IntroD&Duction

Some time ago, a friend at church told me that her nephew had expressed an interest in Dungeons & Dragons, and this aunt expressed shock that her relative was unaware of my longtime interest in and passion for this game. I told the aunt I would be only too happy to talk to them about it and perhaps even play a game if the opportunity presented itself. Maybe we could even have it a rainy day event at our annual May Long Weekend Family Camp at Rundle's Mission. 

The planning for an event like that never came to pass but I told the aunt I would bring along some of my stuff just in case, and she and her mother could perhaps make our subject aware of this, as I didn't want him to feel any pressure from me, just opportunity. I was a teenaged boy myself once, after all, and am keenly aware of the variety of dynamics at play here.

Saturday was a pretty grey day indeed, so I spent part of the afternoon upstairs in the lodge by a window cleaning and assembling a unit of Greatswords for my Warhammer army. An entirely different nephew approached me and asked if the models I was working on were for D&D. I explained they were more for wargaming, but coincidentally, had brought some D&D items along and would be happy to show him if he was interested. He thanked me and went about his day while I completed my task (deliriously happy to find myself using these models after they languished unpainted for nearly two decades!).

The next day I got up early to help with preparations for the traditional Sunday breakfast, and helped with serving following a lovely outdoor service. When I was relieved from my duties, I enjoyed a hearty serving of pancakes and sausages with my family, and had just pushed away my empty plate and was cotemplating some horizontal self-care when this same curious individual from the day before tapped me on the shoulder.

I turned and saw that he had brought three other teenaged and teen-adjacent individuals with him, and he informed me, "Hey, so we're ready to play D&D whenever you are."

"Uh...yeah!" I stammered. "Sure thing! Give me a minute to grab my stuff and let's do it." I headed to the stairs so I could retrieve my D&D bag from my bunk, and apparently more than one person was moved to remark how I resembled either a parade marshal or the Pied Piper leading a cohort of teens to the upper floor. 

We quickly pulled a couple of tables together by the window, and I set up my DM screen at one end of it, then started laying out the rest of what I'd need. I was not completely prepared for four players by any stretch of the imagination, but not completely unprepared either. I had printed off five character sheets from the Phandelver starter set, having used them before and appreciated how much helpful info they contained beyond raw stats, including sample character names, a common stumbling block. I'd brought along some appropriate miniatures, including a couple of female iterations, which proved fortunate, as there was a female player present. She got first pick because of this, and the three fellows rolled off for first pick of the remaining characters. I handed out figures after they chose.

Tragically, I had only brought two sets of dice, which was not ideal, and had also forgotten that while the sheets did list some suggested spells, they did not contain any real details like ranges or damage and such, which was a real hold up for the wizard and cleric players. 

Instead of the bulky vinyl Chessex mat with a 1" grid I normally favour, I had brought along a set of dungeon tiles. These are great for improvising an environment on the fly, but much less useful for following an established dungeon, which I happened to be doing. Well, noted for next time, let's get at it, I thought.

I began by going over the character sheet, explaining classes, scores and saving throws (another note: next time, start by going over the array of dice - most people haven't worked with a full set of polyhedral randomizers before!).

This didn't take too long at all, and soon I found myself setting the scene for an Adventurer's League episode called The Dead at Highsun. Accepting a cleric's invitation to investigate a crypt in an ironically immaculate graveyard, Tim the Swordsman, Jim the Dwarven Cleric, Erich the Halfling Rogue and Navara the Elven Wizard (who actually played with a school group) very quickly found themselves trapped in a gas-filled chamber, but very quickly figured out the puzzle needed to not only save themselves, but also reveal a secret entrance to the unknown catacombs below!

Descending (mostly) boldly into the depths, they soon bested a trio of skeleton warriors, but the second room contained an unexpected challenge. In a lab-like setting with a cauldron, shelves of books and a table full of beakers, burners and bottles, a note read: "Raaxil. I have figured out how to complete the process. When you are ready, simply pour the contents of this blue pot into the cauldron and stir. The effects should be instantaneous, but DO NOT DRINK THE RESULTING POTION."

Reading this note prompted some wary glances amongst many of the group, but Tim's immediate question was, "Can I sip it?"

