The World of Insufficient Light

Philcon 2022

2022-11-21T01:21:56Z

Philcon is a very “literary” sci-fi/fantasy con that runs in Cherry Hill, NJ. We’d been to a bunch of them before; it was actually ARR’s first con years ago. We missed the last two years for obvious reasons, but decided that we felt safe enough this year to give it a go.

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Overall: I did three different cons with ARR this summer/fall, and each was a different sort of experience, and I was happy with all of them. I think we might try to take it a little easier next year, though.

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Physical Comics Purchased at FlameCon

2022-08-23T18:43:26Z

I took ARR for a Saturday afternoon at FlameCon in Manhattan and had a grand time. We had to wait on line about half an hour to get in (which wasn’t the best) and it was $60 for the two of us, but we got a few hours of entertainment out of it. We spent most of the time doing a tour of the massive dealer’s room/artist’s alley, which was a mass of artists, crafters, pins, keychains, stickers, pin-ups, comics plushies and even a cookie vendor. And it was pretty much all indie and freelance creators—no big comic dealers or discount bins. We found a bunch of interesting new books, some for both of us and some just for me, and Alex got a wax rainbow dagger and a set of Zelda: Age of Calamity stylized stickers. (There were more adult-oriented books I would have stopped to check out if Alex wasn’t with me, but that’s fine.) While there wasn’t anything I would outwardly call adults-only, there were a few artists who went a little more horror or a little more risqué than I’d necessarily pick out for him. (I’m relying on the generally-tenable idea that he’ll ignore anything he’s not ready for. That said, he lingered an oddly long time on a few of the beefcake displays.) The costume contest was great and featured a bunch of characters he knew, and costumes that he thought were cool even without knowing the characters. (My personal favorite was the pair dressed as Miguel and Tulio.) And I saw James Emmett in person for the first time since the last I-Con...a decade ago. Absolutely would go again, and maybe next time we’ll have a little more stamina and can check out the games room.

And the books:

Adulting, Sort Of! By Luyi Bennett - Humorous tips at adulting from an introverted, probably neuroatypical artist who’s really good at it, she swears. The second-to-last chapter then details her serious depression and subsequent semi-recovery. Kind of upsetting how often that appears in collections like these. Very cute, overall.

The Legend of Brightblade - A stylized, hand-painted standalone story about the aftermath of the heroes defeating the dragon: The great hero’s son wants to be a magical bard and a hero in his own right, not just a well-behaved prince. As you can probably guess, he sneaks out, finds friends, discovers a disaster the adults don’t see coming, and saves the day. Formulaic? Oh, yes. But cute, with some wit. And I suspect ARR with like it if I can convince him to read it.

The Deadliest Bouquet - On the other hand, this is very much not for ARR. It’s a murder mystery featuring a hefty dose of violence, as three sisters (with flower-themed names) who apparently had a very disturbing childhood try to solve the mystery of their mother’s death. It does not end happily. I got this specifically because James Emmett was the editor on it, but it does make me curious what else Erica Schultz has put out.

Pandora’s Legacy - A mish-mash of Greek myths (and a few unrelated monsters thrown in for flavor) as we watch three siblings accidentally break Pandora’s Box, which it turns out their family was charged with guarding. Fortunately, the titan Prometheus possess their cat and is there to help out as they figure out how to capture monsters and re-seal the box. I particularly appreciated that the “descendants of Pandora” call their grandparents Yaya and Pappu. This has some pacing issues, but it’s decent.

You Died: An Anthology of the Afterlife - While it suffers from the usual anthology problem, this is a fun collection of shorts, some mythology-based, some personal, some…a little obtuse. Generally pretty good, a decent collection.

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Hamptons Anniversary Trip 2021

2021-10-25T13:48:08Z

Jethrien and I have been married for 15 years, y’all.

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Overall: This wasn’t a sightseeing tour for the ages, but it was nice to be away from my house and get downtime with my lovely wife.

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2020 Retrospective and 2021 Goals

2021-01-01T15:17:32Z

Very long, so under a cut.

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Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu (Switch)

2020-01-31T22:34:45Z

Your Pokemon journey begins here!

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Overall: This is probably the best “introductory” pokemon game ever, and I found it more fun (and less tedious) that any of the others I’ve tried. And it was very well-timed for ARR going through his pokemon phase.

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St. Purim’s Day Party Random notes

2019-03-20T01:15:30Z

• Six-year-olds are not really ready to do a Purim spiel, even if it involves a battle with a giant snake.
• Citizen’s Cider with infused ginger is very good and was a big hit. Ironbound Hard Cider is middling and not worth getting again.
• When small children other than my son are involved, assume that I’ll need more hard cheese than otherwise. I’d forgotten how much cheddar children without dairy allergies will happily gobble.
• ARR is unquestionably my son: When we got late into the party, he asked if it was time for everyone to leave yet. I gave him a glass of juice. He perked up and was good for another hour.
• ARR is unquestionably Jethrien’s son: The last twenty minutes or so of the party involved him reading quietly on his bed while one of his friends played with action figures nearby. (Also, he took down an entire Magic Tree House book in an hour on Sunday morning when he didn’t want to help me do chores.)

