Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Paul John's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, February 1st, 2011
12:00 pm	February 1st Update on my 45 at 45 in 2011 While not perfect, I've got some progress on a number of items in my goal list for 2011. Here's where a few of them stand: 1) Lose 40 lbs....no idea. Started walking again last weekend, though will probably be mainly walking on weekend until it starts staying light later, going to be rough to walk most weekdays. 3) 52 Week Project on Flickr. So far so good. Here's a link to the project: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pjstoneson/sets/72157625660469925/ 4) Post 2x per month to DungeonBriefs. No posts so far, though have an idea for 2 for February, so we'll see how it goes. 8) Post 1x per week to Livejournal. A couple of posts behind a once a week average. 10) Walk 500 miles. Very bad, though I did finally get started this past weekend. Need time to get my knees used to the punishment again. 15) Restart my No Soda/Sweet Tea plan. This is back on track. Though I need to cut back on my coffee and drink more water. 17) Dumbbell based weight program. Think I've got a simple one worked out, just need to start doing it 3 or 4 times a week. 18) Practice using GIMP: Every one of my 52 week photos has involved editing with GIMP, so this is going well. 33) Take a 10 mile walk/hike: by begining my walking again I'm working towards this, though based on complaints from my knees it may be something I don't manage until the end of the year. 42) Continue as Den Leader. No problems here. Scouts got some awards this month and I think we're in a great position to get the Scouts to their Webelos badges. 45) Read original 45 at 45 post twice a month. Did this, even if I didn't accomplish as much as I would have liked, especially on the health/weight side of things. So with 1 month gone I'm able to discuss a little less than 1/4th of the items. Not great, but considering a number of the items are Do/Don't do, it isn't horrible. Safe travels, Paul (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 20th, 2011
6:45 am	Really?? A spam comment on a Livejournal entry that's almost 2 years old?? Apparently someone doesn't understand the goal of spam. Current Mood: confused (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 1st, 2011
3:43 pm	45 at 45 in 2011 Though I've ignored Livejournal in favor of Facebook for the past year, I'm posting my goals for next year here again, and I've set it up to cross-post to my Facebook account. I really miss the longer form of writing that LiveJournal allows for, though I expect some of my Facebook folks won't read these longer ramblings, and that is all right. This is basically an edited version of last year's list. Some of the items were longer term goals that need to be continued, others I believe are good enough to do again this year, and of course plenty are still here because I didn't do them last year. 1) Lose 40 lbs. Need to loose much more, but trying to keep this 1 year goal reasonable, and make dietary changes things I can live with. 2) Decrease debt. Think we made some progress on this last year, though not enough. 3) Do a 52 Week project on Flickr. Tried for a 365 project last year, and while I posted 365 pictures over the year, I didn't manage to do 1 picture per day. Again I'll post far more than 52 photos to Flickr during the year, but want to put a little time into posting one high quality photograph each week. 4) Post 2x per month on DungeonBriefs (which has moved to a free service) 5) Sell a photo through a stock photo site. 6) Participate in 1 round of 29 gifts 7) Clean out at least 1 storage area. 8) Post 1x per week to Livejournal.com 9) Take kids to 1 college, semi-pro, or professional sporting event. 10) Walk 500 miles. I averaged over a mile a day for part of the year, and with weather this goal might be overly ambitions, but I'd like to try. 11) Fit into my Wil Wheaton dice t-shirt. 12) Complete network drawings, documentation, and config file backups. 13) Sell a piece of writing, any type. 14) Eat one vegetarian meal each week. 15) Restart my No soda or sweet tea plan. I'd gone about 19 months when I began drinking a bit of soda over the holidays. 16) Figure out a way to sync my MP3 player so I can listen to my favorite podcasts more consistently. 17) Start a basic weight lifting plan, using just dumb bells. 18) Practice editing pictures using GIMP. 19) Take the kids on a camping trip. 20) Run kids through at least 1 D&D adventure. 21) Take kids to museum, aquarium, zoo, or similar attraction at least once. Hopefully more, but need to find some cheap/free places to make the 'more' easier to do. 22) Eat out less. Think we did well at this last year and would like to continue the pattern. 