I blinked rapidly and shook my head. "Uh... well, yes, you can." I skimmed the room entry and noted that this would require a DC 20 Constitution save (ambitious even for a Dwarf with +3 Con, requiring a natural 17 or higher on a twenty-sided die) or Jim would take 6d6 poison damage. "Do you think you should though?"

From the other end of the table, two players expressed vehement opposition to this plan."Why would you do that?!" Navara's bewildered player asked. But not everyone was so opposed.

"He totally should," asserted Tim (Jim's player's brother). "Do it," he urged. "Do it!"

Erich spoke up. "Why don't we check out the rest of the room and these bookshelves first?" he suggested helpfully. Tim tried to indicate he can't read, but I explained all cleric roles require literacy, which I think he found a little disappointing.

They found a few more clues that eventually dissuaded the cleric from drinking a mysterious but undoubtedly malevolent liquid, but by that point Tim's curiosity was insatiable, so he grabbed the blue pot and headed towards the cauldron to pour it in to "see what would happen." I asked the other players what they were doing, and spent the next ten minutes improvising rules for a game of liquid keep-away, that saw Navara try to grab the pot from Tim and fail, but Erich managing to not only succeed, but also keep it away from Jim, whose inquisitiveness was similarly peaked and was grasping for it. 

When Tim stated his own intention to reclaim the pot, I looked at Erich and silently mouthed "smash it."

"Um, I smash the jar on the ground," he said.

"Aw," replied Tim.

I was so grateful that weapons hadn't been drawn that I completely overlooked an epic opportunity to reference Lonely Island's "Threw It On the Ground", but that was probably for he best anyhow. 

At any rate, the party advanced on to the final room, complete with a mock dragon hoard, teleportation circle and a number of inert bodies with a variety of dragon parts attached to them, which of course animated as zombies shortly after the adventurers began examining things.

The final fight scratched a lot of itches; the cleric got to heal the wizard after she dropped to a single hit point, the rogue got to sneak attack, magic missiles saved the day and Tim's greatsword was relentless. Zombies are a dramatic opponent as they actually get a saving throw against being taken out of action, so reducing them to zero hp is not enough on its own.  

There was a critical hit but also an important Death Save (following a failure), and as Erich's player wound up to roll my largest d20, the apprehension on his face was palpable, despite the fact that 1) this character hadn't exited three hours prior and 2) he might never actually play him again.

Truly, I was delighted to witness it, but even more delighted at the cheers around the table when he rolled a 17 (and not a natural 1), so that Jim could use his last spell slot to heal Erich and get him back into the game.

After the fight, they finished their examinations, destroyed the circle and reported back to Brother Keefe for their reward (25 gp each!) as well as levelling up.

Following the game, my four young charges expressed earnest appreciation for our game (more than once, in fact, over the next day or so), but I was just as grateful. 

Jim's player told me he was going to a D7D camp that summer with a friend, and was grateful for a chance to see what it was all about before being stuck all the way in. And as we were leaving today, Erich's player came over as I was loading the Lander to thank me again, and said he was already looking at starting a campaign with some of his friends. 

Hard to think of an outcome more satisfying than that!

The Greatswords that kind of caused the whole thing

Fancy Feasting at 59

I begin the final year of my fifties on Monday, so this weekend we went out for dinner. It doubles as our Mother's Day outing, just like it did when I was a boy, and Glory picked up the tab in exchange for the title to Mum's Jeep that I inherited in 2019 and which she has driven almost exclusively the past few years.

She was initially resistant to the idea of the trade dinner taking place on my birthday, thinking that I was cheating myself out of an extra meal out, but when I explained that her mother and I share a bank account, she understood and became quite agreable. She remained so when I asked if we could go to Atlas steak + fish, the restaurant attached to the casino in West Edmonton Mall, so that's where we went.

I put on a tie because, honestly, why not? I don't have a ton of cause to wear one anymore, and it is nice to give some intentionality to the event and just change things up.

Despite being a fancy place with a live piano player, most people were dressed pretty casually, but we all had some denim on so it's not like we stuck out or anything. Our server, Shea, seated us in a booth and before too long we were tucking into some fresh baked bread with blue cheese butter and a delicious order of beef carpaccio. 

Three of us ordered small to moderate steaks (none of us daring to look at the double orders like the porterhouse or 155 oz tomahawk) while Audrey got seared Ahi tuna, because, hey, it's not like we have that at home. 

