tracker7 | Entries tagged with food

Wednesday afternoon, a strong thunderstorm popped up while I was assisting a client down in Shively. It dumped a lot of water and the lightning scared the client, and all of that combined to delay my departure by about an hour. The storm knocked the heat off quite a bit, enough so that I was able to leave the car's AC off for the drive to Indy.

Thursday morning, things too off in a hurry. We're letting the Mistborn license expire, so we marked down everything we had at the booth. The last few copies of the board game went in a hurry, and the RPG products sold off quickly enough that we had to adjust the bundle pricing for those often. We had a small shipment of a new board game, Sardegna, on hand, and it sold well. Thursday's total sales came to about half of the booth's cost, and that put us all in a good vibe. Dinner at Union 50, then back to the hotel.

I slept in Friday - normally, I work morning shifts at the show, but traded with another staffer who needed the favor. Did some shopping - The Borellus Connection for The Fall of Delta Green and the core and a supplement for Outgunned. Did my afternoon shift, sold product, closed the booth.

Saturday was my day off. Tried getting into a Night's Black Agents game with some generic tickets, but no luck. Checked the event schedule and found an Unisystem-powered Dark Tower game, and was able to join that one. The GM was really good, and it was a darn good game. Got lunch at a chicken and waffles truck, then went back to the hotel for a nap. Got a FB message from a buddy asking if I would mind picking up some miniatures for him - sure, I replied. And then he sent me the list and the money - yay PayPal - and it was a doozy. About $400 for some Kingdom Death stuff - about ten models. That would pay for a LOT of BattleMechs. Then it was time for my second game of the day - Numenera. Great GM, great group of players, and we all got starter boxes for the game. I had an invitation to the Hunters Entertainment party that evening, but was tired and waved off.

This morning, breakfast with Alex before opening up the booth for the last day of my seventeenth GenCon. Brisk sales again. Less than ten copies of Sardegna left when my shift ended. Said my goodbyes, bought a softcover DCC rulebook for a co-worker, packed up the car, and headed south. Delivered the Kingdom Death stuff. Went home, unpacked, started laundry and added the new purchases to the stack of stuff to read.

Breakfast most mornings was at a caterer's tent - scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausage links, little donuts, and apple butter for $10. Heck of a deal, and quite filling and tasty. Dinner at Union 50 was good. Got some pizza from Hot Box, of course.

GenCon is increasingly looking less and less like me, and I am here for this diversity. Both of my GMs this year were women. Our Buru tables drew lots of attention, as did the Tabriz prototype - Indonesian and Persian art drew people in. Lots and lots of Gaymer and flag ribbons. Such a good thing to see.

Free League announced a second edition of the Alien RPG; unrelated, they won the Ennie for Fan Favorite Publisher. God's Teeth (Delta Green) got Best Long-Form Adventure. Catalyst is leaning into the joke with a lance box of UrbanMechs - and another box of UrbanMech LAMs. This is delightfully bonkers.

I'm GenCon tired. It's a good kind of tired. I kinda want to take a nice hot bath before bed, let my feet work out the soreness. I think this is my last con of the calendar year. I may fly out west next spring for Crafty's 20th anniversary con, and there are small shows on the calendar in 2025, but this should be it for 2024. It sure was good to be back.

I got back from Charcon a few hours ago. I'm calling it a successful convention weekend. I ran one of the two games had scheduled, played some pickup board games, had meals at a great late-night calzone place and Tudor's and a hibachi food truck. And got to see some friends - the most important part of the trip!

Something caused a fire alarm to go off in the middle of my Saturday morning game, so we evacuated the building. That ate up about 20 minutes of table time, and I had to compress the final encounter into a narration, but it was still a good time.

Dad's surgery went very well. He texted me yesterday, marveling at how nice it was to have clear vision back in his left eye. The right is getting another evaluation next month - it has some cataracts as well, but that eye's retina has some damage, and the docs are concerned that cataract surgery may further damage the retina.

The repainted mini came out well. The colors aren't quite what I had in mind, but they're good, and I have no desire to strip and paint it again. Next up is one for my Old School Essentials character - a skull-splitting herb-gathering barbarian.

