On eating

Posted on April 7, 2011 by Freejack

A little aside.

Rita has a few eating requirements. She’s been excluding foods to see how they may be affecting her digestion and also eats organically. I don’t have any dietary restrictions.

We have a house sitter while we’re in Prague. He made a comment that rings true for me as well. Essentially we still will want to eat even after having dinner if we smell something else good. So eating pizza will be good and it seems that smelling the same food won’t be attractive but smelling a steak on a grill will have me wanting it or walking by a hot dot place on the street. If left to my own devices, I’d have something to eat all the way up the street. I’m satisfied as in not hungry, but I expect normal folks aren’t attracted to food once they’ve eaten.

So when we go out, Rita asks where do I want to go. But it’s her dietary restrictions that have to be taken into account and since she’s trying new plans to isolate the problem, I don’t know what she can or can’t eat right now.

Unfortunately she’s fooled me in the past. She’ll push to find where I want to eat and I’ll give in and suggest a local place, The Rib House in Longmont for example and I’ll order expecting her to place an order, but she won’t have anything. It feels like I’ve failed a test to have her sitting drinking water while I have ribs.

And with the prevalence of smoking here in Prague and the 8 hour difference in time zones and my eating schedule is thrown off. I didn’t get hungry until midnight. After we’d eaten.

So last night was a little frustrating. We walked for hours looking for places where she could eat where I could have stopped anywhere and at any time and been just fine. Rita kept asking if I wanted anything. Being off my schedule and with the cigarette smoke, I said that I could wait until she found a place to eat. Once found, I could eat with no problem.

We’d stop and she’d do a conversion of crowns to dollars and say “too expensive” or ask for a gluten free menu and be told there isn’t one. At one place there wasn’t anyone eating so we bailed. We figure that no customers shows the place probably doesn’t have the best food. Eventually we simply stopped at a street hot dog place and had a couple of sausages.

I said I’d like to try a Gyro one of these times while we’re in Prague, and she said I should have said so. But if she can’t eat one, why would I get a gyro which would either exclude a restaurant from later choices or force me to have two meals?

It’s a little frustrating.

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Leaving on vacation

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Freejack

In general since we don’t regularly plan vacations, I’ll head off for a week or two on the motorcycle. Rita will occasionally go with me but generally not. We both have entirely different styles and requirements for rides. Last year Rita said we should go somewhere in 2011 and I agreed. She looked at several places including South America, Morocco, and even Nepal. Eventually she settled on Prague in The Czech Republic. She spent quite some time looking over tour options and we’d get several packets in the mail. Eventually she had a Prague guide book with lots of dogears and highlights showing where we should go. She even got the hotel picked out and planned on changing hotels for the last two nights to splurge a little. She even got on a Nomad website to find folks who live house sitting. They move from place to place with just a minivan. In this case, they came on Sunday and will be leaving Wednesday morning after we return.

We had several things to get together prior to going including getting our passports renewed. We had them for our trip to Jamaica years ago and they’d recently expired. Of course we also had to pack what we were taking. As this was going to be a walking only vacation; we’ll be in a hotel downtown and within metro or bus of all destinations, Rita made sure I had my walking tennis shoes. She was also packing light, planning on washing clothes during the week. I packed for each day and had an extra, check-in bag but punted a couple of items after Rita mentioned washing.

So Tuesday morning we left the house in the hands of Nomads and headed to DIA at 8am. On the way, I snagged a last picture of The Rockies.

Last view of the mountains on the way south on 25 to the airport

Rita found an off-airport parking lot called The Parking Spot with a $5 a night fee off of Pena Blvd. It had a shuttle over to the airport so we didn’t have to walk to the terminal again. We checked in my bag at the door, the line at the desk was quite long and headed to security. The line was moderately long, about what you’d expect for 11:30am but we made it through with a minimum of fuss. Rita did forget to remove the bag of liquids again though.

Our first stop was JFK Airport in New York. We were about 45 minutes late getting in. We had to get to Concourse 3 but didn’t know how short of going out of security in this terminal and back in on the other side. We stopped at a Delta desk to ask and the lady pointed us to a shuttle service that runs between terminals. We caught the shuttle right as it was leaving and headed over to Concourse 3. It was pretty cool in that we saw Irish airlines, Egyptian, United Arab Emerites , Israeli And others on the Tarmac.

Lots of cool planes here. An Israeli one long with Swiss.
EgyptAir
Virgin and an Ireland one.

We stopped at several places looking for something Rita could eat before stopping at Balducci’s. Rita got a carton of Chili and I picked up a tuna on rye, a cupcake and a cream soda. Rita wasn’t sure if we’d get a meal on the plane so we wanted to be prepared.

Rita wanted me to get some Czech Crowns in case we needed it for tips or other small change requirements in Prague. I stopped at a currency exchange place but unfortunately they only had 200 crown notes and there was a $10 charge if we got less than 500 crowns so I blew that off.