We over-ordered the sides though, not understanding they were shareables, some of which came in delightful little cast iron pots. The girls were ecstatic with the whipped brie mashed potatoes, while I thought the Brussels sprouts with pistachio and mortadella crisp were aboslutely amazing. And of course, the enormous pepper mill never fails to delight.

Glory added a lodster tail while Fenya got seared scallops to accompany their steaks. We also had a peppercorn sauce prepared  at our tableside, which involved an impressive amount of flame and was also delectably savoury. More than enough sauce for six steaks too, if it came to that.

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The steak were done to a turn and very well seasoned, but I mentioned how they made me feel better about my own steak game. "That's why I got the tuna," Audrey said. (I'm grilling steaks tomorrow just to use up the leftover sauce!)

Oh, and before the steaks even came over, they presented us with a selection of knives to choose from, and Shea outlined suggestions based on weight, grip and style, relative to the dish ordered. Maybe y'all see this all the time, but it was a first for me and made me feel a little provincial (despite recognizing the Laguiole knives from the bees mounted above the grip), but not in a bad way.

Not my pic, nicked it off the web, but just like this

It was all quite delicious and even a bit elegant - dining with three lovely ladies will have that impact though - and for my birthday, they even threw in a complimentary dessert. Having never tried baked Alaska, that seemed the obvious choice. The girls hadn't even heard of this perhaps fanciest of treats, and were delighted by the presentation as well.

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The combination of spongy cake, cool, fruity sorbet and toasted meringue was absolutely amazing, and no, like the peppercorn sauce, I shall not be attempting to make this at home!

We finished our meal with a bottle of icewine, a drink that always takes Audrey and I back to our time in Ontario. They served it in snifters, and Glory, surprisingly, found the taste superior to the smell, while I find such beverages a feast for the olfactory as well.

It was a wonderful experience from pillar to post, with wodnerful treatment from the staff. Out budget means it will take another special occasion before we return, but I honestly hope it isn't too long!

Funny story about this picture: both girls commented on how much they liked it, which I found tremendously gratifying, as I am more than a little self-conscious, especially living in a household full of gorgeous people. 

Then Glory offhandedly said, "Yeah, I think if you were to pass away suddenly, this is almost certainly the picture we would use for your little, you know, funeral card."

Fenya gasped. "That is exactly what I was thinking too!"

Ah, the joys of family. (Honestly.)

Canned Tragedy, or "Whoops..."

The road to hobby hell, it seems, truly is paved with good intentions.

The Space Hulk boardgame was my introduction in 1990 or so to the Warhammer 40,000 universe: board sections to lay out a derelict spaceship (the titular hulk), counter for doors and other details, and most critically, the miniatures: 20 or so alien Genestealers, and 10 Space Marine Terminators in Tactical Dreadnought Armour. Sure, they were primitively sculpted but they fully captured the imagination, and laid the foundation for my first two 40K armies, as well as over a decade of working with the publisher, Games Workshop.

About a year after parting ways with GW in 2007, I picked up a copy of the revamped game (with far cooler figures) from the Kingsway store I had once looked after as manager, then cell manager, and finally regional manager. The box was damaged so the manager kindly discounted it for a former colleague.

I have unpacked the box a few times, long enough to have applied a coat of blue to the 'Stealers and red plus a black wash to the Blood Angel marines, and there is photographic evidence of having played with Totty in 2018 - which may be the only actual game I have played with this set.

The unfinished nature of these models began nagging at me of late, and in truth, I have no earthly idea why. But for whatever reason, I was compelled to dust off the Genestealers recently with the intent of completing them in 1-2 weeks.

With the blue applied to their carapaces, it was really just a question of  painting over the exposed fleshy bits and then coating that with a purply Speed Paint, and finally picking out the claws, teeth, eyes and other details.

Oh, and the bases, which are overwrought and underbalanced but I love them. Speed Paint stood me in good stead once again for things like extensive skull-based inlay or wiring trunks and such.

A couple of weeks of listening to podcasts and Project Hail Mary interviews (as well as the awesome audiobook), and they were all done - not great by any stretch, barely good in places, but completed and table-worthy after nearly two decades! 

Now just to varnish them. I grabbed a full can and headed to the front step, shaking it vigorously.

I was on about my third pass when I realized I was re-priming my models. 

