Work’s been interesting. We’ve been making a ton of progress on a really weird and novel feature. It’s been interesting to see how it works and how it doesn’t, but basically we’ve got something that’s showing a lot of promise, and that’s been really nice.

This weekend, we’re driving down to San Diego for a few days to visit with some of Ei-Nyung’s friends and go to Legoland and the La Brea Tar Pits with the kids (and probably see Uncle Seth while we’re down there). Coming back on Thanksgiving Day, so I’m assuming our Thanksgiving feast will be pretty subdued. Excited for the trip, though. Should be interesting.

Kinda funny, though – I put a set of Bridgestone RE-71R tires on the M3 earlier this year, because I wanted to get some higher-performance tires than the Pilot Super Sports I was using before. I’d end up destroying the PSS’s on the track long before they’d have run out mileage-wise, so I figured that getting some higher-performance tires w/ shorter lifespans would be fine. Well, I’ve been to the track exactly zero times since I’ve put them on, and I’ll have made a drive to SoCal *twice*, eating through probably a quarter of their wear just on two trips. Ha. Welp. Whatchagonnado? A second set of wheels, I guess.

I also got a backup camera kit for the car which I’m gonna try to install myself. Should be interesting. I need to basically replace the trunk handle with the camera + replacement handle, then run a wire from the back all the way to the front of the car, which means disassembling a good deal of interior bodywork, including the dashboard and nav system. :O Will I be able to reassemble it all? WHO KNOWS. Should be interesting, though. I figure if I get through this successfully, chances are good I’ll be able to do that bluetooth retrofit I’d intended to do way back when, but never did.

I cleaned up a lot of the basement “nook” and reorganized it so the music gear and bookshelves are more accessible, and have been getting some use out of it, which is great.

The kids are super into Pokemon recently, which has been interesting. Got Pokemon Sun coming for the 3DS on Friday, but it’s been interesting learning about the card game, and how little the card game is relevant to the kids’ interest in Pokemon. The design of the characters is brilliant, though – they’re adorable, but they’re also humorous, often very clever, and sometimes quite sad. I hope over time we’ll be able to get those bits of craft into our game as well.

 

Election night, I signed up for a free trial of Showtime, because Stephen Colbert would be doing a live election show. We watched about 20 minutes of it before it started to become obvious that things weren’t going the way folks had expected. Around the same time, the stream died. We turned it off, unable (for reasons both technical and emotional) to keep watching.

I looked at it today, still listed on Showtime, and thought, I just can’t watch this. It’s not even like watching a video of a funeral for a beloved friend, It’s like watching a tape of them getting murdered.

We got out a bit today – went out to Swan’s Market for lunch with the kids, where we picked up a funny variation on Tic Tac Toe called Goblet Gobblers. Basically TTT with three different sized pieces, and the larger pieces can eat the smaller ones. Fun to try to understand both the strategy of the game & to teach the kids.

We also printed up some more Pokemon – a Rhydon for J, and a Cubone Skull for the two kids. Both turned out well – could use a little optimization on a few parts, but 95% good. Pokemon are the perfect 3D printing thing, though, because there are so many of them, there can’t possibly be standard retail merch for most Pokemon. It’d be neat if TPC would make purchaseable & properly licensed .stl files, but I realize that’d be an absurd amount of work for such a niche audience.

I guess they’re not really “odd”. Disconnecting from social media has been interesting, because it’s been such a part of my life for so long now that it’s almost reflexive. Oh I should tweet this, or “where’s the ‘share’ button?” And without comments on the WP site (true? Can you comment, or can I just not see the comment button?), it’s a bit like talking into a void where there used to be a consistent, though mostly passive, audience.

And so there’s no audience. There’s no discussion. It means I have spent a significantly smaller amount of time staring at my phone, and I definitely feel less connected to the world at large. I don’t see much news, except what I seek out, and I don’t hear everyone’s reaction to everything. And frankly, for the last week, that’s definitely been a good thing, because it’s just sadness and rage and stories of violence and hate, what bits I’ve seen through other channels – and I feel all that already, to the degree that I think if I had a bunch of people reinforcing that and creating a spiral amplification, I don’t know if I’d deal with reality all that well right now.