I got back to the waiting area in time for the plane to start boarding. Our pass caused some sort of alert and Rita was pulled to the side but when I came up, he just tore a piece off and let us on board. We’re on the plane! We departed JFK at about 7:30pm after being 14 in line. Interestingly, whatever was said in English by the flight crew was then repeated in Czech. This was an 8 hour flight due to a tailwind getting us into Prague about an hour earlier than expected. The flight was generally uneventful. We had three movies and they served dinner (chicken) and breakfast (English muffin and egg).

Leaving New York.

I took about a 30 minute nap on the flight to New York and maybe another 30 on the flight to Prague. I don’t think Rita got even that much. We did swap seats though about half way so I could look out over the ocean. I snapped a pic as the sun was rising.

Sun’s rising.

Generally there was cloud cover all the way but as we approached Prague, you could see the edge of the clouds and start seeing land below.

There wasn’t anything particularly odd about the land, nothing that indicated we were in a different country and were maybe over Illinois or Ohio in the US 🙂 As we approached Prague, you could see the city spreading out.

We arrived in Prague at around 9am and wended our way through customs to get my bag, then to the exit. We used the ATM to get 3.000 crowns (they use periods the way we use commas and vice versa). We tried to break a thousand crown note at the kiosk but he turned us away so we tried the change booth but they don’t break bills, they change foreign currency. Eventually we hit the bus kiosk and got a ticket which let us break the 1.000 note. I did go back for the drinks we left at the kiosk though 🙂

The ticket is good for 75 minutes on whatever public transportation there is. We were taking the 119 bus to the Dejvicka stop, the last one on the Green line and heading down to Namesti Miru.

The exchange rate is about 17 cz to the dollar. If you use 15 to the dollar as a rule of thumb, you can make a quick estimate of cost. For example, Rita was looking for a red pen at a store. We stopped in at a department store and found pens for 59,00 which works out to a bit less than $4.00 (round 59 to 60 then divide by 15 to get 4). It works out to be $3.47 actually but you can get a quick estimate by doing the 15,00 to $1 estimate and fudge it down 10%. We just now did a quick estimate. Rita said it was 20,00 to go up the tower. I estimated it to be about $1.25. The actual cost is $1.17.

At the airport, we hopped on the 119 bus. We had our tickets of course but there were little boxes in the bus. Rita looked in the guide book and found that we needed to get the tickets stamped. Rita stood up at the first stop and quickly stamped our tickets. We got off at the end (Dejvicka) and on to the metro to head to our stop. The escalator was quite long. The underground was used as a bomb shelter as well so the metros are deep in the ground.

We got off at Namesti Miru and up to the Peace Square.

We headed up the street to find the Anna Hotel.

There were lots of interesting designs instead of concrete for sidewalks. Folks even got store names in the sidewalks outside their storefronts.

We checked in without any trouble getting room 205 which was on the 3rd floor if you could the lobby as the 1st. The room is about 10×15 or so with two single beds, a bureau, desk, and small tv. The shower is fairly large and a sink is in the entry way. The toilet is in a small room to the side in the bathroom.

After getting unpacked and all, we put our gear in our bags, my wallet and iPhone in my front pockets and headed out on a walking tour. One of the warnings in the guide books was pickpockets. It advised keeping your wallet and other gear in your front pockets. I left my house keys in my backpack and Rita had provided a couple of shoulder bags for our gear; maps, books, and other stuff. I also put my camera case on my belt and attached the camera on a ring on the case. This kept it somewhat secure. I put my iPad in my shoulder bag in a pouch inside the bag. I also carried my passport in my bag in the zipper pocket that was closest to me.

We headed down the street to a long set of stairs but took the path to the right and around the school.

There are lots of sights to see while walking and Rita took advantage of the cheapness of the digital film to get lots of pictures 🙂

On the other side was a beer garden then a wide panorama of Prague.

I snapped pics of course then we headed towards the tv tower. It’s the tallest point in the city and has baby’s crawling on the outside.

We walked through the Jewish Ghetto and to the Jewish cemetery. In the mid 20th century, Jews weren’t allowed to expand the cemetery so they had to bury their dead on top of others in the cemetery.

We also checked out the tv tower getting a few pics. The construction of the tower is very interesting. There seems to be a difference in opinion on whether it’s a good thing or not though.

We continued on looking for other sights and spotted the church with a large clock in a tower. There are a lot of clocks in Prague. At one point a woman with a bicycle and child stopped to ask if we needed help.

We wended our way back to our room. My feet were hurting a bit and I needed to use the facilities. I almost wasn’t able to stay awake while sitting so we both hit the sack for a brief four hour nap. We woke a 6 and headed out looking for sights and dinner. With the smoking by a majority of folks and the time difference, plus Rita giving me the food she couldn’t eat on the plane, I wasn’t all that hungry.

We headed down to Wenceslas Square spotting lots of interesting sculptures but also seeing full sized advertising banners draped on historic buildings.

In addition, there’s a lot of graffiti. It’s everywhere marring walls, windows and even ground level statues.

At the far end of the square, we headed left and wandered about in the area. This was where we got Rita’s pen after stopping in at several stores without much luck.

We also stumbled on a church behind buildings on the street.

