A Man's Brain-Attic

very minor update

2012-01-20T08:06:00.000-08:00

It's been called to my attention that, back in October when I was hosting the RPG Blog Carnival,I wrote up one of the entries, but didn't actually provide a link to it. I'm fixing that now. My apologies to Chris, and although I've updated the original main post, I'm giving an extra link here to make up for it.

recent writings

2011-11-18T06:33:00.001-08:00

It's been a busy last week or so, catching up from the backlog that being sick (and having a sick wife/kid) generated. But, I've had a few things published elsewhere that are worth pointing out:

At Chambanamoms.com, I discuss playing the Ticket to Ride games with kids. I didn't get a chance to talk there about the variant I use for playing with the Grasshopper, so here it is (as suggested by some Boardgamegeek users): Rather than dealing three tickets to everybody at the beginning of the game, and making them pick two, everybody is dealt just one destination ticket. Omit the "long" routes.As soon as a route is completed, score points for it and draw a new one. Because it's impossible to plan for the longest route, leave the bonus card out. Otherwise, follow normal rules for drawing and playing cards, claiming routes (and double routes), and scoring.
At Kobold Quarterly, I've had my versions of both the Autumn and Winter Sentinel Druids for 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons get published to the website.
I've pitched a few articles to Wizards of the Coast for D&D Insider, and have a few more to send before the month is over. Like almost everybody else who has sent them anything in the last two months, I'm still waiting to hear back. I'll say what I can, when I can.

A Night in the Lonesome October: Wrap-up

2011-11-01T11:17:00.000-07:00

I've linked in the cover page everything I've found that was submitted. We had 9 entries for this blog carnival, which ended up focusing heavily on 4th edition D&D -- maybe because that's the community I'm plugged into, although I did my best to get the carnival advertised outside my normal venues. My thanks to everybody who participated. Maybe I'll have better luck next time.

A Night in the Lonesome October: The Society of Shadows

2011-10-24T12:04:00.000-07:00

Adam Page is probably best known in the RPG Blogging community as @blindgeekuk. He wrote a phenomenal amount of material for the Winter is Coming blog carnival last month, and is a regular contributor to the Daily Encounter. Here, he gives us the Society of Shadows, an outline of an organization whose feel dovetails nicely into the students of Evard the nethermancer (featured prominently in one of the last seasons of D&D Encounters). In addition to the introductory material, there are two themes: The Shadow Caller and the Shadow Seeker.

Download the document here.

A Night in the Lonesome October: The House of Dr. Chamberlain

2011-10-24T11:30:00.001-07:00

Our first guest post in the Brain-Attic comes courtesy of Brent Newhall, the RPG Doctor. He tells us of his contribution:

"The House of Doctor Chamberlain is a self-contained horror-themedadventure using the simple Risus system (explained within), perfect foran evening of fun with friends. The player-characters are invited to amanor house, where they witness a murder. As they explore the house ininvestigation, they turn up ghosts and the tone turns increasinglymacabre, leading up to a frightening confrontation."

The PDF is available here. Try it out this week and let us know how it goes!

A Night in the Lonesome October: An RPG Blog Carnival

2011-10-24T11:00:00.000-07:00

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere -
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year:
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir -
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through and alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul -
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
These were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll -
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole -
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.
-- Edgar Allan Poe, "Ulalume"

Welcome to the "A Night in the Lonesome October" blog carnival. We're collectively a group of RPG enthusiasts, for all sorts of games and all editions of games, who are coming together between now and Halloween to write all kinds of spooky things for our players (and, we hope, yours). As the week progresses, I'll add links here either to guest posts at my brain-attic, or to things people have written elsewhere, so that this can serve as a single go-to place from which to browse to your heart's content.
Monday, 24 October 2011

Brian Liberge starts us off at the Stuffer Shack with the Charmed Hero, a theme for 4th edition D&D that can be used to help represent the Alexander Harrises, Samwise Gamgees, or John H. Watsons of the world.
Brent Newhall gives us the stand-alone adventure for the Risus system called "The House of Dr. Chamberlain." If you've never played Risus, don't worry -- he's got enough of a quick-start in the document that you should be able to sit down and play in just a few minutes.
Adam Page (better known as @blindgeekuk on Twitter) presents the Society of Shadows, an organization and two themes centered around nethermancy usable in a 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons game.

