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I plan to write a story each week and post it here. I have no subjects other than what I sort of learned that week that has me thinking.

Susie, wife, and I are traveling to Florida in the first week of May. There we will join some friends, the Smith Family, to see their daughter graduate from Ringling College with a degree in animation. We will then travel to Orlando and see Micky Mouse and then fly back. It is a Tuesday night through Sunday trip. A rushed trip. It is an experiment if my wife can still travel. It is a chance to see Disney World in Florida again We live on the West Coast and Disneyland is even a drivable and thus is our usual Disney choice.

What has me writing is the way I set-up the trip. I did it all myself online using two websites. I purchased the flights, car, and first hotel on Expedia. I used Disney’s site for Micky. In the past, I would contact AAA of Oregon and have them do it. I do not want to get a date wrong or spell a name wrong or miss out on some great deal so I would use travel agents. I have paid $100 at least once to untangle a flight and even had Susie and I flying to the same place but somehow on different planes (the flights left at almost the same time from the same airport from the same airlines!). Now it costs an additional $50 or more per reservation to have a travel agent set-up the flights. And the nice voice on the phone, the calmness of the process, and the certainty that a mistake would just be fixed without comment or cost I sorely miss now. But I am a computer guy–I can do this!

The next step was to find something at The Mouse. First, all the parks websites are different. So I had to do Disney World which is the Florida Disney resort and parks. Once I did that I had to find where one orders hotels and all that stuff. Then I had to find a room at the correct hotel, the Smiths already had their reservations. Wilderness Lodge had a room on the courtyard. I selected that and added in for almost again the same amount of money, no small amount, for three-day park-hopper pass.

I did not log on. Need to log on. Reset password. Start over? Everything is in my cart. Good, buy.

Not good. I have no passes. Call The Mouse. Have to spell my name. The computer voice keeps spelling it with an “e” until it gives up and sends me to a human. No passes, but we can fix that. Takes forty-five minutes on the phone to fix it. Raelle, the cast member who helped me, informs me of my passes number by spelling out all the letters by using Disney characters, “‘G’ like Goofy.” And she points out that they are installing new magic in the online system and she might have to restart. We get it all together. I have to use the recently magic-revised online software to link my passes. Raelle gives me her direct line and wishes me a “magical day.” I get an email from her that also has the information. Nice!

So on to the magically improved online experience. I have learned that the website for Disney World has an experience section and that is where we do this magic. I attempt to link the passes to the icons with mine and Susie’s name. There are four Susie’s! I pick the first one. Now I have two different Susie’s. One gets to use the room. The other Susie gets a pass.

Call back. Raelle is not available so I leave her a message. I miss the callback. I get a message from Raelle. She tells me to have a magical day after telling me I need the Experience Internet helpdesk. She keeps in character and is excited that Susie can be so many people at once. Very magical. I call her back and get someone else and they route me to Melissa in Internet support who I thought called herself Maleficent. I misheard. She merges all the Susies. Melissa forgets to wish me a magical day. Finally, it is all done and magical.

So I think I have everything done. This doing it yourself is not that fun and as I have seen, not only do you have to deal with your mistakes, there are times when magic is being applied and things get more Maleficent than you would like. There are Raelle’s and Melissa’s out there to help you and they are nice to meet on the phone. Still nervous that I have something wrong, but it seems done.

I have decided to write about something every week for this blog. The subjects will be something I have been doing or am interested in.

I am a computer guy for a local shoe company. Despite all of the interesting changes I see in the world of massive systems that run large multi-national corporations (and I get paid to make work), I am still very interested in what you can pick-up for a few bucks or moderate amount of bucks and what interesting things you can do with it. Of late many of these things can be coded in Python or even graphical programming tools. The breaking out of really good and well-maintained open technology into the mainstream means that it is free or cheap and you can even get help and it lets you do cool things.

Looking back, this is my first computer:

(ZX-80 Image)

It was not what we call Open. It was a kit you bought from a magazine. My father said to my mother, “he might like this,” and got me one. I was surprised. It was cheap and amazing for its time. I loved it and began my journey coding on a ZX-80.

Returning to today, a good example of the changes I am seeing was my recent chess program. One of my first desires when I first learned to write code (back in 1980 on a Sinclar, yes back then) was to write game programs and the one that always comes to mind is chess. The amount of code to encapsulate all the rules and processes of chess has stopped me (not to mention the level of technology was much different back then). It is just not worth the work and the results will be bug filled and at the limits of what is possible, until now. Please see my code at Python Chess for my chess playing Python program. I discovered a library that covered all of the code needed to play a game. I just had to write the controls and the algorithms. The library is being actively maintained and at last count, it was on version 25! The world has changed and now I can write a chess-playing program in about 400 lines of Python. I am also able to explore, with again just a few lines of code, how to use some very basic Artifical Intelligence, to make decisions for the chess engine!