23) Cut out snacks. Did well on this for about 1/2 the year last year, need to give it another try. 24) Go to the Dr. in June 25) Earn a Cisco certification. 26) Take a mini-vacation without the kids (1-2) nights. 27) Take a vacation trip with the kids. 28) Run a message based D&D game. 29) Read at least 2 classic novels I should have read but haven't 30) Build a model 31) Paint my Monstrous Dice 32) Go on a canoeing trip. Because of my weight this may be too soon, but it is something I hope to do in the next few years. 33) Take a 10 mile walk/hike. 34) Cook 20 new recipes, and document them. 35) Read 26 books. Any type, though I'd like at least 1 to be a re-reading of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver 36) Run HomeCon for the kids. 37) Plant an herb garden. 38) Grow some food (either a small garden, or a number of potted vegetables - peppers or tomatoes most likely candidates) 39) Make my own strawberry preserves. 40) Make my own peanut butter. 41) Bake bread more. 42) Continue as Den Leader. 43) Find a charity to be involved with, and volunteer for. 44) Waste less food/Make better use of leftovers. 45) Read this post at least twice a month, both as a reminder of these goals, and perhaps to add items for the future. For better, or worse, there's the list. It's unlikely I'll accomplish everything on the list, but I hope I'll finish the year a better person for trying. Safe travels, Paul (1 Comment |Comment on this)
3:13 pm	Livejournal/Facebook Test Two (Semagic posting) Another test of the link between Livejournal and Facebook. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
3:10 pm	Testing to check cross posting to Facebook. Just seeing if/how well the connection between my long ignored Livejournal page and Facebook works. (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 10th, 2010
10:20 am	2010 Update #1 Good morning all! Just a little over a week into 2010 and I wanted to drop a note about my week, and some updates/information about how I'm doing on my goals for the year. On the various weight/exercise related goals, I need to be doing better. On the bad side I didn't have my vegetarian meal this week, only did 3 days of Wii Boxing. On the good side, I did 3 days of Wii Boxing, still haven't had any sweet tea/soda. We did a pretty good job of not eating out, only ate one meal out and that was while we were out on a shopping trip with my wife, her mom, her aunt, and my kids. I guess we could have done a 'picnic' lunch or something, but we just stopped for lunch at Hardees. Read 2 books already, which is well ahead of pace, though of course with the holidays this was an easier week than average. The books were Millennium Falcon by James Luceno and The Book of Lies by Brad Meltzer. There's a copy of Catcher in the Rye sitting beside me as my next book, and after reading 'Book of Lies', I'm hoping I can find a copy of a Jerry Siegel biography to read. While 'Book of Lies' was fictional, there were some true details in there about Mr. Siegel, and I'm interested in reading more. Haven't even tried Googleing for a biography yet, so if anyone can recommend one, please leave a comment. Another goal that seems to be going well is my 365 photo project. Took a better than average self portrait at my desk at work, so may try and play around with some more self portraits during the project. In the past most of my self portraits have been arms length type shots that my wife says look like mug shots. I've joined the 365 the 2010 edition group, so my photos are getting a slightly wider audience, and a few more comments. Also on the photography front, I managed to get some great pictures of a red shouldered hawk this week. Saw it while driving, and was in a situation where I could pull off the road and take some pictures. Surprisingly it let me walk fairly close (since I was on the ground and it was on an electric/phone wire I wasn't much of a threat I guess), so I got some nice close shots even with my mid level camera. Overall it was a really good week, though as the first full week of work following the holidays it was a little bit of a long week. Today is going to be a busy day, in fact, can't believe it is 10 AM already. Need to finish putting a load of dishes in the dishwasher, do some food shopping, create and type up plans for my Cub Scout Den meeting this week, plus hopefully type up a post for Dungeon Briefs website, and a photo for my 365 project, though I have no idea what my subject will be. Hope everyone's new year is going well. I'm still feeling positive about things on the whole, though there were a few clouds hidden in my week that I'm not quite ready to speak of yet. Safe travels, Paul Current Mood: thoughtful (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 2nd, 2010
