Farewell 2025

December 31, 2025 by Adam in Family

I'm slowly running out of vacation time, accomplishing less than I hoped for, but still having a generally good time.  It helps that I'm finally feeling much better and getting through my list of tasks.  Today I'm having breakfast with mom and then I'll break out my TODO list to see what things I can accomplish next.

It's also the last day of the year so I've been doing some reflection along the way.  It certainly feels like we've had some big changes this year, especially with the kids.  My oldest son is back in town, Emma's joined the workforce, Duncan's wrapping up school and Yvonne has started at Lane.  The biggest change is that all the kids are more self reliant and getting themselves places - I'll occasionally get asked for a ride, but it's more of a rarity.

I made some dietary changes this year, switching to more soups and salads and cutting back on sweets and cereal.  Nothing too dramatic, but it's made a difference over the year and I'm feeling good about the change.

Work has felt more settled and I'm really enjoying the new team and things I've been accomplishing.  It still gets wacky and stressful at times, but I have a better sense as to who I can talk to and appreciate all the support from my team and manager.

I continue to have a great time getting together with friends and family and help them pretend to be other people for a few hours, battling monsters or Lovecraftian horrors, all while laughing and bonding over the rolling of dice.

And every night Jo and I curl up on the couch as the kitties fight over my lap, watch a good scifi show, mystery, and the like, and do it all again the next day.

Livin' the Nerd Life

December 31, 2025 by Adam in Adam's Games

My fifteen year-old self would be really impressed with my life at the moment.  I play video games, roleplaying games, and am generally surrounded by nerdy things.

I finished the main Hades 2 quest, though they encourage playing through side quests and chatting with everyone.  Not sure how much more I'll play, but the moment to moment gameplay is still entertaining.  I played a little Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, though it tends to drag in comparison.  There's a little too much wandering around looking for people sometimes.

Emma and I finished Seance at Blake Manor, somehow saving everyone from whatever terrible fate would have befell them at the seance.  We had a good time breaking into everyone's rooms at the hotel and discovering their mysteries, then confronting them with their darkest secrets.  It's a treat to be given permission to do such things.

Then there are all the roleplaying games.  I started up a new D&D campaign with Jason, his daughter Riley, Jason's friend Jeff, and my old friend BJ.  It was silly fun and I got to break out all the music, maps, personalized images, and movies that I made for the group.  I threw together a movie of the party resting for the night that turned out really well.

I've started prepping a fairly epic new Delta Green campaign, longer than our usual monster-of-the-week missions.  The Impossible Landscapes campaign is held up as one of the great adventures in the roleplaying world and I've been itching to play it for a long time.  I've listened to a few playthroughs and critiques, and now it's time to do my usual prep.  I ended up making a mock Windows 3.1 screen for the players to fiddle with, along with a web page that does tarot reading, so it's coming along nicely.

Back from the Dead

December 27, 2025 by Adam in Family

I've been sick off and on all week, finally starting to feel normal again.  I made it through Christmas with a mix of Advil and coffee, but started to get somewhat wiped out towards the end of the day.  Friday I hoped to make it to Jenny's for the Christmas party, but it became apparent that I wasn't good for much of anything, didn't want to get anyone else this sick, so I sent a text and hid in the shed to nap for an hour and a half.

I did manage some solid sleep last night, made breakfast for the family, and felt good enough to run a Delta Green game that lasted most of the day.  I broke out all the spooky haunted house stuff - phone calls from the murder victim, Ouiji Board seance conversations, and a dash of human sacrifice.  I think the players had a good time and they somehow ended up with a relatively good ending.

As for the rest of the last week or so, I've been mostly hanging out at home trying to take it easy, combined with bursts of Christmas preparation.  I played more Hades 2, slowly approaching the end I think.  Emma and I picked up The Seance at Blake Manor and have really been enjoying the Victorian Ireland setting, steeped with mythology and mystery.

I haven't gotten as much accomplished as I'd like and am halfway through my vacation, but I think the kids generally enjoyed Christmas.  There was a moment at dinner where the kids were chatting and laughing and Jo looked at me and reminded me that we used to do this all the time. Good times.

New Webserver, Who Dis?

December 22, 2025 by Adam in Adam's Projects

A couple months ago I bought one of those little fist-sized computers to replace my big Dell computer as my web server.  I stuck it inside my 3d printed retro computer case that I used as a prop for my roleplaying games, but the plan was always to switch everything over one day.

This morning is that day, jumping through all the technical hoops to copy things over, get it all configured, re-enable SSL, and all the other annoying steps.  I even had copilot rewrite my ancient Classic ASP pages with all their security flaws into a more modern language.  It took a lot of handholding, but eventually I got it all up and running again.

It should theoretically be faster, with a solid state drive and faster CPU.  I still have a few more steps remaining, but I wanted to actually get this on the Internet and post a story to prove to myself that it shows up.

Mocha Friday

December 19, 2025 by Adam in Family

It's my last day of work before I head out for two weeks.  My mocha is sadly empty, though I've promised myself blueberry pancakes and mochas every day of my vacation.  We'll see if I get sick of it and switch back to oatmeal and tea early.  I suspect not.

It's been a dreary week before Christmas, with stormy wet weather and grey skies making it a little glum.  I've been fighting off depression with coffee and Christmas lights, which seem to be a winning combination so far.  Jo and I went out to inspect our lights from the street after night fell.  "Colorful and disorganized, just like us," I observed to Jo's great amusement.

