dev Embrace Failure For all of us, there will times, many times, when our efforts end in failure. Sometimes, they will be small failures. And sometimes, they will be spectacular failures. It doesn't matter. It's just another opportunity.
gaming Character Portrait - Heagen Witchhunter My newest character, all of 4 or 5 sessions in now, is a half-orc barbarian named Heagen. I've never played a barbarian in the Wyrmfang Chronicles before. The last barbarian I played was way back in college in with 2e AD&D. Damn, I'm old.
dev Pivoting Your Career I recently found myself in the uncomfortable position of having to look for a new job. It was clear to me that whatever choice I made would constitute a pivot in my career.
vote Vote Today! I voted! You should too. Go, do it. Skip work if you have to. It really is that important.
fiction Fiction: The Monolith Davon felt the hum of its approach long before he could actually hear it. He had lived two decades within its enveloping comfort before returning to the Earth below. Now, he felt comfort only with the daily struggle to survive.
site New blog I've decided to redo my blogs. I'll combine them into one again and I'm switching to Ghost instead of WordPress. WordPress is just too much. Especially since I don't do much with it.
dev My Advice: Finding a Developer Job There were times it wasn't good to be in tech. Those times will likely come again. But for now, you've got it good. If you're not happy where you're at right now, do something about it. Go and find a new job.
dev My Favorite Podcasts for 2018 It’s been nearly a year since I listed my favorite podcasts and it’s time for an update. So here’s my favorite podcasts for 2018. There have been a few additions and subtractions. The rest of the list (which I won’t repeat here) remains the same.
gaming Character Portrait – Aeduin One of the first campaigns (might have actually been 1st) with the Pathfinder rules was the Shackled City Campaign Setting. For that campaign I played a bard/cleric name Aeduin Tharn.
dev Take Time to Breathe - A Few Minutes to Better Code This is about those times when you get an idea and you dive headlong in and don’t come up for air for hours. Stop it. Stop it right now. Take a step back. Take a moment to breathe.
gaming Character Portrait – Rem One of my many clerics was Noremus Toffli. Rem was a human cleric of Pelor tasked with finding a cure for a mind plague afflicting the people of Stormport.
gaming Character Portrait – Gogun Gogun Elfcrusher, aka “The Gogun”, was my cleric of Silvanus. He was from our 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons era. He ventured north with a group of dwarves, led by King Tadom Trollslayer, seeking to return to their ancient home in the Vast.
dev Devs: Are you giving back, or only taking? This year, as the time for Stir Trek registration approached, I made a decision. I was going to attend, as usual. This time I intended to do something more. The dev community has been good time. I thought it time to give back more.
gaming Character Portrait – Nignus Nignus was my dwarven cleric of Oghma. A traditional gold dwarf of Faerun from the Great Rift, he made his journey north where he joined the companions to explore the dark heart of Nightfang Spire.
dev The Problem with StackOverflow/StackExchange One by one I found the StackExchange sites to become intolerable. I stopped moderating questions. I stopped asking questions. I stopped answering questions. I stopped voting on questions and answers. I stopped even searching StackExchange sites for answers.
dev The Mysterious Vanishing Hard Drive I was having an issue with the main PC that we use at home. Over the last couple of months, from time to time, one of us wouldn’t be able to log in. It was the famous infamous Windows 10 black screen. When they logged in, a cursor would appear over a black background and then nothing else.
dev Visual Studio debugging - SSL Connection / Connection Reset with IISExpress - Stack Overflow Sometimes it can be a huge pain in the rear to work with SSL on local IIS or IIS Express in Visual Studio. I was trying to debug an issue with my authentication flow and just could not get my auth server to run locally. I finally came across this StackOverflow answer
gaming Character Portrait – Chojen Alas, poor Chojen Morg. After Thelisn the bodak fell to the servants of Gulthias within the Heart of Nightfang Spire, I brought in Chojen. He was human, a former thief and rogue who had repented of his ways and taken up a life of service to the gods.
dev Using C# and Azure Text Analytics Sentiment Analysis To Respond To Customer Complaints I’m going to show you how Azure Cognitive Services Text Analytics Sentiment Analysis can help you retain customers and look good while you’re doing it.
gaming Character Portrait – Venjor, Cleric of Pelor Venjor Carix was a cleric of Pelor. I brought him in for a module that Andy ran a few years back. This was a bit after I had run the Speaker in Dreams module, set in the town of Brindinford.
trains What To Expect At Your Local Train Show Train shows are one of the great community experiences across the world. Little kids and big kids alike can see some truly amazing things and have a lot of fun taking in a train show
trains Train show in Columbus this weekend If you’re gonna be in central Ohio this weekend, be sure to stop by the Train Show at the Ohio Expo Center
gaming D&December 2017 – Rapid Fire: W4D4-Trinkets/Treasures, W4D6-Forbidden Knowledge, W4D7-Spell/Item Nothing like waiting til the last minute for the last three topics I didn’t get done. So here we go in rapid fire succession. Trinkets & Treasures, Forbidden Knowledge and Favorite Spell/Item.
gaming D&December 2017 – W4D5 – Divine Magic – Fixing the Cleric Class Divine magic is a part of Dungeons & Dragons that I think many of us have a love/hate relationship with. Running a cleric in an adventure can be both the most enjoyable and the most frustrating thing, sometimes at the same time.
