So if I had been a smart toad, I would have put descaling solution in my K-cup machine for while I was away at my parents’ house that entire month. The water around here is super hard water. I didn’t even think about that when we left. I left it plugged in and let it continue to cook that water inside itself for an entire month. Awesome. In my defense the first thing I did when I got home was descale it. I mean you could SEE the mineral deposits in the reservoir – at least I hope that’s what it was. Anyhow I washed it out and descaled it. That’s when my machine started to act funny.

First couple of cups it made went fine. After that it would squirt out some water and then it started to sound like it was sucking air or it would sound like it was pumping water without any water coming out. So I decided to descale it again only this time allow it to soak an hour between brewing a cup of the solution out each time. As I’m trying to rinse out the solution, with the pump still acting weird, the descale light comes on. Dude… seriously after all this NOW you decide to tell me there is a problem? I honestly believe at this point it isn’t an issue of descaling so much as a burnt out pump.

I really wish now I had thought to at least shut off my machine while I was away. I’m wondering if it had boiled itself dry inside and somehow killed the parts. I don’t know and it’s not like I can take the machine apart and look.

Through all this yesterday I was drinking instant iced tea, wishing like hell it was instant coffee instead. By the end of the day I had an aura. One cup of coffee in the morning just doesn’t cut it. Little Bear tried my instant peach tea and declared it “disgusting” and honestly I’m not that far behind him on that one. Don’t get me wrong, I like peach tea but I had never had this brand of instant tea before and it’s not working for me at all. And it sure as hell doesn’t have the caffeine levels I need to not die.

This morning I woke up wanting to die. Migraine in full swing with aura. For me the pain is centered around my right eye mostly. It follows back to my ear and then down my neck. And no, far as I know I haven’t been misdiagnosed. I’m pretty sure this is not Trigeminal Nerve Pain. To my knowledge those who have this the pain is all the time, not episodic like migraines. It also seems to cause facial spasms. Far as I know I don’t get those. Anyway tangent aside, I was afraid I was going to have to wake up the boys and haul us all back to my parents’ house. I am currently out of Ibuprophen.

All I have in the apartment for pain meds is Excedrine Migraine and Tylenol. Bleh. Let me just say that yes I was desperate enough to take the two Excedrine. And no it didn’t stay down longer than 15 minutes. Asprin and I are just not friends. I know I should never ever take this on an empty stomach but even then I can’t seem to keep this down. And Tylenol by itself… well it works best for fevers. Only time I use it for pain is if I am alternating it with the Ibuprophen on a Level 3 migraine. So I feel like I’m dying, wishing my K-cup machine hadn’t died, and trying to decide if I need to call my dad or if I can safely drive the 5 minute trip.

That’s when I remember I own a camping percolator! I found it hiding in the cupboard above my stove. It was dusty. It had cobwebs. It’s washable. It’s beautiful. I admit that since the boys hate camping I haven’t used this thing in ages and had to look up how long to perc the coffee once it starts.

Longest 10 minutes of my life. I was worried I wasn’t going to make it, black out, and as a result burn the place down. I made it. Obviously disaster averted. The toad survived. I have forgotten how much I enjoy percolated coffee. The K-cup machine makes weak in comparison. Then again I may have made it stronger than I’m supposed to. The pot is a 9 cup pot and I put 8 tablespoons of grounds in the basket I think.

Hey it’s working. I’m almost finished with the first cup at this point and the pain is subsiding. The aura is still present but at least I don’t feel like death is upon me anymore.

I’m about ready to give up on K-cup machines forever. This is the second one I have killed in two years. I can’t seem to take care of them properly. The sad thing is I had just recently bought a big box of Black Magic K-cups for me and a small box of Junior Mint hot chocolate K-cups for Scholar Owl. Kind of hard to use those without the machine. Well I suppose we could but I know the coffee grounds in those K-cups are a finer grind. Don’t think that would go well in my camping pot.

Okay now for a random, unrelated tangent! I’ve still been working on creating custom biomes using Terrain Control. The current project has been trying to create a biome inspired by my custom map Myconidias. I was afraid that it wouldn’t be possible since this map has a custom cavern with an underground forest in it. I made it work. The process actually involved four separate biome files to create the surface ground appearance. To create the underground cavern I had to create a custom object with air blocks. The only problem I had was the plugin kept kicking out errors while loading chunks. Not sure if this is because of the sheer volume of objects I tried to add, because I’m playing on the same machine I’m hosting the test server on, or if there is a bug in the plugin. Hosting and playing on the same machine usually doesn’t go well unless you are doing lightweight stuff so my guess this is the source of the problem. Seeming how the family all run similar caliber machines as mine I’m going to continue to test with this set up even though the family server is hosted elsewhere. My thought is if I can get it to run smoothly for myself on my test environment, it should be fine on the family server – connection speeds aside. Anyhow, this meant the underground forest got pared down significantly. Here are some screenshots of the custom biome: