Jack of Harts

I ran another game demo on Friday. The first Friday of the month per my agreement with the game store owner. It was another good day of demoing Alpha Strike, a fun time was had by all involved, and the little tool I designed and printed off worked well. It is a 2 inch by 6 inch piece of playing card paper with the mech and vehicle critical charts on it. We used it a lot. One thing I realized is that I need a sheet to hand out to players with various links on it to show them where they can get resources to play the game at home. It’s been over a decade since I’ve demoed games, and even the way we network online has changed radically in that time. We did everything on message boards back then. I don’t think I was even on Facebook. Alpha Strike was still a subset of the BattleForce rules that a few of us were pushing as the future of BattleTech. Thank God I committed to running demos the first Friday of the month only. It gives me time to adjust to all the changes.

I donated the last of my mom’s Christian romance books to the bookstore in the church that is accepting them this weekend. I am told that people are literally buying them by the bag load, so they are helping to support missions in the world. That is awesome. And it was another trigger point for me. I left the store and realized I’d donated all of her romance books. I mean, I’d already known it. But was different to FEEL it as I walked out and the door closed behind me. I’d closed a door I hadn’t realized I was closing, and I can never go back through it again. I mean, I CAN go into the bookstore again, and I will. But it was the feel that mattered. That feeling of closure hit way harder than I expected. I broke down for a bit at that point. That was tough.