Author: alohawild

I returned to the house after having a drink, wings, and coffee at Hopworks with Mariah. Among the things we discussed was our disappointment with the quality of villains in the USA. Pete Hegseth, for me a bad guy, recently accused the US press (as did President Trump) of questioning if we had used up our stockpiles, only to be reminded that the press was quoting Pete Hegseth’s statements to Congress. It just has not reached the quality of 1984 or any decent dystopian movie.  Our villains must be “an embarrassment to Evil,” to quote Maleficent, when she complained about the useless help she had (from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty).

We bewailed the situation over our Old Fashioned that we had not gotten back to writing. But I hope to write in November, if not sooner. Much of my headspace is taken up by The Book of Revelation as I teach five sessions at church this May. For me, I have discovered how much is NOT in the book and later constructions. Sticking to just the text, the story is different from the movie or sermons. I have also suggested that the NRSV has made the text harsher and out of context, as I peek behind the translation, sadly read it word by word since I have forgotten my Greek, and discover a more nuanced text. But this is hours of study, and I often find myself thinking about how to explain it in the lecture. It has been a blast to disappear into scholarship again.

Aside: When I write the blog, I often stop to think about how to present in class and to recall all the facts.

Returning to the narrative, it is wings again, despite the fact that they are bad for me, as they are good here and not as expensive as other places. They are served with carrots, celery, and ranch dressing. I have coffee as I was tired. Again, we talk about Mariah’s work and some of my travels.

After a long, traffic-filled ride home via the usual highways, as I said, I was home, and it was not late. We did happy hour at 3, and I rode over the hill, not on the highways, again. I watched more Star Trek DS9. I  have reached session 2. I studied the PICO Raspberry Pi, which I have recently acquired. More like micro-controllers than what I am used to when working with Raspberry Pi hardware. Hmmmm.

I get a note that we are on for gaming with Doug’s group at 2 on Thursday, excellent, and he suggests bringing a game, and I consider a rail game. I read the rules, and I’m not sure I remember them all. I also have Raider of Scythia, too. Next, I decided to make some scones from a mix. I cut in cold butter, added salt, milk and an egg.  Then, I piled the sticky dough into a baking pan. I had one, excellent. After that, it is late, and I head to bed before 11 and soon sleep. I wake a few times and then sleep the night away.

The afternoon started wtih me just before the afternoon at McMenamins Cedar Hills at the bar. I had my new biz cards; I picked them up just before lunch and gave my first to my usual bartender, who used it to make the Theology Pub reservation for Thursday night. I had the Aztec Salad with chicken and a beer. I was sleepy all afternoon after that. Next time, iced tea!

At the bar, I revised and assembled the minutes for the church meeting I ran the day before. I had Zoom record it and then, using its AI, assemble a version of the minutes. I used that to make my minutes by extracting some of the text (with many revisions). It was helpful and within an hour, and reviewing some handwritten notes I took during the meeting for important points not to be missed, I had a proper set of minutes done. I sent the minutes by email, shared a link to the Google Drive for committee documents, and saved the same minutes to the same drive. I tested the document, made a change, and checked that it stayed (it did).

Before this, and before I showered and dressed, I wrote the blog (it was a bit short) and also revised my notes for Class number 4 on John’s Apocalypse. I try to get a copy of what I am planning to Joan, Ken, and cc’d to Dondrea to allow for input (or objections). I sent out the notes and published the blog.

It was damp and gray all day, even cool enough for a coat, and it rained overnight. The roses look happier with a bit of rain. The pair (or more) of hummingbirds seems happy to patrol the pines and roses for insects.

I rose late, nearing 8, and turned the heat back on in the house last night. It is not usual to stop the heat before the end of May.

And thank you for reading, dear reader!

