The result of which was, I got married.

With the new addition to the household, I guess I'll have to make some extra spaces and whatnot, although Yanyan will still have to return to Albany for the time being for her job. We'll figure out how to fix that in good time. For now though, we will retreat for about a week, before meeting for the second stage of Op:Uni up in Camelot Command.

The idea still hasn't quite made it through my head yet, probably only because Yanyan and I've been together so long, it makes very little difference to us whether the ceremony occured or not. But I suppose for propriety's sake it had to take place (at least it appeases the parents. . . supposedly that's quite important).

Incidentally, it looks like I was hit with something in the last couple of days. . . sinus problems and sore throat. Fortunately, after taking numerous naps, the symptoms seem to be subsiding, allowing me to perform normally for tomorrow's event.

Preparations for the sixth MCSE assault is nearing an end. Latest intelligence reports indicate that remanats from the five previous MCSE division has regrouped at this particular fortress, and the sixth division commander is employing some the latest in heavy weaponary. And here I thought that the last battle would be tough. . . it just doesn't get any easier. . . At this point I'll be drilling the troops some more, before I decide in two days whether to launch the assault or not.

On the other hand, Yanyan is coming in tonight, and we're meeting with the various Chiefs of Staff tomorrow to finalize the plans for Operation Unification. Its hard to believe there's only a week left. . . but I think the results should be satisfactory.

As soon as that's done. . . it looks I have some more refitting to do with the Qunicies. Quincy I3800 is about to be upgraded to Quincy I4000, and Quincy X is getting a major hardware overhaul. . . possibly a software overhaul as well depending on my mood. I'm somewhat excited by the prospect, but am also disappointed to know that I can't do anything until Operation Unification is over, and this would be happening at the same time as me preparing for the seventh MCSE attack (assuming I vanquish the sixth. . .).

Woke up this morning, a bit later than I would like, but woke up none the less and followed through with my morning rountine. . . all good. Sat down to check work emails before I head out to work, and then suddenly found that I am unable to get up as there has been sort of mysterious muscular damage in my lower back. Playing through my mind of what I've done in the last twenty-four hours, I cannot think of any particular incident which would explain my current predicament.

On the other hand, I'm now operating below optimum levels, as it appears that I've overheated some of my systems in the past few weeks, and attrition is settling in. I'm trying to stay inactive for the most part, allowing the systems to cool down and for repairs to take effect, but so far its having no effect. All I know is, this no feel good. . .

The matron paid a visit this weekend, and expressed dismay at my current physical condition. Not that I blame her, as I've stretched myself a tad bit too thin what with all these projects in front of me. . .

And of course dad decided to dump another project on my overloaded condition. Seems that he's come across 3 relatively functional computer cores, and would like me to refit and redeploy them. I've given them a preliminary inspection, and they seemed to be in decent shape. In fact, one of them is a prime candidate to revitalize Quincy X. I'll know more once I have more time after Operation Unification is complete to see how much work it'll take for that to happen.

The Saturday night CQB training went pretty well. . . as I managed to stay in the top 5 ranked players despite my severely out-of-shape condition. The first round was a breeze, but the second round I was quite winded, plus I was assigned to a newbie team that had no clue what they were doing. One of the opposite team even came up to me and said I was taking this too seriously. I laughed at the idea and proceeded to take his entire team out. Then one of his team members (who happens to be wheel-chair bound) got pissed and decided to call me out in the middle of the game. Mano y mano. I chucked that idea out as soon as he said it. First, I have better things to do. Second, he wasn't even wearing the vest (which is slightly cheating). So yeah. . . he had a pretty silly notion of what constitutes as following the rules. Paul and I wrapped up the night with some DDR action, however he made some really bad choices in song selections, so I'm going to have to smack him for that.

Woke up sore on Sunday, but went out to the wargame exercises anyways. It felt good being back in full tactical gear running around on the battlefield. Unfortunately it was a little hotter than I anticipated, and I was almost knocked out by heat exhaustion. Fortunately somebody brought a huge cooler full of Hydralite, and I was back in action within the hour. The MN-23 is acting up though, as its shooting higher than I'm pointing. I'm going to have to fix that soon, else I may as well be firing blanks.

Monday was a typical Monday at work. But Monday evening was atypical in that the people at CT HQ decided to head out to Main Event for some team-building games. I applied my skills accordingly and surprised everyone with the highest score at laser tag (besting even those who were rumored to be the best in the company). However, I suck at bowling and way out of practice at billiards, so it barely made things even.

One of the fans was on the motherboard, which I am at this time unable to effect repairs. The other fan I managed to coax into working condition again, but I procured a replacement spare just in case. Fortunately I had a spare RAM module which I used to replace the failed unit, but I'm now out of spare parts. The worst of it, the 60GB of data on the failed array is now completely unrecoverable. Pity. . . the whole idea was to have it in a mirror configuration so that if one of the drives failed, the other can take over. . . who'd thought that the entire array would fail. . .

I have decided to let the troops take a well deserved rest. Instead, I will be attending a CQB training session Saturday night, followed by wargame training session Sunday. It should help me take my mind off of the higher order thinking processes and just concentrate on simple shoot-first-ask-later decisions. Besides. . . I'm way out of shape. . . I need the exercise. . .

Yanyan's visit over the weekend helped alot in rebuilding morale, which now leaves me unfettered to rethink my strategy (and prepare more backup plans). I'm still not entirely sure what went wrong, which makes this even more difficult.

We're on the final stretch for Operation Unification. . . and sometimes my mind still hasn't completely come to grasp with the concept (I'm blaming it on me prepping for the MCSE). Yanyan and I know what we're getting ourselves into (I think). . . and I'm pretty sure we're past the point of no return. Although there's still lots of unknowns ahead, I'm pretty confident we can overcome any obstacles that come our way.

Things at work are going to be interesting what with the new re-organization. It looks like Ed will be marshalling our abilities in order to realize his grand vision on where this company will be going. So like I said. . . interesting times. In the meantime, I'll just do my best in my own little way, knowing that people do notice the difference.

So apparently the parcel company we've contracted with has lost 4 of our laptops within the last 7 business days. While I am understanding enough to realize that this could happen with any company, from a business standpoint it is utterly unacceptable. Fortunately for us the supervisors I've spoken with are quite understanding regarding the situation, and will promptly process our lost claims forms, but I feel that these events have left an irrevocable bad feeling for all involved. All I can say is there's an internal investigation going on with the shipping company, and I'm not at liberty to comment any further on this subject.