The morning routine.

It is a good thing that I have a lot of coffee as I wake up. Since I am never sure what to post, I am going to do my morning routine. This is partially for you readers and partially to help me remember what I am supposed to do.



start e-mail, respond or act as necessary. (I immediately post card ideas for the DS blog from our e-mail links on the card submissions page, etc.).

Start Skype, check for messages, check open conversations for new comments. (My skype is markeharmon if you want to contact me that way.)

Open ichat for our internal communications and aim contacts (AIM is markharmon@mac.com).

start Netnewswire. This checks for blog updates. several game blogs, DS people I know who have revealed they have a blog. I also pick up the science channels and blog news. Sometimes I get bogged down here. (Did you know that some frogs can cross species breed? Neither did I. A little Dragon's Blood in them maybe?)

start ical calendar to see what is on the menu for today.

Start Canary, my simple Twitter app. Check local flint news. (My Twitter is markellisharmon)

start itunes a set it to pick up new podcasts.

start Awaken and set daily alarms.

Fire up Yojimbo, good program for holding snippets etc.

Check for on-line orders, print and pull them.

Log into Etsy to update and check for patron conversations. Did a renewal too.



During this process I get Sue here coffee, make breakfast, get herbs in us.

(Herbs are a side effect of being uninsured. As self employed our last estimate for a decent plan was $14,400.00 per year. It has not gone down.)

Do a few minutes of work out. Making time for this is difficult, I skip it way too often.

Walk Mocha. She needs a short trip outside in the morning. Check her food, water and emergency pee pads. (She uses the pads occasionally if we don't respond properly. It is all our fault, of course.) Then I take a few minutes and explain to Mocha everything she needs to get done during the day. While she may not be very efficient with her assignments, she provides a great excuse for why "stuff" did not get done.



Finally I open MarsEdit and write a pithy blog post on one, or more, blogs, which is what I am doing now. And, I am doing it now to avoid doing the dishes *sigh* I doubt that is going to work, I can not make excuses forever. Besides, Sue likes to cook in a clean kitchen. I clean it and she cooks in it. Good deal really. Ahhh, I need more coffee, that will buy me a couple more minutes.

Pulled orders, need to pack them. Sipping coffee. A moment to relax.

It has now been four hours since starting today. Dishes are still staring at me. I see that the garbage needs dealing with and that I am out of vacuum bags.



For the rest of my day I have a shopping trip to do and I want to spend a good amount of time working on the Whispering Village for Crypt Crawl. I still have a lot of web updates for DS, so I will "break" by doing some of that. Now I will post this and get to work. Time for a second work out stint.

Bread and donuts, let the baking start

I tried making fried donuts on saturday. They turned out OK, but they need work.

Sunday I made bread while working on the web page. I have to be sure that I have an alarm set to keep track of the bread as it, and I, work. It turned out better than the week before. I have started tweeking the recipe. I added a bit of ground flax and changed the rise times. Once I get it working to my satisfaction I will add pics and recipe.

Monday and Tuesday are Crypt Crawl days for me. It is coming along nicely. There will be about 200 player cards available. The religious background for the world is also going to be ready, at least in an outline form. We can add minor and local Deities as they are met. I am making serious notes on the scenarios and adventures we are now running so we will have something to run up with the beta.

I am not at peak efficiency today, last night we had some thunder and lightning, it kept Mocha on edge and, well, she did not want to be up alone... So my sleep got shortened. Oh well, she is a good dog, so I will live with it.

I have started working on the Astral Travel/World

As everyone knows, I am a lot better at talking than I am at writing, so I have started working on a new GGP podcast to talk about Astral Travel, the Astral World and other aspects of the Astral RPG background.

I am working on this because it has direct relevance to the existing Dragon Storm world and to the future worlds. I am thinking that people who check out the new rules are going to want to know how all of this connects together. The physical connection is through the Astral World. I will combine the podcasts with a short written version. I should be able to create a webpage with a link to each of the related podcasts and a short written overview of each podcast.

I did the first rough podcast this morning, played it for Sue, got her feedback and the next step will be to re-record it in an expanded and smoother version. Oddly enough, I'm looking forward to doing this.

I appreciate the feedback I got on my previous commentary, and I want to continue that as well.

Now I need to put in some time on web work. I have several new pieces of artwork that Sue has completed that I need to create pages for. The old, post it, add ads, and get the print advertising out there. More Content, more directions. I know it is work, but on some level I like doing this crap.

Sue has completed a new Dog Art piece, a Great Dane this time. It is up on Etsy and now I'll show it off here:

Whew, I hit a wall?

After a few hours of work today my body wanted to lay down for a nap. Well, it sat me down for a couple hours and it doesn't want me to move. The ole knee is screaming nicely. I got the new proposed cards done and up for Public Editing. It is good to get people catching the errors early.