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Game Strategy with ARR

2019-01-10T21:47:20Z

Jethrien has mentioned before that ARR really likes Monopoly. He’s played several variants at school and my parents bought him Dino-poly for Christmas. It wasn’t until I saw it used in full force that I realized he has a consistent, high-risk, high-reward strategy when he plays: He’ll buy Boardwalk and Park Place (or equivalent) at the first opportunity and load Boardwalk with houses as quickly as he can. While I suspect this wouldn’t work as well in a multiplayer game, when there’s only one other player, it means he’s unlikely to pay out enough in rent to bankrupt himself before you land on his massively-inflated property by pure chance. Yesterday, I owned half the board but he still had a good shot of not landing on my property (because a lot of spots went unowned), and because I hadn’t built much, the rent for any of my spaces was $10-50. All I needed to do was land on Boardwalk once, and the $2000 rent bankrupted me instantly, even if I mortgaged everything.

(Apparently, according to the internet, the optimal strategy to win a proper multiplayer game is to buy a cheap monopoly ASAP and build four houses on each, but never upgrade to hotels. Because you’ve tied up half the houses in the box, most other players won’t be able to build up their properties and you’ll eventually grind them all down.)

We’ve also been playing the “fast version” of the game, where you shuffle the properties and each player gets 4 randomly chosen ones to buy at the outset; and then the game ends after 1 hour. I’m eventually going to try to find other alternate rules that’ll hopefully make the game more fun and less random.

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Philcon 2018

2018-11-20T14:39:18Z

Philcon ended up being a very ARR-centric con for me. Which isn’t necessarily bad and I knew would be the case going in (Jethrien was a lot more interested in the panel content and guests from the start), but that’s exhausting.

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Overall: The family-friendly activities track was excellent. There were crafting activities we didn’t even make it to and an assortment of board games ARR could have played but we just didn’t get time for. If the building toys open play was more clearly available for the whole con, I think ARR could have spent a full day just doing that. Next year, I’d consider trying to do this with specific plans to meet up with other kids (or bring them) so that one adult can monitor the game room/building toys/crafting and I can have a little more paneling or gaming time.

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Parenting Vacation Week Highlights

2018-09-06T14:34:14Z

Jethrien and I had a whole week to ourselves while ARR was at “camp” with my parents. (Having a glorious time and eating all the things, by all accounts.) We tried to make the most of it by having a bunch of date nights.

Tuesday: We tried to go to Broa, but it was inexplicably closed. Instead we tried Gringo's (near Grove Street). It’s good and we had fun, but it's noisy and the food at Orale is better. I did have the most ridiculous taco ever, a fried chicken finger in what was effectively a waffle cone with cilantro and maple syrup. (And I appreciated that the taco plates are small, which meant Jethrien and I could get several and try them all.) Their salsa selection was lovely and even the spicy ones were good; their guacamole selection was lacking.

Wednesday: Mithrigil’s performance at Sid Gold’s Request Room. She did a fantastic job; she sounded great and her banter was well-put-together. The food there is decent, if a bit heavy (it’s bar/comfort food), and I do like their drink selection. I wish it hadn’t been like swimming through soup to get there; I suspect the turnout would have been better if people were more willing to leave their houses.

Thursday: Crazy Rich Asians is a hoot, and Jethrien noted that it was nice to see a comedy for adults, without vomit or pratfalls. (They also clearly expected a heavily female audience, as the beefcake is even more front-and-center than the last Thor movie.) I did need to read an explanation of the mahjong scene afterwards, as I know nothing of mahjong and it was clearly deeply symbolic.

Friday: The Archer, a bar/restaurant that won us with the promise of game meats. We had duck poutine, venison cheesesteak and smoked wild boar pasta; all of them fantastic. We can’t take ARR here but I’d totally go back.

Saturday: Didn’t get out of bed until almost 11am.

ARR returned on Saturday afternoon, so I spent a chunk of that evening being climbed on. On Sunday I helped Mithrigil move into her new place, then we hosted a mini-party for B and J’s daughter’s first birthday. On Monday I took ARR to Liberty Science Center, then I took an afternoon nap to recover while he and Jethrien wrote a book. (The Arthur exhibit had several fake books, and we were disappointed that we couldn’t read “The Zombie Substitute Teacher.” So now they’ve written it.) Jethrien and ARR came to my office for lunch on Tuesday and then went to an afternoon of school orientation stuff, and his first day of Kindergarden was yesterday.

