New Vacuum

My present from my wife for Father's Day was a Miele Onyx vacuum.

Before the purchase I did quite a bit of research and comparisons.

My main complaint with our old Hoover Windtunnel was that using it for more than a few minutes made me sneezy.  Although Consumer Reports had recently written an article about vacuums they provided no information about how allergy-friendly the vacuums were.  Apparently this is difficult information to find because vacuum manufacturers are allowed to use language describing only the filter with disingenuous wording as if it describes the entire vacuum.

I thought I would get another bagless upright, but eventually got a with-a-bag canister.  The Miele was that astounding in being nice to my nose, very quiet, and doing a great job on our berber carpets and wood floors.

At our local Miele dealer, Viking, it did not cost as much as that website price linked above.  It was more than a low-end Hoover, but not nearly as much as a high-end vaccum.

(I had even looked at the absurdly expensive Rainbow vaccums but learned they cannot be used with fireplace ash.  I need to be able to vaccum downstairs, where we heat the house with wood!) 

With the Hoover I vacuumed as little as possible--which was still often because I have to keep our house free of possible gluten crumbs.  Now I vacuum almost daily and enjoy it.  The canister is well designed and easier to use than the old upright.  The air smells nicer after vacuuming.  Removing hair from the vacuum head is much easier.

Both boys like it too!  Here is a photo of Smiley helping.

Sector Investing

As long as I'm writing today about what I have added to recent website I might as well mention my essay about Sector Investing.

The fact I have categorized it under "games" should hint about context.  But it might interest those family, friends, and other blog readers who are interested in economics.

Lots of Math

My Fall Term teaching Math 20 at LCC starts Tuesday night.

I just wrote about one big website project I have been working on during the past two years.  The other was changing my Math 20 lecture format from Powerpoint to website use.  I have blogged about this in June.  Spring Term it was incomplete.  Summer Term I saw it work very well.

Some of my students do not have a computer at home.  Most of this group can still see my lecture notes at home on a smart phone, but that is a tiny screen for real study.  So I print a copy of the notes for them.

During the Summer Term I printed the notes topic by topic, since I was still making minor edits.  For the new Fall Term I got copies of the entire thing to hand out the first day of class.  Before submitting the copy order to LCC's Printing and Graphics service I had to count the pages and was astounded that there were 103 of them.

No wonder blogging was light this year!

Sharing NAME with the World

Two years ago I wrote about having a "working draft" of the role-playing game I was then designing.  I shared it with the world, and later observed its web traffic.

Since then I have written almost nothing about my RPG design.  Primarily this is because "work on my game" and "blog" are both typing activities, and while caring for two young boys typing time is precious.  The days I make design progress I have no blogging time.

After lots of work, a new version of the game is ready to share with the world.  May I formally present Narrative Adventures Made Easy!

I am still in the middle of sharing NAME in the manner I did its predecessor.

I might also offer to do a slow paced (a few posts per day) play-by-forum at RPG.net or somewhere similar.  I could quit hanging out at the Paizo forums to make time for that.  My wife and I play the game together when we can, but she never tries to break the game: I could benefit from someone noticing the options and combinations with which a min-max player or rules lawyer would take advantage.

Those two years of design have been a fascinating experience.  I tried to design the setting of the old game prayerfully but never heard anything from God.  So I saved the setting's religion for last, not wanting to touch that subject without guidance.  Finally, when everything else was well developed, the game design became something I was doing with God.  I heard lots of guidance about how the setting's religion should work--and it caused me to go back and start the setting over from scratch as well as to refine the game mechanics substantially.

A quick summary of the result is available as the second table of contents on the welcome page.  Each of the setting's "Powers" creates a kind of dungeon, hosts a kind of contest, empowers a kind of champion, bestows a kind of gift, and oversees a kind of monster.  The result is rich and self-consistent while providing an excuse for the existence of traditional fantasy RPG dungeons.

