Ringing out 2013 with a small Feed

Thank [$Deity] the last post for 2013 has very few links. Hundreds of cyclists have died this year and thousands more were injured, for what? for the most part it was because people driving motor vehicles did not want to be inconvenienced with a delay of a few seconds. Seriously, that’s it. Not for any grand plan, not as the result of devious designs, not even out of malice, but to save a few seconds on a trip. And the price for that few seconds was someone’s life or health or a leg or an arm or perhaps the ability to think straight for more than 2 sentences. And for many that were killed the driver was never caught with fatal bicycle wrecks being 4 times more likely to be a hit-and-run than the same result with other road users at 17% for cyclists and 4% for everyone else. That could end with Dutch-style bicycle infrastructure, which we could get for ~$30/person/year for about 20 years. Compared to the $336/person/year we spend on highways that’s a pittance, and compared to the savings in health-care dollars that would come from the investment, it’s a bargain as riding 30 minutes a day can save $544 per person, per year

Up first on the news is what looks like a vehicular murder in CA. Ending the year of hit-and-run on a sadly appropriate note and Bicyclist victim of hit and run The driver of the weapon vehicle crossed the centerline to hit the cyclist head on and then drove away without diminishing speed. Not something a human cyclist with human reflexes can expect to avoid, and the only way I can see to prevent is segregated infrastructure built to the Dutch standards.

And in Oz a driver that hit and killed a cyclist remains in jail until she can be transferred to a facility closer to her home. Queensland hit-run accused appears in court over death of Adelaide cyclist Kathleen Heraghty

And that’s all the links I have today this year. See you in 2014.

Billed @€0.02, Opus

Advertisement

I’m doing that decapitated chicken thing again, and the Feed

How did I get so busy? Between the blog and church and trying to cut up the fallen tree bits in the back yard I barely have time to take a deep breath. I mean when did this happen? I went from writing a blog and reading web comics with long bike rides nearly every day to having to figure out a schedule and manage appointments and still get things done outside and never getting any time to ride the bike. I’m an “Old Dude”, this shit ain’t supposed to be happening to me…

Up first, I hate being right about things that are stupid. This is really stupid. This Bike Suit Makes You Look Like a Marvel Superhero Remember all those stories I mentioned the glow-in-the-dark clown costume? It’s here. >shudder<

From the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike another is killed in a SWCC. Orlando police officer strikes, kills bicyclist The Street View of that intersection shows no bicycle infrastructure at all and poor pedestrian infrastructure. The cyclist would have had to been crossing from the grassy median to get hit on the right side. And I wonder how many “witnesses” were not riding in that police car.

Up north a bunch from that a driver with 13 major moving violations in 3 years hits and kills a cyclist. 13-time Loser Kills 61-Year-Old Bicyclist I agree with the author of the article, how was this guy driving to be there to kill the cyclist? And also I agree with the “suspended license means never drive unless you want to go to jail”.

From NM an act of terrorism is dismissed as a “prank” because the intended victims were cyclists? Steel cable tripwire prank causes bike crash, injury Had this “prank” been set up across a road and damaged a car and injured a driver, would it still be a prank?

A cyclist is killed in Central America (that place south of Mexico). Another Knocked Down And Killed On Christmas Eve SWSS again, which the police apparently did not believe because there were a plethora of charges placed on the driver. Hit-from-behind protocols to avoid and infrastructure to prevent.

It has been a bad weekend in Oz for cyclists, starting with this update on a wreck I covered Saturday. Cyclist killed in hit-and-run south of Adelaide, woman charged

Things get worse from that with another hit-from-behind wreck. Young cyclist dies in road crash and Cyclist killed in Tasmania road smash According to the first link the cyclist was in compliance with all applicable laws, including one that put him 18″ from the outside edge of the road IOW completely outside a driver’s vision.

An indictment of the state of infrastructure in Enn Zed. Cycling: It’s hell on two wheels The comments are made by mostly what Archie Bunker would call “meat-heads”. You know, dead from the neck up?

More infrastructure from CA. Smith: It’s taxing when we consider getting from place to place Here’s a clue, there was lots of bike infrastructure in existence at the turn of the 20th Century, it was called “streets” and everybody paid for them and everybody could use them. Asking cyclists to pay not to get killed sounds an awful lot like extortion…

I keep telling people that motor vehicles are WMDs, here’s another example of that from CA. Suspected drunk driver crashes into home, killing resident The vehicle retained enough energy after plowing through the wall of a house to cause death inside the house.

