It is day 190, and I did not feel ready to return to work on Monday. I thought I had not finished enough this weekend so much I wanted another day. I was also not sure I could face so many hours of Zoom status meetings. So I put in the paid-time-off (PTO) request in and slept in today–to 8ish.
Susie had some problems this morning and then had to rush off to hair and nail appointment. It was good that I was on PTO, as this would not have meshed well with the meetings. I find being a caregiver in a Covid-19 work from the home world is not that easy.
Returning to one of the things I wanted to do today, I spent most of the day working on my 3D printer build. I am still trying to learn how to use all of this 2020 beam and Torx screws to build my printer. I managed to make the heated plate where the 3D item is produced. I got all of the stepper motors mounted (the motor takes steps and can thus control the tiny steps needed to print in 3D). I managed to find all the parts and attached them so far. I had a panic when a picture did not quite match, but I looked the piece up on the internet and then was able to find it–just a bad photo in the instructions.
Everything was good until I hit the most crucial part, the extruder. The pieces do not fit together. I cannot mount it on to the bars that control its movement. The screws holes are not quite right. I tried for an hour. I know they are 0.2 millimeters too close in the mount to hold the extruder. Ugh! I bought this in 2017, and the company is totally lockdown–no help is coming.
I will wait and see if I think of anything else to do; otherwise, I will drill the hole slightly larger.
I had reheated spaghetti and meatballs for lunch and made Chicken Kiev (frozen from Schwans) with rice and freshly steamed carrots.
Tonight is Monday, and so I have online Dungeons and Dragons using Roll20. Corwin is back with us, so I have all five players. I had to spend more than an hour preparing for the game. I reviewed what we did last week and what is possible to happen tonight. I also suggest that Corwin’s character was warned by the Mad Mage to move to more challenging sections of the Maze. “Follow the Rust Monster,” he is told.
We start the online game without issues, and soon we have everyone going in video chat and in the game.
The characters meet in the adventure just as they attack a zombie beholder. Corwin rejoins them (he missed the last game, so we decided that the Mad Mage just wanted to talk to him). The players over-power the encounter (they are too high-level for the encounters), and after a search, they find a gate marked with a rust monster and head down.
The gate pops them magically to the sixth level, and they are soon exploring a lost dwarven fortress now incorporated in the Mad Mage’s Maze. The dangers are greater, and they fight magical robots designed to look like angry dwarves. The battle was not hard for them to win, but they took some hits this time. Now they understand that they have some of the defenses still working. We end there as they rest in a lost temple of healing and goodness, preparing for much more challenging adventures. We are set to play next Monday!
I read for a bit and try to fix the printer one more time. Parts will not go together. I will look at that later–I will let it sit for a day or so.
I have decided to paint more gaming figures. Richard, one of the leaders of some groups I play in Portland, sent me a text that the figures for Heros of Land, Air, and Sea boardgame (HOLAS) need to be painted to make the game work. I have a copy of the game; I got it for 60% off–massive dudes-on-the-board game and started painting some of it. I will paint it more soon and exchange my painted figures for unpainted (It may surprise folks to learn that I often paint sets of figures two or three times now). I like to paint, and it is nice to use painted dudes-on-board when gaming.
I hope to use the new 3D printer to make some more items for gaming. My resin printer cannot make larger items.
More than three-hundred eighty people lost their battle with the virus today in the USA.
I was looking for a harvest song as we enter the fall: We Plough The Fields and Scatter.
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 