Exercise, Garcia’s, Movies, Sheepdog
By Derek | December 29, 2019
A good Sunday. (29th)
Exercised first thing, then went an ran some errands. Dropped by the library to return some things.
Tried a new Mexican restaurant Garcia’s in Schertz recommenced by our good friend who owns our favorite BBQ joint. Very good food.
Watched Grease, then Grease 2 with Jill. Hadn’t seen the first one in over 20 years, pretty sure I had never seen the second one. Hint: don’t bother with the second one, it’s pretty awful.
Read about, then watched video from the White Settlement Church Shooting. Watched the evening press conference, too. I’m so glad there were trained sheepdogs in that congregation, otherwise the loss of life could have been much higher.
Re-watched Pump Up The Volume.
Went to bed.
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Slept, Synch, Pokemon, Movie
By Derek | December 28, 2019
A good Saturday. (28th)
Slept in a bit this morning. Last night after we went to bed it was a bit chaotic with the dogs, and we actually didn’t get to fall asleep until after 3am.
Prepared for an org event today, for Synchronizerz https://robertsspaceindustries.com/orgs/SYNCH. CIG released a new ship, the Argo Mole, a multicrew asteroid mining ship. We had a great time, and learned a bit of the new gameplay. Jill left with her sister to play some Pokémon while I was doing the event. Synch has an event just about every Saturday, but most Saturdays I work, so I try to take advantage of them when I can.
Once I was got done with the event, had some dinner and headed out to play some Pokémon with Jill, her sister and our younger son.
Exercised late tonight.
Watched a movie with Jill; Why Him? Starring James Franco and Bryan Cranston. Pretty hilarious, but definitely not a kids movie.
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Exercise, Pokemon, Faucet, Movies, Award
By Derek | December 27, 2019
A good Friday. (27th)
Exercised first thing.
As I was off today, I got to attend Friday Pokemon Go Trade Days at our local BBQ joint.
After lunch, we ran some errands, and played a little bit of Pokémon Go while we were out.
Finally was able to buy the replacement faucet for the back yard — a “hose bibb”. Of course, I got the right size, but the wrong gender the first time. I bought the male threaded one, and needed the female threaded one. Le sigh. After a quick second trip to Lowe’s, I got the correct part and was able to install it just as it was getting dark.
This evening, Jill and I watched a couple of movies; Arrival: a Sci-Fi alien linguistics movie that’s sort of about time travel. It’s weird, but very good, and Bad Moms Christmas: a raunchy, funny, but touching story about dysfunctional mother-daughter relationships.
Also wanted to mention that I earned the December Challenge Award on my Apple Watch!
Time for bed.
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iMac, Pokemon, Movies
By Derek | December 26, 2019
A good Thursday. (26th)
Slept in a bit.
Upgraded our 2009 iMac to SSD. I bought a kit from OWC (MacSales), with suction cups for removing the glass and a 500G SSD. It also came with a thermal sensor cable to replace the one that’s built into the original HDD, which, by the way failed a few weeks ago; right at 10 years old — not too shabby for a spinny hard drive!
Opening up one of those iMacs is actually pretty easy. While I was inside it, I also replaced the optical drive, which went out a year or so ago. With our old educational software (this is the classroom iMac) the optical drive got almost constant use. I figured since I had to open it to replace the hard drive, might as well replace the optical while I had it open.
Got all that buttoned back up, then started the OS load on it, it only goes up to High Sierra (10.13).
Went to play some Pokémon Go and run a few errands.
Came home and competed the OS load, and security updates (for a 3 year old OS at this point).
Watched a couple movies before bed, one with the family; Hotel for Dogs and one with Jill; Cowboy Way (which I hadn’t seen!)
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Christmas 2019!
By Derek | December 25, 2019
A great Christmas Day! (25th)
Woke up a bit late, had Christmas morning. Good stuff all ‘round, I received a new Switch game Link’s Awakening, thanks, Jill!
Picked up our older son, Austin, he opened his presents, and then we hung out with him for most of the day.
He brought his XBox One over, but we discovered that he doesn’t have really any of the same multiplayer games that I have. We just have different game styles.
