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Hi!

In the morning, I felt fine, but I became tired and nauseated as the day went on. Many folks are suggesting a delayed impact of the Covid-19 vaccination. I think it is the new blood pressure and other drugs. I am tired, but I am sharper than I was. It does make you wonder if you want to be a bit dulled and feel better or be more connected and feel unwell all the time. I am hopeful that I will get better soon. It could also be the hours I am working.

I was awake at 7 and then blinked, and it was beyond 10. I never wish to sleep beyond 9; the morning seems too short. I skipped food, which might be part of the cause of the issues later in the day, and had only one cup or so of coffee. Evan connected me, and we agreed to meet at Mox in Portland to play board games.

I brought Wingspan and Blood Rage and few others we did not get to.

The bartender, Charles, is a Dungeon and Dragon writer, like me, and even works for Roll20 to build and edit some of the content we use on our Monday games! I gave him my email and cell, and we will see if this will take us anywhere.

Returning to Mox, I ordered a beer, as did Evan, and I had an appetizer too–I had the tea sandwiches. We then started into Wingspan. This is an excellent game to learn, but it does take a while to understand all the mechanics–I have lost many games. The theme is you setting up a bird sanctuary by attracting birds to your set-up–represented by a board you use in the game. You also can use the birds’ abilities to get more resources, gain points by consuming cards and resources, and have events on even other player’s turns. For example, and a bit gruesome, when your Eagle catches and eats a bird, someone else’s vulture might get to gain a resource.

The game mechanics are fun, and once you get them down, you can then explore the birds and attract the best birds to get you the most points at the end of the game. For example, I am always happy getting a few owls and some grackles!

I just managed to win. It was a very close game. Evan had more valuable birds, huge ones, and I had smallish ones that gained resources, so I made up for it.

We then ordered lunch as we put away the game. The menu is still a bit sparse. It took us a bit.

I had a chicken buffalo sandwich, but nausea and exhaustion started, and I was even tired to eat. I only ate half the sandwich. I brought it back, and Corwin thought it good, except the chicken is ground and mixed with grains and reformed into a patty. He thinks it would be killer as a fried chicken breast instead. Evan liked his burger, duck, and bacon.

We brought out Blood Rage. This is a dudes-on-a-board game with resources management and combat. It is a Viking theme, with pillaging the main way to improve your resources. Cards are added to the game that allows you to upgrade your Vikings, improve your combat values, mess with other people in combat, have quests, call forth legendary monsters and powers, and call in mystics to aid your cause. The cards are attached to various Viking gods. For example, Evan used Loki’s powers by playing a card in combat to slip away some of my honor and add it to his if I won.

My version of the game has most of the bling as it was the full Kickstarter version. I have also painted every figure. I have six different tribes of fully painted Vikings; today, I played the women-only Snake tribe. This is one of my best paint jobs of the Viking clans. All the legendary monsters are also fully painted. It is one of my best-looking games.

We also used for the first time the 3D printed pillage tokens. I bought them online already printed but had to do a lot of work to make them usable. They worked well today, at least better than cardboard punch markers.

Evan started to get the hang of the game in the second and certainly in the third age. At the first age, you score no more than twenty points of honor. In the final age, I added sixty points to my score. The first age is mostly for practice and trying to be ready for the second age.

In the final age, I managed to deploy the dread frost giant. Only to have it sent to Valhalla by Evan a moment later. Lucky, I had a quest to kill lots of my Vikings and legendary creatures. Evan was quite willing to aid me on that quest and nearly cleared my Vikings from the board. I played the Odin upgrade to double my quest values, which helped me tie Evan for the final score. He has done more pillaging than me and nearly beat me.

I finished out at Mox with the cheesecake.

I drove home after saying goodby to the evening bartenders, Tatyana and Marlyn. They are now on the night team, and we were happy to see them–they were there with me before the first re-lockdown. Tayana is finding more gigs, and this is making her happy and helping her make her bills. She and Marlyn both feel that Portland is starting to recover. Everyone wants a shot to get this thing over!

I got home feeling much worse. I made Susie scrambled eggs with cheddar, her fav. We have brown eggs, they were cheaper at Whole Foods, and they have a deep orange-colored yoke. Susie said the eggs were good.

I then went back to work after resting for a bit. I skipped dinner as I am still not thinking food is something I want. Our 9:30AM India time meeting fell off our calendars (9PM PDT), but I spoke to our expert there, Archana, and she is working on getting the project going. I will not share the details, but we are both happy to see some progress. I will be back online for the shoe company for India evening and Beaverton Morning 6-7ish.

14,149 people received vaccinations yesterday in Oregon. This number will likely increase as it takes three days to get all the counts and update the website.

Four-hundred fifty-five people were lost to the virus today in the USA.

