This past Friday I turned 45 years old. While, lets me honest, I’d rather have been somewhere on a lovely cruise, instead I chose to visit one of my favourite places with Dani and our friend Kristi. Amsterdam’s Artis City zoo is the oldest in the Netherlands and the fifth oldest in the world. It’s an absolutely lovely place to visit. In addition to the zoo, there’s also a couple of other museums. One of those, Micropia, we visited for the first time. It’s a museum dedicated to the tiny world of microbes.
I had always said I would never do a marathon. Half marathons were challenging enough and already demanded too much training time. But then a year ago, I got inspired. I had such an amazing time spectating Dani’s London marathon that I thought to myself, “hmm, maybe I could do this”. Fast forward a year and I have, in fact, done this. But holy baby jeebus was it a difficult journey.
Step 1: Getting In
I entered the lottery the same day as Dani was out running the race in 2021. After waiting what seemed like forever (they delayed releasing the results a couple weeks), I found out that I didn’t get in. A bit sad, I shared the news on my twitter account. I got a response from a charity I had never heard of, called WhizzKidz, inviting me to apply. Looking back, this turned out great. They have a very reasonable minimal goal and an amazing mission. I’m incredibly happy I wound up running for Team WhizzKids. If I decide to run London a second time, I will certainly be running for them again.
Step 2: Training
Having had great success training for my last half marathon using the Jeff Galloway plan on my garmin, I decided to also use his plan for a full marathon. He graciously shares a free marathon training plan for the RunDisney participants. I was able to take that plan and add it to my google calendar leading up to the race date.
My training started out pretty well and the Spring weather wasn’t terrible. I got up to about the 15k long run and WOMP. After two years of successfully dodging it, covid finally hit our house. I didn’t get a terrible case, but it was enough to keep me on the couch for more than a week. With this setback, I was already behind and had to start playing catch up with my schedule. Then, a couple weeks later, half way through a particular tough run I took a hard fall. I would up scraping up my knee, hands, arms, shoulder and even my face. Certainly not my finest moment.
I also faced some pretty awful training weather. This summer in the Netherlands was particularly hot and humid. The Sundays when it wasn’t too hot, it was all day rain. This is all to say that my plans did not really go as well as I had hoped. There were so many days where I just wanted to give up. After failing to finish the full distance of my last long run of the training cycle, we went to Disney World for Dani’s 40th birthday celebration. It was 34° (93°F) and 80% humidity every day in Florida, and I wound up skipping my last couple longer tapering runs. However, I did get a lot of time on feet with all the park time.
To really cap things off, I brought home a bit of a head cold back with me, less than a week before the race. Commence freaking out!
Step 3: Fundraising
I had all these grand plans of different ways to do the fundraising. Between work and life, those didn’t work out. Thankfully the fundraising wound up being one of the easier parts of my marathon journey. I owe this completely to the incredible people in my life who generously donated. Together we were able to raise £2141 for WhizzKidz. I will not forget all the support that everyone gave me. You all are absolute heroes.
*** THANK YOU SO SO SO MUCH TO ALL WHO DONATED AND SUPPORTED ME ***
Step 4: Get to the Start Line
We arrived in London and checking into our hotel in Canary Wharf, before heading out for the race expo at the ExCel London. Dani and I were met there by our friend Tara, a fellow WhizzKid runner. With my race number and finisher jacket secured, we took a spin around the expo floor. It was all a bit surreal and it really started to set in that I was going to be doing this thing. We picking up a few running supplies and found the WhizzKidz booth. The volunteers there were awesome. They had mailed my running vest already, but it was stuck in the post/customs system somewhere. They had a bunch of vests there and I was able to try on some sizes and get one for the race there. We also found my name on the participant in the booth AND the large one on the show floor.
I was thankfully mostly over the cold and feeling pretty good. But somehow on Saturday, getting out of bed, I managed to badly pull a muscle in my left shoulder, or so I thought (more on that later). I spent the day freaking out and in a considerable amount of pain. I did everything I could to manage the pain, hoping that it wouldn’t be as bad the next day. A combination of muscle cream and Advil helped me get through the day.
