What a BuzzKill

So I recently got back into playing D&D with a group of guys I know. It’s been decades since I’d played and I’m finding it to be a lot of fun. This ultimately led me into getting myself a 3D printer so I could start printing my own miniatures.

^{My modest work area. I’ve added to it since this photo was taken.}

I started off with an ANYCUBIC Photon Mono 4K, which is a (relatively) inexpensive model that can handle the miniatures and some other things. Soon after that I got the ANYCUBIC Wash & Cure Station so I could properly finish the prints. It turned out to be a lot of fun, but there was a pretty steep learning curve. While I still can’t say I’m anywhere near mastering it, I’m able to print what I want on it without stressing too much anymore. There was a week straight when I couldn’t seem to print anything but blobs on the printer, which was very frustrating. I did some research and managed to learn how to print successfully most of the time. After using it for a few months I began to find myself disappointed that I wasn’t also able to print anything too big and that resin printing doesn’t produce very strong objects – even though it really prints detailed models quite well.

^{This is one of the miniatures I printed for one of the guys in the group.}

This lead to my newest addition to the 3D printing game: The ELEGOO Neptune 4 Pro. Printing with filament really changes what I’m able to make! Very strong objects and a lot larger. I figure that this will allow me to print useful items and not just silly stuff for D&D. One thing I realized very quickly was that this type of printer is a lot easier to get started with than resin printing. I still have plenty to learn, but it’s been a fun hobby.

^{This tower has space for dice and a miniature figure in two different compartments.}

As you can see in the above photo, I’ve also got model paints, which I haven’t even started doing yet. The red paint holders were printed on the FDM printer, too. So that’s another part of the hobby that I need to learn to do. It’s been ages since I’ve done any painting, at least in an artistic way. Should be fun!

_{This entry has more hobbies than time on its hands.}

I’ll admit it: I’ve had a few drinks tonight.

I then made the mistake of browsing Facebook and when I read a reply to a post saying “Those masks have tens of thousands of little holes already” in regards to the use of cloth masks to slow the spread of COVID-19, I about lost it. So since I can say whatever the fuck I want here, I’m posting my response to get it off my chest…

“Uh hahahahahahahahahahahaha yep. But a mask will definitely slow the force of your breath and coughs, thus reducing (that’s the key word: “REDUCING” come on, say it with me, then look it up in the dictionary, if you’re still confused) the distance it can travel, and the chance of spread of whatever germs you may be carrying. This, applied to everyone, will mean collectively (I know, I keep using the HUGE words) the risk of people who are infected, even if they’re asymptomatic (crap, I can’t help it! This English language just has so many of these hard-to-understand-words!!! Look that one up, too OK?), from spreading this novel (I’ll save you yet another trip to that dictionary this time, it means: “NEW, NEVER SEEN BEFORE”) virus to others. See, you simpleton, it’s not about 100% blocking you from getting infected or others being blocked 100% from getting infected, it’s about REDUCING THE CHANCES. If you look at large enough numbers, the reduction (that means “the lessening of something” by the way) of infected cases dramatically falls and less people die from – or have to suffer life-long health issues as a result of – contracting COVID-19. If this concept is too difficult for you to understand then you should step away from the conversation entirely, as you are sorely ill-equipped to contribute to it in any meaningful way. Good day, sir!”

This type of post might become more common in the future.

Is this a blog post? Was that other stuff also a blog post – ALMOST 6 YEARS LATER?!? What’s going on with the world? What just happened?

So here’s the deal:

I started up my own company. Married a wonderful woman. Got sucked into playing this crazy augmented reality game called Ingress that consumed WAY more time of my life than I really care to admit. Moved up to Washtington. Started rebuilding my businesses. Ditched Facebook. Finally got to the point where I got tired of that game. Got a little drunk tonight & almost posted the previous post to social media before the sliver of reason I still retained suggested otherwise – BUT I STILL WANTED TO SAY IT SOMEWHERE – so I posted it here. It’s a safe place. It’s my place. I OWN IT.

This post knows there’s more to the story, but won’t spill the beans.

Have a complaint that makes little to no sense? Believe in fringe conspiracies that are completely ridiculous? Think that “THE GOVERNMENT” is out to get you? Have a difficult time understanding the complexities of modern living? Don’t understand how something works? Too lazy to fact check for yourself? I’m your guy! Message me your ludicrous notion, idea, or belief and I’ll Google it for you so you have the full set of facts to make sure that you double-down on your ignorance! Why open your mind to other possibilities when the voices in your head are screaming their insanity louder than any fact or reason could possibly surmount?

Private message me and I’ll publicly post your ignorant question along with links to relevant information showing you that you’re dumb as a stump and shouldn’t be allowed to procreate.

What’s more is that I’ll guaranty DOUBLE your money back! What’s DOUBLE times Free? DOUBLE FREE! You won’t find this deal anywhere else!

This entry can’t believe the things it’s seen!

I’ve been Geocaching since 2003. Like most new hobbies, I did A LOT of it at first. Eventually I found other things to do with my time, but I never completely quit Geocaching – I just slowed it down quite a bit.

