Mom's Guide to the Galaxy

We escaped!

We had talked about trying an Escape Room for a couple years; my work department finally got together for an outing recently. We split into two teams and did two escape rooms each at Mastermind in Schaumburg. Our organizer picked the two easiest scenarios – Sorcerer’s Secret (35% escape rate) and Lost in Time (42%).

I’ll be honest, I had no idea there were that many different kinds of combination locks available. In addition to the standard locker combination lock (3 times to the right to the number, 2 times to the left to the number, and right to the last number), there were luggage-style locks with anywhere from 3 to 5 numbers or letters needed, including some that had both letters and numbers on them, and what I can only describe as DDR locks – the options were up, down, left, and right.

Mind you, the locks weren’t the puzzles. The puzzles gave you the answer to the locks, assuming you could figure out which one to use where. There were also a few physical puzzles that required team work, like a maze where the person with the magnet couldn’t see the maze and had to be talked through it. And that’s about all the details I can give without spoiling things… I will say that there’s an Easter egg in the Lost in Time puzzle for Doctor Who fans.

I will also say that LARP experience helped, if only because of the number of puzzles involved in those games, particularly at the Whately LARPs. If you get stuck, you have clues available that you can spend points on, with a finite number of points (100) before it counts as a loss.

Both teams escaped from both puzzles… I guess that’s what happens when you put IT problem solvers in a room.

‘Tis the season

I spent a year abroad in college in the lovely, if somewhat dreary, city of Glasgow. It’s only dreary because of the overcast skies and rain, the people more than make up for it. I spent a decent number of weekends and holidays that year with newly found friends in Edinburgh, including Christmas Day.

I remember waking up that morning and finding my Christmas stocking, not in the living room near the tree, but on my bed with me. (Yes, I slept fairly soundly back then.) In all fairness, there was a large dog downstairs who might have gotten curious about the stockings had they been left in her reach. More surprisingly, as I reached into the stocking, I found that every gift in it was wrapped.

I think it was in high school when we noticed that our parents’ stockings had bare minimum content and started scrambling through our room on Christmas morning for assorted junk we could add to them. Most years, our stockings were about as random, it was just newer junk.

Holiday stocking & wrapped gifts — Oooh, wrapped stuff on a stocking.

I don’t remember anything in that Edinburgh stocking being junk. Fun and unnecessary, perhaps… I mean, does a college student really need Lego? (In my defense, I owned no Lego at all until that year. OMG, Lego Thor is awesome!) That year reshaped how I thought of Christmas stockings, and has certainly influenced the type of items that are seen in them at my house.

Here we are at the holidays again, and I found myself reminiscing about that year… and wrapping just about everything. Perhaps I should make some Yorkshire pudding this year too. Happy holidays!

Driving in a snow globe

One of the thrills of winter is, of course, snow. The first snowfall of the year is always exciting, the effect on the landscape is dazzling. The effect on driving… well… you get all the slipperyness (is that a word?) of driving in rain, but in the right conditions, it looks pretty even if the drivers are crazy.

When you move north, nobody warns you there are different types of snow. It’s akin to rain in that sense, quite literally, except for the part where it’s frozen. You can have anything from a light drizzle to a downpour of white, wet and packable snow (great for building, bad for shoveling) to dry, lightweight snow that blows all over the place (especially back to where you just shoveled it from).

It can fall straight down, as if someone just flipped the snow globe over and back again. But sometimes, that snow globe is slightly askew instead, and you get to experience the effect of walking or driving into the oncoming snow. In a heavy snow, that’s obviously a bad thing, with windshield wipers working furiously to keep up.

Holiday lights — No, I wasn’t driving when I took this photo. It also wasn’t snowing yet.

In a light snow, however, it has an idyllic effect as white bits swirl around you, paths altering with the wind impacts of vehicles around you. That is when it feels like you’re driving in a nice snow globe, and you decelerate as you pass decorated houses to appreciate the holiday season.

Thoughts on The Way of Kings

“Life before death.
Strength before weakness.
Journey before destination.”

Once upon a Capricon (not to be confused with Once Upon a Capricon, which was a couple years later), I met a gentleman who said I should read some books by Brandon Sanderson. To be clear, he gave me specific titles, though in the end, it really was just a “read everything he wrote” recommendation. (He also warned me that Blake would try to sell me books, and here I am, eagerly awaiting the next one in that series.)

Had I planned better, I would have re-read The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance before the November release of Oathbringer. But my fall months were somewhat unusual, and certainly not as I had planned, so here I am, a month after buying Oathbringer, just finishing re-reading the first book.

