Doh! I wish you had mentioned it earlier. I have gobs of PTO available, and am sure my schoolteacher buddy would have been up for the road trip.
On the bright side, the bike has brand new tires and needs nothing done to it. The guy lived a mile from the only place in a 20 mile radius that sells ethanol free gas, and he rode it regularly enough (even through the pandemic craziness) that there is no worry about the carb being gummed up. Even from stone cold, it starts up with just a momentary press of the starter button.
The most annoying thing is that all the tax offices are closed to walk-in service, so I canāt get a license plate right away. (In Texas, the seller of a vehicle has the option of retaining the plates, so they donāt get screwed if the buyer doesnāt transfer the registration right away and hops on the toll road every day for a month (or six). Iāve known a couple folks that got screwed like that. I donāt know how long ago they changed the ākeep the platesā policy (or if it was always an option), but it is getting better known and is definitely recommended.
I may have spent way too much on a router, but at last count I had 10 wireless devicesā¦ waitā¦ 11 connected to my network, and my old router just couldnāt handle it. With my new Gb fiber connection, it was time to upgrade, and I got my tax refund soā¦
I actually bought it as a kit with a 24-120 zoom lens as my old small zoom lens was not a full frame one. The lens is not the best on the market, but it is a good one and I got NZ$200 off for buying it as a kit.
Iām also getting a free SB-700 flash (about NZ$850) as part of a Nikon NZ promotion. I already have an SB-5000, but it never hurts to have 2 flash guns, especially if one of them is free
They are shipped nicely with some string timing them in and would be great as a gift for gamers of a certain age. They do appear to be made from two-sided prints, so either authentic or convincingly faked. The paper has a bit of a grey to it that suggests aged paper, but it could also be a print thatās gotten wet, I got a loupe out and I donāt see any signs of pixelization, so theyāre good quality prints if theyāre made from reprints. They paper is glued to a cheap white tile and sealed, and cork is attached to the back so it doesnāt scratch your desk.
Ideally (and this might cross over to where theyād need to be licensed) Iād prefer something that looks like the image is directly transferred, even if that lost the āhandmadeā nature and was just a selection fo the better-known monsters.
I got:
Faerie Dragon
Goat
Tennodontosaurus
Drelb
Iād say the Faerie Dragon is the āstarā of the set I got, and was packaged on top. Goat is kind of amusing because it is, in classic D&D style, a mundane thing made slightly horrifying (a Goat could be a lethal threat to a lone Level 1 character). The other two are an aquatic dinosaur and a Negative Plane monster that even is noted in the description excerpted here as being commonly confused for a Wraith. The Faerie Dragon has a D&D āpedigreeā of sorts: I think one of the early novel series has one as a character, and theyāre a popular āspecialā option for Familiars all through D&D history.
Some of these are from the AD&D Monster Manual II to be picky. I would guess whomever makes these is dividing the āstackā into more recognizable/iconic monsters so every set gets one and the rest are filler like common animals, dinosaurs and other generic monsters.
Still, I like them, and they do the job of keeping my drinks from touching my desk. Probably better than the folded-up paper towels used previously.
They were born in May. I canāt tell them apart, so I mentally treat them as one particularly active kitten who is less constrained by the laws of physics than normal.