8:36 am	44 at 44: Some Goals for 2010 Before I dive into my goals for the year, let me wish everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year. While I begin working on my goals for the year, I hope that you'll manage to accomplish some of yours as well. These are some goals I hope to accomplish this year, some major year long efforts, some things that could happen in an afternoon if I make the time. There are also several items that overlap, or that might borderline on 'duplicates', but they represent things to focus on while working towards a larger goal. And if I work it right, the list will be behind a cut so those of you who don't give a flip what I'm trying to accomplish this year can just move along. Some might border as silly/unimportant, but they are things I want to do this year. ( List behind cut:  ) For better, or worse, there's the list. It's unlikely I'll accomplish everything on the list, but I hope I'll finish the year a better person for trying. Safe travels, Paul Current Mood: hopeful (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 29th, 2009
11:05 am	There's No Place Like HomeCon Should have mentioned this in my previous post, but a couple weeks ago I was investing a lot of my online time to follow events going on at GenCon in Indianapolis. At one time I attended somewhere around 5-7 GenCons in a row, though I've not been since. Thanks to the magic of the Internet I'm able to at least experience a little bit of what goes on there using Twitter, Flickr, various blogs and forums, and iTunes for podcasts. And while I had a good time doing this, and managed 3 posts over at www.dungeonbriefs.com pointing others at some good sites online for a 'Virtual' GenCon experience. Though I had a great time doing this, it wasn't quite the same, so I've come up with the idea of hosting my own 'mini-convention'. This is intended primarily to be something for the family, just something to give use a little bit of a convention experience. For time time being I'm calling it 'HomeCon', with the motto, as in the title of this post 'There's no place like HomeCon'. Basically a weekend of gaming and related activities. Here is a list of things I'm hoping to do, though I'm hoping for additional advice/input. No solid date set yet. Need to check the school schedule and see if I can find a long weekend to hold it on, though I've based the schedule on a normal weekend. Thinking about early November before the holiday chaos kicks in. Activities: RPG - D&D Delve type event. RPG - D&D Battle against Gargantuan dragon Board Games - ?? Card Games - Pokemon Video Games: Nintendo DS Multi-player game time Other Game(s) - Monsterpocalypse Movie - Willow Movie - The Hobbit (old Bass/Rankins animated) Puzzle - Build a jigsaw puzzle fantasy themed set up on Thomas table I haven't figured out a complete schedule, but my basic idea is to have the movies Friday night and Saturday night, 5 2 hour game sessions spread between Saturday and Sunday (some of those 5 sessions might be broken up into shorter 1 hour sessions for say a Nintendo DS session, and board/card game sessions. Rough Schedule: Friday 7:00 Party Mix (get in the kitchen with the kids and make a big batch of some version of trail/party mix that we can keep near the gaming table over the course of the weekend). Or potentially have a wide selection of possible mix ingredients and let everyone make they're own custom mix for the weekend. Friday 8:00 PM Movie time Saturday: 8:00 AM Breakfast (nothing too fancy, but try and come up with gaming related names for stuff...might want to look at Halloween party ideas for some of the food for the weekend). Saturday: 9-10 AM Board games (would like to find something fantasy related, but perhaps just something like Clue Jr., or Blockus). Need to check the Circus Maximus rules and see if kids could handle it. Saturday: 10-11 AM Nintendo DS multi-player. We have several games where 4 or more people can play at once: Mario Kart, Mario Party, Diddy Kong Racing, Starfox (has an 8 player mode, but have never tried it), Mario vs. Sonic Olympic games (think this is 4 player). If it's just our immediate family, 4 player games will do, but hoping maybe to get a couple additions so want to have some of the 8 player games available. Saturday 11 AM - 1 PM: Lunch. Kids need free time, so they can either do some more playing, or watch some TV, or whatever they'd like while I make lunch. Depending on complexity of lunch I should also have some free time in here, even if only to get ready for... Saturday 1 PM - 4 PM D&D 4E Dungeon Delve - Low level, 3 encounters, opponents either giant bugs or kobolds (are those both the same??) Saturday 4 PM - 6 PM Dinner. Again, enough time for the kids to have a break while I cook. Saturday 6 PM - 8 PM - Pokemon card game - need to reset them, but we own 3 or 4 'preconstructed decks' that we can