After a bit, we headed down to The Legion Bridge to find a place for dinner. The Prague Castle was lit up so I snapped few pics then we headed out to find a second place, an Afgan restaurant.

We went down a couple of side streets in the gathering darkness but didn’t find it. Eventually we gave up and headed back ti the main street. We headed back to the Square and to the left. We did look at several places to eat but Rita would pull out her converter and decide it was too expensive.

We found the Astronical Clock at 9pm and got a few pics along with hearing it go off at 9. It didn’t ring but someone at the top played a horn. Pretty cool.

We continued on finding places were closed. Eventually we headed back to the Square we stopped at one place, but at 9:30, it was almost empty and Rita said this probably wasn’t a good place to eat. Eventually we simply stopped at a hotdog kiosk on the street and got hot dogs on cooked onions. Rita said hers was pretty good. As I wasn’t that hungry, I wasn’t all that impressed.

We hoofed it back to our room and here we are. It’s almost midnight but only getting on to 6pm at home. We’ll try to get some sleep but we’ll see how it goes.

It is a little chilly, not too bad although humidity is high so I’m clammy.

Posted in Prague, Vacation | 2 Comments

Hearing Test

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Freejack

I’ve had a ringing in my ears for as long as I can remember. I remember when I joined The Marines, hoping that the ringing wouldn’t keep me from joining.

Later, in The Army, I was stationed in Erlangen Germany. During one time in the field, our company was tasked with maintaining the town used for maneuvers. So we spent the week in the town. In the morning we’d unlock doors, then we’d play Spades all day until evening where we’d clean up brass and lock doors.

Among other things, there were personal and vehicle booby traps. They’d go off with a nice bang telling you that you were injured. One of the vehicle booby traps didn’t go off. The string broke about 8″ from the device. So we were trying to pull the string to make it go off. Yea, we were pretty dumb 🙂 Anyway, after he tried and kept having it slip out of his hands, I said something like “just pull it”, grabbed it and pulled it. The resulting *bang* was very very loud. Loud enough that it punctured my eardrum as I later found out.

This was in the late 70’s though.

After moving out of the house prior to the divorce, I moved in to some apartments. They were actually pretty nice. I got a bottom floor on the end and was pretty close to the pool. So I hit the pool during the summer. After a month or so, my right ear was in pain. I went to an Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat doc who said I had swimmer’s ear. He provided some anti-bacterial meds and after a bit I was good to go.

But the last actual hearing test I had was in 1974 for The Marines. I’ve been looking into getting a test for the past few years but just hadn’t made the time to do so. Rita brought an ad for a Tinnitus specialist to my attention so in addition to a test, I could get some advise on my Tinnitus.

When I arrived, I had 6 or 8 pages I needed to fill out specifically related to Tinnitus. It seems the questions were more related to folks who had Tinnitus over the past few years, not like me where I’d had it all my life. There were questions on how it made you feel, depressed or even suicidal. I answered honestly when I could, there were a few questions where I had the problem but it didn’t bother me and the answer didn’t fit the question so I had to elaborate.

We discussed it in her office for a few minutes looking for what I wanted to get from the exam, specifically I was looking for a hearing test and perhaps exposure to what new treatments if any were available for Tinnitus. She examined my ears stating that they were pretty clean. She admitted being a Q-Tip junkie 🙂 I have been in the past but I’ve tried to keep it down just a little.

Next I was put in a soundproof room with headphones. The first series of tests had me repeat words back to her. These were words that didn’t use the vocal chords. She’d lower the volume until I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Next were the tones. She started low and increased it step by step. After she was done with the right ear, she tested the left. Some of the tones were very similar to my Tinnitus. Off by enough that I could discern which was which but competing with the tones. Finally she used a different headset. This one was set on the bone behind and a little below the right ear and she did the tone tests again.

Next I was taken out and sat at her desk while we discussed her findings. Essentially my high tones were below normal but my low tones were pretty much normal. She suggested that based on my work requirements, I should get a mid-level hearing aid and she showed me a couple of really tiny ones. I asked how much they were and she said $48.95. Surprised, I said that I was interested, no problem. And I’d like a red pair 🙂

She went to get a pair of demos that I could wear while the ones I wanted were delivered. She said that they were hard to keep in the office as they were so sought after. She brought up a software program so she could set it based on my test and I tried them out. There was some tininess which she fixed with the program. She did say I would get some as my higher range wasn’t normal. She said there would be a $40 fee if I decided I didn’t need them and started filling out the loaner paperwork.

As she filled it in, I was fiddling with it there being a button on the top to change programs. At one point I saw she wrote down the cost of the hearing aids, $4,895.00. Whoops, I interrupted. There’s been a misunderstanding. I explained that when she said “4895” I thought she meant “$48.95” and that I didn’t think my current situation required such a device. She laughed and apologized for not being clear. I got a copy of the test for my files, thanked her and headed home.

All in all, it was pretty interesting though. The hearing test was a little over $200 though and none of it covered by insurance (our deductible is high enough that it wouldn’t have been covered anyway).

