National Pancake Day - March 4, 2025

(from the Has It Really Been Five Years? department)

Hey - long time no pancake.  How've you been?  I think it's time for a stack of pancakes!

This time - we learned from the past.  Dana, Rose & I headed down to our local IHOP at about 5:00 PM.  We were able to be seated immediately.  After looking at the menu, we ordered our free pancakes, and I got a burger - with hash browns:

Burger - Not Pancake

Pancake - Not Burger

Rose ordered a strawberry crepe with her pancakes.  Dana asked if she could add blueberries to her free stack:

Ready To Dig In!!

A Thumbs - And A Butter Knife - Up!

We really enjoyed our meal.  Good thing we went early too. When we left at 6:00 PM - the line for pancakes was out the door:

Patiently Waiting For Pancakes

For more information - check out IHOP's website here:  National Pancake Day 2025 - Enjoy Free Pancakes at IHOP®

Cheers,
Paul

Kooza!!!

(from the I Can't Believe They Can Do That! department)

Hi everyone,

We went to the latest Cirque Du Soleil travelling production last night - Kooza.  It was in a big tent at Marymoor Park in Redmond.  Really well done.  

I'll leave the description of the show to other bloggers, but it's kind of a modernization of traditional circuses.  There's a ringleader, clowns, acrobats, etc.  They're not exactly the same as a Ringling Bros. show - but the roles are there, just done in a Cirque Du Soleil way.  

A note about the aerial work.  Some of it is incredible.  There's a section they do with a spinning structure that defies belief.  The tightrope walking is pretty amazing too.  But - seriously - all of the performers were outstanding.  Hard to pick the best, really.

The music was really good too - really tight band playing live.  The current touring group features a drummer named Eden Bahar, who holds the Guinness World Record for "Most drumstick spins in one minute (one hand)".  He set the record of 149 on 13-Sept-2018.  They gave him a solo spot in the show - he really shined, without being overbearing.  

Finally - we did manage to get a picture at the event:

You'll notice I'm wearing my down jacket.  I had on a blue-green t-shirt that matched the backdrop.  I kept disappearing in the photos.  Luckily - I had a zip-up down jacket - or you would have seen a much different photo!

They also gave us the raw image:

All in all - it was a magical night.  We had a lot of fun!

Cheers,
Paul

Merry Christmas from Santa and Rose (part 18)

(from the I Don't Think Rocky Had This Many Sequels department)

Well - we did it!  It was a mad whirlwind getting to the Santa photos today - we were booked in the last available slot.  But - we did it!!

Without further ado - Santa Photo 2024®!!

Rose is quite the young lady now.  But - she still asked Santa for a present!

Personally, I'm thankful that we were all available to be in the Santa photo this year.  We're working on staying healthy and optimistic this upcoming year.  (Health and happiness for all - that's what I'd ask Santa for!)

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone - from the Pietromonaco family!

Cheers,
Paul

Haiku Writing - Moon Viewing 2024

(from the Just Splish! department)

Hi everyone,

This year, Rose & I attended the Seattle Japanese Garden Moon Viewing on Thursday, Sept. 12th, 2024, at the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle.

The event was a little more low-key than in previous years.  Also - the tea ceremony was only available for Friday's event, so this was even more low-key. Still - it was nice to get out of the house, stroll around the grounds - and watch the moon go behind the trees the minute we got there!  (At least there was a moon visible this year - previous years have been pretty cloudy!!)

(Original announcement here:  https://www.seattlejapanesegarden.org/events-calendar/2024/9/12/moon-viewing)

About the only event carried over from last year was the Haiku Contest.  Rose wrote one haiku - I managed to get two completed.  My second Haiku got an honorable mention!

Here's the Haiku:

Rose:

An angler fish rests in the sky

as he bites the moon

I feel light on my skin

Paul:

wind blows softly

gently pushing the clouds - 

moon sails above

Paul (honorable mention winner!):

viewer's footsteps - 

bundled against autumn chill

warmed by moonglow

(You might notice that the haikus don't necessarily follow the traditional 5-7-5 syllable pattern.  Modern haiku are less formal.)

Full contest results are here: https://www.seattlejapanesegarden.org/moon-viewing-2024-haiku-0912

Rose & I had a great time.  Looking forward to the viewing next year!

Cheers,
Paul

Merry Christmas from Santa and Rose (part 17)

(from the Yup - That's Rose!!! department)

Hi everyone,

The streak continues - 17 years!!

