A Song of Ice and Fire

Just finished the last published book in the A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, you know the Game of Thrones books. If you've seen the HBO series or read any of the books you'll know they are full of characters with great depth, violence and sex of all sorts. I think my mistake was reading them all in order by the 5th book some of the plot elements used over and over where wearing on me. I think the only good person in all of Westros was Ned Stark who was killed in the first book. Everyone else is a scoundrel at best and a monster at worst. The plot goes like this: bad person does bad things, the reader hates that character and wants them to get what they deserve, something happens that makes you think like they are finally going to "get it" and then something happens that saves the bad person at the last second denying the reader satisfaction. Good examples are Tyrion at the Eyrie, The Mountain with Prince Oberyn and Cersei at the Sept. The worst example is the Mountain. Oberyn has wounded him mortally several times and instead of finishing him Clegane manages to punch Oberyn in the face which kills him. Clegane dies of poison later and then when Cersei needs a champion a new member of the Kingsguard appears who happens to be 7 feet tall and won't open his visor. Come on! One punch, albeit from a huge mailed fist and Oberyn dies, Clegane takes 3 wounds that should have killed him instantly and then they raise him form the dead as "Ser Robert the Strong", sorry Mr Martin, kinda weak.

Storage Auction

Went to our first storage auction last weekend. It was pretty fun, we won a unit that we thought had some antiques in it. Unfortunately, it had mostly old junk of no value. I think we got our money's worth and we did get a piece of furniture we needed. The auction was silent so it was not as much fun as we thought it was going to be. The baby was great and the kids helped out. We found a great recycler to come and pick up the crap and we loaded the rest the next day. The facility was really shabby, i'd like to see what the units look like at a nicer place.

Still waiting.....

We are now into our 11th week of waiting for the VA to finish my compensation claim. A March or even April discharge looks unlikely at this point.