Roadside Picnic

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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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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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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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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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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My Time Ain't Long

Sun, 20 Jul 2025 21:39:23 GMT

Been a while.

Charcon was a heck of a lot of fun. Saw the people I wanted to, ran three DCC sessions, played some stuff. Similarly, yesterday's DCC Day went darn well. Ran two short sessions, the other judge ran a full-length module. Lots of giveaways and exclusives, as usual. And we were one of three DCC Day events in the metro. Pretty cool.

Ten days until GenCon. Looking forward to that one. Got some people I can't wait to see.

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The Steps

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 01:48:12 GMT

It is fucking hot and I hate it. I at least got the Impala's AC recharged, but the actuators are still fucked and it intermittently blows warm air on the driver's side. Frustration, coming and going.

It was good to be away from work and clients for a couple of extra days. I didn't do much, and much of what I did do was unsatisfying. I did get plenty of rest, and that's not nothing.

Saturday was Free RPG Day. Went over to Golden Keep and picked up a few things, bought the BattleTech Alpha Strike box. The store has been scheduling demo nights for an array of games - playing Alpha Strike there a week or so ago was a good time, and it's hard to beat getting in a lance-on-lance fight in about an hour. The box is a heck of a deal, two IS lances and a Clan Star for $80, plus all of the maps and terrain and stuff. They're hosting a Mothership demo night on the 26th, and I'm hoping to make it out for that.

Slur Your Role didn't go well tonight. I was the only board member there following a last-minute cancellation; two players had tried to get into my game but the ticketing system wouldn't let them; one person who had bought a ticket for my game didn't ion show; no one showed for another GM's game and I invited him to join mine and boy did he live up to the "mostly a D&D5 and MMO player" in his bio. It's Star Wars, dude, do more than endlessly ask for "who looks disgruntled in this bar" and ah fuck it.

Finally got around to seeing John Wick: Chapter Four. Liked it more than the third one, felt it was a return to the feel of the first two.

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Picture Window

Tue, 27 May 2025 01:26:22 GMT

It's been a decent long weekend. Saturday and today were spectacularly lazy - didn't get out of the apartment or my pajamas, even. Ran a decent CP Red game Friday night and a banger of a D6 Star Wars game last night at SYR.

I made myself sleep in, or at least lie in, this morning. Kept playing a new podcast episode every time I woke up and went back under the covers, and it felt fantastic. Finally got up and made breakfast and had some brief thoughts about finding something to do. Decided, nah, let's do some more reading, and that was a good course of action for the day.

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Good Vibrations

Sun, 27 Apr 2025 16:20:19 GMT

April's been a rough month, and I stopped fighting it for a while and took a sick day on Friday. It helped a lot - I've slept so well the last three nights and managed to do some other things for self-care. My shoulders are relaxed, I haven't had anxiety skirmishes, I've painted minis and written little things, and I feel good.

Finally bought a table for the Bambu printer. Setting it up and calibrating and testing and everything else is the order of the afternoon. I'm hopeful that I can get enough of a handle on it to print something useful for May's first CP Red game session.

I feel like I've headed off some burnout by just putting in work instead of reading about someone else's work or endlessly diving into Wikipedia or whatever else caught my attention for the immediate sixteen seconds. I outlined the Star Wars games for May-July, sketched out a few more session ideas for CP Red, and just about settled on Symbaroum for my Charcon games.

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Mood Ring

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:46:33 GMT

Valentine's Day ate the CP Red game, and that was okay. Saturday saw heavy rain and thunderstorms and that was good for lying in bed and reading. Sunday's board meeting was blessedly moved online, and weather in Florida did a number on the Daytona 500, so, hey, more reading!

Packed my duffel and took off Monday morning. Drove down to the Corvette Museum, a long-overdue visit. The very fast machines are the focus of the museum, of course, and there is plenty of space given over to the people who designed and engineered and promoted them. I found myself taken with the story of Zora and Elfi Arkus-Duntov - they were a heck of a couple, Elfi was the first Corvette Girl, and she would spell out Zora's name on her body with adhesive medical tape and go sunbathing so his name would be on her. It was a good visit.

Drove to Dad's after the museum. Spent the night with him, then lit out for Dayton early Tuesday morning. I hadn't been to the Air Force museum in several years, and while it was nice to see some of the new exhibits (a Titan 4 stack and a Su-27), I found myself kinda bored. Beautiful machines and stories, but I've seen most of them, you know? And the Presidential aircraft gallery just kept reminding me of that orange bastard, and ... ugh. Hotel was nice.