It had been so long since using this particular spray, Roughcoat, that I had completely forgotten that it was a grey primer, not at all like the 'Ardcoat gloss varnish I had confused it with. 

I raced into the house and tossed them into the sink with running water. I soaped up a soft -bristled brush and took that to them as well, but it accomplished very little.

Well, that isn't quite true - the moisture re-activated some of the first-generation Speed Paint I had used, de-tinting many of the heads and hands of my fearsome aliens, as well as leaving fuchsia spots on the counter top that took significant effort to remove. And I suppose some of the fresher primer was washed or rubbed off as well.

Most people I have related this mishap to have been very understanding - a 'there but for the grace of God go I' sort of thing I imagine. And even my initial fury at my own stupidity has relented a bit now, five days later. I mean, at the end of the day, even marred like this, those 'Stealers still look better to me now than they did unpainted.

I am unsure what, if anything, I will do about these models. I may try inking them or touching them up in some fashion, or perhaps I will just play with them as is.  For the time being, they are just going to sit in the box until I finish the Terminators - hopefully completing them within another decade or so. ; )

Back to Base-Sicks

Once again, a legacy wargame from my past may potentially be in my future, resurrected, Lazarus-like, by the son of a friend.

My first love was always the sci-fi setting of Warhammer 40,000, but the "rank-'n'-flank" mechanics of Warhammer Fantasy Battle had a undeniable appeal all their own. 

With densely packed units of infantry and cavalry wheeling and marching across a largely open tabletop, rarely questioning which units or models have line of sight to the others or who has cover , while evoking the pre-20th century maneuvering of historical battles such as Gettysburg and Waterloo, WFB was a classical wargamers dream - but with dragons and giants and wizards to keep things lively.

The game was discontinued shortly after I left Games Workshop in 2007 in favour of a wildly different skirmish game (Age of Sigmar) set in the aftermath of the destruction of WFB's setting, a fantasy-tinged, vaguely pre-renaissance Eurocentric globe simply called "The Old World".

So when GW announced a return to rank-n-flank with a ruleset called Warhammer: The Old World, I was happy so see it, sure, but didn't see any real applicability to me. When my young associate said he was getting into the game with a Goblin army and asked if my Empire force might be interested in a small scale scrap, I had to give it at least a look, didn't I?

Defenders of Averland, where social order is defined by hat-size

The very first thing I discovered was the crushing revelation that pretty much my entire Empire army would need to be re-based. You see, the infantry of my human-sized army (and anything simliar or smaller size, such as Elves or Goblins) was mounted on 20mm x 20mm square bases, where larger figures (Orcs, for example) were mounted on 25mm square bases. This meant a row of four Savage Orc warriors took up the same frontage as five of my Empire spearmen, giving me a slight advantage over this larger, sturdier foe.

On the other hand, the larger bases would make it far, far easier to rank figures up tidily, and made them less vulnerable to template weapons, such as dragon's breath or exploding cannonballs and the like. So I didn't have any philosophical opposition to the idea, but the effort to recalibrate to the new regime might be prohibitively labour-intensive.

Now, if re-basing woes sound familiar to you, you may recall a similar lament when the current edition of Warhammer 40,000 was released in 2003, complete with free rules and army lists. This had an undeniable appeal to my budget-conscious wargamer soul, but nto only was it a lot of rebasing, it was a lot of different rebasing, and the potential enjoyment never seemed to equal the expenditure of effort required, so I never started, and now a new edition is already on the way anyhow, so bullet dodged perhaps?

I feared a comparable outcome of my survey of WOW, but in searching out the quickest way to rebase entire armies, I came across an intriguing prospect: since formations of soldiers are typically moved around on holders called movement trays, what if you didn't rebase your figures? What if you adapted larger trays to hold smaller figures, achieving almost exactly the same effect?

A Spanish hobbyist on YouTube demonstrated how to achieve this with corrugated cardboard and tape, moving from a ruler approach to pre-printed templates he generously provided at no charge. But cutting out 100+ individual slots for my figures didn't seem like a huge improvement from re-basing them, to be honest.

Thankfully, I was not the only individual feeling that way, and a helpful soul has made 3d-printable files for trays precisely like these available on the interwebs. 

For such things, it is remarkable to have a friend with overlapping interests, in this case, miniatures and 3d printing. Did I mention he is also my young associate's father and is likewise being drawn along in this young man's wake? Delightful - the more the merrier!

