Escaping Mordor

It's raining again. Finally.

For a born and bred Seattleite (like me), you...hmmm, maybe "love" isn't quite correct...appreciate the rain. Not only does it keep our region lush and green, but it keeps the air clear, despite all the single occupancy vehicles crowding our gridlocked arterials. 

Normally, August is our driest month with drizzle beginning at the end of September. This year? No real rain until today. As a consequence, the forest fires that always come at the end of summer (when the timber's the driest) was putting our air quality index over 260. Looked like frigging Mordor out there, no lie.

Currently the AQI is 51 and dropping. And as it drops, my spirits rise. Fall has always been my favorite time of year...heck, actually September through the end of the year is all pretty good. But the last three plus weeks have been a miserable barrel of stress. Remember, that my family's life pretty much revolves around soccer (an outdoor sport) this time of year. Cancelled games, cancelled practices, reschedules, online trainings, everything constantly up in the air. Hell, the kids weren't even getting to go outside for recess this week because of the hazardous level of particulate matter.

So. Spirits feeling good. Now my only stress comes from managing a team entering the playoffs this weekend with a head coach (not me) who is unwilling and/or unable to coach. But I won't bore folks with that.

Gaming. Lots of indoor gaming, as one might imagine. Generally NOT Dungeons & Dragons, however. Our schedule precludes a lot of prep (I don't anticipate taking my campaign out of hiatus till November), so it's more pick-up games: Firefly, Forbidden Island, card games, Yahtzee, Stratego, Lost Cities, etc. We were doing a lot of Blood Bowl last month, but keeping the season records up-to-date, etc. was only a little less than keeping D&D campaign records...and the clean-up is a lot more involved.

But we have played some D&D...my son's been running us through B2 (converted to AD&D) for his fantasy Montana campaign. I've played, maybe, six or seven sessions? Maybe more? Probably more, though only a couple-three so far in October. Even so, I've managed to work my magic-user up to 5th level, and I have a secondary character (a cleric) who's 4th level. Diego mostly runs the game RAW, but he doesn't require training for advancement and he uses my helmet rules (no helm = 1 point penalty to AC; great helm = 1 point bonus with drawbacks). He's even kept alignment: odd since the "Caves of Chaos" are filled with lawful evil humanoids. Ah, well...I don't argue with the DM. Heck, I only just managed to learn magic missile (kept failing my intelligence roll), but NOW my character is beefy. Six zombies trying to ambush us from behind? Hello, fireball!

Anyway...I wrote a whole post about our progress in that campaign and then left it up on the draft shelf (along with half a dozen others). I've just not been in a blogging state of mind...busyness, stress and (perhaps) depression caused by busyness and stress. Lot of stuff going on. Family and health are good, so the important things are covered, BUT...a lot of stuff around the edges. 

Still, the turn in the weather makes me hopeful. It's cold and wet and pouring outside, and I'm drinking hot (decaf) coffee next to my (artificial) fireplace with my (snoozing) beagle on the couch next to me. This all puts me in a rather fair state of mind. Heck, I've even had a couple new design ideas that might be worth pursuing. Maybe. We'll see. Still have some things on the worktable that need to get done first.

All right, that's it for now as far as updates. We'll see if I can get it together enough to post in a couple days. Later, gators.

[EDIT: AQI now officially down to 50 and "Good" in King County...thank the Lord!]