The danger of getting hooked on Brandon Sanderson’s writing is that he doesn’t have just one good series. At any given time, he is working on three or four books, updating his website with the progression. At the moment, it shows a first draft, a second draft, and a release (Oathbringer, yay!) at 100%, and a mystery project at 62%.

In The Way of Kings, we follow the stories of Kaladin (a slave), Dalinar (a lighteyes, uncle to the King), and Shallan (a lighteyes hoping to become ward of the King’s sister). The world and the characters grow through the book, learning about themselves and making discoveries that could impact the entire world as they know it. The thing to see, in this and the subsequent nine novels, is what they do with that knowledge, assuming they manage to survive.

Oh, did I forget to mention he’s not even halfway through writing the series? It’s epic, and totally worth reading (and re-reading).

Role-playing

I was introduced to role-playing my first year in college, starting with Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and Paranoia, and quickly adding Rifts and Marvel into the schedule. (Believe it or not, I also worked, went to classes, and slept.) That was several editions ago for D&D and Paranoia; I haven’t even seen the other two since college.

Last year, a co-worker suggested playing D&D at lunch, and brought in the 5th Edition Player’s Handbook. While tempting, we quickly decided that our lunch times were too variable for role-playing and settled into an irregular schedule of assorted card games. But the thought of playing D&D lingered for several of us.

We have an evening work event coming up and decided to schedule an after party with a mix of experienced and new players, so I find myself poring through rules to make a character. It should come as no surprise to those who have gamed with me before that I settled on a human bard. Beyond performance and some (totally optional, I’m sure) lock-picking skills, I’m not sure yet what I’m building. Whatever I decided, I’m sure it will be fun.

Thankful

This has been a whirlwind years, with plenty of ups and downs to keep things interesting. I am grateful that the ups far outweigh the downs. Here are some of the things I’m grateful for this Thanksgiving:

The Oregonian Cookbook my grandmother sent me a few years ago. It renewed my interest in poached eggs – I ate an egg poached in homemade broccoli tomato soup this morning – and filled my house with the wonderful scent of cranberry streusel to take to our Thanksgiving meal. (And amused that spellcheck thinks I should replace “streusel” with “stressful”.)
Diane looking up at Arwen without hissing or growling.

I’m delighted by the kitten we adopted earlier this week, it’s probably not what my parents expected me to spend my holiday money on…
and relieved that Arwen’s introduction into the house has been mostly painless. Well, at least among the cats… I have scratches that prove there’s a kitten in the house.
I am immensely grateful for coffee, since kittens don’t seem to sleep through the entire night.
The lovely sounds of Peter Hollens’s Christmas album that I listened to while cooking, and that Cassandra (mostly) has good taste in music.
That I have friends and family who appreciate my sense of humor, which explains why I included a note about Dobby when I mailed a sock back to a friend.

I hope everybody had a fabulous Thanksgiving!

I made a thing: a Welcome Blanket

Just after our trip to the Galápagos, I read about the Welcome Blanket project; a couple of my friends had shared the link on Facebook. I like crocheting, and as the daughter of an immigrant, it seemed like an appropriate thing to do. It was rather impromptu, I had to go yarn shopping and everything. (And I seem to have yarn left from the project….) Other people took up the challenge – the website boasts 2,088 blankets received.

My Welcome Blanket, in red, white, and blue.

I downloaded one of the blanket patterns from the project website. I decided our flag colors would be a good choice to welcome a new immigrant to our country; I honestly couldn’t think of a more appropriate color choice. I found a lovely yarn for it, soft and fuzzy, and not too inclined to tangle. I was a little delayed in my project, but lucky for me, the deadline was extended, and I mailed my contribution in mid-October.

It appears not all of the blankets are up on the website yet (I couldn’t find mine), though the ones that are show a lovely selection of craft choices and talent. I can sit back and ponder what my next crafting project will be.

Following the crowd

Choose One, a game from Looney Labs — “Follow the crowd” or “Buck the trend”… not much of a choice when you’re a geek.

Last weekend, at DorkStock, which is a mini-gaming convention inside Gamehole Con, I played a Looney Labs game called Choose One. In Choose One, the current player picks a card and one of the two answers, and the other players try to guess which answer you picked. Depending on the players, some are more straightforward than others such as pancakes vs. waffles or baseball vs. football. Others were harder, like cauliflower vs. broccoli. (I like both.) And some we didn’t even want to play because they were deemed too obvious. Follow the crowd vs. Buck the trend was one of those; everybody at the table would pick buck the trend.

