Crafty Weekend

February 09, 2026 by Adam in Family

Since Delta Green was sadly cancelled, I ended up doing various craft projects, though admittedly most were for various roleplaying games.  Emma and I went to MECCA Saturday after breakfast and the library, returning with way too many treasures.  Emma had a major find of over a dozen hand-painted tiles for $1 each - apparently they're worth $20 each, so she cleaned them up and packed them up for future use.  I returned with cool paper, bookmaking supplies, scraps of leather, yarn for Jo, and other assorted cool things.

When we got home Emma and Jo helped me dye a bunch of white leather, and we created a book cover.  I used the cricut to make a stencil for the symbol on the front and after a couple days we had a book prop for an upcoming game.

I also printed the first half of a giant popcorn bucket for the Iron Lung movie.  Apparently one of her coworkers wanted one.  It ended up being immense and I quickly burned through a spool.  The second part isn't going as well, but I'm hoping it's somewhat optional.

I also prepped for the upcoming D&D game, plus put together my usual website/images/movie prep site for a Call of Cthulhu game.  It's like a 1920s Delta Green, but with flappers, gangsters, and archeologist types fighting Lovecraftian horrors.  If I ever have someone cancel I can run that instead.  Otherwise I feel sad not being able to terrorize my family members frequently enough.

Cold Week

February 06, 2026 by Adam in Family

Yvonne and I have both had colds this week - she ended up skipping her day in the Emergency Department as part of her EMT program.  I think she's mostly better now.  I never got too bad, but I've been feeling a little slow and grumpy and mostly want to fiddle around with personal projects and do nothing particularly important.

Sadly Delta Green was cancelled tomorrow, and with Valentine's Day we get to push it out a couple more weeks.  I'm bummed, and think I'll start making some one-shots of something or another if one person can't make it.  The D&D group had a session on Tuesday after a delay and I think they're so excited to play more that we're going again next week to make up for the delay.

As for me, I've been slogging through work, trying to finish up one project and start up another.  When I'm not working, I've been putting together props and notes for the upcoming Delta Green campaign.  I think I'm going to try to make a book for the game, though the bookbinding part is a little tricky.  Theoretically the cricut does leather debossing and I'd love to see if I can pull that off.

We had a meeting with the property management company that will manage the farm rental yesterday.  It went well, though it's clear there's still a long list of things to be done in the next few months.  I'm trying to gird my loins to assist as my older kid steps away from the project - hopefully it works out okay.

No big plans for the weekend.  I might see if Emma and her big brother might go for another wilderness adventure with me.  He's starting a new job doing landscaping next week, though fortunately his hours seem pretty normal.  I'm just excited about things like health insurance that come with it.

Up Before Five

February 02, 2026 by Adam in Family

I woke up at 4:45 this morning - Yvonne was already up and had started making coffee.  It ended up being really strong, so apparently I'm raising her right.  She had her first EMT ride along this morning, so we drove down to the Whit and got her into the locked facility with the ambulances.  Hopefully her day goes well.

I go off call in a couple more hours.  I've got some lingering things I need to deal with, but hopefully I can start transitioning back into normal work.  Last week I was assigned one of those "Gee, I'm glad someone else is doing this" projects.  I think it'll be okay, but it'll take a good chunk of my time over the next few months.

It was a generally good weekend.  Emma and I met up with the oldest son out at a wetland preserve near Fern Ridge Reservoir.  We walked for over three miles in a long loop, looking at birds, chatting about things, and enjoying the relatively warm winter weather.  Emma and I returned home for lunch, library, and hanging out for the rest of the day.

Sunday morning Emma and I headed to thrift stores - I returned with some old books and nice leather writing folders for my Delta Green players.  Emma picked up some overalls and lost one of her glasses screws, fortunately grabbing her lens before it fell out.  She had a spare at home so we stole a screw from the old pair and all was well.

I've mostly been cranking out props and organizing players for the upcoming Delta Green campaign.  I've read the entire 300+ page campaign, listened to handler prep guides, made a bunch of images and props, picked out some music, and generally feel prepared.  The game has the concept of "bonds" - usually friends and family - and there's a mechanic where dealing with the unnatural stresses those relationships.  I've been making postcards, pictures, and the like to make the players feel like these people (and one dog) are important to them.  It's strangely a blast for me to put these things together.