A great afternoon.

My mother stayed at my sister’s last weekend. On the way home (on Mother’s Day!) she stopped in for lunch and a visit. It was a perfect day. Warm and not a cloud in the sky. We were able to enjoy lunch outside in the Sun’s warmth. It was lovely afternoon with Mom.

The new Dell

My new laptop has arrived! First and foremost, again, thanks to both Bdot and Aunt Betty (posthumously). The Dell 7577 is a beast. The specs are awesome: a GTX1060 GPU, i5-7300HQ Quad Core CPU, both a SSD and old school HD – so both speed and storage. It is easily as powerful as my desktop. There are of course some sacrifices (as with all laptops) – it is heavy, the screen isn’t amazing and the battery life varies on task, but is generally average. What the system will allow is upgradability. I will upgrade the RAM at some point to 16G and can easily upgrade the drive when the need arises. Performance, so far, has been really smooth, the 2×2 WIFI is worth it for sure. It has a network jack but I haven’t felt the need to use it. In general, I love it. It is also really quiet. Even playing games, yes the fans come on and there is some fan sound but nothing distracting or intolerable. Sound quality is average, there are special options for better sound via headphones but I haven’t tried it yet. The system will be a daily driver for (hopefully) years to come.

Spring means yard work! This season we have been picking out hundreds of tree keys from maple trees, and of course the scourge of dandelion and violets. We are pondering getting an automated watering system but so far the cost (and installers we have found) have been prohibitive.

Canada is stumbling along at the World. Finland destroyed everyone in the division. Wow. Canada squeaked by Latvia and Germany to get into the knock out round. Not sure how it will shake out… I heard Sweden or Russia. Ugh. Back in North America, the final four for the Cup are the Jets, Golden Knights, Capitals and the Lightning. I’d like to see the Jets (for Canada) or Caps (for Ovi) win. Indifferent to the other two.

Bdot has been pursuing a new interest in mountain biking. I do enjoy leisurely trail riding so we’ll see where that goes!

I have a lion!

Not sure how long ago it was… but at least, months ago, I kickstarted Pillar of Eternity II – Deadfire. It was released early this week. It is pretty impressive! Okay, I have a few hours in…(to quote Steam:) After the disaster that Shroud of the Avatar was, I was praying I didn’t back another kickstarter mess. Well, wow… I sure didn’t!
-graphics and lighting are beautiful and atmospheric. Dungeons are eerie as torchlight glistens against the walls
-lots of interesting classes/races to choose from
-magic classes are deep with a massive assortment of spells
-voice acting is spot on and seems to be the majority of text
-it is in an RPG first, pirate themed game second
-NPCs have character and are well thought out
-combat – which I wasn’t huge on in Pillars I seems to have been refined. It feels like action turn based… which is contrary but awesome. The ability to set pause points dictates how much of a turn based feel combat will have
-combat/spell animations have been fantastic and I’ve only seen the first few levels
-quest system is clear and clever
-inventory management is decent
-seems to be a ton of content… still figuring out ship management and crafting
-overall really impressed with this Pillars 2!