At any rate, he graciously printed up a set of trays that should enable me to re-purpose my Averlander army in a much, much shorter timeframe than rebasing them.

Certainly, painting and texturing these trays to match my existing armies will be somewhat time-consuming, but compared to all new bases?

I am still perplexed as to what to do about these 4-man bases I put together around 2005, the cuitting edge of wargaming expediency at the time. I have five of them...

Now I have to decide if it is easier to somehow cut the base into four pieces or maybe sand down the slot ridges in the tray - but the uneven columns that would result make me shudder.

At any rate, the idea of an army I painted two decades ago and which hasn't been touched in probably 15 years returning at long last to the battlefield has a lot of appeal to me in terms of both spectacle and effective recycling. Wish me luck!

Watch Out - Birthday!

It all began with looking at watches together. And almost ended there.

Maybe you can't relate to this, but being a style-blind male in a household of style-conscious (but by no means conformist fashion victims) females? It makes things like gift purchasing for my wife a legitimately fraught prospect. 

I mean, I truly appreciate the fact that our relationship is one where we are able to be honest with each other, and I've learned not to take it personally when she asks to exchange a wool coat (that I surprised her with at Christmas) or expresses a preference for a different piece of jewelry (than the engagement ring I had picked out). No, seriously; I would be gutted if I ever found out she only accepted a gift from me to prevent me from feeling bad - which is why most times I am careful not to ask. 

The struggle is, as they say, real.

But I knew she was considering replacing her existing wristwatch, and I knew her nature would prohibit her from spending an adequate (not exorbitant) but adequate amount of money to secure a quality timepiece. 

So over month before her birthday, we started looking at watches on the Costco website, which led to many discoveries.

How about this pink one? Nice, but too girly, really.

This blue one? Mm, I think the face is too big, I'd worry about breaking the crystal.

This one with the gold and silver band? Ooh, that's actually - ugh, no - it has little jewels around the face... too much bling for me.

I shrugged and put is aside but never stopped searching on my own. Trying to find a stylish ladies watch, relatively blingless, with the proper-sized face and a metal wristband was proving fruitless. I had also hoped to find her one that would not require replacing the batteries, like the Eco Drive I got in 2018 after ten years with my employer. 

But just last week, with no other gifts panning out and still holding out hope, I checked the Costco site on a whim. I discovered they had recently added a new Citizen Eco Drive, with a gold and silver band but with zero bedazzlement. Yesterday morning, while doing all the shopping (including Audrey's requests for tiki drinks after her birthday sushi outing, I saw it in stock at my local warehouse and picked it up. 

At Gintaro for sushi

Driving home though, the second guessing began. I told myself that the store's ridiculously permissive exchange policy meant the watch was a no-risk purpose, but there was more than financial impact at stake, here...and not my ego either.

What man doesn't want to, at least occasionally, delight the most important woman in his life?

There have been so many times I have given up on surprise, taken her shopping and paid for the thing she selected to ensure reception, but sometimes I long for the sense of surprise I have achieved on select occasions in the past.

Both girls were home when I returned with the watch, a cavalcade of groceries and two bottles of Lamb's Navy Dark. After they helped to get everything stowed (bless 'em!), I asked if they wanted to see what the gift I had chosen. 

When I opened the box and showed them, they both made tremendously inflected and the precise number of Os in their "oooohh" so I began to relax.

I explained their mother's dislike of bling on watches and Fenya nodded, saying, "it's still pretty though - the face looks like it is made of marble." Glory agreed and liked that now the two of us would have similar looking watches. And they both marvelled at the revelation that it should never, ever need a replacement battery, which also helps maintain the watch's water resistance (50 m).

On a whim, I had bought a bag of Cracker Jack. I moved the watch from its box, placed it in a cloth bag while still wrapped around the pillow it came on, placed that into a ziploc and resealed this package inside the Cracker Jack with some super glue and packing tape (for the infuriating tears that appeared in two different places). I had done this same trick over twenty years ago with the family ring I gave her, which had honestly left her gobsmacked. (I waited two days before finally admitting I had opened the foil bag from the bottom and resealed it with glue, while she had opened it from the top and couldn't possibly have noticed.)

This time, I simply put the confection into a gift bag and covered it with crepe paper, but she still grinned delightfully when she saw it. (She did notice the packing tape repair while trying to extricate the interior bag.)