Wednesday morning, up and off to Point Pleasant for the Mothman Museum. US35 is a heck of a fast road, and would have been even faster without the winter storm I drove through. Fun visit to Point Pleasant, then headed back to Louisville. WV2 was an easy drive down to Huntington, and I-64 brought me home one more time.

Ran an errand with a friend this morning. Going to take care of some business this afternoon - taxes and car licenses and REAL ID documents. No plans for tomorrow, maybe back to BG for a train show on Saturday, then the first ALIEN session at Slur on Sunday evening. Back to work on Monday. Can't wait to see what nonsense went down while I've been gone.

That's a lie. I just don't care all that much.

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If Trouble was Money

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 01:44:11 GMT

Still dealing with this latest sickness. Congested, repeating headache, coughing and sneezing. DayQuil is helping, and having nothing requiring me to leave the apartment this weekend has been nice. Resting, reading, just trying to heal up.

Started last night's CP Red session by asking the players what they wanted to do. I hadn't been able to come up with anything on my own, and the scenario I was going to default to needed a lot of rewriting to bring it up to snuff, so I had the players do some of the lifting. And they went for a fetch quest, and this was a pleasant surprise. It was a short, fun session, doing some favors for contacts. To my surprise, they all said that they were fine with quests like this, and I'm okay with it. There are two fetch quest scenarios in TotR: Street Stories, and they're well written - and I'd written them off because I didn't think the players would go for them. Joke's on me, I guess! The book gets more value late in the game.

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Addictive

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 01:12:27 GMT

I can't seem to get over being tired most of the time. I'm not sleeping as well as I'd like. I feel like I'm just staggering forward at work, succeeding in spite of myself. Last week was bad. I think part of it was the first five-day week in a while, what with holidays and weather. By Friday afternoon, I was moving mostly by the power of spite. I just wanted to have enough energy to get home.

An early bedtime helped. I went to Dad's to pick up a pressure cooker that I'd had shipped there. We had a good low-key afternoon together, a late lunch and some football. Got back to Louisville around midnight, stayed up for an hour or so, went to bed.

Sunday. The Ravens lost a heartbreaker to the Bills, who will play the Chiefs - again - for the AFC championship. I put my trusty printer to work on material for this weekend's convention during commercial breaks, tearing through a couple of ink cartridges and lots of paper - 4th- and 5th-level DCC spellcasters can easily have 15-page grimoires!

MLK Day was a holiday for us. It's still nice and a little bit novel having holidays off like civilized people. I took it as easy as I could, doing more convention prep. I had some vague plans of finding some volunteering to do, but the cold and my own weakness wiped those plans out. And I sure as hell wasn't going to watch that orange bastard's inauguration.

I'm looking forward to the con - seeing friends and playing some games and all that. Unfortunately, I'm expecting some drama with a bad actor. I tag my games as ages 13+, and this dude signs up himself and his kid. A couple of years ago, I let this slide in a Blade Runner game, and it was a mistake - the kid was disruptive and took away from the experience of other players, and I'm not going to let it happen again. I've already talked with the con organizers, and they told me I have final say on who gets seated at my table. So, in the parlance of our times, fuck dem kids.

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Philodendron

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 02:18:16 GMT

The storm hit just about as forecast. Snow started around 8 yesterday morning and switched over to freezing rain in the late afternoon. Our clinics and offices were closed, and I opted to work from home - knocked out a handful of training modules. Another three inches or so of snow today, with some very cold weather coming in the next few days, and maybe more snow on Friday.

No Dragonbane tomorrow night. I'm a bit relieved, to tell the truth. The game's fun, but this final act has gone on for far too long, and the host has invited more players than the game or venue can comfortably handle - last session, there were eight players plus the GM, and while Dragonbane's pretty light and fast-moving, that many players bog things down.

Friday night's CP Red session went pretty well, and the after-action chat was great. Polled some of the players as to future plotlines, and they delivered. The Netrunner gave me the sort of thing that I can spin into a proper '70s-style political thriller, and the competent Solo told me that the person responsible for the bad reputation is her twin. The Nomad sketched out some more details on her interest in street racing stories, too. This gives me tons of material for future sessions.

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Mountain Fever

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 01:29:51 GMT

Busy week. In addition to the normal client visits and office work, our holiday party for the clients was on Thursday and that meant lots of extra work. I'm dangerously close to getting one of my folks intro transitional housing and if I can manage that I'll call the first half of the month a win.

Friday was good. Took a half-day as Clayton was in town and sat in on the evening's CP Red game. John C was unable to play, so that saved me from running out to Crescent Hill before and after the game.