Part of the problem I have is that my Quark program is somewhat aged and it does not run well under the new OS. The spell checker is out of commission. I'm on version 6.5 and they are on 8.1 ish. So about 5 years since mine came out. I plan on doing that upgrade when the cash flow improves in the spring. Winter is never a good time for us to spend. I tried the 8 demo, I likes it a lot.

I need to take this evening and do write-ups for the new card pages and get them all prepped to go up. I am thinking that I should do a "place holder" card so the info gets up early. I can actually have the pages up and in place well ahead. I should start by Pre-Prepping the "New" card page. OK, I think I'm getting my head around this project. Start with the "New" card sheet, make a placeholder card, do the five individual pages for the web site, add the links to the new pages on the individual Index pages.

Off to the evening shift.... Mocha says that she needs her dog walk first.

A new year has begun and I'm behind

The truth is I'm going to enjoy my last couple of days as a free man and get back to work monday.

I can say that despite my many complaints about overwork, food experiences and the effects of age, I am thankful for the friends and fellow gamers that I have. I'm damn glad to be alive and to know all of you. I wish there were an easy way for all of us to see each other more.

I have been spending some cuddle time with Sue, Mocha and Mac, and enjoying the hell out of it.

I have also started putting information on Susan's new 2d6 role-playing system. Actually it is a tweaking of the DS system. The blog is here. I will get it on the main links page soon.

Christmas Eve is over

Sue and I spend the Christmas Eve day together. It is our holiday. Christmas Day is the family day. It gives us one private holiday and one public holiday.

We started the morning with the purchase of a new Nero Wolfe book to listen to and a wonderful french toast breakfast. The french toast had butter and confectioners sugar. It is amazing how good the food is when Sue cooks it and we eat it together. I know she and I have been together a long time, but I find myself fascinated by her. The book we got was Death of a Doxy and it is really a good one. The Nero Wolfe audio books are better than either the radio shows or the TV shows that show up. The TV shows are very pale imitations at best. Michael Prichard does the audio and he is true to the original Rex Stout stories.

As the day went on we spent a lot of the day simply relaxing together with our eyes closed listening to the audiobook. There is something special about spending quiet time with one you love. I think that because we spend so much time talking about projects, politics and plans that being able to share silence is romantic, but I think its best to leave that part out of the days pleasures.

We got an organic chicken to share and filled it with stuffing. The flavor of old fashioned chicken baked slowly is astounding. We will be eating chicken happily for the next couple of days. Mocha and Mac, our pack members/pets got a good portion of the leavings. Boy were they excited. Afterwards they both laid down on either side of us and slept. Fun stuff. A pack relaxes.

For desert we had home cooked brownies with vanilla ice cream and chocolate. The whole thing just melted in the mouth. It is the first time we tried this as a desert, and it will go on our regular menu as a food.

We spent most of the evening in quiet meditation together and I feel rested this morning, which is probably a good thing because soon we will be dashing madly from family house to family house today. We will be stopping at home to eat between trips. I'm afraid that we will be skipping the family meals and eating our food instead. I hope no ones feelings get too hurt, but the modern foods just don't measure up.

Well, off to the days activities.

Tuesday, Paperwork Daze

It is tuesday and my primary duty is to do the business paperwork for the week. Since the Post Office was closed yesterday I also need to make a shipping run.

I am, once again working on the DS Market. It is tricky to change the old one as it is an integrated unit and does not lend itself to piecemeal updating. That means I can't just "flip" a switch and replace a piece at a time. On the positive side I finally have a format for the pages that I like. The main page highlights the cards for a category (Cast is done and here.) and allows linking to the individual pages with larger pictures. I am setting up each of the card pages to be able to browse through them directly without returning to the main page. That also means adding the appropriate buying code to each card page as well.

The new format is also being done as individual pieces so they can be updated one at a time. That will be better....

I got a couple more web pages done on the Gatekeeper Comic within Our Comic Site.

I am also slowly adding more images to Susan's art site. I redid the central links piece and added the "archive" section for older works. I have found the disk with Sue's original DS works and I'm integrating them in. After those I'll add the LR5 and Jyhad art I found. For the Magic followers I put many of Susan's Magic the Gathering Proofs up on E-Bay for sale.

I am hoping to work on a site index for the comics so you can go to specific pages in the site and I had problems sleeping last night so I got a nice chunk of the Features pages done.

Just Working

I am distracting myself from Troubles death by getting some work done that needs doing.

I have gotten our e-bay store rebuilt, now I need to get the Magic Art Proofs up there. The Link to the e-bay store is here.

I am also planning to get the next few pages of the Gatekeeper comic up today. Hopefully the Template will allow this to be fairly easy. I will stick the comic link in right about here. I need to get a site map built for the site so you can go to particular pages.

