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Sorry for a boring day, little special happened today with my first meeting with India at seven. And maybe when you are over 50 with high blood pressure and diabetes (both controlled) and asthma, it may good to have a day without surprises. I have read too many accounts in the news of someone over fifty with health issues dying from the virus. So I am thankful to have an uneventful day.

One of our friends in India that works for SAP had an exciting experience. I am sure he won’t mind me recounting it here. India is on lock-down too. He went for a run. The police stopped him. They let him finish his run after a discussion. We laughed in the meeting that he gets a police escort for a run!

Work was a series of emails and video conferences today. My blood pressure was spiked by only one meeting. It took me an hour to get my frustration under control–I read the book about the gals in 1926 sailing in the crew on a windjammer. I have read until they are more than halfway to Fiji. One of the gals has typhoid and cannot do much. The other gal, who tells the story, loves storms and describes some wild storms in the South Pacific. Drifting into a story of sailing in the 1920s got my mind off of work. I mentioned the book a few days ago: Windjamming to Fiji.

And that takes us to this song for today: Sailing.

I ordered lunch online from BJ’s Brewhouse. Sorba noodles for me and a full-rack of ribs for Susie and Corwin to share. I had it delivered. Dinner was a sandwich for me and Susie and Corwin shared macaroni and cheese. Corwin also made a hamburger scramble with various veggies in it.

I am still tired and having trouble sleeping.

I started working on my civil war battle figures. I have to glue them together, and the use of slow curing cryno glue makes it a bit difficult. I have to hold the pieces together too long.

I ordered Kristy Kreme donuts to be delivered at 8:15AM Wednesday. Why not?

My employer, Nike, crushed earning today for the third quarter, Nike sales in China were just a few percentage points down. Apparently, customers in China just changed to online ordering during the lock-down. I will let you read about that online. The commentaries suddenly sounded hopeful that at least one company has reported good earnings and reasonably good earning in the emergency.

Continuing with the investment news, the stock market broke a different kind of record. It has not gone up so fast since 1933. The market is expecting a vast stimulus package from the US congress–it is not done yet.

Also in the news, the central banks are still trying to fix the liquidity issues. There is not enough money to loan, especially US dollars. The banks are buying up debt fast to prevent a squeeze on US dollars and a sudden uncontrolled rise in lending costs. Most folks missed in the news that The Fed hired out help to buy debt and that cheap credit lines are being set-up for mutual funds. The banks are worried that another panic to dollars, you can call it flight-to-cash, might happen, and the mutual funds will have to sell at losses that will cause the market to go down and then more selling. By setting up a credit-line, the mutual funds can payout without selling immediately thus causing a spiral down of stock and bond prices. Of course, this means the US taxpayer is now backing all the mutual funds.

Finally, it was reported one hundred sixty-three people passed away from the virus in the USA today. It was terrible in Italy and the infection rate in the USA now that we have testing for the virus finally happening is going up at a scary rate.

This is a hymn for today. It took me a while to find a version that was something I liked (even this is a bit overproduced for my taste): It Is Well With My Soul.

 

Back to video meetings all day for work. The big project continues on, and after some confusion, we are mostly back to work.

I had trouble sleeping last night, so it is a hard Monday. The best song I thing for today: Manic Monday.

While I was working from home, I got a call from Rev. Ann Weld-martin. She was still having some issues with Zoom. So we did a few practice Zoom meetings while I was doing a video meeting at Nike. Sort of biblical as my left hand was on the Apple and the right on the Nike laptop. Thusly, the left hand did not know what the right was doing.

Susie was off to her hair, nails, etc. appointment. Her driver, Muhammad, is out-of-work. He was driving a taxi and taking her to her various appointments. So I paid him directly as he has no cab or even a credit card machine now. Susie is his only customer this week.

I ordered lunch from The Gyro House in Beaverton. A lamb gyro that I paid to have delivered to the house. I paid the make maximum $4.00 tip to the driver. A gal dropped it off, and we kept our distance. It was, as usual, a dream that takes me back to Istanbul.

(an underground Cafe in the famous Cistern, Istanbul)

Work finally stopped, and I took a nap, still tired from little sleep last night.