play at least one game of this. Saturday 8 PM Movie Time Sunday 8:00 AM Breakfast Sunday 9 - 11 AM: Board Games/CardGames/or more Nintendo time (I'm not sure about this, I suspect a lot of 'free time' fill be DS time for my kids, though you never know). Sunday 11 AM - 1 PM Lunch Sunday 1 PM - 4 PM: D&D 4E: Kill the dragon. Battle a gargantuan dragon. Sunday 4 PM - Dinner/Closing ceremonies - This is easy if it's just my kids, pick up a couple random gaming related things and give as awards for...well, just make up some stuff, doesn't have to be the person who 'won' anything, 'Best this', 'Silliest that', 'Rolled the most 1s against the dragon'. Knowing kids and games someone will do something we'll be sharing with friends during the weeks following, and if we also give them an award for it even better. Addition of additional players just might mean my kids don't get to keep as much of the stuff I buy, but extra people will make things more fun, so a worthwhile investment. Probably nothing too expensive anyway, some packs of Pokemon cards, maybe some D&D minis, or Bakugan single pack type thing. Probably no more than about $20-30 total. Just need to make sure all the kids who take part get something, not such a big deal for the adults who happen to join in of course. If money was no object I'd do some t-shirts at least for my family, but I may just have to do a button or something just so we have a souvenir item, plus printing up some banners and fliers to put up around the house that weekend and leading up to it just to give it that 'convention feel'. If I manage to do the T-shirt thing, might have to put it on Cafe Press for other attendees to order their own. Maybe I'll even give them some poker chips and make them pay me outrageous prices for meals, and send everyone to the bathroom at the same time so we have to wait in line. ;) I'll also try and prepare as many of the meals in advance as I can, perhaps making some dishes that can be frozen and then just stuck in the oven. Just so I can catch a breath here and there. And just so I give credit where credit is due, part of my inspiration for this is Gwendolyn Kestrel and Andy Collins 'GwenCons'. Not sure if they're still hosting them, but you can see some summaries of these events at his web page. According to one page, they had 80 people over the course of one of their GwenCons, but my aim is to server somewhere between 4 and 10 people. It's primarily aimed at my wife and kids, but I'll probably toss out invitations to my niece and nephew, and others who I think might be interested. I should probably give the whole post another edit, but I need to move onto something else for a bit. Another hour or so and I'll probably be heading out to do some birthday shopping for my son. Please leave comments! Safe travels, Paul Current Mood: creative (2 Comments |Comment on this)
10:01 am	Forgive Me Livejournal... Forgive me Livejournal for I have sinned, it has been...too long since my last post due to a number of reasons. 1) I started www.dungeonbriefs.com this summer, and even these 'brief' entries take more time than I would expect, though even that hasn't gotten as much attention as I'd like due to items yet to be mentioned. 2) Facebook...ok, this is only the past 3 or 4 weeks, but I have signed up for Facebook. While I don't post any long-winded things there, it does take a little bit of time to send out my short daily updates there, and read/respond to my friends there. While I love LJ because of the freedom to be (too) wordy, Facebook has given me a renewed connection to some old friends, in addition to simply an additional connection to some folks I know from meeting them in various online systems. 3) Family. Don't know if I posted about this, but early in the summer my mother-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer. While my wife has been the one directly involved in a lot of trips to the Dr, etc. it has seemed to have taken a bit of my time away in little bites and chunks. Then at the end of the summer, my wife's grandmother passed away leading to a hectic week with very little time for touching the computer. 4) Facebook. I list this one twice because in addition to me signing up for Facebook, my wife has too, and she's a social creature and getting even more out of it than me I believe. Because we live in the boonies, we use a cellular modem for our Internet connection, and so while I have a SLOW computer I can work on, only one of us can be online at a time, so I tend to spend the time while she's online reading my D&D books and trying to come up with ideas for the website. 