Mucked around with my client schedule this afternoon to finally catch Civil War. It is, as the kids say, a banger of a movie. Kirsten Dunst is very good, and her supporting cast is, too. It's a damned intense movie, and uncomfortable in turns. Alex Garland hasn't yet let me down - on the directorial side, Ex Machina and Annihilation are gorgeous movies, and he's written some great stuff, too - 28 Days Later and Dredd, among others. And A24's made some good stuff, so this was just a good work all around.

Surprisingly, we got a red-band trailer for Maxxxine, another A24 release and the sequel to the pretty darn good X.

Found a little gem while looking for something to eat before the movie. Was going to get something from Raising Cane's, but their dining room was closed for repairs and I have a nearly pathological hate of drive-thrus, and something told me to try the grocery store in the little mall housing the theater. Found out that they have a very good deli, and very good prices there. So, since I'm trying to see more movies at Baxter Avenue, I think I'll patronize Valu Market as well.

Training days were good. The subject - building trauma resilience in communities - is aligned with my public health education and personal interests.

The rest of the workweek was okay. I'm more and more convinced to start looking for something else sooner than later, even if that means jumping to another agency. I just don't have my heart in this, and the clients deserve someone who is committed to their cases.

The trip to Paducah was a good weekend getaway. The Jackson Purchase is a part of the state I'm not especially familiar with, so trips out that way have some learning experiences for me. Most of the drive time was on the Western Kentucky Parkway, which is now signed as Interstate 69 along much of its length. Traffic was light, for the most part, as it tends to be on the state's parkway system, and I had a few opportunities to let the Buick lay its ears back and run.

First stop in Paducah was a local restaurant, Just Hamburgers. They have a weekly special burger, and this week's is the Quilt Chamberlain - two burger patties, cheese, hash browns, and their spicy "Death Breath" sauce. Gods, that was a terrific burger, and at under ten bucks for the burger, side, and drink, it felt like a steal. After than, over to a model train shop, Fast Freight. Nice store, good stock of train stuff and other models and supplies. Found a couple of cars to add to my collection. Then, another shop called Classic Trains and Ferrari. I thought it was just a cute name to draw attention, but nope, when I pulled into the parking lot, there was a lovely red (of course) Ferrari convertible parked out front. Lots of Ferrari memorabilia in addition to train stuff.

Got to my hotel, checked in early, took a nap. Matt and Heather closed up things at the show and I drove over to Metropolis to pick them up. Dinner at a barbecue restaurant, where Steve joined us, and after that, we all went to my hotel for a couple of hours. Davie was on call and couldn't join us, sadly.

Left around 10:45 Central this morning, thought about detouring to a couple of game shops in Hardin County, but decided to just head home. Got in, emptied my duffel bag, started laundry, got in my GT7 workout. Watching The Crown now. Pretty good weekend.

I would like to have a drink. A mid-shelf bourbon, preferably, on the rocks or mixed with Coke. If not bourbon, something with rum would do nicely.

Unremarkable week, followed by a good weekend. I caught up on some reading - no, I read some - on Saturday before heading down to Shepherdsville to play DCC. Sunday, slept in, read, watched a NASCAR race, then got it in my head to try painting another mini. This one had a lot more little fiddly details than the last one I painted, requiring as much time doing touchups as it did on the main work. The orc came out pretty well, I think, and I have enough confidence to try my hand at painting a mini of my Dragonbane character later on this evening.

For All Mankind S4 ended on a satisfactory note, and a fifth season is on the way - plus a spinoff series set behind the Iron Curtain of the show's alternate history. This pushes my Cold War kid Soviet-phile buttons! I'm following FAM up with another AppleTV series, Silo. It's alright, a good premise, but the execution hasn't quite come together for me.

The store down in Somerset that was such a haven for me during my exile had to close. Some kind of tax issue that couldn't get resolved. I hated to hear it - it was a good store and community, and I had some good times at its game tables.

