First Day of School

September 29, 2025 by Adam in Family

Duncan's heading back to school and Yvonne starts today at LCC.  She's got a biology class and is hopping on the bus at noon.  Hopefully all goes well.

Emma had an interview at Euphoria as a chocolateir of some sort - she should hear more today.  Unfortunately the car we gave her had the power steering fluid leak out and she's having to fork over $700 to get it fixed.  Hopefully that's the last for awhile.

Jo and I had a great time at McKenzie river and took our kayaks up to Clear Lake to paddle around for the day.  As advertised, the water was strikingly clear and the day was beautiful.  I'm glad we got to get away for a little while.

The rest of the weekend was a mix of projects and play.  Emma and I went to the library and started to play a fun little puzzle game called Strange Antiquities.  I made crepes for everyone Sunday morning.  Later Emma and I worked on finishing the compost shelter, just in time for the rains this morning.

Now I'm back at work, having just finished wading through my email messages.  I'll try and gird my loins and figure out what I should be working on next.

McKenzie Bridge Vacation

September 26, 2025 by Adam in Family

We've abandoned our children and headed for McKenzie Bridge for a couple nights, hopefully making it up to Clear Lake to paddle around later today.  It's the end of a very pleasant vacation.  I accomplished vast amounts of things the last few days, some practical and others less so.  I cleaned the patio, basement, and garage.  I've got a tattoo consult scheduled.  I'm donating my old car to KLCC on Tuesday.  I've got another heat pump estimate setup for Monday.  All my vaccinations made my arms sore for a few days, but I'm feeling normal again. Emma found an old Radio Shack black and white security monitor that I'm getting prepped to sneak into my Delta Green game, hooking it up to a Raspberry Pi I had laying around.  Plus I managed to play a no-Flush game in Balatro and unlock a new Joker.

Emma had some bad car news - the power steering fluid was punctured and leaked out - with a $700 bill.  That's real money to her, so she's a little bummed out but forking over the cash.

School starts for Duncan and Yvone next week.  Work starts for me.  In the meantime I'll enjoy being out in the woods by the river and puttering around as long as I can.

Tuesday Update

September 23, 2025 by Adam in Family

What is time on vacation, exactly.  The days blur away as every morning has a mocha and blueberry pancakes, one of my favorite ways to start the day.  I've been getting a ton of things done, which is satisfying.  I got my passport application mailed, the air in my tires filled up, emailed about a new tattoo, cleared out the yard debris from the backyard and loaded up the trailer.  The list goes on and on.

I've managed a bit of time to play - rediscovering Balatro, listening to audio books, and reading The Ophiuchi Hotline found at St. Vinnies.  Saturday Delta Green was awesome fun - fighting monsters with fire and UV light, along with running into it with an FBI vehicle.  Now we've started on a new mission with a UFO-crazed southern town.  Sunday D&D was cancelled, but Jason invited me and I played The Dead of Winter with his family. 

Jo and I's bedbug bites or whatever they were seem to be clearing up.  I got pumped full of vaccinations today and went out to the farm with my mom to get the latest update.  It's cool seeing it all come together.

Mocha Thursday

September 18, 2025 by Adam in Family

It's technically Thursday, but as it's the last day in my work week it seemed like a good excuse to make myself a mocha.  It's hackathon week at work and I'm pretty happy with the way my proof-of-concept turned out.  Since I'm out on vacation for the report out I'm putting together a little movie talking about it, complete with clips of cats typing on keyboards.  I also did a presentation yesterday that generally went well.  Today I might take it somewhat easier and work on updating some documentation.

It's back-to-back Delta Green and D&D this weekend, so I'm busy doing some last minute prepping.  That's half the fun for me, though I'm excited to see everyone again.  D&D in particular has had a long summer hiatus and I'm going to suggest we start wrapping up the current campaign.  I'm trying hard to avoid things fizzling out and give everyone a satisfying ending.

The crisis of the week seems to be that we have bedbugs in the house, likely brought back from Jo's trip to Corvallis last week.  Waking up with new bites is super annoying and I think I'll give up and sleep out in my shed until things get resolved.  Traps arrive today and we'll figure out next steps after we confirm them.

At least I have my mochas.

Processing Apples

September 15, 2025 by Adam in Family

It was a fairly quiet weekend.  Emma was over on Saturday and we did our usual library run followed by a trip to a couple thrift stores.  Emma got a cute babushka style top and I found a relatively new science fiction book.  One of these days I'll get around to reading my giant pile of books.

Sunday morning Emma went off to Orcus island with Jamie for the week.  I did a mix of video games, D&D prep, apple peeling and slicing for dehydration, folding clothes, and doing a bit of deep cleaning and tidying up.  It's been a long while, but I got around to printing and painting some minis while listening to a new audiobook.  I'd forgotten how fun that can be.

Now it's hackathon week at work and I've unfortunately gotten an enthusiastic thumbs up on my idea from one of the architects.  It's something I know how to do pretty well, so I'll spend some time throwing my idea together.  I'm also doing a presentation and need to polish up the presentation a little more and figure out how to schedule the thing.  I also have a bunch of continuing work I should moving along.  We'll see how much I accomplish this week as it sounds like it'll be a little wacky.