5) Work. Work was just really exhausting/tiring this summer. Because I work for a school system, summer time is project time, and it also means not being in the 'routine' that takes hold for most of the year. Summer is always busy, but this summer things seemed even worse somehow. Still really stressed even as our teachers and students have come back. Now that they're touching systems again for the first time in 2 months they're putting in lots of tech support tickets and keeping us running. Had to work some last Saturday trying to finish up, and probably should have worked today, though more likely will wind up working next Saturday to do something that should have been a summer project, but because of the economy causing budget craziness, we didn't get to order equipment until late in the summer. 6) Cub Scout 'Day' Camp. They call it day camp, but for an entire week in late July I'd get off of work at 6, and by 7 be at Cub Scout Camp with my son. Since I wasn't staffing the camp I got to relax while he did his thing, but it meant not getting home and able to have computer time until after 9 PM each night. He earned about 4 belt loops, and completed a few items towards his Bear Badge. Kind of amazing that next year he'll be a Webelo! 7) There is no 7, or at least not one to identify, all that other stuff just kept me busy. I was doing some reading of LJ, but I certainly missed some posts over the summer, so please forgive me if I missed something important. I've got another post about gaming coming up right after this one (though it might be an hour by the time I finish writing it). I may cross-post it to www.dungeonbriefs.com, but my readership here is still as large if not larger than my readership there, and you all are more likely to comment, and I definitely want some input on this item. Thanks for your patience and your friendship, hope everyone is having a wonderful summer! Safe travels! Paul Current Mood: chipper (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
8:18 am	What monster am I? D&D Home Page - What Monster Are You? - D&D Compendium (Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
7:00 am	Weekend Update Ok, I'm a day late with this, but it was a busy weekend. On Saturday I got a bit of a late start due to some phone calls with my mother and sister, then I went to FreeRPGDay and got some free products including an Eberon Adventure for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition called 'Kyber's Harvest'. The adventure also came with a large dungeon tile. After that I went to Lowes for some Father's Day shopping. I got a weed whacker and a replacement battery for my riding mower. Then came home and put the weed whacker together, and installed the new battery. Put the battery on charge, and gave the weed whacker a test run. Then had dinner and went over to my in-laws (across the field from me), and went swimming with the family. Tried making some rolls with the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day dough, they turned out, but were a bit dense, so I'll have to experiment a bit with that before I'm ready to say 'I can make rolls'. Also mixed up a new batch of the dough and let it rise for 2 hours before putting it in the refrigerator. Got up on Sunday intending to cut the grass, but even with the assistance of a new battery, the mower wouldn't start, so I went to talk to my father-in-law who is far more mechanically inclined than I am. He let me use his mower, and I spent a couple hours cutting the grass. While I was cutting the grass, my wife fixed breakfast, and so when I was done we had a Father's Day brunch of French toast and bacon. My wife went food shopping, and I messed around with the Internet a bit. When she got home it was time to head back to the in-laws for more swimming, and burgers on the grill. Got home in time to mess around with the web site some, and then headed for bed. I don't feel like I got as much done over the weekend as I wanted to, but that's balanced out by spending a lot of time with the kids in addition to managing a fun trip to the game shop. Though I had planned on waiting a bit before starting to post on my web page, I really wanted to get some posts in there about FreeRPG day, so the site is basically 'live', though I still need to fill in my 'About' page, and like most web sites I'm sure there will always be things that need tweaking. Here are some of the posts: Get your Free RPG here! My Free RPG Day Haul Monstrous Personalities: Kobold in a Hole Hope you enjoy! Safe travels, Paul (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 18th, 2009
9:14 pm	It's Alive! Ok, it needs work, but my gaming blog is alive, or at least undead. Went with: http://www.dungeonbriefs.com/ Also available at: http://www.stonesonsdungeonbriefs.com/ I've been starting to get some content ready, trying to arrange a steady flow of about 3 articles a week. Take a look, and feel free to comment. Advice appreciated. Safe travels, Paul (Comment on this)
Sunday, June 14th, 2009