It is soon the second Passover and Easter of lockdown. I went with a Hebrew singing of Psalm 121 as it is a Psalm of Ascents. These are specially called out as a group in the Hebrew, and some have suggested they would be sung as you approach the Temple in Jerusalem. I read them as I was headed, on a tour bus, to the temple mount in Israel in 1990. I recommend reading them in numeric order if you want a little inspiration for these shared religious events.

 

 

I awoke about 7ish with allergy symptoms and was going to get up. I blink, and it was 9:30ish. I got going, but I had nothing but a haircut at 2PM, so I just went slow. I had a bagel and took my medications.

I finished watching the second half of the old Stargate movie.

I got ready, and Corwin came in, and we headed to lunch. Susie was still resting. I decided on sushi at our local Wasabi restaurant. Their food is not cheap, but the medium combo late is almost large enough for three. I ordered the deviled eggs too. We could have just gone with the medium combo plate! I have a beer from Japan.

This is the second time I have had sushi since the emergency started. Susie can’t eat fish; this is usually a treat on a Saturday lunch when Susie sleeps in.

Aside: Today is the second year of not having Game Storm. I have already paid. I called Matt V and told him I was missing playing games with him and others in Portland this year for Game Storm 2021.  Matt V and I talked and maybe we will restart in June with Dungeons and Dragons and other board games.

Returning to today’s story, I drove back, dropped Corwin off at home, and headed to my haircut with Zerida and was late; there were many more cars on the road in Beaverton than on recent trips. Almost the level of traffic before the pandemic. I will have to leave earlier next time.

I returned home after the haircut and finished watching the new recut of The Justice League DC comic movie. The original movie was a bit of a fail. The original movie did now flow well. I watch the four-hour movie stop and start today and would say it is better than the original. It is still not great.

Susie and I went to our usual drive-thru of Taco Bell for dinner. Susie had tacos, and I tried, still missing the Mexican pizza, the chicken quesadilla with a taco. We ate them in the parking lot, watching the rainbows form in the normal gray skies and side-ways rain of March Oregon.

I found the old movie Star Trek movie, Voyage Home, on HBOMax or Prime. It was fun to see the save the whales Star Trek again. Susie remembered some of the stories, and there are some hilarious gag lines in there. I need brain cookies today and this fits the bill.

I would like to say I did some robot work or read something meaningful or painted something or played some games, nope. I just took it slow.

22,630 people were vaccinated yesterday in Oregon. This number may increase as it takes 72 hours to collect and post all the counts. Our county, Washington, has reached 20% of the population have been vaccinated.

792 people are reported today to have died from Covid-19.

I turned right to Be Thou My Vision today in the Methodist Hymnal and found this well-produced version.

I was up at 7ish this morning after being up almost to 1ish working. It was hard to get going again.

My first meeting was with the American SAP User Group (ASUG). This meeting is a forum for customers of SAP software to meet and discuss how to influence the design of the Fashion solution, the version of SAP used by Nike. It was good to see our friends and talk to other customers. We might help with a presentation soon.

Soon I was in endless Zoom meetings, emails, and Slack channel updates. I applied vendor patches (SAP notes to those who speak SAP) while listening and following along. I was multi-tasking and chatting online all at the same time.

I made coffee and had a bagel while multitasking, jumping about every 15 mins. It was a crazy Friday morning.

Susie got going late morning, and I got her breakfast-lunch. I drove to Burger King and got a Whopper Meal with onion rings, remembering how bad their fries are, using the drive-thru with a mask, and talked to Dondrea on the phone while I ate lunch in a parking lot. I don’t know if it just the lettuce, onions, and the big tomato in the burger, but it always so good. The onion rings will be skipped next time–just not quite good.

After that, I returned home and had a spare Diet Coke for Susie and back to the endless meetings. I had a few architectural discussions and alignment meetings. Some I was a bit direct. I apologized for being grumpy, but I did not get overly direct.

At about this time, my chair broke, and I was face down on the floor. My ribs are bruised, and my arm hurts. The wooden folding chair had got a bit creeky, but I was still surprised. I got my roller new chair back and am back to work.

I had some back issues and had changed to a straight-back folding wooden chair. I had been sitting in it for about six months. I put the broken chain in the garage on top of the last one that broke. The folding chairs break, but not usually quite so violently.

I made dinner today of baked chicken breasts, defrosted from Schwann’s, green beans finished in a pan with butter, also from Schwann’s, and couscous with almonds, raisins, and spices. This is my standard couscous of frying cinnamon, cardamom, almonds, and salt in butter. I microwaved some veggie broth from a box while I cooked this on the stove. I stirred in two cups of couscous and toasted it with the butter and all the goodness. I then add the broth; it boils a bit from the heat, and then I get the pan off the heat. It was a bit dry tonight. Next time three cups of broth!

