Blog

It was a long day working from home. I was on-line from 6:30AM until about 6:00PM today. I had a video conference hosted by SAP, Nike, and Goodyear at 7AM to enable folks on the East Coast to attend. It went well. Again, work was a mix of trying to deliver and pressure to reach the next milestone. That is how IT goes.

My troubles from yesterday continued and others were facing many of the same challenges from the same issues I faced. It left me tired and thinking about taking Friday off (and Monday and Tuesday and…).

Lunch was from Gyro House, and Susie got baklava too.

I managed to take a walk between meetings once everything calmed down for a bit. I was triple booked once! The school is providing food baskets now.

I also saw that the Presbyterians have a new prayer box and a table set-out not far from the “HOPE” sign.

Our streets are usually packed when I was walking. Parents rushing to get kids and then get them to the next thing. Not anymore.

(this is 209th and 209th and Johnson)

Work went on, and the install of software for the project halted. Last I saw they had tried to restart the automated processes.

I finished the book Windjamming to Fiji published in 1929 and written about a trip two gals do as crew on a Windjammer. The story as we left it last time the ship was stuck in the doldrums. That finally changed, and the gals experienced a massive storm. The author makes the mistake of falling asleep in a hammock on the deck as a storm begins. She is thrown in the air by the sudden waves that bounce her in and out of the hammock as if it the hammock turned into a trampoline. The ship heels over, and she is forced to walk on a deck that is more wall than the floor. She is battered and smashed but survives. From my readings about Windjammers, they are built to run in storms. The hull and masts are iron.

The storm leaves the captain unsure of their location, and they come upon a reef. The local pilot gets them into Fiji’s harbor Suva. Thus they find Fiji, and it is a paradise. 

The gals trade all the items they brought for locally made items. The author is offered to be the chief’s wife and live in Fiji.  The call for the sea and the desire to finish their tour on the old ship is too much. She turns down the offer.

They sail the ship into New Caledonia, where the vessel is disassembled into a barge-warehouse. The story ends with the captain taking the wind vane from the old ship and packing it away with a tear. He promised it to the pilot in Fiji, where it was to be placed on top of the flag pole. A sad but honest ending to the book.

I found the author’s obituary in the New York Times, 1951. Ms. Cooper returned to New York City and was a literary agent. This is her only book. She did help co-write another about being a medical working in the South Pacific during World War 2. 

I think I will keep this book. I can see Ms. Cooper’s smile in the slightly faded black and white pictures. I will read this again. I feel like I met her.

My music choice for the book is this: Son of a Sailor.

I made dinner tonight. We had some thinly sliced pork chops that I pan-fried and served with Stovetop stuffing (which was terrible).

I have now Volvo Valet on my phone. I have scheduled a pick-up and service for the Volvo on April 13th. The SUV gets a trip to the spa for the 30K service. The dealership is looking for keeping their staff working so they emailed me and called. I am willing to help the local shop and the car needed the service. It is not really doing anything now.

I spent the early evening working on Roll20, getting all of the characters ready for the new adventure: Tomb of Horrors, Aloha Oregon Branch. I uploaded the characters used in the previous adventure and then exported them to the new content. I then looked them over and made a few improvements. As the players defeated the Evil Elemental Princes they now can do extra damage and their magic is more effective on elementals. Most of the successful characters will continue on to glory or death in the tomb. Excelsior!

I purchased more moving parts in Roll20. I hate re-buying books that I already have, but to get the computer content, that is what you have to do: Monster Manual and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. A birthday present for myself; April 16th is coming up.

The stock market continues to climb, and my 401K is now showing only an 11% loss for the year. I have no comment on this, I will just take the money.

It is difficult to read the reports showing that nearly two-thousand American passed away today from the virus. I found this from Brooklyn: Psalm 34.

 

Not that I had some challenges at work, but I did break out in hives and had to stop and take some meds and rest for a bit. I then went back on-line and tried to work the issues out. I will say that someone should not put me on their review feedback list. I suspect they won’t.

