The contractor installed flooring is all in. Demolition work needed is done. Appliances are actually back (mostly) in place.

Now I’ve got to get the base moldings cut and installed, the transitions from the rooms with newer hardwood in place and finish the office floor.

It is finally starting to feel like the light at the end of this tunnel isn’t a train 🙂

Unfortunately, the motherboard that I ordered for the  VR computer seems to have had flaky memory sockets (I saw a number of reviews reporting similar issues) and I’m returning it. I’ve ordered an alternate (ASUS brand) board as a replacement.

Once I get past my current feeling overwhelmed by the range of issues that must be dealt with I can get back to interesting sandbox stuff.

Got to refinish the top of my desk while the office is ripped apart. I like the desk a lot but it was a bit banged up when we inherited it from the people who had rented our first apartment before us. A good cleaning up followed by a coat of stain and some polyurethane and I expect it will be very nice.

Of course, when the VR machine is together, it will need a place to live. Currently I’m in the process of setting up GFI outlets in the basement and need to grout the area around the drain channel I cut some time ago to ensure that any water that makes it into the basement does not get past the first few feet of floor.

Add in shingling the catio roof and I’m mostly done…

but then is it ever otherwise 🙂

I’ve been doing a lot of house related work as we get the upstairs and kitchen floors updated. Got to shingle the catio roof and deal with a few hanging details in the finished part of the basement as well.

I have been updating a couple of wargames that I’ve very much enjoyed playing in the past. I’ve bought the latest edition of Federation and Empire, a Star Trek (the old series) themed strategic board game that I owned the original version of, but never got a chance to play as it came out towards the end of my time in college and I never found the time.

I’m in the process of buying the updated pieces of the tactical game from the same company, Star Fleet Battles which I played extensively in high school and occasionally in college. I love the game though it is rather complex in its full form.

I’m hoping that as an ’empty nest’ parent I may find time and locate opponents for games like this in the relatively near future.

I also want to see what sorts of things I can put together as networked, computer managed games inspired by these old board war-games. I’ll probably do something completely crazy and impractical like building a virtual game table in VR as a sandbox project. Stay tuned and if time permits, things may happen.

Haven’t been doing any significant photography as there have been too many other things going on to eat up time and energy. I still need to post process photos from the British Isles cruise and many other things. I will get back to that stuff, just not likely any time too soon.

I have created a free level team DropBox account for team ‘NineCrows’ as a way to exchange larger items with people. Some friends we met on our UK cruise asked how to send pictures our way and, while I know it is possible to get them on the site here or email them, both can be limiting in terms of size and/or messy to set up. This DropBox may make hand-offs easier.

I still need to figure out the details involved in adding people to this team account so that shared access works as expected. Stay tuned on that front.

Lots of ways to move things around the web and I seem to be winding up with one from every column 🙂 Not a bad thing really…