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We did have some clearing today and saw the sun. This evening we are back to dark skies and the sun and moon swallowed by the monster that is forest fire smoke again. We have hope for the clearing of all smoke on Sunday, but the weather gal, Natasha, on KATU 2 warned that they had no real working models and predictions are unreliable. Pacific Northwest (PNW) forecasters know better than to promise us any exacting prediction. The valleys, mountains, gorges, deserts, and hills make microclimates that are difficult to time. For example, the forecaster knows it will rain, but just when it hits a microclimate and how much it will rain is impossible to predict.

I overslept this morning; I turned on the wrong alarm that did dutifully go off at 7AM. Susie was not impressed with my alarms this morning! I managed to get to my computer just before 7AM to be invited to a meeting at 7! So I was in a Zoom call not dressed, no video, and working out some issues with my first cup of coffee just tasted!

I had a few more items and then rushed at 8ish to get cleaned up and dressed.

I found I had to rush for bio-brakes and endless meetings. I watched all my open spots fill until I had only five-minute breaks until 2PM! Luckily, some of the meetings were status meetings so I can do other work while I just listening and also some meetings thankfully ended early. I was also double-booked, and when one ended early or ran over–I had both issues today–I then rushed over to the other meeting. I would often find that the other meeting was over. I would later get an email of what I missed; I try to send an email when I am overbooked, which helps me stay connected and sets expectations.

I was booked with an American SAP User Group (ASUG) call for lunch. My friends in Denver and Ohio are running an Enterprise Architecture user group, and I wanted to be supportive and to listen in. I got a meeting to end early, so I ordered lunch from Victorico’s Mexican Food, two tamales–beef–delivered. It came on time and was good, and I ate it while I listened to the presentation.

More status reports and then a short break, I went and rested and read for a bit–I was fatigued. The air, while better, was bothering me more today and making me tired. This is to be expected as extended exposure is the real threat. I have been living in this now for days. I have stayed in and have N95 masks, but it all accumulates. My throat is a bit sore, swallowing a bit harder, breathing a bit harder, and allergies are out-of-control. So I am tired.

I slip out for a few minutes this afternoon, taking air Volvo out for a drive. Susie’s sister Barb’s birthday is today. I sent her, now belated, gift. The FedEx shipping had a sign that only three people were allowed in the store. I saw more than that and waited outside. I had an N95 mask. I waited and then went in when I was the third person. I sent the gift on with all the usual steps now, all done socially distant and with plastic shields. When I was done, the store was full twice over the limit. I left trying to be socially distant, but at least everyone had a mask.

I then picked up one of Susie’s meds at RiteAid. Outside of the pharmacy was an African-American man without a good mask with a sign asking for help, saying he is starving. The air is improved to “unhealthy” today. There were some bags next to him from people who bought him some food. I got Susie’s meds and a $20 gift card for RiteAid and handed the card to the man and told him he could get whatever needed with it inside. He was a bit overwhelmed and thanked me. I just wanted him to be well and get a good mask, but he knows better what he needs. I told him it was not my business what he needs but that he was welcome. I also gave him the receipt for the card. I told him to show the receipt if anything went wrong. I had told the clerk in the store what I was doing, so there should be no problems.

I hope the African-American man is safe tonight. Pray for the homeless and the poor in our bad air!

I got the car washed as it was gray with ash. I did not want the newly detailed car to get dull from the ash. It is back to its super shiny look.

Back home and more Zoom and email and text and crisis of the moment.

The freezer is full of food. I grabbed the New York strip steaks and defrosted them in water. I then marinated them, still a bit frozen, with teriyaki sauce to add more flavor. I cut the steaks diagonally in half for some drama and browned the strips on the stovetop in a frypan.

I started baked potatoes in foil during my last status meeting in the oven. Ninety minutes later, they were perfectly cooked at 350F. I then pulled them and put butter and salt and closed them up, and placed them by the vent for the oven.

I defrosted some green beans. I heated almonds slivers and salt in butter in a saucepan. I then put the range on Broil after setting a rack high and put the frypan with the steaks to broil–the teriyaki sauce will blacken in the broiler as if I had grilled the steaks in flames. I finished the beans but putting them in the hot butter and almonds. I failed to pull-out the steaks fast enough, and they were well done–next time I will watch them and pull them early! I sliced the New York Strips thin, and that fixed that. Sour cream finished the potatoes. So steak, potatoes, and beans–an American dinner.