Tuesday, 25 October 2011

The Roving Band of Misfits presents a review of Cthulhu Dice, a quick dice game by Steve Jackson Games

Wednesday, 26 October 2011

Ben of Troll in the Corner is giving away his Contagion Infected Zombies expansion for the Pathfinder RPG for free up until midnight on Halloween.
Adam Page and John Pope of the Daily Encounter team up to give us more necromancy powers for the 4E D&D Wizard.

Thursday, 27 October 2011

The crew at the Roving Band of Misfits give us some ideas for haunted house-inspired terrain effects and monster ideas, statted for 4E D&D, but pretty easily adaptable to other systems of your choice.

Saturday, 29 October 2011

Chris Jackson of A Susurrus in Carcosa gives us The Village Above the Sea, an adventure for 3-4 characters of 2nd level. (Written for D&D 4E).

"What begins as an end-of-summer sojourn in a seaside town ends up being far more sinister. The PCs discover a terrifying secret that threatens the entire village, but can they find the source and stop the threat from getting far more out of control?"

Craig Oxbrow presents a short adventure for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer game. Yay, Unisystem goodness!

Sunday, 30 October 2011

Craig Oxbrow also has an adventure for the Doctor Who RPG.

Monday, 31October 2011

John Pope at the Daily Encounter feeds us some Lifeless Mariners come crawling up from Davy Jones' Locker to overrun any maritime vessels on which your PCs happen to find themselves.
Craig Oxbrow contributes even more with a cryptic essay and five vampire-centered plot hooks that you could adapt to the game of your choosing.

On a Night In the Lonesome October: An Upcoming Blog Carnival

2011-10-11T10:08:00.000-07:00

Inspired in large measure by the phenomenal success of T.W. Wombat's "Winter Is Coming" blog carnival, I'm going to see just how crazy I can go in the next month and try organizing one of my own. I've snagged the theme for this one from the title of a phenomenal book by the late Roger Zelazny, which he himself snagged from Edgar Allan Poe's "Ulalume". For those not familiar with the book, I will encourage you to run-don't-walk to your local library and check out a copy. I will otherwise note only that it was born out of a wager in which somebody bet Zelazny that he could not write a book in which the audience would root for a certain infamous Jack of the late Victorian era. (Image below the cut courtesy of the fabulous Mark Meredith.)

What is it?
Like WiC, this will be a week-long blog carnival that will begin on Tuesday, October 24 and end on Halloween.

What am I looking for?
I'd like to people to contribute RPG-friendly material, for their system of choice, inspired by the carnival title, or any of the source material linked above. If it's scary, or campy-scary, or has tentacles and an unpronounceable name, I want it. If you're want to write about how to pull in any of the tropes used in the book (Warning: TVTropes link!), I want to see it. The doors are wide, wide open. I'll publish guest posts, or link to posts on your own blogs. While I don't expect that I've got any right to expect the amount of participation or creativity that appeared for Winter is Coming, I'd love it if that happened.

What do I need to do?
If you're interested, post a comment here or let me know on Twitter (@jffdougan) or via email (my twitter handle at comcast + net). I'm looking to publish guest posts here in a Man's Brain-Attic for the week of 24-31 October , so let me know if you're between blogs or interested in publishing outside of your normal venue. I'll be happy to host your work and not take a lick of credit for it, and you can say you're published on multiple blogs.

If you want to publish something on your blog, I'll maintain a list of links in the Night in the Lonesome October cover post to be published on 24 October . If you email me I'll send you the link when it's available.

If you're involved, all I ask is that you link back to at least the cover post and send the link in a shout out on Twitter. You're welcome to cross-post, comment, retweet and whatever else you want to do to promote yourself and your fellow blogosphere denizens.

Ada Lovelace Day

2011-10-07T08:27:00.000-07:00

Who is Ada Lovelace, you might ask? The super-short answer is the only (legitimate) child of Lord Byron, a correspondent of Charles Babbage, and a talented mathematician. Today, people worldwide are writing about women in science and technology to celebrate her too-short life.