Our younger son spent some of his Christmas XBox money on our older son, and he was able to get Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition for XBox One… it was about $50. We had hoped to play multiplayer, cross platform, which is supposed to be one of the features of the Enhanced Edition. However, multiplayer for XBox One is “coming soon” — maybe January?
Either way, we had a good time hanging out, and Jill’s stepmom Judy even stopped by for a bit.
Once we took Austin home, I came back and played my new Switch game (see above) for several hours. I hadn’t played the original, so it’s all new to me.
Time for bed!
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Cold, Errands, RetroPi, Tree, Family, Movie
By Derek | December 24, 2019
A great Christmas Eve. (24th)
Slept in a bit, but woke up very cold, I went to bed with too small of a blanket.
Left to eat lunch and run some errands, had to return an Amazon package to the UPS store for shipment back, do some last minute Christmas shopping, and pass out some socks and stuff to some travelers.
Set up the new Raspberry Pi image that I downloaded from Arcade Punks. It’s a 256gb image, and it’s set up very cool. I just need to get better wireless controllers for it now. The USB ones I bought from China ($5 each) are crap. Duh, right? I added some 8bitdo controllers to my Amazon wish list. Anyways, it plays a retro gaming movie clip when it boots, and changes the RetroPi theme on every boot as well. Very cool.
We set up our Christmas tree today. We just set up the small one, not the full size one. We should have offered my parents to help us set up the big one while they were here for Thanksgiving. Maybe next time.
Talked to Jill’s dad, her brother and his wife on the phone this evening. Just chatted to catch up, really. It’s been a while since we’ve talked to them.
Watched Die Hard, the best Christmas movie while we wrapped all the presents.
Time for bed!
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Errands, Pokemon, Star Wars, Lights
By Derek | December 23, 2019
A good Monday. (23rd)
Got up only a bit later than usual. Jill had some errands to run, and she wanted to hang out with her sister a bit and play some Pokemon Go.
Worked on reviewing some bylaws for the non-profit that my wife and I are working on starting. More about this to come later.
Played & streamed a bit of Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order. The streamed videos are saved in my YouTube playlist called “Playthroughs“.
Took the family to look at Christmas lights in Windcrest. Tons of traffic, but some really pretty lights. We need to do a carriage ride next year, would probably be way less stressful. Of course, the carriage rides are $25/person, with kids under 10 $5, and kids under 6 free. Our youngest is 11 (almost 12).
Had to visit a customer late, one of the churches I support, as they had a video issue that one of their staff was trying to wrangle for tomorrow’s Christmas Eve ceremony. Took only a bit to figure out the issue.
Came home. Played & streamed some more Jedi Fallen Order before bed. Went to bed too late.
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Errands, Controller, Shopping, MK8
By Derek | December 22, 2019
A good Sunday. (22nd)
Slow start to the day, then off to The library, then CostCo for gas & groceries.
Brought home the groceries, unloaded and headed back out to do some Christmas shopping.
Had a second to stop by Game Over Videogames, was able to pick up a wireless controller for the WiiU for $10 (third party of course).
Did a bunch of Christmas shopping. Got home after 8pm, had dinner and some hot cocoa.
Tried out the wireless controller on the WiiU in Mario Kart 8 briefly. My younger son is better at it than I am.
Time for bed.
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Rockets, Nap, Hung out
By Derek | December 21, 2019
A good Saturday. (21st)
First thing this morning: rocketry. As I’m off work until January, I actually got to attend a Saturday rocket launch, woohoo!
At the airfield we shoot rockets at, above the urinal in the mens room is this sign, it’s fairly funny.
Slo-Mo
Rocket
Launch
I was feeling pretty tired after coming back from rocketry, so I took a nap in my upstairs chair.
Had a bunch of family and friends over in the evening. Just kinda hung out, the kids played games.
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Work, TV, Drinks, CAH
By Derek | December 20, 2019
A great Friday. (20th)
Regular work day for me. Today is my last work day of the decade! Seriously, I don’t go back to my day job until Jan 2nd.
Continued watching My Favorite Martian.
Watched an episode of Danger 5. I started watching this a few days ago, and it’s pretty crazy.
Had a few drinks, and played Cards Against Humanity with family and friends until past our bedtime.
Topics: Entertainment, Family, Friends, Games, Me, TV | No Comments »