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Toronto Trip Log

2018-08-30T12:12:07Z

Day 1: We awoke at an ungodly 3:30am on Monday morning, and called an Uber to get to the airport. (It didn't show, so we called a Lyft instead.) TSAPre actually worked like it was supposed to, so we had plenty of time to get on our 6:30 flight, which was on time and deposited us and our luggage in Toronto. This, in itself, felt like a minor miracle. We dropped our luggage at the hotel (a Holiday Inn Express, nothing fancy) and headed to the ferry to Centre Island.

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Birthday Long Weekend addendum

2018-05-30T02:00:20Z

Among my birthday gifts from my sister were Fire & Flavor Cedar Wraps. I tested them tonight with the Asian Salmon recipe listed on the package.

The good: They were easy to use, didn't crack, didn't leak, didn't catch fire on the grill, and held the moisture in the fish fairly well.

The bad: They didn't really impart any smokey flavor to the fish.

The takeaway: I should keep the Asian Salmon recipe--ARR loved it. I think I can do it in the future with my fish racket rather than get any more of these. Fun to try, though!

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Birthday Long Weekend Day 3: Adventures in Farmingdale

2018-05-28T14:53:18Z

I got to sleep until after 9am, which is a birthday blessing all by itself. The rain and a cold front had rolled in, so while the previous two days were 90 degrees and very humid (ARR apparently spent much of them in my parents’ backyard and pool), it was suddenly 65 degrees out and raining miserably. Not that this mattered for out mostly-indoor plans, and ARR was apparently already so worn out he took a nap.

My sister’s fiancé was in town with her, so my mom put us all to work, moving all of the furniture out of the living room to replace the rug and rug pad with the new ones she’s had sitting in the dining room for two months. Bill’s presence made that much easier, given that I’m pretty sure my dad and I couldn’t move the marble-topped table without one or both of us hurting ourselves.

We saw Deadpool 2, which was not quite as good as the first one—they repeated a bunch of jokes, they leaned on some overused tropes, and some of the shock value of how good the first one was had worn off. Still fun, and I did like that the after-credits scenes addressed the cheap plot device that is fridging.

My mom made the now-traditional seafood feast, with some of the biggest damn king crab legs I’ve ever seen. Also part of the dinner were shrimp, pesto pasta, corn on the cob, broccoli, green beans and watermelon salad. Then came the rainbow cookies and the newly-modified version of my favorite birthday cake. (It’s a three-layer chocolate cake filled with raspberry jam, with chocolate icing and whipped cream all around the sides. The modified version uses marshmallow frosting around the sides to make it ARR-safe.)

My sister had some cooking-themed gifts for me, including a fun looking BBQ sauce and rub, vegetable roasting spice mixes, and cedar grilling wraps, the latter of which I’m hoping to try out this week.

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Ski Trip Notes

2018-02-22T15:18:11Z

- We went to Hunter Mountain, which is only a 2.5 hour drive from Jersey City. ARR, desperately in need of naps he refuses to take, slept in the car halfway there and almost the entire way back.

- On Monday afternoon we went to the snow-tubing park, which is a relatively small area off to the side. $20 gets you all the rides you can squeeze into two hours, and I think we made very good use of it, despite the fact it was raining. ARR could nonetheless be quoted as yelling, “YAAAY! THIS IS SO FUN!” while coming down the hill.

- We stayed at Villa Vosilla which, while clearly in need of some renovation here and there, had everything we would have wanted. We went in the indoor pool, played shuffleboard and mini-bowling, and had chess, ping-pong and billiards as options if we wanted them. The restaurant serves Italian food, which severely limits ARR's meal choices, so we went out for dinner. Their breakfast was lovely, though, and all of the staff members were very friendly and helpful.

- We had dinner at American Glory BBQ which, while not quite matching Hamilton Pork, was very good. The three of us shared the “Q for Two” and didn't quite manage to take it down. The sauces are all very tasty; the smoked chicken was super tender and the pulled pork was excellent, and the cornbread was sweet and cakey.

- It was 50 degrees on Tuesday, but there was still plenty of snow on the mountain and it was a bright, clear day, so we went skiing with significantly fewer layers than originally planned. I saw people skiing in just short sleeves by mid-afternoon. The trails started icy and got slushier as the day went on, but the conditions weren't actually that bad. And it felt pleasant—though falling into snow without gloves on is weird.

- Skiing, like riding a bike, comes right back to you. Which is more useful, I suspect, when that doesn't mean rapidly going though all of your mistakes and bad habits from a decade ago in the course of a single trail. I recall being reasonably comfortable on blues by the end of my last time skiing, and my second-to-last run on this trip was down a blue, which I managed without wiping out despite the icy bits.

- (What I did forget was how to get off a ski lift without getting smacked in the butt and falling down. That was embarrassing. All three times.)