Tuesday started without a game in Portland — my usual plans — because one of the players was unable to make it. I had the morning to myself. I did not rise early, as there was no need to make a 9:30 timeslot and experience Tuesday morning rush hour wrap-up traffic. Instead, I made coffee and returned to my usual practices. I updated my Quicken transactions, read email, and viewed the news.

I was disquieted and had trouble finding a focus. Memories of Susie’s last months filled my mind with the usual regrets and replaying of events. I quickly rallied, wrote the blog, took many calls about church issues, and was busy all morning and early afternoon with various matters (including talking to US Bank Wealth Management to get some paperwork done).

With my groove back, I talked to Deborah (who was worried about my brief replies and had noticed some of the sadness that had slipped into me) and enjoyed the afternoon. I had leftover chicken for lunch and deboned the rest for some future use. I discovered I need to get more veggies, as I have just had chicken. Next, I headed to Insomnia Coffee, forgetting my earpods, and completed my plans for the fourth class on the Book of Revelation. I was happy to connect the story of Cyrus the Great with my class. I also had a chocolate croissant and a latte.

With the notes done, I returned home and read more American Civil War (ACW) history: The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah (1993). It covers some of the same places we walked on our South Trip last year. It is the story of the final battles of the intact Confederate army in the American South until its disintegration due to losses and poor leadership. It is for those who want a detailed story, but a bit short on maps (so far, I am only 50 pages in).

Next, at 5, I was acting as chairperson for Missions/Outreach for the church and called out the first organization meeting. We managed to get it done in an hour (I used Zoom and its AI to draft minutes, which I will revise later) and covered some of the plans, many of which were still in the early stages (and some more speculative). We will meet again in about four weeks and see if we can get any of the plans moving. I will follow up.

After the meeting, I headed to BJ’s Brewhouse with my ACW book and got a high-top in the bar area. Eric, my usual waiter, was there, and he was surprised that I switched to an Old Fashioned. I think I like this better than beer with dinner; beer seems heavy to me. I also surprised Eric by asking him to make something special. I had their chicken breast dinner, but not with the lemon sauce; instead, I asked them to use the Jambalaya blackened chicken. The cook added mushrooms, made an excellent spiced sauce, and even seasoned the asparagus. It was hotter than the chicken! I told Eric they should put this on the menu (it was based on the menu item Sal’s Chicken), and I thought they should add a new entry: Eric’s Chicken. I ate the mashed potatoes with the sauce. Soooo goood.

I finished with coffee and soon headed out, saying good night to Eric. I returned home in Air VW the Gray and plugged it in as it was below 50%. I set it to charge to 100%, despite the extra power (about 2x) to get above 80%, as it was late and there was spare power in the grid. I cannot even find the EV’s impact on my electrical bill. Compared to the AC and the oven, it is tiny, and it has about the same drain as the dryer. Folks who think EVs will break the power grid have not done their homework. Now, if your grid is powered locally by coal without any significant carbon sequestration (central and southern USA), EVs, from what I have read, break even with a gas car on Carbon Impact.

It was warm in the house, and I had to use the fans later. I had forgotten to open the windows, and the house retained the heat of the afternoon.

So far, my experience with the EV has been positive, with one $300 bill for alignment and other small issues (stupidly expensive alignment). No oil changes or filters. Charges for fast charging, often $35, on long trips are about the same as $2.30 a gallon of gas, based on my calculations and mileage from the old Volvo.

Returning to Tuesday, I read more and soon was sleepy. I slept with the thought of General Thomas discovering he had been played by General Hood and had to rush to stop an invasion of the Ohio Valley.

Thanks for reading.

I rose later than I would like to admit, approaching 8, and it felt good to sleep in. I had been up twice to spend time being reminded that my colon cancer surgery removed 25 cm of my colon, and sometimes my colon wants to empty and get my attention. Nothing on the floor or anything like that. Just reading at 4AM while I wait. It then, as often happens, went for a second round an hour later. It is part of my life and, while annoying, is not that troublesome (compared to cancer). I am a morning person, though I do not get going that early now, and I did not get tired until the early evening.