I've got three women I want to talk about, all scientists or science educators, who have been immensely influential to me. I can also virtually guarantee that you will have heard of no more than two of them, no matter how well you know me.

The first of these is Brenda Ginther, the now-retired chemistry teacher at Everett High School while I was in attendance there. I've never asked her, but I'm pretty sure that she was the (relative) pre-NCLB rarity of a science teacher who really had a background in science and not just in education. I had a blast in both classes I took with her, and greatly appreciated the trust she showed in allowing me to (try to) make a batch of homemade black powder as part of my AP Physics final. (Short version of long story: class was building/launching model rockets. With sign-off from both teacher involved, I packed mine with a black powder charge with the intention of blowing the USS Smithereens to same.) Largely because of the two classes I took with her, I became a chemistry major.

Next on the list: Judith Burstyn, tenured faculty at the University of Wisconsin. She's a bioinorganic chemist, which means that what she studies are the metal atoms in proteins and enzymes and the effects they have. (This is a tremendous oversimplification, intended to try to unpack the word bioinorganic for the non-chemist audience. Dr. Burstyn, please forgive me.) However, I learned from colleagues who taught for her about what I now refer to as the "pick your poison" model of test writing, something I have taken with me to every position I have subsequently held. Tiering problems by difficulty and thinking skills involved, I write somewhere between 150% and 200% of the amount of test a student actually has to complete, and then make them select the problems they attempt (within specific guidelines). If you're a former student of mine reading this, you have her to blame.

Last is Dr. Cathy Middlecamp. Cathy also works at the University of Wisconsin, as permanent academic staff. She heads the Chemistry Learning Center there, teaches a one-semester class that's primarily taken by allied health science (e.g., nursing, dental hygiene) students, and is one of the co-authors of the ACS's Chemistry in Context. Cathy gave me some room to try to grow as somebody interested in education, letting me organize a symposium for an ACS national meeting while I was still a graduate student, and running an independent study section under her wing during the semester before my Ph.D. defense. She's also influenced a lot of how I think about what pieces of chemistry need to be taught, more than I can really go into here.

So those are my Ada Lovelace tributes. Ladies, thank you all. I very much would not be the person I am today had I not met any one of you, let alone all.

Playing games with kids

2011-10-03T20:32:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I started writing a column for a local parenting blog/website on playing games with kids, in part because my local library has a collection of games that goes beyond checkers/chess/Candyland, and supports that collection with a monthly event. It occurs to me that I should start at least mentioning it when articles go live there, and so I now present links to my first three columns to date.

Series introduction - hobby games generally, places in Chambana to purchase or play them
Carcassonne
Forbidden Island & Pandemic

Later this week, an article on Upwords will be going up. In the meantime, I know that my next three installments will be on the games Settlers of Catan, Dominion, and Ticket to Ride. (Technically, it'll be about TTR: Europe, since that's what the library has, although I'll at probably focus on the parent game and then mention the differences at the end.) I haven't yet decided in which order I'll tackle these, as I'd like to give them a try with my son first to figure out just how far down you can push the age range so I can discuss that part knowledgeably. In the meantime, if you're a reader who has suggestions on the order in which to write about those three games, leave a comment.

Edited Friday to provide link to Upwords article.

The Snow Queen

2011-09-30T12:21:00.000-07:00

I've been working on this entry for the Winter is Coming blog carnival being hosted by T.W. Wombat pretty much since the minute he announced it. Before diving into the actual text, I need to give some serious thanks to Jim C. Hines, whose princess series introduced me to the Snow Queen. I've also borrowed some text in here from Matthew Brenner's article on Terrain Powers, and have tried to adapt one gaming-specific statblock written by Mike Shea in his article on Abyssal Plague Demons.

OK, enough... on with the article.

