Tummy, Friends, Spider-Man, Pork Ribs
By Derek | October 6, 2019
A great Sunday, overall. (6th)
Got to see my older son briefly today. He was cordial.
Our main plan for the day was to go spend time hanging out with some great friends in Boerne.
When we were about 10 minutes away, though, my lower left abdomen started hurting. I felt kind of like I had a gas bubble. It wasn’t a sharp pain, more uncomfortable than real pain, so we just hung out at their house for a bit.
After a couple of hours there with this pain, I decided to lay down on our friends couch. That ended up with me racing to their bathroom to discharge the contents of my stomach.
I really hoped I’d feel better after that, but it persisted, so Jill and I decided to go to urgent care. On the way there, I had to get Jill to pull over, apparently there were still stomach contents remaining.
Waited in their waiting room for almost an hour, during which time the pain finally slowly went away on its own. It had hurt for about three hours total.
Once we got to see the PA (no doctor of course), he told us that gut issues are very difficult to diagnose, but since the pain was already gone, I should “rest my stomach” for a few days (eat light) and drink lots of fluids. That’ll be $50, in advance, thanks.
Got back to our friends house feeling much better, though!
Watched the new Spider-Man movie ( https://reelgood.com/movie/spider-man-far-from-home-2019 ) with our friends and had some great pork ribs, charro style beans, and Mac & Cheese. That’s a light dinner, right?
Once the movie was over we just sat around and caught up, it had been a while since we’d been able to get together. We stayed as late as we could but still left around 11p, which got us home a bit before midnight.
Topics: Entertainment, Family, Food, Friends, Health, Me, Movies | No Comments »
Work, Deadmau5, Synchronizerz
By Derek | October 5, 2019
A good Saturday. (5th)
Regular workday for me. Worked on my primary project.
Watched some more Luke Cage season 1. Enjoying it.
Deadmau5 dropped his “last” LP, “here’s the drop!” today. Listening to it now. It’s pretty mellow, but I don’t think it’s very dance-able. I might have to listen to it a couple more times and see if it hooks me.
Watched today’s Synchronizerz stream with Sitarow. Star Citizen just released alpha 3.7 to PTU, and it has a bunch of new features, including caves to explore. The video is over 3 ½ hours, but if you start using the time index on this link ( https://youtu.be/JJVDKYWqt1M?t=5334 ) you get right into the exploration.
Of course, after watching that, I had to play some Star Citizen before bed. I made a few videos, and turned them into a playlist.
It’s about 30 minutes, if you want to watch the whole thing, if not, I’ve listed the individual videos here, as well.
- Can’t buy gear (alpha) 2m22s
- Gearing up 7m22s
- Entering the cave 10m27s
- Crawling 1m
- Found the victim 2m35s
- Exiting the cave 4m35s
Topics: Entertainment, Games, Me, Music, Star Citizen, TV, Work | No Comments »
Work, TV, Exercise
By Derek | October 4, 2019
A good Friday. (4th)
Regular workday for me, just focused on my documentation project. Had a small celebration at one of my coworkers house for hitting a large milestone on the project. Also, it was her birthday, so we had pizza and ice cream cake.
Watched an episode of Luke Cage, still working on season 1.
Did my exercises before bed.
Topics: Entertainment, Health, Me, TV, Work | No Comments »
Work, RackerGamers, Star Citizen
By Derek | October 3, 2019
A good Thursday. (3rd)
Regular workday for me.
Ran the RackerGamers t-shirt and merch table during lunch. We did well. We’ll be running the table every Tuesday and Thursday between now and Game Day, Nov 2nd.
Also discussed having a couple more RackerGamers board meetings before the event.
Played some Star Citizen, since PTU 3.7 Wave One came out. Made a few highlights. The first one is a bit long, the next few are shorter, and show off some of the new features of the new patch.