I rose and found I was out of bananas (I forgot to get some on Monday, too) and had the end of the raisin bread from Karen W with my reheated coffee (there was enough left for two cups, and I made an instant cup for the third cup). I wrote the blog and did the usual chores of downloading transactions, checking balances, and reading the news and email.

I assembled the blog from my Sunday memories and managed to complete it about 10:30, a bit late, at 900+ words. With the clear skies and no rain, the coughing and sneezing got worse and then better. My usual morning.

I remembered to start the laundry, just a few items, as I washed the sheets over the weekend.

With the blog and basics done (a short run for the laundry in the new machines), I shower and dress. I have a game at 6 at Sean’s house. Pathfinder version 1, sort of Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, which later became version 4, disappointed many players (3.5 is a min/max, almost super-hero-assembler version of D&D with folks spending hours creating the most perfect fighting-machine character). My experience was that an Excel spreadsheet was often the character sheet for this version, with all the buffs and math. Still, it is interesting to return to this version after so many years (2009).

I went to Cedar Hills to Powell’s in Air VW the Gray and picked up my new books, one poem by an indigenous church leader in Alaska, and the other a used book on the final battles of the Confederate Army in the American South. The text covers one of the battlefields we visited last year (though just part of a greater campaign). I started that one. The poems I have heard at the beginning of some church meetings.

I then returned home and transferred some money to help cover some of Mom Wild’s bills. Next, I returned to The Book of Revelation and worked on my Sunday School Plan. I am trying to stay high-level, but I did check the Greek words for some of my selected text. I am connecting the text without difficulty to Rome and other ancient empires. I get about five pages of notes done. I will try to complete them on Wednesday/Thursday, and more than a week before the class.

With that done, and reading more about the American Civil War (ACW) until the clock reads about 4:45, I soon head out to Sean’s house. I take the slower trip that crosses the hills and avoids most of the highways as I have plenty of time, and it is a lovely day. Bikes, nonstop cars, and unexpected lane changes mar the beauty of the drive, but it is still great, and the mountains are visible in Portland, St. Helens, and Hood (BTW: It is named for a British viscount, not the ACW general).

Bill was hosting at his house, and I found it with less trouble this time. Sean briefed me on my missed session (two), and we started back in. We do get pizza delivered while the game is going on. The four of us explore Sean’s homebrew world and start to find our next adventure. This involves a fierce negotiation in which my character, a wizard, sets the building on fire with a surprise blasting spell and threatens to make it worse. This works to move the story forward (though I suspect it would have gone forward anyway, but it was fun). We continue to explore the city in the game. We will meet again at the end of June.

I returned home and read more, and soon, very tired from a lack of sleep, slept in the chair, woke, and headed to bed. I managed to wake after the sunrise.

Thanks for reading!

I rose before 8, and it was mixed clouds. A good day to plant flowers, and being Mother’s Day, that was likely what would happen all over the US, not just the Greater Portland Area. This was another Sunday School morning for me, and church at 11. I started on the blog after making coffee, finding some yogurt still in the fridge (it had been pushed to the back), and toasting a bagel and then adding cream cheese.

I assembled a memory of Saturday and realized I had missed part of Friday’s blog, but couldn’t really fit it into Saturday’s story. This happens. I miss something, it comes to me the next day, and I let it go again (I sent some requests to my bankers at US Bank). I continue to invest the morning in getting the blog done.

I finish the blog, the Quicken uploads, and read more email and news. Today’s news (and many emails) is a study in doing the wrong things and getting lost in the mundane. Mostly, I ignore the news and get the blog done and my day in order. It is a tie and red sweater vest for today.

