Author: alohawild

I managed as did Susie to sleep most of the night. The alarm at 6:30 did not seem that terrible. I got up and check my schedule, and rested until the last moment. I will admit that I was 5 minutes late, but that did not cause an issue. All clean and shiny with my camera on.

I continued to Zoom more meetings. I turned off the camera while I ate breakfast for the second status meeting. I managed to get through all the morning meetings.

Once free for a moment, I road Susie’s bike (adjusting the seat and remembering to put it back to the pencil mark I put it on for Susie when I was done). I am hoping some bike action might help my leg pain. Leta’s suggested it.

I ordered lunch from the local sushi bar called Sushi Zen (ten-minute walk) but had it delivered. The driver was laughing. Air Volvo is at the hanger getting updates, so I just ordered online, forgetting that Sushi Zen is a minute by car.

I was covering for some folks on vacation, and do I had a few crises of the moment to cover and one late at night. So it was actually a busy day for me.

I slipped out and took an Uber to get Air Volvo and pay almost 4x the original estimate that did not include new tires, brakes, and alignment. The Uber drive had me get in the back to protect her more. I was very supportive of her attempts to be safer.

Air Volvo is perfect again. The smell is of cleaner, and the shine is amazing. I saw my car salesman who sold me the last two cars; he suggested that next time I should just buy a new one instead of spending so much on fixes. Also, I had someone admire my 2018 XC60 and had I not left, I suspect my car salesman would have sold my car to the admirers of such a nice used car and got me a new one! Never stay too long in the Volvo Dealership if they know you.

A few more crises of the moment and a status meeting on Zoom to bring my workday to an end.

Susie decided I was tired and should not have to make dinner. So off to Nonna Emilia!

Like a Roman play, we first had a tragedy. Our favs, veal, is gone from the menu. But then, our waiter just says we can make what you want, and our veal is back. Yes, it was expensive, but it is why we come. Salad and bread and all the usual Italian traditions are followed. But one last failure could not be averted. There is no spumoni! Apparently, our waiter explained here in Beaverton, it is impossible to get. You on the east coast and in Europe enjoy your spumoni for us! So instead, we had ice cream very plain ice cream.

I am home and had to log on to the shoe company and help with a few issues. I am just now finishing up the blog and work. So bracket the time for the blog, and I am way over.

This morning was a rushed adventure. It is the pay bonus month for Nike, and thus I have the car serviced and detailed to a level that it feels like a new car. It is cheaper than a new one!

I dropped of Air Volvo at the service hanger at the mothership in Beaverton. They got me a Uber to get back home. Unfortunately, they could not provide a loaner unless I wanted to wait until next month. As usual, I tell them to spend my money and fix everything. I had already had a warning on tire pressure last month, so I knew there would be extra items besides the 50K maintenance and the SUV super detail.

I managed to get my meds taken, breakfast, and be back on Zoom for the first status meetings. I had four hours of status meetings this morning with a short break. As usual, most of the items required me to pay attention, but as nothing was breaking, I was mostly a watcher.

I ordered Indian Food from GrubHub that was delivered. Biryani Corner’s Chicken Tikka Masala with naan was spicy and nearly too spicy for me. It is still not as good as I have made, but I still enjoyed it. Corwin later finished my lunch; it was more than I can eat!

Susie had Eggo Waffles for lunch with peanut butter.

The Volvo dealership sent me a note for me to approve more fixes. Tires and breaks and alignment, oh my! The price is more than doubled now. I told them to fix everything. I am happy that the tires and breaks were still safe but on their last safe layer. I used them completely without risk. I was surprised that I could wear out tires and breaks in a pandemic, but I then remembered that the car skipped its last two services as it was just sitting around.

It either that or the squirrels are slipping in and sanding down the breaks and tires on Air Volvo to get even for me not planting a nut-bearing tree.

For lunch, I finished some painting of the action tokens for my new board game Ankh. Again, I was painting like an Egyptian. I painted the hard beige plastic with a desert color undercoat from Army Painter a few days ago. I then painted the base color for the token with the larger regimental brush also from Army Painter. I let that dry overnight. Also, the undercoat is not always dry the first few hours, so it is best to let figures sit for a bit.

I then corrected all the overpainting with the hard-to-get Army Painter Kolimsky Masterclass brush. Next, I finished all the detail with the same brush. I seldom use the insane detail brush, also from Army Painter, as I can manage all the insanity with the Kolinsky perfect point. So I did that last night and let it all dry.

For lunch, I sprayed on a shiny Mr.Clean protective coat. This is new for me. My model magazines use a shiny coat as an intermediate coat. It worked well for me today and I will start using this process now. I next washed the figures (Mr.Clean when done lightly dries in minutes) in cold water with some soap and then tried them with paper towels. This allows the paint to flow.