At the end of the Dawn War, the gods sat back to observe the world they had created. Khala’s power was tied to the cold, but as the goddess of winter, she could observe wherever water traveled. Traveling to the largest glacier at the heart of the winter, she removed a slice as thick as her hand, bound it in silver, and polished it with snowflakes until it shone like a mirror. Laid on its side, it seemed to be a frozen lake on the valley floor. As Khala wove the words of power to enchant the mirror, a tendril reached out from the Chained God, unnoticed by the lady of winter. His touch on the magic caused the mirror to distort what she saw, perceiving only the worst of anything reflected in the mirror, but it also amplified the spell beyond Khala’s intent, granting the mirror the power to bend those reflected in it to her will.When forced to surrender her power to the usurping death goddess, Khala’s last act of spite was to break the great scrying crystal, shattering the ice and sending shards flying off in all directions. Unknown to her, these shards still bore the taint of the Chained God. Magically connected to each other, the shards of the mirror make those who are touched by them more vulnerable to the mirror’s power. Even worse, when under the mirror’s influence they are open to the Chained God’s touch, if he should chance to reach out.

Greatest of Khala’s retainers was the exarch known as the Snow Queen, who spread the snows as winter approached and guided their retreat as spring approached. When the Raven Queen assumed control of the winter snows, the Snow Queen herself refused to bow to the goddess she saw as a usurper. Absconding with the largest fragment of Khala’s Mirror, she retreated not to the Shadowfell where Nerull’s bride kept her abode, but instead to the coldest reaches of the Feywild. Some suspect her influence in transforming the Sun Prince into the mighty fey being known as the Prince of Frost. Certainly, her snowflake retainers can sometimes be seen as honored guests inside the Fortress of Frozen Tears.
Hard of heart herself, the Snow Queen now roams the world and the Feywild, although her dislike of the Raven Queen keeps her far away from the walls of Letherna. She occasionally spots a mortal to whom she takes a capricious fancy, and may transport that individual off to the Heart of Winter for a time, until that mortal freezes to death despite the gifts she bestows. She can otherwise be found anyplace where there is water, for all water has the potential to become snow and ice. When her ire is roused, expected a blizzard to ravage the area.

Only rarely does the Snow Queen leave her palace without being accompanied by many of her retainers. Often, they may be present in lighter snowstorms, even when their monarch herself has not chosen to venture forth from the Heart of Winter. Serving as her eyes and ears, they are quick to advance, quick to retreat, and ride the winds with unmatched skill. Bitter foes of the Sorrowsworn, they will often summon reinforcements and swarm the Raven Queen’s servants who venture out of the realms of the Shadowfell.
At times, it seems that the Show Queen seeks to reassemble all the lost fragments of Khala’s great mirror. If she did so, it is entirely possible that she could challenge the Raven Queen herself, especially if the Prince of Frost were to ride forth at her side. It is unclear whether she is aware of the Chained God's touch on her mirror, which may explain her restraint.

The stat blocks weren't all playing nice with pasting into the post, so click here to download the entire article, story text + 4E statblocks (1.9 Mb PDF)

Chemistry lesson

2011-09-26T19:14:00.000-07:00

Earlier today, a Delawarean whom I follow on Twitter asked for a chemist's take on the explosion that happened at the University of Maryland this afternoon. Although I hadn't heard about it at the time, from the information she linked to, I posited that the original source she had linked to had misheard a reporting officer, and suggested what I thought was more likely. At least some of my guesses have since been confirmed.

I've since sent her my thoughts on what is likely to have happened, which I'll post here.

The 200-level course number suggest to me that the class as a sophomore-level organic chemistry class. A pretty common experiment in a class like that is to combine concentrated nitric & sulfuric acids, and use the resulting mixture to nitrate an aromatic compound, usually toluene. Both stages of this process give off a LOT of heat, and the whole sequence is usually done directly over ice.

If there's any leftover nitrating mixture, it usually gets at least somewhat neutralized before being rinsed down the drain with lots and lots and lots of water. (In my previous career as a high school chemistry teacher, I've done something similar using filter paper to make flash paper.)

The fire department report you linked me to makes me think that some student disposed of the extra nitrating mixture in a container of hydrocarbons of some kind or another. If there were any aromatic compounds in the container, the leftover NO2(+) ions would likely have started to react with them. I'm guessing that the heat given off in the reaction probably ignited the waste, and (if the container was capped) may have caused a pressure build-up explosion.

