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I am in PDX and have less than an hour until my plane boards. I was too tired to write last night, and now I am rushed.

Events on Wednesday were reduced as everything was canceled. No game with Z and dinner with Dondrea ZZ also did not happen. Instead, I managed to clean the house, getting the kitchen and bathrooms looking cleaner with mopped floors, and generally picked up things.

I finished the blog in the late morning, paid my bills, and even placed bids on stamps on Hipstamps. I showered and ran the laundry. I stripped the beds, washed all my new pants (now shortened and slightly longer to break in more), and loaded the dishes into the dishwasher (I had forgotten to run them until the evening and ended up putting them away in the morning just before heading out).

I charged the car the night before and now boarded it to get a haircut. I also received my books from NYC, and I am now reading my used copy of How the Irish Saved Civilization for my class. It is about an hour, and then I head to Carl’s Jr. for a Western Burger. I take this home and watch Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. Sadly, my insides care not for the burger, and everything leaves quickly, and I am running to the restroom often while trying to clean, pack, and get ready. Ugh!

Happy now to have the extra time and avoid making the same runs elsewhere, I get the house looking better and smelling better. I remake the beds. I fold and put away the clothing. I packed most of the clothing I needed for the trip in my luggage, and remembered the coat and swimming trunks on Thursday morning, so I added them before heading out.

Sorry, boring day inside, primarily working to get the house better. I prefer to return to a clean (or cleanish) home.

My bids fail, and I discover that the same stamps were for sale for less and in better condition than the ones in the auction. I ordered those instead and let my bids go. I do increase some bids on some hard-to-find items. I also notice that many items I listed as-yet-to-be-in-my-album are thousands of dollars. Well, that may explain the open spots, but I have often filled a slot at 1/10 the price if I wait a few years. I just bought an 8A for 1/5 the price.

I finish my day on my new Raspberry Pi 5, doing some basic Python coding and loading additional libraries for my use. I email myself some code and add it to my work. I will post it to GitHub, I think, as an improvement. This is my silly calculation of the value of Pi by one of the more indirect (and slow) means. I include my usual headers and run time calculation. I like my Python well-documented.

I also updated the Python chess example I made. I am not sure I will explore writing chess programs, but I have a start.

And with that, I was too tired to go on. I was soon asleep, but like most travel days, I woke a few times.

Thanks for reading

 

 

 

I was surprised to roll over and discover it was already 8. I rose and found the coffee was already cooling. It would be another warm day, reaching into the 80°F+ range. The end of August is our usual worst month here in the Tualatin Valley, as I experienced a smoke-choked 113°F heat dome many years ago.

Makes you want to move to a mountain!

Breakfast was Zabar’s coffee, which I carried from Manhattan, thinking of Joyce, whom we all miss. I found her published study on Brazil for the United Methodist Church yesterday. Joyce came to our church in Beaverton and spoke, delivering the sermon on the challenges faced by the poor. I had hosted the study for Sunday School.

I did the usual, but I still found myself feeling tired and went at a slow pace. Finishing the blog late. I headed off to see Michael R for lunch. I also brought a board game, Raiders of Scythia, which is a reskinning of the Viking raiding game, but this time it covers the raids on Greece, Babylon, Assyria, and Persia. More biblical, if you like. I love the art, and the system is a resource management (i.e., raiding and plundering) and worker management. The game includes some push-your-luck as dice are rolled and damage assigned. Michael R and I did not find time in our discussions to play this.

We went to Happy Panda, one of my favorite places, and spent a couple of hours talking. The place was not too busy, so they didn’t mind the extended visit. We discussed my class; I will be teaching the New Members Class in September. We discussed the lessons I have taught over the years. We discussed the current state of Christianity, as well as less philosophical topics such as church budgets, pledge campaigns, and the reduction of funding to local food agencies.

We moved to Wildwood and had a beer. I picked a lighter one, and Michael R took one “dark as my soul,” as I described the usual three dark taps. These are heavy, dark, and flavorful beers and barley wines. We talked, at least on my side, less formally and enjoyed the beer.

I took Michael R home in Air VW the Gray and returned to the house and made dinner. I soaked some chicken thighs in teriyaki sauce for an hour, then baked them. I made couscous to go with it. I ate this while watching the old Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I have forgotten most of them and wanted to try them again. I finished number two and started three.