I then went old-school Army Painter and just used the Dark Tone and brushed it on. The protective coat worked, and the colors were bright. I then used some acrylic tinner to dampen a paper towel and wipe away some of the dark from the bright colors. I let that dry for a few hours and then finished with a dull coat spray from Mr.Clean.

I like the look. I painted these items first as they are the action tracking tokens and are used by all players and would be something you look at all the time. Can’t have plain plastic for that!

I have undercoated 30 little camel figures that were ugly grey before. I will likely paint them in the next few days. Again, they are important to the game so I wanted them not ugly gray rat-looking figures.

I returned to work. Some email, slack messages, and more status Zoom meetings. I was tired later in the afternoon and had a break of an hour. I was surprised to wake 40 minutes later. I just closed my eyes!

I did the last meetings at about 4:30ish. I then made dinner. My goulash stew, German-styled. I cut the onions, carrots, and potatoes. I cooked up the beef in a frying pan while cooking onions with garlic and tomato paste. I remember last time to freeze the 1/2 can of paste, so I just used the frozen.

When dinner was made, Susie and I watched Pinocchio from Disney. Yes, the real old one. It is a very short movie.

Got a message from the shoe company, and I am looking into a performance issue.

I hope you like the information on the token painting. Thanks for reading!

 

Susie had a nightmare and woke me up, and I had disturbed sleep. Thusly, 6:30 came unwelcome this morning. However, my first meeting was at 7:30, and thus I had to start early; no sneaking in 30 more minutes and rushing. I was showered and shiny clean and had my camera on for the 7:30 meeting.

My first meeting was with my old team that is developing the shoe company’s main accounting and fulfillment system. I am now doing integration, data, and data conversions, which gets me into enough trouble without returning to my old haunts. But, since I was invited, I helped the architects and business folks work out the issue. So, I was welcomed back much like an honored guest. It was nice to see I could still handle the shipping side of the software. All on Zoom as usual.

After that, I had hours of status meetings, again in Zoom. I had breakfast through those meetings and took all my medications. That is quite a process now, but I am careful to follow the same flow each time.

New problems arose in my health. My legs gave out, and I caught myself on the table. A very nasty surprise! This happened three times this morning and then stopped. I had unhappy visions of needing a walker or cane!

I remembered later that the pushing of Susie seated on the walker means I have to push while leaning a bit. I put a kink in my thighs. I need to be more careful. I had pushed Susie a lot on Monday and Saturday. Got to stretch that out!

My other health issues are a bit better. But, the disturbed sleep left me tired. I took 1/2 of a Benadryl tablet (a whole one will put me out) as my allergies are running harsh. This made me very relaxed, and I had trouble paying attention to the often really boring status details. I took a break when the morning status meetings finally ended at 10:15 and was out like a light!

I reawoke at lunchtime, feeling much better; the allergies impacts had retreated. I made chili dogs for lunch and made enough for Corwin when he got going around 2ish. Susie was up late too and had oatmeal for breakfast/lunch.

During lunch, I watched videos on how to play my new game Ankh. This game is mostly a worker placement game, but I also think there are some Euro-styled engine building. One of the videos I watch was a play-through of a whole two-person game. I could only enjoy about 1/2 of it. I caught their mistakes and misplays on the video; I think I have the basics down.

I returned to work, more status and emails. I slipped out to drive Corwin to work and then stopped by Rainy Day Games, our local gaming store. I picked up some desert yellow spray paint. This is an Army Painter product and can be used as an undercoat too. I decided to paint a few basic items in Ankh already.

Mariah sent a text that she wanted to meet for a beer and more. So we decided on the Wood Fired Rock Pizza. Susie decided to go, and we met there.

I sent a note that I would miss the last status meeting.

We enjoyed some food and beers. An early start. We watched shift change as we were early and headed out while the night was still young. The staff is wearing masks, and masks are worn when headed to and from tables by the customers. I feel safe still.

I returned home and cleaned out Air Volvo of our stuff and some trash. I deliver the vehicle to the mothership tomorrow for a two-day fix and clean treatment. Once a year, I have our car checked, everything fixed and detailed to the max. Due to the strangeness of the times, they have no loaner car (unless I wanted to wait another three weeks) for me. I will have to rely on Uber and friends for two days.

I then painted the plastic 3D action markers for Ankh and washing the tiny camel pieces that I will paint soon. The action markers are not painted in the set, and they need to match the color to be useful. The cardboard versions are colorful, and I am trying to match them. It was the first thing I saw I needed to improve. I have already decided to paint the set. The desert yellow undercoat is already in use!

I am still tired, but I will try to paint a bit more. I hope you enjoy the blog. Thanks for reading!

The morning was here too soon. I managed to get going about 7ish and was dressed and cleaned up for my first Zoom meeting at 8. Unfortunately cUnfortunately, coffee was not enough this morning, and I took a break around 10ish.