I put bratwursts in the oven to bake for dinner. Potato salad is still left to go with it. There is also plenty of beer.

Monday is when we return to Roll20 to play Dungeons and Dragon, Fifth Edition, at 6:30. Everyone is there, Bill, Cory, Corwin, and Mackers, and we begin where we left off. We are near the end of the Princes of the Apocalypse. Roll20 has premade content for this premade adventure.

(Screen from the game, DM view)

The store begins again; they are facing the evil air elemental priestess who is trying to summon her master, the air elemental prince. Before she can bring that evil plan to completion she must first destroy our adventures who show up just as she starts to summon the evil air elemental leader. She blasts them with chained lightening and her guards, great wind spirits, also brings some punishment to the adventures. They brush it off, except for their druid who is unconscious, and their anti-paladin shows the priestess no mercy. Their wizard delivers a fireball to finish the work the anti-paladin started. The druid is healed and all is well–Except the elemental gate is open.

The wizard tells the anti-paladin to throw the priestess magical spear into the void. Just as he does this the face of the giant air leader is seen at the gate. The spear explodes as it hit the gate and the air would-be-god is prevented from entering our world. 

There is only fire left to be dealt with. The adventurers rest and prepare for the final battles.

Next, the adventurers descend on a disk that magically lowers them to a lake of lava. They demand to be let into the domain of fire after destroying the domain of air. They are surprised that the evil forces of the fire elemental prince agree and just let them in. A bridge of sorts is created and the brave adventures rush the fire elemental cultists. These fire elemental cultists are strong and hit hard. Soon their transforming druid, usually in the form of a dinosaur, is knocked back down. The anti-paladin is knocked down. The bad guys have a fire giant on their side that hits even harder. Quick and lucky heals are done and a retreat is called. The now conscious anti-paladin says, “we need to be more subtle.” The burned, broken, bleeding adventurers hides in a magical invisible fort while the heal and rethink their plans.

It was fun. The players earned a new level for their characters. We will play next Monday. I suspect something less direct will be attempted on the next game.

Bill Bulter also looked at my test Roll20 game for Call of Cthulhu role-playing game (CoC). I have purchased all the material for CoC and he agrees that it a good implementation. I might get a CoC going on Roll20. Also, the system is easier to build material for so I might be able to write my own adventure. We will see.

Lastly, I have started on my American Civil War figures. I have “Battle in a box” to build, a small army to build in blue and grey. There are hard plastic 28mm scaled from Perry Miniatures in the UK. I have to assemble each soldier by selecting arms, hats, and flags and horses for some. It takes a while, but it produces a realistic-looking set of troops. I used these figures for a Civil War chess set I created as a Christmas present for David Smith–I like working with them. It is a treat to assemble each solider and produce a unique army.

Today the death rate for the US grew to more than one hundred a day.

The stock market continues to crash. There are more flights-to-cash, and liquidity issues are starting to create concerns in the market. Central banks are rushing in to buy up bonds from corporations. USA congress is deadlocked in a fight on a massive stimulus bill.

And today Oregon’s governor ordered everyone on Oregon to stay home and to leave our homes only to get food, exercise, and other necessary reasons. Food can be delivered and made in restaurants to-go.

I think it is time to think about the future: All Things Bright and Beautiful.

A short story for today. Dinner was delivered from Wild Buffalo Wings. Susie got a kid’s burger with fried cheese curds. I had Asian Zing traditional wings, my usual order. Corwin had Caribbean Jerk on traditional wings. I wanted to help our locals. So wings and I had it delivered.

After that, I popped off to Ann Weld-Martin’s house to help her practice using Zoom. She needs to do online meetings now for various churches and other groups. I then returned home, armed with more books, Wayne borrowed two of my greatest WW2 books, The Reluctant Admiral, and Queen of the Flat Tops. The libraries are closed. I have a lot of books folks can borrow.

Back to the Star Trek figures. I have been trying to finish them all weekend. I just finished the light shading. They are finally drying.

The day started with me sleeping in a bit and getting up and getting back, you guessed it, to painting the figures. No news. No virus. Just paintbrush and 3x bifocal safety glasses. Yes, I use 3x to do these and a paintbrush called “Insane Detail” by Army Painters. I have a chrome pen that lets me draw bright chrome on to a figure. It looks really bright.

