Health, Work, Subscribe, Picard
By Derek | January 29, 2020
Sad Wednesday. (29th)
Got up first thing and did my exercise. Did 40 minutes, again, still working to earn that custom Apple Watch challenge for January.
Regular work day for me. Normally, today would be my one day a week in the office, but the company I work for has changed their liberal WFH policy. Well, changed as in effectively rescinded. Starting Feb 1st, all employees are expected to be at their desks during their work day, no exceptions. I can’t wait until flu season. Yay.
Jill found out that one of the guys who works at our local BBQ joint has pancreatic cancer ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancreatic_cancer ). It has a very low survival rate. My younger son is very upset, as this guy is one of his best buddies over there. If we get access to a GoFundMe or something, I’ll be sure to post it.
I was introduced to this video today https://youtu.be/NVGuFdX5guE — it’s from CCP Grey, who. I watch occasionally, but hadn’t seen this one. It’s neat.
I added a new page to my blahg today: https://dereksblahg.net/subscribe/
We watched the first episode of Star Trek: Picard this evening. Intriguing.
Topics: Family, Friends, Health, Me, Technology, Work | No Comments »
Health, BBQ, Robotics, Python, Family
By Derek | January 28, 2020
A good Tuesday. (28th)
Slept in a bit, then got up and did my exercise. Actually did 40 minutes, instead of 30, as I’m trying to earn a special custom Apple Watch challenge for January. I’ve been pushing it up on my exercise minutes to get this badge for days, now, and I think I’ve got it in the bag.
Regular Tuesday for us, BBQ Frito Pie up first. Super yummy.
Robotics next. The two teams practiced with their robots, just refining their techniques and working to get their score up. We had them practice both teams on the field at once, so they could work on collaborating, as that’s the way the actual event runs anyway.
After Robotics, Jill and I took our younger son to his martial arts class, then went to find some food.
I hosted my monthly Python meetup this evening. Normally it’s on the third Tuesday of the month, but we’re at the scheduling mercy of our venue, so we move it around a bit when necessary.
After Python, we got home to find Jill’s niece and her kids came over to hang out with us. So we hung out and the kids played games until bedtime.
Topics: Entertainment, Family, Food, Me, Python, Robotics, Technology | No Comments »
DMVx2, Art, Cookies, Star Citizen
By Derek | January 27, 2020
A good Monday. (27th)
Slept in, then went and ran a few errands. I had to renew my driver’s license, it was set to expire on my birthday next month. I had to obtain my birth certificate, since I didn’t have a copy. I previously ordered one from Idaho, but then my dad found one that he wasn’t sure he had, and sent it to me.
Just before leaving the house, Jill checked hers and discovered she needed to renew it as well, so we all went to the Pat Booker DMV and got in line. We were there for about two hours before they called us to line up. Once we were in line, it went pretty quickly.
Took our younger son to a homeschool art class. We joined this group of other homeschoolers for Monday events. Turns out, the art place is right next to Cookie Cab, so I ordered a dozen cookies for the parents while we were there.
Didn’t exercise this morning, so I had to do it this evening, once we got home.
I had to work on a couple of customer systems remotely this evening.
Stayed up late playing Star Citizen. Only a few people were on from my org Synchronizerz but I wanted to play, so I ran some solo missions and earned some money. Money doesn’t really matter in the game right now, since we’ll have a persistence wipe before the next patch drops. They have been working to increase persistence, but people keep finding economy-breaking bugs (credit duping) that require them to wipe.
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Family, Visit, TV
By Derek | January 26, 2020
A good Sunday. (26th)
Got up late, didn’t get to exercise before we left.
Went to pick up Jill’s sister, then put gas in the car, before we went out to Trader’s Village.
Met Jill’s other sister and niece and her kids out there. Hung out for a while visiting, before we left to go out to Floresville to visit Jill’s other sister’s new house.
Stayed out there for a while, walked their property a bit, and fed some fish in a fish pond they have.
