Spring Sunsets

March 17, 2025 by Adam in Family

The rain has stopped for a time and the light from the sunset is streaming through the cracks in the living room blinds.  We've had bad flooding in parts of town, but I think it's finally letting up.

Work's been busy again.  I'm on call and muddling through various problems that pop up.  Not sure I'll hit the deadlines I want to, but I'm making progress.

As for the weekend, Saturday was a pleasant and lazy day, with a trip to the library and hanging out with Emma all afternoon.  Sunday was D&D with friends, this time with the players rooting out the evil in a health spa run by three hags.

Poor Jo seems to have come down with whatever I had, just as I started feeling better.  I'm back to my usual self, which is great, while Jo hangs out on the couch and plays video games in between brief bursts of energy to accomplish something useful.

Spring break is right around the corner.  Duncan and Emma have finals this week.  Emma's heading to the beach with her mom later this week.  Jo and I are doing a short beach getaway the week after.  Hopefully we get some nice weather by then - the incessant rain was starting to get to me.

Mocha Friday

March 14, 2025 by Adam in Family

I was pretty sick this week, a combination of sinus headaches, sore throat, and general fatigue.  The COVID and flu tests were negative, so I think it was just a plain old cold.  I was constantly taking Advil every four hours for part of it, but I think I'm finally starting to feel better. 

I kept working and doing all the things, though I skipped tea with mom this week, mostly to avoid getting her sick.  Dad stopped by for dinner last night as apparently Seraph and Robbie are sick and I was the backup plan.  He's been roped into being a dentist again temporarily, filling in at his old practice.

I printed and painted some minis for the upcoming D&D session.  Jo and I started playing a new game - Split Fiction - which is a cool co-op game.  I bought a day bed for my office to turn it into an impromptu guest bedroom.  It's halfway assembled next to me, though I'm still waiting on a mattress.  Just learned that our new team abbreviation is COVEN, which greatly amuses me.

Fortunately the weekend is right around the corner.  I've got D&D with friends this Sunday.  Tomorrow I'll likely hang out with Emma, do our usual library run, and play some video games.

Nyquil Weekend

March 10, 2025 by Adam in Family

I ended up getting the sniffles Saturday afternoon when I was taking Emma and Yvonne to the library.  Pretty soon I was sniffling away and ended up taking Nyquil.  I always forget just how spacy it makes me and I was zoning out for the rest of the evening and into the next morning.  Fortunately I slept really well, which I suppose was the point.

Emma headed out Sunday afternoon to meet up with mom and Francis to talk over a trip to visit Sadie this summer.  I headed to my office for some spring cleaning and furniture rearranging.  I took out shelves, plants, and a chair to make room for a daybed I ordered that should be arriving soon.  We don't really have a guest bedroom anywhere and hopefully this will do the trick.  Plus everything is squeaky clean now, which is a good way to get rid of the winter doldrums.

Now I'm back to work, trying to get my Nyquil-addled brain into high gear to figure out some tricky problems.  Hopefully I can sort through the last of these weird bugs.

Still Alive

March 07, 2025 by Adam in Family

It's been a somewhat more stressful week than usual, between the critical feature I'm working on and the organizational changes going on to our team.  Hopefully we find out more this afternoon.  I made way too many mochas for myself all week - I'll return to my usual coffee on Monday.

In the meantime, I'm getting things done and working more than I probably should.  I did sneak away for a tea break with mom and Emma, and Jo and I had a quick date night at Cafe Yumm.  I managed to get some video game time playing Avowed for some fun fantasy adventure.  This weekend doesn't have anything going on, so hopefully I can get a bit of downtime.

Our wayward son is coming to Eugene earlier than expected, leaving Albuquerque at the end of the month.  I think the plan is that he'll stay with Dez and spend some time figuring out next steps.  We've got a long list of projects for him, so at least he won't be bored.

Duncan and Emma are wrapping up the term - one more week of classes and then finals week.  Wild that Emma's graduating in just a few months.  And Yvonne turns 18 next month.  Everything keeps moving ahead.

Rainy Monday

March 03, 2025 by Adam in Family

It's a drizzly Monday, with a little more work excitement than I'd like.  My manager and longtime friend was laid off Friday afternoon.  It's happened to me before, strangely also with Jonathan back in my Health Catalyst days.  It'll probably be several months of uncertainty as we muddle through, though I've got plenty of critical work to keep me busy and likely employed.  I slept poorly over the weekend, worked a little here and there, and am back into things this morning.

As for the rest of the weekend, it was generally a good time.  There was plenty of D&D.  Saturday was a great time with the family group improvising a play that involved murdering a wind-up goblin doll with a giant mousetrap, along with a spray of blood into the audience.  It was well received by the evil hag, as such things are.  Sunday was the friend group, with fantasy space monsters and dead gods.

Emma and I made a productive library run Saturday afternoon, along with helping Jo a little on some tree pruning and straightening.  Spring is right around the corner and it's exciting to see all the crocuses bloom.  Can't wait to start wearing shorts again.

