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Today is the end of my Covid-19 blog.

I will blog daily for a while as we wrap up the pandemic, but I plan to switch to a weekly blog in the future. Today is the 444th-day blog (of 443 blogs–missing one when Susie had a stroke). It is a good number to stop counting.

Thus this is now my daily blog. This first trying-to-live-without-fear day of my blog started with me waking a few times and refusing to start my day early. I finally got started on 9:30ish and microwaving last night’s coffee. I then read emails and news articles. Next, I did the dishes and made scones and fresh coffee.

I had not made scones in months. I decided that today, the first new day of my wrap for the pandemic life, should start with making King Arthur Almond Cherry scones. I cut in the cold butter with a pastry knife. It was obvious I had not this for a while as it was hard work. I added the milk and egg, got the mix well mixed, and made little lumps on a baking sheet on parchment. I buy parchment paper that fits my baking sheet also from King Arthur.

They are good.

My suggestion: Give up the fear, be careful and wear your mask when you should and when you need to to feel comfortable, and bake something!

I then went on a trip to practice giving up my fear; I drove Air Volvo for lunch. On the way, I stopped by Rainy Day Games to get a bottle of paint; I am nearly out of gunmetal paint for miniatures. It is a fav of mine as I like the dark shine. Silver is just too bright for weapons and armors and machines.

Lunch: I then went to Pastini for Italian. I wanted a glass of wine and some food without much hassle. The manager sat me at a table for one, and Michael, my waiter, and I found a nice wine, and I had the carbonara pasta with caesar salad. I finished with some ice cream and got a to-go tiramisu for Susie.

While Pastini is a chain, this one at Cedar Mills always seems one step above, and I like their food. They have some extra zing that makes things better. Or it is just the wine.

I was reading the Jupiter Disco drink book while waiting. They are closed for the pandemic and also far away in NYC. I saw they were trying to raise money to keep going on Kickstarter at the start of the pandemic and made a pledge. I got a cool t-shirt, took them a year, and an edgy book that is mostly about bar life and drink recipes. Susie will be confused someday when I say, let’s go to an NYC disco, “I have a t-shirt and drinks I want to try out.”

Returning to lunch, my food and service were good. I saw folks without masks at their tables and folks like me who only remove the mask when drinks or food show. I put it back on when I am done. I felt safe, and the fear is receding.

I returned home, a hero, with tiramisu for Sue (it should be a song lyric).

I ordered pizzas a few hours later, taking wine and a food-induced nap, to have dinner with Dr.Rev. Wayne Weldmartin and his wife, Rev. Anne Weldmwartin. We had the New York pizza from Papa Murphy’s Take-and-Bake pizza. Susie’s fav with pepperoni and sausage. This was with beer.

We had a nice dinner and chatted. We finished dinner with watermelon.

I then taught and played a two-person board game of Wingspan. Susie and I one team and the Weldmartins on the other. The bird cards and the resources were enjoyed. Anne likes birdwatching. I had not managed to teach the mechanics, but that is the hard part of this game. It is a worthy game to learn, but it takes more than one game to get all the working parts. We will play again; Anne seemed to like it.

I am home now writing.

Today’s music is A Folk Song.

Today started at 4AM! I had to pick up Mariah and take her to Portland International Airport, PDX; we call the airport by the airport’s call letters, not by another person’s name–just PDX. I was there on time, and we had no events other than an on-time arrival at the gate.

I stopped by PDX after dropping off Mariah. I parked the car on the 7th floor of the car park. It was just minutes after sunrise, and Mount Hood was clearly visible.

I was sad when I saw that everything is still locked down. No breakfast there. I know that Powell’s PDX is gone for good, but it still hurt a bit to see that loss of the little PDX mall. Someday, maybe, we will see it again. PDX was voted the best Airport in the USA for the years before Covid-19. I want it back!

One of the reasons for the positive outlook towards PDX is the view.

I returned the way I came, remembering to drive slow as it is Memorial Weekend, and the police are giving out reminders to go slower. A costly reminder.

I had breakfast at Tom’s Pancake House. I had the Eggs Benedict, and hashbrowns. It is wonderful. Not many people are there before 7 on a Sunday. I felt safe the whole time, and everyone was kind. The staff was masked, and folks put on masks when they left their tables.

I made it home and then painted a bit of the next faction for Richard’s Anachrony game. The last one. I have a basic coloring done on one figure. I will then repeated the colors on the remaining five.

