Rocket, Work, Switch, TV
By Derek | January 16, 2020
Thursday. (16th)
Got up early, but had to run a couple errands before work. Jill and I went to an estate sale, and ended up picking up some model rockets. I got a cool Saturn V, brand new in the box kit to build. I’m not sure I’ll ever fly it, but I’m looking forward to building it.
Regular work day for me. I was able to help out several people working customer issues on my primary product.
I sent some Nintendo Switch friend invites today, I have had my Switch for a while now, but hadn’t added any friends as of yet. I loaded a couple of demo games that I need to check out.
Watched a couple of episodes of The Defenders ( https://reelgood.com/show/marvels-the-defenders-2017 ) season 1.
Ended up working late, due to my errands this morning, and since I didn’t get to exercise first thing, I ended up exercising after work, so I wasn’t “done” with my day until after 9pm. By that time, I was pretty tired, so I went to lay down.
Topics: Entertainment, Family, Health, Me, Nintendo, Rocketry, Technology, TV, Work | No Comments »
Slept, Work, Robotics, Instant Pot, Tummy
By Derek | January 15, 2020
A good Wednesday. (15th)
Slept in too late to exercise this morning. Regular work day for me.
Got a bit accomplished today on my primary product. I was able to help out a couple of coworkers with several customer issues they were tasked with.
Jill held a robotics day today at the house while I was at work. We have a competition Saturday, and we like to give the kids extra practice time before each one.
Cooked up the cheesy ham and potato casserole in the Instant Pot. We didn’t actually have any Thyme, thought we did, so we didn’t buy any yesterday, so we made due with garlic and herb seasoning. We also swapped out the cayenne for chipotle chili pepper powder, to give it a little kick, but not so much to be too hot for my younger son. It probably tasted a bit different from the recipe, but was still very yummy.
Ate too much and ended up with a little bit of a tummy ache, so I went to lay down early. Ended up just laying down, then finally doing my exercise, and staying up too late.
Topics: Entertainment, Family, Food, Health, Me, Recipe, Robotics, Work | No Comments »
Exercise, Pokemon, Robotics, Roast, Computer
By Derek | January 14, 2020
A good Tuesday. (14th)
Slept in again, but exercised first thing.
Our favorite BBQ place is still closed today, so we had to scrounge our own food. Oh, the horrors.
Spent some time trading Pokémon with Jill before Robotics. I was able to evolve a bunch of monsters for XP that I was going to give away anyway. Still working on getting max level (40) in the game.
Once we got the elementary kids started on robotics, Jill started working on some Instant Pot pot roast. She’s working off a “recipe” provided by our friend who runs the BBQ joint. His recipe isn’t very detailed, it’s just a list of ingredients.
Meanwhile, I started working on washing dishes, we’ve kind of let them pile up this weekend.
One of the robotics kids brought a cake for us to share. He’s into baking and has brought some cool treats in the recent past.
We ended up cooking the roast in the broth for 20 minutes, then with all the rest of the ingredients for over 30 minutes. It came out really good, but Jill thought the meat wasn’t tender enough.
After dinner, we ran out to help Jill’s sister pick up a new TV, her car isn’t big enough to hold it in the box.
With that done, we ran to HEB real quick to pick up some ingredients for an Instant Pot recipe I want to try tomorrow night.
I had to come home and work on a customer’s computer. She had some questions about an issue she was having. I was able to connect remotely through our management software, and check out the issue. I was able to get her fixed up right away.
Topics: Auto, Entertainment, Family, Food, Friends, Games, Health, Me, Photos, Robotics, Technology | No Comments »
Labs, Pokemon, Heroforge, Instant Pot
By Derek | January 13, 2020
A great Monday. (13th)
Went to have my routine blood draw first thing this morning. My doctor checks up on me every six months.
Played a bunch of Pokémon Go with Jill today. Jill’s sister also came along, we played for several hours. Our younger son came along begrudgingly. We ate lunch at Schlotzskys.
Visited the Printed Meeple and created a Heroforge character mini to 3D print. We spent a bit of time there, creating my character. I left the digital file with them to print.
Jill also needed to get a part she had printed re-printed with supports. Clay at Meeple agreed to print it for her again, since supports weren’t added by them to begin with.
Came home and made Instant Pot tacos. Of course, we didn’t have any hard shells, or tortillas, so we just put it on tortilla strip chips, on a plate.
Watched Clueless, then re-watched Stargate with Jill before bed.
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Slept, Exercised, Pokemon, Knight Watch
By Derek | January 12, 2020
A great Sunday. (12th)
Slept in, then exercised first thing.
Left the house to run some errands, RedBox, Library, etc.
Jill, our son and I played some Pokemon, mostly did some raids, on the way over to our next stop.
Went to check out a gaming store over on Blanco Road, called Knight Watch Games. It’s super cool, very fantasy-game themed, it looks like the interior of a tavern inside, long tables that you can use to play board, RPG, or minis games. They even have a room that looks like a room in an Imperial station, from Star Wars.
They have tons of games you can use, and also plenty of games and gaming accessories you can purchase.
One of the coolest rooms they have is their wardrobe room. They have lots of cosplay clothing that you can buy.
Our younger son bought himself a new set of DnD dice. Seriously, we’ll be going back, that place is very cool, we were in there for quite a while.
Jill and I played a bit of Pokemon on the way back, too, but our son was bored, so he didn’t. He gets that way when we “play Pokemon too much” according to him. Kids, right?