Went to Liberty for a presentation at the library and to see Dad for a bit. My iPad suicided during some app updates and it couldn't be fixed, so I bought a new one this morning. Not cheap, but it's a hell of a good tool and I'm very accustomed to having one.

UofL football is going to the Sun Bowl, a New Year's Eve game. Win or lose, it'll be a good end to the season. Since it's on CBS instead of whatever cable network threw money at the NCAA, I'm going to take a half-day and watch the game from my couch before ...

Holy cow, I have plans for NYE! Almost a date, really. I don't quite know what to do with this. Casual plans, just hanging out and watching movies and quite possibly nodding off before midnight.

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How Could I Love Her so Much

Mon, 04 Nov 2024 01:23:50 GMT

Turnout for early voting was fairly high over the weekend, for whatever that's worth. The Tuesday night group decided to play on Election Night and leave our phones in our cars. I'm not hopeful.

Got on the road Friday morning. Weather was good until I got south of Charleston, and that convinced me to head to Christiansburg instead of diverting to the New River Gorge. Checked in, went to C&C's new home, went to dinner, caught up. A good day on the road and a very good evening with friends.

Went to Roanoke Saturday morning. Lots of good stuff to see - the J looks like it's doing 70MPH just sitting there, the big A-class is almost as impressive as a C&O Allegheny, and I think I want to add an E-unit of some stripe to my collection. Checked out a couple of other places - Center on the Square had great aquariums and Mishap Gaming impressed with the amount of not-D&D5 on their shelves.

Today's weather was much better, and the drive to the Gorge was quite nice. The bridge is a damned impressive structure, and the Gorge is just beautiful. The sense of the age of the place is daunting - the Appalachians are incredibly old, and the New River predates the rise of that ancient mountain range.

Stopped off in Charleston to have lunch with Gena. Great pizza at Pies & Pints - Gena's vegetarian, and their white pizza was a good fit for both of us. Got home ... around 7, I think. Gonna watch part of the Sunday night NFL game, then take some sleep medicine and call it a night.

Back to the literal madness tomorrow.

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Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 22:03:39 GMT

The Dodgers are the 2024 World Series champs! They won Game 5 last night, a banger of a come-from-behind win, final score of 7-6 after spending four innings down 0-5. I would have liked to have seen the win at Dodgers Stadium, but winning at the opponent's park is just fine.

The Trail game was not good. Had two players more interested in their Noo Yawk accents than pursuing the investigation that others were there for. It happens, I guess. Sometimes even Han Solo got boarded, sometimes even I run a bad game. On to Eclipse Phase in a couple of weeks.

Tried to vote around 9:30 this morning. Traffic around my first choice of sites was quite heavy, backed up a quarter-mile. I opted to run a couple of errands and try again elsewhere and had better luck. In and out in about 15 minutes. Poll workers said the site had been busy all day.

The site was the hotel convention space that used to host Conglomeration. I hadn't been in there since the last Conglom in '19. The mind's eye saw the registration table in the main hallway and the vendors' tables in the room where I cast my ballot. Sic transit.

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Get Back

Sun, 27 Oct 2024 17:39:34 GMT

Got the books. The Buick started acting up around Bardstown - lost power, as the dashboard helpfully let me know. Towed it back to Liberty and drove the Frontier back to Louisville early Tuesday. Swapped it out for the backup Impala Wednesday after work. Impala is behaving and will hopefully continue to do so.

The Dodgers are up two games to zero in the World Series. Freddy Freeman hit a walk-off grand slam in the tenth to win the first game. Game Two wasn't as dramatic, but Shohei Ohtani injured his shoulder trying to steal second and that's concerning. Ice Cube performed a version of "Today was a Good Day" to open the game, paying respect to Fernando Valenzeula at the mound.

Running a Trail of Cthulhu game at Slur tonight. Got three players so far, and that's enough to make things work. If people bail, no worries, I'll just go home and watch the evening NFL game.

Taking Halloween and November 1 off. Voting on Halloween, hopefully not for the last time. Going to Virginia on Friday to see folks and a museum and other stuff. I think this is the first vacation trip I've taken since late 2020 - conventions are working vacations, so I'm not counting them. I'm looking forward to the trip, and very much looking forward to not seeing clients and not being at work for those two days.

Sent out a couple of resumes last night. I've given the job the best shot I can, and it's just not working out for me. Time to move on. Again.