Two days of offsite training this week. Two days not going out into the community. 112 days until I can apply for internal transfer.

I'm lighting out for Paducah this weekend. An out-of-state buddy and his girlfriend are in town for a quilters convention, and that's reason enough to head west and hang out with him and some friends who live there. It'll make for a long Sunday, as I'm scheduled to run a game that evening at SYR.

I feel like a glutton. Came home and made so much spaghetti. Two batches, one with meat sauce, one with meatballs. Ate way too much, and now I'm heavily settled into the recliner. Just huge. Many meals of leftovers to come.

Cardinal football beat Notre Dame Saturday night. Record home crowd, beat a Top 10 ranked team, pretty exciting. ABC's commentators turned into apologists in the fourth quarter, trying to excuse Notre Dame with "oh they had midterms" and "oh it's a night game" and all that. Well, guess who else was playing a night game after midterm week, you chumps? The University of Louisville - the team that just manhandled their opponent.

Just not enough fight in the Irish.

Hamas launched a sizable assault on Israel over the weekend - huge rocket and artillery barrages and paramilitary operations attacking military and civilian targets inside Israeli borders. Most US media is describing it as "terrorist attacks," and I can't wholly disagree - Hamas has taken dozens of hostages and one of the targets was an open-air music festival, killing 260 or so people. The US is promising help to Israel, of course, but since the House of Representatives is recessed because there's no Speaker, and a college football coach that Alabama sent to the Senate is blocking US military promotions, and we have no ambassador to Israel because of Rand Fucking Paul ... well, this'll be a mess. More than usual.

I bailed on one OSE game and quickly found myself recruited into another. First session is this coming Wednesday. Fingers crossed.

This hasn't been a great week. No progress on anything. Did get to have dinner at Ramsey's when I took Dad to Lexington, so there was something positive. And Delta Green provided a high point, even if the current operation is suffering from having too much stuff shoved into it.

This weekend is the county's big fall festival, and I have succeeded in avoiding just about every bit of it. Dad's doing a bunch of stuff with some fundraising group and with a singing group he rejoined, and that's great, but I got tired of the constant nagging about going to the festival and ... just being there, I don't know. I go to GenCon, and that's enough time spent around thousands of people that don't know how to behave in public for one year, thanks. There will be a nice fireworks show to close things out later tonight, and I could probably find somewhere to watch it, but I think Svengoolie and an old monster movie will win out.

I need to make myself do something tonight, even if it's just replying to some messages. I got in around 12:15AM, read for a couple of hours, and slept until nearly noon. I'm rested, mostly, but time is wasting, and I have less and less of it to use in any fashion.

Took a day for myself Friday. Drove to Lexington to see Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1, which was unsurprisingly spectacular. I don't know how they do it, but every movie in this franchise continues to improve on its predecessor. DR1 brings Hayley Atwell into the cast, and she's just wonderful, of course, and Kittridge's return was a real surprise, and there's Esai Morales, who should always get more work, and Pom Klementieff was pretty terrific in her barely-speaking-but-much-fighting role. A fast 163 minutes.

Had some time to kill, so I stopped by the new-to-me game store in (ugh) Fayette Mall and found some suitable minis. Went over to Southland Drive and another shop ... and found another two-pack of minis. And then things got weird for me. I went to Joseph-Beth, and felt out-of-place. No titles jumped out at me. I got bored browsing. So damned strange.

Having been reminded of how much I dislike driving in Lexington, I headed south on US27 as the afternoon commuter crawl was starting. Stopped in Nicholasville for a tasty brisket sandwich, then headed to Somerset for the Delta Green game.

Refueled the Escape, bought drinks, went to the store. Good session, good talk after, and headed home. Really not in love with driving KY910 late at night anymore. And the past couple of times I've driven home from Somerset, I've caught myself thinking about the beautiful crazy girl from Indy.

Saturday was downtime, Sunday was a lunch meeting in Louisville. Bought another set of paints at Miso's, and got home in time for most of the NASCAR race at IMS - a road course race! Good watch, lots of shots of downtown Indy for that hey-I-was-just-there vibe. Downloaded a book, read the first chapter, called it a weekend.

