Parentheticals

I could have sworn that I woke up at 5:50 like usual, and then rode my bike to work at 6:30, but I arrived at work at 7:00, and that doesn't make sense (it usually takes me 1 hour and 15 minutes to get to work, so I must have somehow got up earlier than usual) This leads me to believe that we had a power outage last night (my clock runs faster on batteries than on wall power.) The other option is that baby Andrea changed the time on our clock when she was playing with it yesterday. Either way... I am here before I should be. I got the tv mounted to the wall (as big as it is, all night last night I dreamed of it falling on me.) Perhaps I will get some larger bolts to mount it better and allay my fears. I have played more Unnethack recently. My bones files are up on hearse if anyone wants to try out Unnethack (and get some stuff from my dead dudes) So far I have enangered many a lawful god. It is a difficult problem. My most recent character has a cross aligned altar, and ...

I died in Unnethack trying to fight my quest nemesis. I have been considering trying again, but I have been doing too many other things. I am starting to make progress again on my bike project. I have the engine mounted to the frame (Though it might block the front derailleur from moving) I now am trying to get it together by the end of the week after Christmas. I have done more Polynesia testing. Things are still going pretty well. I am still making wording changes many games, though. I am trying to read the Icewind Dale trilogy, but to be honest it is hard. It seems to be written for 13 year old boys. It is like watching Dragonball Z, or some such nonsense. It takes itself very seriously, though. I really hope that Salvatore gets better, because if the second novel is as bad as this one, I will probably not finish reading it. Just an example of one of the bad parts: The heroes discover a party of giants that are acting as advance troops to a large army that intends to inv...

On Saturday the box with the soldering iron in it arrived (I sent the guys who sent me a non working soldering iron an email, and they shipped me a new one and told me to throw away the old one). I soldered the capacitors to the tv, and put it back together. Alison and I then watched 'Henry Potter IX part 2; The Conclusive Conclusion' on our now working 42 inch TV. It worked well. I was originally thinking of selling the TV after we got it working, cause I don't need a big tv, but it takes up practically no space (being a flat screen and all) and for that it just seems better than our old CRT. Also, I can play nethack (or bubble bobble for that matter) on a 42 inch screen (and I have to admit that there is something to that). Speaking of nethack, I have been playing Unnethack recently, and I have a dwarven valkyrie about to fight medusa. I almost died in the black market (I blew up my bag of holding containing just over a million zorkmids of loot in it, and one-e...

Over the course of thanksgiving weekend I got a large flat screen TV that one of the Poulson's neighbors were throwing away. It is huge, but the screen flickers. I have opened it up and found it to have four bad capacitors. I bought replacement parts, and attempted to replace the capacitors, but the soldering iron that I had bought (I never owned one, so I figured that I would get one for this project (I can't go borrowing Loren's soldering iron forever)) did not work properly. It would have made a good hand warmer. Speaking of hand warmers, It has been cold here! I am tempted to start driving to work because I have had a beast of a time getting home recently. Perhaps I will get some more mittens (as my last pair mysteriously disappeared.) The most recent feta that we made was a little gooey, but some extra salt dried it up. Now it is a little (and by little I mean a lot) salty. Perhaps washing it off right before use will fix it. Here is to hoping. The card game has ...

Both Swee and I finished our NaNos on time. Mine is in a very rough state, and posted here  (in case anyone is bored, or wants to see what it is like). If there was any confusion as to my state of health, I did not actually get trampled on black friday, I was just overhearing a conversation from a team member at work who saw a bunch of people getting trampled on black friday, and helped two of them to escape, and I was disgusted at the holiday. Since NaNo is over, I have started working on the card game again. I hope to be able to have a new version printed by friday. I have also started a name of UnNethack. There is a guy who decided that the next version of Nethack was taking too long, and decided to make his own. It is pretty fun so far. The only thing that has been different is that I made a desperate attempt to prevent myself from starving to death and drank from a fountain and got a wish. I wished for a ring of slow digestion and was told that I couldn't ...