When we left there, we ended up going to Brooks City Base Las Palapas for dinner.
Once we got home, I exercised while we started watching the rest of Star Wars Rebels ( https://reelgood.com/show/star-wars-rebels-2014 ) season 4, which is the last season. We stayed up late and finished out the season before bed.
Topics: Entertainment, Family, Food, Health, Me, TV | No Comments »
Work, TV, Health
By Derek | January 25, 2020
A good Saturday. (25th)
Got up late today, kept ignoring the alarm clock. Didn’t get to exercise before work.
Regular work day for me, I get to work on my primary product, performing host evacuations.
Started Marvel’s The Punisher today. Looking forward to this one, for sure.
After work, exercised. I rode the recumbent bike for almost an hour. I’m trying to rack up enough minutes to earn a special Apple Watch badge this month.
While I worked out, Jill, our younger son and I started watching the remaining episodes of Lost In Space season 2. We ended up binging that until past our bedtime, but we finished it. I really liked it.
Topics: Entertainment, Family, Health, Me, TV, Work | No Comments »
Work, TV, Pokemon, Pie
By Derek | January 24, 2020
A good Friday. (24th)
Regular workday for me. Exercised as normal.
Worked on my primary product mostly today.
Jill had a ton of errands to run today, but managed to make it over to our favorite BBQ joint for Pokemon Go Trade Day. Our younger sone stated home and did schoolwork this morning, but did get to go to trade days also.
Talked to a friend this afternoon about Star Trek: Picard. He really wanted me to watch it. I’ve added it to my watch list, I don’t have CBS All Access. I don’t feel like they have enough content for a pay streaming service, they’re just being greedy. You might say, well, hold on, Apple has a pay TV service now, took and they have very little content… true, but Apple is giving away a full year of access with the purchase of any hardware.
Binged Marvel’s Inhumans today. Of all the Marvel movies and TV shows I’ve watched, this one is about the least impressive. It is decent, and I wanted to finish all 8 episodes, but this show doesn’t really tie into the universe as well as Agents of Shield or any of the other shows so far (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Defenders, etc).
Left the house with Jill and our younger son after work to go play some Pokemon Go. I had been home all day and needed to get out.
After we played for a bit, we stopped by Jill’s sister’s work, Jim’s restaurant, to hang out and have some pie. Stayed way later than we should have. Got to bed late.
Topics: Apple, Entertainment, Family, Games, Health, Me, Technology, TV, Work | No Comments »
Docs, Traffic, Instant Pot, Witcher
By Derek | January 23, 2020
A great Thursday. (23rd)
Regular work day for me. I went into the office, since I didn’t get a chance to go yesterday. Got some good work done on my secondary documentation project.
Left work early to try to get up to CostCo for gas, but the traffic was already horrible, so I skipped it and came straight home.
Meanwhile, Jill made a trip to HEB to buy some ingredients for an Instant Pot recipe we wanted to make tonight, then dropped them and our younger son off, turned around and left again to take our older son to an appointment of his, then came back and grabbed our younger son to take him to martial arts. Traffic was a bear, and our younger son was a few minutes late.
Worked until the end of my shift, and Jill and I made that Instant Pot recipe for dinner.
Listened to a metal cover of Toss A Coin To Your Witcher. You can find Dan Vasc on that video steaming site, too, but I’d rather listen to it in a playlist, in my Music, on my iPhone or my HomePod.
Jill and I started watching The Witcher. I was already a couple of episodes in, but she saw a bit of it, and thought she might like it, so we started from the beginning, and watched the first three episodes tonight before bed. She does like it, and I’m really enjoying it. We both enjoyed Game if Thrones, and I’m hoping that Amazon does a great job with Wheel of Time. So excited for that one.
