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Today was a relaxing day. I missed church at 10:30 and then did make the Zoom call at 2 PM. Susie got up very late. I decided again to try the game Blitzkrieg in the West again. The game set-up has taken me all day. With the regular interruptions of laundry, dishes, getting dinner made, and all the rest.

I was also surprised to see that the set-up for the game did not come with any plan. I had to figure out the deployment of the order of battle on my own. I got maps from Westpoint for the initial fight and found a more basic map that showed the army general placements.

I first had to get the set-up on the scenario cards, all the pieces representing the troops and forces involved in 1940. Filling in the cards took some care and more time than I usually give to a game. I finally got them done by the later afternoon.

(all those tiny squares!)

I then, after dinner, started to deploy the forces on to the hex map. I stated with the British Expeditionary Force and later on to the allies. France was a lot, and finally, after reading the force breakdown in the first battle, I got something that looked about right. I admit the weaker forces are on the east as I started with the more interesting items first. I already know the Germans are not going for the fortress cities of 1940 France.

(the German armies are missing, but all the rest are on more-or-less as they were in 1940)

Dinner was New York strip steaks and rice pilaf. I browned the steaks in butter and finished them in the oven. Corwin used up the gas for the grill, and I was not in the mood to enjoy everyone that discovered they had not propane on Mother’s Day. They were good.

The mother to the little birds in the nest on the wreath on the door was singing outside. I walked out, and she was singing non-stop. I went back inside, and she started to feed the baby birds.

For the game, I will have it set-up soon. It is slow going so far as I have to stop and read the rules or look up the history of the 1940 Battle for France a couple of times. Canvas Temple Publishing has a lot of typos in the rule book, and I could use more clarity on how to set-up, but this is a unique game, and I forgive them a lot. I am interested in getting to play a turn someday!

The deaths from the virus in the USA slowed to more than seven-hundred today. The hymn for today is a prayer: Evening Prayer.

Today was a gaming and cooking Saturday. I started by putting away everything on my table so I could play games again. I am stopping the electronics for a while to write and play some games. I have some very complex two-person wargames that can be played solo, and I want to learn the rules anyway. There is also some writing I want to do, and I do that better in a neat setting. So out with the wires and boards and cool stuff and the chaos they bring.

Moving to lunch, I made bratwurst and baked beans from a can for lunch from what I already had. I fried the brats in a pan to get them brown and then finished them in the oven. They came out the way I like them, browned–not burned, and cooked. 

I also went shopping and got groceries at Safeway. I picked up enough stuff to make Chicken Vindaloo from Cook’s Illustrated magazine current issue (it uses pork but that is difficult to get now). I ordered the special India chilis already. Excited to cook.

I first tried to get into Trader Joe’s before ending up in my local Safeway. I have not been to Trader Joe’s since the emergency started. There was a very long Oregon polite line that went nearly around the block. Every person six feet apart most with masks. I like their stuff, but I don’t need that kind of wait and stress. So off to Safeway where everything was easy and social distancing is working without long lines.

I bought Susie flowers at Safeway. They had a person to put on ribbons and add baby’s breath. I did not want the flowers anymore manipulated before I brought them home. I always try to remember to bring Susie new flowers when I am shopping (even before the emergency). I put them in a vase, and Susie just looks at them. We don’t usually handle the flowers much, and now we handle them even less.

After unloading the groceries, I set up and punched my Kickstarter game that I have never had time to play before: Blitzkrieg in the West. I needed the whole table for it. This game simulates in the old school hex and paper counter-style the 1940 battle for France. The game is a simulation to allow the players to try their hand at the campaign and try to do better. It is a fascinating idea to me. It also comes with variants to try different plans. I very much want to try it out, at least as a solo play. It is only this one titanic battle and not the whole war, as you find in various other games (some simple and some beyond complex). The same publishers did produce a WW2 high-level game–I have to get to that one someday.

Corwin’s biz partner came over, one of the few other people allowed in the house now. He makes drinks and works out the biz plans with Corwin when he comes over.

I put away the WW2 game, I was still working out the French order of battle set-up, and got out Blood Rage instead. Blood Rage is a multi-person game and more fun than a WW2 wargame. This is a dudes-on-a-board style game with a Viking plundering theme. This is a game I got a few years ago and painted everything last figure. So many Vikings and related monsters–it took me a long time to paint them all. I finished the last ones up just at the start of the emergency. We forgot to take a picture of all my painted figures when we were playing.

We played after I got dinner started. Dinner is like most India styled food for me: a complex mix of spices, chicken, process, and finally rice to go with it. Everyone thought it was very good, but not really spicy enough. More chilis next time!

Corwin pulled off a 13 point win in Blood Rage. I remembered Matt Vincent winning with a Quest play and I nearly pulled that off. I blew a quest in the mid-game that cost me the game. Next time!

It felt good to cook something new and Indian style and to play a game. A good day!