Really rough mental health day Monday, much improved yesterday and today. Dad and Kaiser went on the road yesterday afternoon, heading to Florida. We joked about being extra careful going through Fulton County, Georgia, but it was that Southern gallows humor, and with a grand jury getting death threats from that orange bastard's cultists, well, I'm glad Dad knows plenty of alternate routes home.

Here it is, 9:15PM and I should start winding down for the night. But there's this little plastic figure glued to a base for painting and hey Tubi has served up the last Matrix movie, so I think I'll stay up a little while longer and try to get a little creative energy going.

Welp, the last few days have been exciting.

About an hour after I posted the previous entry, I saw on the company Discord that someone had dropped out of the GenCon team. I filed it away for an hour or so before deciding to get in there and make this about me. And so my planned day trip to GenCon became a three-day working vacation.

Drove up to Indy Thursday night, taking over five hours thanks to construction up and down I-65. Got to the Hilton, chatted and got updates from the team, called it a night.

Wasn't scheduled to work Friday, so I decided I'd get in some time in the Exhibitor Hall and open play area. Headed to the R. Talsorian booth first off to get Danger Girl Dossier. Good fortune smiled on me, and I got to chat with Mike Pondsmith and Steve Jackson for a few moments. Went to Free League and Modiphius, striking out at both places, then drifted over towards the Goodman space. All around good dude Dieter Z was working a booth next to Goodman that was moving someone's overstock, so I got a copy of Night's Black Agents: Solo Ops for $10 - and would get The Dracula Dossier Director's Handbook for $10 on Saturday, leading me to swing by Pelgrane and just finally get the core book Sunday morning. I'm not made of stone, okay, and Mr. Laws and Mr. Hite were there and graciously signed the book and took a few moments to chat with a fan.

Saturday - taught one of our upcoming games, Buru. Very pretty, quite fun. Saw some of the Louisville folks. Played BattleTech. Had some tasty barbecue - brisket served over smoked gouda mac and cheese. Retired to the hotel for a nap. Dinner at Giordano's and boy-howdy do they serve up a killer deep dish. Turned down an invitation to a product release party.

Sunday, pickup game of a Shadowrun card game. Met a Discord acquaintance face-to-face. More Buru teaching. Closed down the Exhibitor Hall for the first time since 2019. Delicious tacos for dinner.

Drove home this morning.

A few big stories from the con:
The Disney TCG was in great demand, and GenCon screwed things up pretty badly Thursday morning after the publisher had set things up nicely. An orderly line - one that started forming at 6PM Wednesday - became an ugly mob around 7 Thursday morning.
A couple of dudes got into the hall staging area and stole about $300,000 in collectible cards.
Free League won SEVEN Ennies across their various lines.

It was good to be there again, and it is sure good to be home. Gotta finish laundry, and finish winding down. Gods help me, I have missed working that show.

Most of last week was a blur, not because it was chock full and moving fast, but because there was not much of anything going on. Got a pre-convention haircut. Little things around the house. Tried to read YA fantasy novel Goodreads sent me, with very little success. Just existed.

Then, Friday morning rolled around and it was time to head to West Virginia. The shop hasn't been able to get the Escape in, so I took the Canyon. The Escape is far and away the more comfortable ride, but since its AC is out, I opted to deal with the pickup's harsher ride. Took a Google Maps route that sent me through neighborhoods in Richmond - not recommended. Giggled at the "Sharkey Farmers" sign on I-64 East - it's funnier than Waddy Peytona heading the other way. Noted that seeing the Catlettsburg refinery in the middle of the day as an apocalypse-experiencing adult is a different experience than seeing it in the middle of the night as a post-apocalypse-obsessed kid.

Turned off the Interstate east of Huntington and headed north on West Virginia 2. It was a very nice along the Ohio River, separated from Ohio by the Ohio. Made it to Point Pleasant, navigated the compact downtown, and spent some time at the Mothman Museum! Cute, earnest enough, and a fun visit. Got back on the road, heading southeast on US35 - another Federal highway that has gotten a build to nearly Interstate level - and rolled into downtown Charleston. Checked into the hotel, then headed over to the Clay Center for my badge and a walk around.

