September did not start on a good note. On Labor Day, I got around 3 inches of rain… in a matter of minutes. I have gotten a lot of rain this year, and my sump pump has been running non-stop since the end of June. My yard was already saturated with water, and the downpour pushed it over the edge. Luckily, I was home and decided to check on my basement. I discovered a waterfall flowing from my window. Apparently, it is not water tight. The water rose three inches above the bottom of the window glass.

Water coming into window
This is after I mopped

I ran out and started bailing out my window well. This was a fool’s errand. With it still down-pouring, I could not keep up. I recognized my lack of progress, and went back inside. A few minutes later it was “just raining,” so I tried again. I had a lot better luck. The water started going down, and I could see what was happening. My yard is not graded right. My yard flooded, and the water flooded directly into the crack between the window well and my foundation. I’m not looking forward to talking with a landscaper.

Outside of water, I have been enjoying the end of summer and fall. We had our downtown street fair, and I had fun checking out the booths. One of the breweries was celebrating Octoberfest. My friend won Das Boot, so that was neat.

I went to Glendive’s NorsktOberfest again this year. It was even more fun this year, and I think more people attended. Cross Country Brewing, the local brewery, had two tasty beers for the event. Beaver Creek Brewing was a no-show, which is sad. The band that was playing throughout the event did a lot of great covers spanning genres and generations.

The NorsktOberfest Games were fun to watch. The MC was entertaining, and everyone who participated had a good time. If I can convince some friends to come next year, I think I might put our name in. Overall, NorsktOberfest was a huge success for Glendive, and a fun time for us.

The game Beer Puppeteer being played
The game Beer Puppeteer being played

I have been trying to improve my web development skills. I dove into some courses on The Odin Project. I don’t like tech courses, but I ended up learning quite a bit. I got some much needed updates on HTML and CSS elements. I tried going through the JavaScript courses, but lost interest. I have a problem paying attention to programming classes when I do not have a project to apply the knowledge learned. The Odin Project is a good resource, but I had no patience for going through hands-on projects.

I made the decision to pursue a major web development project. If you remember, I tried to jam Royfuss Games onto PicoCSS and it did not go well. I decided to take another stab at it by rebuilding the site. Armed with some new techniques, I think I have a satisfactory result. I have not uploaded it yet. It is mobile and desktop friendly, and I think it looks great. It is done, but I am going to sit on it for a while, and see if I still like it later. If I still like it, I’ll replace the current site. Regardless of what I choose to do, I will implement a new search page. I took what little I learned about JavaScript, and brute forced my way into a much better search. I am very proud of the new search. I am looking forward to you seeing it.

I am looking at expanding Royfuss Games. I want to do more with achievements. I have been playing around achievement APIs. I won’t go into too much detail now, but I think I can make it happen. The scripts I have now seem to work great for all of the places I have achievements. I will need to expand my game inventory database, load it up with achievement data, export my achievement data, and then create some scripts to generate the webpages. I will update you when I know more.

This turned into an update dump. I am hoping to have some actual articles in the next few weeks. Until then, see you later.