Good Morning World!

Yesterday we took the day off. We did little besides do grocery shopping, spend time together and talk about many light and dark subjects.

Somewhere in here Sue and I are starting to dance around some central subjects that we need to resolve. Fortunately, these are not relationship problems. That is one area we have always talked about, and I have to say, that is working fine. There are, naturally, some rough moments, but we can deal with those.

What we have to do is too look at the aspects of our life that float around us in a haze and never really come into focus. They are always in the "I have to do something about that" list.

To be able to even grapple with these issues we need to become more organized. I have started by the simple step of keeping the dishes done, garbage maintained and kitchen generally clean. That may not seem like an organization issue, but it is. We have a tendency to push everything aside and do a task, ignoring everything else. Both Sue and I do this. By keeping one spot organized and tidy I am finding keeping related "things" organized is easier. It has made it so I can conduct my food consumption in a more considered way.

*short break here, music plays* OK, I have coffee and sent Sue a note on a thought that whirled through my brain.

The second home duty I have started work on is the laundry. We have enough clothes to go a while and in the past I have done laundry when we ran out of clothes to wear. That resulted in piles of dirty clothes appearing in truly weird places. Best not to talk about that too much, the imagination runs wild. I am now doing the laundry on a regular basis, keeping it to one or two loads at a time and putting them away. I am already finding it easier to locate stuff I need in the house as I work. It it not as likely to be buried by clutter.

I am going to continue to spend time in organizing from the bottom up in the vague hope that it will make me somehow more methodical while not limiting creativity. The hope is that the improved comfort may actually stimulate creativity.

Wandering off to a new subject...

I have ignored the new Crypt Crawl game design for a few weeks here. We had just discussed a series of tweaks that mean needing all new cards etc. when I ran into Origins and Anthrocon. I opened the files last night and found that while I had been away from them my mind had done a good deal of sorting and editing on the job. In a couple of hours I had remade the Characters, Echelon cards, and the basic Expertise Ace cards. I also got a good start on the Items. The next couple of weeks heading into StormCon are going to be hectic, so I am not sure when I will be able to carve out time to get back to Crypt Crawl, but I will.

OK, enough, I have Travels of Kit pages to work on, New DS card pages to write and create and more, but I should be done with the housework for today!

Watch the Twitter feed for what I get done.

Six hours? Is that it?

It looks like my body is limiting me to about six hours of work and then it just shuts down. No thoughts escape. The world becomes a blank.

I have been starting my day with two to three hours of home tasks. Get Sue her coffee, make breakfast, do the dishes, a spot of yard work, including tending the compost and the plants on the porch. After that it is noon and I get to work. E-mails, writing, shipping, and web maintenance takes up most of the six hours, and then it is brain lock.

I am sitting here absolutely certain that I had a list of things to do, but now are coming to the fore. oh well, I guess I'll study the podcast performance arts. Maybe I can learn by osmosis, although it may be better to call it learning by "sound propagation".

Getting back on track here

I am coming to the conclusaion that life is too important to spend all of it running from project to project. I am taking this week slow. Time to smell the flowers, stare at the sky and consider the trials and tribulations of humanity.

That means I am working some, but basically I am enjoying the things I have.

Hmmm, my mind has gone blank, so I am off to stare some more.

Conventions, work, friends and fun

It is friday night at Anthrocon in Pittsburgh. The crowds here are lively, excited and bigger than last year. Sue is busy doing commissions right now. They are big here. She has a good number of works to complete. I've bumped into a series of DS players. Maybe we can arrange for some games here next year.

Origins went well last week. There were a lot of DS players in attendence and Russ and the Guild folks did a great job of handling the games. We could not ask for a better group of players. You guys make it worth going through all the trials to try to keep up.

We have run out of sets two and three. It looks like the new sets will be a success. I'm going to put together a couple of GM sets before StormCon. I don't expect those to sell as well, so I won't print many.

The stress of two big cons on two weekends is showing, Sue and I are both getting a little edgy. I guess there will have to be extra cuddling next week to compensate.

Well, I have more printing to do for the morning, so I will go now.

All day Packing

I have spent from 8AM trying to find and pack everything we need for Origins. Sheeesh, I'm finally nearing the end.

I will be bringing the card cutting equipment with. I have a number of laminated sheets that need finishing. We are also nringing our art printing set up.

All-in-All, this should be both a lot of work and a chance to talk to old friends.

See you at Origins, or AnthroCon the next week.

The Basil and Oregano are Transplanted

I am working on relearning some old farming skills. I have lettuce, spinach, onions, oregano, basil and flowers planted in pots on the porch. The peppers are just poking their noses up through the ground, so I guess I have them too. When we ate dinner Sue used some of the oregano and basil in the omelets. Really good food. I keep thinking I need to learn to grow some food, especially right after a trip to the store.