This weekend was a long one. Baby Andrea was teething again (and this time it was worse than all the times before combined). She was very fussy. On the other hand, she learned to 'jump' (she goes up on her tippy toes, and raises her hands up in the air). It is amazing how that can be cute even after you have had only seven hours of sleep in two days. Alison and I went over to the Poulson's and celebrated thanksgiving there, by the way. I got some people to play my card game, and got closer to declaring it done. I might have to weaken friendly - it can make the decks disappear too fast. I regret to inform you all that I have been killed in a walmart black Friday sale stampede. No-one stopped to help me as I was trampled to death. The thing that is wrong about this, is that it actually happens. Black friday sales are one of the heathen rituals that we still take a part in as a mostly enlightened society. I really hate shopping, but bla...

We ate the other half of the maitake mushroom sauteed with butter and salt as a side dish. Is had an excellent flavor when sauteed - hearty and bold, with a slight fish taste. I would highly recommend these mushrooms to anyone who likes mushrooms. On Friday I did not write any for NaNo, so I am not 2,500 words behind (and I still have to write my words for today). I am afeared for thanksgiving. It might spell the death of me. We had another game of 42 Earths this weekend. They met their first brain suckers, anthropoids, shot down some small alien crafts, and got a small vehicle mounted plasma cannon. Things are going well. Everyone leveled up. I have not made too much progress on the motorized bike. Things have been busy, but I guess that I really don't need to finish it until spring anyway As I don't like to ride bike on days that have precipitation, or days where the ground is still wet or icy. We made tomato Nadna on Saturday out of the tomatoes...

It was too cold to go mushroom hunting. It rained and snowed here for those of you who were not paying attention. Instead we got our car emissions and safety inspections completed and went to an Asian grocery store. We bought a maitake mushroom at the grocery store, so we did come home with a mushroom on Saturday. Alison made a quiche and put half of the mushroom in the quiche. It had a nice flavor, and was a good texture. I am currently less than 2500 words behind in NaNo (I didn't write much last Friday because we went to a write in, and I watched Andrea, but I am catching back up). To be entirely anti-opaque, I am at 22633 words (and I plan on writing 2500 a day during week days and ending two days early). We tested the new combat system (for Polynesia), and it seems to be holding up to the scrutiny. Hopefully it will stand unmodified for a month, and I can declare the game to be stable. If that happens, it will likely be in January  Perh...

We got three oyster mushrooms off our mushroom log this last week. They were not scheduled to fruit until this next spring, so apparently we did a good job of growing them. We made a stir fry and added them to it. They had a mild flavor and good texture. I am thinking of going mushroom hunting this weekend - hopefully some wild mushrooms survived the snow. In terms of NaNo, I am following my own plan of working only on week days, and getting 2500 words a day (and I am on schedule). That means that I am "OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAND!" (by quite a bit). Baby andrea may have come down with a cold. She has had a runny nose, and been fussy. It is sad when she is sad. My card game is coming along nicely. I rewrote the combat again, but this time I am actually happy with it. It seems to slow down the game much less, and still is viable. I hope that this is the last major thing that I have to do. On average we get through a game in 20-30 minutes (and I am talking about a 4 player...

Baby Andrea has started to throw tantrums. They are not very successful, honestly, but perhaps she will get better at them. She lays on the ground, and then cries, but if you distract her by asking her "Are you going to throw a tantrum?" she looks at you in a confused manner, and then gets back up off the floor. She has suddenly discovered trucks and cars. She loves watching them, and whenever we go on a walk, she points to them and does the 'come here' gesture. She has a car gesture that she will also make (which looks like she is holding a steering wheel and turning it right and left). Probably Alison taught her that. I just started NaNo. I am doing OK so far (though I am a bit behind like always). I have 1000 words and I want 5000 by the end of the day. I will report my progress here. By the way, I wrote a little program called "Just keep writing, Swee!" which 'helps' you to write a NaNo novel. She asked me for certain features (apparently t...

