June 2007 Archives

The bar at the Breakers resort is pretty swank. It is a huge aquarium filled with tiny fish and shrimp and snails. Actually, the whole resort is pretty swank... at 300-600 a night it pretty well damn be...Maybe if I win the lotto will I stay here some time...

Finally, a beautiful day out. No rain, partly cloudy, and the ocean was nice and warm. I walked a couple of miles and then went swimming.

The weather forecast still calls for rain for the next 5 days, and it it currently raining now as I type this, but I am happy that at least this morning was clear...

We ate lunch at John G's which is only a couple hundred feet away from the ocean. Lunch was okay. I like the breakfast here much better.

It seems that the rain has followed me here. For lunch, I dove out to Havana and ordered the Bistec de Palomilla with black beans and plantains. Mmmmm... I have been seriously jonesing for Cuban food for a while now... I won't mind eating Cuban food as often as possible while I am here.

Afterwards, I dove by my old neighborhood. It is amazing how much it has changed. South Olive Avenue is now two lanes. I could have sworn that was four lanes when I lived there back in the 80s. I couldn't even see my old house as the front is blocked off by a hedge of ficus 12 feet tall.

And I stopped by the Lake Worth Pier. There is still a beach there. And half a pier. And rain.

I woke up pretty freaking early. When I turned on the TV I was shocked to hear that Marble Falls received more than 18 inches of rainfall in a couple of hours. And the weather radar was not looking good. An obvious squall line was heading south east out in the hill country. But I hoped that I could leave Austin before any serious rains hit. I safely arrive at the airport and, after getting a special screening, I see that my flight is scheduled to be on time. But then it changes to delayed because of mandatory crew rest (and not weather oddly enough).

I make it into Houston at 10 and run to my next flight which is a different wing of the airport. This entails fast walking a long distance, getting into a bus, waiting for the bus to fill up, waiting for the bus to backup and turn around, waiting for the bus to drive a short distance around the complex, and then fast walking another long distance. When I make it to my next gate, I still see my flight number so I have hope that I arrived in time. But it changes to another flight and I realize that it is too late. So I walk to an agent and change my ticket. Fortunately, they have held a seat on the next flight for me yesterday.

This flight leaves at 2:10 and I have a couple of hours to kill. I go to eat lunch but am faced with a dilemma. Do I eat in the B section or do I eat in the E section where my new gate is. Well, I chose badly and decide to eat at a pizza place in the B section. I know that they never have the same restaurants in the different sections. After lunch, I arrive in the E section only to encounter a Pappadeaux! Gah! I could have had seafood but ate crappy pizza. This makes me want to throw it all up...

There were no problems with my next flight and I finally arrive in Florida. I wait for my luggage only to have it not show up. So I walk to the baggage claim area and find out that it had made the previous flight! How can it get off loaded, sorted, and reloaded faster than I can get to a gate!?

I get a car at the airport and get transported to the Hertz location. However, when I walk up to my car, there is a lady getting into it. It seems we were both rented the same car! We both walk back in to sort it out and I leave with the car...

I planned on taking the 3:35pm flight out of Austin today. So I arrive at 1:30 to eat some lunch at the Salt Lick. Austin's airport recently made the news out having good, local eateries inside of it. But, that was the only good news of the day.

Apparently, there were some severe storms in Dallas/Ft. Worth. All flights into and out of it were canceled. Although there was a little bit of hope when we boarded the plan after announcing that there might be a window open. However we were quickly told that the flight was delayed once again. We were also given the choice of staying on the plane or leaving. The majority voted for debarking.

I heard that the W.P.B. segment was canceled. So I headed down to the ticketing booth and waited in a huge line. With only two ticketing agents serving the line progress was slow. And while I was in the line I worried that my luggage would actually fly to Dallas without me. I finally got to the head of the line and was able to get my ticket changed to a flight for tomorrow on a different carrier (Continental) and a different hub (Houston).

The next ordeal was getting my luggage back. Fortunately, the flight was canceled. But the problem was that all of the luggage was dumped onto one carousel (out of five available). I don't know where everyone was (probably in that huge line), but there was no one to pick up any luggage. It piled up and piled up until it overflowed and the system stopped. At that point I noticed a passenger offloading the luggage. So I helped out as well. Finally, an employee came out and reset the system. And eventually I was able to retrieve my luggage and make it back home at 8:30pm.

