hi, i'm alec

I fix elevators for a living, mostly office towers and a couple of hospitals around Grand Rapids, Michigan. Most of my day is spent up in machine rooms and shaft pits checking error codes against a binder of service manuals, and I've gotten weirdly good at spotting the difference between a real problem and a sensor throwing a fault for no reason. I come home and go straight down to the basement, which my wife long ago stopped pretending was a shared space. Two kids upstairs, a workbench, a shelf of games, and a stack of books that doesn't shrink no matter how fast I read. I got into board games because a coworker kept a folding table by the parts counter for slow afternoons, and it turned into a real habit once I had my own place to run it out of. I read mostly science fiction and the kind of nonfiction that makes me rethink something I assumed was settled. I write these up when I've actually finished the thing, no review copies, no schedule, which is why the dates on here jump around more than a normal blog's would.

i'm based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

i write up the books and board games i actually finish here -- no schedule, no review copies, no affiliate links.