The Polynesia Vassal module is coming along nicely. I have a version that is for public consumption. It can be downloaded here . It is not entirely 'polished', but I believe that you could play a game with it. In order to test it out, all you have to do is download the module, and the latest version of Vassal (which is available free online). We have been drying apples recently. We got some more grapes and now we are trying to make raisins. They look totally gross so far. Baby Andrea has started walking around and kicking things. We have a big inflatable ball for her to kick, but she kicks other stuff too. It is fun to watch her. Just last night I was pumping up my bike tire and she was outside with me in the front yard. She would walk to the front door and then look in at Alison. She would then laugh and walk back to me. She loves walking in the leaves (and laughs when she does it). She is such a cutie.

This week I started making a Vassal module for Polynesia. It is not at a playable state yet, but it seems to be coming along. I will post it when it gets somewhere. We made 52 quarts of grape juice over this last week. Alison also picked apples for us, and we are going to be drying them over this upcoming week. I played a Polynesia game yesterday at work over lunch. Andrew (one of our QA) had an idea about making military more likely to win you the game, and I am looking into it. We went to the book sale on Tuesday and got some books. One book in particular was a fun find: Yotsubato. This manga was written by Kiyohiko Azuma the same guy who wrote Azumanga Daioh. It is a fun little story about a young girl who explores her world and discovers new things. Baby Andrea is doing well (though she does still wake up too early some days). She just got a new fork and spoon that are the right size for her, and she is able to eat things very well. I considered briefly having another...

Another big week is ending. I attended the Sort technology conference this week. It was fun. I got to learn about some cool new technologies. I have posted a new version of Polynesia in Picasa and Google Docs (for those of you who are interested. Whiro was updated, all the walls were made weaker, and the artwork was made more easy to see (specifically the defense values of the cards). We picked grapes twice for a few hours (but have not yet picked them all). This weekend perhaps we can do that. After we are done, we will make grape juice :) We didn't have a role playing game this weekend - it was delayed again. I am also starting to plan my NaNo novel. It will involve a pseudomancer, a mentally disturbed fairy, a bard that is useless (but everyone loves due to a curse), and multiple people trying to get multiple people cast out of power. hopefully it will be fun. Baby Andrea went to the doctors, and they said that she is not putting on as much weight as is usual. They said i...

This weekend we watched general conference at the Poulson's house. It was fun. There were lots of good talks. Baby Andrea slept horribly throughout the whole thing, however, and that made it tough for the adults to sleep as well. Work on the server is moving along. I have installed the Gentoo and got it to serve web pages and update dyndns with its new ip address whenever it changes. I still need to drive down to my parents house and install the server in their basement. When that is done, I should have a faster server, and perhaps my website will run more smoothly. I have not done any work on the card game recently. I am also not really working on the MSV much (I am thinking about making a new serializer, but I have not actually started it yet.) I have mostly just been reading. Finally, I remembered that I was supposed to be transferring VHS videos to DVDs for various people. I am going to get back to work on that shortly.

Those of you who have been trying to access my website know that it has been down for a few weeks. I am currently working on replacing the hardware for it (I have wanted to upgrade it for a while, and since it is down anyway it seems like a good time to do it). Baby Andrea can now walk most of the length of a room, and she walks of her own accord now (without us coaxing her). She is still kinda wobbly, but she is carrying things and feeling pretty confidant. We had a busy weekend. We went to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, had a primary activity, Alison went to the general Relief Society broadcast, and we had one of those sacrament meetings where the primary all get up and sing (Alison had to help the kids as she is in the presidency). The card game is moving along like usual. It looks like I won't be getting to do any play-testing in the near future, though. Perhaps Ryan will do some for me, though. I also just read Dark Lord of Derkholm. It wa...