I managed to get my new computer, Raspberry Pi 5, working. The screen is small text, but I have found the fix for most of that, and worked out how to build a Python virtural enviroment using the Thorny editor, something I have not used before, and managed to load Chess into the virtual enviroment. I managed to get a few programs to run. My Python is rusty and I need more practice.

I finished my book by Tom Mead and I guessed right and also on another death. I thought the initial solutions were too complex and when the story teller retells them I find that I was thinking in the correct direction. After finishing the book, I could barely keep my eyes open. I did wake at midnight again and then at four, but after that I slept the night.

Thanks for reading!

The remains of the migraine haunted me all Monday. My vision seemed to work, but my head still felt like it had a metal band wrapped around it. I was sloppy in my movements, not quite drunken-like, but I had to be careful to hold things as my balance would, based more on sight now, be less effective. I survived the day, ending exhausted and sleeping early and not waking until nearly 8 on Tuesday when I write this! Worse, I thought it was Wednesday and I had to pack! Not quite.

Let me recall Monday on this cloudy Tuesday morning…

Monday rose like some terrible patchwork golem, or like usual, with me thinking Monday would be better with a dose of Loony Tunes, Super Friends, and Thundar the Barbarian, or later Yu-Gi-Oh (“Trust the cards”). I wanted less pain and more cartoons! My Mondays feel like Saturday morning. I found the coffee I had assembled the night before waiting for me, the last of the locally roasted coffee from the 185th and TV corner veggie stand. I perform my usual updates to Quicken, read email, and continue with more doom-scrolling. President Trump seems to be randomly attacking anything to distract from the his setbacks in Ukraine (which did not end the day he took office), Tariffs (though he grabs headlines and then backs away, but the 10-30% remaining is beginning to bite consumers), his political opponents still rise against him (these people are not arrested, shot, or put in camps like he promised), Epstein, and now inventing redistricting as if we are on Jeopardy,”’ Which is Texas,’ for five more votes.”

Instead of focusing on this political mess, I wrote the blog of the previous day’s events, listened to Kink.FM, and caught up on my email. With my illness on Sunday, the blog was short, and I do not want to include spoilers in my description of Dungeons & Dragons play, which also kept it short.

Lunch was some good kielbasa links from Market of Choice that I boiled (it was too hot to grill), and I had them with reheated baked beans and steamed carrots from the day before. I ate the kielbasa with mustard. It was simple and good. Two of the links (more hot dog-sized than rings you often see) ended up in the fridge as leftovers.

Laundry and dishes were done. I tried to do some housework, but yesterday’s headache left me tired, and my thinking was disorganized. I answered some emails about the church refresh. Dondrea and I also covered some travel items.

I tried to rest, but instead of reading, I got to the finish of my current book, The House at Devil’s Neck: A Locked-Room Mystery (Joseph Spector Series), but held that off for another day. The author places a page warning you that the solution is on the next page. The book even includes footnotes when details are mentioned, helping you recheck anything you missed. This is my fourth Tom Mead book, and I recommend them. I have never solved them, but I got close some last time.

Once it was near 4:45, I headed out. Returned to get my Pathfinder version one book, and then my phone. I pulled out, and there was a box at the house. I pulled in and got the box.

It was like Christmas. This was a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 GB of memory, included in a kit that had everything needed to get it up and running, along with a matching monitor. It comes with a mouse, and the usual bare machine is instead enclosed in a keyboard. I opened the boxes to ensure everything was intact, and then reboarded Air VW the Gray and headed towards Portland.

I stopped by the US Bank ATM to get some cash for the trip and to pay for pizza. The traffic through Beaverton was thick and gooey like unbaked cupcakes (in my best Frank Drummond voice) and seemed to glue itself to your car like an ICE agent. I was able to break free on Highway 26 without being deported, and while there were sticky patches, especially around the Bill of Rights, there always were with police-like actions, I managed to arrive on time at Sean’s house.

I played an evil but lawful blasting wizard in this game, just out of school. My two relatively friendly rogues had joined me when we managed to lose a valuable scroll, and our characters are trying to acquire a replacement, hopefully two. We had learned that a lost ancient graveyard might be connected to acquiring replacements and headed that way.

I brought some figures and my graveyard setup, which is often suitable for a first play. This was a new campaign, using Pathfinder rules version 1. What I would call 3.5E, which the revision is based on. Lucky Sean is an expert on these rules, as I have juggled in my mind the five versions I know in my head. I looked up my spells in the book while we set up. In this version’s first level is weak and is more of a survival process.

