There are no words to express how happy I am to be back in the Northwest, or how grateful I am, to be around the majority of my family during the holidays (Miss you, Mom and Dad, and your sunshiney holidays!)

Just over five years ago, the Viking and I put together a 5 year plan for promoting his career. We applied for positions to climb the IT  ( Read more... )

They say when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade. I beg to differ. Lemonade is great, but if you really want to show life, when it gives you lemons, you should make lemon curd... and if it gives you oranges, make marmalade!

So, one of the "staging" items I keep in the house now that it's on the market is a bowl of citrus fruit.

( Read more... )

Life's been weird (even for me) of late. For those who missed the earlier post, our family is returning to the great Pacific Northwest. Well, that's partly right. Part of our family has already returned there; the Viking arrived in Portland approximately a month ago and began his new job with the City of Gresham about that time. The Valkyrie and I ( Read more... )

Well, I wanted to make sure to share here too, for my friends who don't do Twitter or Facebook (I'm JessHartley on both, by the way ( Read more... )

In honor of the upcoming ENnie Awards - this week we tackle a hard topic: Being a Good Loser
Read tips and tricks on how to be a good loser and a controversial suggestion on when it just might be okay to lie.

Tomorrow voting ends for the Ennies.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the gaming industry's awards, here's some info. Suffice it to say, for those of us who work in RPGs, this is a very big deal.

Because of the particular process the ENnies have chosen (judges choose their top five out of the submitted products, then public vote determines ( Read more... )

(Cross-posted from my blog - my apologies to those who saw it there... I know some of my LJ friends visit, but others are pretty LJ-centric, which is cool too.)

A year ago, there was no such thing as One Geek To Another. Created just after Gen Con 2009, One Geek was started as a way to address etiquette and ethics topics for the geek community, ( Read more... )

Voting has opened for the ENnie awards, which is arguably the most prestigious award system in the non-video gaming industry.

What are the ENnies?

Hosted by EN World, the awards are presented at Gen Con, in Indianapolis, in early August.

There is an amazing selection of fantastic nominations this year. One of the coolest things about working ( Read more... )

I'm a gamer. I game. It's what I do.

I prefer RPGs, LARP or tabletop, even online gaming, but with real people playing real characters. I love casual board and card games, silly things that let you stab your buddy in the back while laughing together. Resource building strategy games? I'm so there!

I have my preferences, but like other addicts ( Read more... )

( Read more... )