Roadside Picnic

A Million & One Things to Do

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 01:09:00 GMT

GenCon planning is underway. Signed this year's team contract just now, and some Battletech games are in the offing, and the latter should give me some initiative to get some paint on the Gray Plastic Regiment. A little over a hundred days until Indy. Crazy.

Went to another Bats game last night. Took my brother and his family to the game. Bats were playing as the Mashers - yay for Minor League baseball - and they got whupped by the Mud Hens. I guess some payback was in order - Louisville had put up 27 runs on Toledo in the first two games of the series, so a 5-10 loss didn't sting as badly as it could have. We had a good time, and will probably do this again sometime this season.

Tomorrow is Thunder Over Louisville. I saw a few planes making practice runs over downtown today, and that is about as close to the event as I'm going to get. I will happily plant myself on the couch and watch WLKY's coverage and not deal with 600K people packing downtown.

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Nobody But You

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 01:13:08 GMT

I'm getting up too early and doing too many things on weekend mornings. Breakfast dates and shopping trips and things like that, and I tend to stay up later on Friday and Saturday nights and I'm just not getting enough rest.

Yesterday was Easter, and that did not break the streak. Got up a little before sunrise and could not get back to sleep. Went to Dad's, later than I had planned, actually, but still plenty early. He went to church, I stayed at his home with a couple of books and the Doberman and enjoyed the quiet.

Got out to my first Bats game of the season Friday night. The Bats had gotten off to a good start to the season, winning all four games against Omaha, but the Iowa Cubs were a damned buzzsaw and won all five games here in Louisville. Still, it was a good evening at Slugger Field and I'm looking forward to the next home stand against the Toledo Mudhens.

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Raindrops From the Sun

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 01:06:35 GMT

Bennie and my dad met at Dyess, in the Air Force. I'd heard stories about him for much of my life, and we finally met around my mom's funeral. We got along well, similar senses of humor, and exchanged phone numbers before he went back to North Carolina.

We talked a couple of times a year. Funny guy, a conservative-leaning boomer but not, you know, one of them.

About two weeks ago, I got a call from him. One of his daughters actually made the call for him. He wanted Dad's phone number, said that his new phone had lost it. We chatted for a few minutes. He sounded very weak, like a ghost, I thought later.

Dad called a few nights ago. Bennie had passed on. He and Dad had gotten to talk for a good long while. Bennie knew his time was coming, I guess, and wanted to say his goodbyes.

My own new phone didn't copy the call history from its predecessor, so I can't easily look and see when I had the last conversation with Mom. But Bennie's call is there. The last time I talked with my dad's best friend. This world we live in - there's a dead man in my phone.

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Nervous & Weird

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:48:13 GMT

Boy howdy what a day. Favorite client had an early morning appointment with her dentist so that started my day off early. Got to the office and saw that another client had gone to the ER and then been admitted to a psych ward overnight because she decided to "ingest paint and hair spray." Probably won't be going to Monday's scheduled guardianship hearing. Got lucky and was able to catch one of my elusive folks and set up a meeting with his landlord to renew his housing subsidy and to get a new ID card.

And I finally pulled the trigger on my way home from work and bought a PS5. It and the PS4 are happily whirring away transferring data and settings and all that. Should be done overnight, just in time for this month's GT7 DLC.

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The Old Law

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:24:19 GMT

For a first day back, this was a decent day. Had a very nice card from my supervisor on my desk, some kind words that cheered me. And going through the week's emails revealed that I had won some gifts in an employee appreciation drawing. Had a good informal talk with our division director.

And then, out to see clients. Got some things sorted with one of my favorite folks, and paid for that good fortune with chasing down another client so she could attend her monthly AOT hearing and whew but the presiding judge is clearly getting tired of the client's shit.

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Your Favorite Toy

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 18:30:16 GMT

I delayed my normal birthday-related week off until the end of February/first week of March. What did I do? Glad you asked!

I went to Cincycon February 27-March 1. Hadn't been to that one in several years. There's a sizable DCC/MCC/ETC creator community in the Cincy area and there was a push to have a lot of those games available. I submitted three DCC Horror sessions, among the many many related tables. Drove up the morning of the 27th, checked into the hotel and headed to the site. No one had registered for that evening's game and I expected to either jump into another game or just go back to the hotel and enjoy some quiet. One player appeared! Young fellow, never played DCC but was familiar with the basics of current D&D and that's enough to go on. No other players, so we chatted for a bit and were about to part ways, when over came Leighton C and the only player for his game, asking if they could jump mine, and of course they could, and as we were getting started along comes a couple that had played in my Halloween con games and all of a sudden I have a table and off we go! Deep Ones and Shoggoths and Elder Things! Rescuing a princess! All the good stuff!