Met and chatted with Anthony from Pithy Publications, who I knew from a Discord channel. Bought a copy of his Ghastbashers game, then headed to the RPG room to set up for DCC. Good game. Went back to the hotel and broke one of my rules of conventions and ordered Dominos to keep some rewards points from expiring. Quiet room and a comfy and I was out in a hurry.

More DCC Saturday morning. A number of repeat customers from the night before, and another good game. Met up with Gena Chattin, caught up, went to dinner (Pies & Pints, had been to the Lexington location) and had a good evening. Back to bed, as above with a side order of fireworks from the baseball park before I went to sleep.

Checked out Sunday morning, went back to the Clay Center for a few minutes, bought a Coriolis book from the Free League booth, then headed home. Made good time, and good mileage for the pickup. Got home, chatted with Dad, and got some rest.

Charcon was fun, and I think I'll keep this one on my list for next year. The drive, though ... it turned out to be at the far end of my tolerance. This is a sign I'm aging, and I do not like it. I don't know if I want to make the two-hour-longer drive to Archon in a couple of months. Maybe I'll just go up to Cincinnati instead.

That's for another time. Now, I need to drive 25 miles to pick up some printer ink, because I currently live way way out in the hinterlands.

Went fishing for the first time in forever a few nights ago. Landed and released a smallmouth bass and a couple of catfish, and spent a lot of time just casting and reeling an unbaited hook.

The Delta Green session was a good time. I'm an outlier in the group, as is my character to some degree. I did some reading on the agency (CBP, of all things) and its authority and responsibilities, and built and played around that. Took a long route home - through Stanford and into Danville, for ATM and soda reasons.

A tiny bit cranky with Dad re: the sodas, but I'm going to let it go.

Sickness backed off quite a bit Friday evening, and Saturday morning, I felt good enough to drive over to Harrodsburg for a model train show. It was small, but pretty well put together. A half-dozen layouts, plus a few tables covered in large scale stuff. A few vendors with some decent N scale offerings, and I picked up a couple of cars. Stopped off in Danville to stock up at Aldi and get lunch, then back to the farm.

The sick came back with a vengeance Saturday evening. Fever, sore throat, coughing, and I'm salivating like mad. It hurts to swallow, so I'm being disgusting and spitting into a plastic soft drink bottle. On top of that, a case of conjunctivitis joined the party Sunday morning and that was just all kinds of foul. Overall, 0/10, do not recommend.

Also sickening, it's primary election season here, and we are just overrun with awful ads for awful candidates. Motherfuckers loudly and proudly calling themselves "Trump Republicans" and doing their damnedest to attach themselves to the orange son-of-a-bitch. Gods, I cannot imagine voting for a Repub candidate for any office at any level.

Ick ick ick. Ibuprofen is barely working, Dayquil's not doing much either. The home test says it's not Covid-19, but this is right up there with my bout with the thing last year and the sinus infection from a couple of years ago in terms of raw misery. Wasn't even up to a Discord RPG session yesterday afternoon.

There was a nifty little surprise yesterday afternoon. Looked out the front door and there was a flock of wild turkeys out in the field. I counted 13 of the birds, including a pair of solid white ones! A buddy on another Discord channel suggested that I try hunting one for dinner; I could only thank him for his estimation of my marksmanship.

A couple of big turkey drumsticks sounds really good though. Maybe after the discounted packs of chicken things and pork chops I picked up at Aldi are gone.

It was a good convention. 90-95% good, anyway. I had full tables of four players for all three of my Blade Runner games, and that was frankly gratifying. Players had good times, and everyone had some kind of emotional reaction to the reveal about implanting Replicants with traumatic memories. I got to play in a Dragonbane game, and that was a good time, too. Great player mix.

Not so great - driving in Lexington remains absurd. And despite the description of my games as being for 13+ only, one dude brought his young kid to the table, and that wasn't great for me or the other players. To make this worse, dude is the organizer of a con I'd thought about trying sometime, but if he can't bother reading - or honoring - the description of someone's game, my interest in supporting his show is limited.