Yesterday baby Andrea stood up by her self and took 8 steps four times. She stood up by herself numerous times, and even walked with objects in her hands. It looks to me like she has figured this walking thing out :). I have finished the artwork for the cards, (and re-did it all once). They look pretty good (if I do say so myself.) For those who want to see them, they are posted in picasa. I am hoping to get some more playtesting done soon (but can't really trust that I will be able to do it during general conference cause my parents are out of town, and I don't know what people are planning on doing). Now that the card pictures are completed, I am considering going back to my Mandelbrot set viewer. I will probably begin to code more for it soon. Also, recently we made apricot granola. (We replaced the honey with apricot jelly so that Andrea could eat it.) It ended up being very tasty.

Poor baby Andrea has caught a virus. The doctor says that she is no longer contagious, and should be getting better, but she had a temperature of 103 and has a rash. She slept almost all of Saturday, and was fussier than usual Sunday. Hopefully the worst is over. Role playing this Saturday went pretty good. they talked to an alien for the first time (in the aftermath of a huge alien attack). The alien's biting friend was returned, and the alien said that he would return later. I didn't plan on having the alien conversation so early, but it seemed like the right time, so it happened. I have started to work on images for the card game. Here are some small versions of them:

Just a short post. Baby Andrea just took four steps for the first time last night. I have attached a video, (which also included her showing off for rusty, and her dancing on the top of the old microwave).

I have updated Polynesia (my card game's working name). It is now available for all to download online. I am going to be bringing it to the family dinner this weekend, so hopefully everyone will have read the new rules before then (it is just a 4 page read, and a lot of it is the strategy and god description). Here are the links: Rules ,  Card Descriptions ,  Printout . Feel free to share them around - I am fine with anyone seeing everything in them. Our microwave oven recently died. I don't really know why, but perhaps it is because I bought it at the DI 3+ years ago. We also ate about 10 lbs of cherries in about a week. Perhaps this weekend we will make another cheese. If so, I will report on its progress. Since my MSV release, I have been mostly reading. I have started 'I shall wear midnight' by Pratchett. It is not really as good as his books usually are. If this had been the first book that I read of his I would likely not have read any more. I realize that ...

My MSV is now in beta. You can download it here . If you unzip it in Windows 7, it will probably mark all the files as 'from another computer', and will remove lots of functionality. if you right click the zip file, click properties, and then click unblock before you extract it then you will be able to use the data that is in the separate dll files. The card game is half way through its third printing. Now we have point cards marked, military cards worth points, and a couple of other changes. Perhaps this will be the last major test printing. With all of the programming I have been doing I have not made any cheeses this month. Perhaps next month I will. I have also read a book in Fred Sabehagen's Berserker series. I was pleasantly surprised. It was pretty good. If all of his books are like this, Perhaps I should pick a few more up. Andrea has been dancing a lot lately. She puts her hands up and shakes them around and bobs her head. If she is standing up she also does ...

It seems like I have been tired this whole week. Perhaps I've got the lurgy. I have done a bit more rewriting of the rules for my card game. Now military can also get you points, and perhaps it will not slow down the game so much. My mandelbrot set viewer is approaching beta. It seems like it will make it this time [crosses fingers]. I am preparing for a RPG play session tomorrow. Hopefuly things move along. Something fun will happen for sure, but until it happens I want to keep it a surprise. I also have been bothering a scam artist from nigeria recently. I figure that the more time I waste of his the fewer people he can scam. (I write him short one sentence emails asking for more info, and to clarify points, and he writes longer emails explaining things). Also, apparently my new code name is Fredric. Also, Baby Andrea has not yet exceeded 2 steps before falling down. Apparently walking is hard.

I wanted to submit a form using jquery when the user tries to leave the page. Unfortunately in chrome it doesn't work to just call submit on the form (although it works in other browsers). I think that chrome is just moving on to fast, and doesn't let the submit finish. Failing code in chrome: $(window).bind("beforeunload", function (e) {     $('#form-name').submit(); }); This works in chrome, ie, and firefox. $(window).bind("beforeunload", function (e) {     $.ajax({         type: 'POST',         url: $('#form-name').attr('action'),         data: $('#form-name').serialize(),         async: false     }); }); Took me way too long to figure this out.