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Guitar Class

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Freejack

So learning has been progressing. Zack gives me lots of encouragement and tonight he even invited me to the student concert (I think as a spectator though 🙂 ).

On the positive notes, Zack’s starting to compare me with his younger students. See (and I think I mentioned it previously), Zack would qualify all his compliments. They were still compliments and I cheerfully accepted them of course. He would say that I’m doing quite well in comparison with his other adult students and comment especially about how his technical students (computer geeks like me) do. The past couple of sessions, he’s been bringing up his younger ones though.

For example, barre chords. I got my fingers around it and was able to strum it and he said that he has students he’s had since the beginning (five years here) who would love to be able to get as good a note as I did.

Tonight he was showing me single string blues improv along with multi string and 6 string and said his earlier student wouldn’t be able to do this. Not because of any practice but because I’m more mature and can understand the concepts he’s getting across.

He’s also saying that I’m doing very well with lead and rhythm guitar lessons and he’s quite happy with my progress. Even though this week was a bear at work and I only got a few hours of practice in this week.

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Taking Niki to the Vet

Posted on March 20, 2011 by Freejack

This is a post about my cat, Niki.

About two weeks ago after returning from a trip to California for computer training, I noticed that Niki’s left ear wasn’t symmetrical with her right. It was as if her ear had shifted down her head just a little so the tip was pointing farther down than her other side. I figured she had something in her ear perhaps and it would fix itself once the obstruction was removed.

This past week both Rita and I noticed that she’d lost a little weight. She’s always been a little on the chubby side (like me 🙂 ) so it’s something different. At the same time Rita mentioned and I noticed that she didn’t get high from catnip. We’d pour a couple of patches on the floors for the cats to eat and roll around in but Niki all of a sudden wasn’t interested.

This was also about the time that I noticed some oddness with her face. When she was happy, she’d talk to me. A little meow stutter. I noticed that her left lip didn’t come up with the right. Concerned, I did a visual test. I covered her right eye with the palm of my hand and approached her left eye with my finger. Even though I was able to touch her eyelid (and could have touched her eye), she didn’t flinch or blink. When I reversed it and covered her left eye and approached her right one, she flinched and pulled away. She’d also stumbled on the bed, catching herself and I noticed that she’d eat a little then walk in a circle back to the food to eat some more. The other thing was that her whiskers weren’t extended on her left side. She’s very expressive with her whiskers but her left side stayed against her face.

I thought maybe she’d had a kitty stroke. Concerned, Rita made an appointment with the vet for yesterday morning (Saturday).

We took her to the Humane Society vet clinic, got the paperwork filled out and after a few minutes was pointed to an examining room. I’d put her in a pet carrier so in the room, I removed the screws and took the top off so she would have a place to sit. She was interested in the glass block window so I set her up on the ledge.

The intern came in a minute or so later. I explained my concerns (which I’d also written down on the form) and he proceeded to check her out including the old rectal temp 🙁 He made his notes as we talked and then said the doc would be in momentarily.

I showed Rita what I was talking about with regards to the sight thing while we waited.

The doc came in and he checked her over again as we talked. We did discuss the possibility of a stroke and I explained what I’d seen. He took her back for blood and urine work. When he got back, he said that the staff had missed the signs I’d spotted. They did a “wheelbarrow” to check her front feet and she couldn’t stay on both feet. He suggested she might have Horner’s Syndrome which may have been caused by an injury or lesion on the spine. He did say it goes away after 6 to 8 weeks so she may be ok.

On the blood work, the numbers all were within normal range except for the creatine levels were elevated a tiny bit over normal (192 and 180 was top).

She also had a abscess on her tongue (*ow*) that might explain some weight loss. Her rear gums were red and infected looking as well so we’ve scheduled a teeth cleaning for April. We also scheduled a visit to the vet for Ariel just for a checkup.

For myself, the doc said the staff missed the signs and were amazed that I’d caught the various signs such as the whiskers only extending on one side. He said they thought I might be a physician or an engineer.

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Genghis Con 32

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Freejack

So I got the okay to spend the weekend at one of Denver’s big gaming Conventions. Genghis Con. The other one is in September called Tacticon.

Preregistration

The folks who run the convention have a Yahoo mailing list where they post information about upcoming conventions. I hadn’t signed up but I did find out when game master registrations opened and sent in descriptions of three of the role playing games I wanted to run and two board games. Three of the RPGs are described below. I also wanted to run Pandemic which I was fortunately able to run due to a medical cancellation. And Wings of War, a WWI air combat game.

Unfortunately the Board Game coordinator missed my e-mail asking for slots and the RPG coordinator missed my first two descriptions for Paranoia and My Life With Master. Interestingly enough, I was able to get All Flesh Must Be Eaten in just under the wire.

There wasn’t any confirmation e-mail that they’d received my submissions and when I sent a follow up a week later (and still before the deadline), I still didn’t get a reply. Figuring they were busy, I didn’t press it. I did find out that only the last minute game (All Flesh Must Be Eaten) had made it into the catalog.

