David did the stairs and we worked on one upstairs classroom that had boxes and other stuff all over the tables. The previous teacher is taking maternity leave, so I guess the new teacher still has her stuff all over the place. David concentrated more on sweeping and vacuuming, I wiped down surfaces, getting whatever I could as long as it wasn't too awkward or heavy. We got a lot more break time that day and I even got a nap during our first break. Toward the end, Dave quickly cleaned the washrooms we used upstairs while I mopped them and we took out the garbage. I noticed that the day painter was starting to work in the special needs rooms, which was good timing as he didn't paint it earlier and cause a mess (meaning, I would have to re-clean it.) I believe the gym will be done when school reopens and I read that it will be the last place for them to repaint. David and I left Rosser before 4pm and I traveled south on Willingdon to get to the Metrotown area and park outside Wayne's apartment. He eventually came out and I had him sit in the passenger seat so we could talk privately. He handed me a stocking with Christmas gifts inside, but wouldn't check them out until I got home. For the Knights, I first signed a cheque - the one that will go to our charity, and then pre-signed a few more cheques so we wouldn't have to worry about hounding me for awhile. I then co-signed a membership form for a new pledge -Benny- but found he forgot to sign his signature at the bottom. No big deal, we can get him to sign it another time. After those were done, we spent the next two hours talking. The first hour was about the problems Wayne has been experiencing at work since his return. The company has instituted new protocols out of the blue due to incidences of the people who took over for him while he was recovering from his second hip surgery from last summer to autumn. For example, there was an emergency and a resident was trying to find the night worker who didn't respond to calls. It turns out he was not even on site - he checked in and eventually slipped away from the work site for non-work reasons. This was one incident that got the company in trouble, so things had to change, requiring Wayne to get swept up in it when he came back from his sick time. He was once again questioning his place in a job he has been for around thirty years. After talking about work, I finally told him about what happened at Knights Anniversary when we were at the Pumpjack Pub, and how I managed to get under the ire of two local Leatherdaddies that night. It's for that reason I told him, that I will not go -or hardly go- to VML socials this year and allow things to die down. I want to see if there are ways to patch things up with those Leatherdaddies too. If I can, then I will return to the socials. If not, then best to stay away. Wayne understood and will probably not go to them either. During these conversations, my bladder was getting impatient, so I knew I would need to find a place to piss after our blabbing for so long! When Wayne finally left after 6pm, I quickly drove to Market Crossing and went to Tim Hortons. I got a Reese's Minis Dream Cookie with pecans and then unloaded my bladder in the washroom. I stopped at a VanCity ATM to withdraw the last half of next month's rent. Back in the car, I had the cookie and it was very tasty! I think the cookie itself was peanut butter, which are one of my favourite cookies. I then drove home and found mom was finishing baking a frozen pizza for me before heading to bed. I didn't do much for the rest of the night as fatigue hit me and I was napping on and off. I managed to stay up long enough to have a pot of chicken noodle soup. Having to return to my previous sleep habit, I ended up going to bed around 10am.