- ARR spent the morning at a “porcupine level” kids lesson, where he learned how to get skis on and off and how to slide around in them without falling down. Then they practiced turning on very gentle inclines and how to do the wedge. After lunch, we took him up the bunny slope. He thought the ski lift was cool and not at all scary, but was anxious about actually going down a big hill, even holding hands or poles with us. (His sliding backwards into a mud puddle did not help.) Jethrien eventually had a brilliant idea of holding him between her legs in a wedge position and skiing them down in tandem. He thought that was super-fun, and she managed a very impressive two runs like that. (I didn't even try—I knew I couldn't do it.)

- ARR's class included stretching. Jethrien and I forgot that part. My legs are actually fine walking and biking (I use those muscles a lot and they're nice and strong) but weird parts of my calves hurt when I sit.

- Should it come up and you are confused, ARR refers to his heavy mittens as “Cheetor gloves,” because they look like the paw-hands of [Beast Wars Transformer] Cheetor's Transmetal form. I encourage this, because it gets him to wear them in cold weather.

- As the goals for this were: 1) ARR has a good time and has a good opinion about skiing, 2) Jethrien gets to go skiing which she's wanted to do for years, and 3) I prove to myself I can still get down a mountain without dying or panicking, I think it was totally a success.

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I've fallen way behind on posting random stuff about my life

2018-02-15T16:23:38Z

- ARR turned five. We had four of his friends to our house for a Transformers-themed party, where we had made up games themed to the Rescue Bots and then had an Optimus Prime pinata. And Jethrien made a Heatwave firetruck cake that was a big hit. I'm impressed that the parents are still speaking to us after we filled their kids with sugar and sent them home with candy and noisemakers.

- My mother determined ARR is the same height I was at that age (44”), but four pounds lighter. Also, I couldn't read when I was four, though Jethrien could, so he's taking after her in that regard.

- I've been to Buddy Who's Burgers twice now, and determined that their signature burgers are very nice (as is the fried chicken sandwich), and the staff is very helpful, but the tuna burger is only middling. I'll likely return again.

- Wavilyem got me a gift certificate to Ample Hills Creamery, and that is some very creative ice cream! (I tried several cake and cookie-blended varieties and enjoyed them all.) They have a lot of competition in Jersey City, but they definitely came out swinging.

- My mom and I saw the Encores production, “Hey, Look Me Over,” a revue of lesser-known Broadway shows with a narration in the style of The Drowsy Chaperone. On one hand, it was basically a collection of “happy villager songs” broken up by the occasional solo. On the other hand: Doug Sills, Vanessa Williams and Bebe Neuwirth.

- As adjusting my Zoloft didn't help, I'm now taking a vitamin B complex, a vitamin D supplement, and a “testosterone booster” supplement for the next three to six months, in an effort to deal with my constant fatigue and exhaustion. So far they've just made my pee yellower, but it's been less than a week.

- I've been having issues with my feet being particularly sweaty and smelly, so among other things, I just bought new work shoes. Everyone clearly needed to know that.

- I actually stayed home sick yesterday, as I woke up feeling crappier than usual with a sore throat and sinus pressure. I went back to bed and slept until noon, then spent the afternoon marathoning Glitch on Netflix. Then went to bed at 9pm, which was very helpful when ARR had a nightmare and woke us all up at 5am this morning.

- Bizarre note on that: My Fitbit usually thinks I sleep fitfully and wake up a lot. Last night, it thought I slept very deeply and didn't wake up until 5am. I didn't take any cold medicine; I'm not sure what could have caused this and I'm wondering if it's a glitch.

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2017 Retrospective and 2018 Goals

2018-01-03T15:16:29Z

2017 Retrospective:

The thing is, all told, this wasn’t a bad year for me. Terrible year for the world at large, and I certainly had my problems and unfulfilled goals, but on paper, I did just fine.

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2018 Goals:

Let’s edit a bit, using the running theme as a template:

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Christmas Foods

2017-12-26T15:48:13Z

We did a LOT of cooking for the extended Christmas weekend. ARR had been with Jethrien's parents for most of the week before, and they all came out to our house last Friday.

On Saturday evening, we did the annual Christmas wine dinner, this year featuring less wine and more tiki drinks (and partially inspired by our visits to Celler 335). The first course was a fried macadamia-crusted tilapia with an official Roy's restaurant sauce and wilted bok choy. The second was a relative simple chuka soba (curly noodle) salad with mango and lots of veggies. The third was hickory-smoked, 5-spice-rubbed duck with chives, plum sauce and steamed buns. The dessert was orgeat cream puffs with sorbet and browned-butter pineapple. The drinks include the official Roy's mai tai and a modified zombie Jethrien named “Bwains?”

Side note: If you buy a duck from an Asian supermarket, apparently they leave the head and feet attached, but remove the giblets. This was briefly uncomfortable when I cleaned the birds. I composted those bits after removing them.