Today contained many meetings, all video conferences. I did slip out and get a walk between meetings. About 1/3 of the folks I saw were wearing masks now. I wore mine.

I saw while walking that Reedville Presbyterian was giving out food baskets today. Folks were picking them up or carrying them down the street. At least two big bags of items per group.

One of my favorite jays was in a tree and waited for its picture to be taken. It is metallic-like blue with a blackish colored head: Steller’s Jay.

We also have an owl in the window for the kids to spot. There is a new game for children who have to walk but not go to the now-closed parks. They try to count animals in the windows. We have gone with an owl.

Lunch was Happy Panda delivered. Supporting our locals. Happy Panda still requires you to pay with a credit card at the door. I hand the card over to the driver, and he puts in his own tip, 20%, and then signs for me.

I was trying to work multiple items, and it was all going to pieces on the systems. Not a good day. Then hives and Benadryl that put me out.

I managed to get going again this evening at about six-thirty and work to fix some of the broken at work. It is still a mess. I am still miserable. I worked passed nine in-the-evening.

Dinner was a rush job done while working online. Susie was up so late she did not get anything for breakfast or lunch, so I got her peanut-butter toast. I threw together rigatoni and sauce from a jar and frozen Italian style meatballs–baked in the oven. We got dinner, and Susie was happy. Corwin was up very late and was pleased to see dinner done.

And rigatoni makes me always think of this song: Rigoletto La Dona e mobile.

I discovered that my old oven mitt is wearing thin. Yes, that glass dish was hot coming out of the oven! Just a bit of memory in my hand still from the glass wear.

As I was upset and rushed, I think I ate three bowls of dinner. Too much. Yes, I eat when stressed. I usually manage to drink water instead.

The stock market was mostly unchanged. The discussions are that the markets should crash more. The experts on Bloomberg believe earnings will be weak next quarter. That got a raised eye-brow from me as I heard it on Bloomberg. I have my Apple playing the news while I work. I turn off the volume for video conferences. More reports of broad debt offerings that were sold and most oversold. The bond investors are happy to buy it with the American taxpayer now backing the debt. Imagine me with an eye-roll.

So terrible day for me, but not nearly as bad as other folks. It was reported that more than one thousand nine-hundred people died from the virus in the USA. It was hard to find a hymn, but this one works for hope for a better day: Morning Broken.

 

 

 

Tonight we ended our Dungeons and Dragon campaign that ran for about a year. We finished the last of the premade content for the Prince of the Apocalypse that we run on Roll20. Roll20 is a gaming website that allows you to play table-top Dungeons and Dragon and other role-playing games on a virtual tabletop. Much of the game is automated and shared in a chat window. Thus if you wish to have your character in the virtual game attack with a sword, you click the sword on your virtual paper character sheet, and instead of you rolling dice, you get the results in the shared chat window. Roll20 and the supplied game contents let your focus on what is happening in the game while leaving the display and mechanics to the software. We play using video chat. It helps me, the DM running the game, to see everyone’s face. I can make adjustments sometimes to keep folks engaged. The makers of Dungeons and Dragons make campaign sold in 250+ page books in color that are packed full of adventure and story. Roll20 has automated and created a virtual version of the content.

By next week we will have uploaded the characters from the previous game to a new game, and Corwin will be making a replacement character. This is our fifth game of any size and just one adventure instead of a campaign. This time it is the legendary Tomb of Horrors! I have an original second edition, 1981 copy. Nobody in the current gaming group has played the original or knows it. This is a chance to get a bit of old school and play something unique. Tomb of Horrors is so nerdish that it appears in the 1980s material for the best-seller Ready Player One. The movie version switched out the Dungeons and Dragons for a car race, something much more Hollywood.

My music for today is a nerdfest: Adagio for Tron.

We play most Monday’s at 6:30 on Roll20, the current game is “Tomb of Horrors, Aloha Oregon Branch.” There will be no twitch feed, for those who know what that means.

