I put on my official professor disguise and headed in for the start of the semester today. I had a long list of goals I wanted to get done between the end of last semester and start of this one. I hit some of them and made good progress on almost everything.

1. Spend some quality time with the wife and kids — I definitely did that. We had a lot of fun just being together, reading together, playing together, talking together. It was nice.

2. Get back into teaching piano to the kids — here’s where I dropped the ball the worst, for I only managed one piano lesson for one kid between Christmas and now. Whoops!

3. Finish the rough of three chapters of my sequel novel — almost. I have two and 3/4 of a chapter. With luck I should be able to finish chapter 3 this week.

4. Write all my game reviews for Black Gate 12. Almost — at the last minute I added the immense Castle Whiterock to the list of products to review, and I just finished reading it a few days ago. I wrote all the reviews I’d intended to write when I planned out my wish list, but I technically didn’t get everything done.

5. Start prepping two of the three new Harold Lamb collections. Yes — most of the material for Swords From the East is off to the author, Scott Oden, who’ll be writing the introduction. I prepped all of the front and back matter for Swords From the West, and, thanks to some timely assistance from fellow Adventure and Lamb fans got my hands on another copy of a misplaced letter. I should be able to steal enough time Tuesday to make a final proof pass and send the text for Swords From the West off to Bison Books.

6. Revise my syllabus and get it ready for the new semester — yes. My printer died, which made things a little hectic, but I’m here now on campus as the office printer is blasting the thing out.

Bonus activities — I’d hoped to spend some more time teaching my kids some role-playing, courtesy of some Dark City Games adventures, but their spring semester started on January 3. Their vacation was too short, to my mind. I did, though, get in a full day of gaming with most of my rpg friends, and have joined the Halo collective courtesy of E. E. Knight, who’s been teaching me how to blast evil aliens.

Howard