The NAME design is nowhere near done.  I have barely begun to write about the setting's hub, Arlinac Town.  I have lots of "art of playing RPGs" essays to revise and transfer over.  I have sample NPCs, items, and adventures in my head that need typing.  (The last saddens me.  I love reading other people's RPG adventures.  To have a few all written out on paper and play-tested with my wife but not yet online seems tragic.)

Yet even if unfinished it is solid, tested, and entertaining.  Enjoy!

(And know one reason my blog post count has more than halved during the past two years.)

Please Pray for Family Health

Well, I had a fun idea for a blog post for tonight, but spent my time processing fifty e-mails instead.

My wife and two sons both have a cold.  I cannot afford to stay up late writing more here.

Tomorrow is another day!

Gluten-Free Licorice Flavored Snacks

Most licorice is made with wheat.

That means I do not get to eat licorice at home, since our house is a gluten-free zone.  But I have found two alternatives.

The first are licorice-flavored hard candies from Chateau D'Lanz.  These are great.  But since Market of Choice stopped selling them I have not had any in years.  (I do not like them quite enough to buy eight packs at that Amazon link.)

The second is licorice-flavored gum from Xylichew.  I do not like the taste of these as much as the hard candies, but they are better for my teeth.  And Market of Choice still sells them.

My Improving Eye Roundness

During the past five years my eyes have been getting rounder.

Vision prescriptions involve three measurements: sphere, cylinder, and axis.

(It sounds like a math test, doesn't it?)

My sphere measurement has remained constant at -0.75 which means I am slightly and unchangingly myopic.  I wear my glasses when driving or when I go to a movie.  My prescription is minor enough that even glass lenses are light and comfortable, so I always get glass lenses to avoid lens scratches.

My cylinder measurements have decreased, which means my eyes are getting rounder.  In 2007 they were -1.00 and -0.75 (right and left eye).  In 2009 they were -0.75 and -0.75.  Two weeks ago they were -0.5 and -0.5.

The axis measurements have also changed slightly: 172 and 22, then 164 and 20, then 165 and 20.

Another Happy New Year!

Happy High Holy Days!

It is almost sundown, but I have time to squeeze in a quick

L'shanah tovah tikatev(i) v'taihatem(i)!

This traditional Hebrew greeting for the High Holy Days means "For a good year may you be inscribed as sealed."

The alternate (i) endings are the grammatical form used when addressing women.

Rinsing a Memory Foam Mattress Topper

One nice change during the summer was how Smiley's aim improved.  I no longer need to check the toilet seat and nearby bathroom floor and each time I enter the bathroom.

But he did have an odd during-the-night accident a couple weeks ago.  No reason why.  He did not drink more the evening before, or have extra water to drink in bed, and he was sleeping in a pull-up.  Yet he flooded the pull-up and wet the bed.

Remember his bunk bed?  He was sleeping on the top bunk.  Both bunks have a memory foam mattress topper that he uses as a mattress (because it is thin, so the railing is effectively higher).  But on the top bunk we never put a plastic cover, since he had stopped wetting the bed before we let him sleep up top.

So I was up at 2:00 am helping Smiley, and then it took me a while to fall asleep as I worried how to clean a memory foam mattress topper.

I found tips on a couple websites.  But the cleaning was actually very trivial.  It turned out to be barely wet, and the day was very warm, so I just set it on the deck and rinsed the damp spot.  The water drained right through it, like rinsing a sponge.  The only "trick" was setting up a shade to keep it out of direct sunlight, which supposedly would harm it.

But even if clean-up was easy that time, we did order a second plastic cover to avoid any future problems.

Firefox Protection

According to my wife, Firefox is currently having trouble publishing an update that will successfully patch a security risk due to what embedded Java can do.

Time to disable Java in Firefox, at least for a while.

This issue prompted me to read a bit more about Ubuntu security, which recommended three Firefox add-ons that would benefit people who use the browser on any operating system.

Two I already use: NoScript and Adblock Plus.  I found out there is a third important one: BetterPrivacy, which blocks parts of Flash files that act like cookies (called LSOs).