I head to the church in Air VW the Gray and arrive around 10:25, with Emmaus winding down. I find my class notes in the service’s bulletins. I take my place as an usher, as usual, and we have a new likely homeless guy, Ray, who says he is there as  ‘higher power’ sent him to us. He has a lot of mismatched bags, suggesting he is a street person, but I point out the coffee and donut holes (leftovers actually from Emmaus), and he settles in. I believe he is waiting, as many who show up do, for the Beaverton Library to open at 1. Ray is mostly invisible and is welcome to the sandwiches I provide for Sunday School.

Dondrea gives the sermon and covers how we often wait for something in our lives. In the text, Jeremiah tells the captives that they will not be released for 70 years (three generations — everyone who was carried off will be gone, as will anyone who met them and heard them tell the stories). We need to temper our expectations to be focused on community and social justice in our area now. Do not try to recall some previous time or look for some distant promised land. We need to live now. The community now is what we need to build. Go ahead and plant an oak tree for some distant time, but remember, you will be the one watering it now, and you will need a community to live in.

The service closed, coffee and sandwiches were served, and soon I was teaching Sunday School. Attendance was lower on Mother’s Day due to other issues. I covered the ending of The Book of Revelation and then some of the controversies in the Catholic Church (a group seeking to return to Latin and to undo the reforms of Vatican II). We also drilled into some of the language and translation issues in the text and how some words have been substituted, creating different meanings, many of which we see to exclude people when quoted by churches. Again, my lesson is that the Greek has issues that are hidden by the translators, and it is important not to hang one’s belief on specific words or statements; it is important to take the Apocalypse of John at a higher level.

With that done, I headed home, and Corwin came over, and we heated up the pre-made Irish Strew from Costco. Deborah reminded me that since Corwin’s address is still the house, we can get him a matching Costco card to get cheap gas and so on. We will try to get this done this week (thanks, Deborah)! I did not have any Irish-style bread on hand, but I did find my frozen bread machine bread and toasted it. The homemade bread went well with the stew.

Corwin left, and I was back to preparing for Dungeons & Dragons 5.5E (or 5E 2024). I managed to get there ten minutes early with some roses cut from my garden for the women we play with (I also cut one from Pink Moss, since it looks like a torture device, with all the moss/thorns, for M@). The game is a mix of role-playing genres, with a crashed spaceship in a High Fantasy setting: S3: Expedition to Barrier Peaks from the early days of D&D. It is now redone as a 5E adventure (giving M@ some challenges as he has to balance between the two versions). And being the usual wandering sorcerer, Carter the Great (named after an American Magician, the first to perform on TV, here), I managed to get irradiated twice (rolled a 1 on the save, and then a 2) and played with damage and exhaustion for the night. The battle, which took much of the evening, was chaotic, and until Carter went with an invisibility spell, he was beaten down to almost death. After that, Scott could protect the other characters, and soon we started to reduce the bad guys and nasty displacer-like beasts.

With the conclusion of the battle (and survival, in my character’s case), we finished for the night. Flowers were sent on, and Scott and I talked about gaming for a while outside. I then headed home, read some more, and then went to sleep. The dreams have faded, but I suspect I, as Carter, was wandering the spaceship and somehow seeing the creatures of John’s story in his book. “Look at the!” I imagine Carter said in my dream.

Thanks for reading!

I rose around 7:30, much after sunrise, and the skies were filled with broken clouds that soon burned off. A marine cloud bank. I reheated yesterday’s coffee; there were about three cups left (meaning I had drunk a lot of coffee the day before). I took the last banana and sliced some more raisin loaf, toasted it, and buttered it. Thus supplied, I spent most of the morning writing the blog.

I also did the usual things of updating Quicken with my new transactions and balances. On US Bank, my IRA is nearly back to the balance before I withdrew my first money to live on. This makes it less of a worry; it is all I have, plus Social Security (starting next month).

