95 horrible weather

I am not sure if it is the fact I am getting older, spending more time outside because I have little kids, or am now paying attention, but there seems to be a lot of horrible weather lately.
The ice storm this past winter and the cold cold snap that caused it has really made me weary of bad weather (still not into using the term polar vortex. At least not until I understand the science behind it). Having a house doesn't help matters as I now seem closer to the world than I did living in a condo tower. Now extended rainfalls are concerning as I listen for my sump pump.
Apparently we are getting three days of rain which is going to be a challenge with child #2 if we can't have walks outside.
Fun times. At least it is not snowing...yet.

96 Quick game update

Visiting family this weekend in Owen Sound and actually got to play some card games(!) instead of the usual sitting in front of the couch watching one person play a video game. I should say that I am not against video games, as I am currently working through the latest Tomb Raider on the PS3 (which I highly recommend, similar in gameplay to Batman:Arkam asylum, but more interesting characters, story, and atomsphere), I just really enjoy playing board games when with a group of people.

The first game of the night was San Juan. My brother really likes this game, partly due to the fact that he is undefeated in it. This was the first exposure to the game for my brother-in-law and he quite enjoyed it as well. