April 2007 Archives

This was the Adam show. No doubt about it. He called and made Tichu on the majority of the hands.

I bought two items to use in my pizza dough. There is a really great website that explains all of the variables that go into and how to solve problems with pizza dough. The first is diastatic malt powder. This includes an enzyme called alpha-amylase which breaks down the long starch molecules and tenderizes the dough. The second is NFDM or non-fat dry milk powder. This should help with fermentation tolerance and crust browning.

I used the diastatic malt power in the pizza dough recipe first. And I did notice a slightly looser dough and softer crust. But I want to go a little further. The package suggested one quarter of a teaspoon per loaf. My recipe creates 3 pizza pies, so I used one teaspoon. Next time, I will bump it up by 50% to a teaspoon and a half.

I bought four different fruit trees for the house and only one of them actually fruits: my peach tree. However, there is a problem. The sap leaks out of the fruit. I wonder why...

The group went out to Cat Hollow for some disc golf. I had a good throw on hole 3 and birdied it.

John, myself, Nick, Stephanie, Adam, and Rehana played. And there were no groups this time.

Follow the line of discs to the basket!

I tried to go biking today. But it was interrupted when my rear tire blew. Unfortunately, I was heading downhill and picking up speed. I felt the bike twist out from under me. And I knew I was going down. As part of a bad reflex, I stuck my hand out to break my fall. Fortunately, I took most of the fall on my shoulder. I guess I hit my head hard enough to crack the helmet. But I don't mind that so much. It did it's job well enough. I will have to buy another one though. Its a shame that the helmet only lasted one ride.

Fortunately, there were no cars near me at the time. And I was able to fall in the ditch instead of on the road. Sadly, the rear wheel is broken and will have to be replaced.

Caylus

Wow, it been a while since I have played this game. It was initially hot. And was played quite a bit. But new games have pushed this one off of the radar. So it was nice to play it again. And I was a little rusty. I mistimed when two of the later rounds would finish. So I couldn't build as much as I had planned. Which cost me second place. However, it was still a good game.

Mu

With only three players who like to play Mu, it is hard to get a five player game of this going. Usually, we have to cajole, threaten, mock, brow-beat, or otherwise forcibly convince other people to play it. And it is sad that, after playing games with us, they still do not see the kernel of greatness that lies within this game.

Tichu

Sadly, memories of this game are mostly lost to the mists of time. On Adam's set Tichu, an Ace bomb of his did not help him when faced with Doug's King bomb.

Fjords

Every one bugged out early, so I played a two player game with Adam. I like this game. It is part Carcasonne and part Go.

I decided to try out a longer circuit and follow the 25 mile route on this map. I was surprised just how many houses were out in the country. I wonder where all these people work? Their commute times must be long.

I had one equipment failure when my chain popped off. It was easy to put on. But the repair made obvious that I needed some hand wipes. Grass just doesn't cut it. So, I rode the rest of the way with greasy fingers. Next time, I will pack some wet wipes!

One of the houses looked interesting from a distance. It had a huge garage with one side open (the side facing me). And in that garage was a plane! When I looked at the name of the street leading to the house, it all made sense. The name was Wilbur Wright Drive. And I was riding along County Road 130 at the time. You can tell from Google Maps that there is an airfield out back.

There was another game day at Ed's house. I had brought my camera with the 70-200mm lens to the tournament. But I was too nervous to bring it outside. If I had then it would have been amusing since someone else brought a Canon 20D with a 70-200mm lens as well. We would have looked like Paparazzi. When I brought it inside Ed's house, I decided to take a picture with it on. I had to walk off into the other room to get this framed. With an effective 1.6 multiplier, this lens at 200mm turns into a 320mm lens.

Dragon Parade

Ed brought out a new Knizia game for us to try. It is a rather simple game. A dragon starts in the middle of the board. People will play a card that moves it towards one of two gates (a red one and a yellow one) and they will then place a token that will mark where they think it will finally end up. When it stops, they get points based on how close they were to the Dragon. If they were on the other side of the market, then they will get negative points.