Giant Mini Time

March 02, 2025 by Adam in Adam's Games

It was back-to-back D&D this weekend and I broke out the biggest mini I've ever printed and painted - the Astra Dreadnaught.  It was accompanied by a couple Star Anglers with LEDs for the lures.  The battle itself went relatively well, with the paladin scoring a couple natural 20s and turning the tide.  A couple of their crew members were eaten, unfortunately, though they rescued some stranded sailors from another ship and want to recruit one along with a dog.  At least I made the players say a few words for their fallen comrades.

Mocha Friday

February 28, 2025 by Adam in Family

I just finished the last gulp of my mocha.  It's been a full week and nice to be sneaking into the weekend.  I switched dentists back to Dr. Cantrell, who I went to long ago and is just down the hill.  I took my car into the shop where it behaved perfectly - the car computer reported a misfiring cylinder, so I'm going to see if I can get the spark plugs replaced. It was unnaturally warm and sunny yesterday so I took a stroll through the neighborhood to warm up.

I had my bug bash at work and only found minor bugs, but it generated more work to sort out.  We might also have an in-person get together at Microsoft mid-July, though it's at the same time Jo is in Washington for school, so we may have to figure it out.  Theoretically we'll only have adult children by then.

It's a back-to-back D&D weekend.  I've been organizing minis and reading up on things, so hopefully I'm vaguely prepared.  

Otherwise we've been doing our usual routine and keeping everyone doing okay.  Emma seems over her cold and done with the first draft of her thesis.  Yvonne likes her gothic horror class.  Duncan made us all watch the Minecraft trailer at dinner last night.  Jo and I walked down to 1960 Cochina for a date night dinner.

Life goes on.

Sniffly Monday

February 24, 2025 by Adam in Family

I think I've started coming down with a cold - not too bad, but still feeling slower than usual.  Yvonne seems to have one too and Emma had a cold over most of the weekend.  Tis the season, I suppose.

Saturday was pretty quiet.  Emma was sick at her mom's and Jo had an event, so I fed the kids and played way too much Avowed for most of the day.  I took breaks for housework and managed some gardening - pruning plants and generally cleaning up for the coming of spring.  Eventually Jo returned from a generally successful event, along with a friend from Grant's Pass who spent the night before heading home early in the morning.  

Sunday I visited my friend Jason to play board games.  He has a ton that he's never played, so he dug out a Lord of the Rings Duel-style game and we played and learned as we went.  I won the two games we played, but that was somewhat besides the point and it turns out we missed a few rules here and there.  Hanging out and playing board games was crazy fun, and Jason was very happy to play some games gathering dust on his massive shelf of games, so it was a great time.

Afterwards I picked up Emma, who was missing me (and likely Data).  We hung out, played games, worked on a couple projects, and I took her home after dinner.

One stressful thing was having the check engine light start flashing on my car on my way to Jason's.  I think one of the cylinders was misfiring, so I turned around and parked it in my driveway.  Now I'm waiting for a car computer reader thingie to arrive before making further decisions.  Fortunately I don't really have to drive anywhere this week, so there's no immediate crisis.  I eventually want to get a new car, but was going to wait until later this year when some Microsoft stock magically appears.

Now I'm back at work, going a little slow with being sick.  My unit tests are mysteriously failing and I'm trying to track down why.

Mocha Friday

February 21, 2025 by Adam in Family

I just finished the last gulp of my mocha.  The heater in my shed is a little wonky, so I bundled up in slippers and a jacket and the coffee is keeping me pleasantly warm.  

My work projects are coming along nicely and hopefully disaster will be averted.  It's been a fun "keep the lights on" project and I'm getting better at breaking complicated changes into smaller bites for others to digest.  It's also been nice to not be on call this week, which puts me a little on edge.

We've got a quiet weekend ahead.  Jo has a big writer's event on Saturday and another Sunday afternoon.  I suspect Emma and I will be fighting over the computer to play Avowed, but I've got some miniatures to finish organizing for the next D&D sessions.

I've been trying to put together a list of house and farm projects for our wayward son's return.  It's increasingly obvious that we've got a ton of things to do - we'll see how far we get.

We also got Apple TV+, so Jo and I have been watching all the new shows.  Such are the exciting things in our lives these days.

Avowed

February 19, 2025 by Adam in Adam's Games

One of the quirky artifacts I still have from my Neverwinter Nights days is a box signed by a bunch of people from Obsidian who worked on the sequel.  The founders worked on the original Fallout and Baldur's Gate, and have generally made good games since then.  Pillars of Eternity 2 is one of Emma's favorite RPGs and their latest game, Avowed, is set in the same world.

I started playing last night and I'm impressed.  There's a cool, fungal art style to the land and your player has a touch of weird fungal growths, which I suspect ties into the story somehow.  I've been itching for a good RPG and excited to dig into this one more.