Calm is Contagious

Greek citizenship follows the father, and German the mother. Therefore, I am technically eligible for Greek and German citizenships, in addition to being born a citizen of the United States of America. So why am I not Greek? Settle in, dear reader, because this will be fun!

In the early 2000s, I had the idea to obtain my Greek citizenship. I also contemplated German citizenship. My mother (erroneously) told me I could not get German citizenship because she had become a naturalized American. So I looked at Greek citizenship. Then I saw that Greek men could be recruited into the military until age 45. Hmm… not exactly what I was looking for at the time, so I decided to table that. But before, and after, deciding that, I made several attempts at obtaining my Greek citizenship.

When I started, I lived in Vermont. I called the Greek consulate in Boston and explained that I was born in New York City, New York, to a Greek national and that I lived in Vermont. I was told that I needed to bring proof of birth in the US from a Greek father to the Boston consulate. Fair enough. It was about a three-hour drive, so I didn’t want to make a special trip. I hoped to combine it with a long weekend. I made a few attempts to schedule said visit but was never able to do so. Why? Because the voicemail of the contact at the consulate was full. It was always full. For weeks. I called the main line and reported this and was told, “Oh yes, she is very busy.”

Time passed. I moved to the Boston area in 2012. I figured, “Now is the time!” and decided to re-open negotiations. I called the consulate again and made an appointment. On the phone, I told the contact that I was born in New York City, New York, to a Greek man. I was told to bring my birth certificate and father’s passport to the consulate for my appointment. On the phone, I was asked if my parents were married in a Greek Orthodox church. I found out and confirmed that they were.

I showed up with the required documentation. In addition to my birth certificate and my father’s old passport, I was also asked if my parents’ wedding had been announced in a Greek newspaper. At this point, I admit I was flabbergasted. I just said “yes, it was,” and that was that. I wasn’t asked for any sort of confirmation. The contact – the same contact with whom I had spoken on the phone – reviewed my paperwork.

And then said “Oh, you were born in New York. You need to go to the Greek embassy in New York.” Excuse me? I told you I was born in New York before we made this appointment. Wow. I was really glad that I lived only a few miles away and hadn’t made a full day trip just to be told something that I should have been told on one of multiple prior phone calls! I asked if I could get this documented in writing so I knew exactly what to ask of whom. This is when it gets fun.

I got an email, stating that my father needed to go to the Greek embassy in New York – not me. He needed to get an apostille of… something. I forget what at this point. It could have been my birth certificate, their marriage certificate, his passport, the Greek newspaper, or maybe my (paternal) great-grandmother’s baklava recipe for all I know.

So I prepared for a day trip with my father to go to New York. We would likely spend the night, visit relatives, get dinner in town, etc., so it would be a fun trip. For some reason though, I had second thoughts and something prompted me to inquire once again. I emailed back and… the email bounced. Mailbox full. (Remember, she is very busy! Apparently so busy there is no time to check voicemail OR email.) So I called the consulate and miraculously was able to speak to Ms. I forget her last name, but when I said it my father laughed out loud. I asked why. He told me it translated to “peach pit.” Ms. “Peach Pit” informed me that her email was not working, so I could use <mpeachpit>@yahoo.com. That’s right I was informed to use a Yahoo! email address for official Greek government work. That tracks.

I reopened the dialog once again – from scratch, because there’s no object permanence here – informing them that I was an American male, born in New York, to a Greek male, whose wedding – in a Greek church – was announced in a Greek newspaper, that I was living in Vermont even though I was born in New York, and was told I needed to get my great-grandmother’s baklava recipe (or other relevant documentation) an apostille stamp, or maybe it was my father. Or something.

I got the email back saying my father needed to go to Albany – the capital of New York – to get said baklava recipe apostilled. This was, as a friend of mine would say, an “AYFKM?!?” moment. Thankfully that’s when I found out about the possible military service thing and lost my appetite to continue this farce.

