Reconnecting...

Last night, I left the store in Skribl and Loq's hands and went home. I did some laundry and waited for the girl to get home from a school concert. Once she did, we ate some late dinner, watched some March Madness,and just hung out.

During the evening, she was on the couch, half asleep, and I told her to go to bed. She replied... "I'm tired, but I want to hang out with you, Dad. It's been a long time since we've been able to just chill out together on a regular basis."

It about broke my heart... and illustrates that in building up the store for the local gaming community, I'm not the only one who made sacrifices. My family has given up a lot in that they really have been without a husband/father for the better part of three years. With the advent of employees and the shifting of schedules, I'm starting to come back to them...

...Just in time I think...

-- GopherDave

Random Thought...

I stumbled over an interesting article over at RPG.net today... One that's got my wheels turning...

http://www.rpg.net/columns/businessofgamingretail/businessofgamingretail53.phtml

Words Are Hard...

It's been obvious throughout our relationship that my better half is the better wordsmith among the two of us. She's also less inclined to put her foot in her mouth when she speaks. Me? There's a reason my piehole is as big as it is... frequent foot insertion.

This happens a lot when I'm trying to be a father/husband/boss. I'll approach a conversation with a couple of valid points, and state them in a calm, reasonable manner. Then, since I've gotten comfortable with all the talking, other things tumble out of my mouth... Things that have been unrehearsed... and they frequently get verbalized in a hurtful manner. Keep in mind, I'm not *trying* to be hurtful, but that is how it comes out sometimes.

My wife is physically "wrecky", meaning that if something can be crashed into, she'll probably do so. In the early part of our relationship, I used to get angry. Now, when it happens anymore, I just try to hold her and help clean up the mess. I'm used to it, because it's part of who it is.

Me? I'm verbally/emotionally "wrecky", and I think that is worse. It can mean more hurt feelings than there needs to be over stuff that, in the grand scheme of things, is minor. I am better than I used to be, but it's apparent that I have much more work to do.

For those of you wondering what I am babbling about, sorry to confuse you. Just had to get some stuff out.

-- GopherDave

Starting To Come Together...

Not certain how well this combination works together, though... Opinions (semi-)welcome...

Last night was the second run of Big J's Pathfinder game, and unlike the first one, we are starting to come together as a group. The two half-orcs (my character and another) are bonding over their half-orkiness, and they are also bonding (via grudging respect) with the orc-hating dwarf, who apparently only hates "half o' ya".

Our wizard is a played a young, very inexperienced player, and he's not entirely certain what the whole role-playing thing is supposed to be about, but he is VERY slowly coming around. I think this is something he will eventually be good at, given some time and patience.

Our cavalier is played by the host of the game, and he (the character) is slightly less intelligent than a fence post. In fact, stat-wise, outside of the mage, my half-orc rogue is the second most intelligent character at the table. I would weep for us all, except that I've played this character before in another game (I'm playing him here as a "do-over"). For the most part, the character is pretty damn cagey, and as a player, I've held more disparate groups together.

While I was off gallivanting near the town of Sandpoint, Skribl was holding down the fort/store. He's getting better at it, but I need to express to him that he should not (no matter how much customers/friends beg you) play games while he is on duty. If something happens in a game that causes the situation to go emotionally awry, if he's not in the game, he can play unbiased arbitrator and calm things down. If he's in the game, he loses that impartial credibility, even if just subconsciously, among the other players. It places the *STORE* (which should be impartial) in a biased position, and emotional folks tend to make rash decisions like not coming back because they feel the store is "against them". Nothing major like that has happened (yet), but it could, and until I wrote this down just now, I couldn't figure out how to express that to him that made logical sense.

For as smart as I seem to be on an instinctual level, I *REALLY* wish it wouldn't take me so long to verbalize my reasoning sometimes.

Not A Whole Day, But Close...

Okay, after all that consternation about clothing yesterday. I ended up being at the store less than three hours. Y'know... that felt REALLY good. I didn't take a full day off, but it was enough of one that I felt at least some of the stress I have been laboring under sort of just melt away. I got to be at home with no one but me and the dog for a bit. I did some laundry... listened to some music... read a little bit... and then I got to have dinner and hang out with my family. It was really good.

Tonight is the second run of Big J's Pathfinder game. The first session was... interesting. We have five players, but at least one of them doesn't seem all that attentive to what is happening. I'm worried a bit about group chemistry at this point, but it is early in the overall scheme of things, so it may settle down. Big J does seem like he's a pretty good GM, he's just stuck with some squirrely players. =P

-- GopherDave

Stupid Maturity...

Okay... I'm not sure when this happened,but I'm going to try to connect some dots.

I'm not scheduled to work the store today. I'm completely off of the schedule. However, I've been trying to rework our order schedule to where we're doing orders from our primary supplier twice a week, once on Mondays and once on Thursdays.

So, I'm getting ready to head into the store for a bit so I can take care of the order and a few other things. Now, I'm getting ready, and I begin to think that since I'm not going to be actually working the store today, I just need to be presentable. Hence I grab a shirt and some jeans and go do the shower/shave thing. Getting dressed and tossing on the shirt and jeans, I look... incomplete. So I go looking for one of my crew neck sweaters to toss over it all. I can't find either of the two that still currently fit me, so I grab one of the many Gopher vests I have and toss that on. The overall look *STILL* looks unfinished to me... *sigh* On goes the tie... and it finally looks put together to me.

Then I started to think about this a bit deeper. Anymore, to me casual means wearing jeans instead of khakis/dress pants, with the tie being optional... If I'm in for the night, then a T-shirt with jeans/sweat pants/shorts is okay. If I'm going to a concert, a t-shirt and jeans works. It seems I've found my general look for this stage of my life, though. It's one that I've toyed with and cultivated for some time, now, but it seems to have passed from the "uniform/can't-wait-to-take-it-off-when-I-get-home" stage to the "this-is-who-I-am" stage.

Odd... very, very odd...

-- GopherDave

Ice Cream, Canned Spinich, and Oatmeal...

New shirt... check. New tie... check. New pants... check. Lint brush for the black sweater... nowhere to be found. *sigh*

Ice Cream: The Terracide game was fun last night. I still think something feels like it's missing, but the tone and flavor of the game are changing. As a group we managed to bring three ships into the fold of the swelling "revolution", at the cost of our own. At the end of it all, we ended up with a bigger ship, though none of the players are terribly happy on how it went down. We liked our ship...

Canned Spinach: I had to correct/call out a group of players at the store for their behaviour two weeks ago during their last session. I hate doing stuff like this because at least a couple of them are *REALLY* good friends, but they were out of line and acted like children. I treated them as such. I don't know how effective it will be because as I spoke, I felt my own anger rise and I know I started to become a bit incoherent due to my emotions... I stepped away and ended it before I had said everything I had wanted, but I was heading toward an area of my psyche I've long been trying to keep locked down, and it would have been *TRULY* ugly.

Oatmeal: Not fond of the stuff. I'll eat it if it's all there is to consume, but I won't enjoy it. That describes the last part of my day that will happen later. One of the area gaming icons passed away this week, and his memorial service is later today. We weren't close, but we respected each other for what we had done in the local gaming scene. In addition, though he was not a personal friend, the man was a friend to many people I hold dear to me, and founder of a scene that has brought me great times, a sense of belonging, a fantastic wife, and, indirectly, a store. For all of that, the least I owe him is a remembrance...

-- GopherDave