So - I present to you - the Santa photo...

It's been a transitional year for the family.  I was let go by Indeed on April 1st - April Fools' Day.  (Heh - funny!)  I've been looking for a job since then.  Dana continues her volunteer work at the Seattle Aquarium, and has a new gig volunteering at the Seattle Asian Art Museum.  Rose has settled into her second year of High School - she's doing well!  This year she's been studying American Sign Language (ASL).  

Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings from the Pietromonaco family (Dana, Rose & I).

Cheers,
Paul

Haiku Writing - Moon Viewing 2023

(from the Splish, Splish, Splish! department)

Hi everyone,

Dana, Rose & I attended the Seattle Japanese Garden Moon Viewing on Friday, Sept. 1st, 2023, at the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle. 

This is a nice evening event where you can stroll around the Japanese Garden, see luminaria and lanterns, hear traditional Japanese music played on flute and Koto, and attend a real Japanese tea ceremony.

(More info here: https://www.seattlejapanesegarden.org/events-calendar/2023/9/1/moon-viewing)

This year, all three of us participated in the tea ceremony.  Simply amazing!  Then - we got to make a wish and launch a small boat with a candle.  (Well - a battery powered candle - no fires for us!)

Because of the length of the tea ceremony, Dana & Rose missed the Haiku Contest this year.  I barely made it in time - I only had five minutes to create a Haiku masterpiece!  Needless to say - that didn't happen - but I did get an honorable mention!!  (1 of 12 they handed out this year.)

Here's the haiku I wrote:

Paul:

Tea ceremony -

Small round cake

Calls to the moon

Not bad for 5 minutes!

(You might notice that the haikus don't necessarily follow the traditional 5-7-5 syllable pattern.  Modern haiku are less formal.)

And the moon?  It did show up later that evening, after the moon viewing was over.  Gorgeous moon tonight after all!

Cheers,
Paul

Fix for Tomb Raider (2013) on Arch Linux

(from the Gaming On Modern Linux department)

Hi everyone,

Quick post here - I've been trying to run the original Feral Interactive port of Tomb Raider on Arch Linux.  It starts - then stops immediately.  

Looking at the Arch Gaming troubleshooting guide here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Steam/Game-specific_troubleshooting#Tomb_Raider_(2013) they mention trying to see if there are missing libraries.  The output of that command is:

$ ldd steamapps/common/Tomb\ Raider/bin/TombRaider | grep found
       libssl.so.1.0.0 => not found
       libicui18n.so.51 => not found
       libicuuc.so.51 => not found
       libicudata.so.51 => not found
       libCoreFoundation.so.476 => not found
       libvorbis.so.0 => not found
       libSDL2_image-2.0.so.0 => not found
       libcrypto.so.1.0.0 => not found
       libcef.so => not found
       libpdf.so => not found
       libfmodex.so => not found

The weird part?  All of these libraries are already present in .steam/steam/steamapps/common/Tomb Raider/lib/i686

I thought "That's weird". I looked at the debug output in Steam - and yes - it can't find those libs.  I messed around with a few different approaches - adding LD_LIBRARY_PATH to the startup options, etc. - but nothing seemed to work.  

In desperation - and just because I like to be weird - I tried this:  

$ cd ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Tomb\ Raider/lib
$ ls
i686
$ cp i686/* .
$ ls
i686       libCoreFoundation.so.476  libcurl.so.4  libicudata.so.51  libicuuc.so.51  libssl.so.1.0.0  libtcmalloc_minimal.so
libcef.so  libcrypto.so.1.0.0        libfmodex.so  libicui18n.so.51  libpdf.so       libsteam_api.so

And tried starting the game again.  It worked!

That wastes 152M of hard drive space though - so I deleted the files and decided to create a symbolic link to the files instead:

$ cd ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Tomb\ Raider/lib

$ ls

i686

$ ln -s i686/* .

$ ls
i686       libCoreFoundation.so.476  libcurl.so.4  libicudata.so.51  libicuuc.so.51  libssl.so.1.0.0  libtcmalloc_minimal.so
libcef.so  libcrypto.so.1.0.0        libfmodex.so  libicui18n.so.51  libpdf.so       libsteam_api.so

Works just the same - and saves a ton of space!

So - the summary is - it should be loading the game libraries from the i686 subdirectory, but it doesn't seem to be able to find them.  Making them available one level up seems to solve the problem.

Cheers,

Paul