Lifestyle from down the road a bit. Wife of cyclist killed in crash speaks the night before his memorial ride

One of those I really don’t know how to classify. Inside: McLaren and its partnership with Specialized

Last link is a review of the first Clyde off the line. I’m getting the second. Customer Review: The Clyde It appears to have sufficient capacity for a large amount of groceries limited more by volume than by weight.

And finally I get done with today’s links just before I get hit with tomorrow’s.

Billed @€0.02, Opus

I like spreading Christmas over several days and a Wreck-Free Sunday

Last night I went to the wilds of Denton county to open gifts and share a meal with my daughter, son-in-law, and grandson. My grandson is developing a “so dramatic” personality that usually develops into some kind of on-stage adulthood like his grandfather (spoken word poet, actor, and comic) and great-uncle (’80s hair band that “was big in Japan”, and current jam band cover band). My grandfather was a singer and actor in a minstrel show. It seems like performing is a “skip a generation” thing in our family, as all my kids were in music classes but as soon as they got out of school stopped playing their instruments. But anyway, the grandson is at the “blowing kisses” stage, and gets all dramatic (even rolling his eyes) when told to do something he doesn’t want to do. He’s also real big into cardboard boxes as riding toys and paper bags are a real treat for him, because they can be used for so many things. You can put them over your head, you can stand in them, you can put them in one place then move them to another place over and over, you can ride on them (kid is real big on riding on things, I think I’m going to like this crash test dummy prototype toy tester) and you can even put other things in them and carry things around when you move things from one spot to another over and over again.

Anyway, presents from yesterday. I didn’t do too bad, I got another gift certificate to my favorite LBS, more chocolate covered cherries, gift cards to restaurants… and a whole lot of gifts to be shared with Mrs. the Poet like blankets, sheets, pillows, and pillowcases. Mrs. the Poet also got theater tickets and cab fare because while she can get to the theater using DART, the last bus home runs well before the final curtain falls. We also got a movie gift card to share, so maybe we will get to see a movie this year.

Right now Bryan (our cat) is enjoying the softness and warmth of the blanket we got to put on the bed.

I have been hearing rumors that I might be asked to attend a ribbon cutting this year when the “bicycle highway” from Mesquite to Richardson is completed and to participate in the first ride on the completed system. If that happens you can rest assured there will be pictures of me and whatever bike I have at the time.

Next weekend the people who are building my new bike will be having an open house . I’m not sure if my bike will be there or at the painter/powdercoater getting pretty weather and corrosion protection. Also the new logo/blog header is getting done for application to the box sides. Not sure when that one will get back from the graphics designer.

And tomorrow I get to cut some more on the live oak that has been sprawled across the back yard. Eventually this will become firewood for the church after it sits for a while.

Time to get ready for evening services, back to the grind of dead and injured cyclists tomorrow.

PSA, Opus

A quick post before celebrating “Christmas” with my grandkid, and the Feed

Yep, we’re going to the wilds of Denton County to open presents and eat Mexican food (I’m hoping for home-made tamales from someone’s abuela) this afternoon, so I’m dashing this post out and ignoring the tree corpse in the back yard.

Up first is this from BikingInLA. Update: Bike rider killed in Claremont collision; 54% increase in LA County bike deaths this year Hit-from-behind wreck means protocols might have been useful, but what is really needed is to get the infrastructure right as I doubt the number of cyclists in LA county has increased as much as the percentage of fatalities has. More UPDATED: Cyclist Killed in Claremont Crash ID’s as La Verne Resident

The Big Story today is a hit-and-run in Oz. Cyclist killed in hit-and-run south of Adelaide, woman charged and Two charged after cyclist killed in hit-run at Lower Inman Valley near Victor Harbor also Cyclist killed in alleged hit-and-run at Lower Inman Valley more Cyclist killed in hit-and-run south of Adelaide, woman charged and a wrap-up of the whole week in Oz Holiday road toll rises to 13 Hit-from-behind wreck with some indication that the driver might have targeted the cyclist because she was the lead rider at the moment, but protocols still might have made a difference in the survivability of the wreck. Get the infrastructure right to prevent including better screening of the people allowed to control what are essentially WMDs. Remember that wreck in ME that the driver hit 3 cyclists, a parked car, and still knocked a house off its foundation with the residual energy of the previous collisions? That’s the kind of destructive power we are allowing people to have control over with less care and oversight than we give people that buy guns that have a much lower lethality and destructive power.