Lexicon's organizers posted attendance numbers and they're good. This was the biggest con to date, with 701 attendees. The game rooms felt full, and I saw decent traffic at the vendor tables. Deiter had a good-sized Goodman table in a very good spot. He sold through the stock of softcover DCC cores and moved a lot of the hardcovers, among other things.

On the Free League side, the huge amount of material in the Blade Runner starter box sold people on that beauty, and some of my players said they wanted their own copy.

I got to hang out with Ben Parks, newly returned to Lexington, and that was worth the price of attendance. Hotel was comfy, but lacking in 'Net connectivity. Got breakfast at Tudor's one morning - I'd forgotten how big their biscuits are, and ordering two was a slight mistake.

It was a good weekend, and if I can, I'll go back next year. Next on the schedule is Charcon, and I think I'm going to swing back to DCC for that one - partially because the following weekend is DCC Day, and that's going to be a good one.

The LFPL J-town branch had a Blu-Ray copy of Zach Snyder's Justice League available, so I went that route. The bad, right off the bat (not The Batman) - it's in 4:3 instead of 16:9 or something civilized. And there is entirely too much slo-mo. Aside from those quibbles, it is a darned entertaining movie. Better than the theatrical release. A big ol' superhero actioner.

Oh - the SFX people should probably have worked a little harder to make Steppenwolf not look so much like the Devastator from Thor.

After a couple of not-so-great weeks, I had a terrific mental health day yesterday. Got up early-ish and loaded up the Escape and headed over to Jeffersonville to run some trains. Got in a couple of hours of very relaxing train time. Feeling darned good about the start of the day, I headed back across the river, looking for lunch before gaming. Decided to swing by Chicken King for the first time in months, and damned if those spicy fried wings and potato wedges weren't the very thing I wanted. And then it was on to Heroes for a DCC demo game. Four players, one known to me. Had a blast - short, straightforward adventure, two PC deaths (and that's why I whip up plenty of spares), tons of laughs. Went home, took a nap, read, napped again. I felt so damned good.

Today should be pretty good, too. Went out to Meijer earlier. I have a gallon of soup going in the slow cooker, and I'm going to bake some cornbread when the soup's about done. Probably get a little nap before the OSE game at noon, then another nap before the Super Bowl. And work is going to get whatever version of me manages to drag itself in tonight, and they'll like it.

Made my way to Liberty Friday morning. The Canyon ran well, if maybe a little warmer than I wanted, and I had a good couple of hours to listen to Knowledge Fight and not think too much. Went out to dinner with Dad and some friends that evening. Played with Kaiser. It was a good day.

Saturday was maybe even better. We had made loose plans to take his pontoon to either Cumberland or Green River, but talked ourselves out of it in favor of going over to Lake Liberty and hiking the trails there. It was a good mile or so walking, and plenty of wildlife to see - a couple of wild turkeys, a startled fawn, some catfish in their spawning boxes. A really pretty day.

I came back to Louisville this morning, finding my favorite strain of Mountain Dew at Danville's Speedway for the first time in quite a while! Mowed the yard, since we're enjoying a brief break in the unholy hot weather. Trimmed some of the overgrowth in the back yard. Called it good.

Got the backer PDFs for the Blade Runner RPG. Gorgeous work, and Free League has made a heck of a game here.

TNT ran a lot of Star Wars movies last weekend, so I watched some, leading up to The Rise of Skywalker Sunday evening. I watched the damn thing, just to see if it was as stupid as I remembered it being. It was. Oh my goodness, it was.

It's a gloomy day here. Gray sky, occasional rain, enough wind to blow leaves off the trees. This is very much my kind of weather, except, you know, when it's not. I was going to camp out at the Bon Air library this afternoon, but I think I'm just too comfortable at my own desk right now.

