Walker

Back from Seattle. Had a fine last day there, including

• Breakfast with the Gilberts
• a lovely Pilsner-soaked trip to Feierabend with Sage in which I did not get so hammered that I couldn't function (that's 1-for-1 for me and German pubs in Seattle)
• and finally getting to see Paul, even if just for five minutes

Trip back went fine, and I was more than ready to get back to the family. Turns out, of course, that Paige took her first step while I was gone. It was bound to be either then or more likely while at daycare, so I'm more excited that she took that step than disappointed that I missed it.

Don't think I ever posted about Carrie's birthday. We got a bbq put together last minute on the 9th, and I was worried we wouldn't have many people show up. Turns out there were a dozen adults and about as many kids. Alex, Joe, Joe and Melissa, two of Carrie's coworkers families, and even Todd and Traci, who I had waited late enough to text about iti; all with kids in tow if they had 'em. Turned out to be a great evening, which of course, Carrie deserves. Oh, and there was pralines and cream ice cream cake. A happy, happy birthday to her, even as late as this sentiment is hitting my journal.

Just scheduled delivery of our new chest freezer. The old one went out a while back and I, figuring it was out of warranty, waited till the warranty was really almost gone before calling Sears to come look at it. Turns out it's getting replaced for free.

Seattle, Now!

PNW adventure continues!

Andy came up to Tacoma for a few beers. Been something like five and a half years since we've seen each other. Was great to catch up.

Work rounded out nice and light. Not sure this trip was really necessary but grateful for the free airfare nonetheless. Sage picked me up round 3-ish and we headed out to his place, which is a pretty cute little house over in Kirkland. After Sarah got home we headed out to a seafood place in Seattle called Etta's. Good salmon, but Sarah's crab cakes were better. Spent the remainder of the evening chatting over beers back at their place the hitting the sack relatively early. This morning I woke up around 7 and stayed in bed reading for two hours.

Today we'll likely head down to Olympia for a visit with Andy and Deanna, finally meeting their kids. Been toying with the idea of staying the night down there but not sure. Either way I'll need to be back up here Saturday night since I fly out so early Sunday.

Missing the kids more than I thought I would. Carrie sent me a picture of Paige yesterday and I swear she has grown since I left.

Great NorthWet

Up in Seattle (actually Tacoma right now) till Sunday. Feel bad leaving Carrie at home with the kids but this kind of came up at the last minute and staying through the weekend was an opportunity that may not come again for a while in terms of work. Travel at the new job seems much less frequent even though it had fallen off quite a bit at the old job. Plan right now is a day and a half of work followed by two and a half days hanging out with Sage and/or the Gilberts.

Whoosh

Gaming: More Burning Post-Apocalyptic Rome. Catastrophic flood, we killed a witch, and evacuated the neighborhood saving them from the long-beard horde.

Home stuff: Traci came through town on Sunday. Good times. Also got a storm door put on. Very nice.

Movies: Troll Hunter. Loved it. Check it out via Netflix instant.

Sick: Some kind of sinus garbage the last three days.

Babies: Have been alternating wakeful nights. Also they have learned to clap. At night it's crying though, not so much the clapping.

Well

More and more I'm taking less and less time to keep this thing updated. I've been thinking about moving over to Blogger, but until I start devoting some time consistently to hammering out some posts I figure I may as well stay put.

Was good to see Isaac. Ben ran some Apocalypse World in lieu of normal Friday gaming, and we were joined by Tony and Isaac's friend from Santa Fe, Joel. I played a Brainer named Marsh and quickly and boldly pushed the game off the rails. So much off the wall shit that at one point Isaac remarked, "Why the hell are we doing this?" Lots of craziness that ended with Tony and I, after I killed half the hardhold with a brain-grenade, taking over the place while the rest of the group hightailed it out of town to get away from us. Definitely the best game of AW I've played.

Traci came out that weekend too. We did a lot of hanging around here (what with babies), except for a night out when Mom babysat. We hit up De La Vega's and rounded out the night at Alex's new place drinking and listening to music with Joe Victor till late. We wrapped the weekend with taking the kids over to Alex's for a housewarming party. We kept them out past their bedtime, but they did great.

Dad's been out since last Thursday. He's taking off in the morning to head back to Alabama. Didn't do up much while he's been here, but hopefully it's been good times with the grandkids for him. He did knock some much needed yardwork/housework off my list. And we've been cooking a bunch too, which is always good.

Been trying to get after reading more, and have pushed through a good chunk of Clash of King's in the past week.

Oh, and I got a 'new' phone. Picked up a used Droid Incredible. It's taking some getting used to. Amazing how much different two Droid interfaces can be.

Kids are doing good. The tiny pigtails Paige got at daycare the other day resulted, after they were taken out and she slept, in some hilarious hair this morning. And Owen, even after waking up early with a blowout, let me put him back to sleep and hold him in the recliner for an hour or so. That's pretty great.

Heading to Carlsbad on Friday. Go go go.

Burning Post-Apocalyptic Rome

Ben did a writeup of our latest Burning Post-Apocalyptic Rome game, so I'm stealing it. Cyrus is my crippled blacksmith. Domitus is Amy's priest. We're both dirt poor and keep slipping into abject poverty, only to claw our way out. We started the session with a trait vote; Cyrus gained Damned, Domitus picked up Cynical.

"Domitus and Cyrus, no longer on speaking terms because Cyrus killed a (relatively) unarmed bandit, were enlisted by a widow named Maria to help get back her daughter Theodora, who had vanished after the arrival of mysterious, pale-skinned children at the ruins of the Mausoleum of Augustus. This coincided with the appearance of a strange and possibly malevolent comet in the sky. The two agreed to help, and were at first unable to catch any of the children lurking in town, or find any information from the children's leader (a young boy named Peter.) When Cyrus discovered that the children were trying to steal away his own daughter, he waited in her room and caught one, and the two men went back to the mausoleum to confront Peter a second time. Via a Duel of Wits, Domitus forced Peter to confess: he was not, as he believed, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ leading a band of twilight changelings to steal Rome's children, but was rather just a confused son of a northman leading a band of orphaned (or runaway) children fleeing a Longbeard horde. The pair told Peter that there was nothing but death and suffering (and possibly cannibalism) at the end of his Children's Crusade in Constantinople. Peter told them as well that the rest of his band of children was waiting for him at the abandoned Pantheon, so with the former messiah in tow, they traveled through the empty city of Rome to rescue Theodora. Cyrus, convinced he had been damned by his previous murder, was challenged at the Pantheon by a young boy who called him a demon, and by another who threatened to douse him with holy water - which, to the surprise of the pair, actually burned Cyrus' skin. Domitus realized right away that something wasn't right ("Holy water doesn't exist!") and the blacksmith Cyrus, after gritting his teeth (a good Steel test) ascertained that it was a sort of acid used for etching metal. They dragged the charlatans and Theodora back to the Via Taurinus the next morning, where Cyrus turned a ruined and gated lyceum into an orphanage for the new arrivals (50 kids being equal to a fourth of the total population of the isolated community) and Domitus, in return for a few gold solidi, warned the noblewoman Sophia Orvieto of the vast horde of Longbeards coming from the north."

Technoir

Haven't finished reading Technoir yet, but I'm damn glad I backed the Kickstarter. The plot nodes for on-the-fly story generation, involving contacts in the story as they're invoked during character creation, adjectives, verbs...I dig it.
http://technoirrpg.com/