(Me holding the original Tomb of Horrors in front of all my games and gaming books)

Today was another manic Monday at work. I finished seven video call meetings today. The pressure is growing as the deadlines are missed. My colleagues worked the weekend to get the software and setting for the software installed for testing. And many others are learning that the gift for doing great work with limited time and resources is more of the same. It was a bit frantic. I like frantic because work does get done.

Lunch was ordered, with some trepidation, from Red Robin today. It all worked, and we all got burgers, even the types we ordered! I also used my awards and got one free.

I slipped out for the mail between video calls. I have found new items for the game Architect of the West Kingdom on-line. I am supporting my on-line game stores by buying a few things. I found a set of metal coins to replace the cardboard ones. These replacements are made for the game so they will fit right in and arrived today. Today I also received the game extension Age of Artisans for Architect of the West Kingdom. I am looking forward, even playing myself, to trying out the extension. This game plays well with one and more players.

Dinner was baked ham slices with brown sugar and baked potatoes with butter, a salad too. Simple and could be done quickly with the deadline of a Roll20 game at 6:30. Susie got missed. She asked, “when is dinner?” I felt terrible that we had missed her and served her up at 8:30. Susie did have a big lunch, so she was not looking for dinner when we started the game. It all worked out, she was just getting hungry again.

An aside: I bought a spiral sliced ham and keep it cold in the frig. We can make ham or added it to something with ease. One of my easy meals.

On reading, I am finishing up the 1920s horror stories from Clark Ashton Smith, The Return of the Sorcerer: The Best of Clark Ashton Smith. The stories feel a bit dated and use vocabulary that is on purpose unknown to the reader; I stopped looking up words. While some of the best fiction from the period, I like the 1960s and 1970s fantasy and science fiction better. You can still feel the Victorian world pulling at the stories.–not improving them. Clark Ashton Smith often sets his stories in libraries and societies of privilege that I have no connection too. And often, the stories are muted, never funny, or exciting. His best is the true cosmic horror stories, closer to H.P. Lovecraft and more comfortable to read (shorter!) than Lovecraft’s prose. So no regrets as some of the stories did work for me: “The Double Shadow” and “The City of the Singing Flame,” for example.

I will be returning to my 1926 book of gals sailing to Fuji! More books are on their way.

We are all shocked to hear that Boris Johnson is in the ICU from the virus.

Reports show that more than one-thousand two-hundred Americans died from the virus on Monday. A song for Easter: Lord of the Dance.

 

Sorry, just a quiet Sunday. Maybe that is a good thing!

We hit now the end of three weeks of this process of trying to save lives by stopping contact with people and “flatting the curve.” There are some signs that it is working. Oregon appears to have been passed over from the terrible number of deaths, likely because of our lower population and quick acceptance of social distancing. We are so polite here, “of course we will do that.” And also drive slow in the fast lane and slow down for green lights because they do change. We do not pump our own gas. Maybe it is that we are just weird.

Most of us are proud of our governer sending 114 ventilators to New York where they are needed now.

I had some trouble sleeping last night, mostly too much caffeine and too much thinking about robot circuits. I was up about nine.

At 10:30 I joined the first church service as technical support for Zoom. Everything was fine.

I got Susie going while I had the last piece of Dominos pizza for lunch. We watched Pastor Jefferson’s sermon online and then Zoom for my regular church group at 2PM. I cut a palm branch from my palm tree to wave. It is Palm Sunday!

Returning to the robot work, I managed to get the GPS, LCD, and lights all working at the same time.

I took Susie for a walk down the street twice, and we drove over to the Golden Vallery Brewery and picked up some of their good beer. We practiced social distancing and both Susie and I have on masks. I have only paper ones.

Corwin started dinner while we were wandering. Beef stew.

So a slow day with lots of robot stuff. I am currently not able to manage a servo controller that works by itself but crashes everything when combine. I think I can route it to its own communication port and isolate it. This should make it work. Something for later.