The forecast was warning of a rainy race day which lead us to also a spend considerable time on Saturday afternoon trying to track down a poncho. The plastic disposable ones were nowhere to be found. I guess they are being phased out because they are not good for the environment. After some searching, we found a nice compact poncho used for hiking at an outdoor sports store. For dinner we grabbed some pasta at an italian restaurant. I put myself to bed early, nervous and excited for the next day.
Step 5: Cross the Finish Line
Two amazing things happened on Sunday morning. I woke up with greatly reduced pain in my shoulder, and a much improved forecast. It was fairly easy, short train ride and walk up a steep hill (what the hell?!?), to arrive at my start area (green) where Dani dropped me off.
The start area was actually one of the best I have experienced. There was plenty of room and porta-loos. I dropped off my bag and just took in the atmosphere with some light stretching. When it was time, my wave was first staged, and then walked to the start line. Before I knew it, we were off.
The first 9 miles of the race were absolutely magical. We ran through neighborhoods, where people lined the streets cheering and lots of kids were giving high-fives. The weather was gorgeous. I was following my run walk intervals, and felt absolutely great.
At mile 9, WhizzKidz had their first cheer station. I ran by and gave them high-fives and everything was awesome. Then a few meters more and my right calf suddenly cramped up. Like instant, charlie horse, style cramp. Shit. So I started walking, trying to relax and ease it out. Eventually, it settled down and I started back to my intervals. Unfortunately, the issue would plague me the rest of the race.
I got to see Dani the first time after crossing the London bridge, as she was posted up with the November Project group there. There I was able to replenish my water pack and fuel. I also saw my friend Tara shortly after that, when she caught up with (and passed) me. It was so nice to see her (not just because she gave me some salt packets) and chat for a bit.
The second half of the race is a little bit of a blur. Because I couldn’t run for more than 30-60 seconds at a time without my calf cramping, I had to walk the majority of it. The upside, I spent more time taking in the sights and sounds of course. The downside, it was painful and super difficult, and it took me just over seven house to cross the finish line.
But I did cross the finish line. I crossed it standing up and with a smile on my face. I EARNED that medal they placed around my neck. This obviously wasn’t the race I wanted, but it’s the race I got and I made the best I could of it. I found Dani in the meet up areas after collecting my bag and all the goodies and we set off to shower and celebrate.
Step 6: Celebrate, Recover, and Recalibrate
Yay, I did it! We had a lovely celebratory dinner at Goodman’s Canary Wharf, which is an absolutely fantastic steak house – the truffle fries, omg. The next day, we trained around London to get some fun medal pictures as well as visit my favourite toy store in the world. And then it was a short flight back home. Feels like it went by in a flash. Will I do this again, that’s a strong maybe… I’d love to try London again when I’m a bit more properly trained and hopefully injury free. So I guess, TBD 🙂
About that pulled neck muscle
So yeah, as I mentioned before, I thought I had pulled a muscle in my neck. I spent the rest of the week in absolute agony. My neck muscles were inflamed and causing pain all over my shoulder, upper back and down my left arm. Everything ached and I couldn’t get comfortable no matter what I tried. Which made sleep very difficult. I got a physio appointment a week later and he concluded that I likely ruptured a muscle in my neck and that I also had a bruised nerve causing the arm pain. Nothing to be done but try to manage the pain and let it heal. It’s now a month later and thankfully most of the pain is gone. Still working on getting back full range of pain-free motion in my left arm/shoulder. Because of all of this, I’ve missed the first month and a half of my hockey season. I’m hopefully that by mid/end of November I’ll be able to start training on ice again.
42, the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything”. – Douglas Adams
It was my birthday on Monday and it could be summed up in a word: uneventful. Dani was on a long haul trip back from Colorado for much of the day. I’m between clients at work, so that was quite quiet as well. We wound up ordering in, so there I didn’t even get a special dinner out. It’s all good though. Not every year needs to be a banger.
This past weekend I did attend my first Twitchcon. I bought a Saturday pass a few months ago on a bit of a whim. it was a really interesting experience. I went in not knowing anyone or really what to expect. It was a bit of a mishmash of everything. It was somewhere in between GDC and PAX for those familiar. They had all sorts of gaming, panels, shows, and even a small artist alley. Because of some behavioral issues with Laney, I couldn’t stay super long, but I did enjoy the time I got to spend.
