This past week has been hugely humbling. The positivity around the news of my new job has been overwhelmingly positive. It isn't that I expected it to be negative, but I honestly expected it to be more neutral or indifferent. And instead the response from colleagues, friends, family and fans has been just truly humbling.
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Sharing some news
In 2011, when I announced that I was joining Wizards, I did so via an article on GatheringMagic.com. The article was titled "Are You Watching Closely?" It was written following the three parts of every magic trick as described in Christopher Nolan's The Prestige.
The first section of the article was "The Pledge." In it, I gave some background about my time starting GatheringMagic.com (well, ManaNation.com originally, and now it is the backend to CoolStuffInc.com's content), how it had grown, and how proud I was of what it had grown into over just a few years, before I then announced that I was leaving it to join Wizards.
Then, in the second part of the article, "The Turn," I gave more background on my new job, what it meant for me (moving from Orlando to Seattle, for one), and announced we were looking for someone to replace me running the GatheringMagic website. (A job that would eventually go to Adam Styborski.)
Finally, the article ended with me asking the reader to reread the introduction, having now read the article. But, when they scrolled back up the page, they found the first section replaced with "The Reveal," Nolan's third part of any trick. This section was my list of thanks to some of the people on the journey with ManaNation & GatheringMagic, which played a part in what led me to getting my dream job with Wizards.
That article and the simple gimmick remain one of my favorite pieces of content I've ever created, though the writing definitely could have been improved.
Well, no such trickery this time as you read this post. No flashy magic. Just this article.
What is the news? I'm starting a new adventure and am leaving Wizards. Tuesday, Nov. 11th, will be my last day as a Wizard. My first day with Wizards was Dec. 12th, 2011. This makes my time here exactly 13 years and 11 months, to the day.
Getting to be a Wizard has been a dream come true for me. I've played Magic for over 30 years and D&D nearly as long, though I didn't play a lot of 2nd edition AD&D. Getting to contribute to two games I deeply love was a fulfillment of a childhood dream.
The list of thank yous to everyone I've worked with on this journey is infinitely long and impossible for me to put together. It has been an amazing ride, and while I am sad it is coming to an end; I am excited for the start of something new!
Stay tuned for more news in the coming weeks!
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There are few better ways to nourish your soul as good as spending an evening with close and dear friends who have moved away.
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Some days your body just decides to wake you up at 4 in the morning. I really wish it wouldn't do that.
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"What makes people flourish?"
A study about what makes people not just survive but flourish. It got answers from over 200k people around the world.
The aspects they asked about:
- Happiness and life satisfaction: how content and fulfilled people feel with their lives.
- Physical and mental health: how healthy people feel, in both body and mind.
- Meaning and purpose: whether people feel their lives are significant and moving in a clear direction.
- Character and virtue: how people act to promote good, even in tough situations.
- Close social relationships: how satisfied people are with their friendships and family ties.
- Financial and material stability: whether people feel secure about their basic needs, including food, housing and money.
Honestly the list above for how they broke it down is the main thing I took away from this article. A lot of the data seemed either things I already believe, or were somewhat expected.
There was one stat about work status leading to people flourishing more, which is pretty obvious. I thought it interest that self-employed people were higher than those who worked for others, but I suspect that is a fair bit of survivorship bias as the people working for themselves are the ones who had "made it" and found it able to fund their life, and thus they were happier, and those who tried who make it but fell short are underrepresented as they probably identified more as "working for someone else."
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Once Clogged Twice Dug: My Septic Tank Adventure
I was sick last week, so I ended up taking most of the week off of work. By Friday I was turning the corner, which was fortuitous timing as our household had some plumbing issues that necessitated me calling in professionals.
When we bought our house in 2014, we made sure they had the septic tank pumped. And then... we didn't do it after that. I somewhat blame my parents who rented homes for most of my life and though it might have been on septic systems rather than sewer, I was never aware of those tanks being pumped - even though we lived in my childhood home for the entirety of my schooling. So I had internalized a 10-year timeline for getting the septic tank pumped (which is, as it turns out, very wrong.) Katie reminded me during this week that she had brought pumping the septic tank up a few years into being homeowners and I had brushed it off as a scam of companies wanting to do it more frequently. Oops.
You, dear reader, are encouraged to get yours pumped every 3-5 years as a homeowner. A lesson I'm now taking to heart after this.
So, this is why I wasn't terribly surprised when the house suddenly stopped draining. I figured "Oops! Tank's full, time to finally get it pumped."
So that's what I did. I knew where the access point was, and after getting a company which could come out the same day, they asked if they would be digging it out or if I would be. After disclosing it was an extra $150 if they pump it, I said I'd do it - even though I still didn't feel great. I get the shovel out and it doesn't take long, but I get to the lid and stop.
They arrive, the tank thankfully was not as awful as was feared. He pumps it out and off he goes. I stupidly didn't go and check the house. I go inside and immediately hop in the shower, only to discover that the shower is completely stopped and not draining.