I was tired and took a couple of naps. Evan came over at about 10:45. We had coffee and then a beer at Wildwood Taphouse; Insomnia Coffee is next door. There Brook, the bartender, greeted us and gave us permission to play a board game. It being a taphouse where you bring your own food, even coffee and muffins are welcome on a Sunday morning, they were happy to accommodate us.

Evan was proud to beat me in a very short game of Vindication. The end-of-game triggers hit on early. They are randomly assigned, and we had barely started before the game ended. We had some chips with salsa and talked for a bit after the game.

I got back about 2ish, and Evan headed to a movie. I got Susie water, coffee, and some breakfast. I then enjoyed another short nap.

The pollen is just killing me today. I cannot stop coughing.

We then packed up and headed over to Cory’s house to play a board game, Wingspan. We have not been back inside there, Cory and Jennifer’s place, since Covid-19. We are all vaccinated. We had brats, hot dogs, chips, fruit salad, drinks, and I taught the game.

Everyone loved the game. I had the high score for the Wingspan, but I know how to play. The game plays well once the players learned the mechanics. Wingspan has some unique processes that take a bit to understand; the game becomes a quest to make the best board (bird sanctuary) once the basics are working for you. Laying eggs, there are tiny eggs that come with the game, and the cards’ artwork and information on the birds represented in the game, are high quality.

After more than a year, it was so nice to be back at Cory’s and Jeniffer’s place and play a few games and have some food together. Susie used Cory’s lifts to get to the second floor. So we got to use the dinner table and be near the kitchen. It felt like a party!

Deaths fell to only 124 today in the USA for Covid-19. It may be a reporting issue from the holiday.

I picked The Old Rugged Cross for this Memorial Day Weekend.

 

 

I stayed up late painting Richard’s figures. I had to paint window frames on the figures, and that requires quiet and pure concentration. I can get that about midnight or so. So I made coffee last night and stayed up to about 1:30 painting.

I was back at it this morning and was finishing up the next set of figures until about noon. I then took a shower and started my chores.

My red tea roses, with lots of aphids, are almost ready to bloom.

I picked up prescriptions, put gas in the car, got the car run thru the car wash, and bought groceries. I also picked up Susie, her fav, a Happy Meal with apples, and burger king for me. There is likely a crime to eat a Whopper while in a McDonald’s drive-thru.

Back home, I put away the groceries and got Susie her Happy Meal. I started on the next and last Anachrony mech figures for Richard. I also watched a video on how to play the game. I figure I should know more about this game after spending so much time painting the miniatures.

I learned from watching a video that Anachrony is a typical SciFi worker placement and resource management board game. The first one I have seen with a time travel feature that lets you borrow resources now that you will produce in the future. If you fail to do that, you will have to pay a paradox cost. It is an older game, and so some of the features I am familiar with were new when this game was created. We plan to play the game in a few weekends with all the painted mech figures.

I did some laundry, and Corwin agreed to warm up the ribs I bought for dinner for Susie and him. I headed to Portland.

I reached Richard’s house to play games at 6PM. Just Richard and I.

We gave A War of Whispers a try. I have the collector’s edition from a Kickstarter and wanted to see what Richard thought. I lost by 2 points, and I think he liked it. This is an unusual board game where the players are advisors to kings in a world that looks like Game of Thrones. The players are secretly randomly aligned to some kingdoms, some kingdoms the players are uninterested in, and one is an enemy. The players then compete to have control of the kingdoms and then run the kingdoms. Yes, even the ones that are your secret enemy! This means you are often crashing armies into meaningless and wasteful battles to support your goals. This while trying to guess what are the goals of the other players and hamper their plans–unless their plans seem to align with your goals, hmmm. There are action cards that suddenly let you have more armies or move armies. Or a plague hits. Then an invasion from nowhere! To get these cards, you have to be given them by a kingdom, and for that to happen, you have to have that advising position that gets cards. It is a war of whispers and suspicion. It is crazy and fun. I am still learning how to play.

Richard managed to take the one city I needed to hold to win as the last battle in the game. Next time!

We then tried the 7 Wonders Duel two-person game. In the game, you build a city that produces good and abilities that lets you build four of the 7 Wonders of the World. You do this by buying cards that become part of your city. This will increase your resources and abilities. Also, some buildings are free if you have the right symbol. For example, I built the theater and could then build a theater building for free. Plus, you can also buy into a technology that will give you some power advantages. I invested in War and was trying to put Richard’s city to the touch and win. He built up his military and stopped me.

As I said, you have four of the 7 Wonders to build. I managed to have enough resources to build three. These give you more interesting abilities.

It was a fast and easy-to-understand game once you get it. I did not understand the resourcing and soon was behind and stayed that way. I would recommend it as a fast two-person game. It has multiple ways to victory and focus. For a simple and not a very expensive game, it covers a lot of gaming territory.