As you can see from my one of my hands, I had a mostly one sided card distribution. Which is good if a couple of people before you send the Dragon marching off into your direction. And that is what happened for me. It also helps if the person before you sets you up to be able to end the round early by marching the Dragon past a gate. John on my right did it for me one time. And I was able to get Ed (on my left) to do it on another round. That helped cement me into winning the game.

Age of Discovery

Ed brought out another free (review copy) game on the table. This game had a theme (boats and exploration), but, for some reason, didn't really grab me. One of the interesting things about this game is that, at the start, each player is given a secret goal card that scores extra victory points for them. They are mostly different and incompatible goals. One is to be the only person at a site. Another is to have at least one ship at a site. Next was to have 50% of the ships at a site. And the last one was to have the majority at a site.

Mike's goal was obvious when he immediately filled up a site that didn't require too many ships to complete. I think mine was obvious as well, when I was placing small ships at a lot of sites. Only Ed and Susan were not obvious as to their goals.

Honey Bears

Honey Bears was next on the plate. I like this game. The theme works (bears going after honey). The rules are easy. And the concept is simple: cards, at the end, are worth victory points. However, the cards also move the bear towards the honey and make the bear worth more victory. So you have tense balancing act to perform: you have to play cards to make the bears more valuable but hold cards to score the points.

One of my hands was simple for me. Go yellow bear!! Go red bear!

After the game ended, we tried one round with the following variant. Everyone plays their card at the same time and face down. Starting with the start player, each person reveals their card and moves the appropriate bear. Which was interesting. Often times, only a couple of bears would move because everyone played one of two colors.

Canal Mania

To end out the night, I played Canal Mania. Which was alright. But after playing so many games of Age of Steam, I miss having the ability to pick which tracks to lay. In this game, you only have a couple of choices (from five to one) of segments to build. And once you have made your choice, you next have to concentrate on building the segment before you pick another segment.

Instead of going somewhere else to play disc golf today, John wanted to check out the Texas Woman's Tournament. At least the setup part of it. They had clearly marked the tee box. And placed advertisements up.

And it looks like they created a set of alternate short holes. Which were pretty much a straight shot at the basket.

The baskets had flags on top of them. (In case you could not see the bright yellow metal band).

And it looks like local clubs set up rest areas. With water and fruit and other things.

After giving Stephanie some moral support, we headed off to the Rivery. We got a late start, so we only played half of the holes.

John wanted to play at Wilco today since Stephanie was going to enter the Texas Woman's Tournament tomorrow. Man, was it packed. It seemed that everyone wanted to practice on this course. And it took forever to finish. I think we finally left at 8pm.

I did have one nice throw on hole 12. Close enough for a birdie.

Taluva

John brought out Taluva. This a game with really thick tiles. And which should be a fast playing and lightly meaty game. Depending upon how your group plays, of course. Your turn is simple, draw a tile and then place it on the board (following a few, light restrictions). Then, you can place your pieces somewhere. Either place a hut on a level 1 spot, a temple next to a settlement of three or more huts and no other temple, a tower on a level 3 spot next to your hut, or huts on all adjacent, unoccupied, locations that are the same terrain type. The game ends when someone places all of two types of their pieces or when the last tile is placed.

This is a game where everyone needs to be aware of opportunities that another player can take in order to get ahead. If everyone picks on each other equally, then no one can get ahead. However, in our game, Mike jumped out in the lead and John was in second. I continued playing the game trying to win, of course. But when John (the 2nd place person) picks on me (the third), then I have no motivation to stop Mike from winning. I am not going to stop Mike from winning only to let John win instead.

Alhambra

It has been a long time since I have played this game. Too long. But there are so many games out there that you really have to start picking and choosing which ones you will spend time with. I started out this game behind the pack at the first scoring round with a score of zero. I didn't build anything because the things that I could build were of colors that people were already fighting over. So I bided my time and collected currency. The game was also weird in that red and green did not show up until late in the game. In the second scoring round, I caught up and in the third, I pulled ahead. It helped that I secured majorities in the two most expensive colors (purple and green).

