Month: March 2020

With the economic downturn I’m shutting down Roanoak in Second Life once again. While I enjoy the fact so many other people enjoy the place, I really don’t need to be spending an extra $300 a month on the server for a virtual empire right now.

I gather the players will be moving to a virtual tabletop system and using the characters they already have. There are 56 characters in the database, so that should be a good number of options for adventures. 🙂

As for SL, I’ve returned to just visiting various sims, standing around looking fabulous, and chit-chatting. Casual conversation is easier to manage while I’m working on things than role-play as it takes less concentration. So, for now, you can find me in Luskwood on occasion should you want to chat.

Just for posterity:

And yes, I do have a Unicorn as my lock screen — doesn’t everyone?

The last of the stuff from the old condo was hauled out on Friday, and this morning the cleaning crew I hired to ensure the place was in tip-top shape finished. So I’m officially moved I guess.

Now to hand over the keys some day soon (virus willing) and that will be that.

On the 12th I purchased a new Vespa scooter to get around on when I’m not going far enough or hauling enough to warrant using the Murano. I’ve already ridden it to work and back, which takes about 15 minutes each way.

It’s nice to be riding again, even if it is a mere 50cc scooter. 🙂

I guess the big news is COVID-19; or the Kung Flu as it were, which has essentially shut down everything and resulted in huge dents to my retirement fund.

Work-wise I had everything prepared for something like this back in 2012 as part of the company’s “Blizzard Plan” — where I expected a hundred employees to be working from home for a week or so… So the switch over from everyone at the office to no one at the office was exceptionably painless. Yay me.

And now I’ve been “working from home” since Wednesday of last week and enjoying it quite a bit… Even the Google Hangouts with various employees to work out their unique VPN issues have been nice as they’re not barging into my office anymore.

Several people I know are saying they are going stir crazy; meanwhile not a lot has changed for me save for not having to drive into work at 5:30AM… The wonders of being a recluse I guess.

Pretty much everything that supports a gathering of a dozen or more people is closed. Grocery stores are still open, but have lots of barren shelves… I stocked up as I was moving, so I have quite a bit of non-perishable food on-hand. I’m saving all of the long shelf-life stuff though being as restaurants are still doing carry-out and delivery. That and the grocers have limited things so I just go shopping twice a week now and replace the fresh foods I ate.

I’m a big salad eater, and salad goes bad pretty quick — so I just buy my leafy greens on Saturdays and Wednesdays now. 🙂

And that’s about it… The new townhouse is really, really nice — and I’m actually getting a chance to enjoy it!

In my last entry I mentioned that I was moving; and two days ago I picked up the keys to the new place.

Initially I had planned to start the actual moving process this coming weekend, but the showings for the condo started almost immediately (there was one Saturday and another yesterday)… So this prompted me to move a bit faster than anticipated…

So, I spent the weekend either schlepping things out of a condo or into a townhouse. And I’m beat. 🙂

During this I discovered the Murano can basically hold everything I own all at once… I put the back seats down, put down one of my moving blankets to protect all of the leather, and this creates a cavern I could probably put my old Abarth in with room to spare. I was really impressed.

The down-side to this is the garage at the townhouse is a 2-car — if you drive two Fiat 500s. The Murano just fits in the garage front to back and there is about two feet of space between it and the Jeep when both are in there.

It works, but it’s a tight fit.

As for the new townhouse, it’s actually new — as in it was finished being built in December and doesn’t even show up on Google Maps yet. This means there is a slew of fiddly little things that need to be touched up as builders aren’t horribly interested in the little details when they are building a hundred houses a month.

The location is much quieter and more laid-back than being in the Denver Tech Center and right off of I-25, which is nice. There are also lots of amenities nearby such as a dinner theater, two grocery stores, lots of restaurants, and other assorted things. And one of the bigger malls in the area, “Southlands”, is about 5 minutes away… So ample opportunity to be out and about in the sunshine.

Tomorrow the new furniture I ordered should arrive, which will be nice. Last night I slept on the floor in my sleeping bag as everything I needed to get ready for work was there and I didn’t want to drive across town from the condo to take a shower. Luckily, I have a pretty nice sleeping bag with a nice thick pad that goes under it, so I wasn’t put out at all.

Once the new furniture arrives then I need to hire someone to remove the old stuff from the condo — and after that I’ll be done!