Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Stay at Home Clique
May 10, 2011

Both Berta and I work during the day. This will not come as a shock to most Americans who have families like ours. We could have chosen a smaller house, a smaller family, a tighter budget, but we like the way we live and it requires two working parents. What is perplexing is how many parents in our area don’t understand this and count on the opposite to be true.

Maybe it’s a strange assumption on my part to believe that stay-at-home parents are not the norm. I think it’s pretty common here where we live. I suppose the natural tendency would be to assume that other parents or families also live the way you live until you find out otherwise, so maybe it’s normal to be constantly questioned as to why we can’t be involved in various school activities during the work day, as if it’s abnormal not to be available.

For Want of a Grease Pencil
May 09, 2011

In the morning while the kids are getting ready for school is usually when I write these posts. This is convenient on one hand because it’s a finite amount of time that I have to gather my thoughts and put them into the site. On the other hand, this practice doesn’t really lend itself to creating the longer, researched, and therefore, useful posts that I’d really like to on occasion. Worse, it’s only an hour or two into my waking day, and hasn’t given me much time to think about what I’m going to write.

I do keep a list of things that I’d like to write about. Most of these things I feel are deserving of a little more time than what I have in the morning, which is why this list remains so long. I’ve got a post building in my head about the Fitbit tracker that I’d really get out, for example. But in the morning, my best ideas for short form writing seem to come to me in the shower, which has its own unique set of problems.

The Umbrella'd Pack
April 13, 2011

I have what I think may be an unhealthy fascination with bags. I like to have containers for things, and efficient methods of storage. Finding the perfect travel laptop bag has been an excruciating exercise, but one that I’ve enjoyed partaking in.

On the way home from school yesterday, Riley explained his idea for his own backpack. In the morning, it was reasonably warm and sunny, but in the afternoon it rained, so all of the kindergarteners were left without protection from the rain. Riley was going to hold his backpack over his head to keep his head dry.

Troll Post-Mortem
April 11, 2011

Of all of the things that happened at the game last night, at least the story thread didn’t fall apart. I’ve been running this game with the intent of getting the players to a specific place, and seeing what they do with it. There’s the intent to bring drama to the adventure along the way, and have to have the characters make some decisions that they might not want to make, which as a DM I feel is part of essential character development. So that they’re mostly keeping to the story that I’m producing is a good thing. I guess.

To provide a quick introduction to the story: While on a search for her missing sister, a House Canith artificer finds the remaining parts of an artifact that her sister hastily let behind, and begins to unravel an ancient mystery. The church of the silver flame has issued a command to the cleric and paladin that are her temporary companions, to stick with her and make sure that she makes the right decisions that do not upset the balance of the world, or else “do what needs to be done”. The search for her sister and the missing component of the artifact she’s collecting have led the party - including a wizard and an archivist - across Thrane in the continent of Korvaire, Eberron.