Moving to the end of the day and going backwards, Safeway delivered my groceries at 8PM. A couple of items were out-of-stock. I did manage to drop the eggs and lost three; I picked up the plastic bag, and the eggs just seemed to flip out of the bag. The rest of the items I managed to put away without mishaps.

Before this, I was reading the rules to a new Kickstarter game finally delivered after waiting two years, Ankh. This is a dudes-on-a-board style board game from the same designer of Blood Rage and Rising Sun. It is stuffed with amazing figures cast in hard plastic, all ancient Egyptian themes. Like all of these games, it is a visual feast.

I am still just reading the rules and trying to remember how to play. I watched videos a long time ago. We might play it this weekend. I also have Empire of the Stars that arrived this week. So many games; so happy! I have already decided to start painting this game. I never painted my copy of Rising Sun. All of Blood Rage is painted. I will start with the base game.

We meet Mariah at Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. We watched football, preseason, and had wings and things. We discovered that Duvel is on tap there and enjoyed the fine Belgium ale. A fav beer for me.

Everyone was masked at BWW and being careful. The only strange item is that while waiting in line for a table, folks do not do social distancing. I have seen this before.

Work ended about 5ish with more status meetings. I spent the day following the progress and helping with three or four crises of the moment that happened. I did even have a meeting with my boss, Zooming, about some of the unpleasant events of the weekend. He is concerned and doing what he can.

I am tired, and I will stop there. Thanks again for reading.

It is Monday at I am dragging and on hours of Zoom meetings. I mixed the weekend with watching and helping the data conversions and attending twice-a-day status meetings and once-a-day defect review meetings. The project’s leadership decided to attend the meetings creating a strange moment when leadership gets to see “how the sausage is made” and had to get used to the gritty details of data conversions.

On Saturday, I was still showing health issues, and some problems have returned. I am tired and resting a lot. I am taking all the meds and all the med side-effect preventing stuff. So far, I am doing OK.

Susie and I watched a few Disney movies on Disney+ to just hang out as I had to keep checking email and had one call to help with an issue.

I slipped out to get a picture of my roses. Still, a bit washed out by the hot sun, but always nice looking.

I made sandwiches for dinner and then headed off to Richard’s house in Portland to join him and Kathleen in learning the Through the Ages, the newer version, board game.

We had to learn the game, and then the game is a bit of a struggle to finish. All the cards have to be played, and there are a lot of cards. While very well done, the game does remind me of a manual video game. It also had all of us having to remind others that they missed important steps: it is not intuitive like, say, Scythe. We started at 6:30 and finished just before 2AM. Not my usual Saturday night!

The game Through the Ages is a highly regarded board game, and it and Civilvation are the two top games of this style. In this game, you start with a civilization that you are trying to improve more efficiently than the other players. This is mostly done by buying cards on a track and implementing them using resources. Some of the cards provide resources instead. So as in all good games, the choices are all important. Do you build the science building and get more science to build even more, or do you buy the card that will let you finish that high scoring? Are examples of choices that come up. Also, if you create too many resources, you will have to pay some back as corruption or support your population. Cards cannot be discarded usually, so only buy what you can use.

There is also a political and military sub-system where you can even declare and fight a war against your opponents. Except for some aggression from Richard, we did not fight. It was a learning game, and it was hard enough to learn without war! The politics also allowed for an impressive end-of-game scoring that moved Richard to almost overtake Kathleen, and he did surpass me. Not surprisingly, I scored last against Richard and Kathleen in an engine building and resource management game!

My learnings were that my abandonment of military power, I was the leader of military power for a bit, and not building science was a poor choice. I should have built the military up, forcing Richard and Kathleen to do the same, and used it. Plus, not investing in science was a weakness I did not recover from. Kathleen, while winning, had a thought time when she overproduced food. She had heavily invested in it and ended up having to pay for using lots of resources.

It is a longish game, and you can end up with long turns while you try to find the best choices. Start it early. Three players seemed the best game. Four, the max, would play long. As games go, I am looking forward to another game. I have a copy of Lisboa, and I think I might still like it better, but more play is needed before I can say that.

As you can imagine, I was home late, and the 8 Zoom call was hard to get up for. But I did manage an hour of Zoom calls.

I was too tired to head to church. I also was on call; it was best to stay home.

I took a nap and then started on the laundry, cleaning, and making lunch and dinner.

There was another Zoom call at 4:30. I was watching online, but there was nothing I was needed for.

I then headed to play Dungeons and Dragons at Cory’s house that evening. We are playing a published adventure in Hell, fighting to free a lost city from being consumed by infernal forces. This is not a Dante version, but a mix of Mad Max meets Mephistopheles re-imagined by Dungeons Dragons and lawyers. We started out with Corwin losing his fighter character and then having to guard a hut. We were attacked and nearly wiped out. Hell is well hellish. It was a good game, and Corwin was ready with a new character and got back into it.

I was home too late to write, and I still tire easily and was exhausted by then.

I think I will stop there. Just a summary of the interesting parts.