- https://youtu.be/iTUEkzkhmus General gameplay 34m
- https://youtu.be/YuXYRYrqu20 Bad Autoland 1m49s
- https://youtu.be/IVn9F6rAs-s Cave Explorer 7m26s
- https://youtu.be/J5T_EdEJlhc Light and use flare 1m
PT again tomorrow.
Topics: Entertainment, Games, Health, Me, RackerGamers, Star Citizen, Work | No Comments »
PT, Work, Updates
By Derek | October 2, 2019
A good Wednesday. (2nd)
Today was my first day of physical therapy. They had me start super slowly. I need to build muscles up in my glutes to allow my hips to do more of the work holding me up, rather than putting all that extra strain on my back. Focussing on the glutes is one of the things my previous PT had me start doing, earlier this year, as well. Anyways, I’ve got my schedule through the end of this month, twice a week.
Regular workday for me.
Forgot to mention that I replaced that silly clear iPhone case that I ended up really not liking. It was also bigger and bulkier than I like my cases to be. I bought one that was a few dollars more (like $11) and is very thin and has leather on the back.
I also spent some time adding my previous updates, which were originally posted publicly only to MeWe, here. There’s an entry for nearly every day from here back to Aug 12th, if you’re interested.
Topics: Apple, Health, Me, Technology, Work | No Comments »
Full Tuesday
By Derek | October 1, 2019
A good Tuesday. (1st)
October already? Wow.
Got the errands outta the way first thing in the morning, including dropping the RackerGamer t-shirts off at Castle.
Then we did lunch at our normal weekly spot.
Robotics starting at 2p, which we’re going to move a bit earlier, as it’s actually our second robotics program, and ending one right when the other one is supposed to start is a bit chaotic.
Youngest son had martial arts.
Worked on my computer for a bit, then watched a movie with Jill, then time for bed.
Topics: Entertainment, ExtraLife, Food, Movies, Robotics, Technology | No Comments »
Busy Day, ContentID
By Derek | September 30, 2019
A good Monday. (30th)
Woke up early to go downtown to take care of some stuff. Was down there for quite a bit longer than we anticipated, but we got all of our errands run.
Got home just in time for the delivery of our RackerGamer Game Day shirts for this year. They look great.
Worked a bit on getting a new website set up. It’s coming along. Still needs more content ( https://versahomeschool.org ). It’s a club for home schoolers in the San Antonio area to promote STEAM.
Shortly thereafter, our family friend got here from out of town, he’ll probably be staying with us a few days.
I talked him into doing ExtraLife with us this year. He’s working to get himself set up as a streamer, so I figured this might help. Plus, it’ll be tons of fun!
I also gave him permission to use music off my album ( https://digitalpenguins.info ) for his streams, and to put in the background of his YT videos. He’ll give me credit, so I’ll get a little exposure there, too.
Turns out, if I _don’t_ register my music with Google’s “ContentID” anyone can use it in their videos. Hopefully, they’d remember to give me credit as well. The bad news is this: if I want to allow my friend to use it, but I _do_ register it with ContentID, I will get 80% of the resulting advertising money, rather than my friend who created the video. As an artist that’s created music, even I know that’s crap. Why not 50/50 with the video creator, of it’s original content? Man, the music industry “runs this town” don’t they?
After that I looked up some job postings at work to help a friend that’s ready for a change. Not sure if anything I found will help them, but you never know.
Topics: ExtraLife, Friends, Law, Me, Music, Work | No Comments »
Re-arranged the Game Room
By Derek | September 29, 2019
A good Sunday. (29th)
Re-arranged a bunch of stuff in the Game Room today. Moved a couple of consoles that use only wired controllers to the TV stand that’s under our wall hanging TV, so they are closer to the center of the room.
That also gave me space on the electronics tower to bring in my XBox One, which has languished in my office just hooked up to a 24” monitor for some time now.