I think I started this escalation a while back when I was wondering if I should buy a bunch of putters and a basket. Then John Gravitt turned it into reality by buying two metal baskets and like 20 putters. Next, Jon Grimm bought a basket as well.

Well, I can't let that stand, now can I? I decided to spring for a professional model. One that they actually use on the courses. And I ordered 20 Birdie DXs. The only stipulation was they they would all be 168 grams +/- 1 gram. I am still waiting for Disc Nation to fill that order.

The only problem was that the pole would not fit! The shipment came in three pieces. One box containing the stand, the basket and the mounting hardware. Another box contained the yellow ring and metal chains. The third was the metal pole. Everything fit except for the top. Initially, I thought that the power coating decreased the inner diameter where the pole would fit. I got out a rubber mallet, some padding, and whacked the hell out of it. But I finally realized that the top quarter inch of the tube was the right size but the rest was not. The outer diameter of the pole was greater than the inner diameter of the top.

Sesh! That was some nice quality control. I called Innova and they helped me out. They investigated the problem and called me back to tell me that I had the first of a new batch run. What a lucky coincidence! They sent out a new pole to me. And I was happy that, not only did it fit, but they threw in a couple of Aviar discs for my troubles.

Now, the next step is to convince Ed to buy a couple. He needs them for the back acres. And to provide more of an incentive for disc golf gamers to make the northerly trek.

Ahh, tax time. I actually like this time of the year. It is my last major payment of the year. In January, I have to pay the city taxes, the county taxes, and the home owners' association fees. In March, I have to pay my automobile insurance and my house insurance. When I have payed off the government (or gotten a refund), I am home free! I only have to pay monthly utilities, food, and gas until the end of the year.

And toys. Can't forget about the toy budget! Hopefully, I will be able to buy a 1D Mark III soon. And I need a new computer...

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I was kind of curious as to how a competitor's pizza would cook up on my oven grill. So I stopped by the new pizza restaurant called Papa Murphy's. I bought a medium two-topping pizza with Canadian bacon and artichoke hearts and cooked it on the pizza stone. Turned out pretty nice, actually. So it seems that I have a ways to go.

The only problem was that I had to transfer the raw pizza to the screen. Fortunately, they had wrapped the pizza in saran wrap. So I flipped it over, cut out the bottom, removed the cardboard tray, placed the screen on the bottom, re-wrapped it, flipped it back over, and removed the wrap.

I buy one item at Home Depot and walk out with a receipt that is longer than what I purchased! What is up with that?? The receipt turns out to be 13 3/4" long while the pertinent information is only 1 5/8". Such a waste.

Ugh. I got to a late start this morning when I woke up at 9am. Initially, I thought it would be too cold for me since I haven't bothered to buy arm or leg warmers. The TV said the temperature was in the upper 50s. But when I walked outdoors to get the paper, I thought it was quite nice out.

So I hopped on the bike and set out. And promptly realized that when I am moving I get a light breeze. Which lowers my perceived temperature with the added wind chill. But I warmed up after ten minutes.

The only problem was that the cold air exacerbated my asthma. So I couldn't do a longer haul like I wanted. I need to get working on my average speed as well. It took an hour to ride 16 miles. I'd like to get that down to 48 minutes. There are two lights and one big left turn that I have to wait for, so I need to subtract that time...

Spring time around here has some of the most severe weather: tornadoes, hail, and high winds. Daytime heating against cold fronts really churns up the atmosphere. Today was pretty windy. The maximum wind gusts were 30+ miles per hour.

So I tried out a photographic experiment. Get a long exposure time and try and capture some trees in motion. I set the f/stop as small as possible at f/22. And set the ISO low as possible at 100. If I framed the shot as mostly tree filled, then I could meter the scene at anywhere from 1/2 a second to 2 seconds.

Do these trees seem in motion? Or, are they acting more like they are possessed by an evil spirit?

It turned out to be a fun experiment. Since the last picture contained sky, I had to use an EV +2.0 to get the tree metered correctly. It also makes me realize the need for even lower ISO values. My next camera will have an ISO of 50.