I put the two duck carcasses into my slow cooker overnight, so that the next day I could add some veggies and noodles to them and make a smoked duck soup. We also got shumai and pork and chicken buns from Ranch 99 to accompany that.

Christmas morning saw a traditional waffle brunch, including a pineapple and orange salad and both wild boar and rabbit-ginger sausages. (Jethrien's uncles sent us a wonderful gift box of specialty sausages.)

Then Jethrien's parents left to brave the snow and visit her brother's family, and my dad arrived to start his week of Holidays With ARR. So for Christmas dinner I made a whole smoked turkey (rosemary-sage rub, alder wood smoke) and giblet gravy; Jethrien made a chestnut-fruit-challah stuffing, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes; and then a lemon meringue pie for dessert.

Now ARR is out on Long Island with my dad and Jethrien and I have two days of work before heading out to join them for continued family adventures. And those same two days to try to eat all the leftovers...

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Uticon

2017-10-03T14:07:18Z

I spent this past weekend up in Utica, NY with my dad, where he was a guest at Uticon. We've been up before for this and similar cons (Ithacon, Mighty Mini-Con), and they're fun little one-room affairs with an artist's alley and a dealer's room all rolled into one. We hang out at my dad's table, he sells a few books and signs some autographs, we chat with the other guests, and I do some bin-diving to find fun things at bargain prices. The fact that a four-hour drive is involved is actually a bonus, as without ARR along I can sit in the front seat, sing along to whatever we want, and actually hang out with my dad.

(Jethrien also noted it was ridiculous that I was going to a con and getting a good night's sleep in the bargain, but without anyone waking me up early, I got to sleep until 7:30. Luxury!)

Though the turnout for the con was mediocre (the weather was lovely in Utica and people apparently weren't that excited about an indoor activity given that), the dealers were out in force with some nice stuff. I found a bunch of Transformers for ARR (two non-transforming McDonald's toys I negotiated free with a purchase, four $1 Legends-class movie figures, and a $6 Galvatron), got myself a bunch of trade paperbacks (mostly from a $2 box), and found the Transformers movie adaptation and movie prequel comics for cheap. ARR is definitely not ready for the Bayformer movies, if for no other reason that they go for over an hour without any robots showing up. But he clearly has interest in that timeline and I would like to read comics with him, so this seemed a decent compromise. The comic version cuts out a lot of the human screen-time in favor of more pictures of giant robots, and doesn't have the jerky-cam problem of Bay's directing style.

A standout comic, incidentally, was Gamer Girl and Vixen: Flirty Money, an indie comic that I spotted and thought, "That looks fun." And it is--lesbian supervillians have a meet-cute and become partners (in crime and otherwise). I'll want to keep half an eye on if this creative team does another Kickstarter.

Overall: A good time! We might do it again next year.

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Random Life Notes

2017-08-15T15:12:29Z

- We had planned to try to go to Central Park for the They Might Be Giants concert on Saturday, but the weather report said it was going to storm, so we took ARR to Liberty Science Center instead. He had a fine time, but it neverdid actually rain, which was annoying. Ah, well, there will be other concerts.

- As Jethrien noted, we watched Moana with ARR on Saturday, to mixed success. I thought the movie was a lot of fun, on par with a lot of recent Disney fare. And I also loved the really stupid chicken.

- On Sunday night, we tried the pop-up Lutze Biergarten, which is really a collection of tables and food carts. The “frosé” (a frozen wine slushee) was fun, though hit me more than I expected. The food in general was decent, and I was crazy enough to try a bacon-wrapped sausage covered in bacon mac and cheese, which my GI system informed me several hours later was a terrible idea. Tasty, though. (ARR enjoyed the soft pretzels and peel and eat shrimp.)

- I watched the first episode (really a two-parter) of the new Ducktales series, as it's free-to-watch on Youtube. It was absolutely delightful. The characterization is stronger, the voices are less annoying, and the humor is faster-paced than the original.

- ARR has multiple cavities, which is frustrating because we've been anal about the tooth-brushing and there was no indication of this six months ago. So now we have floss picks and fluoride chewables and multiple trips to the dentist to get the cavities filled. The dentist also wants his soy milk consumption reduced (in favor of more water), so we're trying that only at breakfast for now. (I bought ARR several new rescue bot toys as incentive to get through the dental work—each two cavities he successfully gets through, he gets a new bot.)

- I've seen a bunch of doctors lately, trying to address why I seem to be increasingly tired and unmotivated over the past few months. Granted, some of it is clearly stress and depression, likely brought on by reading the news. But apparently I also have low testosterone. It's not low enough that my doctor wants to put me on hormone therapy for it (apparently the side effects can be rather unpleasant), but I've been advised to exercise more and try various over-the-counter supplements and see if that helps. I'm also going to try the Breathe-Right strips just on the odd chance that helps me sleep better. Yay, pharmacology.

