Fun Weekend

November 10, 2025 by Adam in Family

I was a generally pleasant weekend, with Emma wandering over Friday afternoon to hang out and start the weekend in earnest.  This time she bought huge volumes of popcorn and the usual chocolate, one of the perks of her current job.

Saturday started with blueberry pancakes, dutch babies, whip cream, and a mocha, followed by the fam descending on the house for a Mothership game.  I'd been prepping for nearly a year, making props and pictures and music and more, so it was almost a relief that it turned out well.  There's something satisfying about starting a self destruct sequence and having it count down for ten minutes in real time as the players scramble to figure out how to get away before their ten minutes are up.

I had some good puttering time over the weekend, printing and painting minitatures for the first time in months.  I'm pondering a new D&D campaign and starting to get things ready to go.  Emma and I also went to the Picadilly flea market and ended up with a wide assortment of treasures to take home, including a cool pre-Walkman portable tape recorder that's going into my next Delta Green game for sure.  Next up was a library run with Emma before she went back to her mom's.

Jo and I worked on the basement where we built some new IKEA shelving and did a big rearranging of things.  It's been feeling somewhat chaotic lately, so we put useful things on shelves and hid the weird things a little better, which is probably a metaphor for life or something.

The Haunting of Ypsilon 14

November 08, 2025 by Adam in Adam's Games

Last Christmas I asked for a tabletop roleplaying game called Mothership, a mix of horror and scifi like the Alien movie from long ago, along with a tiny adventure called The Haunting of Ypsilon 14.  I spent the last year making props and web goodies, slowly building to the point where I couldn't really prepare much more.  With Jason not able to make Delta Green today, I broke out all the stops and told the tale of the working crew of the cargo ship Tempest, dropping off their cargo on a mining station.  Soon enough they were trying to track down Mike to get his thumb print so they could leave, but no one could find out where he went.  They asked around, descended into the mines, discovered his empty vacc suit, found the weird alien pod, and soon the invisible monster was picking off miners one by one.

We lost Francis' android character who had to leave early, who was sucked into the invisible monsters giant maw without a trace.  Sonja, the station chief, nearly got sucked up as well, if not for a quick witted character lopping off her arm before she was sucked up forever.  Self-destructs were set, overrides were bypassed to allow them to leave, and after some final hijinx they made it off the asteroid to relative safety.

Mocha Friday

November 07, 2025 by Adam in Family

I'm really happy that it's almost the weekend.  Work's been more frustrating than usual, with tools breaking and mysterious problems popping up.  It's always a bummer when work feels like work.

Since Jason can't make it tomorrow, I decided to run a Mothership one-shot with the rest of the crew.  It's another roleplaying game in the style of Aliens, with the story being that they're members of a cargo hauler, docking at a mining station to drop off cargo.  I've been making props, web pages, images, and software for months in preparation, so hopefully it goes well.  I'm a little fuzzy on the rules, but they're pretty light and I figure if I have enough magic tricks they won't mind the occasional rule stumble.

I've also started prepping for another D&D campaign, this time with Jason, hopefully BJ, and some others.  For some weird reason I'd rather prep for a game than play a video game myself.  There's just something deeply satisfying in creating something from scratch and getting to show it off.

Life is full of various annoyances.  My Tesla is misbehaving and I should just bring it to Salem for service.  Canada sent back my passport application because I didn't write down the photographer on the back of my picture.  Evenings feel more glum than usual with the darkness.

On the plus side, I think we're getting the state rebate for our second heat pump, so hopefully that gets finished in December just in time for all the tax breaks.  The kids are all doing just fine, as are the kitties.  

Cold Monday

November 03, 2025 by Adam in Family

I spent some time over the weekend to take out the air conditioner in the shed.  Unfortunately I forgot to close the window so it's really cold here this morning. 

It was a good weekend, with Emma and I going to hang out at Hideaway Bakery with her big brother.  The farm house is coming along, his trip to eastern Oregon was fun, and his life seems to be doing well.  Emma and I did a bit of thrifting and our usual library trip, though mostly for entertainment purposes.  Mostly we seemed to watch a lot of Time Team.

I managed a bit of yardwork and general cleaning on Sunday, but wore myself out and mostly puttered around later in the day.  I made another radio thingie and signal tracking thingie for an upcoming roleplaying game.  With the current AI tools, vibe coding these things is shockingly fast as long as you're not too picky about how it looks.

Now it's back to work, where I have to write real code and half my time is just trying to keep my development tools functioning.

Halloween Mocha Friday

October 31, 2025 by Adam in Family

It is indeed a little spooky today, not the least that I volunteered to be on call while my coworker flew to LA to go to a haunted house with his sister.  Hopefully I don't regret taking it on today.

Otherwise life is good.  Jo and I went to a reading of The Bells at Oregon Contemporary Theater.  The author died earlier this year from ALS and her husband helped finish publishing the book.  It was sad and hopeful and an interesting night out.  I ran into an old friend from high school who's one of the few who stuck around town - we keep running into each other every few years.

I've been having way too much fun making AI generated props for my games.  This one is a radio station for the fictional town of Groversville, with songs, a DJ, commercials, and emergency interruptions.  I have a little FM radio transmitter and I can send it to a real radio, though the range is very short.

Jo's off to the writing shed tonight, sticking me with distributing candy.  Tomorrow Emma and I will visit our eldest son at Hideaway Bakery for a little visit.  Maybe I can get to a thrift store or two.  Crazy that November is right around the corner.