While I was reprogramming the Harmony remote to add the XBOne, I noticed an optimization I could make with all my previous activities. So, I spent a bit of time optimizing those. The bummer about the new Harmony method, at least through the app, is that it syncs to the Harmony Hub and the to the remote for _every change_. That makes two 10 second changes take nearly 3 minutes. I have nine activities. ? It took me quite a bit longer than I expected it to.
The first optimization had to do with turning on my receiver before the TV. Somehow, that makes things works more smoothly.
The second optimization was setting the power options for each device. There are a couple of ways to manage the OFF state for devices, the default is off when not using. Unfortunately, if you accidentally switch activities, or someone else does, the device you were using goes off. Not too terrible if you’re just watching Plex on the AppleTV, you just pick up where you left off. If, however, you’re on a game on a game console — well, you can see the trouble.
So, now, all devices are set to essentially stay on if they’ve been turned on UNTIL the power off function is sent via the remote. This also works well, for instance, if you fire up the XBox and want It to stay on to download a new game, while you switch over to the AppleTV to watch a quick episode of something, while waiting for the download to finish.
When you’re done in the game room, press OFF via the remote and _all_ the devices that are on turn off. Super nice.
After that, I did my daily exercise, which I’m getting back into, I forgot yesterday… and then we took off for a drive.
Hadn’t done that for a while. It was fun. I drove with Jill and our younger son to Austin, just to drive. Before my back got really bad, we used to do this once a month or so. It gives us time to just sit and talk, as a family. Good news is, IH-35 wasn’t actually too bad. There was a tad bit of traffic heading into New Braunfels, but it was mostly steady all the way out to South Austin and back.
Worked on a new website for a friend tonight when we got back. It’s WordPress, but nothing to show off yet.
Topics: Apple, Auto, Entertainment, Family, Games, Health, Home Improvement, Me, Microsoft, Movies, Technology, TV | No Comments »
Work, Code Jam, Python, TV
By Derek | September 28, 2019
A good Saturday. (28th)
Regular work day.
Took a few hours off work to attend Youth Code Jam with Jill and my younger son. He got to do a couple of really cool things. The first was program a “self-driving” car in Python. Second, he got to learn some command-line basics, for security research, such as searching FTP sites for files, and stuff. Neat!
Completed Agent of Shields season 3. Pretty good way they wrapped it up, part of it takes place after to Sokovia Accords.
Watched the first episode of Marvel’s Luke Cage, season 1, then let the kids have the TV so they could play some more Nine Parchments on the Switch.
Topics: Entertainment, Family, Games, Me, Nintendo, Python, Robotics, Technology, TV, Work | No Comments »
Work, Dark Legacy, Git Gud
By Derek | September 27, 2019
A Good Friday. (27th)
Regular workday for me. Worked from home, like I’ve been. Busy day, working mostly on my secondary (documentation) project.
Planning to work half-week from The Castle next week, and one of those days I’ll be able to run the t-shirt table for RackerGamers upcoming annual Game Day. This years’ t-shirts should be delivered Monday.
Watched a few more episodes of Agents of Shield season 3.
Did my regular 30 minutes exercise. It’s nice to be back on it.
Played some Gauntlet Dark Legacy on XBox Original with the kids. It’s a bit hardcore for them. Four-player co-op, but if your character falls down, it stays down until the rest of the players, or player in most cases, finishes or fails the level. Which means little people waiting impatiently to play again, so that didn’t last long. Can’t tell a four year old to Git Gud. 😀
So we switched to Nine Parchments on the Switch. Again, four-player co-op, but if your character falls down, it can be revived by one of the other characters at any time, and even if all four fall down, the game picks one at random to revive and do “Last Chance” to see if that one player can fight the baddies and revive the other players, thus recovering the level. Of course, if that last chance player falls down, then the game just loads from checkpoint.
Topics: Entertainment, Games, Health, Me, Nintendo, RackerGamers, TV, Work | No Comments »