1:51 pm	Breaking Bread All right, I may have mentioned this before, but this week I began making bread using a recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. My first loaf of bread tasted amazing! The idea behind this book is that you can make a large batch of their dough recipes let the dough rise a couple of hours, put the dough in the refrigerator, then pull out just enough dough for a single loaf as you decide to bake it. The recipe doesn't require any kneading, so you just mix, let it rise, refrigerate, then when you want to make some bread, tear off what you need, form the loaf, let it rise, and bake. That's slightly over-simplified, but not by much. And the book contains a number of different recipes that operate in the same way. The photo below comes from their 'Master Recipe: Boule'. It's supposed to be more 'ball like', but I don't have a pizza peel to use to slide the bread into the oven and when I used my hands I wound up squaring it up a bit. Complete set of pictures here: Artisan Bread Photos While I'm doing the most basic form of the bread, the book includes many different ways to use each recipe, sometimes just through forming the dough into a different shape, other times by adding ingredients to the dough, or baked into the dough. Hope you all enjoy! Safe travels, Paul (8 Comments |Comment on this)
8:20 am	Branching out? Good morning all, Need some advice. Because there was a special promotion going on, I signed up with Dreamhost for web hosting services. My plan is to use them to host a site where I blog exclusively about RPGs/Gaming, and related projects, like my modular dungeon. Once I figure it out, those posts will also get sent over here, though I'm not sure of the exact procedures yet. I'll also continue with all my non-gaming posts here, but probably not post them on my more focused blog. The main thing I need right now is to figure out a name for the blog and the corresponding domain name. To begin with I've got 3 basic 'columns' I want to post about on a weekly basis (titles meant to be descriptive, not an actual column name/title): 1) Reviews: Novels, Game books, gaming related books, pod casts, gaming sites etc. Just a regular commentary about something I like related to gaming. Reviews may not even be the right word, more like 'Recommended Resource' or something similar. They will also likely contain articles like my recent 'Five favorites' style posts about some of the recent Dungeons and Dragons 4E releases. 2) 'Crafts': This would primarily be my modular dungeon for now, but would also include the painting of my Monster Dice, and anything else 'crafty' (DM handouts perhaps?). I'd call this 'Dungeon Crafts' except I think that was already used as the name for a column somewhere. 3) 'Building my game'. This would focus around the development of two separate games, my campaign/adventure design process, as well as the process of gathering gamers for an online game and a face to face game (which may be a little difficult because of where I live, but perhaps seeing my attempts would help others as well). This might also include some articles about a 3rd game, one I want to run for my kids. I've got a couple other ideas, but for the beginning I'm going to stick with 3 columns a week. The other ideas might come in as kind of 'unscheduled bonus posts', or additional columns once I've got myself into the rhythm of producing a steady stream of content. So that's what I want to do, what I need is a name. I wish I could say "'Here are a couple I feel really good about", but right now I'm just not sure. Some random ideas: CasualDM, FamilyDM, LonelyDM (because of my rural location). Or something more along the lines of "'The _____ Scrolls", or "Stoneson's Scroll"' (I've used variations of the Stoneson name online since the Genie days). "Stoneson's Gaming Guide" though I don't expect my site to be comprehensive enough to qualify as a guide. "______ Briefs" suddenly springs to mind, as it is my intention to limit posts to between 500 and 750 words. Dwarven Briefs, Dragon Briefs, etc. Double meaning of 'briefs' has images of dwarves and dragons in their underwear. Also leads me to 'Stoneson's Briefs', though even with that name, don't expect to see any pictures of me in my underwear (sorry to disappoint ladies). Any ideas? Thanks, and safe travels, Paul (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 11th, 2009
