Chicago

August 31, 2023 by Adam in Family

Emma and I woke up early yesterday to hop on the airplane to Chicago. All our flights went well and we slowly made our way to the train station. Our only hiccup was the vending machine that sold train passes was out of order but we figured it out and took the blue line to our Airbnb. The boy met us and we had an evening of poke bowls, grocery shopping and catching up. Eventually he left and Emma and I conked out in our respective rooms.

This morning Emma made pancakes for everyone after not quite enough sleep. Soon the three of us were playing various RPGs and doing funny voices. We took a break to go on a long walk to get train cards and meet up with my coworker Jess for lunch. We chatted away mostly not about work and gobbled delicious vegetarian quesadillas.

Now we're crashing back at our place in a food coma. Time to schedule our touristy things soon.

Old Friends

August 29, 2023 by Adam in Adam

It was the late 80's and I was living with my girlfriend Rachel and our mutual friend BJ in a house by the fairgrounds.  We'd collectively hang out with Rachel's brother Jason, her friend Bridget, and a family friend Colin as we were all roughly the same age.  Though Rachel and I broke up, I kept her brother - Jason, Colin and I swam at Fall Creek, played Car Wars and Cyberpunk 2020, saw Akira in the theater, played early PC games, and generally had a great time.

Now Jason and Bridget are married with two girls.  Colin and his wife Suzanna live in Germany with their two boys.  Last night we descended on the Beer Stein for Colin's birthday to celebrate and wax nostalgic for old times.  Jo came along and patiently listened to our in jokes and references to mischief we got up to long ago.  Colin and BJ's parents were there too, the generation ahead of us, slowly getting older.  Some of them I haven't seen in thirty years.  It was a lovely, wistful night.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

August 28, 2023 by Adam in Family

Emma and I are heading to Chicago in a couple days, hanging out and going to a bunch of museums and touristy things.  We're both excited and nervous, but feel more confident after doing a fair amount of trip planning over the weekend.

We also had our family D&D group after a long hiatus, which was great fun.  I think Seraph wanted to keep playing past our usual cut-off.  I think I said "okay, so you're splitting the party" at least twice.  We'll play again in a couple week after Francis recovers and we get back from Chicago.  I'm excited to see how it goes.

Emma and I also finished fixing the sink the plumbers broke.  The last push went quickly, just adding a pipe and sticking everything together.  No leaks the first time we turned it on, which is a first for me.

Jo's back from their writer's retreat, which I think went well despite the smoke in the air.  The kids had a good low-key weekend.  Emma drove me around a bunch.  The fish got her medicine.  Kitties were petted.  All is well.

Mocha Friday

August 25, 2023 by Adam in Family

Jo's off at a writer's retreat for the next few days, so I'm doing the relatively easy kid and kitty care.  I'm currently enjoying the warm morning breeze through my open shed door.  It's been a long while since I've had to drive into work and I sure appreciate working from home these days.  We've got another release coming up next week, hopefully a more stable version after the big changes of the last.  Making software is a lot like raising children, both going through difficult changes usually followed by smooth sailing.

The Chicago trip is coming up, with Emma and I having a few last minute planning things to take care of.  It's also a D&D weekend after a long hiatus with Francis in Germany.  I'm excited to see what hijinx the adventurers get up to this time.

Life seems good these days.  Hopefully the transition into fall and school will go relatively smoothly.  More and more it feels like the last hurrah of summer is right around the corner.

Burst Eardrum

August 22, 2023 by Adam in Ben

Poor Ben's had a somewhat rough last few weeks.  I took him to urgent care where he was diagnosed with a bad ear infection.  After a few days of antibiotics he was feeling much better, though his other ear got plugged up too.  The second urgent care visit was an "everything is fine - keep taking antibiotics".  Last night was the third visit where he was diagnosed with a ruptured ear drum and given a different type of antibiotics.  Here's hoping that's the last of the visits to urgent care.  I think he mostly feels okay other than not hearing well.  The ear drum should heal by itself and hopefully the new antibiotics kill off whatever rugged bacteria decided to hang out in his ears.

Old Friends

August 21, 2023 by Adam in Family

It was a weekend of spontaneity.  Friday night Jo's friend Jennifer invited us to hang out with her and her husband Rett.  We walked over to 16 Tons and chatted until closing time, which is apparently a little after 9 pm at a place like that.  Rett's in IT, so we chatted about computer stuff and the larger group chatted about the joys of home ownership.

Saturday I headed to the coast and met up with Colin and his family, chatting away and then going for a hike.  Colin is essentially the same as he was when he was 16, if perhaps a little more settled and having teenage boys.  Colin's brother Miles was more of a surprise as I knew him at 14 and he's now an adult man with a beard.  The hike was good and Colin's older son Finn chatted with me about video games and D&D.  Since Emma was already at the coast, Jamie drove her down to Yachats and we made the long drive home.

Sunday was our project day.  Emma drove us to get her a new passport photo for her renewal, another mugshot where she looks like Russian mafia.  Then it was to Home Depot to pick up a toilet seat cover and new sink to replace the one the plumbers broke.  The toilet seat cover took a couple minutes to replace but the sink was a larger project and I stopped when I realized I needed a slightly longer pipe from True Value.  Almost done, though.