It occurred to me since then that occasionally, following the crowd can turn out well. At least, if it’s the right crowd. Once upon a time at DragonCon, I crowded around a booth in the dealer’s hall with my friends. I don’t recall who decided to stop there, but we were wandering as a group, so we all stopped and looked at a comic book that was being sold. I don’t recall really noting what it was about at the time, it was a #1, and the author/artist was signing them. I think we had just tried the board game there, a cute little game called Bosworth, which adds an element of luck to chess. Since I’m terrible at chess, I liked adding luck to it. And the characters in the game were from the comic. It wasn’t until I got home and read the first issue of Dork Tower that I was hooked.

I had an advantage my friends didn’t… the genius behind Dork Tower lives a state away from me, so I’m more likely to bump into him at conventions in the area. Like at a Wizard World ComicCon the following year. And I joined some online groups related to the comic and started chatting with other fans. Then I found out he drew other games and started buying those.

Eventually, this lead to some of us suggesting hosting a convention related to his work and that of the other artists that published under Dork Storm Press, such as Aaron Williams, creator of Nodwick. We realized that would be a significant amount of work, and determined that it would be better to hold a mini-convention within a convention that John Kovalic was already attending. This worked so well, we held it repeatedly at one convention for several years, along with two DorkStock UKs and a DorkStock West. (I didn’t get to go to those.)

Real life interfered for a couple years, but now DorkStock is back, two years in a row, at a new convention in Madison, Wisconsin. Several people are already planning their Igor Bar contributions for next year. And my involvement is all because I followed the crowd that year at DragonCon.

The Little Things

It doesn’t happen often, but I ran out of spoons today. After arriving home, I realized that my energy levels were too low and my aches from the accident were too many to go back out, and I rescheduled my dentist appointment. It’s not a huge deal, they were accommodating about it, it’s just not something I would usually do.

I’ve spent a lot of the last week and a half, since the accident, thinking about little things, some good, some bad… the fact that my blog just deleted the whole list is on the bad side.

I have amazing friends, family, and co-workers who have been entirely supportive throughout this accident mess.
My work laptop, which was in my trunk, survived the accident, even though my trunk did not.
Lego C3-PO, on my keychain, lost a leg. This is amazingly appropriate. (Lego Darth Maul survived intact.)
My new car is unquestionably the perfect color for me…
and is sadly lacking in bumper stickers. I hope to remedy this soon.
Every time I look at the accident photos, I’m amazed that I walked away.
At the same time, I’m bummed that I missed my first opportunity at a black belt test. I did watch it, and I would have tested with an incredible group of candidates.
As I was loading the washing machine this evening, I looked out the window and noticed that my maple tree is now convinced that it’s fall.

I miss karate. Switching from up to 5 times a week to 0 is hard. I want my elbow and shoulder to heal quickly, so I can get back on the mat.
I’m impressed with how efficiently my insurance company has handled their side of things.
Did I mention my amazing friends? Yes? Well, they’re worth mentioning again.

A sudden change of plans

I was supposed to test for my first degree black belt tonight. Was. Unfortunately, a driver who was supposed to be paying attention to the road, and presumably wasn’t, rear-ended me on Tuesday, leaving me in a rental car and with a mild concussion. Per doctor’s orders, I’ve missed a couple days of work and have to avoid extreme physical activities and contact sports for at least a week. A black belt test certainly qualifies as both.

But enough whining, there will be another opportunity in the spring to test for my black belt. I was lucky to walk away from the accident. And my Camry, Roheryn, has been all about luck, from the moment I won him at a Cubs game in 2012.

My Camry, Roheryn, on his first and last days with me. — Roheryn, on his first and last days.

I entered a sweepstakes through the local Toyota dealership, winning a pair of tickets to a Cubs game and a spot as a finalist to win a Toyota Camry. On the day of the game, one of the finalists didn’t show up, bring my changes of winning to 1 in 5. We were each given a baseball with a number on it, and most of us had the player who was drawing the winning ball sign that one. Then he reached into a bag and picked one of the five balls in there; the number matched mine and happened to be his jersey number.

We took this car on our big road trip in 2013, visiting national monuments and parks on an eleven day drive. I drove this car to each of the out-of-state regional karate tournaments we’ve gone to, and loaded unseemly amounts of cargo from trips to Menard’s and other stores into the trunk and back seat.

Apparently the good luck was mine. Everything that’s supposed to happen in a car accident to protect the people inside did – the back window shattered appropriately, two airbags went off (did you know there’s a foot airbag?), and the back and front crumpled up rather than letting the other vehicles injure me.

I hope my next car is lucky too. Preferably without an accident.