Saturday morning, the table is overfull, thanks to me not wanting to turn away people. Erin and her husband showed and joined and that was a delight. The large party made short work of much of the adventure, a fun tale with juicy Silent Hill vibes. Erin and Joe took me out for lunch after the game and we had a good couple of hours chatting. Back to the hotel for some reading and rest.

Sunday morning, last game of the con. Good table. Bought a MCC module from the writer/publisher. Headed home.

Read, rested for three days.

Got up early Thursday and headed east. Got to Chantilly and checked into the hotel. Read, watched some TV, treated myself to an early bedtime after the 570-mile drive. Big comfortable bed and a very quiet room - room was next to the elevator and ice machine lobby and I couldn't hear sound from them. It was nice.

Friday was the centerpiece of the trip. Drove over to Udvar-Hazy to see Space Shuttle Discovery and a couple of old friends. Hadn't seen Gabriel in 12 years and Larry in who knows how long. So three Gen X nerds had a great afternoon taking in the museum. The Shuttle was the big draw for us, but there was so much to see - a Concorde, Enola Gay, lots of civil aviation. I'm used to the exhibits at Wright-Patterson, and getting to see civil and USN planes was a treat. Good times talking with the guys, too. Back to the hotel, and a tasty steak at the restaurant next door.

Got up Saturday and hit the road for home. Started seeing the spiking fuel prices thanks to that stupid orange bastard's war on Iraq. Stopped off in Clifton Forge for the C&O museum. Nice visit, then pushed on to Liberty to see Dad and switch vehicles and then to see my brother and drop off the souvenirs I'd gotten for him. We had a good talk. He's giving me a shotgun he doesn't need or want anymore, a model I was planning to pick up in the near future, so there's a little win. Got back to Louisville, unloaded the car, went to bed.

Today, OMG DST. Early morning grocery shopping. Nap. Ribs in the slow cooker, World Baseball Classic on TV, me on the couch. Have smooshed any thoughts of checking the work phone. That's for tomorrow and Monday will get here in its own time.

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Fall Moon

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 01:09:50 GMT

After a couple of relatively warm days and a little bit of rain, most of the snow has finally melted off. There are the big piles of packed snow in parking lots, of course, and they'll be there for a while. I enjoyed the weekend of the snowstorm and the couple of WFH days that followed, but it's time for this to be gone.

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Gotta Go Now

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 01:52:41 GMT

Went to Dad's yesterday to pick up the big Cyberpunk map set I crowdfunded a while back. It was late, but no big deal. The maps and other scenery bits and vehicles are nice, and that's all that I really wanted.

So, let's run down what I have thrown money at and the status of these projectsl

Replicant Rebellion, for Blade Runner. About a year overdue. Beta versions of the PDF have gone out. I haven't downloaded it, waiting on the hardcopy, even if the delay has just about destroyed my interest in the game. Free League is making good games, but this ridiculous delay has soured me on them.

Cold City/Hot War. PDFs distributed and downloaded, unread. Pleased with the progress on these, will probably read the PDFs soon. Whenever I get to them.

Cyberpunk Legends card game. Playtesting is still going on. Regular updates from the publisher. No hurry.

Terraforming Mars RPG. Getting regular updates and I have faith in Mr. Hite and Mr. Ryder-Hanrahan.

Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique. As above re: updates. It'll get here when it gets here. Should read the books again soon.

I completely ignored my two-projects-only rule. A lot of stuff that keenly interested me launched sorta close together and I had the resources to go in on them, so, YOLO.

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In the Stars

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 22:59:44 GMT

Last week, we were all watching the weather forecast. A monster of a winter storm was predicted, snow in the 12-18 inch range. On Thursday, employer announced that offices would be closed today and tomorrow - Monday and Tuesday. Us outpatient providers were expected to work from home or use PTO, and I think my entire team opted for the former. Praise dog for online training courses and calls to clients and the like. Anyway, the storm was kind of a fizzle, with snowfall in my part of the city coming to about eight inches. Still enough to keep me inside and to cause plenty of chaos.

It didn't cause me any real drama. I'd already blown off the weekend con, and frankly I didn't miss it at all. Spent Friday evening with The Friend From Work and that was a delight. Read some on Saturday and Sunday, looked over Mage 20 because I'm going to try a session of that at SYR after the Super Bowl. Rather good weekend, really, for me.