Baby Andrea took two steps yesterday. Alison was holding her, and she reached out toward me, took two steps, and then I grabbed her cause she had made it to me and was falling over. Perhaps she will be walking soon (she is over her fear of trying apparently). The card game is printed up, and I have some people who have agreed to come over and test it this weekend. Hopefully there will not have to be any more major changes (or nothing that would require another reprinting at least). I haven't made any cheese yet this month. I should probably do that some time soon. The MSV is moving along, however slowly. I need to look up how to use a template selector in WPF. I have not done that in a long time.

My new nephew Logan Aaron Plastow was born yesterday. I am thinking of giving Amy some feta as a congratulatory gesture, as pregnant women are not supposed to eat feta. My play-testing party on Saturday was not very well attended, but was very successful. I am changing one of the representatives  doubling the size of 'Deck A', adding basic military units to it, and revamping many of the cards. I am going to try to get another group together to do some more play-testing this Saturday. If you read this before then and are interested, send me an email. I don't really understand why facebook, linkedin, google plus, or any of those sites are necessary... honestly I don't even like them. They send me emails and such about some comment that someone made on someone's picture of something. Perhaps it is because I am introverted? I hesitate to call myself misanthropic, but the inanity of many of the comments made just puts me of...

Wednesday we made a five cheese sausage pizza. three of the cheeses were home made. The feta was especially good on a pizza (which is news to me). I also learned this week that cream of tartar is in fact those crystals that condense into your home made grape juice (and you strain out and throw away). This leads me to wonder if it would be possible to make home made cream of tartar out of them. The card game is moving along nicely. I have been making updates and testing it out with Alison fairly often. I have a game night planned this week, but so far only one  couple has agreed to come to it (So it might be quite interesting). I released another MSV. Now I am down to one thing left to change for sure this time (yeah right). If I do decide it is feature complete it would be a miracle. It does allow for real time updates, julia fractals, and color selection for newton type fractals. Baby Andrea has learned how to drink from a cup, and is trying to figure out using a ...

April 9th 2011, a very good year (almost as old as レヤ  ちゃん ) We just opened the cheese that we made on April 9th. It is the softest hard cheese that we have made yet. It has a good Italian flavor (it is strong enough that you could grate it and put it over pasta, but not so hard that you have to. I am going to try a cheeseburger with it - I think that that will be super tasty). We have not used all of the recent feta yet, so I we are planning a chard casserole tonight to use it up - here's to hoping that the chard is not to bitter (we let it grow pretty big). I have printed up the cards for the card game, and cut them out now. Hopefully I will get to use them soon to test it out :). Also, I am thinking that it will be a Polynesian themed game. If anyone comes up with a good name for it I will reward them with one lb of cheese of their choice (or a half lb of a pre-made hard cheese (so that you can taste it first to see if you like it)). The MSV is mov...

Over the three day weekend, I have play tested the new card game. We rewrote the rules almost entirely, and rewrote most of the cards. The notes that I have posted can be found  here  and  here . You can download a docx file that contains the newest version of the cards in a printable state here  Google Docs fails to render it correctly, so don't print from Google docs. Also, My parmesan cracked since I did not turn it over enough. :( This means that I will have to watch it carefully to make sure that it doesn't develop mold. The other cheeses look good (and I am in fact overdue for opening up a cheese - so perhaps I will report on that soon.) The feta came out pretty good. It has a nice flavor. Only one more change needs to happen for me to declare my MSV to be out of alpha: I have to make real time updates. I have put it off for so long, but I know that the user wants it. :/ We gathered apes over the weekend from an old couple's tree. Amy talked with t...