But it’s meant avoiding cynicism and depression and anger, which means I can be present for the kids. It’s weird, though – feels like I’m just ignoring shit I don’t want to hear right now. Maybe that’s true. But also, maybe it’s necessary for me.

---

I’d preordered The Hamilton Mixtape, since they started releasing songs on it for preorders, and it’s been oddly… I wouldn’t say “reassuring”, but it’s timely and relevant in a way that wouldn’t have been the case if things had gone a more reasonable way.

The songs of Hamilton are just … astonishingly wonderful in their original context, as part of this great story about the founding of the US – they humanize it and make it relatable in a way that I haven’t gotten out of any of my history classes. That’d be great on its own, but it also is just a soaring work of art that speaks directly to a lot of fundamental emotions, and listening to songs like My Shot, or It’s Quiet Uptown, and then hearing the remixes and inspirational offshoots that take the subjects out of the Revolution and make them more immediate…

Well. It’s been nice to hear a voice reinforcing what I think of as my ideal America. So thank you, Lin-Manuel Miranda (and everyone on the tape), though none of you will likely ever see this. If you haven’t listened to either Hamilton’s OST (or seen the show, which we’re gonna be doing in 2017!), or what’s been released of The Hamilton Mixtape, you’ve got some vital listening to be doing.

---

Contemplating moving from WordPress to Squarespace. I’ve enjoyed Squarespace for the Wonderspark blog (wonderspark.co) – it feels modern in a way that WordPress doesn’t – but it also feels like super overkill for a personal blog, which isn’t an e-Commerce site. It’d be nice if there was a merchant function free account that was like, $5/mo. I’d be all over that. In the meantime, though, I’ll just kinda think about whether it’s worth it or not. I should put up a little “portfolio”, though that describes the games I’ve worked on. It’d be nice to have something other than a fairly sterile linkedin page.

*shrugs*

---

Another thing I really like, though, about dropping off of Twitter and Facebook is that I feel like to communicate, I want to write longer-form stuff, in part because I don’t feel that “tweet”-level of interaction on a regular basis. No one’s “keeping up” with my mundane life, which is fine, because my life’s pretty boring in general. But then thoughts build up, and I wanna talk to someone (hi), and it feels maybe more like saying something meaningful rather than trying to figure out how to fit a complete thought into no space.

I was never efficient with words.

---

Reorganized the downstairs a bit to make things more accessible – the “last” bookcase had been obstructed by the desk I’d put a bunch of music stuff on. I used the small shelving thing I’d gotten & moved that over to be the shoe rack that I believe it was designed to be, and then reorganized all the music stuff, pulling some things out that I never really used (anyone interested in either a Korg Kaosspad, a Roland TR-505 drum machine, or an Alesis Wedge?), and set up everything else so it was much easier to use, which is great.

I’ve been practicing the drums, and have been getting some lessons from my friend Wes, who’s got a really fascinating (and super effective) way of teaching – basically figuring out where my brain’s running out of bandwidth, then breaking down tasks until it all “fits”, then stepping things up, tackling one part of the problem at a time. It sounds straightforward, like what you should always do, and that’s the kind of magic of it – he’s able to get you to do that, and the process of it feels like a series of constant revelations. It’s neat, and I’ve gotten to a point where I can regularly do things I couldn’t at all before.

On a related note, I didn’t even realize Rock Band Rivals was out. But there it is. I ordered the Ion Drum Kit adapter (finally!), and a wireless guitar, so maybe we can have Rock Band parties again. Maybe even play through the ridiculous Rockumentary mode. It’s nice to see RB4 still kicking. I really hope it’s sustainable, because it’s a really nice experience, even just singing  sporadically over the last year. I don’t get much chance or excuse to sing (other than I can do most of the songs in Hamilton, of course) – and I found that when we played RB regularly, I got significantly better (though not really “good”). So it’ll be nice to dive back into that again.