Starbucks Mocha Friday

September 12, 2025 by Adam in Family

We typically get our groceries delivered, which is great except occasionally they don't quite get our order right.  I went to grab another bag of preground coffee, only to find that they gave us whole beans.  While this is very much in the category of first world problems, I remembered that Yayoe got me a Starbucks gift certificate so I zipped over, got a couple bags of coffee beans ground to my specifications along with a latte for my troubles. 

Now I'm in my office, trying to get a test working that my coworker Andrew left me as a present before he left on vacation.  Hopefully the combined latte and mocha give me the mental fortitude to get it done.

Other than these small crises it's been a decent week.  I'm almost done with the scifi book I started weeks ago, switching between audio and physical book depending on what I'm doing.  I continue to enjoy Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, running around 15th century Europe and getting up to mischief.  The weekend after this has back-to-back Delta Green and D&D.  My D&D game hasn't happened in months so I'm going to suggest we wrap up the campaign, though I've got to put together an epic ending to our years-long adventures.

Emma leaves this Sunday to go on a vacation with her mom and big brother, so she wants to stock up at the library.  Sunday might be a house project and yard work day for me, depending on the weather and my enthusiasm.

Thrifting, Apples, and Video Games

September 08, 2025 by Adam in Family

It was a pleasant, low-key weekend.  Emma wandered over and we started our usual hanging out activities.  Saturday morning started with tasty dutch babies, followed by taking Yvonne and Emma to Oregon Art Supply and St. Vinnies.  I picked up some great vintage scifi - Varley and Zelazny.  Emma and I finished the main puzzle in Blue Prince, though may mysteries remain.  Looking for a new game, Emma started playing Minecraft, amazed at all the changes since she'd played as a kid.  Duncan came by to hang out and watch her discover all the new things he knows so well.

Sunday we processed more apples with the magical peeler/slicer/corer device, laying out the pieces in the dehydrator for our future selves to enjoy.  Emma and I went to the library in the afternoon, picked up assorted goodies for the week, and hung out at home until it was time for her to go.

Jo's been working away at school.  I picked up Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, taking my knight through various adventures in the 15th century and really enjoying it.  I continue to prep for Delta Green and work around scheduling issues.

Thunder is rumbling outside my shed window.  Feels like fall is already here.

Mocha Friday

September 05, 2025 by Adam in Family

It's been a busy work week, working through the last of my on-call responsibilities.  I'm hoping I can finally escape some of these things and get back to writing code again.  We also have Hackathon coming up and I'm scheming on interesting things to work on.

Jo's been sick this week, though slowly improving.  Emma didn't get the wine lab tech job, so she's gotten back on the horse and applied to four more jobs.  I passed Duncan's old flaky computer to my oldest son - he got it working after replacing the cpu with a used cpu.  I also finally scheduled some time off work, taking a week off in a couple weeks and hopefully getting away for a couple nights, though I also see a long list of house projects in my future.

As for fun this last week, I hung out with various people, prepped more for Delta Green, and played more Abiotic Factor.  The weekend will likely have some playing Blue Prince with Emma, maybe some thrifting, and lots of hanging out.

Productive Three Day Weekend

September 02, 2025 by Adam in Family

I very much enjoyed the extra day off this weekend.  Jo was off at a writer's conference, so Emma and I spent Saturday with a mix of paperwork and physical labor.  We started by washing Emma's new Subaru and the Tesla.  I performed my extensive Tesla maintenance by filling the window wiper fluid and showed Emma how to check the oil on her car.  Afterwards she worked on sanding and painting her dresser while I unloaded the mulch in the trailer and spread it around the raised beds.  Eventually we wound down for video games and our pizza and show night.  Duncan found this epic Minecraft video with 1,000 players that grabbed everyone's attention and felt like an epic Game of Thrones movie.

Sunday was Delta Green, and we had an enthusiastic bunch of supernatural detectives, with a couple dramatic action scenes emerging from the chaos.  We left with a cliffhanger, the monster lurking outside the country house with two players upstairs while the rest drive frantically across town to assist.  We'll see who survives.

Emma and I got our pictures taken for Canadian passports.  We helped Yvonne with math review, getting ready for a placement test.  I got a cheap under-$100 PC the size of my fist to hook up to the monitor by the treadmill for running time.  Duncan's old computer went off with Sam, where it's still crashing, so I'm buying replacement parts in hopes of getting lucky.  My foot started to hurt, maybe from overdoing it the day before.

Monday started out with a tasty breakfast and video games, more Blue Prince with Emma.  Sadly I started getting a bad headache around noon and eventually crashed and slept for a couple hours.  Jo returned.  I felt somewhat better and threw together a grilled cheese sandwich dinner in short order.

As for today, I'm mostly back to normal - no headache or limp, so that's a good sign.  Now I just need to remember how to get work done.