Apparently the new fuse that I put in to my cheese cooler couldn't handle the hot temperatures recently. It blew out. I am now planning on getting a bigger fuse, and putting the cheese cooler into a better ventilated place. Fortunately, Alison saved all the cheese :). I am also thinking of making a card game. As of yet it is not anywhere near ready for publication, but it seems to be moving along. I keep hitting snags in my MSV. The final alpha release might be farther off that I would hope. I made three cheeses over the past week: parmesan, feta, and ricotta. The ricotta split into three cheeses of its own, cheese with fine herbs, ricotta, and dessert ricotta. I plan on ageing the parmesan 9 months, the feta 30 days, and the ricotta will be eaten on crackers and in ravioli. I also turned an old sock into a new seat cover for my bike. I am riding in style now :) Finally, this Saturday is our next play session of 42 Earths, and this Sunday is Danie...

Yesterday evening I got off the bus and walked toward the place where I parked my bike. I didn't notice that something was amiss until I unlocked my bike, and saw that the knit cap that I use as a seat cover had been stolen. Since the average temperature this week is in the 90s, I have to assume that the thief didn't actually need the hat. It had been sitting on my bike seat for almost a year, so I would also assume that the thief did not think: 'that is a nice looking hat... I want it'. The hat couldn't have fallen off - it has never fallen off before, and is very securely attached (sometimes I check it to see if it is still attached well). I doubt that the thief knew me and had a personal vendetta against me, so that leaves one thing that I can think of. The theft must have been a random act of maliciousness. Probably some teenage kid thought that it would be funny if I came back and my hat was gone.

On Friday we went to the DI and found a wine cooler for $10. It didn't work, but a quick google search revealed that that model of wine cooler has a known issue with a fuse blowing out. We got it to store our cheeses as they age (it can control the temperature pretty exactly, and should not be too expensive to run since it is fairly small). After borrowing Loren's soldering iron I was able to replace the fuse, and for just about $11 we have a working cheese cooler. I also have been working on the MSV fairly heavily recently. I just posted a new version here . The last 42 Earths play session went well (I was hoping to get farther, but they were not quite sure what they wanted to do, so they took a while deciding where to go after the firefight in the train). They ended up going to the government and reporting Diablo's recent activities. They got hired on as information gatherers, and offered equipment and funds to try to figure out what alien information/equipment Di...

We have returned from our trip. It was fun. We arrived Friday night at the cabin and I got to play some bang and star wars epic duels with the guys (and Sheila). Saturday we went hiking up a river and saw some waterfalls (baby Andrea enjoyed playing in the water a lot). Sunday we had a testimony meeting and roasted marshmallows. Monday we came home. Our house was pretty hot when we arrived home, and I smelt something funny. After walking around to try and figure out what it was, I remembered that I had not put the cheeses into the refrigerator (usually we have to house much cooler, so they can age normally, but this was crazy super ageing, and I think that it might have done some damage). I opened up one of them immediately, and it was bad. The other ones do not look bad, and I put them in the fridge. I intend to open them up tonight and see 'what has tobe done'. Hopefully they are still good. We have another play session coming up - I am not quite prepared for it yet. Hopefull...

Mason quit playing our role playing game (not too surprising, but sad nonetheless.) Our third session went well. They went to visit The gang Diablo to try to sell info (in the form of 3d computer models of the interior of the dimension ship) to them. Xander was offered a scientist position at Diablo by Blaire (the representative of Diablo ). Xander stalled for time again, and said that he would think about it, and then come back later. As he walked out, Zhengi noticed that he was being tailed. Quickly Xander was notified via text, and then he tried to lose the gang member by hopping onto a train. Zhengi snuck up behind the gang member, and as they entered the train, he attacked. Talk about a cliff-hanger ;) My MSV is going along nicely. The Atlas is cranking away, and the derivative finding was successful. I now have user input fractals fully available, and I am working on user input Newton fractals next. If that all works out, I will try to figure out a better system for decl...

We found a $4 tent at the DI. Opening it up revealed it to be in pretty good condition, and not missing any parts. It is pretty small (Alison and I could both fit in it, but a few bonus children would not fit). We decided to buy it after a little consideration. The 5 lb cheese is starting to smell pretty good - perhaps the yeast thing is over (hopefully). We have gotten some peas, and a few more strawberries from the garden, but I suspect that some birds have gotten most of the strawberries. We do have a good head of broccoli coming (and we will be eating it soon I would assume) There has been a new Twilight Imperium expansion made. I would really like it, but can't really justify getting it (as I never get to play the game anyway). It is a fun game, but my friends don't like long games any more. We have another session of our RPG coming up tomorrow. Mason is not going to be there. His wife is sick, so it makes sense, but I have seen players lose interest in a game after miss...

