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Today we played Roll20, online Dungeons and Dragons 5E, as usual. One of our players, Matt, is leaving us as he is also our in-person DM. He will be focusing on his three re-starting in-person game. I am a player, currently a gnome wizard who sees dead people and specializing in charming.

I will be playing on Saturday night at a board game in Portland, and then Cory is hosting some board games on Sunday at his house. I am excited to be unlocking a bit and playing in person.

Oregon is about 50-60% vaccinated rate, and the infection rates are falling. We are also Oregonians, so we are mostly polite and follow the rules. Even when protesting, we have seen crowds socially distancing (!?).

Starting from the beginning this morning, I had only a few hours of sleep. Susie was up and down all night. I also had some caregiving to do, and that, combined with getting Susie out for her appointment with Zerida, meant I was not even dressed until almost eleven. No, the camera was not on for the Zoom meetings–me in my robe and my hair looking so, Einstein.

Work was made more chaotic with a schedule change that put an upgrade no longer next month, but now. I began all the steps to prepare for a major process. It will take me a few days to get ready and prepare the system. Then, it will blow out as we discover issues. This is the practice upgrade and is full of learnings and surprises. Often I have to work India and USA hours then. It can be hard on me.

Lunch, as I was ill over the weekend from a Popeye’s Spicy Chicken sandwich, was lamb kabobs (protein!) from Gyro House. So good! Not cheap, but perfect when you are running slow.

I did not do my walk or organizing the house as I needed to get dressed. It is silly when you have to plan when to fit in brushing your teeth!

I was managing a few crises of the moment and trying to prep for the upgrade.

I managed to slip out at about 4ish, after one more Zoom meeting, to buy groceries. We are were out of milk, and I picked up a few favs for breakfast for Susie.

I baked some breakfast sausages and made scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese for dinner. I even buttered the toast to go with it. Susie loved it. She had a rough night too, and so I wanted her to have a nice dinner, even if it is breakfast for dinner.

I took a few minutes to finish my book and started the next in the series, Blood Curse. I strongly recommend the Commissario Ricciardi series crime novels. Set in 1930s Italy and a mix of crime and ghosts and fate. Makes me want to write more Howard stories; I love good stories and writing!

You may wonder how I keep going when I am so tired, and things are so chaotic. I read good stories when taking a short break and listening to Opera (Carmen’s Toast to the bullfighters and Rigoletto song about love is a butterfly and more). I sing along in very poor Italian.

Turning to more pleasant thoughts, one of my other roses is in full bloom, and the next one is starting.

We are playing the Candlekeep Mysteries for Dungeon & Dragons in Roll20 this evening, as I covered before. This is prepared material from books published by the makers of D&D. It comes with color pictures and nice maps. The text is well organized to allow the players and DM to move quickly through the material. Tonight was mostly combat despite the book theme of the adventures. This was a bit of a surprise for the players. They were expecting mysteries and book stories. So far, the high-level items in this set of been working for us.

I hope you forgive me for stopping here. I usually count deaths. Not tonight.

Instead of a hymn, my song that keeps me going: Toréador, en grade. Computer Architect work sometimes seems to fit this song.

I started the morning at 9ish as I tried to sleep in as I knew sleep is hard to get during the weekdays. I stayed up a bit late to finish one more The Witcher series on NetFlix. I am surprised a few times by the plot, and I am unsure what the complex characters will do. I like it, but I am not excited enough to spend more than an hour every couple of days on it.

I dreamed last night of being on an elevator at Nike that went to the 99th floor and that the retired leadership was now running things. My arms were full of laptops and rolled-up paper plans. I could never find my floor to get back to work. The elevator just kept going to various floors I did not need. The retired director kept telling me my floor would be soon. Not sure what the dream meant. I finally woke up and found myself on the correct floor–home!

The pollen is nasty, and I cannot stop coughing.