But I was so very gratified when she saw the watch and gave even more Os, with even more inflection that the girls had the afternoon prior. 

I am (probably inappropriately) transparent with the girls about some of my insecurities, such as giving gifts to their mother, so they both reassured me afterwards that I had done well, Glory adding that she had seen Audrey in the kitchen admiring the watch on her wrist, despite the band needing to be resized.

Happy birthday sweetheart - I hope you remember the surprise for a long, long time.

Project Hail Mary, Artemis II and My Introduction to Hopecore

I have been bordering on pushy, telling my friends and acquaintances to go see the movie Project Hail Mary. 

We watched it as a family the first Tuesday after release, and all four of us adored it. Any one of us would have happily turned around and walked right back in for a secodn showing, had that been an option. Fenya thought there was a chance of it ending up as her favourite science-fiction movie ever. For myself, I haven't been this evangelical about a movie in terms of bugging folks to see it in a theatre since Inception. I asked a friend who hadn't seen it if he wanted to go so I would have an excuse to watch it in IMAX.

And there are a lot of different reasons for this:

• a solid story, driven by science but wrapped in humanity
• a remarkable performance by Ryan Gosling (who also produced it), and almost half his screen time has no other humans to interact with
• a commitment to practical effects wherever possible, including puppetry and physical models of spaceships
• perhaps the best alien character since Mr. Spock, but far, far more alien

But that isn't the reason I am pushing folks so hard to not wait for this to stream, to see it in a darkened room with strangers.

The premise of the story revolves around the need to send a middle school science teacher 12 light years away in a last-ditch hope to save Earth's rapidly dimming star. Drew Goddard's screenplay (based on Andy Weir's (The Martian) novel) does not soft-peddle the horror of this, having the topic introduced in a classroom, resulting in 8th graders very quickly connecting the dots between a cooling planet, a global food crisis, and probable breakdown of society, and (understandably) getting quite upset.

But even with that grimness, underscored by the frank admission by the project's director (Sandra Huller) that the 30 year timeline they are working with assumes the world's governments working together to ration food (which they won't), hope permeates almost every scene. Sometimes desperately, sometimes whimsically, but very nearly omnipresently.

And that hope is closer to the reason for my zeal, but not the core of it.

Seeing a film that dramatizes so clearly and spectacularly the need for curiosity, openmindedness and friendship in desperate times, while we as a society and a species face a wholly different but still entirely fraught circumstance, was something I think I needed in my soul.

And experiencing it with a room full of people I don't know, and hearing sounds in the dark that made me realize they felt something similar as well? 

That was transcendent. 

I don't want to say much more about the movie itself because there are so many tiny discoveries to be made and I want you to have all of them, even if you do wait to see it at home (but please go if you can). And I really don't want to oversell it because a co-worker went to see it and disliked it so much she left before it finished, but I have to tellyou, that feeling it gave me felt awfully, awfully good, and I want more people to experience it. And I am sorry it didn't play out that way for my colleague, but hey, there is no accounting for taste, right?.

And looking on Threads (Meta/ Facebook's version of Twitter), it looks like a lot of folks share my sentiment about the flick, one of which introduced me to the term 'hopecore', which, please God, let this become a thing.

Hopecore, eh? You know, I am not entirely sure what that is....but I am pretty sure I want more of it.

Now, I fully realize that what I find touching you might find treacly or overly sentimental or whatever, so bear that in mind, but if these testimonials leave even the slightest bit curious, get our there before it leaves theatres. I've seen it twice already and will go again if it coerces someone else into seeing it in the wild.

Meanwhile, here in the real world, four genuine hero astronauts travelled further than any other humans ever last week, as the Intrepid spacecraft carried the Artemis II crew on a loop around the moon.

My sister and her husband (who is probably an even bigger NASA fan than me!) were up last week and we were able watch the launch together. I will admit, my heart was in my throat from liftoff to maybe the two minute mark, because Challenger's fate at 73 seconds into their flight abjectly refused my polite but firm requests to leave my mind, but it was honestly a beautiful thing to see and I am grateful we could all see it together.

But what was most surprising was how much interest was maintained throughout the mission - not just by my fellow space nerds, but the public in general seemed genuinely entranced by this mission. Maybe there was more interest up here in Canada because one of our own, Jeremy Hansen, was on a lunar mission for the very first time. Whatever the reason, hearing people in the grocery checkout line talk about the insertion burn or folks in church discussing the lunar slingshot was tremendously gratifying.