Sue is still up north and we are using her iphone and e-mailing to stay in touch. I am surprised at how comforting it is to me to have contact with her. I am also keeping my AIM open (markharmon@mac.com) when I am up and while she is up there, so I am available by that one too.

My Online contacts:
Skype: markeharmon
AIM: markharmon@mac.com
Google Talk: marksmysteries@gmail.com
Jabber: meharmon@livejournal.com
twitter: markellisharmon

Memories of a Good Friend

It seems like everywhere I turn I see a memory of Trouble. I have 17 years of them, so I guess it is not surprising.

I was feeding Mocha some of the braunswieger that we had gotten for him just a couple of days before we died and I realized that Trouble had always left her a little of his food for her. Now he has left her his braunswieger. I'm getting that lump in my throat again, yet it is tempered by a smile at the great dog he was.

Mocha is laying here by my feet as I type this. She knows something is not right and she is doing her best to comfort me, the big guy trained her well.

Sue has headed off with her mother to the upper penisula to visit her sister and get some reference photos. I'll be here holding down the fort here until Friday.

Very long days

The last couple of days have been bad. Trouble, our 17 1/2 year old puppy, passed on Saturday morning. His kidneys finally gave up and he quite eating or drinking. At 21 lbs he was just a shadow of his 40 lb. self.

I am not feeling too good at the moment. He has been a great loyal friend and I will miss him a lot. I know that it works out to about 110 human years and it was a good run, but I want him here.

I still remember when I first saw him 17 years ago. He was just a puppy and he was trotting along behind Sue. She had walked up to where I was working to have lunch. When I saw him following Sue and looking up at her my first thought was "we have a dog." He knew what he wanted, and he got it.

I have 17 years of excellent memories of Trouble that I will always carry with me. Right now, however, every time I think of him I get choked up. I know that I'll be seeing him as a spirit soon. I miss him and I'm not getting much work done. Despite that, Sue and I will be at the Ann Arbor art market tomorrow.

A little Slow

I'm going a little slow. For some reason I have a headache that keeps coming back.

Sunday nights game went well. The party split up and are scouring the village of Wellsville in search of a spy and her network. In the process they are finding problems in the villages society that don't seem to match their views of what an Elethay/Valarian village should be like. Something is wrong in Wellsville that may be deeper than just a spy.

As you can see from the link above, I know have an Amazon store. I'll be adding "stuff" to it as I go along. If you have suggestions as too which way I should take it, let me know.

Another Morning

It has been raining here for three nights in a row. It has an effect on my allergies and joints which I do Not appreciate. Slows me down. I tried a Feverview pill this morning for the headache. It seems to be helping. I find trying different things works better. I think the body gets used to a single pain killer and starts ignoring it.

I really want to break out more time to work on a new simpler game using the same system. Dragon Storm has become an advanced game system. Nothing wrong with that, it just shows it is flexible. We need a simpler game to get people started. They can move upward to DS if they want.

My biggest problem is that there is a lot of projects that Sue and I want to do and I'm having trouble prioritizing them. I seem to skip from one to another as soon as I get a little tired of one, I move to another. Not the best way to complete anything.

Well, Trouble is giving me bathroom eyes. When a 17 1/2 year old dog wants something, he gets it. He still has those puppy eyes. He may not move well anymore, but he has not forgotten a single trick.

Thursday

I took Wednesday "off" and did work in the yard. The old place is starting to look like someone lives here. The next project is to teach Trouble and Mocha to scrub and paint the house. If that does not work I'll have to do it myself.

Web sales of art has been snappy so I have been slow in getting the new cards up for DS. Since I said it would go up, it is up, such as it is.

I have come up with a "plan" for cutting down on card production work. The idea is to make most of the older/slower cards available as "Special Orders". The deal would be order any 8 cards for $20.00. That would involve setting up a form to fill in and send. I would then invoice the person and print/send the order. I'm looking for thoughts on this. I will do a longer explanation after some more thought.

Sue is Back

Sue has returned from a successful trip to San Diego, and I am glad she is here.

The dogs are glad she is back, they think that I have let her come back, that she has finished her punishment. I think I was the one punished.

We ordered her a new drawing tablet, the Wacom Cinitiq, where she can draw directly on the tablet. This should allow her to create even more art. So far it is working great.

I discovered, when Sue took over our portable computer, just how much my productivity dropped working just on the desktop computer, so I ordered one of the new/rebuilt MacBooks with 4 gig's of memory. It turns out that that extra memory makes her new tablet work better on the new portable than on the old Pro. The result is that Sue now has the new computer and I'm settling back into the old Pro...