More than eleven-hundred people are reported to have died today in the USA from the virus.

My father’s birthday is coming up, and I decided to pick a song he quoted when we last spoke. It is not a hymn, but it fits the bill for today, I think Good Times.

 

 

Today started at 6ish, and despite the air problems, the air conditioning is working to clean the air. I slept well and was woken by my alarm. The first meeting today, a Zoom call with my boss and various directors from Nike and the SAP Company’s India office and our Nike office in India, was at 7:00, so it is a rushed start. I was dressed, showered, shaved, etc. by the meeting.

The foul air, down to 200ish tonight, makes me slow and burns my eyes a bit. The house smells of smoke, and despite the AC, the air seems dry and harsh. I find it hard to concentrate.

I had non-stop calls until 10:30ish. After that, I tried to take a break, and then the software upgrade steps came-up and other issues surfaced. I got a couple 30 min breaks between calls and questions.

In one of the breaks, I received my caliper today from FedEx. I ordered these from Digikey from AdaFruit. AdaFruit recommends these, but as they are almost 100% busy making Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) for New York City, their home, I had to order from Digikey. I need these to build the 3D Printer. I paid an extra $12 as they are made in China for President Trump. Even sent from Digikey, they have an AdaFruit sticker on them.

The box the caliper was sent in was electrostatic resistant, and the caliper in its own plastic box was wrapped in electrostatic protection. Calipers do not need that protection. Likely, the product is mismarked in Digikey’s computer system as sensitive parts and not as sensitive tools–don’t drop it not protect it from static!

Once I got it free of the wrapping, I had to replace the digital caliper’s battery, they had a spare with it, and I broke my screwdriver for miniature work trying to loosen the screw and cut myself. I was not happy about that; apparently, I needed to be protected! I finally replaced the battery, and the digital caliper is now ready to be used and working great.

Aside: I ordered a new screwdriver set to replace my broken computer sized screwdriver set: JAKEMY 49 in 1 S-2 Bits Precision Screwdriver Set Repair Tool Kit Magnetic Screwdriver Bit Aluminum Case for iPhone/Smartphone/PC/Tablet/Eyeglass.

I also received a 50 pack of N95 masks today. These work against the smoke. I tried one out, and they keep the irritation from my throat, even in the house. I then took a pack, they are shipped in a box that contains five packs of ten, to our older Vietnamese neighbors. With some hand waving and a few repeats of English reworded, they understood that these N95 are for the smoke. They should be a bit safer, and I got a small bag of tomatoes as thanks.

I was going to make my lunch, but I instead ordered a lamb gyro from the Gyro House. It is just so good and I am tired so I thought some protein and spicy garlic sauce would wake me up. I order extra bread to eat with the lamb. I move the gyro to a plate and cut it with a knife and eat it with a fork, tearing extra bread to go with the lamb. I was still tried, but I was feeling a bit better.

I had calls until 7:20ish. The last two calls were with software architect and analysis. We talked about how to design software and how we should work with vendors.

I made cheeseburgers for dinner from frozen patties that cook up perfectly in the pan. I just add a slice of cheese on top when the patty is cooked through, cover with a lid as I pour in a little water, and let the steam finish the cooking and melt the cheese. I pull the patties and add buns and, without soaking the buns, repeat with the heat off, to toast and heat the buns. I cut a fresh tomato for mine.

I am on call tonight and working part of the night. I might stop if I cannot think straight.

Just sort of twelve-hundred people in the USA died from Corvid-19 today according to the Internet.

I thought this was a good choice for today. I might have done it before, but it is one I can actually sing: He Leadeth Me: O Blessed Thoughts. This is Methodist Hymnal #128.

 

The air was supposed to get better, but we are still over 300 hundred on the air quality index.

Today started at 6:30ish, with me wanting an extra thirty minutes. Sadly, Tuesday has a 7ish meeting, so no additional sleeping tomorrow. I was reminded by the various warning that my password would expire on the Nike internal network. I reset it and then spent forty-five minutes restarting my laptop, forcing my phone to update with new certificates, and passing various two-factor security to reestablish that it was me again. I try not to change the password on Friday, as I always find nothing works on Monday.