Rainy Weekend

October 27, 2025 by Adam in Family

It was a weekend full of lots of little things.  Emma and I made our traditional library run.  Jo had a Wordcrafter's event downtown, so Yvonne and I went down to lend a hand - it was a madhouse with hundreds of kids and parents in costume.  Coloring pages and madlibs were in short supply.

Emma loaded up on podcasts and audiobooks for the week ahead at the chocolate factory, along with playing some old school Psychonauts.  We also peeled and processed more apples, loading up the dehydrator again.  It's amazing how many apple chips we get from that small tree each year.

I vibe coded my retro Raspberry Pi cartridge project so it opens the content of the web pages on the "cartridge" and plays them on the screen, then closes it when you pull the cartridge.  It's funny how much I enjoy prepping for a game I hopefully play one day.

Now it's back to work - I've got a presentation tomorrow so I want to prep that a little.  Otherwise the week seems soggy and uneventful.

Tattooed Mocha Friday

October 24, 2025 by Adam in Family

I got my Apollo 11 tattoo this week, taking Wednesday afternoon off work to get ink done at Myth Tattoo. Kinsey had a big tv, so I put on the Apollo 11 documentary to distract from the surprisingly painful parts near by wrist and elbow.  I took the transparent wrap off last night and am happy with the results.  Some of the line work will fade over the next few weeks.  There's even a tiny red dot where I was born if you look closely enough.

As for the rest of the week, all is generally well.  Jo's working away at school and Wordcrafters.  Emma got to press foil around chocolate this week, which apparently takes a bit of artistry.  The eldest kid is off in Eastern Oregon with his girlfriend.  Yvonne has a newfound love of trauma care and has applied for the EMT program at Lane next month.  Life is never boring around here.

My Tesla is misbehaving, disabling some systems when it starts the car - nothing critical, but I'd like to have it working properly.  I'm trying to get ChatGPT do diagnose things for me, but may end up taking it to Salem to be serviced.

Otherwise I'm enjoying prepping for the next Delta Green mission, suitably spooky for this time of year.  

I have endless projects and things to fix this weekend, though Emma will likely force me to do fun things like a library run and perhaps thrifting.  She's playing Psychonauts and enjoying it's quirky sense of humor.

Sniffly Weekend

October 20, 2025 by Adam in Family

I had a touch of a cold over the weekend - nothing too bad, just tired and sniffly on Sunday.  This morning I'm feeling a little tuckered but keeping the coffee going.  I'm going to make myself a mocha so I can enthusiastically review my coworkers for the annual reviews.

Otherwise it was a good weekend.  Saturday was Delta Green and I finally got to break out my OpenAI powered chatbot, pretending to be a conspiracy theory reporter on a BBS.  I was a little nervous that it would spout off weird things that I'd have to take back later, but it mostly stuck to the script.  There was some excitement over what to do about a possible alien baby, but I think I got things back on track by the end of the game and I think we'll wrap it up next session.

Sunday had Emma and I going to the flea market at the fairgrounds first thing in the morning and the library in the afternoon.  I made lasagna for Duncan on Sunday as it was just the two of us for dinner that night.

Yvonne is back in Portland, having had a good time visiting her dad in Rochester.  She and Jo should be back home around noon.

Mocha Friday

October 17, 2025 by Adam in Family

Jo drove Yvonne up to Portland last night, loading her on a plane to visit her dad in Rochester for a few days.  She's been doing really well getting around and taking care of things herself, which is a magical thing to experience as a parent.

It's been pretty quiet.  Data's been giving me head butts in hopes of getting pets.  I've been having fun playing with my retro Raspberry Pi computer and putting together fun "cartridges" for upcoming rpg props.  It turns out AI does a pretty good job making little video games and the cool looking scientific displays.

My checklists keep growing and things keep getting crossed off.  I think we've finally settled on Priority One for the new heat pump.  I need to do some paperwork for my car donation.  I visited with tattoo artist Kinsey and will get my ink done next Wednesday, apparently right after Jo's appointment. 

I'm super excited for my Delta Green group tomorrow.  It's been far too long since we've hung out, rolled dice, and laughed hysterically at the outcome.

Tattoos, Web Sites, and All the Things

October 15, 2025 by Adam in Adam

Life seems to be full of lists and schedules, with obstacles thrown in my path just to keep me on my toes.

The web site went down because I didn't pay my domain name provider.  That was easily fixed after I stumbled across why it was behaving badly.  Hopefully that gives me more time to leisurely transfer everything over to my new server, which is annoyingly complicated enough that I don't want to rush it.

I've got a tattoo consult this afternoon, hopefully getting my Apollo 11/earth/moon ink done in the next few weeks.  That'll be an exciting thing, and a long time in the making.  I called both of my parents to try and figure out exactly when I was born to calculate the position of Apollo 11.  I'll still have to take some liberties with scale, but I like being accurate where I can.

We're trying to get a heat pump figured out before the end of the year.  I embarrasingly sent some clarifying questions to Jo and not the heat pump guy, which I fortunately figured out before calling him to complain. 

Work's coming along - I keep getting exciting opportunities to work on things.  Hopefully my willingness to jump in to new and unfamiliar areas ends up being good for my career and doesn't drive me too crazy.  After awhile it's hard to get too worked up about feeling lost and incompetent once again.

My favorite thing to do these days is making weird props for my various roleplaying games.  I've been vibe coding a retro platformer video game to stick on a cartridge.  There are annoying bugs to sort through, but it still feels magical to end up with this actual video game prop with a cool label I can hand to the players and they can play it.