If this blog is a record of my grand exploits, then it seems appropriate to note, in the interest of continuity, that about a month ago I accepted a job offer and am once more gainfully employed as a professional software developer. Assorted experiences of the past have taught me the prudence of maintaining the separation of work and blog, so that’s about all I shall express upon the topic, aside from praising God and rejoicing that I am again in a position to earn my keep from the comfort of my home office.
As I observed at the time, unemployment would be practically an ideal state of affairs if only one wasn’t continually feeling the pesky pangs of material want. After all, such a condition leaves one with plenty of time for the important pursuits, such as writing blog posts. However, life and sustenance being what they are, I am (on the whole) glad to once more have my daylight hours occupied in more fruitful pursuits.
That said, there are a few projects I have underway, and as the saying goes, though they proceedeth slowly, they are exceedingly fine.
The first such endeavor is a new WordPress theme for my wife’s blogs. This theme, which I believe the gracious call “minimalist”, is now live on her various and divers sites. She says she likes it and that it’s better than her previous themes (which I also authored). I’m not sure I agree, but if you do, it’s free for the taking.
The next project on the docket is an effort to sanitize the computer game World in Conflict of profanity so that my younger boys can play it. Happily, the developers were very mod-friendly and made a mod kit available in the day. Unhappily, that day was quite a while ago and it’s been a struggle just scraping together the tools from various corners of the Internet to make modding possible. However, I’ve now reached the point where I’m able to edit everything except cutscene movies, and it’s just a matter of doing the grunt work of finding the particular files which need editing and doing the editing itself. (By the way, I am here intentionally ignoring the debate about whether such “censorship” as this is worthwhile or a total waste of time. Assuming I get anywhere with the project, I’ll eventually be writing my thoughts on the matter in more detail.)
Third on the list is the construction of dice towers. Some years ago I invested in a number of Hirst Arts molds. Shortly after purchasing them, I cast a whole bunch of little plaster bricks and built a few neat things. And then they (along with a number of the bricks and some 70 pounds of Hydrostone) sat in my garage collecting dust. This really is quite inexcusable, but unfortunately it is the truth. I am now doing my best to atone for this neglect by pulling the various pieces out of storage and designing dice towers. Dice towers (of which I presently have an embarrassing shortage) are important to me right now because of the next project, which is…
Fourth: playing 100 board games over the course of 2016. I’ve signed up for a 10×10 challenge on BoardGameGeek, meaning that I intend to play 10 particular games 10 times each during the year. We didn’t play nearly enough board games in 2015, and I think this kind of challenge is just the sort of thing to change that. At a mere two games per week it doesn’t sound like much, but it’ll be a good deal more than before. Plus, although some of the games I chose (Dominion, Kingdom Builder) can easily be played a couple times in an evening, others (Eclipse, Mage Knight) are rather involved.
Of course, the final project on the list is blogging itself. I’m out of practice, and writing is a thing that wants continual exercise.
Speaking of continual exercise, I suppose that’s a sixth project. But I mean to say, really, you know, one wouldn’t want to be overwhelmed with projects.