Four Posts in One!
Apr. 11th, 2017 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogSo much to write about! I chopped it up into LJ-cut sections just to make it easier to jump to things that may interest you if you don't want to read it all.
Piper got her sutures removed today! The doctor said she's making good progress with her injured leg and all the incisions are healing. They gave me one detail that I didn't hear second-hand earlier; one of her tumors was pre-cancerous. Not something to worry about right now, but we should keep an eye on her tummy in case it (or anything else) returns or grows.
She's ambling gamely around our condo and the area around the building. After her experience with the stairs, she's even more scared of transitions in substances underfoot. You may recall that she's always been nervous about getting into the elevator because of the abrupt change in floor color, and that she kept getting 'stuck' in Danae's parents' kitchen because the floor outside of it was a darker color and she thought it might be a drop off. Now, she's very hesitant indeed at both the elevator and the transition from our living room carpet to the tile hallway (the latter might be a slipperiness issue). The poor dear is probably terrified that she might fall again, and I can't blame her. Once she's outside though, she happily starts investigating interesting smells. Going slowly, she walks gingerly on her bad leg, but when she goes faster she sticks to three legs, holding her bad one a little off the ground where it swings back and forth with her movements. It makes me a little sad to watch her, but she seems happy enough, and it will only get better from here!
Danae and I went to a yearly board gaming event called Gaming Hoopla in nearby Gurnee, Illinois. The two of us haven't been playing board games together for a long while, and this has rekindled our interest. Two nights ago we played a game of Entropy with our housemate N (a lightweight, rather pretty, simultaneous-turn card game). We bid on it just because it looked pretty and was quite affordable. It turned out to be a good buy. I enjoy it a lot, and N, who is less into the heavier stuff than we are, enjoyed it too. Then Danae and I played a game of Ascension (a deck-building card game with constantly changing card options rather than static ones like Dominion) using one of the *four* different sets she won in the auction. She has every available expansion on her phone and loves the game, so I'm looking forward to playing with her regularly.
Last night, we played half a game of Tanto Cuore, another deck-builder, with N. It's basically a Dominion clone, but instead of buying castles or caravans, you're hiring maids to serve you in your mansion. I already had the base set (I had to buy it after demoing it at Gen-Con some years ago with one of the women who were dressed in maid outfits teaching people how to play), but we won the base set and two expansions at the silent auction. (I'll sell the duplicate on Ebay along with some other games we've needed to get rid of for some time.)
At the Hoopla itself, we met a few nifty people, including some who go to the regular board game meetup here in Evanston. We played several games with one of them and had a great time, so we may end up finally having enough motivation to go to those meetups. We played a game called Compounded, which is about creating chemical compounds out of elements. It was a lot of fun, and the two of us both think it would be a great way to get some basic chemistry knowledge in front of kids who were old enough. There was a similar-in-concept game called Potion Explosion, which actually had a cardboard structure that marbles roll down into lanes that basically form a matching game like Candy Crush (which I've never played, but I think serves as a good example).
There was a large selection of "play and win" games: you play the game and write your names down on a clipboard for that game. Then, at the end of the con, a random person is selected from that list to win a copy of that game. This concept was new to me and I love it! We played a bunch of games that we might not otherwise have tried. And we even won one! We have a copy of Sentinels of the Multiverse now, a non-collectible super hero card game that I tried for the first time there and really enjoyed.
And we won another game in the large charity raffle. Of course we didn't get the one we put twenty-something tickets into, but we won a game that we just went one ticket in on 'cause it looked kind of interesting. Now we'll have to learn to play Paradox and see if it's as interesting as it looks.
So it was a really great time all-in-all. I want to be more actively social at these things than I was, but I'm reminded of how nice it can be to play new games with new people.
I'm continuing to learn to cook more things. Danae and I decided we want more curry, and she encouraged me to find and try a panang curry recipe. I did, but finding the right curry paste was an adventure! I tried three local grocery stores with no luck and ended up driving down to little Asia in Chicago to Tai Nam. It's a wonderful grocery store with tons of Southeast Asian, especially Thai, food.
I followed this recipe, and am pretty happy with the way it came out. It was a soupier than I would have liked, but really good! It was too spicy for Danae, but that was easily remedied with the addition of some milk. I think I'll make it again. And I have a lot of panang curry paste left over too, which I'll probably try with the simpler recipe printed on its container. I definitely want to use more of it!
I mentioned a little while ago that electronics seemed potentially interesting due to some conceptual similarity with Factorio. Acting on that thought, I'm starting to learn some electronics theory. Years ago, I picked up an old Radio Shack multi-project electronics kit with lots of individual components with spring-terminals for easy connections into various projects listed in the manual. Did anybody else have one of those growing up? I did, and remember it fondly, though I basically just followed the directions and made stuff without much knowledge of theory of operation.
I've worked through a few projects from the manual and have learned some things, but a lot is kind of confusing to me. The order of projects in the manual is a bit strange. For instance, project number 9 (I think it was) says that it uses an oscillator cicruit basically the same as in project 145 but with certain alterations. Ok, I thought, I'll look at project 145 for an explanation. That explanation, though, presumes certain knowledge of theory that I still lacked. Maybe I just need to keep going through projects in order and all will slowly be revealed.
In the meantime though, I started looking around the internet for good sources to learn about basic stuff from. There are several good sites out there, but I also found reference to a book called "Getting Started in Electronics," by one Forrest M. Mims III. I managed to locate a copy of it online, and it's near-exactly what I was looking for! A hundred plus pages that amount to a basic theory and (I think) application course in electronics in a simple, approachable style. I've started reading it and it's both informative and enjoyable!