I had a crash on WordPress so I will stop here.

 

For the summer, I work until noon on Fridays. This is a Nike WHQ thing. Today was the first time. Usually, I work until noon at the Evergreen Buildings, my home building which is not on the WHQ campus, and then head to the amazing cafe, The Paint, and have lunch until 1ish. This allows me to support the cafe, get lunch, and give anyone an extra hour to find me.

Working from home means just stopping. I stopped at noonish. I then drove to Old Chicago Pizza for lunch. I used to eat there a lot 14 months ago. Usually, once a week getting a Stromboli with a salad and iced tea. Today I return, again trying to lose my fear, for lunch. I had my usual, and I felt safe.

I returned home and went back to painting this afternoon, hoping to finish more of Richard’s miniatures for Anachrony this holiday. I am painting the blue faction that looks like a cross of a giant squid and a mole crab. I am painting it mostly shades of blue and metal with a gray base shade. I tried to put a decal on the figure, but the surfaces are too curved to do this easily.

I hope to finish these in the morning on Saturday. Just one more, the purple faction to go.

Mariah came over and did laundry, and then we got some paperwork done for her traveling on Sunday. Corwin, Mariah, and I had dinner at Matzatlon Mexican Food nearby. We brought back Susie’s dinner.

Back to painting!

I should finish this story. I fixed the other fob for Air Volvo today. If you remember, the car stopped starting, as you must have the fob near the car to start it. If the fob’s battery is dead, the fob does not work. I replaced the battery, and one fob still did not work! Also, both fobs were dead at the same time.

This has happened to me before. I remember a batch of desktop computers in the 1980s all failing in the same week when the battery backing up the CMOS definition in the old IBM PCs died. The computers were all purchased together, and they all failed within a week. The life expectancy of the batteries was very predictable!

I ordered new coin cell batteries, 2032, a fav of hardware hackers like me. I replaced the battery, again, in the unworking fob and popped out the new battery that failed. I noticed that it had a sticker you need to remove that was still on it. I may have then made comments that are best not repeated here. There was a safety label with a baby image saying not to give this battery to young children that I overlooked. I removed it and reassembled the fob. It works now.

The china made 2032s I just got are very cheap in 50 battery purchases, do not have safety labels. Only USA-bought ones have these stickers.

627 people died today from Covid-19 in the USA.

Lift Every Voice and Sing was on my mind as we try to lose the fear of these last two years.

I managed to get going at 7AM this morning. I did sleep in about an hour. The morning started with me seeing that all of my items had not moved forward and read my email and text Slack messages. I then sent out requests for updates for status on the items I had requested and got ready for the day.

I was ready for the first Zoom meeting and was surprised that I had actual items to cover and status to give. I was reading the new items, emails were sent of these mysterious tasks appearing assigned to me when my name was called at the stand-up meeting. I stumbled through it. I updated the status verbally and learned I have deliverables that are being tracked by the project. Have to pay more attention now!

After doing some more work and emails, I headed out for lunch at the Reedville Cafe. I had a table for one and ate a normal lunch, trying to pretend that the pandemic is ending. To find normal again, I believe you have to go search for it. Instead of staying at the house and making lunch or ordering GrubHub, I went out and did my usual lunch break. I had my mask and all safety steps were in place at Reedville Cafe. I felt safe, ate my tuna fish melt, used my Apple to read emails and some online articles. What I would do in my pre-Covid-19 life.

Returning to working from home, I managed to get some attention from folks working for the shoe company, and we fixed one of the outstanding issues. I officially unblocked my task (that I only learned about today). Blocked tasks are escalated to various meetings, and thus the problem was resolved today (TCI OSS note application is not without challenges, for those who speak SAP). My other issue cleared today.

I also wrote just a few code lines and created a PowerPoint for a meeting with SAP customers about data conversions. PowerPoints always take longer than you expect, and this one took the afternoon.

I rallied Susie to head t.o BJ. Brewhouse to meet with Rev.Dr. Wayne and Rev. Anne Weldmartin for dinner. We had a nice dinner together. Susie got a dessert to go. We will see them on Monday at 5PM for pizza, beer, and some games for Memorial Day.

Sorry, it is a short story as it was as normal a day as I could make today. I am reaching out for normal or at least try to lose some of the fear and stress. Let it go! song for those who want to sing along–just dumping the fear, not the safety, and finding the future.

630 people in the USA passed away from Covid-19 today.

This is My Father’s World seemed to fit today. I found this virtual chorus version arranged by one of the members.