It was nice being back at an event like that. And I haven’t felt such a “this is my kind of people” experience in a while. Lovely bunch of weirdos. And the experience definitely has me itching to start streaming again.
As for other things going on, I’m still working on training for London Marathon in the fall. This hot weather has made the difficult task even more daunting. And I would be lying if I said I’m not nervous about it. All I can do is stick to my training and hope for the best. Still fundraising for a great cause, if you can help out! Donate here!
Another thing I’m excited about is, with this bit of calm in client work, I’ve been able to focus more time on game development. I started working on a new concept a couple months ago and it’s come quite a ways already. I’ll hopefully continue working on it during one of my weekly streams. My hope is to publish it to steam sometime in 2023. The gist is: it’s a stylized zombie survival game where you fight the dead by crafting traps and obstacles. Super early screen shot follows.
So here’s to another spin around the sun. Lots of fun plans ahead and super thankful that the people I love are all doing ok.
This has been a kinda crap week. After the amazing Gozo trip, we came home and within a couple days, both Dani and I came down with ‘rona. Because of timing around the illness we had to cancel the Disney Mediterranean cruise we were suppose to embark on this Saturday. Super bummed. So naturally I was more than a little excited when I saw my postman walking up to my door with this package this afternoon!
If you don’t know Tokyo Kawaii Club, it’s a monthly curated box of goodness from Tokyo Disney. When you sign up, Michael reaches out and asks you for your favourite Disney characters. Every month he heads to the park shops to select a variety of items to send you, doing his best to get the characters you love.
Here’s my list if you were curious: Star Wars, Donald, Oswald, Stitch, Anything Haunted Mansion Related, Chip & Dale (Especially Rescue Rangers), Darkwing Duck, Rex and Buzz Lightyear (Toy Story), Perry from Phineas and Ferb, Goofy, Oogie Boogie (Anything Nightmare before Christmas really)
This mailer that I’m unboxing was shipped 6 March – It takes 2-3 months for the packages to get here.
First of all, I am super happy with the contents of this months mailer. This is the second mailer in a row that he sent a Tsum Tsum. I happen to collect those, so adding more Tokyo Disney ones to my self is just awesome.
When I signed up, he warned me that they don’t often have Haunted Mansion or Star Wars stuff in the parks. This month I guess I got lucky. The Doom Buggy container thingy is very cute, but I am obsessing over this Star Wars droids bowl. I love Donald and sakura blossoms. So the little notepad is also a great item. I’m looking forward to see if the April mailer (which I assume is on a boat somewhere right now) has more sakura items in it.
This was my second mailer from the Tokyo Kawaii Club. It took me a while to decided to signup as I hadn’t done a monthly mailer in years. After seeing so many positive reviews about it, I decided to give it a try. Have to say I’m very happy so far. It gets me ever more excited looking forward to when we hopefully will visit Japan and the parks in 2023.
If you’ve been following me on social media, you might have seen that my summer hasn’t gone as planned. One of our pups managed to tear both of her rear leg ACLs in the span of a couple months. The second one just three weeks after having the first one repaired. So we had to cancel some of our summer plans to deal with that, including a planned birthday trip to Disney World. The silver lining, I was instead able to buy myself a present I’ve been wanting for a long time – a 3D printer.
I picked up the Monoprice Maker Select Plus 3D printer during Amazon Prime Day. Which wound up saving me about 10% off the cost. To say I’m in love with 3D printing is a bit of an understatement. It’s opened up so many possibilities for printing toys, props, and even robotics parts. I’m so excited!
One of the first things I printed was an amazing baby Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy. The model is by user Byambaa on Thingiverse and you can download it here. It printed in two parts. I chose the lower resolution models since they were a bit easier to work with. I ran into a bit of adhesion problems, especially with the hands on the body, so I did use rafts for the prints.
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I finished up with some spray primer and acrylic paints.
So my next print project? Here’s a hint: “Bleep Boop Beep Boop Beep”!
