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shannon_a1. Driving. Thursday night, as I headed out from gaming at "8 Moves Ahead", I was struck by the weirdness of watching someone hop into their car, then walking past him to my own car, to drive home. That's just not how life has been for the last 30 years. Then, Friday morning, I woke up from a dream of driving, and I'm certain that I haven't dreamed of driving in 30 years either.
2. Gaming. I had a great night of gaming at 8MA on Thursday. We had 4-6 players, well board game players, because there are always Magic players and miniatures players and video game players. I'm still struggling a bit with the fact that the group is more American-game oriented than I'd like, but we played Coup, Coup, Coup, Coup, Mysterium, and Dixit. I'm hoping that I can peel off enough players to do some of the more Euro-stuff that I like (of which Mysterium was a fine example, albeit on the light side). Or a campaign that I'd like such as Pandemic Legacy Season 1 or Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. It's really amazing how differently different gaming cultures can evolve, because I had to explain PACG last night, and though several people were interested, no one had heard of it before.
3. Working. Of course my prime focus right now is on working. This is supposed to be my last month of full-time work for Skotos, and so I need to clean up some lingering updates and bugs for RPGnet and also write a thin-auth server for Skotos that will allow us to divide up the games. The RPGnet work is looking very doable, as I finished the big stuff last month and am just dipping in and fixing remaining bugs and adding a few requested features. For Skotos, I can't decide if I'm doing great or it feels unattainable. Some days the one, some the other. But I do have a server that does auth now, and I'm slowly adding in other features. I did a real sprint on Friday and am hoping to do that a few more times this coming week.
4. COVIDIng. So, COVID-19 is continuing to affect our life even though it really isn't. Santa Clara has issued an advisory against large gatherings, so Kimberly and I now suspect that her BTS concert will very likely be canceled. We'll still go out there, because we have many other reasons for visiting the Bay Area (e.g., family and friends), but it'd obviously be deeply disappointing for her. I just don't understand what the world is thinking the end-game is at this point. Because COVID-19 is out: it's spreading silently all over the globe. I mean, if the goal is to slow it down until there's a vaccine, that would make sense, but people are still saying a year out for the vaccine. So what are gov't's going to do a month from now when this is still spreading wildly? Two? Six? I think at some point people are going to have to say: it's awful, it's going to kill a lot of people, but the containment may be worse than the disease. And I'm just shocked that they're not coming to that conclusion yet. Fear is a really great control mechanism. Time will tell.
I can't find the origin of this bit of irony, but I'll leave it here: http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2020/03/weekend-open-thread-bene-gesserit-vs-covid-19/
5. Shelving. The big project that my dad and I continue to work on is shelving. I remember when he quickly knocked out some shelves for me when I was young that I used for decades. In fact, there were three of them, and I only finally got rid of them when we moved: two to Uhuru, who presumably resold them, and one left on the street, and very quickly picked up. But he's much more experienced now, and wants to do these new shelves right, so we're going to end up with some beautiful shelves, but we're taking our time. At this point we've got one of them put all together and all of the screw holes fitted with plugs. Next up will be sanding the plugs down to be flush with the shelf sides. And then we rout the shelves to give them nice edges. And then we stain.
6. Staining. Speaking of which, my dad left me with a couple of gloss finishes to put on the stain, and suggested that I paint out some stain on a scrap board and test the different finishes and see which I like best. So I put down the stain Friday afternoon and afterward I cleaned my brush like I usually would, washing it and brushing the stain out with my hands. Because I didn't really understand how much stickier stain was than paint. So I ended up with two hands entirely covered with stain. Which wouldn't wash out. Whoops! Internet to the rescue: you can use olive oil to get stain off. Who knew?? (It worked great.)
7. Writing. I am slowly making time for my personal writing again. I've written three Designers & Dragons articles since the start of the year, and one Mechanics & Meeples article. Obviously, I've also written a ton of journal entries. I've further done a bit of contract writing for Bitmark, and I'm really determined to sit down and revise a chapter I've drafted for a book on self-sovereign identity. I'm still not up to my pre-move-prep standard of doing serious work every Saturday (and Sunday) and some evenings ... but it's something, and I'm happy for that (and I'm really looking forward to having more time for my personal writing come April).
8. Graying. Here's one thing that's surprised us: every single week we've been in Hawaii since we moved has felt grayer and wetter than any single week we'd ever vacationed here, with the exception of one notably rainy (and floody) vacation where I can remember sitting in my dad and Mary's family room as thunder boomed above us and the lights went out. My dad says it's winter, but we've always been here during this time period: our earliest trip ever was at the very end of October and our latest was in May, but for the most part, we've been here in January, February, or March. We think it's overall been a bit wetter and grayer, but we also think that our house on top of a hill gets more rain and wind than my dad and Mary's place, just a mile away (and my dad seemed to confirm that, saying that they often see rain when they're going by our house, then it's perfectly sunny at theirs.) On the other hand, that means we also get to see awesome rain scything down through the sky diagonally onto this unprotected hillside, as we did last night.
9. Chickening Out. One of our local chickens has disappeared. Alberto went missing about two weeks ago, though Bessie is still around, albeit more skittish than ever. We're disappointed over the loss of one of our centipede killers, who stop the slithery monsters before they get to our house. I'd long said we should be feeding Alberto and Bessie to keep them around our house, but alas we didn't before he disappeared. I think he might have been captured by the local rooster-raisers, and thus is now likely being trained for cock fights. (Every part of this is pure supposition.)