I am in a bit of a hurry as I want to get to Train Day at the Oregon Rail Heritage Center. There, they don’t play with toy trains, but full-sized ones. I talk to Deborah a few times, as it is Saturday and she is not working. Later, we would finalize our hotel and the last flights for the June trip to California. We are splitting our time between Long Beach and Orange County (Deborah’s conference for the second week). I finally posted the blog, shower, dress, and all of that. I board Air VW the Gray to Portland on Saturday morning. I arrive in time to get one of the last free parking spots in their lot and get a ticket to ride the steam train at noon. Perfect.

It is an adult-kid paradise with trains, full-sized and models, and ‘N’ scale sets all running or in pieces. A huge steam engine is live and blowing its horn. Another huge steam engine is out too, though not running. There is one in pieces being slowly rebuilt by volunteers (I think I have ridden in that one before). Food carts and excellent spare bathrooms are available. The round house is spinning a train. Again, a train lover’s happy place. There are people everywhere with stands and digital cameras, and many in train outfits. The staff, mostly in reflective vests, are everywhere keeping everyone informed and safe.

The train ride is 45 minutes and goes down a track out of an industrial area in Portland, following the river to Oak Park. A paved path follows the tracks and is full of runners, bike riders, and other folks. The steam whistle is loud, and my watch warns me repeatedly that it is too loud. I enjoy the open car for tourists just behind the oil-fired, smaller steam engine (I am told by a train person that the larger trains are now too heavy for the aging tracks to Oak Point).

I forgot my hat and retrieved it after heading to the baggage car to get a Diet Coke and a small bag of chips. I stay there as the steam whistle’s sound is starting to hurt. The guy is a bartender and a designer, and we talk about steampunk, all the interesting industrial ruins along the river (now bright in graffiti and looking ready as the set for a dystopian movie), and the rivets on the old car (it is not welded). It was $30 for the ride and free entry (usually $5) to the museum/train repair center. I decide to try a food cart, and I have a lovely pulled pork sandwich with excellent BBQ sauce running all over my hands. It is not often this far north and west to get a juicy pork with that hint of smoke. Excellent.

Fed and my hearing returning, I managed to not get anything in the gift store (books!), find the EV where I left it, and head to Lucky Labadore for the rest of the afternoon. The irony is not lost on me when a freight train blocks the area; I wait and chat with Deborah, finally U-turn, and head out of the industrial area (there is a path around the train tracks), take the bridge road above the train tracks, and park at Lucky’s.

There, after talking to Pastor Ken, I spent an hour sending out church stuff. There is a meeting on Tuesday, and all the information is not out there, and a Zoom meeting. Next, I set up The Plague of Dracula solo board game. I have forgotten how to play, and I am looking through the rules to find my way. This is the nature of solo games: lots of rules and processes. I managed to play four turns before I ran out of time. I met Pete and shared about how the game works. He was playing a GMT card game, The Kaiser’s Pirates, that had interested me with two others, and Pete offered to include me next time if they have a seat, though their usual day is Sunday. Excellent!

I pack up, finish my why-would-you-use-jalapeños-peppers clam chowder soup. It had one taste. Paid the bill and arrived at Richard’s. We agreed on Euphoria for the game, which is an older game, but quite different. It is a race to contribute by adding stars. I have played it before and liked it. Today I came in last (there is only one winner, Richard, but I had four stars left, the most) as I misplayed, but I managed to annoy Kathleen, which suggests I was playing OK. Next time! We all agree that Euphoria should hit the table more often.

Katheen left after the first game, but Richard, Laura, and I tried The Fellowship Of The Ring: Trick-Taking Game. We played three games until we won. It is cooperative: everyone plays a character with a special winning condition, and the chapter is completed (hand won) if everyone completes their objective together. Not a bad game.

After that, I headed home in the VW and soon was back, found a few lights on left by Corwin that surprised me, and I took apart the rest of Alexa (no more Amazon products, thank you, and they have stopped working well). I went to bed reading and soon fell asleep. All dreams are forgotten, but I bet they involved another train ride!

Thanks for reading.