Like just about everywhere, there's a Dollar General near Mom&Dad's home. It's convenience store utility without convenience store pricing, and I don't think I've spent more than a couple of days down there without a visit to the store - the two stores near my home get business from me, too. Anyway, went in to the one down there and was surprised to see that the grocery side had seen a big change - a fresh produce section was added. Not big, but it's something more than processed and frozen food. The chain is adding these sections to over half their stores; it's hopefully profitable, because that'll put a dent in some food deserts.

I now confess to having a box of Chicken-in-a-Biscuit crackers and a can of Easy Cheese right here on this desk. Finest snack combination known to humankind.

Inauguration Day came and went without incident. There was some massive heartbreak and disappointment among the Qbits. Lady Gaga gave a stellar rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner." Instead of a huge crowd, the National Mall was filled with flags and lights - another result of the COVID pandemic.

Great night of X-Wing last night. Standard match saw the game end with one HP of ship left on the board, my crippled First Order TIE Interceptor. Just a great match. The centerpiece of the night was an Epic match against my most-constant Epic opponent and fellow enthusiast. 500 points per side, one huge ship each. Over 40% of my points were tied up in my CR90, and that turned out to be a big mistake. Too many interactions and triggers for me to keep track of, and the corvette's energy budget kept me from using some of the upgrades. Luke Not-a-Skywalker took out two of the three shuttles I was trying to defend, and my corvette suffered a death of a thousand paper cuts. My initial setup wasn't good, and I couldn't overcome that. And Luke just flat-out had a better-designed force. Gods, though, it was good to get one of the big ships out for an evening.

Finished reading the latest Black Company novel, Port of Shadows. It's sure enough a Black Company story, done exceedingly well with a bitter ending. Started on L. Sprague de Camp's The Mathematics of Magic today, and it's plenty enjoyable thus far.

Still dealing with some GM indifference. I'm going to finish up the Fading Suns game, and then take a break from running anything for a while. I think I'd rather put the energy into something else, like model trains.

I have a nice quiet evening stretching out ahead of me. Looks like an old monster movie on Svengoolie, then Star Trek and Buck Rogers before bedtime. I think I'm going to make time to bake a cake during all of this excitement, even.

Came home a couple of nights ago, and there was a very friendly black cat sitting at the front door. She mewed a welcome, and was accepting of scratching from this strange human. Hopped out of the way when I opened the storm door, but made no attempt to come inside when I opened the interior door. She was gone when I went back out to offer her a snack. I hope she's back with her humans, or at least somewhere safe.

Life goes on. Governor Beshear's daily briefings continue to be must-see-TV. Bearno's pizza is delicious, and in these strange days, it's even more comforting than usual. I'm doing okay, as are my parents and really everyone else in my circles, as far as I know. I'm certain that plenty of us have been exposed, and probably even infected. My people are mostly smart and sensible.

Last weekend would have been Adepticon. Some of the gaming podcasts set up livestreams of games played via flavors of virtual tabletops, and that was fun and comforting.

And there's been very little April Fools stupid so far today.

This was one of the best GenCon weekends I've ever had. Maybe the best.

I got on the road right at 4PM Wednesday. Traffic on I-65 was heavy going north, and not as fast as it might have been, since there was a lot of construction through Indiana. Lane shifts and lengthy stretches without a breakdown lane and all that. I kept watching my fuel gauge and listening to my stomach, planning to fill both fuel tanks once I got clear of crowded construction zones. By the time I did get clear, I was a few miles from Indy, so, fuck it, I just powered through and went to the hotel. Met up with Alex and Pat and Eunice, got mostly settled in, found something to eat (Five Guys - hadn't been to one in a long time), had the team meeting. A lot of new faces - the most women we've had on the team ever!

Thursday morning, breakfast at First Watch across from the hotel. Everybody and their brother knows about Patachou now, so it gets hammered. Honestly, First Watch is just as good, by my measure, and its menu has more that appeals to me. Got over to the ICC, dropped a couple of things off at the booth, and headed over to R. Talsorian's booth for the Cyberpunk Red starter box. Got to meet Mike Pondsmith, who was very gracious to this fanboy. Back to our space. Played a lot of the upcoming Mistborn board game expansion and watched the crowd. Dinner at Punch Bowl Social, which was okay enough, and during which I learned that my recent weight loss and drastic decrease in alcohol consumption have combined to make me a very easy drunk.