So that's basically what I've been up to.
Piper got her sutures removed today! The doctor said she's making good progress with her injured leg and all the incisions are healing. They gave me one detail that I didn't hear second-hand earlier; one of her tumors was pre-cancerous. Not something to worry about right now, but we should keep an eye on her tummy in case it (or anything else) returns or grows.
She's ambling gamely around our condo and the area around the building. After her experience with the stairs, she's even more scared of transitions in substances underfoot. You may recall that she's always been nervous about getting into the elevator because of the abrupt change in floor color, and that she kept getting 'stuck' in Danae's parents' kitchen because the floor outside of it was a darker color and she thought it might be a drop off. Now, she's very hesitant indeed at both the elevator and the transition from our living room carpet to the tile hallway (the latter might be a slipperiness issue). The poor dear is probably terrified that she might fall again, and I can't blame her. Once she's outside though, she happily starts investigating interesting smells. Going slowly, she walks gingerly on her bad leg, but when she goes faster she sticks to three legs, holding her bad one a little off the ground where it swings back and forth with her movements. It makes me a little sad to watch her, but she seems happy enough, and it will only get better from here!
Danae and I went to a yearly board gaming event called Gaming Hoopla in nearby Gurnee, Illinois. The two of us haven't been playing board games together for a long while, and this has rekindled our interest. Two nights ago we played a game of Entropy with our housemate N (a lightweight, rather pretty, simultaneous-turn card game). We bid on it just because it looked pretty and was quite affordable. It turned out to be a good buy. I enjoy it a lot, and N, who is less into the heavier stuff than we are, enjoyed it too. Then Danae and I played a game of Ascension (a deck-building card game with constantly changing card options rather than static ones like Dominion) using one of the *four* different sets she won in the auction. She has every available expansion on her phone and loves the game, so I'm looking forward to playing with her regularly.
Last night, we played half a game of Tanto Cuore, another deck-builder, with N. It's basically a Dominion clone, but instead of buying castles or caravans, you're hiring maids to serve you in your mansion. I already had the base set (I had to buy it after demoing it at Gen-Con some years ago with one of the women who were dressed in maid outfits teaching people how to play), but we won the base set and two expansions at the silent auction. (I'll sell the duplicate on Ebay along with some other games we've needed to get rid of for some time.)
At the Hoopla itself, we met a few nifty people, including some who go to the regular board game meetup here in Evanston. We played several games with one of them and had a great time, so we may end up finally having enough motivation to go to those meetups. We played a game called Compounded, which is about creating chemical compounds out of elements. It was a lot of fun, and the two of us both think it would be a great way to get some basic chemistry knowledge in front of kids who were old enough. There was a similar-in-concept game called Potion Explosion, which actually had a cardboard structure that marbles roll down into lanes that basically form a matching game like Candy Crush (which I've never played, but I think serves as a good example).
There was a large selection of "play and win" games: you play the game and write your names down on a clipboard for that game. Then, at the end of the con, a random person is selected from that list to win a copy of that game. This concept was new to me and I love it! We played a bunch of games that we might not otherwise have tried. And we even won one! We have a copy of Sentinels of the Multiverse now, a non-collectible super hero card game that I tried for the first time there and really enjoyed.
And we won another game in the large charity raffle. Of course we didn't get the one we put twenty-something tickets into, but we won a game that we just went one ticket in on 'cause it looked kind of interesting. Now we'll have to learn to play Paradox and see if it's as interesting as it looks.
So it was a really great time all-in-all. I want to be more actively social at these things than I was, but I'm reminded of how nice it can be to play new games with new people.
I'm continuing to learn to cook more things. Danae and I decided we want more curry, and she encouraged me to find and try a panang curry recipe. I did, but finding the right curry paste was an adventure! I tried three local grocery stores with no luck and ended up driving down to little Asia in Chicago to Tai Nam. It's a wonderful grocery store with tons of Southeast Asian, especially Thai, food.
I followed this recipe, and am pretty happy with the way it came out. It was a soupier than I would have liked, but really good! It was too spicy for Danae, but that was easily remedied with the addition of some milk. I think I'll make it again. And I have a lot of panang curry paste left over too, which I'll probably try with the simpler recipe printed on its container. I definitely want to use more of it!
I mentioned a little while ago that electronics seemed potentially interesting due to some conceptual similarity with Factorio. Acting on that thought, I'm starting to learn some electronics theory. Years ago, I picked up an old Radio Shack multi-project electronics kit with lots of individual components with spring-terminals for easy connections into various projects listed in the manual. Did anybody else have one of those growing up? I did, and remember it fondly, though I basically just followed the directions and made stuff without much knowledge of theory of operation.
I've worked through a few projects from the manual and have learned some things, but a lot is kind of confusing to me. The order of projects in the manual is a bit strange. For instance, project number 9 (I think it was) says that it uses an oscillator cicruit basically the same as in project 145 but with certain alterations. Ok, I thought, I'll look at project 145 for an explanation. That explanation, though, presumes certain knowledge of theory that I still lacked. Maybe I just need to keep going through projects in order and all will slowly be revealed.
In the meantime though, I started looking around the internet for good sources to learn about basic stuff from. There are several good sites out there, but I also found reference to a book called "Getting Started in Electronics," by one Forrest M. Mims III. I managed to locate a copy of it online, and it's near-exactly what I was looking for! A hundred plus pages that amount to a basic theory and (I think) application course in electronics in a simple, approachable style. I've started reading it and it's both informative and enjoyable!
So that's basically what I've been up to.