Shit.
Well, the tank was just pumped, so maybe the fullness caused an issue in the actual plumbing under the house. So we get our plumbers out there and while I'm waiting for them to arrive, I go ahead and recover the septic tank to avoid any issues with the dogs in our backyard.
Which, as it turned out, was a mistake. The plumber who came out was a nice guy and the first thing he asked after hearing the situation was to see the septic tank.
Jokes on me. So out we go to the yard and I dig it up again.
Once we had access again, the plumber took a look for 5 seconds and apologized, thinking that it hadn't actually been necessary. As he's about to cover it back up, he pauses and changes positions and looks at the intake pipe and he realizes that the septic company hadn't cleared that pipe, and it was now fully blocked.
Thankfully he had a metal rod that he could use to reach in the tank and puncture the blockage, letting the trapped water from my shower and other water uses, begin to pour into the septic tank.
Okay, thank god we got into the septic and he was able to address the actual issue. Well worth digging it up twice.
I was diligent this time and we went into the house and confirmed that toilets, sinks, and showers were all draining. I did have him go ahead and snake out my shower drain as it had been slow draining before these recent issues - but otherwise everything else came back okay.
So, after several hundred dollars, the house plumbing is restored and that day enshrined me in the rarified homeowner pantheon for "those who have dug up their septic tank twice in one day."
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The Barbershop
I think I have been to the barber (that is, a true barber vs hair stylist) once in the past fifteen years. Ironically, that time was just for a hair cut. But today I am heading to a nearby barbershop for a haircut and beard trim. I'm ridiculously excited for it.
I happened on a TikToker the other day who was talking about the barber shop is like putting on makeup for women, they go in a bridge troll and come out a "damn!" I can see that. I always feel a huge spike in self confidence after a haircut.
(I have to write about inane things to avoid spiraling over the state of American politics.)
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I was in a very bad mood for much of yesterday. I knew I had not slept well, but I think I underestimated how much that poor night's sleep had impacted my day yesterday. After a good night's sleep I woke up feeling refreshed and in a far better mood.
Usually, I aim for 6ish hours of sleep. And I know my body struggles if it has less than 5 hours, of which yesterday was a day, but most of the struggling yesterday was mental where as most other days it is more physical tiredness. I can only attribute this difference to the inevitable march of time.
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Been a busy day, haven't had a moment to stop since I got to the office at 7:30. Time to order pizza, watch TV, and resist pulling out the work laptop to do more work.
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Today's coding output
Today was largely a lazy day except for some coding. Nothing was a major project, but I messed around with a few ideas and finally implemented a month calendar view for archives. Currently it's just in the sidebar of everyday to link the current month.
I also messed around with a few things:
RSS Headline Summarizer
A script which runs on my home machine where I can run a local copy of the Llama LLM, and I feed it the day's news headlines from my RSS reader, and it spits out a summary of the topics in the news. No real use, but was curious to mess around with the code for it.
Goliath
I worked on pulling all the links from my Bluesky and Mastodon feeds into its own RSS feed. This is a variation of something I had thought seriously a year or so ago which I called Behemoth. It would have been a combined reader for social feeds as well as RSS feeds, and other APIs I could fold into it.
Today was nowhere near that, and was just me poking around at the APIs for each platform, no full implementation.
Glowbug Calendars
As noted above, the calendar display for Glowbug. It's been on my to-do list for a while now and today was the majority of it. There's some more to do with reworking templating to allow the calendar to be set based on the page which is being generated.
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Overall, it wasn't anything too strenuous, but just fun explorations and distractions during the day.
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I had a lovely birthday dinner with friends after what can only be described as a memorable birthday day. Now, I'm heading to the airport for a work trip. Should be a fun one.
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My happy place. On the couch with soccer on the TV, a book in hand, and a sleeping dog next to me.
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Yesterday, Katie and I canceled our Sounders season tickets. We've had them since 2013. This isn't me winding up to make some screed about how angry I am at the club. The reality is, it just became a luxury we couldn't afford anymore, and the friends who have been buying tickets with us have dwindled.
At the peak, we had ten seats which we bought and friends bought in to us. But that has dwindled to fewer and fewer until we had one other couple who came to games with us this season and they decided they weren't going to renew for next season. And, we completely got it. We were in the same place. Them deciding to cancel gave us the permission we needed to also cancel.
We'll still go to games. We'll still watch nearly every game. We still love the Sounders. We just won't hold tickets to every game next season.
It's a bummer. Talking with a friend who was considering canceling his ticket, he struggled with the decision to do so because it was very much a core element of who he was. A sentiment I very much understand as a die-hard fan. But, for us, we just took a hard look at our finances and realized it was a sizeable spend we could cut.
Maybe we'll be back in a future season, we'll see.
Go Sounders.