Friday, more Mistborn at the booth. After my shift, got to see Steve, Leighton, and Josh and catch up with their goings-on. Then over to Lucas Oil Stadium for the X-Wing campaign by the Shuttle Tydirium podcast. They had a weekend-long narrative set up, and I was able to get into two of the three nights. I flew poorly and set up things even worse, and got hammered. Won some great prizes, though!

Saturday, repeat. Much better performance at X-Wing, though. Prevented my opponent from accomplishing one of three objectives, and wiped his (numerically and pointwise) superior force from the table. Scored enough points to boost myself into the middle of the pack overall, and second of 11 Rebel players. The Empire won the campaign, though. More great prizes, more good times, and if I go back in 2020, darn right I'm signing up for the campaign again.

Shorter day Sunday. Did my three hours in the booth, then went to the hotel slept. Dinner at Giordano's - darn good deep-dish pizza. Loaded the Mariner, said my farewells, and lit out for home. Made great time on the return trip - less than two hours from getting onto I-65 in Indy and crossing the river, including a stop for gas at Exit 76. Got home, unloaded, slept.

Back to work this afternoon. Not especially looking forward to it, but I'll power through. Later this week, some work on the Mariner - brakes and an oil change - and maybe a trip down to Liberty to see Mom.

I tested an 11" Macbook Air. The keyboard feels good, but that screen just isn't big enough for me. I tend to have three or four windows open at once, and the small screen didn't feel suited to that. I can make use of the sidebar on the iPad in small doses, and it really is meant to be a limited-use function; I'm just too used to the 13" screen that's been my primary for better than seven years now. Also, the 11" Airs don't have a SD card slot, and while that's not a deal-breaker, I'd rather have one than have to give over a USB port to a reader.

Somewhere along the way, my existing Macbook picked up the firmware upgrade that allows it to make use of an 8GB RAM installation. Apple never publicized this, and I only stumbled onto it when asking around about the machine's lifespan. $55 ain't bad for that kind of improvement.

I passed the biostats midterm with stumbling colors. Just one more exam and this subject and I can part ways. It'll show up again, I know, and I'll manage, but the dosage will be much much smaller.

We closed the SPHIS building on Friday (3/4) due to water line replacement. Turned out to be a boon, as I got hit with some kind of stomach flu Thursday evening. Lovecraft had the Colour out of Space; I had the color out of orifices, and I believe them to be equally unearthly. Like, colors seen only on those arrow-poison tree frogs. Still dealing with some congestion and coughing, but those are minor and don't leave me waiting for the sweet release of death.

One upside to having a weakened sense of smell and taste because of a cold is the easy justification of eating something more spicy than I usually have, and this time, there was Joella's, a hot chicken joint over on Frankfort Avenue. So good, y'all.

This looks like a fast week. I've got a debate tonight, and it should be a lovely train wreck - my wonderful partner and I are assigned the pro side of arming teachers in JCPS. It's an indefensible position, so we decided to just dive into the NRA gibberish pool and vomit out talking points for seven minutes. I'll throw in a personal story - my dad left the Standard Gravure building a half-hour before some asshole walked in and shot 20 people back in '89, and for proper effective cheapness, anecdote trumps data. Normal stuff in the other two classes, and then Spring Break. I have to be at SPHIS part of the week, since offices stay open, but I've got a four-day weekend at the end and hopefully new little toy spaceships to play with.

Current Mood: content

Roadside Picnic

Bright Ideas, Dark Futures

Northern White Clouds

Patterns

Reasons Leading to a Flameout

Blue Mountain

If I Should Fall Behind

Listen to the Sky

Light my Fire

Sentimental Heart

This Life

When the Morning Comes

On the Edge of Town

Most High

Get Him Back

Let's Face the Music and Dance

Good Traveling

Quintessential Superstar

Man Made Monster

The Town That Was

To be a Lover

Never Gonna Happen

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