Should Do This More Often

Since last time:

I hiked the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim. Given a general lack of training on my part it went pretty well. If anything it mostly affected my recovery time. The scenery was, of course, amazing.

Owen and Paige turned 2. Had a great party with lots of friends and family.

I turned 38!

Gaming ground to a standstill with various travel and whatnots. Played in a session of Apocalypse World this past Saturday, was good. Was good...

Decided to put the renovation project on hold, for the patio. We're in saving mode, trying to build the money to get the job done, rather than depleting savings to do it.

The tree is pretty sweet. It finally dropped its leaves, and the yard is, for the first time, littered with leaves. Hopefully it established well enough to make it though the winter. Should be fine given how large a tree we bought.

Had a low key Thanksgiving with Mom and Nette. Made way more food than needed, as is the wont of that holiday.

Finished the firs of the Long Price Quartet and started the second, Betrayal in Winter. Good series, but I think I may pause after this one and read Ghost Brigades.

Burrito Quest is on track for a possible successful trek. It would be our first since BQ1 if it happens.

Star Wars Radio Dramas

Originally shared by Star Wars

Fans of the classic NPR Star Wars radio dramas get ready for an all-new full-cast 30-minute audio adventure starring Han Solo and Chewbacca! Download it for free!
http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/index.php/2012/11/28/smugglers-gambit-full-audio/#more-18597

Random Character Drawings

Beneath the Ruins

Print format seems kind of weird.  Laser guns and yeast monsters!
http://save.vs.totalpartykill.ca/review/beneath-the-ruins/

DCC

All this DCC talk has me wondering, how are the DCC products beyond the core book? And by that I guess I mean...modules?

Some Kind of Dude

Here's an impromtu recap I did of our D&D 4e (swansong?) game.  I forget a lot of the names of npcs until we're actually in-game.  Other details are probably wrong too.  Fun game though.

A wizard named Basterd summoned my awesome wizard-dude, Geldran, from the World of Giants to help some druid lady, Myra, fight some bad guys. The summoning didn't wear off when it should have so Geldran ran downstairs with Myra and the other warrior guy schmoe and helped them blast some goblins to pieces. Geldran got a portable hole.  Sweet! Then the group ran over to the bad guy Jasper's hideout and almost kicked his ass (only running away a little) before Basterd showed up and made Jasper fly away.  Then Basterd was all, "Why are you still here?" to Geldran.  Then Geldran was all, "Why are you such a jerk?"  And Myra and warrior-guy were all, "Oooohhh." and "How come Basterd didn't turn him into a toad?" Oh yeah, Geldran has a spellscar, like an electric blue glowing scar thing on his wrist/arm that seems to be growing as he gets more powerful.  Pretty cool. Then Geldran bought a horse and he rode that while Myra and her spirit wolf and warrior-guy walked, and they went to Myra's village.  Myra was all, "Don't tell people you're a wizard or pyre-of-fire."  Geldran was like, "Pssh, I'm a goddamn wizard, I'll burn THEIR shit." The villagers were kind of dummies but seemed ok.  Geldran shacked up with Myra and they decided to see what kind of shennanigans the goblins were getting up to.  They went off with warrior-guy and some lame (literally) tracker guy.  After a dust up with goblins near a waterfall they sent the schmoes back to town then went into the cave behind the waterfall.  They fought some other stuff, maybe zombies or something, then Geldran enacted a badass ritual that ramped up Myra's in-touch-with-nature-business so they could try to find out where the big evil in woods was.  Then they found some paladin-guy cooking lunch in the back of the cave.  Turns out he's blind-paladin-guy.  They went back to town with him, rounding up their schmoes on the way back. Blind-paladin guy asked if anybody was a twin.  Everybody said no.  He said he got teleported here and figured we were all drawn here by the same power source.  So we went to a graveyard and fought some undead dudes that blind-paladin guy admitted to accidentally raising from the grave.  Then Jasper showed back up and we kicked his ass for reals.  We found out he was working for one of the big hoo-ha wizards of the land.  Then there was a debate about whether they should let him go but Geldran figured no and pyre-of-fired him with burning hands. After some chatter and another badass ritual by Geldran we figured out there were several discrete evils being drawn to the area: goblins, undead, lizardmen.  And probably a giant, giants are teh suck, but they haven't been seen on this world in like forever.  Geldran totally thinks there are giants-in-hiding. Then Geldran started a refurb on a shack in the village and somehow conned a whole bunch of people into working for him.  It was probably his sick magic skills. Blind-pally guy told us there was some exiled priest guy around so we found him and he was really grumpy.  Then he told us about some kind of meteor that crashed in the area so we went there and there was like some psychic-echo-ghosts walking around.  So we found an old dwarf stronghold entrance and went down there to kick ass on some dark porcupine-beard dwarfs.  We went down into the nastybad and found their town where Geldran almost got killed by a sniper but we saved a bunch of villager prisoners and ran away, dropping the ceiling on the dark porcupine dwarfs following us. We took the villagers back to town with us and Geldran gave them his shack to live in and shacked up with Myra again.  We figured that the meteor was bad news and that the bad wizard lady probably had so we decided to leave but first we closed up a dark porky-dwarf tunnel and put paid to the goblins.  Geldran said, "What about the lizardmen?" and Myra was like, "Fuck those guys." So we left town and went off to different city to try to recruit some wizard-ruler guy to help us take down the bad wizard lady.  While we were there we looked around for a seer in the ghetto and got attacked by some more dark porky-dwarfs.  Then the girl-seer said we should go out to some town in the wastelands and find a map that would help us get what we needed. We went to talk to the wizard-ruler guy and he was like, "Yeah, I guess, but not right now."  So we left to go out to the ruined village.  We got there and fought some dudes and found the map.  And that's where we left it, I think.

Various Whatsits

Since last:

• Ran in a 5k with Carrie, taking turns pushing the twins in the stroller. Did a lot better than I figured I would.
• Went to Miami and Key West for work. Miami was ok, Key West a lot cooler. Wish it had been three days there, and one in Miami instead of the other way around. Ate some good Cuban food though and plenty of seafood.
• Mom came back from her trip to Mississippi with Aunt Nette in tow.  Kind of crazy since it was last minute, but it's cool she's finally come out for a visit. It's meant a lot more trips to mom's house. Which is good since we need to get the kids over there more often anyway.
• Took the kids to the State Fair (Southern NM that is). Their highlight would likely be the funnel cake, but walking them around through the show animals was pretty sweet. Never did find the petting zoo, which was disappointing.
• Allergies have been hammering me since I got back from Miami. Every day all day, and most days I wake up around 4am and have to take medicine.
• Annual switch from light to darker beers is right on schedule. Seems to happen every year right around now, independent of what the weather is actually doing.
• We bought a tree yesterday; a 15-20 foot Modesto Ash, for the back yard. Should get it in the ground Wednesday.
• We're slowly working with a contractor on getting the small side patio turned into a room. Got a bid we like, just need to get some final details nailed down.
• Friday game is a D&D4e game where we're leveling every week, planning on heading from 1-30.
• Next weekend I head out to hike the Grand Canyon with Jon. Kind of a birthday present for his 40th last year. Somewhat nervous given my general lack of exercise of late.
• Went out with Alex, Tony, and Alicia for an early birthday dinner for Carrie. Good company and conversation.
• And in three weeks Owen and Paige will turn two. Crazy.