A few people know that I sometimes battle with some mild depression. Sometimes I just slide into a state of being where I have a lot of anxiety and my mood goes super low for a few days or weeks. I always manage to come out of it for a while, but it sucks. I’ve been struggling there for most of February. One thing it does tend to do is cause me to do a lot of introspection and reevaluating of priorities.
One of the things I’ve kinda figured out is that I’m struggling against what I can only describe as life inertia. You set yourself on this path in life by making various decisions and pursuing different goals. And like a boulder rolling down a hill, you build up inertia. But then when you want to change course, trying to steer that boulder into another direction feels impossible. Even more so, when you and your partner are a pair of boulders rolling down the hill together.
I had a whole post planned out about the specifics. How I’m trying to morph my career from a successful web developer into making games. How I’m working so hard to get myself back on a healthy track, both financially and physically. And about how much I dislike living in New England and the internal conflict that causes. But I don’t think I’m going to go much into detail right now. Mostly I can’t find a way to phrase it all that doesn’t sound like whining or doesn’t turn into an essay length diatribe.
I’m going to Game Developers Conference next week. I’m hoping that spending a week immersed in the world which I really want to break into will be the impetus I need to push myself harder. I’m making better choices with my money and with my health. And I have Dani helping me along the way. As for being stuck in Somerville… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So I guess all I can do for now is continue to nudge that rolling boulder and hope that eventually it will shift.
I run a Slack group that a handful of friends and I converse in daily about many things nerdy. Today started out innocently enough with a post in our Boardgames channel. Joel posted a board game based pickup line. It quickly devolved from there. For your reading pleasure, here is the NSFW list of line. Some are decidedly better than others.
Baby, you are like the outbreaks in Pandemic: You everywhere I want to be.
Hey babe, wanna clank starfighters tonight?
Check out my meeple?
I’ll catch you in my Connor net
Is that three bushels of apples in your bag there sheriff? Or are you just happy to see me?
Babe, I’m gonna attack your :heart: like a monster in Tokyo…
Come on upstairs and I’ll show you my minis
Hey, babe…. would you trade three ore and a wheat for…. a ring?
Hey there munchkin…what’s it gonna take to open that seal?
I’ll fuck you for an extra treasure!
Hey girl… welcome back to my place. I’ve got champagne on ice… I’ve got velvet sheets… just, whatever you do, Don’t Wake Daddy
Hey girl, come check out my caverna and let’s wish for children
Hey girl, are you carcassonne? because this farmer wants to lay in your fields
Hey girl… are you a game of x-wing? because this is gonna take 8 hours and we’ll both be frustrated afterwards
I’m gonna play you like Arkham Horror, and not follow the rules! (this is kind of an inside joke pointed at me)
Hey girl, I need your help to beat this eldritch horror…in my pant
New rule, take one and give two
Hey girl, they call me the terror of meeple city, come in close and blow
You know you want me to fill you up with my meeples
Hey girl, let’s play takenoko, you can be the panda and eat my bamboo
They call my bedroom ‘the mansion of madness’
Girl you are in Trouble cause I’m about to Boggle your mind
I’m Mr. Bucket, put your balls in my mouth
Girl you got me going like ants in my pants
King me, b/c I’m gonna jump you like checkers.
I’ll do you like bridge in that you’ll have no idea what’s going on or what I’m really saying
Imma explode your kitten babe
Hey girl, are you a game of canasta? because i’ve got two decks
I’m willing to take the Risk that you will say “Yahtzee!” when I take my Hero Quest into your Munchkin
Hope everyone had a great New Years Eve and start to the new year. Dani and I had a great quiet night at home with the pups.
I should have known this year wasn’t gong to go out quietly. Walking to the train the other morning I caught my foot and took a tumble on the sidewalk. I landed on my left knee, my right elbow, and…. my iPhone. And so I pretty much destroyed the screen. A nice little end of year expense I didn’t expect. But hey, bright side, I upgraded to the 7.
So with 2016, the world around us has been filled with way too much bad stuff. From the many beloved celebrities who passed on, the tragedy at Pulse nightclub, the fact that our country elected a orange faced, facist, man-baby to be our next president, the tragedies in Syria, and many other tragedies around the world . It’s been a shitty year.