Years later, while having a glass – okay several glasses – of wine with my aunt, she asked why I didn’t have German citizenship. I told her the story, and how I didn’t think I was eligible. She debunked this, and encouraged me to apply. As my aunt would say “Long story short, I had my German passport about 5 weeks later.”

this is just a test. I have an automation which should push all of my blog posts to my Mastodon feed. I also have an automation to push all of my Mastodon posts to blue sky. So the question I have is what happens if I post a blog today? if this generates an infinite loop of spam post, I’m really really sorry.

Bethel—Heidi Nikolaidis, 79, passed away on September 21, 2024 at Cedar Hill Nursing Home. She was born on April 8, 1945 in Plattenhardt, Germany, to Otto and Lydia Boepple.

Heidi immigrated to the United States with her family in 1955. Heidi moved to New York City in 1963. She attended and graduated from the Latin American Institute, where she studied languages, later working for Appleton Century Crofts.

In 1966, Heidi met Nick Nikolaidis on a blind date. They married in 1968. During this time, Nick and Heidi had side jobs catering events.

While driving through New England one weekend, Nick and Heidi became enamored with central Vermont. Rather than spending their savings on a planned vacation to Aruba, they bought a one-room cabin in Bethel. It was their primary residence for more than 50 years.

They owned and operated the Buckboard Restaurant in Randolph in 1976, and later the Black Forest Café and Caterers in Bethel. While Nick and Heidi’s careers primarily were in food service and catering, Heidi had other pursuits. These included insurance sales, dabbling with local politics, substitute teaching in Bethel and Randolph.

Heidi was also active in the Bethel Business Association, the Bethel Historical Society, and the town hall restoration project. She was the driving force behind the hanging baskets that lined Main Street’s lamp posts for several years. Heidi got her pilot’s license in 1980, and joined a flight club. Her love of flying led her to joining the Civil Air Patrol, where she achieved the rank of Captain and was a Wing Commander in Vermont.

Heidi loved animals, gardening, cooking, travel, and her family. Her passion for travel took her on multiple trips to Asia, including trekking in Nepal.

She is survived by her son, Peter; three siblings; and several nieces and nephews.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, Oct. 12 at 2 p.m. at the Bethel-Lympus church on Gay Hill Road in Bethel. 

Nick Nikolaidis, aged 78, of Bethel, Vermont, passed away peacefully on Friday, March 29. He was born on May 31, 1945 in Athens, Greece to Anna and Miltiatis Nikolaidis. 

Nick immigrated to America in 1963. He embodied the immigrant’s American Dream, arriving in New York City with $20 in his pocket. His first job was at Morgan Guarantee (Later JP Morgan/Chase). In 1966, Nick met Heidi Boepple on a blind date in New York City. They married in 1968. 

While driving through New England one weekend, Nick and Heidi became enamored with central Vermont. Rather than spending their savings on a planned vacation to Aruba, they bought a one-room cabin in Bethel. It was their primary residence for more than fifty years. They owned and operated the Buckboard Restaurant in Randolph in 1976, and later the Black Forest Café and Caterers in Bethel. Nick worked in the foodservice industry for his entire adult life, including time spent catering at the Green Mountain Horse Association in South Woodstock, VT and weddings, parties, and auctions. 

Nick’s favorite pastime was collecting postcards. He was an active member of several postcard and stamp clubs. He can be fondly remembered sharing his love of this hobby at the Bethel Forward Festival. He was a founding member of the Bethel Business Association, a longtime member of the Bethel Historical Society, and an active member in the Bethel Town Hall restoration project.

For the past 8 years Nick showed his love and dedication to Heidi through his diligence and care after her stroke. She was able to live in her own home for the majority of that time because of Nick’s unwavering devotion.   

He is survived by his wife, and his son, Peter, whom he referred to as his “pride and joy.” 