10. Housing. My last item comes from beyond our island: our house appraiser in Berkeley was out last week and will be putting out his report this week. We assume all will go well, but this is of course one of the potential places where something could go horribly wrong, if you got an appraiser who didn't understand how things work. But in 22 days, we'll hopefully be all done and closed out and better able to move forward with our new life here.
2. Gaming. I had a great night of gaming at 8MA on Thursday. We had 4-6 players, well board game players, because there are always Magic players and miniatures players and video game players. I'm still struggling a bit with the fact that the group is more American-game oriented than I'd like, but we played Coup, Coup, Coup, Coup, Mysterium, and Dixit. I'm hoping that I can peel off enough players to do some of the more Euro-stuff that I like (of which Mysterium was a fine example, albeit on the light side). Or a campaign that I'd like such as Pandemic Legacy Season 1 or Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. It's really amazing how differently different gaming cultures can evolve, because I had to explain PACG last night, and though several people were interested, no one had heard of it before.
3. Working. Of course my prime focus right now is on working. This is supposed to be my last month of full-time work for Skotos, and so I need to clean up some lingering updates and bugs for RPGnet and also write a thin-auth server for Skotos that will allow us to divide up the games. The RPGnet work is looking very doable, as I finished the big stuff last month and am just dipping in and fixing remaining bugs and adding a few requested features. For Skotos, I can't decide if I'm doing great or it feels unattainable. Some days the one, some the other. But I do have a server that does auth now, and I'm slowly adding in other features. I did a real sprint on Friday and am hoping to do that a few more times this coming week.
4. COVIDIng. So, COVID-19 is continuing to affect our life even though it really isn't. Santa Clara has issued an advisory against large gatherings, so Kimberly and I now suspect that her BTS concert will very likely be canceled. We'll still go out there, because we have many other reasons for visiting the Bay Area (e.g., family and friends), but it'd obviously be deeply disappointing for her. I just don't understand what the world is thinking the end-game is at this point. Because COVID-19 is out: it's spreading silently all over the globe. I mean, if the goal is to slow it down until there's a vaccine, that would make sense, but people are still saying a year out for the vaccine. So what are gov't's going to do a month from now when this is still spreading wildly? Two? Six? I think at some point people are going to have to say: it's awful, it's going to kill a lot of people, but the containment may be worse than the disease. And I'm just shocked that they're not coming to that conclusion yet. Fear is a really great control mechanism. Time will tell.
I can't find the origin of this bit of irony, but I'll leave it here: http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2020/03/weekend-open-thread-bene-gesserit-vs-covid-19/
5. Shelving. The big project that my dad and I continue to work on is shelving. I remember when he quickly knocked out some shelves for me when I was young that I used for decades. In fact, there were three of them, and I only finally got rid of them when we moved: two to Uhuru, who presumably resold them, and one left on the street, and very quickly picked up. But he's much more experienced now, and wants to do these new shelves right, so we're going to end up with some beautiful shelves, but we're taking our time. At this point we've got one of them put all together and all of the screw holes fitted with plugs. Next up will be sanding the plugs down to be flush with the shelf sides. And then we rout the shelves to give them nice edges. And then we stain.
6. Staining. Speaking of which, my dad left me with a couple of gloss finishes to put on the stain, and suggested that I paint out some stain on a scrap board and test the different finishes and see which I like best. So I put down the stain Friday afternoon and afterward I cleaned my brush like I usually would, washing it and brushing the stain out with my hands. Because I didn't really understand how much stickier stain was than paint. So I ended up with two hands entirely covered with stain. Which wouldn't wash out. Whoops! Internet to the rescue: you can use olive oil to get stain off. Who knew?? (It worked great.)
7. Writing. I am slowly making time for my personal writing again. I've written three Designers & Dragons articles since the start of the year, and one Mechanics & Meeples article. Obviously, I've also written a ton of journal entries. I've further done a bit of contract writing for Bitmark, and I'm really determined to sit down and revise a chapter I've drafted for a book on self-sovereign identity. I'm still not up to my pre-move-prep standard of doing serious work every Saturday (and Sunday) and some evenings ... but it's something, and I'm happy for that (and I'm really looking forward to having more time for my personal writing come April).
8. Graying. Here's one thing that's surprised us: every single week we've been in Hawaii since we moved has felt grayer and wetter than any single week we'd ever vacationed here, with the exception of one notably rainy (and floody) vacation where I can remember sitting in my dad and Mary's family room as thunder boomed above us and the lights went out. My dad says it's winter, but we've always been here during this time period: our earliest trip ever was at the very end of October and our latest was in May, but for the most part, we've been here in January, February, or March. We think it's overall been a bit wetter and grayer, but we also think that our house on top of a hill gets more rain and wind than my dad and Mary's place, just a mile away (and my dad seemed to confirm that, saying that they often see rain when they're going by our house, then it's perfectly sunny at theirs.) On the other hand, that means we also get to see awesome rain scything down through the sky diagonally onto this unprotected hillside, as we did last night.
9. Chickening Out. One of our local chickens has disappeared. Alberto went missing about two weeks ago, though Bessie is still around, albeit more skittish than ever. We're disappointed over the loss of one of our centipede killers, who stop the slithery monsters before they get to our house. I'd long said we should be feeding Alberto and Bessie to keep them around our house, but alas we didn't before he disappeared. I think he might have been captured by the local rooster-raisers, and thus is now likely being trained for cock fights. (Every part of this is pure supposition.)
10. Housing. My last item comes from beyond our island: our house appraiser in Berkeley was out last week and will be putting out his report this week. We assume all will go well, but this is of course one of the potential places where something could go horribly wrong, if you got an appraiser who didn't understand how things work. But in 22 days, we'll hopefully be all done and closed out and better able to move forward with our new life here.