Star Trek Theme

(This morning’s state of work with chrome on the phaser)

Our pastor Jefferson did his sermon online. I watched it this morning at about the normal time for the sermon at church, 10:45 AM:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yolGeZOX7Cc&feature=youtu.be.

I also got a note from Golden Valley Brewery that they raised $4000 for their staff with the car wash! Music for that: Car Wash.

I got Susie started about 1PM, and we connected into Zoom to have a small group church meeting. A few issues with folks learning what to do. It worked well enough and, people were happy to see each other or, for those who never got the camera to work, hear each other. We had a pleasant meeting, and I believe everyone felt better after.

I did the laundry and then decided that Wild Buffalo Wings were better than making dinner.

I have scheduled my Roll20 game for Monday night. We are playing Dungeon and Dragons online, and the adventure is supplied by the makers of D&D, The Princes of the Apocolypse. We have been playing this one for about a year. We have been at this for a few years now. We have done three sets of adventures now.

I also have been reading a book published in 1929, WindJamming to Fiji. The book is written by one of the two gals that decided to sign-up as crew on an old iron sailing ship for its last voyage to Fiji in 1926. I found it in Powell’s for less than ten bucks. It goes day by day, an original blog! So when I am tired or stressed out, I pick up the book and see how the gals are doing. It is September 22, 1926, and the gals’ ship is just off of Washinton State, waiting for the winds to change. I wonder what they will be doing next. They brought a typewriter, and one of their duties is to keep the log. So they are typing the record instead of handwriting it. I shall be following their story, a non-electronic blog.

Back to work tomorrow. That is working right here on my Nike laptop.

Here is the final work on the figures, finished just before midnight:

Our famous bookstore Powells is closing down on Monday because of the virus protections being required of businesses and the family that owns it is laying-off all the workers–no more pay for the workers. They claim they cannot afford anything else and that they might not have the resources to re-open. As you can imagine, this message hit some sour notes for people here in Portland area.

The death rate of the USA is going down while the infection rate is increasing. It was a somber day in Italy as hundreds of people were reported to have passed away from the virus. I was thinking of something like this for all of us (yes, it is Luther): A Mighty Fortress is Our God.

 

 

I awoke with a headache this morning and slept in until ten-ish. Unusual for me to sleep so late, but I did stay up late on Friday and the headache had me rolling over and going back to sleep.

I nearly finished the painting of figures of Norse gods for the game Bloodrage last night. So I got up and took my medications, hoping the headache was blood pressure–it was not, and had some breakfast and finished the figures. The head got better with food and something to do. It did come back with bright light. I put on my Nike sunglasses to drive, of course.

I also started to assemble another set of figures, the original Star Trek crew. I purchased the set for half-off last year and want to get them added to Star Trek: Panic boardgame. These figures are cast plastic or epoxy and need to be assembled. I managed to not glue myself to any of them. I will finish on Sunday, I think. I will include pictures later.

I made myself lunch from the chili from the last weekend, before it gets too old to eat. Nobody was up. I received an email from Golden Valley Brewery that they had a car wash to help their wait staff. The money collected going to the wait staff. I headed over and gave them a donation and discovered a 10+ car wait. Excellent. While waiting, you can order food and beer to-go. I got that six-pack I wanted for St. Patrick’s Day (a power failure closed them early so I could not get the beer in time), their Dundee Porter. Car washed and beer!

It is 66F+ and sunny. Somehow we seem to be having California weather. Here is some music for today and the car wash: All I Want to Do.

I then discovered that the hobby store was open–they sent me an email with a coupon. I am almost out of one of my favorite colors: Tamiya XF-63 German Grey. This is a very dark grey that looks like black. You can shade it still with pure black. For example, Loki’s (the figure in red above) hair is not black but XF-63 so I can shade it–this makes “black” more three-dimensional at the 28mm scale. One of my tricks. Usually, I use Army Painter Paints, but for black, it often German Grey instead of black.

So off to see them. When I got there, I could see that the social distancing was not well followed in Tammies Hobbies by their customer. I had to be careful. One older man, with a broken RC car, had a mask on at least. I told them I was happy to see them and thanked them for being open. They had the boardgame Jaws for sale–it is based on the movie. Why not, I wanted to play it. So I found the paint and the game and a magazine and supported my local hobby store.