A memorial service will be held at the United Church of Bethel at 2 pm on Friday, April 19th, 2024 with Pastor Thomas Harty officiating.  A reception will follow at the White Church. The service will also be livestreamed via YouTube.

The family would like to extend their heartfelt thanks to Gifford Medical Center, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, and the Cedar Hill Nursing Home for their support and care during Nick’s final days. Special thanks to Craig and Tonia Pratt for their years of loving care for Nick and Heidi. 

Nick showed care by providing delicious food (especially spanakopita) for his loved ones and community. His passion for good food, wine, and the Bethel community will be sorely missed.

A few years ago, during peak COVID, I was playing role-playing games (like Deadlands and Dungeons & Dragons) 3-5 times a week. I was glad to reconnect with my favorite hobby as a kid, and also to reconnect with friends with whom I’d lost touch.

Initially, I played on Roll20.com because that was where my D&D friends were. But some time later, my Savage Worlds (mostly Deadlands) friends introduced me to FoundryVTT.com. I was blown away at how polished the UI was, and the great support for Savage Worlds that Roll20 lacks to this day.

But Foundry was not without its drawbacks. I won’t go into a comparison of the two platforms – there are dozens of those just a Google or YouTube search away if you want them. The one drawback that Foundry had which Roll20 could not claim was simple: every time I tried to upgrade Foundry from version 9.something to 9.something+1, it broke my games. I reached out to Foundry’s “support” on Discord, which was a complete joke. I was told by one lurker in the channel that he could not help because I was running on Windows. So I backed up my configuration, ported it over to a Linux server, and… reproduced the problem. Still no help was to be found.

Eventually, I gave up. Despite having invested hundreds of dollars and – more importantly – dozens of hours configuring Foundry to my and my friends’ liking, I gave up and went back to Roll20.

And almost immediately questioned my decision. Sigh. After a few months on Roll20, and seeing more Savage Worlds games and modules available for Foundry, I decided to give it one more shot. After all, there was a Mac version now, and I could hack at it locally on my MacBook, so why not?

It took a couple hours, but I eventually successfully migrated my old Foundry 9.x installation and worlds to version 11. I was thrilled to see that – somewhere between 9.x and 11.x, the bug I experienced which broke my worlds during upgrades – had been fixed!

But I had one lasting problem – I like having my Foundry server local on my laptop (especially when working offline on an airplane or in Vermont when the power goes out), but I need a way to let my friends play on it too. And I don’t want to have to remember to back up and restore and move my world around from my Mac laptop to a Linux or Windows server, having to deal with path differences, and re-licensing it every time I start the server.

The solution? I set up SSH forwarding to redirect traffic sent to my Foundry server on to my Macbook.

ssh -i my_ssh_key.pem -R my.foundry.server:30000:localhost:30000 -p 2222 [email protected]

This command allows you to access a server running on your local machine via port 30000 on the remote server my.foundry.server, by creating a reverse SSH tunnel through the remote server.

1. ssh: The command to initiate an SSH connection.
2. -i my_ssh_key.pem: Specifies the private key file (my_ssh_key.pem) to use for authentication. This key should correspond to a public key that’s authorized on the remote server.
3. -R my.foundry.server:30000:localhost:30000: This creates a reverse tunnel that forwards connections to port 30000 on the remote server (my.foundry.server) to port 30000 on your local machine (localhost). This is useful if you’re running a Foundry Virtual Tabletop server on your local machine and want to make it accessible from the remote server’s address.
4. -p 22: Specifies that the SSH connection should be made to port 22 on the remote server. This is useful if the SSH server on my.foundry.server is configured to listen on a non-standard port.
5. [email protected]: Specifies the username (ubuntu) and hostname (my.foundry.server) of the remote server. You should replace ubuntu with the appropriate username for your remote server.

Now, as long as I can reach my foundry server (on port 22 in this example) and have a decent speed connection, my friends can play on my server while I have the convenience of having it local with me wherever I go.