Moving on, there will be was a memorial ride for the cyclist killed on a frontage road to I 35 in Austin. Memorial ride will honor cyclist Part of the problem is the “Autos uber alles” mentality of development from the 1960s to the end of the 20th Century has created areas where you literally can’t get there from here without driving a car. There is no place to walk or ride a bicycle without going along or crossing multiple lanes of high speed traffic, some of it very dense. This is a problem that I don’t know how to solve without spending buckets of money, and currently there are no buckets of money available to make things safe for non-motorized transportation.

Not sure how to classify this except as scary. Look out, cyclists: Southern states have the worst drivers

Expanding on a pair of links I posted yesterday from a very conservative GA newspaper. Why penalize cyclists?

Last link is a report on a solar-charged e-assist MTB. Hi-Power Cycles HT-1 Electric Bike with Portable Solar Charger: Harnessing the Power of the Sun

And those were all the links that gave me fits today.

Billed @€0.02, Opus

Doing Mule duty again, and the Feed

I went to the store with my ruck and hauled the comestibles home on my back again. [$Deity] I will be glad to get the new cargo bike next year because hauling even $40 of groceries home a mile on the sidewalks is no longer a minor chore at my age. It’s not like it was when I was first going car-free and hauling home cases of soda and gallons of milk in addition to canned goods and frozen foods. But I was a lot younger back then, and that was 5 years before I was hit with the truck. But I made it home with all the groceries intact, so it’s all good.

Up first is a wreck in CA. Man severely injured in Collision Intersection wreck, so protocols to avoid or to mitigate damages, and get the infrastructure right to prevent. I should also reiterate at this point that I hate hit-and-run drivers with a purple passion, and think they should watch their motor vehicles shredded in a recycler, from the inside if the victim died.

From Oz a cyclist is hit in a low-information article as the LEO are sitting on the details. Cyclist injured in collision with car Intersection wreck, but other than that I have nothing on this one. Use the protocols (all of them) to avoid a wreck like this or to mitigate the damages from one, and get the infrastructure right to prevent one.

Not far from where a cyclist was shot in the face with a paintball, another cyclist is hit with an egg fired from some kind of projectile launcher. Cyclist egged from moving vehicle The vehicle description kinda sorta matches as well. My Kiwi readers should be vigilant about white vans and people movers anyway as their anonymity makes for an excellent weapons delivery vehicle.

Infrastructure! news from S.F. CA. Bicycle boom prompts bike-registration proposal and Chicago IL As City Cycling Grows, So Does Bike Tax Temptation Apparently these people have never read Santayana’s quote on people who don’t know history. Cyclists pay as much as car drivers do to fund infrastructure on the local level, actually more in S.F as drivers come from outside the city for the most part and don’t contribute much of anything to the creation of the infrastructure they overwhelm and destroy.

Infrastructure news from the UK. New cycling safety devices cannot cure bad road design

And those were all the links that gave me fits today.

Billed @€0.02, Opus

Tired and sore after gnawing a bit more of the fallen live oak away, and the Feed

I took my dinky little chainsaw out into the back yard and cut some more of the live oak into burnable sized pieces that would fit the church’s fire pit. I referred to it in the headline as “gnawing” because the live oak wood is so tough and hard to cut with a $45 electric chainsaw. Part of the reason it takes so long is I’m trying to keep the pieces small enough to not block the sidewalk so our neighbors can get where they’re going without walking in the street unlike most of the other houses where the branches extend all the way from the street to the yard on the other side of the sidewalk. Also this way allows me to extract the maximum amount of burnable firewood from the fallen branches. I haven’t even gotten to the big stuff yet and I already have about a half cord of wood sitting in the driveway. Funny ha-ha thing was I filled the tank with bar oil and ran the thing dry cutting up all the branches to make them fit the space between the curb and the sidewalk in about 4 hours of work.

Lots of stuff today is updates on wrecks in CA, like this report on the Aussie killed riding in the bike lane by a drunk minor who was also texting at the time. Melbourne man James Rapley, killed in LA crash, was on his way home for Christmas I’m not sure if the lane the cyclist was killed in was next to a cliff wall or a cliff fall, but there was very little room to exercise an escape when the driver attempted to drive his motor vehicle in the bike lane.

