Some are no doubt wondering what became of me on Friday.  On Thursday evening I was asked whether I might pick up the girlfriend of a certain son Friday night, and although I recognized that this would mean at least five to six hours on the road, I also recognized that there is value in making the lives of my sons a bit brighter.  Then late Thursday night I mentioned this to my wife, his mother, by way of discussing vehicle arrangements–and she cut the discussion short by saying no, I was not to make the trip.  Her reasons are not relevant here, really; I passed them to the boy the next afternoon when I saw him, and he did what he ought to have done initially, which was discuss it with her.

The joke of it, really, is that they came to an agreement that I would pick her up, but neither of them mentioned it to me until late in the afternoon when mother called home and was surprised that I answered the phone.  I would have been there anyway, since pickup was not to be until between eleven and twelve, after the girl got home from work but before her parents would be disturbed by people arriving (even people who sit at the curb and never see them); I left shortly after church.

Along the way, I got a call from the other son who often calls upon us for transportation.  It seems he was chatting with his brother’s girlfriend, and she discovered that he had a stretch of days off from work (which he had created so that he could weekend with some friends), and insisted that he call us and arrange for us to grab him on the way home.  It’s not far out of the way, although what with getting off the highway and stopping and all it probably adds half an hour to the trip.  His plan was to change his transportation arrangements such that the person taking him to the weekend gathering Saturday would pick him up at home instead of at his work address.  So that was added.

Returning home around two, I knew that I could not address the work awaiting, so I did the posting to the Corinthians list and went to bed, so as to get at least a few hours of sleep before church in the morning.

I was fairly tired by late afternoon Saturday, but someone offered to make supper so that I could finish the unfinished Friday work, and my wife asked if I would make a quick run to Wal-mart with her to see whether they accepted a certain insurance coverage for eye exams and glasses.  They did not, but as long as we were there she thought it would be good to spend a lot of money on some things she felt we needed (in fairness, perhaps five to ten percent of the expenditures were for car care products I thought we needed–motor oil and brake fluid).  Between three and four hours later we returned home to discover that dinner had not been made, and it was too late for me to undertake making it, so I spent the next hour or so obtaining and serving Kentucky Fried Chicken (a task extended by the fact that they neglected to include two of the items in the bag, so I had to drive back for these).

At the end of that time, I was entirely exhausted.  I went to my bed, put on that movie I promised to watch, The Last Mimzy, and after getting a very vague feel for what was happening at the beginning, fell completely asleep.

I’m up now.  I can’t really catch up on what I missed–there were too many “extra” things I should have done.  However, I will do today’s work and see where it gets me.  Already the week ahead is looking overbooked, but we’ll manage.  I’ve got to be in North Jersey again on Tuesday, to return said girlfriend and to visit my parents, who have something for me and something for my son, and for whom I also have something.  That’s going to be difficult, because we have a shortage of help on Tuesday, but we’ll manage.

I did get a bit done on a read-through edit of the new Game Ideas Unlimited book; I’ve also been pressuring a few people for feedback on the cover, but without result.

That reminds me:  I was supposed to post on Friday to call your attention to the second article in the archived series, Game Ideas Unlimited:  An Amusing Dungeon.  It describes the juxtapostion of two unrelated ideas into a fascinating adventure.  As always, comments in the forum are invited.

–M. J. Young

Happy Easter to all for whom this is a welcome greeting; He is risen indeed.

I find that the front page of Gaming Outpost has been redone, as part I presume of a thematic update. There are things to like about it, and I do like them; there are also some glitches and concerns, but I’ll manage.  I’ll discuss these in the appropriate forum, I think, when I get there.

I have been proofreading my the text of the proposed Faith and Gaming book, the collected Faith and Gaming articles.  Mostly I’m adding footnotes to things that were easily linked or discovered when it was part of the Christian Gamers Guild site.  I’ve not yet reached the point of pricing this, which will be the longest book I have yet published independently.  I’ve not heard about the cover for the Game Ideas Unlimited series, but then, I don’t check my e-mail until tomorrow, and I am beat enough tonight that I’m not going to add anything to the list.

Actually, I’ve had a thought on that which I am going to have to send to Jim–O.K., I’ve sent it.  I’d like to list on the back cover, with a brief blurb, maybe half a dozen titles from the book which are particularly good, or at least particularly enticing.  To that end, I think I’ll offer at the end of this article the titles of the twenty-six that will be included, and if you recognize any of these as something you remember (or if the blurb entices you to read it), let me know which ones you would list.