Today, the group went to the Rivery. Because, after disc golf, we wanted to watch the new movie Pathfinder. I thought it would be a good movie to watch. After all, its about Vikings! But that decision was not based on any movie review. A 12 on the tomato is not a good score at all. And I agree. This movie was horrible!

The new theater is pretty hidden from both 29 and IH-35. And only one other person was watching this show at noon. The real attraction of this theater is its convenience: it is close to a disc golf course and it has a restaurant inside. I looked at the menu and it doesn't seem that bad. They have salmon and some salads...

I was practicing on hole 1 while waiting for Adam and Rehana to show up. My first shot goes off to the right and down into the large depression. Which is not that bad, actually. Its better than throwing through the large trees on the left side of the hole. My next throw was blind. But I have played this course enough to know exactly where the basket was. I threw my Star TL because you want to throw your shortest-traveling disc hard rather than throw a longer-range disc soft. So I was pleasantly surprised when, after climbing up the slope, I saw that the disc landed right under the basket!

The wildflowers are definitely in bloom. They are pretty, sure. But the growth and the coloring makes finding your disc harder. Its great to play with other people who help search for lost discs.

It looks like the disc golfers around here are installing tee boxes! Too bad it seems that they are not going to install them on the extra holes for the winter course or the extra holes on the normal course.

Hole 7 has two mandatory signs on either side of a small gap in the trees. These signs consist of red spray paint on the two trees. So our question is: is the entire tree part of the sign? That is, if your disc bounces off of the rightmost branch and back into the gap, is that okay?

On hole 15, my disc usually curves off to the left and lands close to the road, if not occasionally skipping on the road and landing on the field on the other side. This is nothing new and I am used to that. However, my second shot landed right in the basket for a birdie! Woo woo!

Mini Bridge

While we were waiting for everyone to show up, Adam dealt out a hand of mini-bridge. I was the chosen one with 12 points. When I look at the dummy's hand, I was depressed. In the dummy's strongest suit, I had no cards. And in my strongest suit, the dummy had one King. So I chose eight Spades. Sadly, I did not make it and was off by one. Apparently, I needed to let Adam (sitting on my right) win a trick. He would take one more and then play a card that I would win.

Union Pacific

Mike has not played this classic game and I have not played it in a long time. So we brought it out. The first payout caught Doug at a disadvantage since everyone else had two trains out and he only had one. The next one caught me by surprise. I did not get a chance to put my Union Pacific shares out in time. Fortunately, no one else did either. I was also lucky in not fighting other people for control in my shares. So I jumped out in the lead. At the end of the game, Adam was able to just catch up. But not by enough. I won by one share.

Age of Steam: Soul Train

For our meaty game of the night, we broke out Age of Steam. With five players, we tried searching for a map that was designed for 5. We didn't find any new maps, so we just picked one and went for it. And that turned out to be Disco Inferno. Which might be a mistake with Mike-Pod playing.

As it was a new map, none of us had any experience with the strategy required for this board. The map is broken into three areas (Hell, Earth, and Heaven). Six cubes of each color are placed on cities in Hell. The goal is to transport them to the corresponding cities in Earth. And the game will move to phase two when at least twenty have been transported. At that point, all tracks leading to Hell will be removed (giving players 1/3 of an income point). Hell will be removed, flipped over, and placed above Earth as Heaven. Now, there are only two turns to transport the souls to Heaven!

We started out with $20 dollars. Most people took three extra shares while Mike and I took two. Bidding was intense. And I thought it went far too high. But I won the start player with ten dollars and chose Locomotive. Adam chose first build and fortunately he did not build where I had wanted to go. Jon was amusing. He had chosen first move. So his goal was to hose someone who had already built. With my level 2 locomotive, Jon chose to avoid going after me. Instead, he went after Adam. Which hurt both of them badly. But, over the course of the game, Jon hurt himself the most and ended the game with a score close to zero.