Similar to Project Hail Mary though, while the technology was amazing, the humanity was what a lot of us found most moving. 

First of all, one of the most diverse space crews ever, with a black pilot, female mission specialist, and a Canadian.

The emotion they shared went beyond mere excitement, such as when they shared the enormity of seeing a tiny Earth dwarfed by the Moon's proximity, and a giddy voice from mission control responded with a line from PHM:

Peak eye leakage for me came when they named a crater after the late wife of the mission commander, Reid Wiseman:

(Get effed, toxic masculinity!)

Anyways, the day after safely splashing down off the coast of San Diego, the Artemis II crew had a lot of great stuff to say, like Jeremy Hansen:

“What you saw was a group of people who loved contributing, having meaningful contribution and extracting joy out of that. And what we’ve been hearing is that was something special for you to witness. I would suggest to you that when you look up here, you’re not looking at us. We are a mirror reflecting you, and if you like what you see, then just look a little deeper. This is you.”

And Christina Koch:

“A crew is a group that is in it all the time, no matter what, that is stroking together every minute with the same purpose, that is willing to sacrifice silently for each other, that gives grace, that holds accountable. A crew has the same cares and the same needs, and a crew is inescapably beautifully, dutifully linked. I know I haven’t learned everything that this journey has yet to teach me. But there’s one new thing I know, and that is planet Earth: You are a crew.”

The greatest delight for me, though, continues to be the positivity, the optimism, the sense of hope in a time where it feels like we could really use more of it.

I watched Project Hail Mary on an UltrAVX screen and then again in IMAX. Glory and I watched the recovery of the capsule on my iPad while we ate dinner.

Whatever screen I might be viewing, please Lord, let there be more hopecore for me to see.

Easter-Birthday-Spring Break-Moonshot Visit Week!

Despite there being no shortage of things I could potentially blog about  - the global worry that WWIII could have kicked off yesterday instead of being TACO Tuesday, the Artemis II mission, my enduring love and appreciation for Project Hail Mary (seriously, go see it in a theater) - somehow I missed my self-imposed deadline of having something new to read at the beginning of each work week. My apologies!

There was plenty of time to have written somethng too, since I had taken all of last week off from work to coincide with Audrey's spring break from school. 

Tara and Jerry made it up from Texas on Wednesday; I cooked ribs on the Traeger and we watched the Artemis II launch together, as he is an even bigger NASA fan than I am. He shared an absolutely exquisite Bourbon County stout with me, as is his tradition (may his name continue to be blessed!), but we couldn't get too reckless since he was flying home the next day to relieve their dogsitter.

Tara, though, stayed until early Easter Monday, which I thought was terribly sporting of Jerry. We did a fair bit of nothin' together a couple of afternoons (which was delightful) but also: 

• Glory and her bestie Brooklyn took Tara out for supper at Tiki Tiki, as a thank you for the hospitality she and Jerry gave the two of them in TX last year 
• we all watched Jesus Christ Superstar together (an Easter tradition here, but Tara's first full viewing in decades)
• Tara took us all out to dinner at Argos, and we finally got to take her to Gracie Jane's (a bedazzled boutique gallery/bar)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• we had a Tiki party for Glory's birthday
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• we all went to Good Friday and Easter Sunday service
• on Good Friday we also got to hear Fenya sing a ten-minute excerpt (!) from Handel's Messiah and it was astonishing
  
  
  
  
  
• Sunday I started cooking the turkey I had brined the day before but needged my back and needed the rest of the family to step up and finish dinner - which they did, marvellously! And there were plenty of leftovers for sandwiches and soup 
  
  

  

  (turkey, stuffing, smoked bourbon cranberry sauce, bacon, brie and mayo)

  
  
• Easter eggs also made an appearance!
  
  
  
  
  
• early Monday, three of us got up at 4:30 a.m. to get Tara to the airport (Fenya had to work) and even the long ride out to EIA was enjoyable, despite saying goodbye to my sister for likely another year...
• and I even had time to meet up with my friends for D&D&D at Polyrhythm on Thursday!

Family, friends, food and drink and a little downtime - staycations can actually rock pretty hard in the proper conditions.