For the weekend, I didn't do much. On Sunday after I got up, I took my first shot of 0.25mg of Ozempic into my stomach. I did feel slightly strange, but nothing dramatic. Probably by my February monthly entry I'll see if there are any results and side effects. Later at night, I looked at two VHS tapes that I rescued as my father was wanting me to throw out five bags worth in my school garbage bin last week. I think most of the tapes have come from my late-grandmother, as a lot of them were Portuguese soap operas and other things that my folks are not known to watch. I didn't throw the bags into the bin blindly - I knew I had to quickly check given how my father is with these things! For the most part, the labels on the tapes were obvious and could be thrown out. I also couldn't do anything with unlabeled tapes, so I threw them out too, hoping there wasn't anything of nostalgic importance that will be lost forever. But there were two that caught my eye: one labeled "Nanook (5 mins)" which was the name of one of my cats that died over twenty years ago, and another labeled "Bedknobs and Broomsticks / Old Cartoons". I remembered the second tape as it was how I watched the classic Disney film in the late-1980s. Tonight, I put the first tape in and saw over five minutes of footage of my cat with my younger sister and a small amount of me in it. I could tell it was shot in the late-1990s with my Playstation and Nintendo 64 consoles shown in view. That was all that was on the first tape. The second tape had a dubbing of the 1968 Rankin/Bass film The Little Drummer Boy, then 1988's The Land Before Time, 1971's Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and then some classic-era Christmas cartoons from the 1930s, I guess. If I recall, these movies were rented from a video store and my father must have borrowed a second VHS player from his father -which was the same RCA model that we had- and copied them onto this VHS tape for us. I completely forgot about us having The Land Before Time on this tape as we later got the official VHS (I believe was sold by McDonalds years later with a promotion that was going on, selling some family movies for a discounted price with meal purchase.) While these movies are easy to get nowadays, I decided to keep both VHS tapes for nostalgic reasons.
While I didn't accomplish as much as I wanted these holidays, it wasn't bad I felt. I thought I worked decently for the winter scrub, even though I sacrificed some break time to keep consistency. The Boxing Week deals were not impressive and the lack of funds meant I have to try again in late 2024 with upgrading some of my tech. I was glad I got to see Leatherdaddy Steve and that he was all right, and even got to see Wayne T. too. I was grateful for all the Christmas cards I got, which surprised me. 2023 itself was also a mixed bag. Having to retire my car and get another one set me back financially. I was hoping it would hold up for a couple more years before biting the dust. While it was good to see my A1 blood glucose go down with a combination of better diet and the medications kicking in, I'm still in the high range and has now prompted me to start taking a third medication to control my sugars. In less than two years, I went for no medication to four of them! The high cholesterol was a given because it was inherited, and just taking a single pill a day is easy. The diabetes really ruined things for me as I felt that such a thing should have shown up in my 50s, which I would have accepted. Two of my medications cost around $100 or more, and it will add up. I'll do my best to get ahead financially in 2024 and afford what I need and want to do. Losing a few bear buddies in 2023 didn't help, including one I had feelings for. In terms of travel, I probably went to the most leather events in a single year. I'm glad I did and made some good connections, plus I got to spend more time with my leather family. I do want to return to the east coast this summer, so we'll see what itinerary I can come up with. I plan to do one or two quick trips to Vegas this year. As for my family, I'm glad we're still alive and well, but my younger sister's divorcing has fractured things. It is a constant reminder that things will never last and one day, it will all come apart. But this year, my parents reached their 50th Anniversary, thanks to their love and God's blessings upon them.
My list of potential games to play in 2024:
PS3: Metal Gear Solid The Legacy Collection
PS4: Rise of the Tomb Raider
Xbox One: Final Fantasy XV: Royal Edition, Resident Evil: Revelations 2
WiiU: Tekken Tag Tournament 2: WiiU Edition, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD
3DS: Bravely Second: End Layer, 3D Classics: Kid Icarus
It's hard to say if I will complete re-watching all of Star Trek: The Original Series this year, but likely I should have the first two seasons done. After I subscribe to Paramount+, I will continue and review the newer Star Trek shows (groan...). I was supposed to start Batman: The Animated Series on Blu-Ray last year, so I should look into that as I have my Blu-Ray player set up. Red Dead Redemption probably won't be done until February given it's a huge game and I plan to do a lot of the side quests. Once it is reviewed, I will retire my Xbox 360 console even if I'm playing the game on my Xbox One X. Legacy of Ys: Books I & II may probably be done not long after and then I can start playing the games listed above. I'm not sure if I will retire my 2DS this year, but it is getting close. I'm glad I retired my Wii and I will give a special concentration to the WiiU. And finally, the PS3 is going to be retired soon too.
Here's to a good 2024! God Bless!
- Steve