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Little Prince

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 00:01:10 GMT

Friday night's game only ran for a couple of hours, and I wound up leaving a couple bottles of soda and water at the shop. Not my best night.

Did a lot of nothing yesterday. Laid in without sleeping very much. Miami beat Louisville.

Read a good chunk of When Gravity Fails this morning. Worked on more material for Cyberpunk.

Back to work tomorrow, and I'm making a fast trip to Liberty and back to pick up a couple of books from Noble Knight and some documents from Dad. Thought about spending the night and coming back up here early Tuesday morning, but I don't think I will. I'll sleep a little late and attend the morning meeting's via Zoom.

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Violet

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 18:00:48 GMT

Short workweeks are always appreciated. I like them better when the day off is a Friday - when the week ends sooner rather than starting later - but I'm not going to complain. This one was busy, with the normal 150-mile drive on Thursday, so at least it didn't seem to drag on. So, here I am on a Sunday afternoon, watching the Colts-Texans game and doing laundry. Getting in some reading, too.

Today is the third anniversary of Mom's death. The pain is gone, and has been for a while, if I'm being honest. It's an emptiness now. An empty space. I miss her.

Friday was Dad's birthday, and I took him to lunch yesterday to celebrate. Heck of a good meal and Copper & Oak in Danville. We had a little other business to take care of, and that was handled easily enough. He's singing with his gospel group this afternoon, and that will hopefully keep him from dwelling on the date too much. They're singing about thirty miles south of Indy next weekend, and I may go up there and see about going early enough to go up to Patachou for one of their fantastic omelets.

I'm diving back into Eclipse Phase, prepping for a SYR game in a couple of weeks. I remember the broad strokes of the game, but so many details are coming back to me on the reread.

Some real glamour shots of Lucas Oil Stadium and Indianapolis in general during the game. I was just there five weeks ago, and I find myself missing it already. My GenCon family isn't what it used to be, but they do still mean something to me.

Some jerk decided to shoot up I-75 yesterday afternoon. Dude bought an AR of some stripe and 2000 rounds for it yesterday morning, then found a spot on an overpass and ... just started shooting. Still at large as of this afternoon.

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And the Bottom Drops Out

Mon, 02 Sep 2024 22:42:00 GMT

Work wasn't great last week, and my normal sources of recharging didn't happen, so I was very glad when Friday afternoon rolled around and I rolled into a three-day weekend. Got home, turned off the work phone, and decided that the most important thing I could do this weekend was to take care of me.

I did a lot of reading this weekend. Not a lot relative to me in my 30s, but quite a bit relative to me in the past couple of years. A middling sci-fantasy novel from my GoodReads list. Some of the RPG titles I picked up before and at GenCon. Some articles and blogs on video games.

Got in my daily GT7 workouts and completed the weekly challenges. The Aston Martin Group 4 was a nice reward for the latter. Played OSE yesterday - low on action, high on roleplay and building up our little settlement, and logorrhea player was absent. Good times. UofL football started the season with a big win - the opponent wasn't great, but a 62-point win is a statement, no matter what.

So, this evening, I'm feeling good. I'm updating my resume later tonight, with the intent of applying for another position, one more suited to my skills and interests. Dinner turned out well, and I'm enjoying Netflix's Terminator anime. I needed this weekend, and I have very much enjoyed it.

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Birds of a Feather

Thu, 22 Aug 2024 00:11:33 GMT

Our DCC GM is in the process of moving, so the game's on hold for a couple of weeks. So, this past weekend, after Friday night's get-together, I had no demands on my time. That felt really good. I slept late Saturday, spent most of the day on the couch listening to music and reading. It was glorious.

Got up Sunday morning for an early showing of Alien: Romulus, which I didn't like very much. It's gorgeous, has the proper cassette futurism look that I love, but the movie just didn't work for me.

Fallout's pretty good, though, two episodes in.

Not much of an entry. Nothing really on my mind, nothing worth recording, at least.

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Trying to be Cool

Mon, 22 Jul 2024 02:13:10 GMT

After the very good Charcon weekend, the workweek was rough. One of the more troublesome clients brought a ton of trouble on herself, and she went off on me and my team, and I kinda-sorta don't much care what happens to her now. On the other hand, we fired another client after his last round of bullshit. And in hopeful-for-me news, a couple of positions that line up well with my skills and interests are opening up, and darn right I'm applying for them.

Enough about work.

DCC Day went pretty well. Fewer games than I had wanted, but we had a smaller crowd this year, so it worked out. Got some good time in with friends this weekend. Finally got another bookcase assembled and made further way overdue progress in getting some boxes put away.

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