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Assorted notes from our trip to Maine

2017-06-29T17:01:46Z

- My back went “poing” on Friday afternoon, shortly before we got in the car to go. I threw my cane in the car as an afterthought, but in retrospect it made life a lot more pleasant. It wasn't until mid-week that I was willing to go roaming without it, because I was getting nasty spasms if I stood too long or bent over wrong. This was, however, probably the best possible week to hurt my back, as I had already planned to spend large portions of it lying down.

- I read and played my 3DS on an assortment of couches in our rented house, on my bed, on a lawn chair, and on the beach. (I had the option of additional lawn chairs but the mosquitoes were too much. I got some nasty bites just playing outside with ARR.) I also went to bed at 9pm some nights, and took several naps. This was the portion of the trip I actually considered vacation.

- I actually didn't do as well as Jethrien did in terms of eating lobster—I only had it a couple of times; one lobster roll and twice in assorted seafood dishes. I did, however, eat some form of seafood pretty much every day—and the scallops and mussels were arguably even better than the lobster. I also had a duck burger topped with pork belly, which was delicious and I very much regretted it the next day. I also had blueberries in the form of pie, muffins, whoopie pie, crumble, cheesecake, lemonade, and margarita. I thought the Popovers at Jordan Pond House were very good, but not worth the insane hype. And there is a LOT of good ice cream in Bar Harbor.

- The best cell reception I got all week was halfway up Beech Mountain, which was coincidentally where I was when I got the only call from work while I was away. (Also, I did exactly two hikes, this being the latter one, and they managed to call during one of them.)

- We took ARR to Timber Tina's Lumberjack show (which he very much enjoyed, especially the part where he got to try the big saw). We actually saw a lumberjack show in 2008 in Ketchikan, AK, and by intermission we confirmed that it was very similar because it was run by Timber Tina's brother. (They even had some of the same jokes.)

- I got a set of OiDroids for ARR on a whim, when I was building a collection of things to do on the trip that didn't take up much space. They're paper craft robots that don't require scissors or glue to assemble, which means that I bought a pack of 15 action figures that fold flat. That's a deal! (Also, you can cover them in glitter glue and feel okay about that.)

- Over 20+ hours in the car, the most effective entertainment for ARR was generally either his tablet or singing along to a mix of (mostly) They Might Be Giants, Barenaked Ladies, Weird Al and Laurie Berkner that I put together. But we also played various car games, played with multiple puzzle/game books, colored with crayons and colored pencils, read a chapter of The Hobbit out loud, and napped. The most effective of my pile of “car surprise” purchases was a Rescue Bots sticker book, which should come as no surprise.

- ARR got severely off-schedule via refusing to nap and staying up too late (despite being clearly exhausted from all the hiking he did), so on Wednesday, after a super-cranky morning, I wrestled him down for a nap. I haven't had to do that in months, but it clearly helped. Also, he was in full preschooler pickiness form about food for much of the week, opting mostly to eat potato chips, crackers and cereal. I suspect that some amount of dehydration and wacky blood sugar levels played a role in his moods, as well. We'd remedied a bunch of that by the end of the week. And really, he was generally well-behaved and clearly had a great time, but it's easy to forget that he's four and sometimes acts like it.

- We stopped to visit Jethrien's brother and his family on the way back, and the fact that ARR and his (year-younger) cousin FJG played for two solid hours, effectively unsupervised, with nobody crying? Blew my mind. We need to spend more time with them.

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Reunions Weekend 2017

2017-06-05T14:59:36Z

Reunions was fantastic. We did the one-day Saturday trip via train, as usual, and we brought ARR along.

ARR discovered an appreciation for women's ice hockey, was unenthused by the marching band, ate Chinese food, played billiards at Campus, spent over an hour on a bouncy slide, then another hour in the playroom the 15th reunion had set up, took a nap during the p-rade, saw Koleinu (and thought their rendition of “Hallelujah” was “beautiful”), got ice cream from The Bent Spoon, played Rescue Bots with JG, and saw his first fireworks. There was a bit of crankiness here and there and one bathroom-related incident, but overall he seemed to have had a great time.

We joked that now Reunions has become an extended series of playdates. There were a LOT of kids brought by my cohort this year, and I got to meet Janine's son and both of Kat's kids, among many others. While I didn't see everyone I wanted to (you never do), I saw a bunch of my favorite far-flung folks and got to catch up with Craig for the first time in four years.

Jethrien took ARR home on the train after the fireworks, and I stayed another couple of hours for Cookie Night. Despite my concerns about cookies being delivered, they made it there successfully and we had plenty. Koleinu sounds amazing—they performed their award-winning new song complete with choreography, and it did indeed deserve awards. We also did a bunch of older material with alums joining in, and among other things, I was reminded that the proper tenor part to “Teenage Dream” is just a b-flat over and over. I got to duet on “Hallelujah” and “Pompeii”, which was fun.