Today I had nearly non-stop Zoom calls, many with the same people. It started getting funny in the late afternoon when we all found us on another call with the same people. Towards the late afternoon, the bad air began to get to me as it seemed harder to talk and concentrate.

Lunch was reheated beef barley and veggie soup. I was shocked when I went to serve myself from the saucepan that I had used to reheated some of the soup; no meat was in the pan–How I managed that is unknown to me. I had simply missed any meat, so I enjoyed carrots and taters and barley for lunch. I had some pretzels later when I got hungry.

I had many outstanding tasks from last week; I had taken off Friday because of the bad air. I started to catch-up on my tasks in the afternoon. I worked them while listening to some of the status styled meetings on Zoom.

I finished at about 5:30.

Tonight was our next Roll20 game of Dungeons and Dragons, 5e. We played a few weeks ago and then had to take a break as one of our players had some conflicts. Corwin missed tonight. Our new player, Sean, played and so we had enough players to play.

It was fun, Sean having issues with his browser but worked it out, and the players managed to get to the next level, two, of the gigantic Maze of the Mad Mage. The players are having a great time as their characters are too high of character level for the adventure starting level, so everything is crunch-splat. They change one of the characters into a T-Rex if anything looks dangerous–serious crunch-splat! I also managed to blow almost every roll for running the adventure, rolling a zero once (hard to do), and rolling well once to only be shown-up by nearly all the players rolling super well.

The players also missed just about every roll for insight and history. This made the adventure somewhat opaque to the players. They did not have much information on what was happening and where the risks were. But they had a T-Rex, so that did not really matter.

When the players reached the next level, there they encountered a goblin market, and after a fireball, the goblins were very helpful–those not a pile of ash. The goblins suggested that the other gang in the complex would be a better source of treasure (the treasure of the goblins was equivalent to finding chests filled with pennies and nickels). We called it for the night when the adventures found a beholder zombie guarding another section of the complex. That is where we will start next Monday.

Aside: Beholder is copyrighted content from the original 1970s release of Dungeons and Dragons. It is a levitating giant single eye in a round body with a vast cruel mouth. The top of the body is covered with eyes on stalks, which all can move. Each eye can shoot a deadly magical ray attack. It was something you, as a player, avoided; a full-powered Beholder is very difficult to defeat in its lair. It is considered a classic to players of D& and designed to stop over-powered players in their tracks (often having only their boot left where they were standing after experiencing the disintegration ray).

Before playing, I made chicken Cordon Blu from frozen, mac and cheese (Kraft Deluxe), and canned peaches for dinner. I again was trying to use up some food–we have a lot of food.

The reports show four-hundred eighty people were slain by the infection today in the USA.

I found this new song made for these times: Go Light Your World.

This will be a short note this evening. Not much happened today as I wanted to keep it a bit quiet.

I started 9ish on a smoking and foggy morning. The sky was not yellow or orange this morning. The air still smelled of smoke, but it was damp. The house was cold as the air condition could not heat the house. The air outside was “very unhealthy.”

WW2 Deluxe: War in Europe board game was set for a 1943 scenario on my table from last night. I wanted to try it with slightly more complex challenges. I played it here and there all day. I was feeling tired, and it was hard to focus on it. I did manage to mess up a full turn and take Italy for the Allies and capture Vichy France also for the Allies. I then realized I did not include the impact of attacking a unit in the mountains on the combat charts. I undid the damage by sending Romel’s army to Vichy to smash the weak forces–even in the mountains! On the next turn, the Axis side can get Romel back to the north to face D-Day. The errors in Italy was easy to reverse. Something to get right next play!

I put the game away this evening as I need the table for work on Monday. I will try to work on Monday with the bad air.

I made another quiche for Susie this morning, and she finally got going very late today and enjoyed it.

Just as I finished the quiche, Mariah asked me if I wanted to risk lunch out in the bad air. We selected the Golden Valley Brewery as they have extreme attention to anti-virus procedures, and the customer seems to comply with care to masks and social distancing.

The quiche needed to cool before being put away, so that would work. I left a piece cut for Susie and headed off.