It's been a generally good week.  I packed up two huge boxes of miniatures to give to one of Emma's coworkers who plays D&D.  I could only part with one of the ships and kept most of the smaller minis.  I've been printing new minis for the upcoming Lost Mines of Phandelver campaign.  Some of the new player minis are a little fiddly and I keep breaking them, though I've gotten pretty good at teasing apart the supports with dental tools.

The kids all seem to be doing okay, with the younger two on school break.  I'm hoping the eldest son has figured out the farm issues - there were some huge piles of logging debris that need to be cleared before they can get a permit.  Duncan's sweetie went back to Florida - I got to drive them to the airport in my now working Tesla, which is zippy and reliable again.  Yvonne is getting herself to appointments more and more.  Emma toils away at the chocolate factory.

Excited to see everyone next week at Jenny's.  Gotta do some Christmas prep this weekend and get our live tree indoors and decorated.

Traveller

December 19, 2025 by Adam in Adam's Projects

There was a deal on the classic Traveller roleplaying game books.  I have most of the physical copies from my childhood - originals from the 70s and 80s.  It's really the one RPG I played regularly as a kid, and I loved making worlds and ships and adventures.  Sometimes I think not much has changed.

I continue to play with all the AI generation tools and have recently been vibe coding out a system that should help me referee one of the big adventure modules.  The players fly a merchant ship around, moving cargo and going from system to system having adventures.  There's a bit of tedium and players often need to break out a spreadsheet to deal with cargo and maintenance and salaries.  Fortunately computers are very good at this sort of thing, and I've been coding up something to help with that part.

I was also tinkering with some of the picture to 3d model AI tools.  It's not perfect, but better than my modeling skills.  I did some additional manual tinkering and am pretty happy with the end results.

We'll see if this turns into something more real, but I'm having a great time putting it all together.

Got My Wheels Back

December 16, 2025 by Adam in Adam

I'm back from Salem, having drove the loaner Tesla up to the service center and taken my now repaired Tesla back home.  I was a little sad not to have autopilot on the way back and having the Tesla pass other cars on the freeway.  Still, my car did a fine job staying in the same lane - that's all I get unless I pay extra each month and I so rarely drive long distances.

The fix was a little expensive, but I very much appreciate having a car that feels reliable once again. 

Mocha Monday

December 15, 2025 by Adam in Family

I feel like I have a touch of a cold this morning, so I poured myself one of my medicinal Cafe Madvils, the mocha and Advil combination the perfect cure-all for every woe.  It's not too bad and soon enough I'll feel great.

It was a generally good weekend, with Saturday being the start of a new Delta Green game.  It was a "haunted house" sort of scenario, with players doing a bunch of research on the house before they finally went in.  I got to break out a cool old tape recorder with the AI generated voice of the dead man they're investigating.  Later I had the player's cell phone ring, made Emma put on headphones to listen, and played his voice again in a conversation with her.  There's something special about building out a new evidence board and I can't wait to see where this one goes next.

I fiddled around more with my Traveller space trucker sim thingie, tweaking the cargo rules and so on.  I spent some time doing some 3D modeling of the player's starship, just because I wanted to.  I'm not very good at it, but I have something workable I could display in a web page if I wanted.

Sunday morning I implemented Christmas, putting up lights and decorations as well as clearing space for the tree.  It's a live tree we've named Bob (the variety's name is something like Bob's Blue Spruce), and it's outside for a little longer.  We'll bring it in to decorate and then plant it out at the farm.

Emma and I did a library run, returned the Nike's that hurt her feet, and picked up some practical ones that hopefully work out better.  Eventually the day wound down, I played some more Hades 2, and wrapped up the weekend.

One more week of work and I'm officially on vacation.  Hopefully I can actually accomplish things this week.

Mocha Friday

December 12, 2025 by Adam in Family

We've had a couple beautiful days this week, warm and sunny before the cold rains of winter start.  I had a touch of a headache and was a little dreary before perking up towards the end of the week.  I figured out a tricky bug, so I'm feeling optimistic about work again.  I still have plenty of half-finished things, but I'm slowly beating back the chaos.

I keep getting ready for the upcoming D&D campaign, overpreparing as usual.  I'm still waiting on one player to make a character, but hopefully we'll be ready to go soon.  I signed up once again to a "build a character to print" service, making custom minis for my different players.  They've added more things since I last subscribed, so I'll probably crank out a few different minis just for fun.

My Tesla is still waiting for parts - they updated the estimate to January 30th - but the replacement is nice, so it's not a big deal.  I haven't put any Christmas decorations out or wrapped any presents, but that's something I should start on soon.  One more week and I'm on vacation - my list of fun and practical things to work on keeps growing longer.

I've got Delta Green with the family tomorrow.  Hopefully it's relatively entertaining and my various props and tricks work okay.  They're a rowdy bunch, so who knows what wacky schemes they'll get up to.

Tuesday Already?

December 09, 2025 by Adam in Family

I got really focused on work yesterday, to the point where I was ignoring everything else and forgot to give an update.

Basically we had a chill weekend.  Nothing too exciting - library run, got a live Christmas tree, and went for some walks.  I bought myself the collection of virtually every classic Traveller rpg book and decided to vibe code up a system to fly your cargo starship from system to system, moving cargo and passengers.  We'll see if I ever use it, but it was super fun to put together.

Theoretically my Tesla is getting repaired today, but I suspect they're still waiting for the parts.  If it does I guess I'll be driving to Salem tomorrow.

As for me, I'm still enjoying listening to the Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobooks, fiddling with minis, playing Hades II, and very much looking forward to my two weeks off at the end of the month.