End of Summer ------------- Well, it's been an interesting summer. I'm grateful for my family and work situation during the Covid-19 pandemic. I've been slowly chipping away on some personal projects - mostly programming or Linux-related, but I've done a few other things. Woodworking ================================================================= I've always had an affinity for amateur woodworking. After we moved, my tools have been in a complete disarray (and the new garage is smaller) and I've been seeing that as a bit of a blessing. It's a chance to start anew. One thing that I've always taken for granted is that since I'm a tall person, I should have a tall workbench. That's true for certain types of work. But after watching some videos on YouTube by Rex Krueger, I've been completely enamored with the low "Roman-style" workbenches. I made a little toy wood "axe" for my kiddo the other day and used all hand tools (including my grandfather's brace with an auger bit to drill the hole in the "axe head" for the handle). Making a low workbench was as easy as putting a 2x4 across a stepstool and a bucket. Your foot makes a great clamp and leaning over the work is great for sawing, chiseling, and carving. The experience was a total revelation. I'm not jumping to purchase anything yet. But I think now that it's cooling down, one of my first projects will be a small roman workbench. Boardgames and RPGs ================================================================= My youngest kiddo is sloooowwly getting old enough to participate in boardgames. My wife and I love to play them and our eldest can play just about anything. We've mostly been limited by the youngest - argh, why does the lowest common denominator always win?! If you have kids, perhaps you can relate. At any rate, now that we're at the cusp of being able to play again, we're starting to bust out some favorites. "Castle Panic!" is basically a simplified tower defense game in which monsters come out of the forest to attack. It's cooperative and you win if any of the towers of your castle remain standing as you defeat the last monster. The gameplay is strategic and very well organized and balanced and easy to learn. It always feels like we're going to "just barely make it." "Potion Explosion" is more recent. You use marbles and a really clever dispenser system to create potions in a Hogwarts-esque classroom situation. Creating potions is how you win the game, but you can also _use_ the potions to perform special actions. "Ex Libris" is the heaviest game I can get the eldest kiddo to play. The theme of magical books is very appealing. The premise is that you're the owner of a magical bookshop and you need to put together the best collection you can - it needs variety, certain categories, and to be in alphabetical order. The gameplay is very clever, but the best part is that there are hundreds of funny book titles - many of them magic-related puns on classics. I also got it in my head that it would be fun to learn Dungeons and Dragons so that I can someday play it with the family (and friends, whenever we can start having friends again). I played a ton of West End Games Star Wars RPG in my teens, but I never learned D&D proper. Anyway, I have the starter set and I've been verrrrryyyy slllloooooowwwwly solo-playing the adventure it comes with. The instructions are very nice, but it's difficult to understand a whole round of play by piecing them together. More examples would be nice. I probably need to watch more videos. On a related note, to fully immerse myself in the D&D universe, I've been reading the R.A. Salvatore "Dark Elf Trilogy" - the writing is...uh...awkward. I really don't mean to be cruel, but I actually checked to see if English is his first language. Yeah, Salvatore was born in the USA. Dude, some of those sentences just...aren't right. But I'm in it for the story. And he _can_ tell a story. I've just started the second book "Exile". I would try other authors in the Forgotten Realms, but apparently Salvatore is as good as it gets??? Sketchbook ================================================================= I really fell off the sketchbook wagon during and after we moved. I just couldn't fit art into my limited time and energy and...well, it's taken a while to fully recover, truth be told. I'm slowly working the sketchbook back into my regular routines. I'd love to go back to daily - looking back, that was just amazing and definitely produced the best art I'd ever done. But I'm not going to force it. Just regular practice is all I'm looking for. It's been painful to be so out of practice. The first couple days were the worst because it felt _so damn hard_ to draw anything and everything I did was crap. Thankfully, it didn't take too long to get over the worst of it. Now, the trick is to not get so out of practice, like, ever again! Rubik's Cube ================================================================= I learned the "beginner's method" of solving the Rubik's cube a couple years ago. It felt really good to finally be able to solve the puzzle which had, until then, completely eluded me. Well, like many things, I got completely out of the habit during the move. I finally picked it up and re-learned. Not surprisingly, it did not take nearly as long to re-learn as it did to learn in the first place. Especially since I had come up with my own mnemonic system for remembering the algorithms - that's such a powerful way to make stuff stick. Also, I feel like I _understand_ what I'm doing better than before. I dunno, I might even try to learn some more advanced solving methods. Mostly, I just want to make sure I solve it about once a week, just to keep from forgetting again. It felt great to regain a skill I had lost. It's Nice Outside ================================================================= Of course, most of what I do is just try to earn my paycheck, be a good husband, and be a good father. We're trying to get outside now that summer's finally broken and it's really pleasant out! It feels like a crime to be stuck inside pounding on a keyboard when there are fresh breezes and sunshine outside my window. (And an even worse crime for the kids to be doing the same thing.) We should all just have Fall 2020 off. Who's with me??? Okay, I think this is plenty long now. I hope everyone is doing okay in the Phlogoverse. I have a lot of Gopher reading to catch up on.