By the time that we realized the important aspects of this map, I had built my tracks pretty well in that regard. We figured out that after the cubes are delivered to Earth, their next stop is Heaven. So you want to control the routes upwards to Heaven.

With the ability to build six hexes each turn, you can lay a lot of track. Doug made a surprising first build by laying track from Kool to Domus and effectively cutting off 3rd Rock. Which meant that not a lot of purples were delivered there. Sigh. Fortunately, there were six black cubes on Earth and a lot of cubes of Domus and Masse.

Doug was able to make strides in the mid-game. And pull out into the lead. But I had better connections to Heaven and was able to catch up at the end. So it came down to who had layed the most track which turned out to be me.

The cards were certainly one-sided today. And yet, our team did not call Tichu often enough. The trick is to figure out when your partner has good cards instead of the other team. You only get one piece of information. And that is the card which your partner passed to you. If it is the Dragon, the Phoenix, or an Ace, it is a clear sign. Even very low cards like twos through fives can be clear signs. The question is how do you interpret when you are passed a middle card? In this game, it was: "I hope to make a strong Tichu hand so I am keeping my honors."

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Sometimes you can't ask for a more conveniently placed bird. All I had to do was open the back door without scaring them off...

I've been hording some stuff up to comment on, and now is the time...

WTF? I didn't even realize that it was a possibility. What savages I have in my neighborhood...

I received some interesting patent spam in the mail. I get: 50% of the net revenue. They get: all rights to the idea, and no obligation to do anything. It sounds completely biased towards them. How tempting...

My credit card company apparently appreciates me. Hrm, what can I think of? How about "show me the money!"

Nothing brings out my inner survivalist more than buying bulk foods. Twenty five pounds of rice and ten pounds of beans should last me a while...

Its time to get rid of my old Peace Lilly plant. It grew too big for its space. And, the weight of the leaves widened its circumference too much. So I bought a new one.

I highly recommend it as an indoor plant. It is tough. It can handle low light conditions. And the leaves will droop when it needs water (once a week is enough normally).

Adam, Rehana, and myself took advantage of the clear, sunny weather to play disc golf. We knew tomorrow would be cold, wet, and miserable. And, since it has been a while, we went to Cat Hollow. Unfortunately, everyone and their brother were out on the roads. Traffic was painful. And the course was packed as well. We had to wait at every hole for people ahead of us to clear out.

It looks like there is a mini-tournament at some disc golf course that I haven't heard of at 803 Rolls Road, in Leander TX. Weirdly, there was no mention of a date and there would be a Hold-em tournament after the event. I've never seen those two paired together before...

Two young men in front of us were drinking beer while playing disc golf. That was not too abnormal. What was amusing though, was that they improvised a cooler by carrying their beers in a bag of ice. So, every bench that we came to had water or mud on it because they kept placing their bag on the bench.

Sadly, they threw out their bottle by placing it on the top of the basket. Grrr!

Amun-Re

To start out the night, we played this recent Knizia game. It is pretty sad that I haven't played it for so long that I needed a rules refresher. And boy was I rusty in what areas to bid for. I settled on the low farmer spot Damanhur while Adam and Doug went for high farmer spots Mendes and Thebes. After my second spot of Kharga (another low farmer spot), my fate was sealed. It was clear to me that I would not be earning much income at all. And I was in a enough of a downward spiral that I could not recover.

My next problem was that I drew many of the different province bonuses but could not use them. Other people were bidding more than I could afford on the spots I needed. So I didn't score them for the old kingdom. At the end of the game, I had one of every province bonus and could only use two (I traded the others in for one gold each -- so sad) because, again, people were bidding high on spots I needed.

I definitely want to play this game again. And soon enough so that I can remember some of the painful lessons that I have just learned.

Hoity Toity

Next up was Hoity Toity. This is a game that I am never fond of playing. After all, it is just a glorified game of Rock/Paper/Scissors that rewards you for guessing different than all of the other players. But its been a while since I have played it last and I was game to try it again.