Later, I found they were on Facebook and about a month or so before the convention, I asked why my events didn’t make it in. They apparently missed my e-mails (they do get a lot of submissions I’d guess) but they posted them on the website. With that, I was able to get my All Flesh Must Be Eaten game sold out and even overbooked by four! Although only three extra showed up.

In addition, when I got to the convention, I didn’t have a judges badge and didn’t get a t-shirt 🙁 Since I didn’t have a T-Shirt ticket and didn’t have my paypal receipt, I lost out. It was a pretty good shirt this year too so I’m a bit bummed. Rita’s good though as I have a lot of t-shirts 🙂

I did send them an e-mail with several suggestions on improving the website, making it easier for customers to know when events started and ended as well as what events were available. I’ll be working with them in a couple of weeks to see if I can help with ideas.

Exhibitor’s Room

As all conventions, this one has a room devoted to local gaming related stores. Total Escape Games from Broomfield, Black and Read, etc. Chessex, the dice company only attends Genghis Con and was here with 10 feet of dice. There are weapons such as swords, knives, and even a flail with 20 sided dice vs a spiked ball. There wasn’t much of a selection of Role Playing Books though. Shadowrun War! Came out a few weeks ago and no one had it. Lots of board games though.

ParanoiaDirty, filthy, nasty. Mr. Bubbles says: Take Me Off Your List!

The Troubleshooters ave been tasked to investigate. In a Larry, Curly, Moe situation, the team finds themselves in unknown territory, dealing with a reality show producer, then runaway Scrubbots as the Mr. Bubbles virus infects their PDC’s and they become spammers themselves.

Eventually they return exhausted only to discover they were on the wrong mission!

All the little papers are the Spam they received

I think the game went real well. The players got into it and we had four hours of great fun! As the Game Master, I received 58 out of 60 for my score.

The Red Troubleshooters

My Life With Master

The game can be fun but is hard to summarize without just giving you all the rules. Essentially you, as the GM, are The Master and the players are your Minions. At the start of the game, the Minions choose The Master’s stats and motivations. With that, The Master sends his Minions into the late 1800’s middle European countryside to satisfy his requirements. During that time, the Minions discover love and eventually turn on The Master. The countryside comes to The Master’s abode with pitchforks and torches to burn him out.

And yet, this is just one way to play it. You can play a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde game just as easily or even Dracula or Frankenstein. The one guy who showed up had played it in the past and the GM elected to run it in Louisiana using a Lex Luthor type evil villain. Interesting idea.

All Flesh Must Be Eaten

This is a Zombie Apocalypse game. The game publisher provides quite a few settings from Fantasy dungeon type crawls to Pirates (the newest book) to the Old West, Cyberpunk, and even Space. You can select the setting you want to play on up to creating your own.

I made my own based on a game I ran a couple of years ago. Essentially the H1N1 vaccine reacted with your blood type causing only a small percentage of the population to reanimate. I expanded the original one and created several possible scenarios.

The players started in a downtown Denver coffee shop. When they went to leave they discovered zombies were attacking the population. They hopped into their van and headed down to the apartment and locked themselves in avoiding firefighters and even the police. And that was the game. No zombie battles. Just standing on the sidelines while Denver was taken over by Zombies.

Don’t get me wrong, we did have fun screwing around. I did feel that I lost control a bit and wasn’t able to either prevent them from getting to the apartment (which I should have done) or found a better way to get them out and into the streets. Ah well, we learn from our mistakes.

Z-Man Games

I’m running Pandemic and a set of Z-Man card games for the representative that had to bail. The Con organizers sent out a call for help and I volunteered for Pandemic + On The Brink as well as a selection of Z-Man card games.

Pandemic with On The Brink expansion

I already have Pandemic with On The Brink so this was an easy volunteer option. I’ve played it a few times and like the game.

Pandemic in a cooperative game with the players attempting to cure diseases throughout the world. The game has a world map with four different colors depicting disease locations. Blue, Yellow, Red, and Black. City vectors are connected and movement is between cities. Players pull two Player cards which are generally cities. Then Infection cards, 2 or more depending on the current disease situation. A single block is placed on the listed city for each Infection card pulled. Diseases expand when an Epidemic card is pulled from the Player deck. An Infection card is pulled and three blocks are placed. An Outbreak occurs when a city already has three cubes, then each adjacent city gains the same color cube. This really becomes a problem if an adjacent city already has three cubes as it causes adjacent cities to gain three blocks. This is generally how the game ends. Players have four actions per turn. Four types of movement are possible along with building a research center (which is how you cure a disease) or clearing a single disease block from a city.

On The Brink adds three more optional rule expansions. We generally run the Mutation option but there’s also a bio-terrorist option and a third one dealing with epidemics. Additional roles are included as well as appropriate counters for the new roles.

Our game ended when the red area (far east) had three, which caused an outbreak to an adjacent city with three. Others had two and were augmented with a third because of the first outbreak which spread it out more. It lasted about an hour and 15 minutes. The end came quick so we didn’t know until the last card that the game ended. All in all, still pretty fun.

