Parentheticals

The date was Saturday, March 24th 2012. The weather was warm - unseasonably warm - though the sky was overcast. Two ancient foes faced each other over the field of battle. What led the world to such a place? How did history choose this idyllic spacetime coordinate as the unsettling scene of what was to follow? It must have been forechosen by the threads of the fates, for no mortal could have brought it about. One contestant in this battle was a human male - young, skinny, and unassuming. The other - an abomination from the outer reaches of the imaginable, composed of metals, polyvinyl chloride, and fibrous organic substances. The battle began in the morning, and lasted into the afternoon. First the rigid shell of the monster was extracted from the earth, and then the beast was attacked in it's own territory. The stump of a tree - long dead and rotting away was destroyed in the fight as well as a trowel. Cubic feet of earth were thrown up into the air by the wild swing...

I have been reading "That Hideous Strength" by Lewis recently. It certainly is unusual. I can't say that I like it so much. Perhaps I should read more Wodehouse or something light. This week we have been tending to a sick baby. Alison has gotten sick over the last weekend, and I am not feeling so good right now. Needless to say - you probably don't want to visit us right now. We finished building the monkey bars. The now stand in our car port - straddling the front of the car. When it stops snowing for the year we will probably move them out to the back yard. Alison came up with a fun date idea - buy a kite at the 1$ store and fly it in the park. The wind was a bit strong, (or perhaps the kites were a bit weak) and we ended up with some broken kites. It was fun either way. I have played two more games of Polynesia at work. I am now rewriting the rules document (As of yet no-one besides myself and my wife have read it, so if there is anyone out there who desires ...

We have been building a set of monkey bars for Andrea recently. In this lovely weather it has been a treat to spend time outside doing manual labor. We have the ladder portion done, and the mounting hardware. All that remains is to attach the two of them together and lacquer it. Andrea has been feeling sick for the last little bit. She has a congested sound to her cough. Hopefully she gets better soon. I have been reading The Last Unicorn recently. It is funny (and quite quotable), but the writing style is not the best (in my opinion). Also, it feels like it is a huge allegory, but of what I cannot figure out. Additionally, the characters are not very deeply written. Why is it that I can't put it down? We had another game of 42 Earths on Saturday. They finally started building up the X-Com type organization (Department 7), and traveled out to the alien home-world to talk with a neuro-programmer alien and attempt to convince him to be on their side, make th...

I have started to test the Polynesia vassal module over email with a few people. If anyone wants to be involved with the testing who wasn't invited, feel free to contact me. I invented a recipe last night - protein bars. they ended up pretty good. It was approximately: 1 part pinto bean flour 1 part rice flour 2 parts oat flour 1 part dry milk cut in 2 parts peanut butter 1/2 part honey 1 part whole milk mix in oats, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, chocolate chips as desired (probably 1-2 parts total) spread with a greased spatula into a greased pan. batter will be about the consistency of  peanut butter. If batter is too thick, add more milk. cook at 250 until they are done (half hour?). They ended up about like brownies (dense and hearty). Sheila and Scott came over and tested them out with us, and both said that they liked em. Scott and I played epic duels. The first game was Mace Windu vs Boba Fett, and went in the expected manner. The se...