Installing BetterPrivacy was easy and took only a few minutes.  After the install I needed to go to its option in the Tools menu, tell it which LSOs I do not want deleted, and then tell it to delete and protect from the rest.

Blender Ice Cream

This week held some unusually hot days.

Well, sort of.  Summer here in Eugene always has a few days in the high 90s.  So the heat is "unusual" as in "fairly rare" rather than "unpredictably surprising".

Anyway, the weather prompted me to buy ice at the grocery store during my morning walk with Gallant around the neighborhood, while my wife and Smiley slept more.

Our freezer has an ice maker but we disconnected it several years ago after the plastic tube that travels between the freezer and pipes under the sink had a leak.  Now we have ice cube trays and more freezer space.  So having a lot of ice at home is unusual.  Time to experiment with recipes!

We have a new blender ice cream recipe online.  We've made it twice today.  Yum!

Red Cane Theatre

Last Saturday was a hot day, and an early and uncomfortable work-day for my wife.

So I spoiled her by driving to Ring of Fire to get some fancy Thai food that is gluten-safe even for her acute sensitivity.

In the same shopping plaza is a new theatre, the Red Cane Theatre.  You can read more about them in a Eugene Weekly article.  Some (all?) of their actors were out front, taking a break and welcoming arriving dinner patrons, while we were two doors down getting our Thai food; they appeared very friendly and professional.

Looking at the upcoming shows, I expect my wife would enjoy Robin Hood and perhaps Grease. I am not sure if any of their productions are appropriate for children Smiley's age, but Robin Hood and the mermaid story might be.

A Somewhat Unhappy Week

Last week I suffered from stomach problems.  I do not know if I was sick or had food poisoning.  I was blessed that it did not interfere too much with parenting or math teaching.

I wrote in May about changing my novels from DOC files into HTML.  That is now done.  Yay!

I also got to do some pleasure reading last week, since I was forced to spend extra time sitting alone.  I read some of my favorite fantasy story, The Initiate Brother.  I did not finish, but got to again enjoy the best parts.

My next book to read in the bathroom is an overview of Biblical archeology.  It is one of those books I purchased years ago when I was actively running a religious congregation but never got around to reading.  Fortunately, I am healthier this week and have not gotten very far.

A Busy Weekend

This weekend was a very busy one.  My wife's work required her to do an online training on both weekend days.  Fortunately, this could be done at home.  Unfortunately, it was East Coast time, so she was required to be at her laptop from 6am until 2pm (with a break for lunch).

I had to keep the boys away from the house as much as I could, so they would not interrupt mommy!

On Saturday we hung out on West 11th.  Smiley had his normal gym class at 9:45 am until 10:30 am.  To keep away from home we also went to the open gym at 11:00 am.  But what to do for the half an hour in between?  Drive a few blocks to our favorite pet store, Zany Zoo.

We found out that Zany Zoo now has "petting zoo hours" on Saturday and Sunday from 1pm to 4pm.  We were too early for that, but still enjoyed looking at the animals.  We will try to visit their during petting hours next weekend, perhaps as a play date with one of Smiley's friends.

Sunday we went to a friend's fourth birthday party at Camp Putt.  I had never been there before.  It was very nice, and the miniature golf was silly.  I should write more about it later.

A Planetarium Rainforest Adventure

On Friday I enjoyed my first ever movie date with Smiley.

Grandma babysat Gallant while Smiley and I went to a Science Factory planetarium dome showing of Bugs! A Rainforest Adventure.  (It appears that you can watch the normal-screen version on Hulu.)

Lots of bugs were featured.  The two stars of the show, whose complete lifecycles were shown, were a caterpillar named Papilio and a praying mantis named Hierodula.  At the end of the film the mantis eats the butterfly, which seemed a very odd choice for a kid's film but did not bother Smiley at all.  He liked the film a lot.

The movie was beautiful and the filming was amazing.  But there was not much of a story: just the two stars eating and developing, interrupted by lots of other bugs, without any sense of narrative flow.  I'll readily trust this reviewer who claims he knows about better bug films for kids.

