Monthly Review, June 2022

Whew, it feels like June has both taken forever and absolutely flown by, so let’s take a look at what I actually did.

Homestead

We managed our semi-monthly trip to Callahan’s, which is always fun, to pick up chicken supplies and a starter batch of red wigglers to start cultivating for composting, working the garden, and feeding the babies. I knocked together a cute little worm farm for them to live in and filled it up with compost and scraps and whatnot. It might be too hot for them to survive, but I’ll keep ’em moist and see how they do.

I’m struggling to get the wood shop back in good shape, partly due to overwhelm and travel and getting sick, partly due to the sun touching the surface of the earth and making it one billion degrees kelvin every day because Texas. I did bang up a little clamp rack, finally, so those are out of the way.

It being so hot, I did hook up an old mister system I had lying around for the chickens. They are miserable in the daily 100º+ heat, and they hate getting wet, but I’d rather them grouse about the water than wake up to a coop full of unexpected rotisserie birds. I did manage to hook up some chicken sitting while we were out of town for a bit, so that alleviated some worries there, but still.

Money-wise, I closed on a refinance of the place to lock in a lower rate and grab some cash for repairs. I’m still working my way down the terrible list of things that need to get done before I think about selling in a year or two — next up is gutters and insulation, I think. Again, dragging on those for the same reasons as above, but they’ll get there. I got started myself by pulling down a ton of old telephone line and coax cable that’s been strung up forever, but there’s only so much I can do here.

I’ve been trying to get some sweet potato slips started in the front garden, but the sun is just too punishing for the little buddies, so I’m giving them another shot in some planter bags in the back where it’s less awful. This is my first time with these, so, fingers crossed.

Health

It’s been kind of rough here, health-wise. First off, allergies are as bad as they’ve always been, or worse, and it’s a constant fight against pollen and mold to just function like a normal human even a little bit.

Travel is always touchy, too. I tend to fall off my routines when I’m not nestled safely in my little hole here, so I totally blew my 12–8 intermittent fasting and low sugar/carb pre-diabetes diet while I was visiting dad in NY. Lots of bread, cookies, Tim Horton’s, sponge candy from Parkside, all the things, so when I got back, my blood sugar was through the roof. I’m getting it back under control again now that I’m holed up in a controlled environment once more, but I gotta figure that stuff out.

Parkside Candy in Buffalo, NY

Speaking of, it’s been a minute since I’ve been on an airplane — because, you know, the plague and all — so I wanted to get some flying drugs from my doctor before heading out. Well, I procrastinated, and when I went in for labs, she was out sick for the week, and … that was bad. Fortunately, I mentioned my situation in public, and some folks reached out to lend me a hand with some very kind donations, and I made it there and back without a hitch. (I also picked up a carload of pallets while I collected my pills, so, extra bonus.)

And then, Pai and I managed to pick up a cold on the flight back home, despite being masked as much as possible. We both tested a bunch to make sure it wasn’t covid, but we were both still out of commission for a week or so with coughing, sore throats, stuffed heads, chest congestion, body aches, and overall grossness. Took it easy for a bit and loaded up on dayquil and cough drops and smoothies and just rode it out, but man, I’d forgotten how much even non-deadly illness can suck. I’m just getting over the last of it right now, and I’m not eager to do that again any time soon.

Games

On to the good stuff!

RPGS

• Played a couple of two-shots of Orbital Blues on the Gauntlet, one where I was a bad news shooty guy bringing in a fighter for an underground boxing match and one where I was an ex-blackops face man doing a Train Job. The game is okay — there’s a lot of good stuff in there, and it’s a beautiful book, but it still feels like there’s a gear slipping in there somewhere. Maybe a longer run of the game will bear the themes out a bit more.
• Played a one-shot of Root with the folks at Magpie. That’s a sweet little game, pretty much does exactly what it’s supposed to, where you’re little forest animal vagabonds with the usual PbtA type stuff. Wouldn’t mind playing it again, but I feel like I got it.
• Had our weekly Saturday game of Stars in the Dark. Our scoundrels have more or less settled in to their new smuggling business on 1314, but we’re very good at getting into trouble. Left off getting into some Imperial entanglements, which found my man Boko traumaing out and surrendering to the cops so the rest of the crew could get away. He’s not going to do much time, but I’ll get to play a new character while he’s away, which will be super fun!
• Had our first “real” session of our in-person game of The Expanse, which kicked off well. It’s a more trad-type system than I usually roll with, but the group is great, and the missions are fun, so it’s a good time all around. We got a pig!

• And, of course, our weekly game of The Between is always super fun. We finished off the Coven threat by failing some rolls and *almost* letting Mother Thackery undo everything that Hargrave House has ever done to bring back the Coven’s progenitor, but Gareth put on a mask as the last moment, so now Mother Eve is back, but she’s just a regular old background threat now. I’m sure it’ll be totally fine. (This was *super* exciting for me as a Keeper, because I had no idea how it was going to play out, and *totally* had no idea how I was going to play it if we had to rewind Hargrave’s history. Maybe a fun time-jump side adventure? I dunno!)
• We finished off with our monthly pickup game (which is the Faded Havens group when Nic has to duck out for a BIPAC meeting) with me running Honey Heist for Peter, Heath, and Ben. I’d never run, played, or watched it before, and I was still super sick, but it’s a fun, light little one-pager and we still had a blast. You really can’t go wrong with a bunch of bears trying to steal some rare honey from a poacher prince in a ridiculous Dubai hotel. RAAAAAAR

Other Games

• Still doing our weekly “golf” game in VR, which sometimes winds up just being hanging out painting minis in the basement of a virtual game store, which is still delightful.
• We did get some actual golf in, though, and played through the new El Dorado course in Walkabout Golf. The design of these courses is always incredible, and I’m astounded how they manage to make each one better than the last.
• Played Tak a bunch with Nic at Nerd Nite, which is always a good time.
• Played through the basic campaign of Invi?ible Inc on steam. I’d seen good things about their other games — they’re either windows-only or otherwise not supported on my machine — so I was glad to be able to give this a shot. Nice, short, and has plenty of sneaky tactical fun!