More on the NAPSTER exec killed while riding in the bike lane. Deputy identified in cyclist’s death Once again Olin was killed with what must have been the only cruiser in the fleet not equipped with a dash cam.

And moving north from those wrecks we get an update on a wreck from last week. Berkeley: Cyclist killed in crash Friday; was UC employee The word on this wreck was the cyclist was having a medical issue when he crashed, and the crash was incidental to the death.

Moving down way south of that is a cyclist hit by a genuinely blind driver, that could not see because of an oncoming idiot with his high beams on. Young Cyclist Knocked Down By Bus, Seriously Injured The driver took avoidance to the left but still clipped the cyclist from behind. There was nothing the cyclist could have done differently to avoid this as he was properly equipped but the driver could not see lights or reflectors because of the oncoming high beams. The report stated that there were several police officers on the bus that observed the oncoming high beams and the otherwise perspicuous cyclist and blamed the other driver for blinding the bus driver.

And after checking back twice I find that those are all the links I have today. The post-Christmas spike still hasn’t hit yet.

Billed @€0.02, Opus

Merry Christmas, and the Feed

Merry Christmas to all my readers. I have to say I’m very happy with the present one of you sent me, even though I haven’t gotten it yet (the Clyde bakfiets from Oak Cliff Cargo Bikes). I have seen drafts of the new blog logo graphic for the box (and eventually for the header of this blog) and I’m happy with the process. My ugly mug will not be on this logo/header file and neither will Miss Gulch, but there will be a generic witch on a bicycle silhouette facing in from each end of the header. This will be much easier to reproduce for things like coffee mugs, mousepads, and water bottles when I get the store up sometime next year. The delay is because I’m having problems finding a coffee mug that I would consider owning from the places that sell promotional items with logos printed on them. I’m looking for a 16 oz. capacity insulated travel mug that will keep the coffee warm for at least an hour after pouring. I’m not so stupid to think I can keep coffee hot in a mug from a promotional items place, but I would like to keep it at least warm…

Up first, a large part of the problem that makes FL the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike is that LEO can’t tell the difference. UPDATE: Pedestrians injured in 2 Sarasota accidents Yep the official police report listed the cyclist as a pedestrian. There wasn’t much in the narrative in the link but the condition of the bike and location of the wreck make me think the mode of wreck was a hit-from-behind instead of intersection with a vehicle moving in opposition or at an angle to the cyclist. Notice the nearly pristine condition of the bike (well except for the dirt and grease). You could put the chain back on and ride the bike away from the wreck with no problems. Infrastructure to prevent including enforcing the FL 3-foot to pass law whenever a cyclist is hit from behind.

Moving up the coast a couple states we get another wreck. Bicyclist injured on Hilton Head Island This is literally a “he-said-she-said” situation with no clear-cut narrative, but if you combine the two and say they are both true, the cyclist had the through lane through the parking lot and the driver ran a stop sign, cut off and hit the texting cyclist. A big part of the problem here is the existence of huge parking lots around stores that require a substantial amount of time to negotiate after leaving the road. I call this an infrastructure issue that is caused by constantly catering to cars and drivers while consistently ignoring all other modes of travel.

Moving west to CA we get another wreck with strange damages to the bike. Breaking news: Bike rider killed in Laguna Hills Christmas Eve collision Notice the bike sitting in the street in this picture . The narrative is the cyclist pulled out in front of the weapon vehicle, which would make sense if someone tampered with the back wheel of the bike while it was parked and it came loose when the cyclist hit the brakes and caused the cyclist to slide sans his bike into the street. The way to avoid this is to do the ABC Quick check every time you leave your bike unattended.

And winding up the horror show is this letter from an entitled driver complaining about cyclists not paying their way on the roads. Cyclists must pay I agree with this, cyclists must pay for their share of the infrastructure, as should drivers. You can put 4 lanes (2 in each direction) of bicycle traffic into a single 12 foot wide lane that barely holds a single motor vehicle, or 3 in the same direction with lots of elbow room to pass, so then that would mean the motor vehicles should pay at least a 3 times higher initial registration cost to build places to drive and ride, and several thousand times higher for motor vehicles to pay to maintain that infrastructure. So basically the cyclist’s infrastructure lasts pretty much forever and the cost of collecting the tax would exceed the cost of maintaining the infrastructure.

And those were all the links I had that had something to do with bicycles.