Mariah and I lunch with beers. I had a mushroom burger, and she had a sandwich, she took half of it home. We chatted about writing as Mariah is starting a Zine with a friend.

I returned home and took it slow.

I reheated leftovers for my dinner.

Corwin returned tonight from the fires. He spent the last few days helping the firefighters by delivering supplies to them.

I watched the “Lovecraft County” TV series on HBO, and it got a bit more gory and scary. Still recommended, but it is a full-blown Hollywood horror series now. You have been warned.

Reports show that more than three-hundred ninety people in the USA died from Corvid-19 today.

This is a hymn I can sing, and I like, but I did not know its name: I Know Whom I Have Believed.

The valley is full of smoke. The visibility is less than 1/2 a mile. I went out to get the mail, put the trash bins away, and felt a bit dizzy and tired. Nope, not going out there again. The air quality number is between 319 and 344 now–alarming.

Susie and I watched the horror-adventure film Constantine tonight. It is funny how it matches some later stories and movies like Angels and Demons a few years later. Constantine is actually a comic book character, and there is some noise that another film will include the main character. Like DC needs another dark character–imagine eye roll for those who follow these things.

Susie likes action films and Reeves. So this was a good one for a smoking end-of-earth look that is visiting the area.

(It looks like the movie image is Portland or California)

As the air is thick, I have kept to a slow day. I slept until 10! Some additional groceries were delivered this afternoon by Safeway.com.

I made lunch by reheating the quiche from yesterday. It was still delicious. I ordered barley and stew beef for homemade beef barley soup. I cooked the meat, next time I will make it smaller, and the barley. I added carrots, celery, onion (cooked with the beef to create a lighter flavor for onions), beef broth, and potatoes. It is a bit bland but still hit-the-spot. I figure soup, homemade, is what you make in a smoke and fire emergency. The news stations are all reporting that people should stay at home and not go outside. That sounds like time for soup!

Today is the first Friday-Saturday that I did not drive into Portland to play and eat at Mox Boarding House. I would have loved another game of Scythe there with Evan or even more folks. But smoke and fire is nothing to ignore.

Instead, I tried one at home: WW2 Deluxe: European Theater. I decided to play the most straightforward set-up and shortest game, the Wacht Am Rhein scenario. I am just playing against myself, and I wanted to get a feel for the game. Funny, the game lasted two turns instead of three.

(set-up for Wacht Am Rhien)

This game, WW2 Deluxe: European Theater, is the third recent game I have owned for the same exact theme, and I have a Third Reich from the old Avalon Hill somewhere (that would be number four). So far, I have been disappointed by Columbia’s hidden block version of the same topic, and I gave away my Axis and Allies version too. I purchased this game as part of a Kickstarter and hoped that the designer, Jon Compton, would produce a shorter game that did not lose the themes and something better.

Aside: Jon Compton is a wargame designer for the US military and a board game designer!

So my short play did have the feel of an old Avalon Hill game, but the number of moving parts was significantly reduced. Moving a single unit, now an army, felt like an important decision. In the other games that handle WW2 Europe, you would need to move three or four or ten or twenty units for the same change. Dice rolling and detailed moves would take an hour or more. Jon Compton’s moving to the army level has you make the same decision without the insane level of moving paper items and spending an hour trying to execute the same effect.

I liked the game so far. I think the navy rules, while not very interesting to a part-time naval historian like myself, clearly represent how much the navy choices impacted the land war in Europe, nearly none at all. The bombing rules force defenses against bombing. Again, not the details of air-combat are recreated, but the decisions are. Planes are used for bombing, stopping other aircraft, and supporting troops.

This is a two-person game. I do not have many chances to play just two-person, but it works for me for solo play, and this is a better game for this theme and fast. I will keep it. For you, Axis and Allies lovers, it still is one of the better multiplayer games for the same theme.

(US and British take Berlin, the German units have poor rolls, while the Soviet are held back by fantastic lousy luck)

I am happy to finally find a WW2 fast play but still a workable board game. I will try a more significant scenario.

We will continue with a lock-in all Sunday as air quality is expected to enter 400+ soon. The two close-by fires are being brought under control–we are at no risk for a fire at this time.

Just over seven-hundred people died from the virus in the USA today.

I found this beautiful video for today: Prayer for World Peace.