1. Chaos. Last night, the building across the street caught on fire.

Again.

It's an abandoned/defunct factory; this is the... fifth? time it's caught on fire in the last couple of years. (The owner who acquired it after the previous owner died has been trying to sell it for far more than anyone wants to pay.)

2. Discord. This morning: Skipped my GURPS game (sigh) for round 3 of 4 of the Seattle Worldcon virtual business meeting. 3.75 hours of intense Roberts Rules neepery wrapped around 16 action items. 14 passed, 2 failed. I took notes on (1) everything that happened and (2) How To Bog Down A Worldcon Business Meeting, should I ever be so inclined.

There are a substantial number of people involved for whom Roberts Rules is apparently their main fandom. The Worldcon Business Meeting is their Pennsic. Some of them get annoyed at people who aren't interested in RRONR procedures as much as they want changes to Worldcon rules.

Also I have volunteered to be on two committees; we'll see if I get accepted to either.

3. Confusion. Family birthday party. Eldest daughter came over to cook tacos yay. Much bustling around a small kitchen with people no longer used to having three butts in a one-butt sized space.

Tacos were yummy. Cake and ice cream were yummy. French-press coffee was yummy; I wound up thinking "I should do that more often" and then remembered why I don't - because the cleanup is a hassle, and also, I prefer the coffee hotter than the press makes it. (5 minutes of sitting in a glass cylinder is cooler than I prefer.) But it's nice once in a while.

4. Bureaucracy. 2 hrs of OTW Board public meeting. (The meeting is 1 hr, but I'm involved as a volunteer, so had to be there in advance.) It ran short - instead of the normal "dozen questions emailed in advance + 10-20 questions asked in session," it was "5 questions sent in advance and only 4 more asked in session." All questions answered during the meeting; none left over to get posted on the website later.

5. Aftermath. Kid the Elder has gone home with doggo via Lyft; I am trying to catch up on the several chat channels with all sorts of stuff in them. Also now trying to figure out what writing deadlines I have pressing that have been shoved aside during prep for these two meetings.

I could... play a relaxing video game? Haven't opened Book of Travels in several months; I know there's been updates I was interested in. Outer Wilds was recently recommended to me. (It's on the to-play list, so I would like no spoilers.) I could... watch a movie? Fatal Journey, maybe? Or start watching Fangs of Fury?

Or hey, there are so many ebooks in my ereader...

Or, obviously after a day like today, what I need is a relaxing four hours of attempting to learn how to create an Access database that can later be converted to a SQL database. (I vaguely know how to Access. I do not know how to SQL at all, which I gather will be much easier once I know exactly what tables I need, which I will not know until I start figuring out how to connect the pieces.)

The database project is at an annoying spot of "I am sure I am so damn close to being able to collect new data in CSS form and import to the database instead of going through multiple Excel shenanigans steps" - but
1) I don't quite know how to set up the database in a way that lets me do that, and
2) I'm aware a notable amount of the current data is inaccurate, and it's much easier for me to fix in Excel than in Access. (Not lots inaccurate, just - the first 4000 (of the current 17k+) are likely to include things tagged as "TTRPG" instead of "T-Resources" (aka TTRPG resources, like lists of items or new character playsheets or small village maps, etc.) because I wasn't separating them back then and may have missed them on re-checking. And plenty of TTRPGs are not tagged for being solo or GM-less but should be.

I would happily use AI to write scripts for setting up/managing the database but I do not speak enough database to do that.

...perhaps database work is not the best relaxing end to a very busy day?

I could do playtesting for a solo ttrpg that I really like.

I could work on the adventure module for the game jam I signed up for a few days ago because I do not have enough going on in my life.