The remains of the migraine haunted me all Monday. My vision seemed to work, but my head still felt like it had a metal band wrapped around it. I was sloppy in my movements, not quite drunken-like, but I had to be careful to hold things as my balance would, based more on sight now, be less effective. I survived the day, ending exhausted and sleeping early and not waking until nearly 8 on Tuesday when I write this! Worse, I thought it was Wednesday and I had to pack! Not quite.
Let me recall Monday on this cloudy Tuesday morning…
Monday rose like some terrible patchwork golem, or like usual, with me thinking Monday would be better with a dose of Loony Tunes, Super Friends, and Thundar the Barbarian, or later Yu-Gi-Oh (“Trust the cards”). I wanted less pain and more cartoons! My Mondays feel like Saturday morning. I found the coffee I had assembled the night before waiting for me, the last of the locally roasted coffee from the 185th and TV corner veggie stand. I perform my usual updates to Quicken, read email, and continue with more doom-scrolling. President Trump seems to be randomly attacking anything to distract from the his setbacks in Ukraine (which did not end the day he took office), Tariffs (though he grabs headlines and then backs away, but the 10-30% remaining is beginning to bite consumers), his political opponents still rise against him (these people are not arrested, shot, or put in camps like he promised), Epstein, and now inventing redistricting as if we are on Jeopardy,”’ Which is Texas,’ for five more votes.”
Instead of focusing on this political mess, I wrote the blog of the previous day’s events, listened to Kink.FM, and caught up on my email. With my illness on Sunday, the blog was short, and I do not want to include spoilers in my description of Dungeons & Dragons play, which also kept it short.
Lunch was some good kielbasa links from Market of Choice that I boiled (it was too hot to grill), and I had them with reheated baked beans and steamed carrots from the day before. I ate the kielbasa with mustard. It was simple and good. Two of the links (more hot dog-sized than rings you often see) ended up in the fridge as leftovers.
Laundry and dishes were done. I tried to do some housework, but yesterday’s headache left me tired, and my thinking was disorganized. I answered some emails about the church refresh. Dondrea and I also covered some travel items.
I tried to rest, but instead of reading, I got to the finish of my current book, The House at Devil’s Neck: A Locked-Room Mystery (Joseph Spector Series), but held that off for another day. The author places a page warning you that the solution is on the next page. The book even includes footnotes when details are mentioned, helping you recheck anything you missed. This is my fourth Tom Mead book, and I recommend them. I have never solved them, but I got close some last time.
Once it was near 4:45, I headed out. Returned to get my Pathfinder version one book, and then my phone. I pulled out, and there was a box at the house. I pulled in and got the box.
It was like Christmas. This was a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 GB of memory, included in a kit that had everything needed to get it up and running, along with a matching monitor. It comes with a mouse, and the usual bare machine is instead enclosed in a keyboard. I opened the boxes to ensure everything was intact, and then reboarded Air VW the Gray and headed towards Portland.
I stopped by the US Bank ATM to get some cash for the trip and to pay for pizza. The traffic through Beaverton was thick and gooey like unbaked cupcakes (in my best Frank Drummond voice) and seemed to glue itself to your car like an ICE agent. I was able to break free on Highway 26 without being deported, and while there were sticky patches, especially around the Bill of Rights, there always were with police-like actions, I managed to arrive on time at Sean’s house.
I played an evil but lawful blasting wizard in this game, just out of school. My two relatively friendly rogues had joined me when we managed to lose a valuable scroll, and our characters are trying to acquire a replacement, hopefully two. We had learned that a lost ancient graveyard might be connected to acquiring replacements and headed that way.
I brought some figures and my graveyard setup, which is often suitable for a first play. This was a new campaign, using Pathfinder rules version 1. What I would call 3.5E, which the revision is based on. Lucky Sean is an expert on these rules, as I have juggled in my mind the five versions I know in my head. I looked up my spells in the book while we set up. In this version’s first level is weak and is more of a survival process.
We grabbed some pizza before the first battle. Thanks, Sean!
We found the location and soon discovered orcs had been looting (though much reduced as the place is clearly stuffed with undead and bad news), and we made short work of them. But before that, one of our rogues stumbled into a zombie that almost killed them. The half-elf no longer took risks after that (one hit point). We then broke into a tomb, I being evil, I thought it best that we retrieve the loot before the next orcs took it (I had written the orc mark on our handiwork).
We ended after all the dead we disturbed were promoted to undead, after we noticed a button to open the deeper vault. Yikes! Next time, we will try not to be recruited for permanent guard duty!
My drive was hard as I was tired. I arrived and had to boot the Raspberry Pi 5, and it was lovely. I let it update for twenty minutes. It is a fantastic amount of power for $220 (that includes the keyboard, mouse, monitor, and tiny SD card it uses for storage).
I set up the coffee, ignored the clean dishes, and soon was reading and then sleeping. I did not wake, but once, the whole night, and startled awake at 8!
Thanks for reading.
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 