I was worried that I had forgotten Smiley's earmuffs, but he got used to the volume.

All the audience was families with at least one young kid (some older siblings too), which meant that no one minded Smiley's frequent quiet questions.

Gallant's at One Year

Somehow I have neglected to write about Gallant since late May.  What has he been up to for a bit over two months?

One Year Check-up

He had his one-year check-up.  That day he was 28.4 inches tall (10th percentile), he weighed 20 pounds, 4 ounces (15th percentile), and his head size was 46.5 cm (55th percentile).  Compared to his brother at that age he was an inch shorter, half a pound heavier, and about 1 cm less head circumference.

(For comparison's sake, here is the link to Gallant's nine month measurements.)

Walking and Running

Gallant is very comfortable on his feet.

He walks well, and likes to carry things.  Both hands full is best!  Sometimes he drag things behind him.

Pushing toys can fun, but only now and then.  His big brother really adored pushing things, especially toy wagons.  Gallant just wants his hands full.

The exception is pushing toys down stairs or down the back deck's ramp.  He loves that!  I spend a lot of time bringing toys back up onto the deck for him to push down again: bump, bump, bump.  His favorite pushing game is pushing the little doll stroller down the ramp.

When we go for a morning walk he likes to leave the stroller for the home stretch and walk down the sidewalk from the middle school to the bottom of our hill.  That third of a mile takes him 18 minutes.  He has to stop and look at every crow, dog, and cat.  The sidewalk has a few deep worn-down cracks, which he often will cross and re-cross to make sure he has mastered walking over them.  One neighbor has recently replaced their duplex's water meters: he always takes a little detour to walk on the sand around those and step about upon them.

He also runs a lot, usually in the back yard but also when I am exercising by doing some sprints across the fake-grass field behind the middle school he runs about and shouts.

He only jumps when I hold his hands.  He likes that.

He climbs, but is not at all the super-climber his big brother was.  He loves our plastic slide.

He can climb up stairs very well.  Down stairs is usually okay, but occasionally (almost always on the steps leading down from the gazebo) he tries descend while sitting and might tip over.

He also likes stepping on things.  I am not sure how much this is a balance game and how much it is a manipulating objects games.  Cloths, small toys, bits of rope or chain.  He reaches forward with one foot and wiggles them around.

Smiley likes to use a walking stick when we go on a walk around the neighborhood.  (He has two lengths of broom handle.)  Gallant has picked up on that.  He looks very cute walking around the back yard using one of his big brother's sticks as a walking stick that is slightly taller than he is.

(Ironically, Gallant still refuses to ride that little wood scooter which had been such an important part of Smiley's life at one year of age.)

Teeth

I wrote about Gallant getting in his sixth tooth.  Now he has ten teeth.  A top and bottom molar on each side have arrived.  (My lack of sleep during that long process is a big reason I have done so little blogging since May.  Now he is sleeping through the night again.  Yay!)

Wrestling

A year ago I wrote about all sorts of roughhousing games that Smiley invented.  Gallant is now old enough to enjoy rough housing, but does not usually care what it involves as long as the movement is fairly gentle and he is receiving lots of attention.

Foods

Gallant is allowed to eat just about anything now that he is over one year old.

He enjoys feeding himself.  Using a spoon is still very tricky, but banana and full-fat Greek yogurt stay on pretty well even turned upside-down.  Applesauce is a favorite but much more messy.

We are no longer keeping track of when we introduce foods, but I should mention that today he had chocolate chips for the first time.  (Today has record heat for this summer so far: 97 degrees Fahrenheit.  I took some cookies out of the freezer.  Cool cookies are nice on a hot day, and he loves dried cranberries even though they go right through him.  I bit off the obvious chocolate chips, but he still got some.)

During his molar teething he had some very fussy days when all he really wanted to eat was fruit.  A lack of non-milk fats caused his poops to turn soft and white.  We solved that problem by mixing olive oil into his applesauce and introducing him to Larabars (which taste like fruit but have nuts with their fats).  He still refuses to eat avocado, which once was a favorite--why, oh why that sad change?
We are using our Toddler Nutrition Log to confirm that Gallant eats a balanced diet.