Billed @€0.02, Opus

After another adventure, the Feed

This has been a very long day for me and it still ain’t done. I have a Christmas tree to put up (still), and presents to put under it, and some time today it might be a good idea to eat.

Up first, are people in Houston trying to kill cyclists? Do Houston drivers hate cyclists? Another biker killed in hit-and-run accident Of course Houston drivers hate cyclists, Houston drivers hate everything and everyone that isn’t them. That includes cyclists because cyclists fall into that category of “not them”.

Still in TX, a really stupid driver. Driver allegedly chugged cologne during Fayette County traffic stop What scares me the most is I was riding my bicycle in that area a few years back.

Another link to the Aussie killed in the bike lane by a drunk and texting minor. Melbourne man killed in Los Angeles riding bike I was hoping this link would have a better picture of the bike lane to show the skid mark left when the weapon vehicle hit the cyclist’s back wheel, and also marks or lack of same left by the weapon vehicle to indicate the application of brakes.

Still in CA a bike cop gets hit-and-run while on patrol on his bicycle. Oxnard police search for vehicle after it rear ends an officer on bicycle patrol I wonder how much more diligently they look for the guy that hit one of theirs instead of one that hit one of us.

Apparently there is a Lodi NJ as well as a Lodi CA because they took this cyclist to a Hackensack hospital when he got hit in Lodi. Bicyclist, 51, struck, killed in Lodi Salmon cyclist, hit in a left cross by a blind driver, I think we hit the Trifecta! Ride with the flow of traffic, and use intersection protocols to avoid a wreck like this, get the infrastructure right to prevent it.

From the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike we get another SWSS wreck. Cyclist injured after darting into car’s path in Port Charlotte, FHP says “Darting” into the traffic lane 9 out of 10 times means the driver was not looking for the cyclist in his lane. Hit-from-behind protocols to avoid and get the infrastructure right to prevent including making hitting a cyclist from behind the same as felony assault with a deadly weapon.

A cyclist in Singapore is caught on a dashcam video as he’s hit. Cyclist’s terrifying accident near Singapore Expo caught on video Since I can’t see the traffic light I can’t say what went down on this one. I can barely tell that there is a guy riding a bicycle in the video. I have to say that they must not have a very long amber phase in the traffic lights in Singapore because the light for the camera vehicle went green in fractions of a second after the wreck.

And another report that the US has ULTRA CRAPPY infrastructure compared to the Netherlands. Study Says U.S. Has Fewest Cyclists, But Americans Most Likely To Die Bicycling

And those were all the (new) links that gave me fits or otherwise again today. I had a bunch of old links in the Feed that I had already linked to in the blog. Merry Christmas to everyone who hasn’t already finished celebrating.

Billed @€0.02, Opus

I spent the day shopping, and the Feed

Well actually I spent most of the day riding a bus or a train, but you get the idea, I wasn’t here writing the blog post. We went to Plano so that Mrs. the Poet could buy my traditional bicycle gift, when she hates to go to the LBS to get it. She loves getting me bike stuff, she just hates going to the bike store and especially going to the bike store by herself. Then we stopped at my favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant Taqueria el Torito for lunch before catching another train to train to bus to another store to shop for the grandkid’s first Christmas where he’s aware of things going on around him (last year he just slept through most of it). He’s getting age-appropriate books for Christmas this year, next year he gets the balance bike either for his birthday or Christmas, and the recumbent trike for the one he doesn’t get the balance bike for, so he learns to balance and to pedal separately then gets a real bike to combine the two later. We didn’t get home until after 1900 so we were beat. Riding the bus is hard work, really.

Up first is a hit and run from Houston. Cyclist killed in hit and run crash Intersection wreck, so intersection protocols to avoid and get the infrastructure right to prevent.

Just up from there a bit, and a day’s ride from WoaB World HQ in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell, a cycling victim was also an advocate. Cyclist Killed In Crash Crusaded For Bike Lanes He knew that the only reasonable route to work from his home was dangerous and was working to make it less so, but nobody listened until he died…

Update on the LEO that killed a celebrity in CA. Deputy whose patrol car fatally struck former Napster executive named Nothing good has come from this so far, just look at how long it took to get the name of the driver, and add the fact that the cruiser seems to be the only one in the Sheriff’s fleet without a dash cam and things look very much like a coverup.

