Could the moisture in the wall have caused mold? That might explain your sickness.
Long crazy weekend for me…
Thursday night, I played Fate RPG with friends in a gonzo-as-fuck fantasy setting we collaboratively made, though the adventure was a “side story” set in a small village of Bondens (the ho hum bog standard humans of the world) in the midst of an annual harvest festival when news that the band of Claykin–Bonden-adjacent humans with armored plates and a serious case of gigantism–who’d departed from the neighbouring village the month before had all tragically died. It was a far cry from the usual high-flying steampunk adventures we run in that world, very much a Humans and Households style game, albeit broken up by the group’s usual X-rated humor, and a ton of fun.
I spent most of the next day doing final prep-work for my first session GMing Exalted 3rd Ed for our big, collaborative “Corsair Stir Fry: Wayward Suns” Semi-Organized Play. Exalted is a super over-the-top game of god-empowered ultramortals desperately trying to save the whole of Creation from a dozen ludicrously OP threats. . . my “team” of four GMs have written an 18-session interconnected campaign, being played out twice a month for the next three months (three concurrent tables telling interrelated but separate stories each week).
The amount of prepwork we’ve poured into the campaign–set in the Caribbean-inspired West in a dangerous world of cutthroat pirates, mysterious island ruins, and ancient slumbering terrors–is nothing short of astonishing. We’ve been going hard since January to get ready for this sucker. Friday night was the first set of games, and my first time ever running the system. It was awesome. I had five great players at my table, which focused on their characters, “Solar” Exalted empowered by the Unconquered Sun god, being greeted on a mysterious western island by a representative of the local Dragon-Blooded nobility, Jurrican Veliv, who wanted to help establish their good name by introducing them to “all the right people.” A game of diplomacy, exploration, and a Spirited Away-inspired hotel run by Obiya, the God of Island Hospitality, we ran pretty late and had a ton of fun!
Afterward, tradition dictates that the players and GMs of the SOP crew (our enormous local RPG meetup, Raleigh Tabletop RPGs, runs one of these SOP campaigns every quarter, all year long) gather at a local wings-and-beers joint, Ba-Da Wings. However, some of my very best friends from my old hometown in Tennessee were here for Raleigh Supercon (one of them is AlwaysLoveLorn, a cosplayer/model/panel presenter who attends a ton of cons all over the southeast). They came out to Ba-Da and hung out until like 2AM. . .
. . . whereupon I drove home, fitfully slept, got up, and then met them for lunch at a local Korean Fried Chicken place, since one of the girls in their group loves Korean cuisine and normally can’t get it in her slice of rural eastern TN. Then I went out to SuperCon proper, shopped the vendor area and took in the cosplay sights, before attending ALL’s two big panels that night (“18+ Boardgames” and “WTF Did I Just Watch? Weird Anime Clipshow”).
At which point we all drove out to local beer emporium The Flying Saucer (those of you who frequent the beer thread may find their current list of stuff on tap glorious) for a nightcap. Two of my local friends, a very cool couple, came out to join us on the promise that we’d go to Insomnia Cookies, a local late-night dessert joint, afterward. We didn’t wind up leaving till like 2:30AM, by which point Insomnia was sold out of cookies, forcing us to get DELICIOUS ice cream instead. . .
Whereupon I went home, then got up, and met my out-of-town friends again for a late lunch downtown at one of my favorite cheapo Mexican joints (ALL–Megan to her friends–is a big connoisseur of shitty Mexican restaurants, lol). I bid them all adieu and made it home in time to briefly nap and then go grocery shopping for the week, returning my life to normal.
In the midst of all this, I’ve been writing up notes/followup stuff for the SOP, prepping for a panel I’m presenting next week on how to design one-shot RPG sessions, and managing RTR’s annual “Crimson Boar Inn” quarterly event (coming up next Saturday oh God why), where we will be running 10 one-shot fantasy RPG sessions in a variety of systems and settings around the theme of “Mysterious Strangers.” Keeping the GMs in line, managing player RSVPs, and prepping all the materials for the day is crazy busy work.
So, needless to say, this is one tired fuckin’ Armando Penblade!
All those bad. @RichVR - mold is definitely a concern. When I pulled out the insulation I didn’t see any. Would mold be on the insulation if it was growing in there?
I tried to MS Paint it:
Half the bottom frame fell off as indicated and was like wet paper towel. It could have been like that for years? On the positive side I’ve never seen any water damage under the window where my office wall is. The bottom of the window is just 2’ off from the floor in my office, and it is a very tall. This house didn’t come with storm windows for winter, so all our window frames are in ragged shape. But not like this of course. I have no idea how far that moisture seeped as I could only stick my arm down so far. If we hadn’t sprayed tons of Stuff! Foamin, then bugs and rain would have easy access to the drywall in my office and of course down as far as???
I’m no expert and an expert is what you need in a case like this. Sorry I can’t be more helpful.
No worries. We’re going to get a quote for the work, but since I couldn’t sleep this morning or last night I went out and measured to fit a piece of plastic on the exterior and decided to check the other window on that side of the house. It too Is compromised. The wood is hyper saturated with moisture though we’ve had no rain for a bit, and it has cracked/caved in allowing moisture to get through and under the frame possibly into the wall space there as well. Unless we can get a low interest loan to fix or replace all our windows at once, I think we’re going to have to do this ourselves. We simply don’t have the money to pull for jobs like this. With previous water damage insurance has always been there to cover water repair so I’ve never known how much it costs. I don’t think insurance covers stuff like this. I wish I’d known this could happen as I would have done something about it years ago.