9:34 am	"Rawr! I'm a monster." Or, am I a die? Got my Monster Dice from Maow Miniatures last week. Here is a picture of them all together: And here's a link to a set of Flickr pictures with individual photos as well: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pjstoneson/sets/72157619208960679/ They look really cool, though I'm a little worried about painting them because the detail is very fine, and I haven't painted in a few years. I'm going to try and pick up some paints next Saturday (June 20th) when I go to Free RPG Day. I'm still debating which one to paint first. I'm especially fond of the ones I've called 'Monster' (the flat face), 'Beholder' (the big eye), and 'Mouth' (the big mouth). I'm leaning towards painting Mouth first because it's the deepest carving, and I think it will be most forgiving if my hand isn't as steady as it should be. Though I expect the eyes (located in 2 of the pips on the die) to cause trouble for me. I tried rolling the dice, and the carvings as expected throw the weight off, so while they will roll, I suspect if you were to chart their rolls you would find that they are not truly random. More updates and photos as the project progresses. Safe travels, Paul Current Mood: optimistic (Comment on this)
Monday, June 8th, 2009
9:04 pm	Me and my shadows I've been meaning to do this for a whie, but I've finally changed my LiveJournal icon. For a long time it's been a picture of my son and I. I've finally got a good picture of me with both my kids a few weeks ago when they stopped in to visit me at work and decided to put that in as my Icon for now. Maybe someday I'll get one with my wife too. Safe travels, Paul Current Mood: happy (Comment on this)
8:43 pm	Monster Mash Favorites My top 5 creatures from the recently released Dungeons and Dragons 4E Monster Manual 2. #5: Myoconids. Living mushrooms, old school and low level, gotta kill them all. And how nice of them to constantly share any damage done to them with the other Mushroom Men. #4: Bullywug. Humanoid frogs destroying the environment. Classic critter with some interesting mechanics attached. #3: Ant, Giant. If old movies are to believed, apparently an atomic bomb must have gone off! Planning an adventure for my kids, and I think a collection of giant insects and similar cretures will be fun. Too bad I couldn't find any toy ants this weekend. #2: Rust Monster. Ok, maybe I like the classics too much, but I was happy to see this creature make a return. I know some don't agree, but I think the workings of the rusting ability will work well. #1: Geonid. This one is totally new to me, which is part of the reason it made it all the way to #1. Another one I can't want to see in play, a boulder becomes an enemy without notice, a mouthful of glowing purple crystals trying to grab onto the characters. Like my own gaming style, this list leans towards the lower level creatures. Some others that jumped out at me: Iron Dragon, Earth Archons, Behir Bolter Whelp, Centipedes, Darkmantle, Gnaw Demon, Drakes, Frost Giant, Goblin Acolyte of Maglubiyet, Oozes! and Tomb Spider. Overall a great variety of creatures, though I wish there'd been a kobold or two tossed in. Safe travels, Paul Current Mood: cheerful (Comment on this)
Sunday, June 7th, 2009
2:43 pm	Recipe Quest 2009 8/52: Stromboli This recipe goes totally against my recent 'healthy eating habits', but I made it a couple weeks ago and I've been meaning to post the recipe here (some of you may have seen the photo on Flickr already. Stromboli 1 tube Pillsbury Pizza Crust Classic Approx. 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese Approx. 8 oz. pepperoni slices 1 cup marinara sauce Roll out pizza crust into a rectangle, using fingers to pinch together the seams. Layer the dough with the pepperoni slices. Leave about 1" from each edge. I deal them out like cards in a single layer, overlapping only very slightly. Sprinkle with an even layer of the shredded mozzarella, again stopping an inch from the edges of the dough. Roll up from the long side, jelly roll style, then tuck the ends of the dough under so everything is sealed. Lay seam side down on a greased baking sheet (I used a Pam type spray). Bake in a preheated oven at 425 for 15-20 minutes. Let it cool a couple minutes then slice it into about 6-8 slices. Heat some marinara sauce and put it in a small bowl/bowls for dipping. Current Mood: blah (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 1st, 2009
10:19 pm	D**t Good evening. If you follow me on Twitter (@pjstoneson) you might know that I'm trying to lose weight. I'll wait a moment while those of you who know me well get a good laugh. Yes, this is an 'again' kind of thing for me, but it must be done. I'm not following some specific diet plan. I've given up soda and sweet tea (about 17 days now), and in general just trying to do better at portion control, and avoiding most sugary deserts and eating a bit more fruit. That last item is a big difference in calories for me as I could easily go through a half gallon of ice cream on an average week. It's already had some effect, but I don't have a scale so I don't know just how much I may have lost, but my belt is definitely getting a little looser, so while if I take a close