April 23rd, 24th, 25th, and 26th

I’ve finally discovered the nastiest thing an enterprising desert rat can possibly due with his or her time: tear out a bathroom in an old doublewide. In the great index of experiences I have had in my life, I would put the removal of the ranch house’s guest bathroom tentatively above county jail and the hospital but firmly below everything else. This includes several motorcycle wrecks and an IRS audit. I had safety glasses, a breathing mask, and a jumpsuit on but it still wasn’t enough to protect me from the clouds of dust, rotten wood, old insulation, and pounds (yes, pounds) of mouse feces. You just can’t get clean after something like that. I took a long, soothing soak in the Fly Geyser but still didn’t feel right. I may never feel right.

Of course, the payoff has been tremendous. The rotten boards are gone, replaced with fresh plywood. The old, nasty wall material has been torn out and will soon be replaced with whatever nice, new stuff Tina wants to put in. The house smells better too. We’re in the process of replacing the bathroom’s plumbing as well. It will probably be a few months before we finish the project, but it’s good to have finally gotten it under way. In the same vein, we’ve begun our big experiment with covering the existing ceiling. As those of you that have visited undoubtedly remember, the old and (supposedly) white ceiling panels in the house are sagging, water stained, and basically nasty. There’s no way to remove them, either. When doublewides are constructed the ceiling panels are put in place before the roof is lowered into place; they are there permanently, no matter how ghetto looking they get.

Our solution has been to cover the damned things with a nice, new layer of birch plywood that is held in place by thin wooden ribs. The effect is half “inside of a wooden crate” and half “early American shack;” either of which is a vast improvement over the ceiling’s current condition. The look we are working toward is, of course, “rustic ranch house,” but my carpentry skills just aren’t quite there yet. In any case, it looks a lot better.

Worlds Of Empire arrived on Monday. Tina kicked massive buttocks, turning the entire pallet around within a couple of hours so that the UPS guy could get the title off to the distributors. I’m particularly proud of this particular HERO product, partially because I wrote 25% or so of it but mainly because it’s a fantastic book. The cover is subtly powerful, the interior artwork is good, and the layout is excellent. The writing is terrific as well, but nobody expects or gets anything else from a HERO product. We also set up another set of shelving in her office to hold loose books for smaller, individual orders. As I’ve mentioned before, the HERO Games Black Rock Desert office is coming along quite nicely. So nicely, in fact, that I am posting this entry from her office right now.