As usual, the chicken breast is a bit plain but still good.

I watched the news while serving Susie, who liked dinner.

I then took a nap and woke up on time to join the Saturday morning India time meeting. One more night this week.

23,038 people were vaccinated yesterday in Oregon. This number may still increase as it takes 72 hours to collect all the counts and apply them.

1,268 people are reported to have died from Covid-19 today.

I went with This is the Day for today. I remember singing this every morning with Susie in 1990 on our trip to Isreal with my old church in Maryland. The Jewish tour guide would get us all going each day with this song before covering where we were going that day. So I always think of the pilgrim site of Israel when I hear it.

 

I am still working on India time. It is now after midnight. I am still working while writing this too.

Before returning to work, Susie and I met Mariah at Rock Wood Fired Pizza place. Susie had a late lunch before, just appetizers for her. Sweet pizza dough and some chips and dip. I had a calzone, and Mariah had a small pizza. We had a different waiter this time, but most of the staff knew us.

It was the first time I used the bathroom at the Rock and walked into a man not wearing any mask. I stepped back like he was a vampire appearing. He did not know why I would not let him hold the door for me and then realized he did not have a mask on. He apologized. I was still in shock to accept his words, and he quickly left. I then used the facility and washed my hands with great care. I used a paper towel to open the door. Yikes!

Work was full of emergency after emergency. I started at 7ish, and meetings started, and I was helping to get some changes done. It was just a day of herding cats explaining that we need the fixes to anyone and everyone who would listen.

I am tolerating my new medications for high blood pressure and cholesterol. I feel like I am a water filter now. I am still having some nausea and I felt unwell right after dinner and then I was better.

I will not cover much of this as it was just a long and busy day: endless Zoom meetings and texts and slack channel updates, still ongoing now.

I am too tired to do much more.

18,412 people were vaccinated yesterday in Oregon. This number may increase as it takes 72 hours to post all the counts. The Wednesday counts were increased from the low numbers I reported yesterday.

1,705 people in the USA are reported to have died today from Covid-19.

I picked ‘Tis the Old Ship of Zion for today.

 

 

I started at 6ish this morning and went to 4 with only a few 30 min breaks. I made lunch between meetings and was rushing the whole time. I had a salad and chicken noodle soup from a can that I shared with Susie. I got her some peanut butter toast to make it a more filling lunch.

I managed to attend the online ASUG (American SAP User Group) for Enterprise Architecture today over lunch. It was good to see Todd Lutz and Peter Keller, who I have presented together at many SAP conferences. It was, of course, a Zoom meeting.

The project I am working on is started to reaching real deliverables and facing some challenges. This means that an architect, like me, is needed everywhere all the time. So I had 8 hours of Zoom calls today! Some were booked over other calls making me late for some.

I am also facing new medications for high blood pressure and cholesterol that I started yesterday. The side effects are different than my previous meds, and I nearly relived my oatmeal breakfast. I did manage to hold it together. The headache, nausea, and endless stops to the bathroom did ease-up this afternoon. Ugh!

However, the dizziness and fuzziness are gone. My thinking seems clearer and more like myself. But I will not have oatmeal Thursday morning!

Work was full of items for me to work on all simultaneously—the usual about this point in a project.

I disconnected my USB-powered monitor from my Raspberry Pi and used it as an extra monitor for work. I have to do some vendor patch (OSS note to those who speak SAP) with complex manual instructions. I put the instructions up on one screen while I made the coding and setting changes on the other. I ran into procedure issues. I think I can resolve them, but I will likely try to fix it this coming morning.

I was so busy I had to get out another screen!

I stopped at 4ish and rested a bit. I seem more tired than normal. Again, this may be new medications or the long hours working Portland and India times. Or even that it is time change week.

I boiled a corned beef today for nearly three hours and then baked it for 45 minutes. Perfect! I dumped most of the water and put red potatoes, carrots, one sliced onion, and a cabbage head cut into large pieces with more water. So Irish styled dinner today. I cut the corned beef against the grain, of course. I managed to slip this in before another meeting.

Susie and I enjoyed dinner while watching the PBS BBC news. I only saw about 1/2 the news as I might have nodded off. I put the oldie shows Susie likes and went and took a nap and read a bit.

I have to work again at 9ish, India morning.

Only 7,849 people were vaccinated in Oregon yesterday. This is less than half the normal count. These numbers may be low as it takes 72 hours for all the values to be collected and posted.

1,288 people died from Covid-19 today in the USA. The numbers are still staying high.

It was a sunny cool day and the local woodpecker is hammering my metal chimney. I yelled up the fireplace and he left (it is a male that hammers metal to summon mates and to tell the other males to move-on).

In the Garden by Johnny Cash just seemed a good song for a crazy day when you can only look out the window.