I just had some wonderful oatmeal bread. It is too bad that _you_ are not lucky enough to be married to someone who is a certified bread genius. (She even has her bread mensa certificate of smartness and everything). Also, the 5 lb cheese has a slightly yeasty smell (and I think that it probably got some yeast growing in it). I waxed it and it balooned the wax with its gas - hopefully it survives. We ate one tiny strawberry from our garden the other day. It was tasty. We also have peas coming up soon. Also, we have recently discovered Colosimo's Bratwurst (which are quite tasty - fairly reminiscent of real German bratwurst). I am working on a MSV Atlas - which is coming along nicely. I might post a new version of the MSV some time soon - I hope to make more headway in the equation parsing and arbitrary fractal calculation before I do, but if the Atlas is a hit locally I could se myself posting it before those other things are done. Finally, we are reading Good Omens - we found it a...

Session 0 summation: They are all riding on the Trax going north to SLC. The train crashes into a giant organic thing that fell out of the sky. They discover a creature on top of it and help some people off the train (and attend to their injuries). The creature enters an opening into the large object, and they attempt to follow it. The large object begins to dimension shift, and they are all left on the ground. They talk to a representitive of walmart, who invites them to meet with them and discuss the events with him. 0.5 The interlude: Zhengi is approached by a member of the Diablo gang and told that the gang leader (Mr. Blaire) would like to talk to him, and anyone else who was at the 'event' earlier that night. Zhengi agrees, and calls everyone in the middle of the night. The next morning they go to walmart headquarters. On the way, Mara gets a call from the secretary of her apartment saying that two government men came and were looking for her. They arrive at walmart and d...

On friday Alison mentioned how she wanted to make a 5 lb cheese with the new slow roaster that we just found at the di. Powdered milk doesn't have fat in it cause that would cause it to spoil quicker. We bought some whipping cream to try to add in a little fat to the milk (all of our long term cheeses have been pretty hard, and it seems to me that we need to add some fat to them to soften them.) On Saturday morning we started to make the cheese. We made a quadruple recipe (the slow cooker only holds 4 and a half gallons, not actually five). It came out well. Now we have about ten pounds of cheese stored away (five from various other cheese making exploits.) As you can see, our old cheeses are much smaller. The four that are red were waxed with ordinary cheese wax. The yellow one was waxed with 'cream' cheese wax. The big one is not yet dried, so I have not yet waxed it (though I think I will go with the red wax on this one.) On saturday, we had the first salad from our (rea...

I have just had to reinstall my operating system. They wanted everyone at work on the standard desktop, and I had installed everything myself. Fortunately it took a minimum of time so far. The first role playing session went well. Jae (as was expected) ended up as a homeless bum with multiple guns. They met the aliens, and got caught up in some corporate intrigue. It was pretty fun. We are meeting again next Thursday. Perhaps I will feel more ready this time (though that cannot be guaranteed, life as it is). I am considering making a page on my website that allows the user to connect to google talk, and uses only html and ajax. If I did this, then I could be on google talk while using the kindle. I have not yet finished my preliminary preparations, but I will report on it as I move forward. I also made another triple batch of granola. Since the grocery store was out of bulk raisins, we used golden raisins instead. They are more sour than the normal ones. It ended up a slightly differen...