The game board just a few hands from the end

The King Commands

This is the first of the card games I ran. It’s a moderately easy game. You have four suits of sword cards and shield cards. Swords are worth 1 point, shields are worth 2. In addition you have gold cards worth 5, Merlin’s crystal worth 0 in points, the King’s Crown worth 3 and Excalibur which is also worth 0 in points.

You play swords against other players. The number and color depict the attack type. There are two defense options, parry and block. You use the same sword cards to parry or similar shield cards to block. If you parry, each player scores their sword cards. If you block, the blocker keeps the swords and shield to be scored. Excalibur can block almost every attack. If you are not able to block or parry, you lose a gold card (assuming you have one).

The Crown lets you demand an action from the other players. Merlin’s crystal lets you look at the top four cards of the draw deck and keep two. You can discard cards from your hand to replenish your cards with one for one on sword cards up to 5 cards for a crown or crystal.

At the end of the game, you add up all the points in your score pile and the person with the highest score wins.

Wendy, Tony, Nate and I played two games at the bar late Saturday morning. I think it’s a tiny bit complicated for a bar game although it went reasonably well.

No Thanks!

This is one of the two less complicated but a bit more strategic games. You have a range of card from 3 to 35. Only 24 cards are used. The others are put back in the box without looking. Each player (up to 5) gets 11 tokens. A card is played from the deck. You decide whether to keep it or put a token down saying “No Thanks!” Play rotates with each player putting a token down until someone takes it, either by choice or because they’ve run out of tokens.

Scoring is based on the lowest numbered card in a sequence. So if you have a 27 card and see a 26 card, you pick it up and drop your score by one (from 27 to 26). The 27 card doesn’t count any more. So filling straights is one part of the strategy. You also have to budget your tokens. If you’re out or low, the other player(s) can force you to take a high card.

Once all the cards are gone, you total up the lowest cards in each sequence and all stand-alone cards and subtract the number of tokens you still have. Lowest score wins.

Parade

Another simple game. You have 6 suits. The card box is the beginning of the parade. You deal out 5 cards to each player and then 6 cards (Blue 1, Green 4, Yellow 10, Blue 6, White 4, Green 2 for example) face up begin the parade. The object is to have the lowest negative score (so -4 beats -10). You select a card, a Blue 4 card. This is placed at the end of the parade. The next four cards in the parade are ignored and the last two are in the available list (so the Blue 1 and Green 4). You get any Blue card in the available list (so the Blue 1) and any card that is equal or less than your card (so the Green 4). To end the game, you need to have one of each color in your scoring area. Any set of colors where you have the majority (or two more than the other player if a two player game), you turn over and only count the number of cards. So in the above example, you’d have a score of -5.

Mountain of Inferno

I was able to learn the game however it was, in my opinion pretty complicated. The game comes with disciples which are used to create the Mountain. Then there are four other cards which let you move your token between cards or remove disciples. You are only able to move horizontally or vertically so you can strand someone. The winner is the one that sits on the intersection of four unique disciples running horizontally and vertically. You play the number of rounds after the number of players. At the end of the rounds, the total score wins. You keep track of the score on a card.

Miniatures

I did some wandering around Sunday waiting for the noon card games to begin and snapped a few shots in the Miniatures room.

Warhammer Miniatures

It seemed to be a Fantasy based minis battle but I couldn’t place the figurines

The End

Friday night after Paranoia I zipped over to King Soopers (local grocery store) to get snacks for the weekend. I’m generally pretty bad about snacks but got bananas and raisins and snagged some water from 7/11. I did also get some SmartFood popcorn and Junior Mints as well as a couple of bottles of Cream Soda *yum* 🙂 I drank water pretty much all weekend although I had half a beer Saturday night after gaming along with a .5 liter Coke Zero (which gave me a headache Monday).

The cool thing of course was that I was able to hang with Wendy and her GM for Amber Diceless and chat at the bar and then Saturday night with Nate, Tony, and Wendy playing The King Commands.

All in all, I had quite a fun time and hope that folks who played in my games also had one.

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Understanding Search

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Freejack

I was browsing Slashdot this morning and read the linked article on search engines. It’s a pretty interesting article over all about J.C. Penny and its rise to number one in search engine results. There’s discussion of Black Hat search engine optimization (SEO) companies so take a few minutes to read it.

One particularly interesting quote popped out:

If you own a Web site, for instance, about Chinese cooking, your site’s Google ranking will improve as other sites link to it. The more links to your site, especially those from other Chinese cooking-related sites, the higher your ranking. In a way, what Google is measuring is your site’s popularity by polling the best-informed online fans of Chinese cooking and counting their links to your site as votes of approval.

This specifically is why I choose to approve all posts to this blog and why I’m such a stickler about spammers on the forum I manage for Rita. I’m sure if I hit my gaming blog and checked it out, I’d have a bunch of spam postings waiting for my approval (just checked, 29 with 1 actual comment).

Good article though.

