Jess' Birthday 2024

7:36 pm

When Jess returned home from dropping the girls off at school she found a mysterious, locked treasure chest on the table with a sealed envelope. Then she had to wait all day until I finished work to investigate. But in the meanwhile we went to lunch downtown at Maple Street Eatery.

At the appointed hour she opened the envelope and found a letter from a wandering soul asking for her help freeing a friend from a trap. She needed to find a lock and the key to unlock said lock. After telling the soul that she was ready to help the soul communicated to her the location of a map and riddle by flashing the lights in Morse code.

Finding the map she followed a series of riddles with each one leading to a "sigil" and the next riddle. With all the sigils she used information from the original letter to arrange the sigils on the map to point her at the location of the key. With the key was a "magic" flashlight which when shone on the map revealed the location of the lock.

Unlocking the lock released the trapped spirit friend who then flitted across the house leading her into the living room where it made the lamp change colors which matched the numbered and colored sigils to reveal the combination to the treasure chest.


I had a little fun with the home automation stuff this time. I designed and 3d-printed the key (with hidden magnet) and the lock (not a real lock, but it did have a magnetic contact sensor hidden inside) which I'm pretty pleased with.

She opened the chest and received her presents which included tickets to an American Authors concert next month (You can't get fun tickets these days, so I made my own).

I took the girls shopping a few weeks ago. We went to the outlet mall and I asked them to think of things that Mom would like and gave them a budget to work in. Heather selected a box of fancy chocolates. Corinne selected a necklace and earrings from Claire's (given that she was extremely excited about this selection and that she met the criteria I couldn't in good conscience discourage her from the idea).

Then it was off to Melo's for dinner (they have a potato-bacon pizza which Jess likes). And back home for caramel cheesecake.

Deck Refinishing

September 1, 2024 7:47 pm

I've been spending time for the past three weekends working on refinishing the deck and am finally done. Two weeks ago I pressure washed it. Last weekend I scrubbed it with an anti-fungal cleaner. On Friday I sanded it. And on Saturday morning I stained it. Now just waiting for the stain to cure.

I didn't take an intentional "before" picture, so I dug through my photos to find something that at least shows it a little. The one is from Easter 2022, the other a frame from the video of Corinne's birthday treasure hunt in 2024. You can at least see the wood is quite weathered.

And after applying the second coat of stain:

Getting it close to same color as the door was not my intention. I had intended to keep it a lighter color, but the wood drank up the stain quite readily. So I'm glad I didn't aim for the door color and end up with something much darker.

3D Prints August 2024

August 31, 2024 9:08 pm

Most of my modeling energy has been in to some longer term projects I'm working on. So I didn't get much printed this month.

First up was a modification to my organizer for The Guild of Merchant Explorers. The guy that runs the board-game group was impressed with my design and wanted one for himself, but he puts all his cards in sleeves. So I modified the card trays for sleeved cards and printed him a copy. The modified version is up on MakerWorld with the original.

The cats had an altercation at the window screen the other night and when we came out to investigate (at 2am) we found that the screen had been pushed in ~4-5 inches and the little plastic catch that holds it in place was broken. So apparently a neighborhood cat threw itself at the screen?

So I measured things and designed and printed out little catches that pressure-fit into the jamb opening and hold the screen in place. Seem to work pretty well. I couldn't get one out when I tried.

Games August 2024

6:07 pm

Did a fair bit of game playing in August.

Played Heat a couple of times. One loss, one win. I'm enjoying this game much more than I expected to. It's pretty straightforward to play and there's no adversarial interactions, but the competitiveness pushes me to play more aggressively than I normally do in games.

I got tagged in to Apiary take over for someone two-thirds through a game at the board-game group. I did not win. It was not what I was expecting from the few times I've seen it go by on the Internet. It's not about being a beekeeper. It is about a far-flung future where bees have evolved sentience and you need to manage a bee spaceship to out-compete the other bee species. I'd play again to at least get the full experience.

Jess and I played Quest 19 of Kinfire Chronicles: Night's Fall and got drubbed by a dragon. We limped back to town to lick our wounds.

Later we played Quest 9 which went far more successfully. We caught and defeated an illicit arms dealer as the mystery of his customer network deepens.

Played a game of The Guild of Merchant Explorers at a board-game group. I lost.

Got two of my crowdfunding games this month. The first to arrive was Defenders of the Wild. Which in my head is "Everdell goes to war." You play cooperatively as a confederacy of woodland creatures defending their homes from marauding machines. Played at the board game group with experiences gamers--we lost. And what's more is none of us had a clear idea what a winning strategy looks like. We were really close to winning at one point though. Need to give it a few more goes to see if I can "figure it out."

The other crowdfunding game that was delivered in August was Peacemakers: Horrors of War. This one, in my head, is "Everdell tries to stop a war." You play cooperatively as a team of woodland creatures trying to stop battling tribes from destroying each other. It's a very unusual game. Your ability to influence things is subtle. You're looking for opportunities to nudge events just a little in one direction or another in order to create conditions for the warring factions to negotiate a peace.

I played the first scenario two handed (two players, but only me playing) and was able to eek out a victory and get the ocelots and macaws to stop fighting.

The family continued our time-traveling adventure in Escape the Crate: Escape from Sherwood Forest. We successfully completed both chapters and rescued Robin Hood and Little John from the sheriff's jail.

Before Peacemakers: Horrors of War the publisher released another game Lands of Galzyr which takes place in the same universe. This is a purely story-telling game however. You take on the role of one of 4 woodland creatures making your way through the world. You have a personal quest you're embarking on but can engage in any number of side quests and narrative vignettes along the way. It's not a game you win or lose--it's a game you experience for the joy of the journey.

We played through one session as a family, but with 4 players I think it moves a bit too slowly. I think it would be significantly more enjoyable for everyone to play with no more than 3--and preferably just 2--players.

And finally, on the last day of the month, we played Ex Libris with friends. Jess won again, as usual.