On Life and Love

Whatever is making or breaking my day.

  • On Life and Love

    Weekly Linkage: Art, Science, and Spirituality

    It’s been a hot minute since I posted any links. Apparently this is also the Elf Sternberg addition, since three of his posts appear here. Good stuff. Lands of Dream Donation Drive – Jonas is doing one of the coolest donation drive ideas I’ve seen. Donate, and receive a detailed description and beautiful picture from the Lands of Dream. What in the hell is the Lands of Dream? Go play The Book of Living Magic. Took me about an hour (I read every description!), and everything about it is gorgeous: the art, the writing, and the music. Then take a look at some of the art/writing that Verena and Jonas…

  • On Life and Love

    Two Tasty T’anksgivings

    (Ah, ah, ah.) One was just me and Greg, at home, with a beautiful and delicious bird, greens, mashed potatoes, and wine. Quiet and intimate, and strangely, not nearly the most complicated or stressful meal we’ve made even in the last week. House of cooks, y’all. My second was with Meg and my new friend (and fellow running masochist) D., both of whom are gluten intolerant/allergic/unhappy. It was a potluck (so they undoubtedly got glutened by someone, alas), complete with (more) turkey, mashed potatoes (one style with horseradish–really good!), millet dressing, apple crisp, deviled eggs, and my well-received glazed carrots. Well, the recipe is from a cookbook of Greg’s, but…

  • On Life and Love

    Know What’s Difficult?

    Crafting a business. Duh, right? I don’t mean writing software on the side while you have a full-time job and dreaming that someday you’ll be your own boss. I mean sitting down with a spreadsheet and some historical data, and projecting real-deal income and expense numbers. Figuring out how to create every penny you need to make something successful and sustainable. Okay, that’s not actually the business itself. Doing the work to make those numbers work is the business. Bookkeeping is the business. Putting fingers to keyboard and phone to ear, day in and day out, is the business. But those numbers are crucial, and your eyes must be open…

  • On Life and Love

    Sweet Deviled Eggs

    For many years, I was utterly confused when I ate other people’s deviled eggs. Why weren’t they sweet? What’s this weird paprika stuff? Then I learned the secret to my mother’s deviled eggs: Miracle Whip. Turn up your nose, cringe, flail at your love handles, whatever. The creepy creamy crack is the secret. People who would otherwise look at me like I’ve grown a second head have gobbled these things up. (That was before I knew of their loathing for Miracle Whip–I try not to serve people food that contains things they have moral objections to.) Now, my mother isn’t a measuring cook, per se (which is fine, because we…

  • On Life and Love

    The Contortions of a Spell List

    So I’ve been working on the next major release of the D20 Spell Lists app, and have found myself in a code and UI reorganization/refactoring jungle as I’ve refined my feature set and how I want to handle things. One of the common-enough cases that the current version doesn’t handle well that I think needs to be is multiple spellcaster classes. If I’m a Druid 5/Bard 6, I’m going to want to keep separate spell lists, and will have different DCs, spells known, and spells per day to contend with. With the current version, the best solution is probably to have two different character files, each with its own spell…