I am putting the final coat of protection on Richard’s next set of figures for the board game Anachrony. I have never played the game. There was a huge Kickstarter for this version that included 36 huge figures. I have started on the last 12. They are three times larger than a 28mm figure, a Dungeons & Dragon standard figure, Which requires 8 times more paint and time than a regular figure. I use larger brushes and some techniques for larger figures that reduce the time from 8x to about 4x. They are impressive when finished.

 

The whole morning and part of the afternoon have been invested in completing the middle 12 figures. I have just started on the last 12. The next set includes a sea creature that needs a decal. I have created the decals from the source material for the game.

The decals will fail if not coated with a protective spray. The printer ink just washes away. The decals also will not tolerate much handling, so I will have to be careful. Plus, I have to use some special decal dissolving product to get the decal to not curl off when I spray the last protective coat on the figure. But it is a powerful image, so I think it is worth the investment.

Lunch, nobody was up, was a Popeye Spicy Chicken Sandwich that put me down for part of the afternoon. Not sure what it was, but I am not interested in another sandwich any time soon!

I did read a lot of I Will Have Vengeance while trying to not review the sandwich for a second time. I forgot how much I loved these books. I would strongly recommend 1931 Naples for a crime novel. I did recover without re-experiencing the sandwich.

I recovered and started the finish of the figures (the pictures above are of the finished figures set in their colored bases) and looked towards dinner. Nobody wanted to go, so I did pick-up and got to take Air Volvo for a spin on a typical May afternoon. Gray, sprinkles, sun breaks, wind, sideways rain, and repeat–often in 15-minute cycles. I parked my car at Olive Garden, and soon they put the dinner in my backseat. No contact. Excellent.

I served up dinner. I had the salad and Chicken Marsala (not very good). Susie had Chicken Alfredo. Corwin was not hungry, so he settled for a breadstick and a mint.

Laundry is started. Dishes next.

The reports show 288 people died of Covid-19 in the USA today.

I picked a non-religious (well, sort of) Beatle song as I liked the new video for it. It is a very positive note for today: Here Comes the Sun.

When working on models, figures, and any precise work that is a hobby (not real paid work), it is easy to be distracted or rushed. It is also tough to know if you are in the wrong state of mind doing extremely detailed work. My rule is that two mistakes made close together is a sign that is good to stop. I had just stopped painting figures for my gaming friend Richard when I made multiple mistakes. I will complete the green faction in the morning and do the first protective clear coat and the black-colored scary-looking faction. I will not do anything more tonight.

I have out the next faction and washed them in soap and water. I will let them dry overnight before I prime them.

Working backward, Susie is listening to the Moody Blues and reading. I made corn muffins and chili from a can, Stagg’s. We have the TV recording the big game for Portland, the playoffs. Evan will be spending the night and wanted to watch it. He has to be in Salem early for a Pickle Ball game, so I thought it better to stay here.

I was painting for a while. Before that, a headache threatened to be a migraine, so I rested. Pollen and detail work seems to be at odds with me today.

I took Susie to McDonald’s, and then she ate her lunch, a Happy Meal with apples, while we sat in the car and watch people walk in the park. We saw masked and unmasked folks. Nobody minded the masking and everyone kept social distancing.

Nobody was up got lunch at lunchtime, so I met Mariah at Buffalo Wild Wings. The nice deal they had all pandemic is over. The bartender said, and my final bill agreed, that the price is now double. I had a beer-like product, Coors Light. I went for my fav of Asian Zing. I had coffee instead of more beer or beer-like products.

I painted figures all morning after I did the dishes. I was going about 8ish this morning.

Sorry, not a very exciting day. I have more dishes and laundry to do.

468 more people are reported to have died from Covid-19 in the USA today.

Morning Has Broken, and this kid’s version looked like a good fit.

 

I have no games booked this weekend or Friday night. So I am doing those projects I have stacked up, literally, to get them done and get some space back.

So this evening, once work stopped about 4ish, I started to build a barn. A 28-23mm scale model made from laser-cut fiberboard. It also has an interior built out. The roof can be removed.