---

The neighborhood’s interesting. Got new neighbors across the street to our left. Nice guys, one’s the director of the Oakland Ballet. He invited us to a performance for the Day of the Dead, and so we went, not really knowing what to expect. It was great, and the kids had a lot of fun, which was honestly not what I’d expected! We’ve also now got (as of today) new neighbors on the right. Over the last few years, there’s been a handful of new folks – mostly a bit further down to our left, but everyone we’ve met has been super nice.

It’s been a bummer to see some old-timers go, but at the same time, glad the noobs have been nice, friendly folks. I’m really slow to learn their names, and I realized a big part of it is I need to here them say their names not to me, but to someone else, and that really helps it stick. Weird, but whatever.

---

Anyway. Feels like a bunch of mundane thoughts. Irrelevant to the things that are going on politically, but I guess that’s how I’m coping for now, in part because I don’t really know what to do that would be effective and something I can handle with the rest of my responsibilities. But it’s definitely something that’s occupying a good portion of my brain – it’s just not getting anywhere yet.

I hope you’re all well. It’s scary. It’s frustrating. It’s not okay. Someone said this phrase to me recently, and it left a really strong impression, because it was exactly the sentiment I needed in the moment.

I’ve got your back.

Whatever it is you need.

Busted out the 3D printer for the long weekend, and have been printing up some Pokemon. Have a Rhydon in the works for J, K’s asked for a Weepinbell, and friends are looking for a Dedenne & a Pikachu.

Rhydon finished. I’m still working out how to deal with “support material”, ’cause it’s difficult to separate from the actual model, and there are always zillions of settings to tweak. Now the Weepinbell is in progress. Had to do some weird stuff to get it to print properly, since the “slicer” decided to not create support material for things that obviously needed it (like wings that had parts that it’d apparently try to print in space with no support. Nope.).

 

http://jalopnik.com/comment-of-the-day-special-edition-1788836098

 

Wow. Finally Audi’s gotten the “face” of their cars right. I hated the “top-to-bottom” front grille they started (and Lexus abhorrently copied), but there are a few things they get super right here. First, it’s shorter. The front splitter offsets it nicely – second, that line that runs from the bottom up the side to the kink in the headlights creates a nice “space” for it that’s offset from the rest of the front of the car. It looks… svelte, which is the first time I’ve said that about an Audi in ages. I love it.

I spent a lot of time on Facebook & Twitter. So it’s really different to have shut them off, even if it’s just for a day so far. One thing that’s interesting is that there isn’t nearly as much to do on my phone as there was before, which means I’m doing less on it, and more on other things. Read a bit last night. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up the Marvel Universe (highbrow!) and got a bit further in Mark Webber (an ex-F1 driver I like)’s autobiography. Both good, but I’d only recommend them to people who come into them with some context. 🙂

It’s been an interesting few days, emotionally, as well. I want to hold out some optimism that the worst won’t happen, and that maybe there are valid reasons that people voted for our supposed President-elect. But then I read about his cabinet picks, and NOPE right out of there again. It’s just … comically awful. But I suppose that’s what we’ve asked for.

I have a really hard time reconciling Johnson/Stein voters, though – because while I get how Trump voters can vote for Trump (the reasons aren’t good, but I get why) – Stein/Johnson voters knew better, but decided that throwing a hissy fit was more important than stopping Trump, and I can’t wrap my head around that. It means that they understood what a threat Trump was, and instead of voting to stop him, they voted for “ideological purity” over “actual reality”, which, when you consider that real people will be actually affected by his policy, means you’re either catastrophically selfish, or a total sucker for the GOP Clinton hate machine. And I literally cannot find any other reason that anyone would vote for Johnson or Stein, two candidates that are as massively unfit for the Presidency as Trump.

So. Yeah. I think we’re in for a long four years. And I don’t know what to do, because I don’t think the problem is as simple as “campaign harder”. This campaign, which we’re essentially going to be fighting again in 2020, isn’t about facts and reason and policy. It’s about who shouts loudest, because there’s no basis in reality. Trump didn’t propose anything other than a primal scream. He has no policy. He has no plan. So people didn’t vote for anything that can be reasonably articulated. Campaign harder? How? When you’re campaigning against fantasy with no basis in reality, reality doesn’t win, because reality is complicated and messy.