We grabbed some pizza before the first battle. Thanks, Sean!

We found the location and soon discovered orcs had been looting (though much reduced as the place is clearly stuffed with undead and bad news), and we made short work of them. But before that, one of our rogues stumbled into a zombie that almost killed them. The half-elf no longer took risks after that (one hit point). We then broke into a tomb, I being evil, I thought it best that we retrieve the loot before the next orcs took it (I had written the orc mark on our handiwork).

We ended after all the dead we disturbed were promoted to undead, after we noticed a button to open the deeper vault. Yikes! Next time, we will try not to be recruited for permanent guard duty!

My drive was hard as I was tired. I arrived and had to boot the Raspberry Pi 5, and it was lovely. I let it update for twenty minutes. It is a fantastic amount of power for $220 (that includes the keyboard, mouse, monitor, and tiny SD card it uses for storage).

I set up the coffee, ignored the clean dishes, and soon was reading and then sleeping. I did not wake, but once, the whole night, and startled awake at 8!

Thanks for reading.

I rose on Sunday and had a typical morning, belying the event to come. I had coffee and made toast and lots of orange marmalade as I was at the bottom of the jar. Truth be told, I could have done another run from that jar. I had only crackers for dinner, having made a nice lunch the day before, but I wasn’t concerned. It was going to be another close-to-100-day. I skipped the sweater vest later and just wore pants, a dress shirt, and a tie.

I wrote the blog for much of the morning and chatted with Deborah while I drank fresh ground locally roasted coffee. I tried to ignore the headline-stealing attempts from the current administration. It is clear that it is a form of control, clearly ineffective, to get anything other than inflation, the impact of tariffs on the economy, or unsavory news about Epstein in the headlines, especially on right-wing social media platforms and Fox News. I would read some of it, take a deep drink of my coffee, and know that Justice and Compassion will win. But that day seems far away.

I completed my morning, dressed, posted the blog, traveled in Air VW the Gray, and I soon was at First United Methodist Church in Beaverton with my posters and some flyers for my Sunday School class, the New Members Class, that starts on the Sundays in September. I showed the posters, gave away a few flyers, and ushered.

I developed the first one in about a year, a migraine with my vision full of sparkles, and then I was partially blinded. F**k! The heat? The lack of food? Time changes? Stress of doing a class? Allergies? Something tripped it. I was able to function, but it was hard going.

The air is hot and of medium quality. It is hard for me to do even that. It could just be the air and heat made me unwell.

I managed to return home and made lunch. I was getting worse and starting to show signs of confusion. I reheated the chili, ate it, and it helped. I rested. I was restless and couldn’t get comfortable, but I finally fell asleep. The house AC was even cold (the trees keep the sun off the roof). My head still felt like there was a band wrapped around it, but the vision issues were gone, and the pain was related to moving rather than pounding.

I watered the flowers and cut more roses for Niki, Matt’s wife. I like to bring fresh roses. I have plenty.

I took Air VW the Gray to M@’s house to play our twenty-year+ group for more of the Infinite Staircase from the makers of D&D. This is a book and various materials, not all from the same companies, for a premade Dungeons & Dragons campaign, with it trying to breach, to various levels of success, the change from the previous version to the so-called 2024 version and create a gaming environment to start playing at first level and reach mid-level, 13 or so. We have advanced to 5th for this game. The material is varied, and while often offering a site-based adventure or dungeon crawl, our group, which is not set for combat and destruction, stole the last item without bloodshed. We again went tonight with our usual indirect approach.

After the game, I talked to Mackers and Scott about some of my learnings at HOPE_16 and my frustrations with Quantum Computing and how it seems so unfinished to me. There are no practical examples I have found so far. I am interested in factoring numbers, part of the existing encryption protocols, and also linked to the NP-Complete problem, the Golden Ticket, and will be looking at attacks on the process. I see no meaningful way yet to use, even if one exists, a Quantum Computer to solve these math problems.

After that chat, I headed home, and while the headache was less, I soon stumbled my way into my bed and slept only to rise to take my pills. The coffee was not prepared, and the dishes were left for Monday.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

I finished the day at home after safely driving back from Portland in the Air VW the Gray. I had to take the high bridge, which I never like, but I am always impressed that the on-ramp is higher than the bridge deck. No stalled cars or other hazards, with light traffic, making it an easy return to Beaverton.