And, of course, I was not guessing differently than everyone else. I would thief at the auction house and someone else would pick thief as well. Or, when I wanted to go to one of the places and be alone, all five people would pick that place. Sigh. In the end, I was able to get the biggest art display. But I was too far away from the leaders to win. I only moved into second to last place.

Tichu

Ahh, Tichu. I can't get enough of this game. And, with Adam leaving, I am going to need to overdose on it because, when he is gone, the chances that I will play this game are going to be diminished.

Somehow, I even like this game when I get terrible card distributions. Tonight, I had two hands with an Ace and one hand with three Aces and the Phoenix. And, on what would be my best hand of the night, Adam made a random Ace wish. Which made me not call Tichu (the Tichu call would already be risky enough with a low trip and a medium sequential-pair). But, I got my karmic-revenge! On the next hand, Adam again made an Ace wish which hurt his partner. Jon then calls Tichu because there is one less Ace out there. Jon also had a four bomb but was still in trouble. I had to use my five bomb (passed to me by Adam) to stop Adam from going out first.

Our team was able to stop Adam's first Grand Tichu call because I misplayed a straight. It was not a valid five card straight. And Adam could not deal with the resulting single card onslaught.

Mini-Bridge

Rehana still had not show up to drive Adam home. So Adam dealt out a hand of mini-bridge. It's sad that Adam is leaving. Because he will not have enough time to convert Jon and myself to bridge players. Rehana then showed up just as Adam finished dealing the cards out. So we called out to her to come play bridge with us. The points turned out to be: Jon (11), Adam (9), Mark (12), Rehana (8). So I won the bidding and Jon tabled his hand. I decided to make Hearts trump and go for the minimum number of tricks (8). You can see Rehana's opening play of the eight of clubs. Which I lost to Adam's Ace(?) after I ducked. I lost a couple more tricks. Including one winning low Spade trick when Rehana trumped it. Fortunately, when there were eight tricks left, I was able to get control and run the Hearts out. The remaining Hearts were split well for me to pull this off.

In my limited driving around, I have only found one large field of blue bonnets in bloom. And that is at the IBM complex. Which is nice, for sure. I like to be greeted in the morning with something pretty to walk past.

I do want to drive around the Texas Hill Country some time and find some better blue bonnets areas. It is on my list of things to do in Texas...

Woo woo! My streak of bad luck finally broke! I was worried there for a while (even during this game).

This game started out very painful. Down 400 points after two hands. For my first hand, I had a King bomb and no Aces. So I wished for an Ace, which forced Ed to bomb with his Aces. Later, Jon stopped in by bombing a trick I was going to win with a ten bomb. But, I over-bombed with Kings and went out with a pair of fives. Afterward, Adam surprised us with an eight bomb which, unfortunately, was not enough to let him go out third.

Jon's first Tichu was set naturally. On the next hand, Ed plays a straight that does not contain the Mahjong. Adam then bombs it with threes to force Ed to keep the Mahjong (which is a looser). Jon calls Tichu and Adam surprises us again by coming up with another bomb. Unfortunately, Jon has too many winners to be set.

And, on the following hand, three more bombs showed up. Two were in the opposing team and one was in my hand. Jon got down to one card and played a pair. Adam won that pair and dogged me. But I had three singles that I needed to play. So, I played the Queen and hoped that Jon could not beat it. Unfortunately, Jon had an Ace. I was set regardless because Ed still had a bomb.

When it got to 750 - 750, Ed said it was the last hand of the game. Which left a distasteful feeling to me. Why play this game and have it be decided by one hand? Thankfully, everyone agreed to play to a thousand. Which was amusing when we Tichued/one-twoed for the win! All that worrying and discussing for nothing.

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Buck's Bikes was holding their annual sale. And I was considering buying a new bike. I have been riding my Revive for over two years now. It is not what people would consider a long distance bike. But I have been riding it for 15 mile loops. And it is not easy to fix on the road when you get flat tires.

So I bought a Bianchi San Mateo. I'll see how easy that it to ride hunching over. I also got clipless shoes. That's going to be fun getting used to. I must remember to twist my foot off the pedal when I come to stop.