It was sunny and warm. We turned off the heat and opened the doors for a while.

Reports show more than one-thousand one-hundred Americans passed from the virus today, Palm Sunday 2020.

So I think we will go with this: Sunset Sunrise.

 

 

 

It was heaven to sleep into 9AM this morning. No nightmares. No asthma stealing into my dreams of happy days and changing the dreams into nightmares of drowning in the air. No waking to events from work or at home. Just blessed sleep.

The headache is still just a hint that it can come back. No problems reading and light sensitivity, while even there, is not enough to stop me. I will admit that my laptop is at 60% brightness.

To my robot projects! All sitting shelved for lack of time and thinking space. I need not only time, but I need to have some imagination, and that takes even more time.

I grab the Cricket. I have two different models. I have never had the time to make them work. They exploit existing microcontrollers and add even more cool things like servos and motor controllers, everything a robot needs.

Hours later and I put the Cricket back on the shelf and then try the other one. That too ends on the shelf. One must accept failure and move on. The software is not working and poorly interfacing with all the cool hardware. Next time!

Which reminds me, I spent a few hours with Rev. Ann Weld-Martin helping her with Zoom. Zoom, after many reports in the edgy part of the Internet were repeated, mostly correctly, by the mainstream press, has decided to finally fix a few security issues. This means the users of Zoom, especially those who host a meeting, will see a few different screens and have to park their participants in the virtual waiting room and then admit them.

(It takes quite a few mistakes to end up hosting a meeting to oneself and having to admit yourself–I have not idea how I did that)

I helped Rev. Weld-Martin get that all under control. I will be tech-support at 10:30 Sunday again.

Note: I have tried to put links under the names of technical thing items if you want to know what they are.

Back to the hardware, after failing so much, I remembered that I had some cool hardware that I was itching to try out. This is the impressively named microcontroller, Metro M4 Grand Central, from AdaFruit in New York City. I had to purchase the boards without headers (header allow easy use for wiring up test set-ups) as the regular boards sold-out fast. From China, I bought colorful pins that you can solder in place of headers. Mine looks cool now with colored pins and standing on brass separators.

(My first movie in a while, a bit shaky)

I love to connect to satellites from the ground. I have a small GPS board also with a  working connection to the Grand Central. Then an LCD readout is always handy. I found a spare in my cabinets–I have a virtual Radio Shack in the garage. The display is also now running on the Grand Central.

All this was coded in Python. I used some of the code I developed previously for some other projects. Everything went fast tonight and worked!

Reaching for an aside, my first tools included a hammer with a wood handle. I remember that the handle broke and I got a better hammer for Christmas–I last saw it in dad’s shed before he passed away, he kept it after I left home. Next, I had an old electric drill–it made sparks inside. The third tool I remember was a wood burner that I also used to solder with. I had these I remember in 1974 when I was very young. I liked to work with my hands, but only on precise things.

I solder over seventy pins on the Grand Central and a few other items. Something I can do without effort. I also did a few wiring harnesses. I have the tools, shrink wrap, heat gun, and so on to get all this done. None of the tools and items are expensive, but the right tools and supplies make everything simple.

Which seems to take to today’s song: Pinball Wizard.

Dinner was a debate as I wanted pizza on a Saturday night. We settled on Dominos delivered. Two salads, pizza, and two types of pasta. Extravagant, but it is Saturday. Can’t go drinking, to the movies, or exploring Portland for cool used books. So we will go with the works delivered!

We spent the day inside. Susie was reading and has found Shattered by Dick Francis. We used to see Mr. Francis at a book signing with his wife when we lived in Maryland. We have a few books signed by him. His son started writing with him and then took over when Dick Francis passed away. Shattered is an excellent read.

Today it was reported more than one thousand three-hundred thirty people passed away in the USA from the virus. I found this video that I liked: Many Gifts, One Spirit