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I had a couple of things break in the house recently. My exhaust fan was not working and making snap-crackle-pop noises. Which is acceptable in breakfast cereals but not in light switches embedded in walls. At first I thought it was the fan that shorted out.

So I yanked off the cover and investigated the fan. I like how they use a small plug for the fan module. How convenient! But it took me a while to pry the fan out.

Notice how someone wrapped duct tape to stop drafts? But when I plugged the fan into an electrical outlet, it worked fine. Sigh. All that effort for nothing. So I removed the light switch and went to Home Depot (another new one on Braker and Mopac. Man, they are spouting up all over the place!). I also found out that if you turn the power back on with the light switch missing, then nothing else on the circuit works. I should know that everything is wired in series...

Next up was the garbage disposal. In my peach pitting marathon, I accidentally let one of those suckers escape down the drain. Where it promptly wedged itself in the disposal. I was able to fish out two pieces with my hand but there was still more in there. Fortunately, my model has a slot for a big Allen wrench to fit into. And I was able to turn the blades and clear the blockage.

John and I went to Wilco again and ignored the closed sign. The course was actually dry enough to play. We spotted a baby deer and a jackrabbit out on the course.

I finally had a good first throw on hole 3 -- probably my best throw ever on that hole. It landed right in the middle of the fairway. This hole is pretty tough. You have to throw a curving left shot that misses the wall of bushes on the left, the tree in the middle, and the cactus and brush on the right.

We ended early when it started to rain again. We didn't want to destroy the course. It was interesting. You could actually feel the temperature drop before the rainfall. Talk about evaporative cooling...

Colosseum

Tonight was all new games for me. Sometimes I think that too many games are released. First up was Colosseum. Which was a game that I was interested in playing. Being that its theme was about Rome. But John described it as putting on a play, and while that analogy was appropriate, it kind of ruined it for me. So Chapel and I amused ourselves by naming one of the play elements Christians. With Gladiators and Lions out to get them and cages to put them in. Fortunately, John is forgiving enough not to make a big fuss about it.

There are twelve possible components to a play and 30 different plays (with titles like The Galleys of Apollo, or The Cavalry of Spartacus). With only five game rounds, it doesn't seem like there is a lot of things to do in this game. And you do not track cumulative victory points but the victory points in your best play (which generally progress to bigger plays with more victory points).

There are a lot of random aspects to this game. You roll dice to move spectators around a track and hope that they land inside your Colosseum. There are five groups of three tiles that you can bid on and you hope that useful tiles are drawn from the bag. Also, in the version of the game that we played, money was largely useless after a while.

I will have to take a wait and see attitude with this game. If I play it more, and if it turns out to be a better game, then I will buy it. Otherwise, I am content with letting someone else own it.

Arkadia

Next up was Arkadia. This was a more interesting game. No theme was explained to me which was fine in my book. It left it as an abstract game which is what worked best. Essentially, you are trying to collect tokens (of which there are colors) by surrounding a building with your pieces, other player's pieces, neutral pieces, or other buildings. When a building is surrounded and the tokens are handed out, then the player will take a castle wall and place it on one of ten spots. This changes the number of visible colors when you look straight down. You may optionally cause a scoring which will allow you to trade your tokens for victory points. With only four possible scoring choices, you have to wait for the best time to use them.

This was an interesting game. And one that I am willing to play again.

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Now, is this post really a surprise to you? I mean what do you do with four bags of peaches? And a love of cobbler? Make peach salsa? What is this, New York city?

Now isn't that a commercial? The interwebs, why do they fail me?

I walk out and notice that my poor peach tree was having serious issues with the weight of its fruit. Look at the poor branches. They are bending over and about to touch the ground! So I stop what I am doing and pick all of the peaches off the tree. Any obviously eaten peaches, I throw on the ground next to the tree. Which is already littered with them. Otherwise, I fling the peaches out in the yard to sort later. The tree is actually helping me out by bending its limbs to the ground. I start at the top of a branch and work my way to the base.

And end up with eight grocery bags full of fruit either perfectly fine or with a little bit of insect damage. I definitely do not use pesticides! And I figure that I can use the ones with some tiny damage as cobbler material (cutting out the bad spots). Sadly, I also end up with six garbage bags filled with rotten fruit and insect eaten fruit.