Baby Andrea woke up a lot last night. I am tired. This last week we made a cheese, and we actually cheddared it. This is the first time that I have cheddared a cheese. Hopefully it ends up tasty. It has been being pressed for about four days now. I will wax it tonight if I remember to (and if it is dry enough). This saturday we will start playing 42 Earths (weather we are ready for it or not). I have done more work on the SRD, and continue to work on it daily. Baby Andrea has also decided to start playing pat-a-cake. She has learned so many new things to do in the last few weeks. She has gone from barely crawling to crawling across the entire house. Standing only with help to pulling to standing. Watching rusty walk around to chasing rusty around. She has started 'singing' on command, and who knows how many other things. It is really amazing to see her progress. Alison's birthday went well. I made her a treasure hunt birthday game, and she had to find her presents. She said...

The vacation is over. We made it back safely, and in a timely manner (although we had some concerns about the latter - our flight got cancelled, and we had to quickly get onto an earlier flight to make it home before church). I have made great strides in my SRD you can download it here , if you want to (Unless you like table top RPGs, I wouldn't really recommend that). I am now feeling ready to start the game. Our dog was watched by my younger brother Daniel during our vacation. We also let him use our car as a form of payment. He didn't know that you have to turn off the radio in between uses or the batteries will die, so it was apparently less useful than it could have been. Alison's garden is doing well. The plants are growing quickly. Additionally, I re-waxed the cheese that was made right before the vacation. It is looking pretty good.

As of yet the vacation has been swell. We have spent a lot of time on the beach - boogie boarding, walking, and collecting shells. We also went to the Mormon Battalion Historic Site, Balboa Park, and the Poulson's old house. Baby Andrea has started to pull to standing, and climb up stairs. We played some games (including a modified Baron Munchhausen, five crowns, and a dice stacking game.) Swee and I caught up reading Girl Genius as well as Darths and Droids. I am continuing to work on my plans for the new role playing game. I have the SRD practically completed, and am working on the world generation. I should start talking about making characters to people.

Tomorrow we leave for CA. We are going to get everything packed tonight. We will be gone all next week (seeing Becky's mission, as well as other things.) My SRD is moving along nicely. I have made a lot of psionic items, and am nearly ready to make a second release. I think that I will make some teaser pages (to hint that I will be delivering some pages in the future) I am looking for a new manga to read on the airplane. Perhaps Swee and I will read Nausicaa (as she has never read that), but we might just read separately. If so, I want to find something like Yotsubato, Cromartie High, or Azumanga Daiho. My last cheese is pretty dry. I have to remember to wax it tonight before we go on our date. Oh, also, our dog doesn't yet have a sitter... that will be important to get.

This morning I went to the SLC Library book sale. We got 3 bags of books for $11. That is a pretty good deal. This weekend we made another lb of cheese, and a double batch of granola. The granola is so good with Swee's yogurt, and 'ape jelly'. I eat it pretty much every day. We made faux curry pizza last night. The ingredients are: garlic bread, red sauce, cheddar, bacon, pork sausage, anaheim peppers, and curry powder. layer them like a pizza, and bake it (250 for a half hour, 'just like every thing else'). My secret gift for Swee's birthday is complete. Also, my D20 Modern SRD modifications for 42 Earths are sort of done. I need to add new psychic items, and search for errors. Here is the link to it. This weekend, we are going to be leaving for Becky's homecoming in California. It will be a week long trip, and will use up a lot of my vacation. Also, there are boxes of ~300 comic books at the local DI for $50 each. There are about 12 of them. I think that ...

I just got back home from the Poulson's house. Becky came back from her mission, and was giving a talk in their ward. It was a pretty fun weekend. We played some Five Crowns, and Upwords. Katie said we should play Willow, but I hadn't brought it (since is has pretty much been panned universally). I just don't see why people don't like it. I made some progress on my rewriting of the D20 Modern SRD to work with my X-Com role playing game. 6 files left to integrate (I have cut the number of files from 239 down to 75) Once the integration is done, then I will do a little rewriting, and probably add in a js navigation section. If all works I should be ready for my new campaign to start up in about a month. I waxed my cheeses last Friday. They now look pretty professional. The youngest one (an attempt to recreate the 7 month cheese that I was bragging about to everyone) already smells awesome. I think that it is perhaps the lipase. No progress on the MSV front, nor the X-Com...