Sunday was actually better than I feared, as well. ARR slept until 7, then Jethrien took first shift and I got to sleep until 9. I took ARR to his My Gym class and Jethrien slept until lunch, then she took him to check out a new robotics camp/maker space that opened near us. When they got home, we had a very successful family naptime where everybody got more sleep, and then watched The Lego Batman Movie together. (Including waiting through the credits to see my dad's name.) For the record, I thought that was great and ARR loved it.

Success!

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And then I punched a squirrel in the face (Birthday Weekend)

2017-06-01T17:44:47Z

ARR has off from school last Friday, so he went out to Camp Papa and Gramma while Jthrien and I went to work. Then we went out to my birthday dinner (part the first) at Cellar335, a new tiki bar in our neighborhood. Fun drinks, a lot of high-quality pan-Asian tropical-inspired food. Not cheap, but certainly very good.

On Saturday, I did a lot of chores, but I also got a few hours sitting on the couch playing video games, and I got to sleep in. So that was nice. Then Airspaniel was in town, so she came out for dinner and I made homemade bread and grilled meats to put on it.

On Sunday, we went out to Farmingdale for my birthday seafood feast, this time including the biggest honking king crab legs I've ever seen and a whole big dungeness crab. Then my mom made my favorite chocolate cake with a dairy-free marshmallow frosting instead of whipped cream, which made ARR a very happy boy.

My birthday party had a “taco BBQ” theme—I started a pork shoulder in my smoker (with alder chips) at 6:30 am, and 11 hours later it was falling apart tender and smoky. I also slow-cooked chicken in my cast iron with garlic, orange and cilantro to make a sort of chicken carnitas. I served all that with tortillas, rice, beans and assorted toppings. And a triple-batch of homemade guacamole that disappeared in the first hour of the party. We got a bunch of new faces (probably 30 guests in total) and it seemed like everybody had a good time.

Exciting gifts I've gotten include a fidget spinner, a Star Trek watch and apron, the latest Zits collection, the first trade of the new Jughead series, a book on the history of Magic: The Gathering, a copy of Hyrule Warriors Legends for my 3DS, a pair of silver Superman cuff links, and a bottle of Old New Orleans 20th Anniversary Collection rum.

Oh, and as I was taking the trash out after the party, I realized it was Monday night and that I should take the can to the curb. I reach around to grab the far side of the can and my hand hits something fuzzy I can't see...and a squirrel goes flying off the can. Apparently it didn't see me coming at all and I managed to pop it right in the face. As I pulled the can away it freaked out and started running in circles before finally climbing away.

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The Remainder of Spring Break

2017-04-18T19:23:15Z

So, following a weekend of adventures and excitement, ARR spent three days of spring break at Camp Papa & Gramma, where he played with many Transformers, drew giant towns with chalk, went to the beach, and successfully conned them into two trips to McDonald's. He also got his first haircut sitting by himself in a big-boy chair (rather than on Papa's lap), and successfully received the three lollipops he had negotiated with the barber for during his last visit. Reportedly, after the haircut, he looked at himself in the mirror and announced, “Hey, good looking!”

On Wednesday, he came home and Grammy came to stay with us for the remainder of the week, so they had park, game and crafting adventures for two days.

On Saturday, he had a friend's birthday party at a pizza restaurant, where each kid got to make his own pizza. He waited patiently through the cheese step, and the other parents were very impressed when he rejected pepperoni and pineapple in favor of covering his pizza with broccoli, peppers and mushrooms. After eating, the boys were given tokens for the game room, where he did a decent job at his very first games of skee-ball and wack-a-mole. And we fought with a crane game until he got a rubber duckie from it.

On Sunday, we had an Easter brunch with Grammy and Grampy. Jethrien made deviled eggs and homemade (dairy-free) cinnamon rolls, and we ate too much, leading to the grown-ups eating salad for lunch. Then we realized that after hiding and finding plastic eggs a dozen times and doing the Easter crafts, we'd run out of plans for the day. So I sent out a text and we slowly acquired B, J, Ivy and Xannoside as we traveled from our house to Van Vorst Park to B's house and finally to sushi dinner.

Monday was ARR's last day of spring break, so I took off from work and we went to Liberty Science Center. The two major milestones: He's now tall enough (42”) to go on the Infinity Climber. Given that he can climb mountains, I knew he could handle this, and though he insisted I come with him the first time, he was soon handling it like a champ. Second was “the Sneeze Man,” a sneezing statue in the Infection Connection exhibit that has terrified him for over a year. “Now that I'm four, I'm not scared of the Sneeze Man.” And sure enough, now he found it funny, and we could enter that section of the museum again.

Oh, and when a smaller child tried to pull him away from the elevator buttons, ARR exclaimed, “Mister Grabby Hands!”