I estimate that there were approximately 300 peaches. Which seems like an awful lot. I mean look at that sad tree. How do they survive on their own in the wild?

And there was even a bird's nest built on some of the peaches. I only noticed the bird as it flew away when it was startled. Which was surprising since I was picking peaches from the tree non-stop for 40 minutes.

The group decided to play Cat Hollow today. Or, should I say that John decided to play Cat Hollow and everyone else agreed. It looks like someone was out putting on hole 18 during the night. And they left a bunch of mini glow sticks taped up on the basket. And they also left about 8 laying around on the ground as well. Sigh. I wish these people would clean up after themselves...

Roxana finally played with us after about a year of an absence. Nick taught us the game of Troll (which is a five player game). An ordering of the group is determined. The last player will get to pick which one of the previous four that they will partner with. However, they must decide after each person's first throw. If someone is picked, then they will be a team against the other three players. And if a team wins the hole, then all players on that team will get a point. If no team wins, then it is a push and the points are carried over to the next hole. The last person also has the option of deciding to go by themselves (making a team of four against that person). Whichever team wins the hole will score double. On the next hole, the ordering is rotated. So every person will have a chance to go last. Also, we only play 15 holes (an even multiple of 5) for the game (only in the case of ties will we continue playing more holes).

Some interesting dynamics come up in the course of playing this game. You may want to purposely throw into the ground in order to make the person who is choosing pick someone else (or even be forced to go by themselves).

John also decided that the group would eat at Extreme Pizza. I was not in the mood to eat pizza, so I went somewhere else...

John and I bit the bullet and bought a yearly pass at Wilco. Since the tennis pro shop closes at 1pm, we show up at 12:30ish. Which is right when it starts to rain. Gravitt calls me up on the cell phone and asks if we should abort disc golf, but I tell him to toughen up. When I park, it starts to rain very hard (at least a couple of inches per hour hard). However, after we finally pay for the memberships, the rain stops. So we head out...

I had a good approach shot on hole 1. With trees in the middle of the course, my usual throw goes off to the left and then fades much harder to the left. So when this shot angled off to the far right and missed the trees, I was happy.

The course was muddy. And this course needs a lot more improvements to be made. Like: more mulch where there is just dirt paths, concrete tee boxes, and perhaps some buffalo grass seed planted in the middle of the course. But what was really surprising today, was when we got to hole 16, the ground was completely dry! There was no sign at all that it had rained not an hour earlier. Talk about the ground soaking up all the water...

Geschenkt

Chapel suggested this filler as we waited for people to show up. I took a bold strategy and took some high number cards with many chips on them. In this game, I started out with the 33, and , later on, got the 34. So when the 30 shows up, I am willing to keep adding chips to it until the pile builds up quite nicely. Ed surprised me a little bit by taking it with, I think, 10 chips on it. Of course, I was going to take it soon. But it still is -20 points to someone else...

Doug took low cards but was never able to fill in gaps. No one ran out of chips in this game. Although it got close some times. I ended up winning the game with close to half the score of the person in 2nd place.

Exxtra

Next up was this classic game. Which I love. I mean come on. It has dice, pushing your luck, and even some strategy to it. Maybe it was because it has been quite some time since this group has played this game. What ever the reason, the group dynamics were quite amusing. I would even say that they were the best I have ever seen. Jon (to my right) took the slow and steady approach. He would roll low the first time and then place the dice on the first spot. I could never roll great either, so I would use his protection factor and place my dice on spot number 2. Well, John would place his dice on 3, Doug would place his dice on 4. And Chapel would have no choice but to place it on 5. Each person was not risking a re-roll either. This left Ed severely hosed. All he could do was try and roll a number which would clear the board and place it on 0. Or roll and X and lose his turn. But he was in last place anyways. This kept happening and happening and there was nothing he could do about it. Finally he was pissed off enough to, instead of placing a rolled 76 on an open spot 5, place it instead on 0 and kick every one off. Somehow, I managed to eek my way into second place. Gravitt was able to be in a winning spot with no one else kicking him off. So I let him ride in for the win with me in second place.

Pickomino

Nick for some reason was running late. So we played yet another light and fluffy filler game. The dice, of course, acted strangely. I could rarely roll many fives at one time. While Chapel would. And then sometimes people would crap out only having two numbers locked out. Even though I could not roll well, the dice still loved me enough to give me the win.