Also from CA is a cyclist completing a ride that previously resulted in his getting hit head on by a vehicle that crossed into his lane. Local cyclist embarks on a ride that almost killed him one year ago

Still in CA another cyclist is hit from behind in a bike lane. Bicyclist Fatally Struck By Car On Temescal Canyon and Cyclist hit on Temescal also Police IDs Bicyclist Killed on Temescal Canyon Road As it stands now the victim was killed by a drunk, texting driver who was also underaged for drinking.

Because I needed a laugh: The All-Powerful Bicycle Lobby: Conspiracy, Control, and a 1% Mode Share My favorite quote from @BicycleLobby: “If we have made a few motorists angry, we are truly sorry. Our intention was to make all motorists angry”

Last link is from Europe, where a cyclist was hit-from-behind. Felix Baur killed while training in Spain At this point besides the geometry of the wreck they know the driver probably wasn’t drunk or otherwise impaired.

And those were all the links about bicycles that I could keep up long enough to get a good link in the post. Seriously, my standards have dropped precipitously today.

Billed @€0.02, Opus

We had an early-morning RPG session on a Wreck-free Sunday

Because the DM had to work last night (and so did many of the players) we moved the game to Sunday morning. It was amusing watching a bunch of sleep-deprived geeks try to process tactics before coffee. Some had problems not walking into walls before coffee, which made me glad I was not riding with those people on the way to the game.

Once we got established in the game world there was the problem of finding which way to go to the place where we needed to be as our transport could not put us exactly at the place we needed to be for technical reasons related to magic in this game environment. While trying to get oriented as to where we were and where we needed to go we ran into a band of goblinoids (goblins and hob goblins) that numbered about 200. Well actually we managed to get a raiding party of about 18 separated from their main party by weather and pretty much did a curbstomp on them. We did this in spite of some characters acting down to their stats for wisdom and intelligence and having a screaming argument within earshot of the camp site for the raiding party while we were trying to ambush a foraging team as part of a campaign of terror against the goblins.

What we had planned was to take out the goblins and hob goblins in ambushes when we could get them separated from the main group in ones, twos, and threes. What we ended up doing was setting up an ambush when one of our main group was followed by the goblins that attacked the main group when he came to tell the ambush party about the main group getting attacked. There was a path from the main camp to the river where they gathered their water supply so we sent 4 party members down the path to take out the one hob goblin supervising the slaves doing the gathering and free the slaves. The idiots had their shouting match just after we took out the slaves’ guard and freed them.

What we did was hide in the heavy woods along the path to the river and when the slaves came up the path we took out the guard with a synchronized attack that had him down in one round. Then while we were clearing up the scene to let us take out the next group the screaming match took place and alerted the rest of the goblin raiding party, so we continued our plans to set up the ambush for a larger group up to the entire 18 goblins and hob goblins in the raiding party. We had a Warforged set up in a spot about 60 feet from the Soul Knife, Beguiler, Druid with a wolf companion, and my Warlock. When the second group from the goblin party came out following our Gnome Wilder warning us about the stupids in the main party we were already close to having our kill zone set up and just had to adjust our tactics to handle more opponents. The Warforged would wait for the second goblin to pass its location before attacking from cover while my Warlock would attack the first goblin down the path at the same time. We took out both in 2 rounds and put the rest of the goblins in complete disarray and unable to get their shit together to mount a counter attack against us. Within 6 rounds we had wiped the entire group of 7 goblins out.

Meanwhile the rest of the group was taking on the other 10 goblins and hob goblins with only 2 fighters who were guarding the non-combatants of our party. Now these were not just fighters, they were serious classes of sword fighters that could fight well above their levels of threats and they managed to kill another 7 of the goblins while driving off the other 3 with serious amounts of damage. The reason we even had non-combatants is they were needed for the quest we were entrusted with at the start of the module. So they stayed out of the way and let the fighters do their thing. While the fighters were doing their thing the goblins got in a lucky shot on one and nearly took him out and caused him to have a “come to Goddess” moment. After he was revived he was marked with the sigil of the goddess that the original shouting match was about.

After the game session I moved to the church where we had our Yule Log ritual. We wrote out our wishes for the upcoming year, what we wanted to get and what we wanted to get rid of and placed them on the Yule log we consecrated and charged last week then burned everything in the fire pit out back to send our wishes to our various deities so that they could be granted.

Then I went home and wrote this blog post.

PSA, Opus