(the blown-up kitchen after all the cooking, BTW the blue door goes to the garage and is Tardis Blue–we had that mixed at Home Depot–as the garage somehow fits all that stuff in it and sometimes even the Volvo)

The reports are that more than one-thousand four-hundred Americans were slain by the virus this Saturday. Included in the recent death count is Roy from the Siegfried and Roy show. He died from complications from the virus. Little Richard passed away from cancer. Here he is singing a hymn: Need Him.

Today I did not log on to my Nike computer, and I did not pay much attention to my email from Nike. This is the first Friday without Nike in a while. Usually, something slides in, and I have something to take care of even on my day off. Today I managed to stay away.

Last night I stayed up late installing the operating system on a Raspberry Pi Zero W. I was surprised by how much updating the OS needed and it went beyond 1:30AM. I always buy a kit for Raspberry Pi computers as there are so many little extras you need. The kit was under forty bucks an,d the computer itself is $10. It is also must faster than most of the cool Python and C microcontroller, runs real Linux, and has true multi-processing. They are also much harder to make work and are not tolerant (1.8V). I did get it all running this morning. The Go programming language I was trying to use failed. Not the first time that I have had issues with Go. I put it away for a while as I wa,nted to do some other things today.

(The tiny computer is in the plastic box to make sure it not damaged)

It was a clear sunny and windy day. Many roses decided it must be time to show their stuff. I was happy to share them with you.

I watched Doctor Who at the 2013 Proms on YouTube today. It was fun to go back, now two doctors ago, and hear the music and see all the events.

I ordered breakfast from La Provence today, corned beef hash with poached eggs. Plus a croissant. I ordered a dessert for Susie, tiramisu dessert.

I solder together a few parts and tried to write some code today. My heart was not into the coding today. I did build a 20W stereo amp, a real-time clock device, and added headers to a few items. I have some speakers I am attaching to a board to build a speaker box. I will those to test the amp. I ordered some more hardware on the Internet from Digikey. They are open still and are covering for AdaFruit products while AdaFruit supports their home of New York City with masks and other emergency equipment.

Susie got a fruit bouquet from her mother Leta today. Leta wanted to make sure we were getting enough fruit.

I made dinner. A creation of cornmeal around chili from a can. A sort of tamale casserole. It was not bad. I think I will go with more tamale insides next time.

I find myself feeling a bit better today. Getting to decide not to do something was refreshing.

I watched a bit of the market. It went up again. The experts are still concerned it will go back down again. The alphabet soup of ‘V’ and ‘U’ and the feared ‘L’ recovery are starting to be discussed. I stopped watching.

I also saw reports that the president’s and vice president’s staff have a bad case of irony: The virus is showing up in their staff. I have little to say other than I hope everyone will get well and not spread the infection through-out Washington DC.

I watched some of the Royal Opera’s free showing of La Traviata. I could not finish it as I just watched last week the same opera done by The Met Opera. It is just too depressing to do this twice–there is no happy ending. Renée Flemming is in the Royal Opera’s presentation and I like this better than the more modern sound and look of The Met Opera’s version.

This is the drinking song from the Opera and likely a song many would recognize. I was singing along with this song while making dinner. My Italian was terrible. I really liked this version of the Internet. The sound is good; the video is a bit compressed. It is still good!

I am listening to some more opera while I write this.

The reports are that the USA lost more than one-thousand six-hundred souls to the virus today. I found this new music that worked I think: Be Not Afraid.

 

 

Susie was ill last night, so I put in to be on PTO today. I had already decided on Friday as a non-working day. Susie appears to have recovered, and I have kept an eye on her all day.

Even with the day off, I planned to attend a few meetings at work as it was unfair to cancel the meetings at the last minute. So, as usual, I was up and dressed at 8:30 to attend one of the meetings when the vendor asked for it to be moved. Aagh! I did have another meeting at 10AM that I agreed to attend on my day off, and that meeting did happen. Better!

I started on my robot projects this morning. I managed to complete the monitor for the radio. I even have it mounted in a nice cardboard box. It is now battery power by 9V, with a power switch, and the LED in a window in the box. I wrote all the code in C to monitor all communication inside an RFM69 network. I harvested a lot of it and there are brilliant libraries out there. Now, all messages are displayed on the LED and the source ID for the message.

Lunch for me was Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs. I wanted to eat the last one that I bought for the emergency. It is quite terrible. It will not be replaced unless there is another near-world-ending event. I heated this on the stove and discovered, as I thought, the taste is less catsup and more sauce if heated for a while. I was thinking that the last experience was via microwave might be a cooking issue. This time it was not as horrible–not exactly words of support I know. I had salad, leftover from Dominos, to go with it.

For the salid, I had to get the Thousand Island dressing open as it was new and had a plastic cover over the food to protect me. It was well protected. I was disturbed by the strength I needed to get to the dressing. Those little islands are well secured!

