Tuesday Games, Portland, and a Good Book

I am reading Hail Mary and laughing as it introduces various characters, including a Dutch leader who is all about getting things done. The description has me laughing, as I have worked with Dutch folks and recognize the behaviors and even hear the accents of the various people in the story. And the glare for laughing too much as an American; been there, done that! With twenty-seven years at Nike, Inc., working on some of the largest IT projects done by a multinational, the characters and their mannerisms seem familiar. It was hard to put the book down when I was in bed reading.

Before that, I was in the office using the Raspberry Pi to finish a very late blog post. I am sorry, it was a bit more stream-of-consciousness than the tight text I try to produce. I was busy on Tuesday, and the new computer is still a learning experience. I am watching my bank balances and letting the lower-valued funds ride without much oversight. I really miss the safety of downloading daily balances and tracking cash against expenditure. I will look for a browser-based replacement for Quicken that offers import and export options. I want to be able to easily switch in and out of something. This is not encouraged by corporate-driven entities and may not exist. For example, banks make it very difficult to transfer large amounts for purported security reasons.

Moving further back, I was in Portland in Air VW the Gray and reading more Hail Mary on my Kindle in my car. There, I discovered I had mangled my meeting with Mariah, and she was not coming at 4ish to Hopworks. I was sitting in their parking lot. I misunderstood the offer to be for a late lunch at Hopworks, not an early dinner during Happy Hour. I then headed to Guardian Games and was tempted by a new 2024 Dungeons & Dragons book. But I was not sure what I would do with it, and I passed on the book. That does not happen often, but I am not DM-ing a campaign; the book, a setting book, was the home to my favorite characters, Howard (the D&D version) and Gray, and I did enjoy looking at it. Though I was never near Bard’s Gate with those characters, but instead near the Sword Coast and Silverymoon fantasy locations.

Before this, I was at Broadway Grill having a Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride beer and a falafel platter for lunch (and thereby missing my chance to see Mariah). I had a window seat, and since I didn’t have my Apple, my Kindle provided a distraction with more of Hail Mary‘s text. I had reached the grill from Richard’s house by the revised angle parking on Broadway. A vehicle nearly backed into me. I skipped that parking spot, thinking it had a bad view or was unlucky (yes, bad Karma). I found another one and walked to the restaurant. Broadway Books is there, too, and I did manage to resist any new books there.

Before that, I was at Richard’s house, having arrived on time because the traffic in Portland was light and Beaverton wasn’t flooded with slow-moving cars. I did witness a few folks break for green lights (I do wonder what color they need to go) in the many lights on TV Highway. It was, despite the fog warning, a sunny and clear morning, and Mount Hood was lovely. I assume the drivers of the slow cars were admiring the view, since the intersection offered a clear view.

Note: Mount Hood is Oregon’s tallest mountain and an active volcano that last erupted during the American Civil War. There are just a few sketches of this, since it was a small-scale eruption with ash, steam, and smoke. May 18th is a free day to see Mount St. Helens. It exploded in 1980, and since then, it has not been visible from TV Highway.

I rose early on Tuesday. I was up at 7, writing the blog and having the last chocolate croissant (I made more that evening—opened the box from Trader Joe’s). I wrote for a while and then dressed and all that. I was soon at Richard’s house in Portland and playing Tainted Grail, my Tuesday game. This is a role-playing and cooperative game, and we had covered the board from one end to another. We had been stuck, and we learned that our decisions in the previous play had left the game deadlocked; we decided to revise them because we had missed one option. This finally granted us, with one more travel across the board, the next part of the story. Yay!

And before this, I was sleeping.

Thanks for reading, and sorry that the last blog was a bit wooden in its wording. I am busy, and blogs are getting done later and later. I always seem to be in a rush.