Topics: Apple, Auto, Entertainment, Family, Food, Me, Music, Photos, Recipe, Technology, TV, Work | No Comments »
Dr, Work, RackerGamers, Electronics
By Derek | January 22, 2020
A great Wednesday. (22nd)
Got up a bit early today, had two doctor appointments first thing this morning. I went ahead and took a half day at work, because I knew they would take a while. These were routine checkups and everything checked out.
Picked up my older son and his wife to take her to work, and then him to another appointment. Dropped her off and swung by the library to pick up an item on hold.
Jill dropped our younger son and I off at the house so that we could eat lunch and get started on work.
Sad to hear that Terry Jones (Monty Python fame) passed away today.
Regular work day for me, once I got started.
After work, we had a RackerGamer Board Meeting, where we made progress on several fronts. We’re getting closer to being an official 501(c)(3)!
We ended the meeting “early” by our standards, so Jill and our younger son and I had time to work on an electronics project that we had been wanting to do. It’s a little flashing LED kit, nothing too fancy, but Jill had never soldered before, and she got to. I hadn’t soldered in probably 20 years, and our younger son had only done it once before, so he got some good practice. Not too bad!
Topics: Family, Health, Me, RackerGamers, Technology, Work | No Comments »
Recharge, BBQ, Robotics, Movies
By Derek | January 21, 2020
A great Tuesday. (21st)
Slept in a bit, Until almost 10a, we’ve been running pretty hard the last few days, so I needed a bit of a recharge.
Got up, exercised and got ready to go get a haircut. Jill had to run our older son to an errand while I was working on this. We let our younger son sleep in a bit more. I got him up once I was ready, so he could take care of the dogs.
After we got back from the barber, it was time for our weekly BBQ Frito pie. They had been closed for a couple of weeks, we were so missing it. Super yummy.
Robotics was exciting today. We watched our videos from the competition, and analyzed some improvements that could be made. Our kids made improvements, and were able to increase their average scores. Awesome!
Took our younger son to Kuk Sool Won (martial arts) today, he has it every Tuesday and Thursday. Since he’s blue belt now, he actually led the class warmup today.
After we got back home, we decided to watch a couple movies, Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile. I remembered parts of RtS, but almost nothing of JotN.
Time for bed.
Topics: Entertainment, Family, Food, Me, Movies, Robotics, Technology | No Comments »
Errands, Pokemon, Crafts, Tortilla Soup, Mini
By Derek | January 20, 2020
A great Monday. (20th)
Jill and I got up a bit early to take our older son to an appointment. Ran down to Quarry, to try to go to my eye doctor’s to grab something, but didn’t realize they’d be closed for the MLK holiday. Ran and played some Pokémon Go while out and about.
Had to run to Tractor Supply for dog food.
We took our younger son to a homeschool park day. The kids, and a few adults played capture the flag. He had lot of fun, and us other parents got to know each other a bit. It was our first time with that group, but that’s OK, because they’re a fairly new group. They plan on organizing more events on Mondays, so that’s cool. We also talked to another lady who sounds like she might be interested in our robotics program for her kids, so we gave her our info. Maybe she’ll show up tomorrow?
Came back home to exercise and work on some craft projects. I needed to remove some “supports” from a 3D printed trophy base that Jill had printed at the Printed Meeple.
Jill made her great tortilla soup for dinner (not Instant Pot), and it was awesome, as always.
Helped our friend build an LED light diffuser box to mount on his monitor for his streaming gig. He actually rented a room with his girlfriend down the road, and moved out of our guest room yesterday, so he is still working to get his studio all set up. Part of that is replacing some of the equipment that Jill was letting him borrow while he lived here.
After cleaning up the supports on the trophy base, I also worked on removing the supports from the Heroforge mini that I had printed. I think I got them all done. The first picture here is the original screenshot of the mini I downloaded from Heroforge.
The second picture here is a photo of the actual mini after I got it all cleaned up. Next step, painting!
Time for bed.
Topics: 3D Printing, Entertainment, Family, Friends, Games, Me, Photos, Technology | No Comments »