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What did you do this weekend?
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
Had a small gathering of friends & board games in lieu of a bachelor party, and then got married. You'd think that a 15 person backyard wedding wouldn't be the chaotic mess that a 100 person wedding would be, but boy did this little event win the contest pound for pound. I've coordinated events with 150 people before that were less slapdash than this. The hardest part for keeping everything going was that I lost my autonomy because I was an object of the attention, which means I couldn't run the audio, I couldn't direct what goes where and when, etc. I'm a better roadie than a rocker by a country mile.
Orchestration aside though, I'm super excited to start this new chapter with the love of my life. Tanking through two venue changes, and replanning this whole wedding twice with me really let me know who my wife is when things get rough, and I couldn't be happier right now.
What did you play at your not-a-bachelor party? I have imagined for awhile that instead of a wedding I would like to design a highly ritualized ceremony that would involve learning rules and hidden role gameplay. Congratulations on the nuptials~
Werewolf, mostly. Folks seem to enjoy the game a lot, and I do a decent job narrating.
Are you still intending to do a "full scale" ceremony when covid transmission is less of a risk?
I have a friend who was intending to get married in May, which got postponed by the venue to October, and even then they are not hopeful the wedding will happen this year. Another friend had a small scale marriage recently with the intention of having a larger version at a later time (the bride is Indian and those weddings get massive).
Not a full ceremony, but a vow renewal and party with the 100 or so original invitees is the plan. Should be fun, but I'm not exactly drawing up spreadsheets for it at the moment, since I can't even eyeball when it's reasonable to throw the thing.
My sister had a family-only version of her wedding in July and is having a larger party next July tentatively. Everyone else I know who had a wedding scheduled this year either postponed it a full year or had a small-scale ceremony with something else to come later when the pandemic eventually settles down.
Went Camping at Pinnacles National Park. It was 100°F(38C) when we got their on Friday at 6pm. The whole campground was reservation only and all booked up, but only 1/3 campsites were occupied. No camp fires allowed. All the Caves were closed. The Night was nice, got down the the high 60s(20C). We placed our lamps in the fire pit and sat around that and talked.
Got up early for a hike, and had a light breakfast, we were going to go on a quick hike, 3 miles(5k) out, and another 3miles (5k) back. Nothing horrible. Do it before the heat of the day sets in. We estimated wrong, and got out later then we hoped. By the end, our groups fitbits were estimating between 9-10 miles (16k) for the total hike. We didn't get back until just before noon. We brought light snacks that we devoured at the halfway point. We had enough water, but we did refill those when we pasted a water station on the way back.
We made a large brunch, laughing about how more people had packed up and left. We finished eating, and then the realization set in. It was going to be another 8 hours before the temp dropped below 100°F(38C). 8... more... hours... of 110(43C) degree temps.
We abandoned the plans for that night and the second day. We packed up everything. Made a beeline for the Coast.
When we arrived at the beach it was still beautifully sunny and warm. We found a nice sandy spot with no one around us for at least 50 feet. And like out of story book when you reach the promise land we were greeted by a whale breaching not far from shore. We think they were hump backs, and their were at least a pair of them, but it was hard to confirm from shore. We watched them for awhile as they came up to the surface to breath or showed their tails when diving.
After the whales made their way north, we hopped into the water, even though it was full of Green Sea Lettuce, we didn't care. We finally started to cool off. I didn't realize how over heated I had been until my body seemed to slowly unwind in the lolling waves. After reveling in the cool ocean, we dried off and laid out on the sand, and had a nice picnic on the beach. And just to add an exclamation point how much of a better decision it was to escaping that camping site in the devils butthole, as we were lazying on the beach eating prosciutto, fresh garden tomatoes, and select cheese's, a small pod of Dolphins came by and were playing in the waves close to shore as they moved south along the beach.
That is easily the best weekend since the pandemic started.
Hope everyone had a good one as well.
What possessed you to go camping in 100+ degree heat in the first place?? Very bold move.
We had reservations at the campsite already, so plans were set before the heatwave hit. Didn't know until we got their that all the caves were closed, and no fires allowed at the campsite.
Dusted off the old 3D printer and went to town printing things. I'm amazed that the PLA filament I had in it, which had been exposed to ambient humidity for a couple years, still printed pretty acceptably, but there wasn't much on the spool, so I went ahead and ordered more, plus a borosilicate glass print bed, which I'd been meaning to do for a while anyway. Since I've got it in my bedroom for the moment, I held off on trying out the old ABS or TPE spools until I build a ventilated enclosure. Thinking of making something nice and big with a heater and dehumidifier, to improve prints with those finicky filaments and so I can use it to store my filament spools. I'll probably end up running a dryer vent or similar outside to carry off the fumes.
As to what I printed, among other things I made a 60% case for a custom mechanical keyboard build, or at least half of one before my filament ran out. It's going to be the first I've built from scratch, and I'm planning on giving the Kailh Plum switches a shot, which are like Cherry MX Browns or Clears, but stiffer than both.