But with the bad, there’s also good. Looking back over the year, Dani and I had some pretty great adventures this year.
Went to Disneyland & Dani completed the Star Wars Light Side Challenge
Chicago Visit and Dani’s first Comic Con – C2E2
Received my Associates Degree in general studies
Went to Disney World & Completed the RunDisney Star Wars Dark Side Challenge
Attended my First PAX Ever!
Visited “Comic Book Men’s” Comic shop in NJ and met couple of the guys from the show.
Attended 3 Weddings
Built Companimals at the Microsoft Hololens Hackathon
Built a gaming rig and entered the world of VR with my Oculus Rift
Dani Completed her Ultra Marathon
Saw Billy Joel in concert at Fenway Park
Finally got Dani to take me to King Richards Faire
Philadelphia Trip
Montreal Trip (first time in Canada)
Attended our first BU Hockey Game
Another trip to Disney World and the Wine and Dine Festival / Race Weekend
Star Wars Rogue One! (I love Star Wars)
The other big change that happened this year, was taking the jump back into the start-up world again. At the end of July I took a new position as the lead front-end developer / architect with Indico Data Solutions. It’s been a great move for me, allowing me to be a lot more creative and work to improve my leadership skills. And in my field, there’s always more technology to learn and stay up to date on.
But what about 2017 you ask? I’m not much of a person for resolutions, mostly because I’m not good at keeping them and I think that New Year’s is an arbitrary point in time for self improvement. But it’s as good a time as any to take stock of where you are and set some new goals. I have a few in mind I’d like to work towards in the coming months.
First off, I vow to keep fighting. This country is going to need people to keep fighting for the rights of women, minorities, and immigrants under the incoming administration. I could go on and on about how terrified I am that the progress we’ve made over the past few years could be rolled back and then some. But I think most people who have been paying attention understand. The only thing we can do is to keep fighting and show up at the next elections in 2 and 4 years.
Project: I’m planning to build a “droid”. It’s a multi-disciplinary project that I think will take me the better part of a year. But I’m very excited to take the plunge. The plan is to build a motorized life size Chopper from Star wars rebels. For an idea of what I’m talking about, check out this amazing build by “Darth Will”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL4SFNwV-Po. I’m hoping to build something similar.
Continue Learning. I bought a ukulele in Hawaii several years back when Dani and honeymooned. And I’ve not found the time to learn how to play. I’m going to try to prioritize time to learn. I also plan to devote more time to working on and learning more game development. I’m very excited to be attending the Game Developer / Virtual Reality Developer conference this year.
Give myself an Attitude Adjustment. So we’ve been living in Somerville for pretty close to five years now. While I moved here with an open mind and even a bit of excitement, I’ve never really fallen in love with the Boston area to put it kindly. I’m going to try to suck it up, deal with the overcrowding and horrible public transit and try to be somewhat positive about living here for now.
I’m looking forward to the next year. I’m also terrified about what effects the Trump presidency will have on the world and on my life, but nothing to do but forge ahead and get ready to fight. And play some hockey. Yeah, I’m gonna play a lot of hockey.
Dani and I took in our first food and wine festival as Disney a couple weeks ago. As a huge fan of Disney and of the RunDisney races and with the announcement of the inaugural Lumiere’s Two Course Challenge, we couldn’t pass it up the opportunity for another trip to the happiest place on earth. It also didn’t hurt to be there during the final stretch of this awful election year (but that’s a story for another post).
As usual, we stayed at our favorite budget hotel, Pop Century. Staying at those resorts makes getting to the parks, the race expo, and all the races so much easier. While Dani has signed up for all three races, I decided just to do the 5K this trip. That meant I only had to get up SUPER early one of the days. This race, my first RunDisney 5k, actually turned out to be one of my best RunDisney races. As per usual I didn’t stop for any pictures, due to the long lines, but I managed to plod out a 40ish minute 3.2 miles without having to do intervals or stop to walk. I think I even managed to get negative spits. I guess all the cross training is starting to pay off.
