Books September 2024

September 29, 2024 5:33 pm

The End is Nigh anthology edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey

This has been sitting on my ereader for a very long time. It’s part of a 3-part series of short stories that take place just before, during, or after some apocalyptic event. This anthology covers the “just before” stories.

Some decent stories in it.

Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean

This had been on my “to read” list for a while, but then Mike mentioned it in the presentation he gave to the Lab back in July so I pushed it forward to read sooner rather than later.

It recounts a team of 15 Smokejumpers (elite fire-fighters that parachute to a fire to get it under control quickly–a big deal during the era that forest-fire management practice was to put them out as quickly as possible) who jumped on the Mann Gulch Fire in 1949. Within 2 hours 10 were dead and 2 fatally burned.

It tries to answer the question, “What happened?”

Interesting read. A little bit of an odd style. Maclean kind of tells the story at least 3 times with slightly different bents and I think his writing is easiest follow if you read it in the voice of a guy telling a tale in order to get the right cadence.

The End is Now anthology edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey

The second installment in the aforementioned series. I think I enjoyed this one more than the first, but I’m getting a little burnt out on apocalypse stories at this point.

Humankind by Rutger Bregman

Bregman looks critically at human history and the current best data across sociology, psychology, anthropology, etc. to argue the position that people are generally good.

People have done horrible things–of course, without question–but those are aberrations from the norm.

I thought it was a fair interpretation of the available data and any time Bregman introduced a counterpoint to the narrative of everyone-is-terrible he would straightforwardly acknowledge the flaws in his examples.

Easy read and a nice reprieve from the apocalypse stories.

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.