Posts
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Slacked off a bit
These last two weeks was kind of a break from everything. I spent most evenings playing games (Satisfactory) with some friends. We started fresh with their new update III. It has some really cool additions and changes to the way some things worked. So far it has been a lot of fun as well as a time sink. But sometimes we need to take a break and recharge some.
It also means I need to get back on track on some things as well as there are a couple new goals I am looking to add to my list. So this week I will probably continue to play games and relax I am also going to be updating my planner and mapping some new things.
Work on the RPG is still moving forward. Though the break to play games has slowed down some of the writing down of things. I have been churning the leveling process and balance in my head. Sometimes it is good to step back for a bit to get a better picture.
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End of MarcH
March came and went pretty quick. A lot of plans changed due to the corona-virus and trying to quarantine ourselves. But it also brought new plans and projects to get done. I got the basement cleaned up (first wave anyways. I still need to go through some shelves/storage and reduce a lot.) I worked on getting a website up and started this “blog” again. Started reading for fun again and got my taxes done.
I didn’t get as far in my RPG as I would have liked but I made good progress this last weekend. It is coming along though so I am not too disappointed. I am still planning on being able to do more play testing this weekend with my kids (captive audience after all) and I think soon after will open it up to some more play testing with my friends as I work on the first module.
Despite the MC 17.75K race being cancelled I am still finding time to run though not as much as I was when I was training. The MC Historic Half is in May. I may sign up for it though I am not sure if it will still be happening. But at least I have something to train toward for now to kinda help my get into the grove more. I have always trained more consistently when I have a race. I did sign up for the MC Marathon already but that isn’t until this fall.
April looks to be more of the same. Clean up the shelves in the basement. Overall reduce some of the stuff I have basically. Continue to exercise and work on the RPG. Work on some programming/development stuff. Read another book. etc.
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Mid march check-in
Hopefully everyone is starting to settle into a new routine and feeling more in tune with their lives. As well as getting exercise and some mental health time to just relax a little. I personally try to avoid the news as much as possible and just check in once in the evening to see were we are at. It is going to be a while before we get caught up to where we need to be so numbers are going to get worse for a while. Best we can do is stay safe and help our communities. I don’t need 24hrs of news weighing me down to know that.
Overall I have been getting things done and feeling a bit more organized than normal. A lot less distractions and commitments to deal with coupled with no commute to and from work which is really really nice. I have had stints of working predominantly from home before and I have always felt more productive during those times. Its amazing how much time we spend just going to and from work and I don’t even have that bad of a commute.
I made really good headway on the RPG this weekend and am trying to get things finalized this week so that I can stay on track with playtesting. I imagine that will cause me to have to rethink some things and make changes but ideally they will be minor if I do this part right initially. So I will keep at it.
I did finish reading The Speaker For the Dead. It ended kind of weird to me. Its more a Part I of 2 type book (or 3 or whatever not really sure) than a stand alone novel. While you can definitely read it without having read Ender’s Game, I don’t feel like the story concluded enough for it to be a stand alone book on the other end. I wasn’t planning to read the next book for some time as there are others I wanted to read so that also have me feeling a little less happy about it.
I have been reading a lot of technical docs lately while I try to get some systems up and so have kinda been planning on reading another novel instead of a non-fictional book in April. We will see how this week goes I have enought to keep me buy until then anyways so will make that decision later. It probably won’t be Xenocide though.
My other goals are to continue knocking out to-do’s around the house and to better fit in my exercise time. I have had a few days where I didn’t get around to doing a workout. I may have went for a walk to get away from the screen for a bit but didn’t get as many workouts as I would have liked especially the non-running ones. So will have to focus on that more this week.
Stay safe, get some exercise, eat healthy, take time for your mental wellbeing, and help one another.
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Mar 2020 A New World
So what a week huh? I had already been working from home since our company was really supportive of it. I am surprised at how fast it went from nah its just the flu to everything is closed. I am glad they went this route. I didn’t expect them to get this far until after it was farther along.
For me the transition hasn’t been too bad. I switched from working out at the gym to working out at home. Running is easy as I have a treadmill as well as I can just run outside if its nice. The other days are a little harder as I don’t have a gym full of equipment but I have enough for now. My wife did after school care so she is done for awhile. Which is fine I would rather her not work until things are under control.
This last week I spent most of my free time cleaning the basement and getting rid of a lot of old stuff that has been piling up. There is a local place that recycles electronics on the second Saturday of the month so dropped off a car full of broken computers and other electronics. Rearranged some things so the treadmill takes up less room and got rid of some shelves. I still have one more shelf to figure out and then I will have plenty of room to work out.
I also worked on getting the framework of the RPG website going. I am using Cryogen which is a Clojure program to make a static web site from CSS, templates and data files. Which means I had to figure out how it all worked and relearn some CSS. Overall it wasn’t so bad and I have something to work off of now.
Plans for the coming week include getting closer to finishing up the initial RPG spec so that I can play test more. I didn’t get much done this last week on it just stuff in my head. I also need to work more on the basement and figure out what to do with some of the extra stuff. I also am doing some O’reilly learning things. Stretch goal would be to get Prometheus up and running to monitor a couple Docker containers I am running to see what it looks like.
I have found that having a good daily routine has made it a lot easier these last couple weeks. Getting a daily workout in, eating healthy (avoiding the comfort snacks that are high in sodium and saturated fat), an afternoon break (a walk or just do something else to get away from the computer a bit), and limit the amount of time watching/reading the news. My son will start remote classes next week so we will see how that adjustment goes but will do as much as I can to help him get used to it.
Stay Safe. Make good choices for yourself and those around you.
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2020 A Journey
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