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Gaming Played Here

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Freejack

I started gaming long long ago with family games like Battleship, Risk, Chess, Rack-O, Gin Rummy, and Pinochle. Then Dad brought home Avalon Hill’s Outdoor Survival which was pretty cool. I got further into war games and got Richthofen’s War which is one of my favorite wargames. Wooden Ships & Iron Men is another of my favorites. Other war games I got in to were Luftwaffe, Blitzkreig, and Kreigspiel.

About that time I joined the military. I went to the local military recreation center and played a few games of cards and even went to a war gaming convention where I did pretty well with Richthofen’s War.

As it happens, one evening after finishing a game of double pack pinochle, I wandered over to another table where a group of folks were gathered around a map. Specifically I remember little periods in front of line drawings of city streets. At one end of the table was a thin yellow cardboard screen. Two the right of the screen, the guy had a large briefcase opened and on end. When I started to see what he had, he chased me away I didn’t know it then but I suspect it was the original City State adventure.

After several games, I went out and bought the new D&D boxed set. Blue book, Dungeon Geomorphs, and the Monster and Treasure tables. I created some dungeons using the geomorphs and populated them with the monsters and treasures from the tables.

About that time I was transferred to Erlangen Germany. That was where I got fully into gaming. I played wargames with the gaming group and copied a bunch of articles from The Dragon magazines that were stashed in the group room.

I got a gaming group together and we played quite a lot of AD&D. I’d picked up the DMG (with the misprint so I had to send it back to get a replacement), Player’s Handbook and Monster Manual. I also picked up lots of other interesting gaming books.

Once back in “The World”, I got gaming again. AD&D. Car Wars. Cosmic Encounters. Talisman. Nuclear War. Tunnels and Trolls. I picked up modules and rules from other games. We organized into a club and with the help of the Rec Center staff, we hosted a couple of conventions.

When I got out of the military, I hooked up with a gaming group after we moved. I wrote the group newsletter and organized a get together with another AADA chapter.

The next time we moved, the gaming community was much lighter. I was able to get some games together but it didn’t happen often. I got deeper into computer gaming. My friends at work and I got into LAN parties. First at work then at home. My last gaming group consisted of my older daughter’s Rifts group. After burning and pillaging my gaming city and minor destruction in my home, I basically hung up my gear.

One good thing about gaming happened several years earlier after returning from Germany. I used computers to manage my games. I learned to program to create character generation and monitoring programs. I got a programming job after I got out of the military and then moved to LAN installation and administration. Novell, 3Com, Microsoft, Dos and OS/2. It’s a big reason I moved into LAN parties. I already had a home network. I got into usenet and enjoyed using Mosaic to retrieve information from the new World Wide Web.

I downloaded Slackware Linux to floppy disks and mucked about with it. I changed jobs again from a Windows admin and became a Solaris Unix admin. Irix, AIX, HP-UX, Tru64, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Red Hat, Slackware, Mandrake, but mainly Solaris.

I’d tried bringing folks into gaming but everyone seemed to be a the level of parlor games and card games. Uno for example. I couldn’t even get a good game of Cosmic Encounters going.

I’d considered selling my gaming gear to Titan Games. I packed it all up, got a listing of what I had and submitted it but they kicked back a far too low value and I’d have to pay to ship the 8 or 10 book sized boxes to them. So I just held on to them.

In Dec 2006, after much pestering from my wife, I unpacked my gaming gear with an eye to selling it all to reduce the number of boxes kicking around the house. I got them all out, organized them, and got rid of some miscellaneous papers, and then got to rpg.net. I created an inventory of my games and noted which ones I want to sell and started poking around in the sites that were associated with the games I like. Dumpshock for Shadowrun, Paranoia-Live for Paranoia, SJGames for Car Wars, etc…

In part because I was working from home and didn’t have anything in the way of social interaction, I signed up for a new local Meetup group owned by Jon. I went to a game at his place where they’d just finished up a Shadowrun game. Since they were going to start a DnD campaign, I didn’t go to any further meetings. In August 07, a Wednesday Shadowrun 3rd game started and I started attending that game.

In September I ran a Shadowrun 4th Edition game at a local FLGS, my first time running a game in 14 years. I was totally nervous and a little fearful. I’d run a Shadowrun 1st and 2nd edition game or three back when it first came out and didn’t do very well. But the SR4 game actually went very well. The players were quite patient and helpful. Quite unlike my experience when I stopped playing.

Dec 07, I ran a one shot Paranoia game that the players are still talking about. I ran the 5th or 6th Shadowrun session not long after and we’ll be heading off into uncharted territory. I ran a Shadowrun 4th game at Tacticon 2008 with much success.

I’m still running and playing. I mostly run Shadowrun but have a good group that lets me dabble in other games so we’ve played Rogue Trader and Call of Cthulhu as well as All Flesh Must Be Eaten and Paranoia. This year I’ll be running an All Flesh Must Be Eaten game, My Life With Master, and Paranoia XP along with a Pandemic + On The Brink board game and a bunch of card games on Sunday.

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On Staying Hydrated

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Freejack

First off, I grew up with coffee in the house. I never got any that I’m aware of but I certainly like the smell. Dad would instruct us in how to make coffee and we’d bring it out in a nice cup and saucer. Once I tripped and caused the cup to spill hot coffee all over my hands. But I did not drop it.