Good memory! To be honest, I mostly got them because they were super cheap, and I wanted to try out a higher actuation force tactile switch, since the only ones I've used previously were cherry browns, which I found lacking. I don't imagine it'll replace my BOX Navy keyboard, since I prefer clicky to tactile, and I do quite like the Navy switches on the whole, but if you're interested, I'll do a followup post after I've assembled the keyboard. Those BOX Royals do sound nice though. I might do a 40% keyboard after this one with those.
The box royal 40% keyboard will probably need to wait a bit, those have been out of stock on novelkeys for a while. But shipping and assembly time willing, I should have the plum keyboard built this weekend. Or at least have received some plum switches to give you my opinion on.
First impressions on the plums, having tested them out in hand, but not typed on them, is that they aren't very tactile at all. They practically feel like a stiff linear switch. I'll do a more in depth followup after I've gotten the keyboard built, which may be as early as later tonight, or as late as next weekend, depending on how programming the microcontroller and soldering up the switches goes.
Followup second impression, with the keyboard actually being (mostly) together: they aren't too bad. Typing on switches is always different to just testing them in hand; I ended up liking the navies more once they were in my keyboard as well. These are definitely more tactile than I thought at first, all though still not impressively so.
They are definitely the best of the tactile switches I've used (just cherry clear and brown), although I would like to try something with a bit more of a bump, whenever those BOX Royals become available once again. I'm already looking forward to the inevitable next keyboard build, which will probably coincide with the eventual arrival of my proper DSA caps from china in a month or so. Dunno if I'll do something crazy like an ortholinear build, but it'll probably be a custom model, rather than just using an off the shelf one from thingiverse.
Tbh I was asking my friends last week if we knew anyone involved with 3D printing. There's a very specific kind of ergo keyboard/mouse combo that is out of stock for at least another month, but I'm dying for one and they have 3D printing files. I was thinking about commissioning a custom build. I don't know jack about 3D printing.
Dogsitted my in-laws' puppy. She's delightful albeit tiring to watch (she's 4 month old after all).
I took this opportunity to practice my sharpening skills (I recently bought a stone kit). All of their cooking knifes are sharp as they never would have been in 30ish years!
We went out by bike and boat to the islands in the archipelago here and spent half a day swimming in the ocean. We also wen't for a jog and then I went to a local gym. Brilliant.
A pretty decent chunk of my family decided to have a barbecue together and my parents took me there. Unfortunately I don't really enjoy barbecues or talk to family a lot (and not that many family members there were too close to me) so when my uncle said it was okay to use his laptop and told me the password (Aren't guest accounts a thing?) , I did that for most of the barbecue with the exception of 'lunch' and when the laptop ran out of battery.
Not much. I went on a short skateboard cruise around my town in the evening on Saturday, which was incredible - there was basically no one around, the streets were empty, it really felt awesome. I couldn't imagine myself doing this a month ago, which is pretty cool! For some reason though, my pushing foot started to hurt after skating the past few days, so I should probably wait for a bit before going again. Can't wait to ride around more though! Other than that, just enjoying my free time procrastinating. During the week I started watching Twin Peaks and I got to say... it really is something haha.
I did the longest bike ride I've recorded so far. It was a 50 mile (80km) roundtrip and went up a route called 9W all the way up to the NY State Line. Basically half the trip rides up the western perimeter of Manhattan, and then after crossing the Hudson from the George Washington Bridge, you proceed to head north in New Jersey along the Hudson River.
I had been training all Summer for this trip, afraid that the hills would be too much to handle on my single speed bike, but overall I had no issues with the trip (I even passed a few people!). It's a popular route for cyclists, and I can see why, just getting out of the city traffic and having scenic nature surrounding you is very refreshing. This whole trip is somewhat of a milestone for me since I only recently bought my new bike last month (had been borrowing a friend's since quarantine started), and it feels great to have been able to track my progress and growth over the weeks.
I think before Summer is over I will try to do the trip again and go past the NY State Line up to Nyack and cross the new Tappan Zee / Mario Cuomo bridge back onto the eastern side of the Hudson and ride that back down to close the loop. The world seems so much smaller once you can bike around it!
Mother-in-Law came down from her new home up-island and we did something familiar in an unfamliar place - We took our favourite board game to a board-game bar and played it there with some drinks!
Ticket-To-Ride, while fun, is a lot more fun in a nice air-conditioned building :P
Other than that, was just a relaxy weekend. Cleaned up my truck to sell it and started looking for a new vehicle.
Currently my free time is spent building an addition onto my garage. Saturday and Sunday were a ton of removing old wiring and then adding some circuits with new outlets. Once things are complete, it's going to be a phenomenal workspace.
I watched some really so-bad-they're-good movies. Swordfish (which does not hold up, except for the "hacking" scene) and Megaforce, which is glorious and possibly Barry Bostwick's best movie with a flying motorcycle.
Stayed in bed hallucinating and chanting for Cthulhu, mostly.
Also Reddit.