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A Birthday Taskmaster
So yesterday my family departed for the next leg of their journey, then after a nap Katie and I went to a friend's birthday party. They put together a Taskmaster event and had attendees compete in various tasks. I placed third overall, but Katie did manage to win a task which sent us home with a massive vase filled with M&Ms and Skittles.
We had a great time and definitely something I'll be considering for future birthdays of my own. So, happy birthday Sarah, thanks for the amazing evening.
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A hard goodbye
Today Katie and I sent Elwood across the rainbow bridge.
He was 9 and a half years old, which was a good age for a dane. His health had been in continual gradual decline for the last several years and last weekend we both agreed the time had come. The meds weren't helping as much and his mobility was only worsening.
This past week has been rough with a lot of tears. We'll miss the big guy forever. But we were there with him, holding and loving him as he drifted off to sleep.
We're okay. Emotional, of course. But we know he was suffering and now he's not.
Keanu Reeves' comment about what happens to us after we die rings in my ears, "I know the ones who love us will miss us." And we will miss that big lovable oaf for the rest of our days.
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It just hit me: I go back to work tomorrow. After three weeks of vacation, this is going to be a shift in gears.
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Another Successful Holiday Party
Our ninth annual holiday party on Christmas was a success. We host a relaxed gathering on Christmas for people needing something to do, and tonight went smooth and was enjoyed by all.
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Old friends and togetherness
When Katie and I moved to Seattle, on our drive, we had planned to meet up with a highschool who was now living in Washington. It was the last day of our drive and I was over it, and as much as I wanted to reconnect with Jessica, I was also VERY eager to get to our place and be done with the roadtrip. So, we skipped meeting up and booked it for Seattle.
Jessica was a high school classmate of mine. She is a brilliant woman. She works with "Black Owned Social Services" a Co-op dedicated to growing businesses for POC in the renewable and solar industry. From BOSS's about page:
BOSS is the largest community of African American professionals working in the solar photovoltaic (PV) space. We are entrepreneurs, financiers, veterans, attorneys, engineers, contractors, developers and other peer partners. We possess deep knowledge, experience and strategic access to the multi-trillion dollar, emerging solar and clean energy technology marketplace that is fast reshaping sustainability, infrastructure resilience and livelihoods in our country and across the globe. We have established roots and relationships in all communities, and particularly those disproportionately impacted by climate change —in the United States and abroad. Our collective efforts are making communities more resilient, sustainable and economically powerful.
The mission of BOSS is to combine and leverage our collective power to lead actionable solutions for sustained access to equitable opportunities in clean energy production, distribution and storage for Black-owned businesses. BOSS was launched in the Fall of 2020 after an inaugural Solar Equity Summit (SES) on September 29, 2020. A common theme throughout the SES was the importance of policy in shaping markets to enable accessibility for Black-owned businesses to thrive in the clean energy sector. Energy equity is a key policy enabler to manifesting the mission of BOSS and plays a critical role in our endeavor to highlight unfair practices and provide recommendations for common actions to address them.
Our trip to Washington was nearly twelve years ago (!) and while we have chatted countless times online during that span, we haven't managed to actually see each other. She lives in Vancouver, Washington, with her husband which is basically Portland's other side across the river which is the state border, but that is only a few hours away - a very doable drive.
Well, a few weeks ago, Jessica messages me asking about hotel recommendations around Burien, another Seattle suburb. Turns out she was going to be in the area for a work event. Katie and I immediately invited her to stay with us.
So, Friday, she arrived and we spent a lovely evening together. Catching up, reminiscing, and just enjoying the connection of old friends. I smoked ribs for us, and Katie made a delicious cake which uses angel food cake, pineapple, strawberries, pudding, and cool whip.
After she left Saturday morning, we had already been planning to make our way down and see the event she was working. But also we realized we hadn't taken any photos together. So, when we did meet up with her at the event, we made sure to commemorate the gathering with a "ussie."
While there, we also got to run into her brother, another old school friend, James. James is a fellow D&D fan, and we stood there talking about stuff for probably close to thirty minutes. He also lives in the state. And Jessica grabbed this ussie.
Great times. It truly was like no time had passed and we just enjoyed the togetherness. We're not going to wait fourteen more years to see each other again. And it's probably our turn to travel south.
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That Time Topher Grace Backed Me Up
My usage of Trick for my name is sometimes not obvious to folks. This is one such example of the realization happening a few years ago on Twitter. An acquaintance had it click and I provided the background that I had been inspired by Topher Grace for it. And then the legend himself backed me up.
Good times.
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Another party with extreme gezellig
Every year we host two events, a 4th of July BBQ and then a Christmas party. Today was the BBQ and it went fantastic, as always. It's such a wonderful social event. At one point, as I was grilling, I just sat on the edge of my porch and listened to all the people chatting - basking in the awareness of the event around me.
It's one of my favorite times during the year and it truly fulfills the feeling of gezellig in me. I feel so content and so happy and so fulfilled from these gatherings.
Looking forward to Christmas.
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