I've linked you to everything that I know about the accident right now, but the scenario I described above hangs together reasonably well for me. If I see an update from C&E News later in the week, I'll try to follow up.

Reviewing the Scales of War: Den of the Destroyer (Overview)

2011-09-20T08:58:00.000-07:00

Although the fellow who was reviewing the Scales of War adventure path (published in DDI) did just barely get started on the adventure Den of the Destroyer, I figured I should start at the beginning of the adventure while I get my head into this project. So, I'll try to summarize the mainstream plot and assess what I think that plot accomplishes well and what it doesn't:

The fifth of six heroic tier adventures in the path, it's written for characters who start about halfway between 7th and 8th level, and ends them at 9th level. The overall plot can be briefly summarized as follows: Upon returning from the Karak Lode, the PCs are summoned to return back to Brindol (where everything started) and sent with one of the artifacts they rescued in the opening adventure to a remote location where they must perform a ritual on it to awaken something within it. Along the way, they need to stop a gnoll shaman from turning himself into an exarch of Yeenoghu.

Highlights of what the plot should accomplish:

Provide some closure to any conflicts with the Lost Ones street gang from the city of Overlook. (Accomplished pretty well)
Get them highly ticked off at shadar-kai arms deal Sarshan by revealing both that he has placed a price on their heads and that he has been (at least so far) the ultimate mover of the various bad guys the PCs have encountered (rocky, see below)
Introduce the character of Amyria, who has metaplot implications throughout the entire rest of the adventure path.

By making the Lost Ones the bad guys behind the opening skill challenge, and giving the PCs a chance to give them a pretty thorough trouncing, that's an ongoing enmity that can be laid to rest. By the time the PCs are finished with kicking the Lost Ones around, the latter should have it pretty well impressed upon them that they're overmatched, and leave the PCs alone for the remainder of the adventure.

The Sarshan elements are a bit rockier here, although I think a lot of that has to do with the overall rockiness of the heroic tier elements of the Scales of War in general. I find it really interesting that, when asked for best and worst published adventures for 4E, the six adventures that make up the heroic tier of the Scales of War have entries on both lists. Seige of Bordrin's Watch (second adventure) and The Temple Between (sixth adventure) are both consistently praised; the first and third adventures are pretty consistently un-praised. In my opinion, this one's someplace in the middle, maybe on the weaker side. Being able to really get the Sarshan elements revealed requires the PCs to knock out (rather than kill) one of the few non-gnoll enemies they encounter in the last 2/3 of the adventure. Moreover, it gets later revealed (in future adventures) that Sarshan was somebody else's pawn from the get-go.

The character of Amyria gets introduced fairly well, although not much is said about her real nature. Some (maybe all) of that is because when this adventure was published, the Player's Handbook 2 hadn't been published yet, and they were trying to not spoil the Deva race. The pieces they do/don't reveal here also leave it open to question how much of the plot points were being written by the various authors (granted, the author of this adventure is a Wizards of the Coast employee). In any event, this is one of the places where the path as a whole suffers from the decision to reveal plot points to the DMs as they arise, rather than to give enough of a summary at the beginning to support foreshadowing or ongoing plot threads.

Next time, we kick off with trying to assess the opening skill challenge, "Finding the Messenger."

Letting my Geek out.

2011-09-14T09:23:00.000-07:00

OK... I've let this languish for far too long (3+ years and counting since my last post). Time to do something about it.

A couple of weeks ago, a woman who worked at tech site Gizmodo published what I can only politely call a screed regarding her experience with an on-line dating site. (I refuse to link to the article and give it more page views, for reasons that should become obvious in a moment.) She opens by discussing some very creepy guys, and then gets a message from somebody who seems pretty nice. They go on two dates, and she then cuts him off cold after learning that he is a former world champion at collectible card game Magic: the Gathering.

Her post set off a firestorm in the geek community. (I'd like to use a stronger word, but my almost-6-year-old isn't allowed to read it.) The most productive response that I've seen came from the gracious Monica Valentinelli, who is coordinating a week she's calling Speak Out With Your Geek Out.