Now I really must get through today’s work so I can get some sleep tonight.  I’m starting to get very run down, to the point that my wife is thinking I may need a medical exam, and I want to get a good night’s sleep to forestall any such problem.

Actually, rather than listing and linking all of them, I can take advantage of some of the work I did with the original series and again more recently. The first dozen are linked from the thirteenth, Game Ideas Unlimited:  Over My Shoulder which originally appeared on August 24, 2001, and marked the completion of the first quarter of a year of the series.  used that milestone as an opportunity to look back over what preceded, and forward toward what was to come.  The copy at Gaming Outpost has blurbs about all twelve, including as mentioned links to go read them.  I did the same thing every quarter, but I haven’t fixed all fifteen quarterly articles yet.  I have fixed the one for the second quarter, Game Ideas Unlimited:  The Process which also suggested that the way to learn creative process was by watching how others did it.  It still appears at Gaming Outpost.

I do hope this won’t disrupt my efforts to get people reading and discussing these one per week on the forum.  I’m just hoping that I can get some input from those who remember these articles as to which ones would be best to blurb on the cover, either because people who read them before would want to read them again, or because people who heard the idea mentioned would be fascinated enough to want to read more.

Thanks.

–M. J. Young

I did have some time to spare last night, but apart from taking a turn at the dishes and making sure everyone got supper, I put most of it into business matters: I attended to polishing the meeting minutes for the two recent directors meetings which the secretary missed. I also had to run an errand which had me sitting somewhere long enough to do a bit of editing on the Romans exegesis.

This morning I managed to complete the overly complicated registration process for IMDB board to post concerning The Sarah Conner Chronicles–a show I did not watch and have not decided to watch, but for which I’ve already been contacted and questioned. I posted there in response to a thread in which my Terminator temporal anomalies page was mentioned.

I’m hoping to get a bit of extra time today also, but we’ll see how that goes.

–M. J. Young

I did a fair bit of printing last night, covering the last maybe three hundred of the nearly nine hundred pages that comprise my Romans notes. When I do two-sided printing, the printer program ties up the screen for long periods, and I can’t really do anything else on the computer (a definite design flaw–it’s telling me to turn over pages that the computer thinks have finished printing but the printer hasn’t yet done). Thus while I babysat the printing process I also continued the editing process.

I also had to take someone to court tonight; it did not go well, and I’ve started working on paperwork for an appeal, but my wife has decided to bring in an attorney on this. That means my schedule tomorrow has gotten more complicated. However, I did more editing in the courtroom while waiting for the case to be called.

I posted the new character generation thread for our Multiverser forum game; I also called the mechanic, who told me that the truck would be ready late this afternoon, but that was too late for me to pick it up and be at court on schedule, so I’ll have to get it in the morning.

In other news, there is something of an unofficial announcement that there will be at least one more and possibly three more Terminator movies; here’s hoping they just go for the neat high-tech war stuff and stay out of time travel as much as possible, since (as I say in my Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines analysis) they’ve managed to resolve everything temporally, and anything more is likely to bring the entire story crashing down. Otherwise, I might have to add a rather scathing commentary to the Temporal Anomalies site.

I’ve more paperwork to do tonight; really, I’m trying to get my brain to relax a bit, so I’m doing this as filler. But I have to do this, too, so I’ll be bouncing back and forth for a while, I expect.

–M. J. Young

Again my computer is giving me problems. It’s not surprising, really, as it is Sunday and I haven’t run the maintenance programs since Wednesday, so the drives are a bit uncertain where they left everything. I’ll deal with it, but I’ve had to reboot several times to get the system running at all, and a couple more times since then when it froze.

I did run a live game on Friday night. I missed church, but not because of the game–rather because when I reached the church parking lot I noticed an incoming call on my cell phone, and in calling back to find out the reason got diverted to pick up a few things at a store. I got my nap, although it was brief, and wrapped up the game on the early side, shortly after one, so I could get enough sleep and make church in the morning. The game was good; hopefully my players will post summaries.

Otherwise, the little time I stole to do some “work” was invested into editing my Romans study notes. The fact that the pastor is eager to have a copy of these is an impetus to pushing forward on that project, as also is the fact that I’ve reached the final chapter in posting it on the study list, and it would be nice if I could announce the availability of a print or file copy of the entire package to the group when I hit the end, probably about a month or so from now.

Meanwhile, I am hoping that in addition to everything else I can include my second opportunity to go swimming this summer, so if I am stalled in my forum postings, you’ll know where to find me.

–M. J. Young