It’s a Grand Old Flag

I normally exercise indoors, as part of my general pandemic-related isolation. However, today I decided to walk around the neighborhood instead. I had to go outside anyway, to mail a letter. I figured it was an opportunity to get some exercise into this sagging body that I've abused for a few decades. I walk outside, only to…

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The transplendent adventures of Bill living an ordinary life, Part 2: That sinking feeling

This morning, I dreamed that I had to go to the bathroom. Bill, we all love to hear details about your personal life. But maybe this is a little too personal? Perhaps, but it's relevant to the story. My "DO NOT WET THE BED" instincts, developed in childhood, kicked in. I woke up, got off the bed,…

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Making a holder for miniature figures

For the first wave of the game Etherfields, I received a fifth-player expansion. It included two additional miniature figures to play that fifth character, the Reaper. To store and transport those figures, I downloaded and 3D printed a holder that someone else designed: I recently received the second wave of Etherfields content. It included lots more minis.…

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3D Printing 13 Bowls

... or maybe 12, or maybe 14; perhaps even 15. We'll get to that. I have in mind one or more blog posts on my personal trials and tribulations with 3D printing. This is not that post. Here I'm focused on one particular task: printing the Acorn Garden libation bowl. Truth in advertising: The various pictures and…

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Adoption Day

Warning: Cute cat pictures My cats, Jiku and Shuba, were born sometime in May 2021; Jiku was probably born closer to the 10th and Shuba probably closer to the 5th. I suppose I could just assign a birthday for them, the way I've done with my other cats. But I prefer to remember the day that these…

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Tom Swift, Strange New Worlds, Lost in Space: Minor media maunderings

As a result of consuming too much television, I have idle thoughts on some shows I saw recently. What all these thoughts have in common is my dissatisfaction compared to the source material. Tom Swift This is a new CW series. Like Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys, Tom Swift is based on a long-running series of books…

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Russian ancestry

I was going through some old papers (looking for my COVID vaccination record), when I came across my mother's genealogy. It turns out that my mother's mother's father, Solomon Kligfeld, came from the Ukraine. I'd known that my mother's family had emigrated from Russia. But of course, in the early 20th century the Ukraine was considered "Russia".…

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