So, I'm a geek, and I'm proud of it.

I'm an almost life-long gamer -- look in particular at my RIP post for Gary Gygax just a few posts back.
I have recently started writing a column for a local parenting blog on playing games with kids. My target for these are specifically parents who have no idea what's up with the world of games outside Tar Mart.
On the RPG front, I now have a mini-series (link goes to the final installment) of supplementary material for the most recent version of Dungeons & Dragons published by Kobold Quarterly, and expect two more pieces written for them to appear in the next month or two.
My son is inheriting (being indoctrinated into?) my love of games. My daughter's too young to try to anything except eat the dice, so no idea whether she'll inherit the "game gene" or not.
I love Good Eats. The word of Alton Brown is my culinary gospel, or pretty close.
One other project that I'm going to try to publicly commit to here: Another gaming blogger was doing a pretty thorough analysis of a series of adventures published for D&D, and made it into the 5th of 18 adventures before he got bogged down. I'm going to try to pick up where he left off, working 1-2 times per week, and see if I can get us through to the end.

project report

2008-06-14T19:41:00.001-07:00

Most of my first full week off from students was spent painting our bedroom and bathroom. We just moved all the furniture back into the bedroom; putting the fixtures back into the bathroom will have to wait until tomorrow, as I have to go buy a couple shorter bolts for the new light and because mounting the towel bars & such will require use of the drill. Needless to say, at 9:45, Leo's asleep.

Pictures coming sometime relatively soon, after everything's put back up, including all the art.

Summer!

2008-06-09T12:28:00.000-07:00

It's the first full week of my summer break, which won't be much of one. Tomorrow I'm going to start painting our bedroom (one of two that we didn't do right after moving in), and expect that it'll be a 3-day project. After that's done, I get to start working on writing the lab manual for my AP class for next year. My goal is to have at least the first semester, and really the entire year, done when kids walk in for the first full day of class.

I'm back at Centennial next year, but am still dealing with some annoyances related to the out-of-state license, and if I can't get it sorted out, then I may not be able to go back for year 3. Unfortunately, it seems like I'm probably going to have to go through a lateral-entry program again.

The weather has been very, very, very wet around here, although we've survived it relatively unscathed. The biggest problem has been unrelated to the weather, which is that last weekend I was working on re-doing the guts of one of our toilets and cracked the tank.

Incidentally, between the move and a provider buyout, my e-mail address has changed a couple times in the last year. For those without a post-NC address, it's the same handle, but now at comcast (dot) net.

In memoriam (not family) / reminisces

2008-03-08T13:27:00.000-08:00

I'm probably slower than many people in writing this, but let me add my voice to those mourning the death of E. Gary Gygax earlier this week, in Lake Geneva, WI. This post is, sort of, about the effect that he had on me -- even though we never met.

My introduction to role-playing games (old-style "Red Box" Dungeons & Dragons) came about in Oklahoma City, OK, on the last trip that we made to see my great-grandmother Pulley. Her next-door neighbor had a boy who was about my age, and he had an older brother. I'd been a fan of the cartoon, and the game looked neat. I didn't actually get to play much (at all? -- maybe 30 minutes) on that trip, but I was hooked.

It was probably a 2-year fight with my parents, who'd heard far too much about "the kid at MSU who lived in the steam tunnels because he thought it was real." Nevertheless, in 6th grade (the year after my parents split), the school librarian persuade my mother that there wasn't anything wrong with it. In the apartment building that my mother had, there was a high school student downstairs who was a gamer, and I became friends with one of his buddies. Many years later, I introduced Eric (the latter person above) to the woman who eventually became my wife.

My father didn't have as much problem with the hobby as my mother, and actually picked up German editions of a Gamma World and a Star Frontiers adventure when he went to Germany with his father a year or two later.

It was one of my high school teachers who broadened my RPG horizons beyond "hack-and-slash" style D&D, both to working on creating a consistent persona for a character and introducing me to other game systems. (At the time, it was principally Call of Cthluhu. However, he was the first person that I knew who had something published by White Wolf Game Studio, now the 2nd largest publisher in the RPG market.)