look at everything I'm eating there are probably still corners to be cut, but for right now I think I need to things like I am now for a while. Some nights it's rough, I feel like I want to go rummage through the kitchen for whatever sweets/snacks I can find. So far I've been able to resist. It also helps that there aren't many of those snacks to go running for. I'm going to try and put the following behind a cut, so you only have to see my 'current' picture if you really want to. This picture is for reference and motivation (there's a topless version as well, but I've got that one set as private because no-one else should have to see it. ( Read more... ) For right now, I'm not going to talk about exactly what I weigh. As I said, I don't have a scale, and well, I'm a little embarressed by it. Maybe if I can keep being good when I hit a few target loss numbers I'll let everyone know where I've started. Safe travels, Paul (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, May 30th, 2009
10:32 am	Not quite Legos... I recently mentioned that I was casting some blocks from Hirst Arts. Hope this post answers many of your questions, varianor. For those of you not familiar with them, Hirst Arts sells molds that you can use to cast small blocks from plaster of paris. The blocks can then be assembled into buildings, rooms, dungeons (home made 'Master Maze') or pretty much anything you'd like. They have molds meant to recreate various themes field stone, gothic, Egyptian, and science fiction, perhaps something else I'm forgetting. I currently own two molds 'Prison Tower' (bottom half of the page linked) and 'Roman Temple Mold' (even further down the same page). Way back when I ordered the molds, I was planning on doing more of a display piece with them, though time and family made it a little tough, and now that I've got a bit more time to work with it, I'm trying to do something different where other molds might have been a better choice. I've put together the first level of the Prison Tower, and it's been in a plastic bag through two moves, so they appear to hold up well, even though I'm just using basic plaster of paris and some craft glue. Some folks use dental plaster to mold their blocks and it is reportedly even stronger. The biggest problem I have is simply the time issue. In order to build even simple projects requires a large number of castings. So you have to fill the prison tower mold around 15 times in order to build the Prison Tower. Also I haven't quite got the water vs. plaster mix down to a science yet. I believe I'm making mine a bit too wet, and so my bricks take a bit longer to dry. Any time I try to make my mixture a bit thicker it doesn't seem to fill the molds well and I get big air bubbles. I'm thinking of making some sort of vibrating table to help work air bubbles out better, and this might allow me to mix a little thicker. Over the course of last weekend (a 3 day weekend) I was able to get about 20 castings, which would have been enough if I was simply trying to make the prison tower, but I've got other plans in mind... Actually I have two plans. 1) A backdrop for photos. I want to make a little 'corner' piece of dungeon for taking photos of miniatures in front of. Haven't decided exactly how large it should be just yet. Was debating making it large enough to use for some of the prepainted huge minis from WOTC, but think I'll make a smaller one for now. 2) A modular dungeon. As I said in the intro, something similar to Master Maze. The problem I have with both these ideas is that my prison tower mold only creates 1 piece of a 1" square tile per casting. And even if I use the 1" x 1/2" and the 1/2" square tiles in my floor design I still wind up with only 1.75 square inches of floor tiles from each casting. Of course, there are alternatives...I could order a new mold that just does floor tiles, I could use real floor tiles (I used to have a nice version of these that I used to base metal minis for painting), or I can just keep molding the way I am and based on the amount of time I have it will just take a while to get things done. For now I'm going with the last option, and trying to figure out a floor design that will allow me to use all my floor tiles. It might be hard to see in the photo below, but the pattern alternates 1/2" and 1" wide rows working from the edge of the room in. In the picture the edge is 1" tiles, but it will become 1/2" when I mount the wall along the edge. Only issue with this is that for D&D based rules it would be nicer for the 1" squares to be more obvious. Instead of one large backdrop piece I may change things and make that modular so it will work in with the modular dungeon pieces. And here's a picture of my (messy) molding process. Safe travels, Paul Current Mood: geeky (3 Comments |Comment on this)