To continue the story of my chess program, I had an problem with the code and I put in an issue, using the issues that is part of open development of GitHub, on the library and the author contacted me from Germany and pointed out that I needed the new version for the code to work. I closed the problem after I checked that the update would fix the issue and included the fix (how to run an update) when I closed the issue.  This will allow the next person to avoid the same issue.

On open, I have some new hardware coming from SparkFun that is a small package but contains Tensor Flow.  Tensor Flow is one of the computer words like Bitcoin that make computer people become like a bunch of Justin Beaver fans at a concert. Ok, maybe computer nerds will not quite be like that–but they will be trembling with excitement. For a few bucks, I could put an artificial intelligence (AI) process in a small DIY robot; Tensor Flow can be described as a machine learning process for AI. The world is changing and it is exciting, see Edge Board. All available by using Sparkfun’s online order system, pay by PayPal or credit card and have it delivered in your mailbox in under a week.

All the comments about how social media creates trolls and how social media becomes platforms for the crazy are true, but what you can do with a dedicated open community is unexpectedly nice and can lead to many cool things. Free and cheap but open and functional. I get that Justin Beaver fan feeling all over now!

Laundry is done. Most of the games are back on shelves. A couple of naps and reading and a bit of painting of some figures, Daleks from Doctor Who (see them at Black Tree Miniatures) from the episode of the seventh Doctor Remembrance of the Daleks in 1988 and considered the best work of Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor. They are white, gold, and black. I got them for a chess set I was thinking of making for myself, but now I think just figures for now. The Daleks have been on my painting desk for more than a year in a pile (some assembly required). I decided to finish them as they are not a lot of trouble to paint. They are about half completed already. The Cybermen are in a box with Unit and the Master and lots more Doctor Who characters in 28mm metal.

I was thinking about my new samples and got them out to share. They are a bit hideous, perfect (they come from FandomForgePDX). I will find some use for them as props.

I also received from China a heads-up display (HUD) that plus into my car and displays the speed and other information on the windshield. Well got to plug that in and set it on Volvo’s dash with some non-damaging sticky rubber. Cool! Was much more helpful once I learned how to set it to miles and not the Metric system. We had it on while I drove at night where it was much nicer. A small piece of translucent plastic is placed on the glass to prevent a double image. I am not sure where I have the display is where I will keep it. Still cool.

It does not work that well at day. We will see, literally!

I went to Bugattis for lunch today. I had their Eggplant Parmesan. Lucky I order a meatball to add to it and that it has spaghetti in a red sauce as a side as the eggplant could have been cardboard. I had to use a steak knife to cut it! I wrote my previous blog post there. I did like the meatball and the spaghetti and my once a week glass of wine, Skyfall.

I also bought the best game I played at Gamestorm at the local gaming store (Rainy Day Games): Architects of the West Kingdom. This is a fast and small footprint game (small sized box and map are reasonably sized for five players) so it won’t add to the game clutter. It is a great game and I look forward to playing it again!

Dinner was a Red Robin where I had an iced tea. The waiter asked me if it was a drinking day and I told her I had wine already so iced tea for the week. Yes, I go there a lot and Kendra, our waiter and often my bartender, and I discuss if I can have a chicken platter or will it be a sandwich with fries. I really like their fries–a no-no for me. I did have iced tea with a sandwich with just one set of fries–“No more thank you,” I said to her smile.

Remembering back to Gamestorm, it was a pleasure to teach so many games and to have some time off from the shoe company. It was nice to be away in Portland and having a quick break here and there between yet-another amazing game. My fav was my last games of Mare Nostrum Empires on Sunday and Architects of the West Kingdom. But I offered Scythe Basic and it was really pleasant to let folks play for the first time a game they always wanted to play. All the players had wanted more exposure to the game and at their level (beginner) and said they could not get into a game last year. I was pleased with my decision to offer a basics version. I kept it light and low stress and they began to figure it and really enjoy it. I will certainly do that again next year.

I did order some more bling for the game today (see Meeplesource.com for game bling); some campfires for the encounters and new enlist markers that better show their function. By-the-way, I have almost all the Scythe add-ons, upgrades, and I was in the Kickstarter so I have all the additions from that too. Just missing four encounter cards and I will have everything I ever wanted (for Scythe experts, I do not use the new cards after I played them a few times).

I also saw at Gamestorm a version Rising Sun with painted creatures, gods, and monsters. Really nice painting of a style I do not do (painting with multi-overpainting), they looked so good. So I did start back painting to clear my backlog. Have to get going I think on the painting.  Maybe just a little bit extra painting too…

Lastly, I order a lot of items from Turkey online. I was missing the coffee and spices after playing a scenario based in Istanbul yesterday. So we have a bunch of items coming that add-up to free shipping. Dreaming of Istanbul tonight I think.

From my first trip in Istanbul.