The afternoon was spent playing Baldur's Gate 3 in coop mode with Emma, fighting a giant spider and unlocking a scary book of necromancy.  It was super fun.

Mocha Friday

August 18, 2023 by Adam in Family

The air is clearing and we're supposed to get down to a chilly 85 degrees.  It was a somewhat busy work week, being on call and that annoying sense of responsibility to fix problems.  Fortunately my on-call rotation ended this morning and I'm footloose and fancy free again.  I had dinner this week with dad who I hadn't seen in a long while.  Ben's ear infection is much better after antibiotics.  Duncan and Jo are back from their Washington trip.  Emma's been staying at the beach for the last few days with her mom and grandma.  Hard to believe that a Chicago trip is right around the corner.

Not sure what I'm up to this weekend.  My old friend Colin is theoretically in town from Germany with his family.  I've got endless house projects to work on.  I made a cool spell effect miniature using a UV LED and transparent filament that I can't wait to show my players.  Baldur's Gate 3 continues to be highly amusing.  We'll see which shiny thing ends up getting most of my attention.

Infection Time

August 15, 2023 by Adam in Ben

Poor Ben had an ear ache that kept getting worse.  He was a trooper for a long while, but yesterday got to the point where he couldn't really do much and we started the Urgent Care journey.  It took a couple hours before we could get seen, so we left and came back. The nurse took a quick look, saw a completely blocked ear canal, and sent us home with a prescription for antibiotics.  Hopefully he starts feeling better today.

I pumped him full of pain meds when we got home and was feeling more hopeful and less in pain, so when I asked him what food sounded good, we ended up making sweet potato hash browns together.  Tasty!

Everything is On Fire

August 14, 2023 by Adam in Family

It's supposed to be 108 degrees today - not sure the AC in my little shed can handle it.  There's also smoke in the air from wildfires around Fall Creek.  I still have fond memories of driving out there in the summer with Colin and Jason, windows down and t-shirts on our heads to go swim in the creek.  

Work was exciting last week with a security incident.  I forgot that the first step of a security incident was to have everyone get excited and talk excitedly.  After everyone left work I hunkered down in the shed with some coding music and found and fixed the issue within an hour.  It ended up not being a particularly big deal, and we opted not to hotfix the next day though we'll get it patched today.

Jo and Duncan are up in Washington for a Newport Academy reunion where Duncan had his residental care.  Today they're visiting with some staff and some of the places they took Duncan for visits.  It seems to be going well, though Jo spent time in a Safeway parking lot charging the electric car they rented.  The car is apparently great, though the hotel's infrastructure was lacking.

The weekend was pretty quiet - Emma and I had a long chat with the Chicago fam, planning the trip a bit.  Baldur's Gate 3 was played.  Miniatures were painted.  The big social moment was going to see Yayoe and her band play, which was great. Jamie, Meg, Seraph, Emma and mom were all there to cheer her on in a loving, rowdy way.

Soap and Library Weekend

August 07, 2023 by Adam in Family

It was a generally fun weekend, mostly dominated by Baldur's Gate 3, but Emma and I also pried ourselves away to do some slightly more practical things.  The little free library is finally done after months of work.  It was a group effort, with Jo doing the design and getting the supplies, along with the initial woodworking last year.  Emma painted the front floral pattern.  As life got busy, Emma and I ended up finishing up the painting and door assembly.  This weekend we put the roof on and mounted it on the post.  We got a text from our neighbors saying how nice it looked this morning, so I suppose we can declare the project a success.

Emma also worked on making soap, using callendula oil she'd made herself.  I helped gather supplies, but it was all her work to make it happen.  It's been cool seeing Emma becoming increasingly competent.  She drove us to the library and drove to her mom's house, increasingly ready to get her license.

We also played way too much Baldur's Gate 3, which is likely the best D&D game I've played on the computer.  Emma and I have mostly figured out how to play co-op too, resulting in some classic D&D hijinks.  My favorite fight we were in involved opening a door to cast spells on the enemies on the other side.  Then we'd close it before it was their turn.  We ran out of spells, but kept throwing weird things to make the floor acid and another thing to suck them all into the center.  Classic D&D wackiness.

Baldur's Gate Mocha Friday

August 04, 2023 by Adam in Family

Nearly a quarter of a century ago I propped baby Sam on my lap and played the first Baldur's Gate game, a computer version of Dungeons and Dragons that caught my attention and had me playing through twice.  Yesterday the third in the series appeared, with rules and graphics updated and already getting rave reviews.  Emma tells me we'll be playing in co-op mode until we both suffer from the Tetris effect, visions of the game haunting our dreams.

Work had some fairly significant stresses this week, though I think I've sorted them out.  I was on call, we had a new version we're deploying, and we have a new deployment process as well.  Things went horribly wrong along the way, leading to a couple stressful moments, but we got the deployments working and as of this morning I'm no longer on call.

The weather has become lovely the last week, with our garden in bloom.  I need to pick more blueberries and soon the tomato forest out my window will start producing.  I'll never get to all the greens.  Ben's aquaponics class resulted in his ownership of a fish whose wastes get used as fertilizer, so I enjoyed the fruit of that labor as well.  Plus the sunflowers - they make me happy.