I then moved on to some models for a Salem witchcraft roleplaying game. These are amazingly well laser-cut models that even have window panes. The interior is only partially built out, but it is still impressive with a roof that pops off too.

I ordered dinner from PizzaHut, delivered. This is our first PizzaHut delivery ever at this address. We had two pan pizzas, pasta, and breadsticks, all in a family box. The food was good.

Work started at 7ish with me rolling over when it was 6ish. The meetings went on, and I had some crises discovering the obvious and then having to pay the cost of that discovery. I had to write some very basic text and emails today.

The teams had hours of review meetings too. We are starting to wrap up the project to take it to live use in October. The panic and late discoveries are beginning. The trade-off discussions are beginning. It is always a bit stressful.

I stepped out to get Susie and my lunch from Aloha Teriyaki. A bento box for me and a chicken bowl for Susie. I also took a photo of the Cardinal Richelieu rose. This is an old rose and blooms only once. It is not a good cut flower as it loses its pedals too fast. I still love to see it flower every year.

If you want this rose, you will have to get a clipping from mine and grow it. It is tough to find this rose. I checked, and I can find none for sale on the Internet. I might have to do some cutting myself and give them as gifts.

Covid-19 claimed another 657 lives today in the USA.

I went with this version of A Mighty Fortress is My God.

Tonight we had one of my fav dinners, Kentucky Fried Chicken or KFC. Oddly, KFC is important to Japan as it is a holiday meal there.

I am always disappointed by the gravy. I remember from my childhood that the gravy was better. I understand the recipe was changed, but there is still one place left that makes the original, Claudia Sanders Dinning House. Someday I will make the pilgrimage.

I slept in a bit today; Susie had some issues late last night and did some caregiving until 12:30AM. I made my first meeting at 8:30 and started then into 90 minutes of Zooming for Nike IT. I also had a few crises of the moment that kept going non-stop to about 10.

I made breakfast while listening to Zoom meetings.

I stopped at 10ish to pick up the house. I have exchanged my walk in the pollen-filled air for a chance to clean up and straighten the house. I try to spend 30 minutes at that every morning now. I was also more crisis of the moment again, and I had to keep checking email and my Slack texts.

I slipped out about 10:45ish and drove to Jan’s Paperbacks and traded in a pile of books I put aside last year for donating. I would not risk Covid-19 to clear out some old books, but now I figure I need to start returning to my pre-Lockdown habits. Jan’s Paperbacks took the SciFi. I put the rest in the garage as I have not found a home for them. Goodwill is likely the next choice.

I made a sandwich, ham, and cheese, for lunch with Reese’s potato salad.

Susie got going about the same time, and I got her some breakfast.

I continued on with more ad hoc meetings and crises of the moment. These crazy unplanned events consumed the whole working week for me. It does mean that the project is finally switching into high gear.

Next Friday, not tomorrow, starts the summer hours at Nike, with work stopping about noon at Nike, even with remote working. I will be returning to a movie-watching afternoon on Fridays and driving to Portland to play board games.

I finished the Duel in the Dark, and it was too predictable for me, and I thought the novel too military-styled for me. The characters were also too much like archtypes for me. I like space opera a bit more political and with love stories and spiced with treason. This was the story of military people in a life-and-death struggle in space. I was surprised by the “This is the way” theme that I first saw in the Disney hit show The Mandalorian. I checked this book predates the TV show. If you like military-like stories, this series would be great.

The best space opera has been The Interdependency series by John Scalzi. This has the right mix of things I like. It has that slight hint of Douglas Adams in it. The Vatta’s War series by Elizabeth Moon is also a winner for me, but more on the military side, and maybe a hint of C.S. Forester.

I plan to reread some 1930s themed murder stories with ghosts set in Naples, Italy: I Will Have Revenge. I am also considering teaching online Sunday School. More on that later if I decide to return to teaching the Bible again.

Another 659 people in the USA lost their battle with Covid-19 today.

I went with the 1935 version of Do Lord Remember Me.