ICE murdered another person in Minnesota. An ICU nurse, legal and registered gun owner who was carrying at a demonstration. He got between ICE thugs and a woman they had pepper-sprayed, and ... well, they straight-up killed him. There is finally some pushback happening, and while it's too late for Renee Good and Alex Pretti, I'll take it. And will hope for more and do what little I can.

In lighter news, the Super Bowl is set. I'm not too excited about a Patriots-Seahawks match, but such is football. There's drama around non-game stuff, of course. Bad Bunny, who I honestly don't know from Adam, is the halftime performer, and because he's Puerto Rican and therefore not their kind of American, TFP are all up in arms. To further wind 'em up, Green Day is performing before the game. I never had a lot of room for Green Day, but I'll almost certainly have their show on while I'm cooking and otherwise prepping for the game.

WFH was nice today. I'm going to dig out my car tomorrow afternoon and make one FtF visit if I feel safe doing so. I still don't think that I'd like a compete WFH job, but a couple of days a week not facing the commuter crawl is appealing.

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Calling

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 01:13:46 GMT

Bought a new phone Friday, an iPhone 16. Very nice pocket computer. Didn't mean it to happen that way, but it was a day shy of the 17th anniversary of my first smartphone purchase, an iPhone 3G that was an utterly badass little machine. The 16 is plenty slick, that's for sure, but, well, I liked the SE's size better and the 4S's form even better that that, but everybody else likes the 6"+ screens, so that's where we are.

In other news, old man yells at clouds.

Today was good. Slept in again, decided that I was going to take it easy again, did so. Repeated my Saturday - read, listened to a few episodes of Cold War Conversations, watched some stuff on Netflix.

I hope that, when I review this in years to come, I can sigh and be relieved that things didn't get worse. That stupid orange bastard is making noise about invading a NATO ally's territory. US Army troops have been activated and look to be deploying to Minnesota, where ICE has murdered a woman and is generally behaving like an occupying force. There's so much more, and so little pushback against it. I don't see any kind of resolution with things as they stand right now, and if I'm being honest, I think we're going to see more violence and a lot of economic and political damage. I'm waiting for it to happen, because that's what it'll take, and even with that blessed event, more damage that can be repaired in my lifetime has been done.

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Arkansas Traveler

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 01:52:08 GMT

This has been a good weekend. Had dinner with a guy I know from a Discord group on Friday. Australian on a lengthy visit to the States. Good times.

Didn't get out of pajamas yesterday. It was cold and I had no demands on my time and I just stayed comfortable and read and played some PS4 stuff. Watched football. Slept late, stayed in bed later, and it felt good.

A little more active today. Grocery run in the morning. Completed the GT7 daily workout. Listened to a lot of Stuff You Should Know. Watched part of the Texans-Patriots game at Roosters. Read more. Picked up some accessories for the new phone. Reveled in the knowledge that I don't have to go to work tomorrow. Priced a shotgun.

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Waterloo Sunset

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 01:06:09 GMT

I got a daylong suspension from Discord this week. Made a comment about how best to observe a proposed day commemorating the podcaster what got killed a few months ago, and someone on the channel didn't like it. Fuck 'em. The joke was worth it and I'll do it again.

Nice domestic Saturday. Got some tilapia at Aldi this morning and that was a tasty lunch before the NFL playoffs started. I've been comfortably lazy today, reading some more after getting in my Gran Turismo workout. Dad had said something about coming up here, but didn't, and while it would have been good to have seen him, it's also been good having very little in the way of demands on my time today.

Panthers-Rams went back-and-forth all game long. Rams won on a late-game field goal and solid defensive stand. Packers-Bears is about to start and it oughta be a good one, too.

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Cowboy Dreams

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 18:51:38 GMT

I started rereading A Fire in the Sun a couple of nights ago. Effinger's always good to revisit, and I found out about the collection of Marid Audran short stories just a few weeks ago, so that was an easy Kindle purchase.

Broke my lengthy streak of sleeping in the New Year. Spent the evening with a friend from work. Nothing fancy - dinner courtesy of Popeyes, card games, and both of us taking a nap before waking up in time to see 2026 arrive, in Eastern Standard Time, anyway. Got home around sunrise, took a nap, and will probably watch Strange Days this evening.

I'm planning to finally get over to Udvar-Hazy and see Discovery sometime in the spring. Mentioned it on FB and some of the Spycraft/Crafty family in the area responded and I think we're going to have a little reunion at the shuttle.

I am very much enjoying this day away from work and clients and all that. It's a quiet afternoon and after I finish this entry it's going to be time for some more reading and planning for the relaunching Cyberpunk Red game.