Magna Grecia

Finally, we got to play a meaty game. One I think gets far less plays than it should. Perhaps it is the horrible color scheme. What ever the reason, it remains on my list of hidden jewels -- rarely played but great games. I was the brown color in this game. For the first tile that was turned up, it was orange (Chapel), red (Ed), yellow (Nick), and brown (me) with 2 roads, 3 cities, and 3 resupply. Mike, as the first player was somewhat hosed. He did what I would have done and built a city (1) which connected up to a oracle. Ed was somewhat in a bad situation as well and decided to build off of Mike's city and create a two city spot (2) hoping to eventually grab and control oracle B. Nick was new to this game. However, he made an excellent move. One that I desperately wanted to make myself. He built off of Ed's city and created a three city spot (3). This would give him a commanding control of oracles A, B, C, and D! In fact, the very process of building roads to those oracles both claims the oracles (4 points) and gives his market 1 more point. At the end of the game, he could hope to have a city with ten connections and 4 oracles. Which would give him 26 points! Ed, of course, connected to oracle B with a road on aa. However, Nick did make a mistake and place a road on spot bb which connected to oracle C. This forever cut off his access to oracle B. He should have instead built a two road connection on spot bb to oracle B. Surprisingly, Nick left oracle A alone. Even though it was two spots away. I decide to build off of Nick and create a three city spot (4) as well. I had hoped to control oracles A,J, and H. However, as it later turned out, someone built on the village spot north west of my city and connected to the oracle. This cut off my ability to reach oracle H with my city. It turned out to be sad, but not entirely unexpected.

During the game, I noticed that Mike was planning to take over oracle J. I knew I had to act immediately. If Mike was able to place a road to oracle J, he would have a city with one more connection to it than I would have. This would give him final control over it and 4 points. So I placed a road along path z to connect to a village. This both cut Nick off from being able to connect to my oracle and stopped Mike from taking control of oracle J over. Since you need to have a city with more roads connected to it for its allegiance to switch over.

Tichu

To end out the night, we played a quick game of Tichu to 500 points. To start off, Mike made a rather non-standard Tichu call. John had already called Tichu and was winning tricks. Mike makes a Tichu call but does not play anything. Finally, he starts playing. But was not able to stop John and go out first. His had was revealed to be AAKKQQJJJJ085. I made a Grand Tichu call on two Aces and the Dog and was successful. On the third hand, I made another Tichu call. However, on the fourth and final hand, the other team made a Tichu and one/two for the win.

Walking back from Taco Deli, I notice this huge spider's nest. It looks like something straight out of Lord of the Rings. Perhaps a mini Shelob is eating a mini Chihuahua in there?

John is trying to put together a Tichu session on Sunday nights. We shall see if I can make more of them, but I was able to finish all of my chores in time to make this one. There were a couple of new people present. So it was a good opportunity to increase the local Tichu skills.

However, my partner made some mistakes. One thing about this game that can be counter-intuitive is the fact that this a team game. One example is going over your partner's plays when they call Tichu. When Traci called it, I was waiting to help with a Dragon and a Dog in my hand. After an opponent played an Ace (and the Phoenix was out), I stepped in and played the Dragon. So Traci shocked me when she bombed the Dragon. She then led a low sequential pair which was overtaken by the other team. At this point, my hand was cratered and I could only sit by and hope that she could go out first. My partner should realize that I am not going to play on top of their Tichu call unless I have a strong reason to.

The next mistake was knowing how to stop the one/two. The other team was about to one/two. Wayne only had one card left. So I saw an opportunity to stop him. I played my last Ace and would play three low pairs. However, Traci went over my pair with a higher pair. And then lead a low single. Which I could not stop. Here is another case where you should not play on top of your partner unless you are guaranteed to go out next.

This game had a lot of bombs in it. I counted ten of them. And it was a long and drawn out game. We were even on Tichu calls and one/twos. But we were seriously out-pointed.

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The group decided to play at Old Settler's Park today before it got too hot (since there is scarcely any shade trees around). They have recently put some signage up. Also, there are signs at the park entrance for all of the sports (baseball, tennis, etc) except for disc golf. Glaring omission, I say.

We started out strong with our first shot bouncing off a tree and into the water. It was just not John's day.

