It is 5:58 AM and I’m just beginning my special quiet time but instead of meandering through Draenor I thought a journal entry was long overdue.
I continue to have strange dreams that I don’t care to put in the dream journal; they are just plain odd, cause a little bit of stress and are best forgotten. I’m assuming they come from the exhaustion of having my family back as my two little boys keep me extremely busy! I’m also certain the Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale I’ve been sampling recently doesn’t help matters.
Halloween quickly approaches and I need to write a post on the start of the holiday season! We carved our pumpkins on Tuesday and they have now rotted. I had hoped to put them still in-tact outside the gate and let the mold and bacteria slowly disfigure the jack-o-lanterns such as I did last year but they were already too rotted to hold their form so they now lie in a mushy pile in the spot I’ve designated the Jack-o-Lantern Graveyard.
Yesterday we went to take the traditional pumpkin patch pictures but my oldest didn’t feel like wearing his costume but the youngest wore the monster outfit without complaint. We didn’t go all the way down to Half Moon Bay this year because the traffic was terrible and is seemingly getting worse as the world discover the absolute stunning beauty of Highway 1. So, we went down to Princeton-by-the-sea but the pumpkin patch wasn’t there this year. We settled for The Farmer’s Daughter and since we have pictures there from years back it has become the de facto traditional place for our pumpkin patch pictures.
In other news, I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself as I was able to figure out a way to watch Amazon Prime movies in Japan for my mother-in-law while she stays with us. My wife had signed up for an account but kept receiving the error message that we are unable to watch since we are not in country. First I tried using a regular proxy but apparently Amazon knows this and continues to block it. Reading a few forums I found that we simply need to use a Japan based VPN server. I found a fantastic list provided by the University of Tsukuba and these servers can be accessed by using the built in network settings with a Mac with L2TP. At first it wouldn’t connect and so I thought it was my router or ISP blocking. I changed a few settings on the router but it still wouldn’t work. I then tried using many different servers on the list and finally one connected!
The second problem was the Amazon site kept asking me to reinstall Microsoft Silverlight which I did a couple of times but still got the same message. I tried using Chrome and it worked without issue! Having never had any reason to try and bypass Amazon blocks before, learning how, then being successful made me feel pretty good!
Think this is enough of a post for this morning and Draenor continues to call so time to continue obtaining gear for my Blood Elf Rogue.
