Life update: I'm still alive! (Patreon)

(pic: Imagic - Microsurgeon)

Yo! Sorry I've been off the map.

This has been quite the adventure! How to get everyone up to date....

First, my move. I thought I was going to be able to move all of my things in a month or two. This was probably one of the dumbest things I've ever said, and even though I had a lot of help -- which I needed desperately -- I ended up doing a sizable portion of the move on my own. The RV was my glorified pickup truck / moving van, and I put somewhere on the order of 1500 miles on my RV just moving things. Total moving time was four to five months, not counting the time it took to get things boxed, find and purchase the RV, etc. Total number of pallets for my stuff to be shrunk to so far has been 22, although about 3-4 pallets worth of stuff isn't actually on a pallet, and probably should be. I just want to try to throw more (useless) things out if I can.

That puts us at the end of November. After Thanksgiving, I said my goodbyes to my former roommates and worked at the museum for a week, trying to clean up and wrap up anything left hanging, and then went south for a little bit on a test run for the RV.

First stop? Richmond, actually! I visited some friends there and watched some Westworld, which honestly I had not seen yet and starting in the middle was maybe a bad idea. I'll have to watch more later. Visiting with ChipWin personality Adam Seats, we decided to destroy his old desk by flipping it and throwing a hatchet at it before building a new desk. I'm not sure if I rolled a 1 or a 20 on this throw:

After heading south some more, I was able to meet up with one of my old coworkers at a computer store I worked at long ago, he's now writing for opensource.com. Maybe give his articles a look, one of which will be an interview with me and free/open source software tools and music in the near future.

While there, I met up with Josh Malone, a retro enthusiast friend of mine, who happened to be in the area. Turns out he was also converting a van to an RV but stopped midway, so he mentioned I could pick up a solar panel if I ever drove past him. Anyway, we opened up an Amiga he just got to figure out what all was inside. The most amusing find was this:

After that, I caught up with Robert, who writes books. A quick bite to eat at the mall meant also being able to meet up with my nearby patron, Erik! Robert had to take off, so we dispersed and Erik proceeded to fill my mind with foolish idea— er, TV, that is. Numerous TV shows, Anime and burgers were had, and we picked up some RV antifreeze for my fresh water tanks because we heard it might freeze. 

The next day, it was time to head somewhere I hadn't been in some time. My late high school / college stomping grounds. Considering the winter storm warning, things were pretty tame, just a little bit cold. I had a space heater on loan from my friend and patron Greg (thanks for the loaner!) so I was fine as long as I had an outlet where-ever I went. I made a stop with a family friend and high school math teacher who (permanently) loaned me my original harddisk to run Linux full-time, and he donated some very cool gear for the Bloop Museum. I also hung out with some friends from school further south, and then decided to see who I could catch up in Wilmington, where I once worked at a mom-and-pop computer shop.

I was able to meet up with not one, not two, but three former coworkers, and two of them I hadn't seen in like fifteen years or more. Time is weird! I also got to have some nice chats with families of friends and coworkers who have stayed in the area, and even met up with my chip scene buddy Tim White who you might know from D&D Sluggers for some pizza:

Here we are in our pixelated shirt glory. One of these days, we're even gonna collab on something!

It was getting late in December; time to round out the trip with some family time. Visiting my mom and siblings was a little bit haphazard, but it was good to catch up. Conveniently, a certain Mikal kHill lived (kinda) nearby, and we tend to only meet up at events, so we took the opportunity to get some chill downtime for more than 5 minutes and [also] eat pizza. Look at how surprisingly normal we appear to be!

Immediately after, I got a picture of a nice view from a family cabin:

With time running short before MAGFest, I headed north with a quick stop to visit my dad, uncle, cousins, and grandmother on the way. we had a great visit that included my grandmother getting a ride to Taco Bell (her choice!) in the passenger seat! I also procured a new boot drive for my workstation, which has since been (almost) revived, and is in my office at the museum. 

I also received a Christmas gift in discovering that Hangouts is not shutting down, which seems to be common misinformation spread. I rely on it heavily, so I was very glad to hear that.

Arriving back home, I had a pretty incredible time helping the MAGFest Demoparty, where I got to meet up with scene friends, old and new. Present and helping were Argasek, Borys, and Fei, from [the former] Riverwash and also Maugli from Function. Honestly, I would say for a first year event, it was very successful. The future of the demoparty at MAGFest is uncertain, so please be politely vocal if you went and enjoyed it or would like to go to it in the future so they know to make it a regular thing. Here's our crew shot with Polish Cultural Institute New York Programming Coordinator Izabela and 2019 MAGFest Guest/Programming crew Tom and Steph:

One of my favorite things about MAGFest these days is the concentration of nerds and music, where I enjoyed watching a reunion show of chip+rock+accordion+prog friends, Chromelodeon. Here's a shot from their show:

Another thing I thoroughly enjoy at MAGFest is being able to do a snack exchange with my friends from all over the country and even the world. We had a massive tasting where we were able to make it through perhaps 50 of the 80 drinks I brought. 

Some of the drinks filtered to friends and patrons, and it appears there's an information leak on the Internet....

Anyway, let me be blatant and clear about this: Running into my friends and supporters -- even while looking as dead as this -- is what keeps me going. A huge thanks to everyone here for being my patron and helping me to stay connected with my scene is in order. I'm getting more inspired and more excited as I travel to new and exciting places (this post is the shortest of my three trips, even) and share my music with others. You are directly helping me do that.

Speaking of things you're helping me with, some crazy things are coming down the pike: If you haven't been following on social media, I finally met the creator of the AY-3-8910 in person, retrieved some historic hardware from him, and now that my desktop is working again, I've been able to recover the interview with him so I can continue transcribing it. I also met up with David of Plogue and obtained a veritable pile of sound chips that I can add to the synthesizer. I'm nearing the end of my composing work for Beatdown City, which means a bunch of new game music. I'm gonna do my best to catch everyone up on all the things that are going on as soon as I can.

If you made it through all of this post, throw it a like and pretend you planted a flag at the top of the mountain!