For drinks, Dad would have a martini I think. Mom’s favorite I believe was a Slo Gin Fizz. These are from memory so I may be a little off.

We kids would have sodas. The store brand of cola, root beer (my favorite), or 7-Up. There was also plenty of milk. Mom would get a six pack of half gallon milks from the commissary.

For a little while, Dad tried to teach us how to drink socially. We had wine at the table (I’d guzzle it and while holding my breath, drink milk) and Dad even had us learn how to drink Brandy. Even at 11 months I was drinking beer 🙂

When I was 14ish, Dad (and family of course) joined the Mormon Church. If you don’t know, Mormon Doctrine says “no hot drinks”, no alcohol, and no smoking. I recall Dad trying Near Beer a few times and not liking it much. But it was the end of coffee and alcohol.

Moving on in life, when I joined The Army, I was a non-drinker. I didn’t like it when I was a kid and was able to use being in the church to keep from being “forced” into drinking. I did like sodas so didn’t have any trouble keeping hydrated 🙂

I moved into drinking Dr. Pepper for several years while learning computers and gaming. In 1990 when I first tried to lose weight, the NutraSystem folks wanted me to drink water. After a week or so I asked if I could drink something else. They suggested Diet Dr. Pepper but it had a bitter aftertaste. I tried Diet Coke and was hooked.

Over the years I’ve stuck with it. Occasionally I’ll have something else like Mountain Dew if Diet Coke isn’t available.

Since meeting and marrying Rita, I’ve had lots of conversations about how bad aspartame is and that I should stop and drink water. There’s been comments like “you’re smart, why do you drink it?” and it even caused some boat rocking at one point. The last few years I’ve attempted to stop.

I don’t particularly like tea but I tried it as a replacement but it didn’t work out. I drink a lot of fluids during the day and that turns out to be a big hassle to keep me up on tea. And I didn’t like the flavor anyway.

I’ve lasted from a month or so to six months. I’ve come back again and again.

You see, water is sustenance. Like eating unflavored oatmeal for breakfast, four pieces of toasted white bread (dry) for lunch, and tofu for dinner.

Every day for the rest of your life!

This time I made a few changes. One, I was honest with myself, that I was stopping to get Rita to stop bothering me about it. No I don’t necessarily think aspartame is bad for me or perhaps just can’t think long term. But I do know that constantly bothering me about it is mentally bad 🙂

Next I drink adulterated water. At work we have Tropicana Lemonade. I fill my glass about two thirds full of water and ice, then top it off with lemonade. It works pretty well although I probably drink more than I should.

Third, at home I drink only when thirsty. At work I sometimes have to get away from my desk so getting a drink gives me a break. This is less of an issue at home. I find I can go all day without drinking. Not on purpose of course. I’ll get to dinner and realize I haven’t had anything to drink all day.

Finally, I stopped worrying about the calories in my drink. So I’ll have a root beer or even an A&W or Brown’s Cream Soda. Just not a lot. I know I’m somewhat compulsive about things so I have to be careful about over imbibing on sugar drinks.

It does seem to be working. I’m on 6 weeks now and no desire to get a Diet Coke.

The problem now is Rita’s bugging me to drink more water on the weekends. “Are you hydrated?” I think if I start drinking water, I’ll get bored with it and start in on Diet Coke again. So I’m not consciously avoiding water. More avoiding drinking in general.

We’ll see how this goes.

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Programming

Posted on February 7, 2011 by Freejack

A bit of background.

I started actual programming on a Radio Shack Color Computer. I did some dinking around on a Timex Sinclair but I got serious with the CoCo.

Over the years, I’ve done a lot of programming. Mostly satisfying personal projects.

As a consultant or contractor, customers have tried to keep track of the work employees do. Generally I keep a notebook with me. As I go through the day, I write down the tasks I perform and the things I need to do.

Back when I started my new job, I snagged a notebook and kept track. The boss would have the team update a document located in Sharepoint. Then just sending a weekly email.

On the 2008 Annual Review, I decided to create a database to manage my review the reports. I snagged the years worth of data, cleaned it up and imported it the database. After further review, I wrote a php app to let me make updates and display the weekly data. I’d copy it and mail it out.

Over the past several years I’ve been dabbling in CSS and getting better in php coding. I’m also learning a lot about JavaScript in order to manipulate the page.

In late 2009 I started taking that knowledge and improving the app.

So far while the app is useable, if I put something in the wrong place, I just pop into the database and fix it. Once I even screwed up a bunch and had to restore from backup. Oh yea, I make nightly backups and still use my notebook.

But after the improvements, I have one of my coworkers who is interested. So I started making edit pages. Places where someone can edit their entry without access to the database.

For the past year I’ve been adding features and fixing errors. I’ve also been adding users. Most recently a Todo manager that’s integrated with the weekly status data.

It really satisfies a personal itch. I do this to make it easier for me to keep track of my work. The first time, I submitted 1,400 items in the load. This past year, I have over 1,600 items to review.

This is what I consider fun 🙂

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