Going backward, I arrived from Portland in Air Volvo before midnight without incident. Of course, the traffic was not light at 11ish, but there was no slowing, and there were many fast fliers out on the roads, which you must watch as Oregon has very liberal drug laws, and we are known for our beer-guzzling and fine wines.
The house is cold as I have finally turned on the Air Conditioning (AC). The house stays cool usually, but once it heats up inside, it takes hours to cool down at night. That meant I would open all the windows and leave for a 10PM or later movie on hot nights. Now the AC works to keep the house cool in the afternoon. The AC unit is a few years old now, but it is 150% of what is needed for the house. Thus it runs less, is more efficient, and is never stressed.
I also have two large gum trees that shade the house for part of the day. These keep the house cool in the summer but prevent me from using solar panels on the roof–I had the study done, and nope, no panels for me. The amount of shade makes it a waste to use solar panels here. I am one of those liberals your conservative friends warned you about and paid extra for my electricity to come from green sources.
Returning to the narrative, I was at Richard’s house in Portland playing board games before returning to the Volvo Cave. We played a Japanese worker placement and resource management game made in 2016, Yokohama. Richard had upgraded the game with new wooden pieces, which mostly fit but did improve the play. I like these games, but Shawn and Richard (Shawn joined us again on Saturday night) are much better at these games than I. This explains my last-place finish, but I did enjoy the game and scored over 100. Unfortunately, it took me a while to understand the worker placement part of the game. I did try hard to get to second place, but in the end game scoring, my usual fail, I was weak and slipped behind Shawn.
Next, we played a game. I brought War of Whispers, a newish Kickstarter game. The bling that the Kickstarter brought to the reprint of the game, the deluxe version, mainly was what new games would start with, plastic pieces instead of cubes and cardboard and a new rule book with the 3D pieces shown. I decided to back the Kickstarter after seeing the positive review on the Shut Up and Sit Down YouTube channel (I was shocked that the review was two years ago).
This is a rather unique design based loosely on Game of Thrones, but instead of focusing on the battles, the game is based on taking control of the various factions (again, loosely the Kingdoms in GoT) and helping or hurting them. Each player has five chits, and they get a bonus or penalties after four rounds of running the factions for each city controlled by a faction. Thus, the Cult of the Rat, played by one of the players, might want the north to be winning and the south to be losing, but another player, The Raven, might what the opposite. This is not shared and is secret.
Thus the game in this game, you are trying to guess your opponents’ wishes while keeping your plans hidden. We had some trouble with the rules at first; Shawn found an infinite loop, but we got a handle on them by the second round; only three rounds are making the game a race to get the GoT factions to do your bidding while obstructing your fellow players.
Unusually, I won a game at Richard’s house. My plans were a super-set of Richards and Shawns, so I squeaked by with one point, with our scores numbering 36,35,34. I had noticed that we all seemed to be doing the same main goal, so I focused on my secondary goals and slid into a victory.
Before the games, I drove Air Volvo from the house. I had an emergency meeting for the shoe company and a status meeting before that at 4:30, which became the emergency meeting. This made me a few minutes late for the games.
I rested a bit in the afternoon and cleared more Quicken transactions, new and older incorrectly classified transactions. I will continue to fix this as I go forward. It is a lot of work, and it is best to just do the past transactions over time. I added my 401K (manually, which means I will update the balance monthly by hand) and my deferred compensation (online connection) to get a more complete picture of my retirement. Next, I will get the market price of the house, the house loan, and the vale of Air Volvo to complete the finances. Again, some items will be manual and only need to be updated once a month or even less often.
Before this, I had lunch with Evan at Pepitas. I had a beer and the Chili Colorado with tortillas, I had my CT scan in the morning, and the results were available, and there was no sign of any cancer. Excellent.
Before this, I was at Hummingbird House in the morning. When I got there, Susie was finishing her breakfast. Apparently, the yogurt did not appeal to her, and Vanessa, the nurse for Saturday, made oatmeal for Susie, which was acceptable.
Once breakfast was done, I told Susie not to rush, and we set up the activity room for more movies. Evan, who I was expecting, showed, and we watched the next film in the second Wizarding World movie: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
This movie is the first of these movies in which the screen, while dark, is not too black, which is a significant improvement. The film features the return of the characters from the previous movie in the series and is set in 1926. This is the same period I used for the role-playing game Call of Cthulu; I loved the overlap and observation of period-centric images and technology. The computer graphic view of London and Paris is terrific.
Susie and Evan fell asleep for part of the movie. This was only the second time I had seen it; I last watched it at a theater when it was released. I liked it much better this time, but I do agree that the story lacks some logic as you can’t understand, until nearly the end of the movie, why Dumbledore sent such misfits to handle such a dangerous problem. Overall, I liked it better, and when the film focused on creatures and the main characters, it worked. Much of this story did not work for me–but I love the 1920s, so it still is good.
We did stop a few times in the movie as I had some issues. As the CY scan said, I was constipated at the time of the scan, and, without details, now I was not. Also, we called Susie’s mom, Leta, and let her get caught up with Susie. Barb, Susie’s sister, was with her mom, so we got to say hello to Barb too.
Before the movie, Evan came as I was setting up, and we took Susie for a wheelchair ride through the local park, Metzger Park. It was still cool, over 90F later on Saturday, and lots of folks were in the park enjoying the cool morning.
Evan pushed, and we went to the end of the paved trail, then onto a street and back. About halfway, the wind, blowing hot air, unloaded all the stuff in the pine trees, and we were pelted for a bit with tiny tree bits. Susie’s hat blew off; the wind was a sudden surprise!
The wheelchair ride and the movie left Susie sleepy, and I went with a kiss and a wave.
Before taking Air Volvo to the Hummingbird house, I was at Tom’s Pancake House in Beaverton. I sat at the counter, nobody near me, and enjoyed their no-carbs breakfast, which was a cholesterol disaster but good: cheese omelet, bacon, and sausages. While enjoying my repast and wondering if my next blood test will have bacon floating in it, I got a message. Emergency meeting called by the boss.
We learned that the data conversion for Monday somehow moved up to well now. So I finished, got into Air Volvo, started the car, turned the AC to the max, and called in. There, all unplanned and done on Zoom, we completed our first conversion. It was one of the easy ones. It took five years of work to get here; I am happy.
Before this, I was getting a CT scan in Portland; yes, I drove in and out of Portland twice on Saturday. I was early for my appointment, getting up and rushing. No traffic and I was there more than thirty minutes early, 7:25. The scan was done, it requires an IV, and was over in three minutes; I was done before my original appointment time of 8!
They pump you full of dye and this causes your ears and the rest of you next to get warm from the inside. It is a bizarre feeling. As I said, a few hours later, the results found nothing wrong aside from commenting on the fact I was constipated. Something that was unpleasant all day.
I started at 6. I got some sleep.
Aside: I saw some ants, huge ones, in Susie’s bathroom. They will be putting out some traps for them.
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 