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Eternally Hopeful

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:24:19 GMT

Christmas was a good time. Family dinner at Copper & Oak, ending with a heck of a good margarita. Spent the night with Dad and Kaiser, watched some football on Christmas Day, drove back home in the evening. Ordered myself a couple of Dodgers shirts. It was a good couple of days.

My CP Red players are on board with getting things back together. I'm gratified that they're willing to give things another shot. Now, I gotta figure out what to do!

As good as the Christmas break was, it did involve a lot of travel. I have no demands on my time this weekend aside from the OSE game tomorrow, and I'm planning to pregame New Year's Eve with a book or two.

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Go Go Gadget ClanTech

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 01:37:10 GMT

It's the Winter Solstice, the first day of winter, Longest Night, what-have-you. I've been very lazy, just reading and doing laundry after driving home from Lexington. It's been nice.

Last night was the annual LeNoue extended-family Christmas party. I wasn't sure if I was going until Thursday afternoon, glad I went, though. Most times, I drive back to Louisville after things wrap up; this time I decided to get a hotel room for the night and that was a good choice. It actually led me to leave the party earlier than I had planned because the thought of that quiet room and big comfortable bed kept running through my head and I surrendered to it. Felt great, a worthwhile little treat to myself.

I'm probably going to pass on the Fallout game. The setting is interesting enough, but I'm at least a generation older than the other players and a couple of them are just a little too twee for my tastes. The Numenera game looks better, and it's a Discord/Roll20 game which has the huge selling point of, when the game is over I just put the iMac to sleep and walk three feet to my bed.

I'm about halfway through The Game Must Go On: Hank Greenberg, Pete Gray, and the Great Days of Baseball on the Home Front in WWII. That is a title-and-a-half, dear reader, and it's a heck of a book. Deep dives into individual players' stories, the value of pro baseball as a morale booster for servicemen and civilians alike, FDR's love of the sport, and all of the politicking involved in keeping the game going. Good stuff.

Also reading the second marvel G.I. Joe compendium. This one includes a dozen or so Special Missions issues and I'm very much looking forward to revisiting those.

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No One's Gonna Love You

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 18:58:41 GMT

My lengthy regular-gaming drought may be coming to an end. Found a local Fallout game looking for a couple of new players and an online Numenera game starting up. I'm spending the afternoon reading the relevant core books and thinking about characters.

Louisville got a decent bowl bid, playing Toledo in Boca Raton on the 23rd. I'm planning to knock off work early and find somewhere to watch the game and finish up my notes for the day before we close up for Christmas.

We got our second snowstorm of the season Thursday night. About four inches here, and I was even happier to have scheduled a personal day for the 12th. The 12th was also our holiday party for clients and it was no coincidence that I lobbied hard for it to be on that day instead of the 19th. Anyway, it was a good dry easy-to-clean-off snow. Another snowfall last night, about an inch, but it's much much colder with this one. It's currently 13F, up from single-digits when I woke up around sunrise this morning.

Finished Gail Simone's Red Sonja Consumed a few nights ago. Satisfying sword-and-sorcery adventure. Finally saw Sinners, and it's one of the best movies I've seen in a long time.

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Lost Weekend

Sun, 07 Dec 2025 02:03:32 GMT

I decided around GameConjunction that I was going to skip GMing at the January and spend the time playing games instead. That plan isn't doing so well. It's seven weeks until that one, and there's not nearly enough on the roster to get me to spend my money on a badge. Same locals running the same stuff, and there are some good GMs there, but it's more of the same and more practice runs for whatever Lurking Fears is doing at whatever other cons later in the year.

Thanksgiving was just a delight. Spent the day with Dad and Kaiser, grazing on snacks and pizza, reading and watching football. Late lunch on Friday with my brother and sister-in-law, more reading after that. Saturday was the Governor's Cup, and I was fully expecting UK to beat an injury-depleted demoralized UofL team. Yeah, that didn't happen. The Cards ran away with the game, winning 41-0. It was a good end to the season, breaking a three-game losing streak and hopefully making a good enough showing for a respectable postseason game. Felt pretty good after the game and decided to head back home that evening so I could have all of Sunday to do whatever, and "whatever" turned out to be more reading and NFL games and it was good.

Haven't done much this weekend. Some household chores. Picked up my new contacts. Napped. No regrets on that front - it's good to just rest sometimes.

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Never Crossed My Mind

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 01:05:18 GMT

UPS and FedEx and some others grounded their MD-11 fleets after the crash last week. I've driven by SDF a few times in the last couple of days and seen five or six of the planes parked on the apron in front of the big UPS hangar. I wonder if their days are numbered now.