The problem is reality. The problem is education. The problem is that there’s no accountability in our media, and profits, rather than truth, drives everything. So to me, I think fixing what’s wrong with out government has (relatively) little to do with campaign finance reform (though it obviously has a lot to do with it), but it has much, much more to do with education & media, and I have absolutely no clue how to work to have an impact on that on a broad enough scale that it will mean anything.

A month or so ago, a friend of mine & I went to the taping of the 1st episode of The Grand Tour. If you liked Top Gear… you’ll probably like this, because it’s fundamentally the same stuff that Top Gear was built on.
In the tent, I’m standing in an area that’s never on-screen, so I don’t expect you’ll see me in the audience – the only potential shot that you might is when Jeremy, Richard & James either enter or leave the tent. When they enter, I should be on the “far side” from the camera, about 2-3 people from the actual entryway. When they leave, which I doubt you’ll see because I think they’d stopped recording by then, I’d be literally the last person next to the door on the right side.

It was a lot of fun to drive down to SoCal the night before, spend the day watching the taping, then drive back in the evening (fortunately my friend drove the lion’s share of the way back, ’cause I was super sleepy).

This is what motivates me. My family. My friends. Whatever happens next, it’ll be guided by that. By love.

J with his ant farm (surprisingly compelling) and K with “robot parts”, which he seems to really enjoy.

The family at the Chabot Space & Science Center

The Wonderspark gang going fishing at Lake Chabot.

K, checking things out.

Hanging out with the high school gang in Jackson Hole. 1st time there. Beautiful place.

Catching a fish in Jackson Hole

Interesting summer.

• Kids
• Work
• Parents

Ultimately, that’s it. 100% of my summer. Translated, though, it’s more like this:

• Happiness
• Stress
• Insanity

K’s getting so much more verbal, and able to express complex thoughts. Sometimes those thoughts seem crazy, but it’s mostly because I don’t think he has quite enough vocabulary to describe the amazing things he’s thinking about.

J’s had his first summer, and it was full of camp. He did Avid 4 Adventure, which was a rotating list of activities – biking, hiking, kayak, and stand-up paddle, which is pretty amazing, interspersed with bunch of craft and art.

For the bulk of summer, he went to Sarah’s Science, which has been pretty amazing – outside all day at Robert’s Recreational area doing crafts, projects, experiments and the like. Pretty amazing stuff. I think there’s also something to be said for a couple days just lounging around the house doing nothing, and maybe next year we’ll be able to swing some of that. But for now, a lot of our summer was also…

Work’s been … interesting. The team’s great, as always. Some stress as we learn to communicate with each other (yeah, even a year later, it’s always a learning experience), but we’ve made tremendous progress. We just released what amounts to a full-blown 2.0 update for Give Me Fuel – a top-down revamp of the in-game UI that totally changes the experience. And hopefully makes it more accessible to new users.

The funny thing is, if you ask me, “How’s it going?” the answer is, “I don’t know.” Because ultimately, this is a really big swing at the plate, but until we start to see how it impacts our game’s performance, you really can’t tell how we’re doing, and right now, whether we’re moving towards sustainability & survival is completely unknown. We’ll know in a few days, but for now, it’s still up in the air. So it’s been a whole summer of uncertainty and stress…

And that’s been compounded by the situation with my parents, which has been really difficult. It’s a situation of fairly serious uncertainty – there are so many potential avenues to pursue, all of which are extremely expensive, but very different. So it’s a weird situation where almost no matter what we do it’ll be incredibly expensive, and some are easily alterable, and some aren’t. And there’s so much stuff that needs to happen to get anything to happen that it’s just … overwhelming at times.

I’ve been incredibly grateful to friends who have reached out to help. So many people have lent a hand, and it’s been a really amazing help in a really bad time. I love you guys.

So yeah. That’s maybe where things are at at the moment. Maybe everything will be totally different in a few weeks. We’ll see.