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The Kids

Congratulations Alex

I haven’t blogged in almost a year, so here’s a picture of Alex with Jack and Zoe. Alex graduated from boot camp in the United States Navy last week and is embarking on his new career as a nuclear engineer.

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Pathfinder MMO on Kickstarter

Slaying the Dragon

Photo by fireflythegreat under a CC-BY 2.0 license

Just before Christmas, I visited my local gaming store with the intent of buying the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set to play with the kids over the holiday break. It was time to step up from RPGKids, which I started with the kids a year or two ago. I’m a terrible Dungeon Master and lack creativity, so one of the things I was excited about in buying a set was that I’d be able to buy modules to help create the adventures for the kids.

Phantasy Hobbies was out of the D&D red box and the owner asked me if I had heard of Pathfinder, which is a continuation of the AD&D 3.5 rules after Wizards of the Coast had moved on to 4.0 rules. Pathfinder had bought the license to the 3.5 ruleset and created an ecosystem to let the 3.5 rules live on. I went home that night and read up on Pathfinder and found the Pathfinder Beginner Box, with a limited and easier to use ruleset, would work perfectly to play with the little ones. The next day I returned to my local gaming store and bought the Beginner Box. One of the best features of Pathfinder is how much content they make available via PDF, both free and paid. I was able to pick up a module that continues the first adventure in the Beginner Box, among other things.

This morning I came across on Twitter a link to the Pathfinder MMO, which is being bootstrapped on Kickstarter. Today’s the last day and they’re 90% of the way to their goal. Set to launch in about two years, the Pathfinder MMO is built on the Unity engine and will be available for both Windows and Mac. The last thing I need is another MMO in my life, but even at the $35 level which gets you the game, the addons are worth it. They’ve thrown in the PDF of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, and the Guide to the River Kingdoms sourcebook, which is worth about $25 by itself.

If you’re into roleplaying, help support ’em – it’s a good cause.

Ouch

I was traveling in Los Angeles when Kelly got a bit of a scare last week.

Jack was running around upstairs, ran into the bathroom, and he slid on the linoleum right into the shower door.

With a cut on his head bleeding profusely, I think Zoe was more scared than Jack was. (Zoe seems to have rolled a high D20 for empathy when she was born).

Kelly rushed them to the emergency room, where they numbed Jack and gave him 6 stitches. The ER nurses were amazed that after 12 years with 3 children, this was our first visit to the ER.

Jack’s doing well – since he can’t see the cut, it doesn’t bother him at all. Surprisingly, the nurses thought it won’t scar, and if it does, it will be very small and almost unnoticeable. He’ll get the stitches out later this week.

I miss all the fun when I’m off traveling for work.

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Nadrinplace.com

My son Alex has a blog.

And like his father, his alias (Nadrin) was randomly generated by a game.

My wife registered the domain and added it to my hosting account, and I installed WordPress for him this weekend, and he picked out the theme.

Good to know geekery runs in the family!

Here he is at his desk, his monitor is just out of sight on the left.

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More blogging

Turns out my wife has a blog. Who knew? She rarely posts, but her post today on Jack’s birth is fairly accurate.

Of course she didn’t tell me some of that until a day or two later. Well, probably for the best that way.

Toyota Sienna



DSC00191, originally uploaded by silwenae.

I officially feel old – we bought a 2005 Toyota Sienna minivan Saturday.

With the baby on the way, that will make 3, and 3 kids do not sit comfortably in a row in the back of my 2000 Ford Explorer, which we traded in.

We bought the XLE Sienna, which has a bunch of features, including heated leather seats, JBL sound system, power everything, and worst of all, some minor woodgrain in the center panel and on the inside front doors. Not too much thank god, but we bought the car sight unseen, as they were quickly running out of 2005s, and it was one of the few left in the state with the features we wanted. It’s nice enough, and drives nice.

But I miss my explorer, and now have to drive my wife’s 2001 Ford Escape while she drives the minivan. She’s about as excited to drive the Sienna as I am the Escape.

Obligatory Escape photo:

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