So, what happened was, the left engine fell off during the takeoff roll. There are a hojillion videos of the takeoff and crash and the immediate aftermath. It's cold comfort to the survivors of the 14 folks who died, but this could have been so much worse.

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Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines in Pieces on the Ground

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 02:05:08 GMT

A UPS air freighter crashed during takeoff this afternoon. I had just swapped a company car for mine at the East Broadway site when I saw the cloud of smoke and noticed some ash on my car. Called Dad and Housemate, drove home with the windows down for a while and probably breathed in some things I shouldn't have. Shelter-in-place orders were issued and just now reduced.

It was a MD-11, loaded for a nonstop to Honolulu. About 40,000 gallons of fuel sprayed along a quarter-mile or so, hitting a petroleum recycling business and an auto salvage yard. The aircrew is dead, 11 injuries reported so far.

I'm a little shaken. I pass by the airport several times a week, and drove through a couple of the access roads to avoid a traffic jam today. This hits home, much more than the commuter jet crash in Lexington several years ago.

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Don't Listen to the Wind

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 01:31:47 GMT

My beloved Dodgers are now the Repeat Defending World Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers. The Series went seven games, two in extra innings, with Game Seven ending with local guy and former Louisville Cardinal Will Smith getting a solo home run and a game-ending defensive play. Toronto played some incredible baseball and while I'm obviously happy with the outcome, losing to the Blue Jays would have been no shame at all.

Our new/renewed convention went well. We hit the attendance goal and there was plenty to do. Two of my three scheduled games went off, both more-or-less successfully. Had some frustration with a player's decision paralysis, enough so that I started skipping his actions when he was taking too much time and cutting into other players' time. Didn't get to play anything because of my GM and staff scheduling, sadly. Going to rectify that in January - not GMing anything at that one.

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East City Blues

Sun, 19 Oct 2025 23:32:12 GMT

The Dodgers have gone 10-1 so far in the postseason. Swept the Reds in the Wild Card, went 3-1 against the Phillies in the NLDS, and swept the Brewers in the NLCS. The team has been playing terrific baseball following the September slump. Shohei Ohtani in particular has been just incredible. Beyond incredible. He's damned near redefining the game.

Ran a DCC game for a buddy from the Outer Rim Heroes days and some of his friends last night. It was a good time, lots of cat-herding and chainsaw-juggling. Got paid for it, to my surprise.

I have a mighty need to get back to GMing regularly. It's been my chief creative outlet for years and not doing it has beat on my mental health.

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This Modern Love

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 01:00:58 GMT

Jesus fucking Christ, I hate ideological purists and their inability or refusal to just admit to being wrong.

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I'll Need Someone to Hold Me

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 22:57:57 GMT

The MLB regular season is over. LA took the NL West for the 12th time in 14 seasons, but finished with the worst record of the division champs, so they're hosting the NL Wild Card series against Cincinnati. Of course, I want the Dodgers to win another World Series, especially with this being Clayton Kershaw's final season. The postseason field looks good, overall. Let's see how the next week goes at the parks.

Helped out with a DCC Day bonus round at a new store in Versailles yesterday. Good turnout, some folks new to DCC. Ben P came in and it's always good to see him. Had a good post-game chat with the owner and the other Judge and we're going to coordinate some monthly-or-so game days there. I'm taking my NFL season break from SYR, and if we can set things up for Saturdays, that'll work out nicely.

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Always on my MInd

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 00:28:59 GMT

My last uncle on Dad's side died last week. Garland had a long history of heart problems and I guess it was just one beat too many and that was it. Dad's taking it about as well as can be expected; he and Garland were close. I'm concerned about my aunt - she's been dealing with Parkinson's for some time and it's the type that causes strong hallucinations in addition to the tremors. She's got plenty of kids and grandkids to help care for her, but there's going to have to be some kind of professional care involved.

FX's Alien: Earth has been fantastic. It's managed to introduce additional non-terrestrial critters that are plenty icky without taking away any of the menace of the good ol' Xenomorphs. Timothy Olyphant continues to be an absolute treasure.

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Crucified Son

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 00:02:25 GMT

Went to Lexington last week to see Heat with Ben P. It's a favorite movie, one I watch at least once a year, and it was good to see it on a theater screen again - the second time I've had that experience, and it was in the same theater that I first saw it 30 years ago.

It remains an incredible piece of work - a sprawling crime drama, procedural, and character film. And it is a very different movie at 53 than it was at 23. There's so much that I see now. There is so much in the movie about loneliness. That's hitting me pretty hard right now. I've parrotted Robert de Niro's line - "I am alone, but I am never lonely" - often, and most of the time it's true. But when it's not, it hits like a sledgehammer.

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