The vacation was very nice, and much needed. We left Saturday morning around 07:00 for Ruckersville, VA and arrived around 10:00 - pretty good time. We went to the ACAC waterpark (mostly a big pool with a couple slides) and spent the afternoon there, baking and swimming. We ate some huge pizzas (18" is big) and played Star Wars Trivial Pursuit where my 7yo nephew proceeded to win! That's pretty good when 1) I'm a nerd, and know a decent amount about Star Wars (but not enough names, apparently) and 2) my brother-in-law has read most of the books and seen episode 4 over 100 times (and most of the other episodes multiple times as well).
Sunday we got up and played croquet where my sister managed to beat me after a short arms-race where we both were stingers. We left around 13:30 for Short Pump, VA and arrived around 15:00. We went to an art museum in Richmond before catching supper, then watching The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Narnia was very good; so good that it made me want to read the books (the entire series. Then I remembered that I never finished Lord of the Rings. Sigh.
Monday we mostly just hung out, but we did go to a store called Hobby Town USA where my interest in RC Cars got perked up again. Then they were quickly dashed when I saw the \$300 price tag. Then they were revived when I remembed about my Dad's battery-powered RC car (much better than your typical Radio Shack brand) - more about that later. We left around 13:30 and got home around 17:30 - 4 hours from Richmond ain't too bad! We spent the rest of the evening relaxing. I played WoW a bit, then Tiff and I sat out back and watched our neighbors put off fireworks.
Monday Tiff left around 07:30 to help clear out her grandmother's extra-room in preparation of putting a shower in there. I got up around 10:30 and decided I needed to work on my car, so I made my way over to Advanced Auto Parts to pickup an oil fillter and fuel filter and over to Walmart for an oil change. Well, I waited at Walmart for about 20 minutes for someone to come to the auto department then I left. So back home for more WoW.
I spent most of the afternoon playing WoW; from about 12:30 until 15:30. When I was done with my first SFK run and exited the game, I realized that I'm not getting anything out of this game. The biggest attraction for this game is the social interaction, but it's too difficult to even do this outside of pickup groups if you don't play regularly (like me) since the character's level disparity is too great. There's no real storyline to speak of, so it's just level grinding and social interaction. So I think I'm going to cancel my account.
Oh, and Monday's not done yet! After I had the realizition to cancel my WoW account, I went over to my in-laws for supper. After supper I headed over to my parents' to chat for awhile, where I eventually asked about the RC car. There are some problems with it that I knew about - the batteries wouldn't hold a charge anymore (stupid NiCad) and the rear axle casings were going out. Much to my pleasant surprise, we (me or my Dad) had ordered replacement axle casings sometime in the past, so they just need installed. And the batteries are just C-Cell batteries wrapped into a case with a tiyama connector. I did some looking this morning, and they make 6000 mAh (!!) C-Cell NiMH batteries now, but I decided to get a 3300 mAh battery pack (x2) and a smart charger for \$50 instead of trying to make battery packs myself. This thing will be back on the road in no time, and should have 3x the runtime as before (the previous battery was 1200 mAh and ran for about 10-15 minutes).
And in case you missed it, I'm canceling my WoW account!