I continued to do RPG gaming through my undergraduate graduation. I've sold most of the things that I spent so much time and money acquiring when I was younger, although I've laid in a small stock of a few things against the day when Leo gets old enough to really participate. On and off, I've helped contribute to Project Aon as an editor or an XML markup typist. I actually really want to get a copy of The Prince's Kingdom sometime in the next couple years. It's a game that was written by somebody specifically for adults to play with their children. He's a little too young to understand now, but around his 4th birthday, it'll be a present to me.

Thank you to everybody who's been mentioned or alluded to here, even if I can't remember your name anymore. My imagination has become richer for your efforts, and it's a gift I hope I can share with my son. Someday.

busy, busy, busy

2007-11-11T18:42:00.000-08:00

This school year is charging nonstop at me.

Tuesday night finishes up a class I picked up for the local Kaplan office at the last minute. The Centennial HS Production of Romeo & Ethel... I mean, Juliet goes up on Tuesday. If you've missed the news somewhere along the line, because I know a thing or 8 about how to handle a sword (thanks to Lansing Community College; search for PFSP107 & Durendal), I let the director know that I'd help with the fight scenes, forgetting there are as many in the play as there are. It's been chewing up massive quantities of my time lately, and only the volunteer services of a member of The Point (the local fencing club) are going to help make sure things pull together in time.

What with conferences last weekend, hosting Thanksgiving, and working an AP course for the first time since I was teaching at Durham Tech, I often feel like I don't have the time to be an effective husband or father.

out of the loud darkness

2007-09-23T08:35:00.000-07:00

I've been dead quiet for a while because I haven't had time to think, let alone write.

The short update, with hopefully more to come in the next couple weeks:
- The house closing was a nightmare, because the buyers of our house had been trying for a loan through Countrywide, right as the mortgage market was busy blowing up.
- I'm now teaching chemistry & AP Chemistry at Centennial HS in Champaign.
- All of our free time has been devoted to painting the house or getting other, similar projects done. We've finally decided that we're going to hire somebody to finish the painting, especially because we have the paint bought for every room but one (where we're still deciding what to do).

One more quick story added in to the post Kirstin just wrote on Leo's blog.

More later.

things proceed apace

2007-07-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is inspection day on both houses. We're not expecting any surprises either place, but that's why they would be called surprises if they show up.

I spent most of the week trying to get the various bits of paperwork assembled and filled out for applying for an IL teaching license. It's a pain, because they don't have a true reciprocal license agreement with anybody, and so it means that I have to go through the application and evaluation process all over again. This on top of teaching applications really meaning that you have to go through the whole things twice for every school, once for the district's HR office and again with the principal of the individual school.

We spent yesterday visiting some cousins of mine in High Point, plus my sister & brother-in-law. The latter two then came back to our house for some additional visiting that was always planned to be overnight. They generously offered to go let us have fun (by watching the film version of Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix) while they babysat. 'Twas a good adaptation, although Kirstin & both pity anybody who walks into it without a thorough knowledge of the previous films -- or even better the books.

Speaking of books, this Friday is Release Day for Deathly Hallows. The Leaky Cauldron (an excellent source of news, although less usable after they made it bright and shiny a couple years back) has a prediction quiz for events that may or may not happen during Book VII. This is the last week that you can take it, since after Friday night you'll (theoretically) have all the answers. Those who want insight into the Harry-er parts of my brain can go look here.

On houses and the hunting thereof

2007-07-10T07:38:00.000-07:00

Under the assumption that nothing kills either deal in the inspections, we not only managed to find a house in Urbana, but we think we have a deal on our house here. The latter isn't yet signed, sealed, and delivered, but we think it's very, very close.

I'm now working on deciphering how, if at all, the process of applying for an IL teaching license changes for somebody who's moving in from out-of-state. I have a feeling that it's going to involve much time with a high-speed connection and playing lots and lots of phone jockey, since it really looks like I have to do everything that a newly graduating teacher does, plus.

somehow, that's just not right.

busy, busy, busy

2007-07-03T12:09:00.000-07:00

The extended silence in these parts is because Kirstin accepted a job at the University of Illinois last Thursday. I've since been frantically in prep-the-house-for-market mode, especially as we want to list it this weekend, before we head out to house-hunt.

