Author: Kyle Dickerson

Hero Forge Miniatures

May 1, 2022 4:45 pm

At the end of March we started playing the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set which contains 5 pre-generated characters, a slimmed-down rule book, and the adventure "The Lost Mine of Phandelver." Heather is playing as Zulak, a human fighter. Jess and Corinne are playing Riswynn, a dwarf cleric. And our friends are Zorien, another human fighter; Ara, an elf wizard; and Reedawn, a halfling rogue. I'm the Dungeon Master.

To make the experience more engaging and fun I used Hero Forge to design and purchase custom miniatures which match each character's detail. Each miniature has the character name, real name, and the year on the bottom and they'll keep them as souvenirs when we're done. I hadn't purchased anything from Hero Forge before and wasn't sure what to expect. I ordered the "standard" quality miniatures and I'm really pleased with them. If this is the "standard" quality, the high-quality/high-resolution versions must be really impressive.

Left to right: Ara, Riswynn, Zorien, Reedawn, Zulak

Each miniature was $20. Which is a little pricey if you were trying to make an army, but is quite reasonable for a one-off special character at this quality level and customizability (and they are crazily customizable). The Hero Forge UI for customizing the characters is an impressive feat by itself and that you can then have that custom character 3-D printed and shipped to you is really cool.

I probably won't paint them--maybe I'll get around to the one's for Heather and Corinne--but I suggested perhaps we could have a painting party during which each person could choose 2 or 3 parts of the character to paint and provide some pop. I don't know if that will happen or not though.

I'm quite pleased with them and now I can happily and heartily recommend Hero Forge for custom miniatures.

Easter Egg Hunt 2022

April 30, 2022 11:13 am

Easter Bunny made another visit this year. The girls had a blast and some "lost" items were re-discovered as having been put away inside plastic eggs last year (which had also happened the previous year, but we thought we checked them last year before putting them away--apparently not).

I also learned the secret to perfect, no-fuss hard-cooked eggs. Fill saucepan with enough water to just reach bottom of steaming basket. Remove basket, bring water to boil. Load basket with eggs (we fit 6) and place in saucepan. Cover and steam for 13 minutes. Immediately transfer to ice bath for 15 minutes. We did 12 eggs this way, some from a new carton some from an old carton. Every single egg peeled flawlessly with no trouble and was cooked through with no over cooking. We did have a couple crack though.

Rancho Color Fun Run

10:55 am

The girls' school had a fundraiser event on April 15 of wearing white t-shirts and running through clouds of chalk being thrown at them. The fundraising aspect was "please give us money while kids run in circles" I guess. Some of the pictures look like a mustard-gas attack, but they had fun. The older grades were running around the track. The younger grades were on the blacktop.

COVID-19: Part 67

March 20, 2022 10:11 am
  • Rancho Las Positas Elementary School known cases on site: 112
  • Livermore cases: 12,898; overall vaccination rate: 77.9%
  • Alameda County cases: 243,200; deaths: 1,754; overall vaccination rate: 83.0%
  • U.S. cases: 79,555,000+; deaths: 968,000+; overall vaccination rate: 65.4%

The post-holidays surge has mostly petered out--finally. During that surge another ~141,000 people died. The state lifted the indoor-masking requirement on March 1 (excluding high-risk settings). The county followed suit and the school system and the Lab lifted indoor-masking requirements on March 14.

Yet, the nation is still recording ~1,000 deaths a day. And a newer, even more contagious variant is being tracked in Europe.

The news around COVID has mostly disappeared due to the combination of losing its novelty (no one cares anymore how many people are dying) and Russia invading Ukraine back at the end of February.

It will be interesting to see what happens public-health-wise when there's another big surge. I suspect the political will to do anything is gone and we'll see recommendations from public-health officials that will be largely ignored.

It's too bad health-care demands don't end in between surges. There are a whole lot of medical professionals that could use a couple of months off. I think the two biggest failures of our country in response to COVID (beyond federal leadership denying it was a problem for months) were 1. Failing to enact mandatory paid sick leave and 2. In no way addressing the intense demands placed upon healthcare workers during an extended public health crisis.

Maybe this will be the last post in my COVID-19 series. It sure would be nice if everything settled down and when next January rolls around there's no post-holiday surge that kills another 100,000+ people.