I am working on getting the new card web pages up for people to read. It is going slow because I am trying to get them printed as I get the description up on the web. I am getting rather creative with the card write ups, it keeps me from getting bored.

I have several projects that I should be getting done, but I have also learned that I need to have a portion of real life and porno time too.

We have continued to play the new rules. We are going to try adding an extra step in the ranged weapons that will be a "to hit" roll. Just like in DS the Ranged Weapons just feel to over powering. The basic idea is a 2d6+COR roll versus 2d6+Evasion. You only get the Evasion part if you actually try to evade, otherwise it is a +0. It needs testing, but we will see.

I also designed a sweet mathematical system for converting role-playing points earned into card points. It works perfectly. Unfortunately it is just too convoluted and people are having trouble following my wonderful method. So, my play testers told me how it should work. *sigh* They are right...

Anyway, we are making good progress, and it is really fun. I just wish we had a lot more time to work on it. We have to get the basics working so we can publish an alpha version to the web for everyone.

The Cons, Origins and AnthroCon are going to cut out about three weeks from our play testing. I dream of having a version for StormCon, but I doubt it. Maybe just enough to get people a taste of the game. One must have dreams.

Raining

That means we soaked here and the print sheets for the cards can't be worked on today. Probably just as well, the printer has started yelling about "order Cartridges". *sigh* normal behavior.

On the positive side I can get to work on more of the card pages for the web.

Sue, Mocha and I are busy as a werewolf at a wakana convention. With the heat rising I have had to abandon my winter room. It is a "hot" room upstairs and I spent most of yesterday cleaning moving and expanding the network to handle the changes. It all went well, so I am pretty much ready to work.

OK, off to order Ink.

I have lost my mind. If you see it, e-mail it back to me.

My biggest problem right now is that my mind spits out more random thoughts than I can type, speak, or even make notes on. It is like an RSS feed where all I get are the titles and snippet of the commentary.

I have solved the education system by integrating it into a localized setting with parental and professional access. It also provides neighborhood emergency employment, local broadband WiMax internet and a community center. Nothing to it, now if I could just find the rest of the article in my brain.

Several commentaries float through my mind on the stupidity of how the corporatist economic system has nearly destroyed capitalism in our country. I am amazed that people can't see the difference between our current socialized corporatism and the free capitalism that build our nation. But then again, I am not inundated with their constant advertising on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, ABC and other so called media news outlets. Let the brainwashing continue.

What ever happened to the idea that some features of society needed to be public and others private? The idea was that a society decided what were essential services, and provided those. Everything else (the luxuries) were left in the hands of the capitalists. We decided that having a Highway system was an essential service and made a great one. Now our government is selling it cheap, secretly and piecemeal. When did we, as a society, discuss that? Ah, forget it, nobody even notices all these changes, I am probably the only one who misses the old USA.

Who says I am paranoid? Who says I am opinionated? Well, OK, you are right. Maybe I am the last true conservative, who knows. Conservative Frauds abound, and people are listening to them all the way to Fascism. Oh, well, I am probably too late, democracy, capitalism, compassion and free thinking are obviously outmoded concepts. Maybe they have just been so corrupted through successful propaganda scams that they are unrecognizable.

Thats it, enough ranting, it is late here.

Cool Sounds of Summer

Sue and I have both bought Swamp Coolers from Air and Water, Inc. and we have had a really good impression of these people. We have a pair of New Air machines that we are using instead of Air Conditioners. They don't give one that dry throat feeling.

Anyway, I got an e-mail from them with the terms of a contest. Usually I just ignore these things, but I really can recommend Air and Water. The last machine we got arrived broken and we had no trouble returning it and getting a good one. Sometimes you get the best view of a company when something goes wrong. They responded quickly and replaced the machine.

Part of the contest was to find three songs with "Air" or "Water" in the title and do a blog posting, so here goes:

Candle on the Water by Helen Reddy
Walk on Water by Neil Diamond
Hold Back the Water by Bachman-Turner Overdrive

I went through the artists that I listen to and finding Air or Water in a title is not as easy as you might think.

So today I am doing a blog about Swamp Coolers and I do not feel bad about it at all. I do recommend that you take a good look at the Air and Water people for a Swamp Cooler.

Ongoing work

I have had to spend a few days completing outside work so I have been remiss in posting. Most of the outside work is done on the quiet, therefore no mentioning specifics is allowed.

I have found a typing training program and I am spending a few minutes a day working on it. I guess I'm never too old to learn a few new skills.

I have also added some porch gardening to the schedule. I have Onions, Oregano, Basil, Spinach, Peppers, lettuce and Marigolds going, or in process. Just a single tray or a few pots of each. I have a lot to learn, so I am growing just a little of each. Sue wants Peas and I will plant a tray of them later this week.

Tonight is Playtest time. I am, of course, not ready...

Now I need to cut some cards I have printed and then get the Valarian cards ready to send off a new set of cards to print.