Well. This hasn’t happened yet, but it will soon. And instead of starting a new thread I was hoping I could put it here.
Anyway, as an old man, it seems that it is time to play old man games. Specifically, dentures. I don’t know if you understand how painful and embarrassing that is to type.
Background:
As some may know, back in 1990 I was struck by a car crossing a Manhattan street. Long story short, there was brain damage and I was prescribed Dilantin to avoid possible seizures. One thing I was not told is that Dilantin cause tooth loss. Seriously. It takes a while, but I was on constant doses of it for many years. My teeth would get loose, my dentist would tell me that I was not taking care of my teeth, and they would get loose and fall out.
I thought it was me. I thought I was bad at dental hygiene. I was wrong.
When I moved to Florida I finally got a truly good doctor. When he saw the drugs I was taking he asked me about the side effects of each one. When he got to Dilantin he asked me how my teeth were doing. I showed him. He explained that it cause tooth loss. Also bone decay.
I freaked out. How could I be prescribed a drug without being warned? And no, I didn’t get those warning pamphlets that you get for other drugs. It was prescribed to me in the hospital. Every doctor after that just continued my scripts.
I stopped taking it right then and there. Too late. Even after stopping there were already a few loose ones. Eventually they fell out. Now I have seven teeth left. Two on the upper left in the back. Five on the bottom in the front. Chewing sucks.
So. We just got a tax return from my mother’s estate. We had to put up a $2500 deposit in case there were outstanding takes on her estate. There were none.
The wife suggested that I finally get the teeth done. Since we don’t know when we’ll have a lump sum like this again I agreed. Simple, right? No.
More to come.
My uncle got a complete set when he was in his early fifties. I suspect my dad and mom will follow suit. It’s a really shame they didn’t keep an eye on those side effects for you though. It’s such a long list it’s hard to know which to focus on.
It does?! Whoa I had no idea! My wife has been on it, and her teeth are bad. She was never told either.
Tooth loss is a scary subject. I used to have dreams about them falling out.
While that has not happened to me yet, at age 57, I was proud that I am only missing two molars in the back.
But it seems like after my heart attack, I started clenching my teeth in my sleep, something I never did before. I didn’t know I was doing it until I finally went in for my next exam, and the dentist remarked on how bad my teeth were ground down on the insides (where you couldn’t see the damage normally), and how suddenly it had appeared. He recommended some kind of thing you wear on your teeth while sleeping to protect them, but my insurance wouldn’t cover it, and I can’t imagine being able to sleep like that anyway.
But yeah, tooth problems do suck.
As a kid, you don’t even worry about stuff like that.
I’m guessing the cost is more than you expected.
Awaiting your next chapter.
So one of my orders from JCP was extremely late. It wound up shipping to an older address I haven’t used in years, and not only that, it defaulted back to that as my home address and wouldn’t let me change it. I got on the phone ready to kind of duke it out with the CSR over this problem and… they were beyond nice about it. It seems like it might be an actual problem in their system. They refunded the whole thing and let me order everything again at the discount price. I haven’t been to the mall in years, yeah we only have one, but I might have to stop by if this is the new JCP attitude they’re toting.
Hey JP, I totally missed this. Yeah, google Dilantin bone tooth loss. Lots of info out there. Also lots of people complain that they were never warned about it. Hope my story helped.
Umm, it’s been really hot. That’s interesting. Here’s our advisories.
Temperatures overnight will remain much warmer than normal.
Highs on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday will be near or above the hottest they have been on any day in the past 25 years.
I wonder what the difference in state power consumption is, summer vs. winter.
The amount I pay in the summer for record breaking heat is miniscule to what I pay for ordinary cold and certainly horrifically cold.
Where are you at? I can’t remember. West coast I’m thinking?
I’m in ND, and I think we had a brief period of temps above 110F for several days back in the early 2000’s. I believe it topped out at 113 or 114, and we had some humidity with it. I was driving a bus with poor A/C at work that day, and I was really miserable, and saying prayers that my 30-year-old home central A/C would still be alive when I got home. Also my cat.
I just looked up the record high temp for ND, and it was 121F back on July 6, 1936.
I know that’s like nothing for some of you folks, but up here, it’s unusual. We’ll typically hit 100+ several (sometimes many) days per summer, but 110+ is rare for us.
Yep, Oregon, not Portland. We often float around triple digits but usually 103 and 104 are like wow, it’s hotter than normal. The teens, is yikes. My A/C is working overtime. I am glad I had her checked out in the spring, just in case.
Also, i am fighting for the flower beds well but me and several of my neighbors… grass is toast. I keep trying though.
So a friend of mine just posted this picture
We’re thinking that might be a brown recluse. The fact that these exist here, they totally do, has been a hot topic for years. I have black widows the size of small birds around here but they hide and are not aggressive. This makes my skin crawl.
Legs might be too small for a recluse though… think they’re legs are longer.
So I am guessing you are in eastern Oregon somewhere. Those highs are above what we are getting here in central inland California. Only one thing though, our lows are higher than that. When it gets and stays this warm we don’t cool off in the evening and have some 80 degree nights projected.
Supposed to be in the 90s this week in Western Washington, possibly creeping up to 100. And I can speak for a bunch of folks around here that we aren’t really equipped for this, many of us don’t have air conditioning. Gonna be a sweaty week.