• I watched a bunch of videos playing and reviewing solo/pnp/roll-and-writes, and of course got the bug, so I knocked out a little solo space trader game in like three days. It’s free, and actually quite fun: Antiverse Trader. (I also streamed a play-through of it, which worked out great even through I am way better at designing games than playing them sometimes. :D)

I did *not* hit my goal of having Icebox:Timeline all edited this month (because all the things), so that’s still on deck. We’ll see how that goes.

Media

• Re-watched the first season of The Expanse in preparation for the game. It’s good, but I don’t feel compelled to keep going with it.
• Strange New Worlds is still good, and I’m still enjoying that
• Finished up the Obi Wan Kenobi show. It was fine.
• Started watching Ms. Marvel and it is GREAT.
• Watched a bunch of forgettable stuff on the plane: Justice League (not the Snyder cut, I don’t think, but I don’t care either way), the new Venom/Carnage movie, and the recent Scream requel. All fine as something to keep myself occupied in the air, nothing remarkable about any of them.
• Went to see the new Cronenberg movie, Crimes of the Future and YIKES it is so good.
• Finally got around to reading Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower — I thought I’d read it before, but now I’m pretty sure I haven’t, because dang, I would remember that. Amazing, of course.
• Reading a book on How to Take Smart Notes. It’s good, but I feel like I got the hang of all that Zettelkasten stuff from youtube videos. Not mad, though.

Work

Got my last batch of students all graduated and on their way to thrilling new careers making websites for people. :party hat:

Got the new batch of students in, and they all seem like really good folks. We’ve got some great technical coaches helping out, super enthusiastic, and our best lecturer on board this time around, so this is going to be a killer cohort. I’m also happy to be doing a bit of actual teaching here, too, for a change — the New Way doesn’t leave a lot of room for instructors to, you know, instruct, but I wedge it in when I can, and dang, I’m pretty good at it.

I am *super* glad to have had a week of vacation in there, though, and a few long weekends along the way, because I am *super* burned out. Other than all that, it is what it is, nothing super exciting, and we’re gonna keep doing the thing.

Other Stuff

Like I said above, got to take a good week off to fly up to Rochester with Nic and Pai to visit dad and Jane. The flights were super smooth, it’s always good to see folks and toodle around the area, and I really needed a relaxing week with literally nothing to do. Allergies are still a thing, though, and I did spend a good piece holed up chilling and poking at projects — and Pai is an absolute master of holing up and drawing and watching stuff and doing exactly what she wants :D. Turns out I get super people’d out pretty quickly these days, but it’s all good.

I drove Nic and Pai up to Niagara Falls, which was awesome as usual, and we went down to the Cave of the Winds thing and got soaked, which was also super fun. We also went looking for the Fox Sisters’ psychic table downtown, hung out at the cool central library a bit, visited an old cemetery and walked along the canal on a butterfly trail, checked out some art stores and got food and laid around in the yard played with frogs and all that. Good times all around, and I love spending time with Pai whenever I can. (There were a bunch of flight delays coming and going that were kind of a pain in the butt, but that’s the way it goes.)

Handed over a stack of old graphic novels for Pai to burn through while she was sick, all the Sandman and Walking Dead and Promethea and whatnot. She’s gonna love ‘em.

Nic’s birthday was on the Sunday we got back, and I’d planned something great for them. We drove down to Houston and spent a little time digging and grabbing and pushing dirt around on the doozers at Dig World! It was super hot, so we didn’t stay very long, but it was the best birthday ever. We are having an amazing time together, all around, and I’ve honestly never been happier.

I got into the midjourney beta, which is super neat, and I’m totally going to sign up for the full deal and use it to generate some game art when I get to that point. It cranks out some wild stuff, and it’s only gonna get better, so that’s exciting.

We went to the first Nerd Nite in a long time at Vigilante and listened to some folks talk about rewilding urban areas and some sex stuff. Played some games, talked with some people we haven’t seen in a while, and had a very nice time all around.

I’ve been revisiting my writing and organization systems, getting my todoist and obsidian workflows into better shape. I think it’s working out pretty well, and I’ll probably talk more about it when I fully settle into it, but I think this is gonna help me out a lot.

Plans

Just going to keep doing the things. I’m a little gunshy about making game dev plans because I kind of bombed out on those for the last couple of months, so I think July is just going to be a fuck around and find out month. Just kind of see where stuff takes me, work on things as I get inspired, and see what happens.

I also bought tickets to visit Vancouver for part of a week in August! Nic is going to be up there for almost a month doing workshops and stuff, and I haven’t been there since we went up for an improv festival with Golden a while back, so it’ll be nice to just work from an airbnb during the day and do whatever we want the rest of the time. (And I got to use a bunch of credits for flights that got messed up before, so it *felt* a lot cheaper than it actually is.)

Other than that, yeah, just cruising along. Summer is hot and lazy, so July is rest month. We’ll see how *that* goes.