New Toys

Gallant also gets to use the sandbox now.  We move it down from the stand I built to keep it at a good hight for Smiley.

One day he tried crayons with his brother.  They were great for putting into and out of the purple cup.  That is all he did with them.

On warm days his brother plays in the wading pool.  Gallant just watches, and splashes the water (with his hands or a toy) while leaning over the edge.  He likes baths, but for some reason does not like being in the wading pool.

Remember the new big swing?  Gallant can swing too!  We unhook his brother's wooden circle seat and hang up our baby swing seat.  It is nice to have a child who enjoys the swing at a young age.  (Smiley would only swing for a few moments until we made the big swing.  Park swings were too boring for him.)

Gallant's selection of inside toys has not changed much.  He still likes stacking toys and putting objects in boxes.  He shows more interest now in board books and shape sorters.  He has become fond of rolling toy cars down cardboard ramps.  He gets to shake the vacuum cord when I vacuum (which is a treat since he is otherwise prohibited from touching electrical cords).  He yearns to play with dishes in the dishwasher, but I do not let him help with unloading the dishes (as his brother got to help at that age) because he still drops them on the floor so often.

Four Categories of Traps

Steve Winter, author of The Howling Tower, has recently written a Kobold Quarterly article that categorizes traditional role-playing game dungeon traps into four purposes.

Here is my version, which is as much alteration as paraphrase:

• Puzzle: The story hopes the heroes find this puzzle and spend time or resources to solve or disarm it.  Which colored tiles are safe to walk on to cross the room?  How should the levers be moved to open the exit rather than the monster's cage?
• Certain Death: The story hopes the heroes notice this trap's placement and also that they cannot nullify it.  The trap must be avoided and exists only to redirect them.  It does so with a satisfyingly suspenseful escape that focuses entirely on the current location.
• Forward Railroad: The story hopes the heroes do not notice this trap until it forcibly moves the heroes to a new place in the story.  The heroes fall down a chute to a deeper level of the dungeon, are gassed unconscious in the wizard's tower and awake in a cell as toads, etc.
• Roadblock: The story hopes the heroes do not notice this trap until they trigger it, temporarily stopping the story.  (Sometimes it is triggered yet the effect is not noticed until the heroes return to the location and then discover that an exit is blocked or an item is missing.)  Yet it neither provides hints about what to do nor does it move the heroes along in the story.  Instead the heroes must use the information they have gathered so far to decide how to respond to the halted progress.

(My blog has very few comments.  I expect a better discussion where I copied this as a topic in the Story Game forum.)

A Nice New Tea

I am enjoying a new kind of tea.

At Sunrise Market, the local Asian grocery store, I saw a new type of tea and decided to try it.

It is Hojicha, a Japanese roasted green tea.  Hojicha only contains tea leaves, unlike Genmaicha and other Japanese or Korean roasted teas that contain rice, barley, or corn along with or instead of tea leaves.

(Barley would not be welcome in our gluten-free home!)

I bought one of these packages by Yamamotoyama (but I only purchased one package instead of the six-pack Amazon sells).  I cannot say how similar other brands taste.  But I like it a lot, both plain and with milk.

Last summer I wrote about discovering Yerba Maté.  Will I continue to discover a new type of beverage each year?

Classroom Fair Use versus Copyright Infringement

The LCC Library posts a newsletter named Inklings three times each year with news about the library.  Instructors get a copy in our department mailboxes.

The Spring 2012 newsletter (PDF) had a fascinating list of ten classroom situations that may or may not involve copyright infringement.  You can quiz yourself by following that PDF link.  Is each situation fair use or copyright infringement?

All ten situations and the answers are at this link.

More Foods for Our Toddler

In June I mentioned updating our Toddler Nutrition Record Page.

Gallant is eating more types of foods now, so I updated it again.  Now it has servings for watermelon, plum, and Larabar.