Corwin had soup for lunch. We discovered that Susie never ate anything as we were starting up dinner! I got her some toast with peanut butter.

Before dinner was started, I started on the prop also. I have the meter and a couple of dial switches mounted in another cardboard box painted black. I also soldered together Flora neoPixels that I had leftover from making wearables a few years ago. I will glue those on the box cover and light them up. I am going to use a RedBoard Turbo to control all of this. It is 3.3V, but I have to use a four AA battery holder to power it as it cannot handle 9V. Or I will connect in a LiPo battery and use USB to charge it. The board can recharge the LiPo. I have to program it and wire it up.

Finding a breaking point in my electronics, I made a pumpkin pie. This is the old school version of the pie using canned pumpkin and the recipe is from the label of an Eagle Brand can. I have the label saved as this recipe is no longer published. It comes out perfectly. I had bought extra supplies for Thanksgiving 2019, and yesterday, I decided to clear more of my pantry during the emergency and make the pie. Susie and Corwin are not disappointed!

I also made popovers. I have found the boxed version by King Arthur Flour perfect, and I have bought the special popover pan too. I make them for holidays and frankly when I remember. I spotted the box next to the pie stuff, and it was clear we needed popovers tonight and pie.

While the pie was baking, I had also noticed that all my cooking Bourbon and Vodka was gone. So off to the booze store. I drove into the parking lot, and there was a long line of cars and people out taking orders. I was impressed that people had ordered booze like this, and then I noticed nobody was at the liquor establishment. Dutch Brother’s coffee was open and taking orders in a long line. This is the Pacific Northwest, and the lines are for coffee!

Got my stuff. It is a tiny store and me being the only person in a mask, I used more than usual care with social distancing. The cashier made no effort to distance, have a mask, have cleaner, or do well anything but sell me booze. She did get me a box.

We defrosted skinless chicken thighs. Then into the teriyaki sauce to get even better for about an hour. On the grill and then dinner. I found the soon to be passed-it carrots in the frig and made steamed carrots to go with it.

So dinner was a feast of fire-grilled teriyaki chicken, steamed carrots, and popovers. Pumpkin Pie (old school) for dessert. Disaronno tonight (yes I got a few more things at the liquor store) with coffee as I write this–plus more pie.

My sister sent me a picture of her with her Olympic Provision Sauage bouquet. Yes, I thought she would like that. She was thrilled.

I did not watch the markets for much of the day. I saw the markets were flying up last time I looked. The NASDAQ has fully recovered its losses for the year and now shows positive growth for the year. The Dow is still in 2018 levels. The Dow is showing a ‘U’ or worse ‘L’ type recovery so far. NASDAQ and the technology stocks are showing the wished for ‘V’ recovery.

The reports show that more than two-thousand one-hundred people passed away from the virus today in the USA. I found this Mozart for today’s hymn (some latin for us): Laudate Dominum (Mozart) | boy soprano Aksel Rykkvin (13 years). The translation is here.

 

 

 

I managed to start work at 6 again this morning here at home. More and more video conferences and the crisis of the moment. Wednesday, being mid-week, always is full of status meetings and focus meetings and meetings about meetings.

I managed to order an Ensalada Plater and a Bonsia Burger for Susie from Red Robin. 

I continued the day with more status and more crisis of the moment and explaining over and over different things that I have told before. The stress of the emergency and from working from home has had an impact on people. I see a bit more panic and less organization on the part of many of my co-workers. The focus is weak and the ability to see beyond the immediate deliverables missing for many. I took Friday off to find my focus!

Today Sparkfun’s next package arrived. Two more radios: RFM69. I also have some new motors with gears and encoders. Encoders allow you to know the exact position of a motor. It makes controlling them much more exact. All good and perfect for a small robot ship.

So I took my radio build and added in the LCD. This build will be the monitor for all the radio communication. The LCD will display the messages flowing. I also added a battery connector for it to make it more independent. I will cut windows in the box for the LCD soon and have a cool monitor in a box.

The other radio will be attached to the robot controller and robot. It is slowly coming together. Another reason to take Friday off.

I also received the security camera for the church and a Raspberry Pi Zero W from Amazon today. More things to do.

Dinner for Susie was the other half of her burger. Corwin and I had reheated pizza.

The stock market went up and down, and I finally turned off Bloomberg after the third expert said the market was unpredictable. Yes, we know. My 401K is down 7.5% for this year. I am still up 7% for the last 12 months. I hope for a 10% return and plan for 8%, so I am not far away from being on plan.

The reports show another increase in the number of deaths from the virus. More than two-thousand five-hundred lives ended today in the USA because of the infection. Today’s hymn is also one I can sing, but this version is from the Welsh, and the last verse of the song is sung in the native language! Please enjoy Guide Me, Oh Thou Great Jehovah from Cardiff, and remember who we lost today.