BTW, there are many how-to-play videos for the board game Jaws, many quite thematic and silly.

I see that the game store, Raining Day Games, is still open while driving back. I wanted some paintbrushes before everything closes down and thus another place to stop by. Here they have taken social distancing seriously. A game you want to handle will be given to you; don’t take them off the shelf. I talk to the owner and share our concerns about the expected shutdown of Oregon on Monday. I have known them for years, and they were happy I came in to support the local gaming store!

I return home, wash my hands, and made Susie and myself a sandwich for dinner. We have plenty of lunch meats from my last visit to Safeway.

I then primed the Star Trek figures and played a practice game of Jaws against myself. The shark had two points left with it sank The Orca and won. It seems a very balanced game. I shall try to get Susie to play on Sunday. It plays 2-4 players. One person is the shark.

And you have to add this video: Bigger Boat.

(Chief Broady, represented by the black meeple, is in the water with the shark as The Orca is being smashed by the shark).

Returning to the virus news, we hear that Oregon will lockdown soon, and hundreds of people are laid-off. A song that was written for another war that risked everything seems the best for today, it is a more American taste, but I think it fits the sacrifices:  Battle Hymn of the Republic

This morning a little after six, I sent a note to my boss and friends at work that I was headed to the ER with Susie. I woke from my alarm, and then Susie told me that she was in pain, 9-out-of-10 pain. I went off to make coffee and get a bit more organized before we headed to the emergency room. A few minutes later, I returned to Susie, and Susie was recovered and had no pain. Likely this was gas or something from last night, we had homemade bean and chicken soup. It is funny now, but then it was a shock. The ER is about the last place you want to be now.

I sent out a reversal email, and my boss Brad and friends were all relieved that the episode was over and that the ER was avoided. I logged on to work here at the house and began reading and sending emails.

To celebrate our near escape, a silly video: U Can’t Touch This.

Today was like a conga-dance of video conference after another video conference. Much progress was made on the planning and design. It is a bit of blur now.

Off to the pharmacy for Susie, a drug had run out. I was there just after the pharmacy opened. No toilet paper, but there was kleenex. I left it for the next guy, we have some. I thanked the staff for working today.

I ordered lunch early from Happy Panada and for delivery. I had meetings spaced out all morning, so it would be better if they could deliver, and I wanted to see how that worked out. It arrived on time, but no tracking email or text was supplied, so I was worried it was not coming. We got two Orange Chickens in error. I paid for it and gave the driver a cash tip. It was a familiar style and flavor. Happy to support our local folks!

The workday ended with a massive Zoom meeting for the huge project I am working on. Never been on a 400+ person video call before. Zoom was used as it could handle the size. The status of the project was reviewed and how to work. Also, except for a few folks, everyone is to take Spring Break (next week) off as paid time off. As you already guessed, I am one of the people who is needed to work next week.

Another it can’t-be-Oregon-because-it-is-not-raining day. I took Susie was a short walk. We visited the newly planted telephone pole again.

Dinner was just cheese and crackers as we had such a large lunch.

My gaming friends have me trying an on-line board game site: Game Board Arena. I was invited to play with them, but I had to learn the rules of Kingdomino, and the game started without me. I was tired from all the events from today, so I took a nap instead of playing online games. Next time!

My jam arrived. I have all these scones mixes, and I had no jam. In the chaos that is the world now, I ordered from the source, Smuckers, and they arrived perfectly wrapped. I washed my hands after getting them. Most excellent. I will be making scones as soon as I finish publishing this!

My mother-and-law, Leta, lived alone in Lansing, Michigan, and was getting a bit tired of winter in Michigan. I got the Spring catalog from the monks in Kentucky that makes fruitcakes: www.gethsemanifarms.org. I sent her chocolate fudge and fruit cake to celebrate Spring and Easter. I called her, and she was thrilled to be now watching the mail for fruitcake and fudge from Kentucky!

Today the death rate of the USA went down a bit. It may be a fluke of reporting, forty-seven deaths were reported today. More than eleven thousand so far for the world. Here is a hymn for today: Amazing Grace.