I’ll see your “Lost” Geek bid and raise you one RPG nerd:

Sometime several years ago, I think in late Spring 2004, the Dungeons & Dragons game that I was running went on hiatus. The impending birth of my first child, along with a few other factors, provoked my announcement that I would be taking a break from dungeon-mastering the game. DMing generally takes quite a bit of preparatory work. In the meantime, we played D&D in someone else’s game for a while, then Shadowrun, then Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and a few other little things mixed in. There were long periods of not playing at all.

After years of promises, we finally picked up my game again on Friday night. I feel pretty rusty with my DMing skills, especially the rules. I’ve forgotten many details. Despite that, I feel like the game went smoothly, and I had fun. The adventuring party had someone cast “raise dead” on a fallen member, in return for which they were sent to wipe out a band of evil cultists. Good, clean fun!

Garden News:

Erin and I ate the summer’s first ripe cherry tomatoes yesterday. The one I ate was a bit tough-skinned, which I hope is not a quality shared by its sisters-on-the-vine. It might have been just a tiny bit under-ripe; Erin at the ones that looked reddest. She is a real tomato-hound.

My gourd vines have taken off, and their per-day growth rate seems easier to measure in feet than in inches. OK, that’s exaggeration, but I do think they are growing at least six inches per day.

Coins:

I attended the monthly coin club meeting on Sunday afternoon. There was discussion about the Annual Fall Coin Show, Sept. 27-29 at the Best Western Brownsboro Road. Should be good. I’ll probably volunteer to work at the front table for a few hours, or I might help with setup or takedown.

One guy I spoke with a couple of months ago brought in two boxes of Lincoln cents in 2x2s so I could flip through and look for ones I needed. I bought a couple from him for a dollar each: A 1921-S and a 1924-S, both around G-8, I suppose. Two more I can cross off my list. He said he would bring some more next time.

I auctioned off one of the 2001-P mint-wrapped rolls of half-dollars that I found. I put a reserve of ten dollars on it, which is face value; this seemed to amaze the auctioneer, but he of course didn’t realize that I had got it at face value to begin with. Light lightning, it bid up to eleven dollars! And stopped, because the eleven-dollar bidder was The Kid (see my post about the kid at the coin club a couple of months ago.) No one wants to bid against The Kid, and even the auctioneer was actively discouraging it. I wish I had put a higher reserve on it. I might have got fifteen dollars.

There are attendance prize drawings each month, and I won a 1947-D Walking Liberty half dollar. My grading skills aren’t the best in the world, and I’m not particularly familiar with these halves, but I think it might barely rate a VF. Not an exceptional coin, but a great free prize. That other club member who is interested in world coins, Mike, won a prize, too: A Liberian-minted John F. Kennedy, Jr. commemorative ten-dollar piece. (Liberia is one of those places that has a huge commemorative coin industry.) Kind of a funny piece of junk, but hey, for free, who’s complaining?