This month I got my regular Geocaching newsletter, which I always read. In it they announced a 31 Days of Geocaching challenge. They were encouraging people to get out and find at least 1 geocache a day for the entire month of August. I’ve been sitting here at my desk, staring at the screen all sedentary and shit, and not really getting out and moving much for months. Part of it is because of the unbearable heat we get out here in Menifee during the Summer, but to be honest I have to admit that most of the reason is just sheer laziness. Seeing how I hadn’t been doing much Geocaching lately, I decided that I’d give this challenge a go and try to get back into it.

So far I’ve missed 1 day (August 4th) of the challenge but have chosen to keep going and I’m doing pretty well so far … well, considering it’s only the 6th now. Today was a bit of a challenge, however. According to Geocaching.com there are quite a few geocaches in my area. What it doesn’t, or rather can’t, tell me is whether or not those geocaches are still there. I went out to grab one near my house only to find out that it’s no longer there and hasn’t been in months. When I went to look up other local geocaches I found that many of them hadn’t had a “found it” posted in many months, and some of them hadn’t had a find posted for over 2 years! There are also a bunch of other geocaches where people have posted notes that the geocache was in need of maintenance or appeared to be missing but the cache owner never followed up with them. It seems that there’s a problem with geocaches in the area of Menifee!

What I’ve decided to do is to start searching for the long-ignored geocaches and either verify that they are still there or that they’re long gone. The ones that are gone I’ll recommend for archiving so they don’t show up on searches. The rest I’ll be able to post as a find, hopefully encouraging other local Geocachers to go out and find them, too. I might even place some new ones of my own again!

_{This entry was written from 33°43.148′N, 117°09.795′W.}

Dawn flew out to Texas for work this week. She comes back today. We spend most days together in the same office, 5 feet apart. We spend almost all of our free time together. And even after 2 years of this arrangement we don’t get tired of one another.

When she flies out of town for a few days for work on occasion one might think that I’d welcome the break. Not so much – I miss the hell out of her. I can’t sleep right. I hardly eat. I find myself distracted all day.

So I guess that I’m still just a love-struck guy…

_{This entry sighed after reading itself.}

It’s been nearly 2 years since I’ve written anything here. I find myself deleting attempted spam comments two or three times a month. The regular updates to WordPress (the blog software running this) happen automatically and I dutifully update the database each time. So as long as I’m doing the work to maintain this blog (and a few others for friends & family), I figure it’d be good to use it!

So much has happened over the last couple of years, I don’t know where to start! Dawn & I are doing better than ever. Rece & Kimmie both graduated out of high school this month. Come September, we’ll become empty-nesters when Kimmie goes off to Denver to pursue her dream of becoming a pastry chef. The two of us are looking forward to exploring that next stage of adulthood together.

A year ago I started my own company, I.T. Rogue, LLC. I’m happy to report that it’s growing, albeit slowly. It’s such a great feeling to work for yourself!

Well, let’s see if I can find the time & motivation to start blogging again. I enjoyed doing it before, so I should like doing it again, right?

_{This entry went off to find itself and finally made it back.}

I just discovered a cool service called Qik. It allows you to live stream video from your phone to their website, plus it saves it for later. I’m only using the free service to see how I like it for now. To view my live stream you can either click on the Videos link above, or go to:

www.qik.com/itrogue

Not much at this point other than my lame first video test.

_{This entry will make lemons out of lemonade.}

It appears that we avoided another apocalypse! I was keeping a close eye on the park across the street as the predicted time of 6:00 pm came approached on May 21, 2011. My knowledge of bible scripture, albeit somewhat limited, was enough to know that children are considered “innocents” and would therefore be “raptured” along with all of the adult faithful. As I expected, the kids just continued laughing and playing and no sign of massive earthquakes being reported on the news.

For the record, I didn’t believe in any of Harold Camping’s predictions and laughed when I read his “math” computations for how he arrived at such a precise date and time for the rapture. I’ve never seen such a convoluted and confusing explanation to force somebody’s argument before. And to top it all off, to doubt the appointed time and not simply accept that this was going to happen was to cast doubt on your faith – so you just had to blindly believe or risk being “left behind.” What a joke.

What got me worried most about the doomsday prophesy was that at least one of my family members believed it was true. I was concerned that they would do something drastic, like some other cults have done, at the appointed time or after they realized it had passed and they weren’t included. Luckily I got an email a day later that at least let me know they were still alive.

Anyhow, I could ramble on and on about that scam, but I don’t want to take the time to type it. Ha!

In other news, my annual birthday camping (how’s that for a segue?!?) trip is not going to happen this year because Rece has to attend summer school. His lack of interest in school has come back to bite him and it ends up affecting not only me, but everybody else that was going to join us for the trip. What a bummer.

_{This entry likes the type of camping that involves tents.}

Here’s a late night … or rather early morning update session. Got started on updating a server for a client a couple of hours later than I had hoped. So here I sit, waiting for a server to finish installing a bunch of updates because the prior IT guy never applied them. Joy.

_{This entry doesn’t want to talk about yawning.}