Apple, Inc. and Austin lost a great resident last week. Scott definitely belonged and contributed to the quality of life we have. If you want read the more elaborate tribute I wrote about him, contact me (you know how) since it is password protected. Why? It’s rather personal.
This year I adding the stairmaster to my routine in lieu of putting an incline on my running. Besides, the stairmasters are pretty cool, they have landmarks to give you some perspective on how far up you’ve gone. I’ve exceeded the tallest building in the world 10 times over so I went with the goal of a 737’s average altitude when it flies to Las Vegas. I achieved this today.
Next up, the traditional boundary for Space. It’s an arbitrary 100 km but scientists in 2009 discovered that the Earth’s atmosphere stops at 118 km. One hundred is a nicer, rounder number. This is going to take a while though. I’ve only covered close to 3500 stories and Space is over 30,000.
I think he’s 15 now but maybe his dad can clue me in while playing the Beatles’ tune and I’m telepathically send Weird Al’s “Happy Birthday” number.
Hoping he’s having a good time despite having to go to school at the edict of Patton Oswalt.
Kid: I’m 15!
Adult: Who gives a shit, go to school!
Dad will make it up to him over the weekend. I for one will need to find something he likes because he’s at an age when you make numerous cool discoveries.
Back to the art world for today’s Italian and my entry covers another woman who contributed immensely to what is called the Baroque period, Artemisia Gentileschi.
While Sofonisba Anguissola was only allowed to paint portraits, Artemisia had the opportunity to do historical and biblical events. The downside was Artemisia’s work being belatedly discovered and credited in the 20th Century; her father was often attributed to the material until then. Experts thought a woman as young as 17 couldn’t create something “mature.”
Artemisia was born in Rome around 1593 (records are hazy in this era) to Orazio and Prudentia Gentileschi. Orazio tried to train all his sons into following his line of work but it was Artemisia who proved to have the talent. So he took her on as an assistant to help him with the many commissions he received. When the time came for her to join an academy, she was rejected by them all. Orazio turned to his friend and frequent collaborator Agastonia Tassi for private tutoring. This decision became a tragic decision because Tassi eventually raped Artemisia. Orazio initially let the horrible event slide due to Tassi’s promises to divorce his wife and marry Artemisia; in the past, many cultures considered marriage the restitution for this crime. When Tassi failed to follow through after nine months, Orazio pressed charges alongside numerous other allegations like the theft of some paintings.
The trial dragged on for seven to eight months. Tassi was found guilty but Artemisia was dragged through the mud via accusations over her virtue (some crap never changes) and tortured to see if she’d change her testimony (Tassi didn’t have to suffer physical pain under oath). Again, rape in 17th Century Europe was a crime against a family’s honor, something we hear on the news with Middle Eastern cultures today. Nobody really gave a thought about the victim
There’s more to the great painter beyond this horrible, notorious event yet there’s no escaping the theory it influenced the topics of her later work. For example, her painting Judith Slaying Holofernes could be an outlet over the matter. Others say Artemisia was catering to her patrons; gory stuff was in demand. Additional works she’s known for: The Conversion of the Magdalene, Self-Portrait as a Lute Player and assisting her father in decorating the ceiling of Queen Henrietta Maria’s Greenwich house before the English Civil War.
Outside of art, Artemisia was friends with another Florentine resident you may recognize…Galileo.
Forgetting that Friday is the party to accommodate everyone’s busy schedules, not his birthday, I failed to write about it yesterday. Plus I’ve been distracted over some other news that’s still fuzzy.
My friend Matt is pretty cool and our friendship goes beyond him being the kickass rogue in my revamped, way better D&D campaign. We hang out at hockey games. We share TV shows. We generally shoot the shit like last Thursday because his wife and fellow player (kickass warrior) wasn’t feeling well, side effects of pregnancy.
See! Before there was FaceBook, Friendster, MySpace, all the Internet dreck…D&D was a form of social media!
The newer buildings at work in Austin were recently completed while I was away on leave and one contained the new gym. It’s not just larger with more equipment (no more waiting for a stairmaster or treadmill) but the joint has better perks.
First is the water dispenser in the photo above. We’ve always been encouraged to bring our own bottles/containers. The counter on the fountain for refilling seems to add an incentive. I think it’s measurement is based upon the American standard of 12 ounces or maybe the international half liter.