Once we got home, our son and I played a bit of Minecraft together on one of the multiplayer servers that he really likes. I’m not really good at those games, but I enjoy playing them with him. One game is a multiplayer building game, where everyone has like 10 minutes to build something by themselves in an area, then everyone else votes on it. Whoever ends up with the most votes for their creation wins. Another game is called “Bed Wars” where you have 4 teams of 4, and you are on separate islands. You have to protect your “bed” — think capture the flag, ultimately. That one’s very PvP, but it’s pretty fun.
Topics: Entertainment, Family, Games, Health, Me, Microsoft, Photos, Technology | No Comments »
Birthday, Urban Air, Pokemon, Star Citizen
By Derek | January 11, 2020
A great Saturday. (11th)
Slept in. I took today off from work so that we could spend the day with my younger son, as it’s his birthday.
Jill and I took him to Urban Air to play. A couple of his friends met him there, and they had some good fun. We ordered pizza for lunch.
Us adults sat around and talked, except for a few minutes when I played a couple of rounds of VR with him. They have a few four player games on the HTC Vive, and we got to play two of them; one called Robot Attack, and one called Snowball Fight.
We spent hours there letting the kids play.
On the way home, we played a bit of Pokemon Go.
Our younger son played Minecraft, on his PC this evening, while I played Star Citizen. I got to hang out with some members from my org, Synchronizerz and do some exploration of some of the moons in the solar system. Recently, CIG released what they call “Planetary Tech v4” which completely changes the look and amount of detail of the ground areas on the planets and moons. It’s really quite awesome.
Become a Star Citizen and get 5,000 free Credits https://robertsspaceindustries.com/enlist?referral=STAR-H4F3-KZZH
I played until about 3am, then had to log off and go to bed.
Topics: Entertainment, Family, Food, Friends, Games, Me, Microsoft, Photos, Star Citizen, Technology | No Comments »
Work, TV, Rush, Movie
By Derek | January 10, 2020
A good Friday. (10th)
Regular work day for me. Again, slept in a bit too much to exercise this morning.
Finished watching Iron Fist season 1, finally. Started watching Marvel’s The Defenders, which is next, according to my list.
Sad news. Neil Peart, dead at 67. I played A Farewell to Kings and a couple of my faves in his honor.
Also, if you haven’t heard the Small Soldiers remix of Tom Sawyer , and you’re a Rush fan, you ought to check it out.
Watched Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters with the family.
Jill and I let our younger son open his birthday presents just after midnight. He got a cool new Razor kick scooter and some new books!
Topics: Entertainment, Family, Health, Me, Movies, Music, TV, Work | No Comments »
Work, Instant Pot, TV
By Derek | January 9, 2020
A good Thursday. (9th)
Got up too late to exercise this morning, I’ll have to squeeze it in later.
Regular work day for me. Worked on both my primary product, and my secondary documentation project.
In between waiting for hosts to do stuff, added a bunch of Instant Pot recipes to my collection. Basically, I saved a bunch of PDFs from https://recipes.instantpot.com into my Evernote.
Watched part of episode 2 of For All Mankind with Jill, until she had to leave to run some errands.
Started watching The Witcher today. Got through the first two episodes. Great fight scenes, although the series is starting a bit slow. I was warned it would.
Watched a little bit of a buddy of mine streaming Elite Dangerous.
Got my exercise around 10pm, then went to put my car in the garage at work, in case we got hail overnight.
Topics: Auto, Entertainment, Family, Food, Health, Me, Photos, TV, Work | No Comments »
Office, Leftovers, Picard, Twister
By Derek | January 8, 2020
A good Wednesday. (8th)
Regular work day for me. Up early to exercise, today being Wednesday, it’s my one day a week in the office.
Worked on my primary product a bit, mostly catch-up work.
Jill brought me leftovers from last night’s carne guisada. Still super yummy, and a bit thicker than it was right out of the pot.
Chatted with a couple of guys from work that are super excited about the new Picard Star Trek show coming out. I had seen the original teaser trailer for it, but hadn’t got too excited for it. Now, I feel like I might have to watch it sooner rather than later. I still haven’t seen more than about a half season of Star Trek: Discovery.
Got home and finished my work day, I had to work an extra hour to make up some time that I missed on Saturday.
Watched Twister and True Romance with Jill before bed.
Topics: Entertainment, Family, Food, Friends, Health, Me, Movies, TV | No Comments »
Tacos, Brisket, Robotics, Carne Guisada
By Derek | January 7, 2020
A good Tuesday. (7th)
Got up early to take our older son to a scheduled doctor appointment. I bought us tacos on the way back from the doctor’s.
Our local BBQ joint is closed this week, so we had to make due. Jill bought a couple of pounds of brisket to tide us over, so I had a couple of brisket tacos for lunch.
Robotics is back in full swing. The elementary team got their robot mostly done, and got in some good practice. Our middle school team was able to design and build a “lifter” for the back of their robot to pick up the cubes on the field. That seems pretty successful at this point. Our next competition is a little over a week away.
Jill made carne guisada in the Instant Pot for dinner tonight. It was amazing, but a bit too spicy for her and our younger son, and it didn’t really taste like traditional carne guisada, but it was very good nonetheless. I’ll be eating some of that for lunch tomorrow for sure.
Topics: Entertainment, Family, Food, Me, Robotics, Technology | No Comments »