And I've gotten an empty case for an ipod.... Why do I think that I'm coming out behind in this deal? I'm thinking that I'm in line for some rewards here.

OK, back to work.

A bit slow right now

I am moving a bit slow at the moment. I'm afraid that the wet, warm weather is setting off my Allergies and bringing my some nice headaches, sniffles, sneaezing and watering eyes. Such is life. I think Trouble has caught my allergies as he helps me sneaze when we go out to walk. The solution, of course, is to stop letting all that nasty air from the outside world into the house and just stay inside. I mean, what is out there that I can't see on video from the computer. Maybe a floating webcam..... I have to check that out.

Sue has gotten me the art for the language cards. I've checked the comments and it looks like they are ready to go. The art above is for common languages. Now I need to assemble the cards and get them up. A webpage and podcast should be done on these as well.


We had a good Tark idea session on Sunday. I think that in a couple of months I may be able to move it to a beta version. That assumes that I can continue to devote substantial time to the project. I'm not sure that with the Con season coming on I can do that. We will see.


Right now I need to get some more stuff up on e-bay to get the money my Uncle Sam wants..... I just luv those special holidays.

Daily Life continues

It is colder than a *****'s *** up here. Poor Trouble is getting cold feet outside and having a tough time going to the bathroom. He just wants to get back inside or lay down in the snow. He will be 17 in May. Old, short hair dogs, just do not like this weather.

We had gamers over again last night. We played a bit, worked on the podcasts and had a good time. We spent the game time working out some details on character creation in the new game. It is slowly forming up. I'm hoping I can run it at StormCon. We will see.

I am getting some older DS cards printed, laminated and cut for BashCon and getting the layouts done for the new cards. I have two computers running to get it all done. In fact I'm printing as I do this. I'm doing that on the old Beast computer. It is a 10 year old tower that can run the up to date software still.

Sue is at her workstation doing art right this moment. 

I'm still looking for my download birthday gift. I'm thinking about picking up an Asimov Audio book. I got the Renaisance movie from itunes, love it, but it can be hard on the eyes until you get adjusted.

Now I need to head out and laminate etc. cards. So thats it for now.

Pizza Crust

My first attempt at a whole wheat pizza crust turned out OK. I made too much dough for the pan size and the breading kinda overwhelmed the toppings. I like a thinner crust pizza.

I think if I cut the size of the crust mix in almost half it should work good. I want to be able to get this down so I can make Sue a good pizza when she gets back.

I ate almost half the pizza. Trouble and Mocha seemed to think it was good. They got to split the other half and they kept coming back for more..... 

In fact, I think I'll go make one now. Bye for now....

Always More than I think

And here we have a pic of the Mac Cat. Sue calls her Techno Kitty. I really should try to get a shot of her "helping" Sue do artwork on the computer.

I have gotten the Valentines Gift items up in the Cafepress shop. It seemed so simple. Just make the images cafepress ready, upload them, make a greeting for inside the card. Then do a new front page for Sue's web page advertising them. But wait, the Morning Wizard needs an internal page made for it, and it needs a category page. 

Of course I now realize I should be doing a Cafepress Newsletter for that market. Sue will need copies of the web sized images, and Oh yea, I should let the DS people know, just in case some have Valentines to buy for. Need to get the pics up in our staorage for access by Live Journal.....

So much for a "simple" bit of work.

A couple of days of work

I have been working on getting the DS web page into better shape the last couple of days. I made a couple of new index pages making finding our blogs, websites and the DS information easier to locate. As for the marketplace I split each card type into seperate pages. The long list with anchors was just too long. On the uncompleted pages I put a link to the old pages. The slow down is getting the pics of the cards made so they can be called up as you shop.

In the back of my mind I am working on a new set of Jason (Mark's Mysteries) OTR fantasy  podcasts. So far I'm liking what I'm getting.

I also got some notes put together for the additional Clanborn cards I want to do. I'll get those up on the board in a bit. I've also taken a look at the comments on the proposed cards and sorted many into the "rejects" pile. Others I have sent to Sue for artwork and on to being cards.

I thought I'd get something different up for a pic. This is Mocha. She is my assistant and does a lot of the DS work. Unfortunatley she seems to miss  a lot of deadlines. But she is a good girl, even if she never gets her work done. I'm waiting for her to scan in the Universal card pics right now.

Mark

Keeping up

I am going to update the Dragon Storm website soon. I'll be spending today working on reorganizing it.

I've tried some things with it over the past couple of months that are not working as well as I would like. You can probably guess why... Ah well, live and learn.

I'm getting a post up here because I will be adding this blog to our blog list on the website. Here is where I'll post the "drudge" notes about my life and what I'm doing for the person who wants to know.

In the meantime, here is a pic of our 16.5 year old dog. He is liking the warmer weather this winter. He gets cold feet easily.