We've repainted most of the house, with the last few bits trying to come together in the next 36-48 hours.

More details next week, after things settle down.

louver = bad!

2007-06-26T09:19:00.000-07:00

No news for Kirstin on the job front, and the suspense is killing us both!

I have decided that spray paint and paint guns were invented by somebody who had a houseful of louver doors to paint. We've got 4 on the closets in our bedroom, and I just got started on those today in the midst of working on getting the house ready to sell. I've got wall repair to do in a few rooms, beyond simply patching where pictures had been. There's some other miscellaneous things to do as well, but the goal (unreachable though it might be) is to have all the rooms repainted by the beginning of next week.

Nothing else new to report right now.

almost done

2007-06-21T05:30:00.000-07:00

I'm at work today to do some lab clean-up, now that I've got a trash can for getting rid of junk and some industrial-strength paper towels for working with glassware. I think I'll be asked to help deal with some science-specific questions at an interview for a possible replacement next week. Otherwise, I'll have handed keys in by the end of the week.

There were many times that I was frustrated this year, most often with the entitled mentality of the 8th graders that I had. And yet, I'm going to miss the school and the people in it. Some of the people that I would miss most are also leaving -- Mr. Reinke is moving to Philadelphia because his wife is starting a surgical internship/residency there (I never remember which of the two is right after med. school), Coach Hughes is starting a new position with the Partnership for a Drug-Free North Carolina, and Ms. Chisolm just decided it was time. I've got students I'd love to see through the next year as they get ready to graduate, and others that I'd like to see whether grow up because of what happened to them this year. That, and finding a new job is always just a bit scary.

My father-in-law is arriving around noon to help us with some of the house-prep projects as we get ready to put it on the market. If we're lucky, we'll know by the weekend where we're going; it's more realistically going to be Monday or so. Friends and family can be sure that we'll let them know as soon as we do.

KHS memories

2007-06-14T18:04:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last year working at Kestrel Heights School, a 6-12 charter school in Durham. It's really wanting to write this post that spurred my launch of this blog, as referenced earlier -- it's personal to me, and doesn't really fit the idea of Boy, n: A noise with dirt on it being Leo's baby book.

Friday morning was the 8th grade awards ceremony. It was one of those events where everybody gets something, so you can think of it as a "real" awards ceremony or not as you wish. The whole 8th grade staff helped present the certificates. It was really the first good chance I'd had to bring up the news of my departure to the 8th graders since Kirstin got her offer from School A. I didn't make it through without crying. When the last awardee was asking me not to cry, it only made things worse.

The following night was a smaller awards ceremony for students in all grades designed to honor the students of the year. I presented the 11th grade award, and the recipient was crying afterward. There are several students I've had this year that I'll miss tremendously. Some of them I would have missed anyway, as they were returning to the public school system for high school.

There was yet another awards ceremony Tuesday morning on the last day of school. It's a standing offer to students in my core classes (read: non-electives) that the student with the highest academic average for the year in each class period gets a book of their choice. This year's winners chose Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer; The Golem's Eye, by Jonathon Stroud, and Stardust, by Neil Gaiman. (The last student actually allowed me to pick for her, sort of -- she didn't know what she wanted, and I took a good guess based on other things I'd seen her read during the year.)

Tomorrow is the next game night at my friend Rick's, and there's a parent of somebody who would have been a student of mine next year that I think will want more details than I could comfortably talk about on Saturday.

We're going to try to go to Sunday's Durham Bulls game, if it isn't sold out. It's the only thing I asked about for Father's Day.

Introduction

2007-06-13T11:34:00.001-07:00

First, bonus points to those who can identify the source of the title. I'll let you know in a month or so, if you haven't figured it out.

I've had some more personal things that I've wanted to post, but that haven't been appropriate for "Boy, n.:", which is really more of Leo's baby book than anything else.

A few of those thoughts will show up here in the next few days, but at the moment it's time for me to leave work.