I had a birdie on hole 12. And on hole 9, I was almost beamed by a disc. I was out in front of the group (usually not a good thing). I heard "four." And then "really four." When I turn around, I see a disc about to hit me. As I duck, the disc brushes my hair!

You know, this new flood stage marker is quite scary, if you think about it. The mark just under the sign at the top is twenty one feet above the water level. Do they really think that the water will get that high? I mean, that is over my head on top of this dam! If it gets anywhere near that level, I will definitely not be playing disc golf. Instead, I will be building an ark...

Seven people made it out today. Two teams of two and Curt, John, and myself playing solo.

Stephanie managed to throw her disc in the water. And Jon took that opportunity to go wade in the water and retrieve it. He found another disc for his efforts, but didn't keep it.

This Friday I decided to go to Wilco. As I need work on precise throws. Old Settlers with its extremely wide open areas really does a number on you. It shows when you try and keep your disc in a twisty corridor about forty feet wide. And it shows when you lose to Gravitt two or three strokes per hole. Not fun...

Ugh. I worried something like would happen. And it finally did. When I came up to a traffic light, I unhooked my left foot from the pedal. But I left the shoe resting on top of the pedal. When I came to a stop, I went to place my foot down. It was a surprise when I realized that my foot had reattached and was locked down. Of course my first impulse, when I started to fall, was to stick out my knee. Which is a pretty stupid reflex. Since my knee is not built to function like a kickstand. And I embarrassed myself in front of the other drivers at the light.

Gah! So, now I have to ride thirty miles with a sore knee that is covered in black road gunk...

Dancing Dice

Sadly, Adam has left Austin. And as a direct consequence, the scale has whiplashed to the fluffy side. Gravitt wanted to try out dancing dice. While I bought it because it is a dice game, it has been a while since I played it. Essentially, you have two choices in the game. You decide what dice (out of 6) you are going to reroll. Your other choice is what group of three dice you are going to place first in the order. That is pretty much it to this game. I started out poorly by placing in the bottom half of the group (and therefore losing dance points). But I eventually turned it around and ended up winning the game!

On the Underground

Ed brought out this new train game based on the London subway. I thought it was an okay game. But it is on the same level as Ticket to Ride. And if you have that game, there is no compelling reason to buy this game. At least in my opinion.

Wikinger

Next up was another new game brought by John. This game is about the early Vikings. But, during game play, I thought that the theme was weak. And I viewed it more like an abstract game. It didn't leave me with a great impression for my first playing. But who knows? I'll give it another chance.

I checked my mail today at work. For the first in quite some time, apparently. There was a gift certificate from a drawing when I left my business card at my favorite lunch time sushi restaurant. But it was sent last December and expired in March. So sad. I will call them up and ask if I can still use it. You never know...

I went to Ventana's for lunch today and walked by what is left of some of the IBM buildings. Which is basically a large pile of sand. But I could still see the putt putt course poking up through the weeds in a state of severe decay. It is amazing how much the grass and weeds take over what was once highly manicured lawns... So sad...

Today was the last lunch time game of Tichu with Adam. We are now dependent upon the flakiness of Chapel.

The cards were one sided once again. But that is nothing new. However, I was able to make two Grand Tichus in a row. But the next one/two was the knock out punch for our team. Jon had all four aces (the most useless bomb there is).

We finished early, so we played a couple of more hands. And ended up with setting Adam one last time...

The group went to Wilco today and I barely made it in time. I finished biking at 9:10, quickly changed clothes, and drove out stopping by Rudy's since I was starving.

Ugh. And today was another poor day for me. But at least other people were doing poorly as well, so I wasn't that bummed. I actually didn't finish a hole after throwing into a bush, getting spider webs on my glasses, throwing it into another bush, getting my glasses covered in spider webs, and then throwing it across to the other side and into some more bushes...

We ate lunch at Chuy's. John tried to get us to play a game (Nicht die Bohne!). This is a good game and I was willing to play it. But the huge table full of drinks, chips, dips, and food kinda precluded us from playing it. John was amusing though and used a tortilla to cover the heavily smoking fajitas.

Afterwards, John and I stopped by Old Settler's park for a tournament. They were running late (no surprise there). But I was glad to take some pictures as we sat in the shade next to hole 1's tee box. Most of the people that we watched throw are able to throw farther than us (within range of the basket). And they make it look so easy.