I did the dishes after making lunch. There was enough stuff to run the dishwasher. I plugged in the EV to charge, having avoided it during the hot weather. The local electrical grid was stressed by the AC use; I could see some blinking of power with the AC, dishwasher, and charging. I waited until the evening, when usage is at its lowest.

Aside: The EV uses less power than the laundry and far less than the stove. EVs will not cause the grid to collapse, despite claims in the right-leaning media, but if your power company is using Coal to create power, you might as well enjoy a gas car. Here in the Pacific Northwest, our electrical power is from hydro, wind, and solar, with some natural gas plants to balance the system. Any carbon is covered by plantings and the usual green credits. Oregon has no nuclear plants as it was realized years ago that earthquakes and tsunamis do not go well with nuclear systems!

I read and had some crackers and soon was nodding off. I put on my PJs and crawled into bed after putting the last of the laundry away. I woke at 12:30, 3, and 6. This is a pattern I’ve been experiencing most nights. I just roll over.

Before this, I arrived early at Richard’s house with instructions to play upstairs, and I learned that Richard needed a new AC system and was looking at investing in a green system, including replacing an aging water heater with a tankless version. Still, the impact on the walls and ceiling, due to re-piping, forced him to replace them like-for-like. AC replacement usually means replacing the furnace to ensure everything matches. Yikes!

It was not too hot in the house, in the 70s, and we played a board game, Merchant Cove, with four people, with me trying to be the Captain again. I scored last, taking on too much corruption, but only a few points behind Kathleen. I had taken on too much corruption, and that cost me 49 points. I was leading for a moment, and on my last turn, I managed to pour in the points.

Merchant Cove is a lovely asymmetric Euro-style game where each player takes on a unique role and plays a different game. I was playing a simple fishing game. Chris was raising dragons. Kathleen was diving for treasures under the sea. Richard was running a bar and inn. I like the game, but I have only learned one version so far.

Chris and I, after the game, talked about my HOPE_16 conference and talked about hacking. I described some of the best presentations I saw (LLM flaws, ATM hacking, and phone hacking devices), but then had a coughing attack from the hot air and some bad air, I suspect. Richard followed along.

It was a good evening, though the coughing was hard to stop. Water and inhailer got it under control. Yikes!

Before heading to Richard’s, I stayed home and inside as the temperature reached 103°F (40°C); glaciers on Mount Hood look smaller. I found a pork chop I had frozen a few months ago and decided it was time to cook it. I used water dripping in a pan to defrost it.

I found the last of the carrots, peeled them, and sliced them into coins. I steamed them. A can of baked beans was opened and heated. I did not want to run the oven, but the pork chop was too thick to cook in a pan. I baked it for fifteen minutes until it was finished; I checked it with an electronic food thermometer.

I recently watched the Nova science show on the findings of graves in the floor of Notre Dame in Paris. They also discovered the broken remains of a screen that used to stand around the altar area (using less precise words). I did not know that before the Counter-Reformation, a screen was around the altar area and the celebration of the Eucharist was kept private to the local clergy (again using less precise words). Most screens were demolished, and in Notre Dame’s case, the broken remains were buried with the body of a cleric who paid for the changes. Fascinating, as I had forgotten the Counter-Reformation included the elimination of many medieval traditions in the Roman Catholic mass. The broken screen bits are being scanned, and there is hope to someday have a virtual version of the screen created. Without the fire, this would remain lost, which is one positive aspect. It was a wonderful documentary.

I ate my pork chop, beans, and carrots, and also enjoyed the leftover beans and carrots stored in glassware (thanks, Glenda and Gene). I ate while watching the show.

Before this, I drove to the framing store and picked up my posters from the New Member Class I am teaching in September. It was hot, and I just grabbed them and drove home. I printed twenty flyers for Sunday on my printer. The EV was already down to 40% and I did charge it for a bit to get it back to 49% for the trip to Portland and back. It is about 10% there and back to Richard’s house, but I would like to have some extra charge for the AC and emergencies.

Before this, I wrote the blog and talked with Deborah. We also talked when I drove here and there. I also did the church email on the refresh and continue to help that move forward. I did Dungeons & Dragons paperwork and sent out a short summary of the treasure found in the last play.

It was a busy day, and I am headed to Michigan on Thursday. I woke around 7:30 after rolling over a few times.

Thanks for reading.