Second is the sauna in the locker room. There’s been some kinks. New gear doesn’t always work perfectly plus I’ve been told people were accidentally breaking it by pouring water on the rocks. Whoops! Not needed, the rocks are heated by an electrical doohicky underneath.
Last is the greatest. They polled to see which of us were showing up on a regular basis and if you were pretty consistent like I was was, you got offered a nice deal. For 10 bucks I have my own “permanent” locker with laundry. Laundry? Yeah. I put my dirty workout clothes (aka the shirt and shorts) in a special porous bag with my locker number on it, drop it off in the laundry bin when I leave and boom, the next morning, my stuff is clean and waiting in my locker! What better incentive is there to get past 200 miles by Halloween…OK, Thanksgiving is more realistic.
Now I remembered one last bonus. A few of the treadmills tie into an application on my iPhone to help track my running progress. Sadly, they don’t manufacture the stairmasters Apple acquired.
Voila! Everything I need to run my campaign fits perfectly until Bestiary 5 arrives.
Roleplaying games (RPGs) are awesome but one huge downside is all the books. Sure, many contain optional rules/ideas you don’t have to incorporate if you don’t want to, contrary to the critics claiming “orthodoxy.” I just like to have the additional books around to shake things up, along with the players because after a few years, everyone masters the core rules. Here is where Pathfinder has D&D (currently 5E) clobbered, it has been able to build upon its official release in 2009 so while the new 5E has just three books and I think four adventures, PF has a couple hundred adventures with about 20 supplemental books.
Back to my solution!
The red circle shows the wheels. Let’s hear it for stone-age innovation.
I’m the DM (again) which means it helps to have these tomes at my disposal. Yes, I have copies of them on my iPad via PFR which is nice yet prefer the tactile element plus I often find it faster/easier to look up what I need in the moment. The electronic search engine element is clunky. Last year I bought this discounted trunk at Big Lots. The books fit alright. I just didn’t have enough (hard to believe right) to fill it “horizontally.” The gap was filled in with certain paperback supplements and adventures. Eventually, empty Apple boxes propped up everything on one side. The sheer weight made it crappy. Our game isn’t played at my house, it’s played at my friends’ various places…now a nice house in north Pflugerville. We’d have to take turns lugging this heavy-ass trunk. It was cute when one of their cats liked to hop in, hide in the empty spaces left by books in use. Still, nobody’s in the mood to perform a deadlift to my car before and after the game, we’ve all already had a long day at work.
Yesterday I dropped by the store-closing sale at a nearby Office Max. Amongst the throngs of paper, pencils, etc discounted from 20 to 50 percent was this smaller chest. It’s half as wide, the hinges don’t touch the contents and best of all, it has wheels with a telescoping handle! Now when I arrive to play (as DM or PC), I just lift it out of my car and pull it easily up the driveway! It’s perfect for conventions too. I would love to attend Paizo Con or Gen Con should the latter get the hell out of boring Indianoplace, I just dread checking this thing into the luggage section at the airports. I have a sinking feeling it exceeds 50 pounds.
Now I need to find something which will stack on top easily for my props: cards, dice, wigs, coins, wands…hey, you play a game with me, you receive the platinum experience.
While researching I see Austin has two conventions (or cons to the diehards) coming up next year. I think I’ll try to swing both, see if I need this new acquisition and how well it pans out!
This year has been a bit slow for Somara’s cakes. It hasn’t been a lack of demand, more along the lines of time with her current work. She did manage to squeeze this one through at the last minute for a favorite little girl. All the ponies on the cake can be “re-used” as the toys they were originally meant to be.
How did it go? As well as it can with little kids. The party was at this place I’ve never been to called Mount Playmore, it used to be a sporting goods store. Anyway, at their young age (pre-K primarily), they eat a couple bites and then vote with their feet (something the birthday girl’s father said) to get back to running around on the indoor playground.
For the adults? There were no complaints, just praise. I got a piece too. I liked it since Somara doesn’t overdo it on the icing, the part of birthday cake I tend to hate. Most cakes tend to taste like a mouthful of type two diabetes.
You probably recognize the surname at the grocery store, high-end candy sections or what reminded me to add him this year…the ice cream/candy place in Las Vegas that is situated between the Linq and Flamingo. It’s a good place to buy an after-dinner shake after an exhausting day of people watching and winning at the craps table.