The race itself was mostly through Animal Kingdom which was actually pretty nice. We got to see a fair amount of the “backstage” areas of the park – which included some animatronic Dinosaurs in storage as well as the floats for their new lagoon show. And how about this start? Is that snow? In Florida? 😉
Dani rocked her 10k and Half as well. And sported some pretty nice costumes if I do say so myself. You can see those on her Instagram or blog.
Outside of the races we enjoyed six awesome days at the parks.
While we were there, the 2016 Food and Wine expo was also happening. Essentially what this was, was at Epcot they set up food and drink kiosks all over the world showcase with tapas sized food options from all over the world. There was even a passport booklet you could get to check off all the different food and drink you tried. It’s a bit expensive as you have to pay for each item and they aren’t cheap. But it’s so much fun to try all sorts of food. I think my favorites might have been the Korean Barbecue and the Elderberry Cider. Oh and we didn’t even know that they had special concerts for the festival, so you can imagine how excited Dani was to see Boyz II Men live.
The other amazing highlight was going to the first of this years Mickey’s Magical Christmas Party. This was an extra ticket which got us into a four hour “party” at Magic Kingdom that Monday night. They had many of the rides open (with much shorter lines), free treat stops with all sorts of cookies, eggnog, and hot chocolate, special character spots, an incredible holiday parade and an even more amazing fireworks show. I’m so glad we decided buy tickets to the party. It was so much fun.
As per usual, a lot of photos were taken. (Although I always find I forgot to capture a few things).
We even saw my gal, Phasma, marching the troops through Hollywood Studios!
We enjoyed the experience so much we are already planning on going back again next year.
Ever since I first saw the Geek Chic products at C2E2 a few years back, I’ve been slightly obsessed with having my own convertible game table. The only problem is that they are expensive as hell. Convincing Dani that we needed to invest in one just wasn’t going to work.
So then I thought, I’m pretty good at making things… maybe I could make my own table. Oh poor naive Tori, this was going to be a serious project. First things first, I started to research! I scoured the web for resources. It turns out more than a few other people had this same idea. So like the good crafty person that I am, I started a Pinterest board! In the end, I decided to take the general approach in the nicely laid out plans here: Game Table Project with Step By Step.
First Try:
With my first attempt at a table, I started with a modified size. I felt like the original size was too large. This first frame was largely an exercise in how things could not go the way I wanted. It was also a good lesson in how inaccurate pre-dressed lumber and hand power tools can be.
Take Two
I was pretty unhappy with the way the first frame came together. the sides were bowed in and in general it just wasn’t how I wanted it. So I took it apart and started over. This time following the plan dimensions a bit more closely. Since I don’t have a table saw, planer, or various other shop tools I had to make a few substitutions.
My arm rails are an inch wider.
I used pre-made table legs chopped down for height in lieu of the tapered legs.
I used pre-made crown molding under the arm rests
Messing up the Top Insert
The insert is, and has been one of the toughest part of this build. Which is why my table currently sits without one. A couple problems came into play building this piece. The pre-dressed wood from Home Depot (as previously mentioned) is not precisely cut, and is often slightly bowed. So getting the top measured and cut correctly to fit the opening, which is also ever so slightly off from square, turned out to be a large issue.
I would up with an insert that fit super tight. There was not enough clearance to allow for the wood to swell in the summer correctly. In attempting to remedy this I managed to really fuck up the insert by cutting it too short on one end. I then had the bright idea of cutting it in half and doing adding a piece down the center perpendicular to the other boards. But again, I ran into issues making this happen with imprecise tools and uneven boards. So currently that part is on hold. I think I may eventually try to build leafs instead of one large piece.
Finishing it Up
Please excuse the pun, I couldn’t help myself. This was also my first attempt at applying finish to a piece of furniture. And it taught me a few very valuable lessons. The first being always try to do your sanding before final assembly. The second lesson was in how messy staining is. I choose a dark stain to match our other furniture. I then followed that up with a couple coats of a hybrid oil/water based polyurethane for the arm rests and the inside vault walls. You can see the finished project below. Well, I’ll say it’s finished until I get a table saw and can build the insert leaves.
Always looking to break out some dice. Let me know if you want to come over and play some games!
Tori Holmes-Kirk 