Ridin the Rails
August 2024
Huh, would you look at that? Another post has finally dropped. I’m typing this on the Amtrak Empire Builder somewhere in Minnesota. I am on a nice two week rail vacation where I took the Acela, Cardinal, and the Empire Builder. I will still take the Coast Starlight in a few days from Seattle to get back to San Jose. In the meantime, let’s catch up, shall we?
MagWest
I was a first time attendee at MagWest last year. I’ve met a lot of friends who volunteer at MagWest. It was only a bit of time before I got roped in to help. I will be volunteering at the Arcades and the LAN areas. In addition, this blogger will be presenting a panel about Pokemon ROM Hacks! Don’t worry, reader, I will post a blog transcript/video recording of the panel for your enjoyment. I’m excited to talk about all the work that I’ve been doing in this area and can’t wait to share it with the world.
Homelab
So, uh, the homelab is turned off. California + High Energy bills = Not good for Seth’s wallet. It was a fun learning experience that I might push to later. The only thing that I might do in the future is build a NAS to store all my media and stream my anime from that. I experimented with Jellyfin and used a USB HDD attached to my ASUS Router and was amazed at the success. Albeit, the very hot HDD probably wasn’t happy and 4TB isn’t enough for all the anime that I would like to watch.
Train Reviews
- Acela - 9/10: OMG, I love how fast I’m flying and Wi-Fi is pretty solid. We need more trains like this in the US. 8 hours from Boston to DC is insane.
- Cardinal - 7/10: Not too bad, to be honest. 24 hours but only has cafe car. The food is fine for shorter trips but you kind of start to hate the cafe after 12 hours. The views are pretty solid such as the New River Gorge in West Virginia
- Empire Builder - 7/10: Pretty good. Mainly, I got tired of the train after two days in my seat. Don’t get me wrong that the sights were great and I had a nice time to myself on it. Weaving from flat Montana to gorgeous Washington, lots of pretty sights.
- Coast Starlight - 8/10: Just like I remembered but going south this time back home from Seattle to San Jose. Just a single day aboard and we were on time to San Jose, so I was pretty pleased.
Pokemon ROM Hack
I’m experimenting with pokeemerald-expansion and toying with the idea of
doing a ROM Hack. I had started one in the past on vanilla pokeemerald but
never brought it to fruition. There is a lot of features that expansion gives
me from later gens. Even if it never finishes, I still think it will be a lot
of fun.