Domingo becoming a chocolatier seemed inevitable. He was born in 1817 in Rapallo during the pre-Italy days, remember, Italy the state as we know it doesn’t exist until 1861 so the place was ruled by the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont. His father was an exotic food importer, no idea what this entails. To Americans, real Italian food is exotic. During his childhood Domingo landed an apprenticeship with Romanengo’s in Genoa, a respected chocolatier.
When he turned 20, he left to seek his fortune in the “new world” like many ambitious young men in the 19th Century. First stop, Uruguay to set up a candy store. Then Peru. South America is where he changed his birth name Domenico to the Spanish version Domingo we all know him for. But the Gold Rush of 1849 led him to the States where he tried his luck at finding a mother lode to become rich. Obviously it didn’t happen so he went back to being a merchant selling supplies to his fellow miners.
California continued to grow with the influx of immigrants and Americans from the East. This probably prompted Domingo to move to San Francisco in 1852. It was the largest city in the young state. Makes sense, it was ground zero for the Gold Rush. Instead of selling general supplies, he went back to running a candy store or the preferred 19th Century term, a confectionary shop. The region had become more “civilized” over the last few years and Domingo learned that the miners did like chocolate. With all the gold they were pulling from the earth, they probably could afford it.
The year 1865 was when Ghirardelli’s trademarked broma process was discovered. I think it’s up for debate whether or not it was an accident or intentional. The Vegas shop promotes the accident story, other sources are neutral. Anyway, the broma process Ghirardelli is famous for entails hanging the cacao beans in a warm environment so the cocoa butter drips out. What remains is ground into powder to make a more intense chocolate flavor. From there, Domingo went on to found a chocolate empire we recognize today and the location of the original store is immortalized in San Francisco…Ghirardelli Square.
Sadly Domingo passed away in 1894, ten years after three of his sons had become partners and took the company farther. However he succeeded in making his name synonymous with higher-quality chocolate.
Another amazing fact regarding Italian resilience. The Ghirardelli factory was operational within 10 days after the infamous 1906 earthquake. I doubt Hershey, Nestle or Mars could do the same!
Today Ghirardelli is a subsidiary of Lindt & Sprüngli, a Swiss corporation and if they’re anything like Nestlé, another Swiss monstrosity starving the world to death, the product’s general quality is questionable given the price tag. Still, I’ll support the Italians over the Swiss any day. Think about, have you ever been to a Swiss restaurant?
I was off to a good rebuilding start with the new gym at work (that’s its own story soon) and then boom, ouch! My right foot acted up. It felt like I stepped on caltrops; I don’t know this from experience, I’ve never lived in the Middle Ages, I just imagine stepping on those sharp buggers would hurt along those lines.
Thanks to Somara’s Google Fu, it’s only good ol’ plantir fasciitis. In English, it’s some kind of contraction/stretching thing. The cure is a brace and wearing my non-stylish running shoes most of the day because they have arch support. I also found the stair master being an interim exercise contributing to the faster recovery. How? It stretches my right foot more.
I think I’ll be running not he treadmill again Saturday.
…and the artificial marketing month of Bricktober courtesy of Lego.
This year’s header is a movie poster for a film made 50 years ago. That could be Sophia Loren, she was in practically everything back around the Sixties. However, she was not cast in this Italian movie about a group of Italians taking a trip to Sweden. This concludes what I know about the film via imdb.com.
Meanwhile, I should have some new, interesting, informative and entertaining posts about how Italians have made the world a better place or at least, they’ve contributed to the humanity’s collective knowledge.
Religion’s rebuttal? “Shut up! You’re going to hell anyway Science, you and your stupid facts and evidence!”
The best place in Austin to buy Playmobil celebrated this weekend in conjunction with their new espresso bar (next door). It was pretty sweet. There was cake, a scavenger hunt and party favors. Meanwhile, I picked up some goodies for Somara’s birthday too.
Remember to go here when you need to find something more creative and long-lasting. I’m guilty of loving the cheap plastic crap too (Star Wars namely) but I doubt Target carries a well-made slide whistle or a coloring book starring Cleopatra.
Unlike Trump, Palpatine doesn’t need to explain how his new policies are going to work to Wolf Blitzer and the numerous, vitriolic Barbie dolls from Faux News. He also dissolved the Senate, I’m confident he’ll “get things done” by dissolving Congress but don’t hold your breath for Ted “the Canadian” Cruz to join any rebellion, Palpatine is an Old, White Male. Definitely not a Christian but the Sith religion has enough Ayn Randian elements the Republicans agree with.