And just to cap it off, he's managed a dry pull-up every night since break started, so last night he slept in underpants. I'm sure we'll have a few accidents, but there's another major milestone right there.

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Lunacon 2017

2017-04-09T18:56:45Z

As it fell right at the beginning of ARR’s spring break and we had plans to rent a car for adventures anyway, we decided to check out Lunacon. An hour from our house made for an easy day trip, and the listed activities put it about on par with Philcon for activity. So that’s how we spent Saturday.

( Read more... )

Overall: I’m not sure we’ll return, at least not until ARR is older. But there was enough entertainment to make the day worthwhile, and I consider an afternoon with Xavcat worth the price of admission.

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Jersey City Restaurant Updates

2017-03-29T20:39:30Z

Greene Hook just opened down by my office, so Mith and I gave it a try. The Yelp reviews noted the fried chicken, which was indeed really good—the breading was more herb-y than you usually see. That came with biscuits, which had an excellent flavor but were dry; and spaetzle mac-and-cheese, which was a heavy-duty truffle-and-herb affair. Very tasty, and I ended up taking a bag of leftovers back to the office. A little pricier than some of the other nearby options, but I suspect we’ll return.

When my lunch plans got cancelled last week, I instead stopped by the Omniburger food truck, which touts vegetarian food in portable form. The beet and bean-based omniburger was okay, a bit dry. Their lemon-vinegar slaw that was the side dish, on the other hand, was really good. And I suppose I felt virtuous for eating it.

I had lunch with B and J at Liberty Prime Steakhouse, which I’ve been walking past for years but had never tried. I was actually underwhelmed, because while I had a burger, my burger was over-grilled, which bodes poorly for the steaks. B had a “grilled cheese” which was actually a steak sandwich with cheese, bacon and tomato. (This is not to be confused with the three other menu items that, anywhere else, would be called “steak sandwich”.) The Lobster Bisque was respectable; the wedge garlic fries were tasty but super-heavy.

Similarly, Mith and I tried Taste of North China, as Chinese cuisine had been a gap in our lunch rotation. The General Tso’s chicken was decent, the mei fun noodles were very good, and the chicken dumplings were good but not great. Respectable all around; I’d be tempted to branch out and try the Szechuan chicken or something when we go back.

Jethrien and I hit up New Thanh Hoai with ARR from dinner last week. Which we’ve done before, but now that he’s over the peanut allergy, it’s a fantastic choice. Pretty much no dairy in anything, and lots of things he really likes. We got the seafood lo mein and it included four types of seafood and at least six different fresh vegetables—and nothing gets ARR to chow down like variety.

As a side note, I reiterate my opinion that you should get kabobs from Rumi, schwarma from Gypsy Grill, and falafel from Ibby’s.

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The Games We Play

2017-01-12T21:42:49Z

As ARR has gotten heavily into board games over the past few months, I thought I’d make a little log of what works, what doesn’t, and what has to be modified.

The first games we introduced were Thomas’ Great Race, Candyland, and the Snail’s Pace Race. None of these are games that adults would have any interest in playing, and at this point they need a story built around them to hold his interest.

From our closet of games came a bunch of games he can pretty much play: Mancala (which they have at his school, too, and he’s genuinely getting good at), Star Wars Life (which he needs reading help on, but otherwise plays according to the rules), Pass the Pigs (a rather terrible dice-rolling game), Jenga (which doesn’t hold his interest for long before we collapse the tower), Go Fish (an easy classic), SET (which he’s slow at, but gets the general concept of). And also his brief obsession Battle Masters, baby’s first tabletop miniatures wargame.

Other games that have since been introduced with little modification: ModX (a delightful find from a con grab-bag that has been a huge hit), Uno (via my parents), Richard Scarry's Busytown Eye Found It! (a cooperative seek-and-find game he got for Christmas), Castle Blast (a simplified version of Battleship he got for Christmas), Oregon Trail (current obsession, Jethrien dies of dysentery a lot) and a 100 Classic Games box set (of which we’ve had reasonably successful goes at Checkers, Snakes and Ladders, and Tiddlywinks).

Games that require modification are, unsurprisingly typically ones that either require a lot of reading or a complicated set of rules. Both X-Machina and Superfight are in the former category, as he’s down with drawing cards to make crazy inventions or superheroes, but can’t really get the strategic aspect yet and needs help knowing what’s on his cards. I should probably try to teach him the real version of Kill Doctor Lucky, as it’s been months since my 19.5 Anniversary Edition arrived and I made up a simple “move around the board” game using it.

And then there’s No Thank You, Evil!, where he goes on adventures as Tiger Kid with his sidekick Robodog. I’ve been running random one-off stories with the Story, Please! expansion deck, very fast and loose. I’ve just started introducing the concept that you can use setpieces to solve puzzles, rather than just trying to punch or sneak past everything. Next, also, we’ll try it with an additional player.

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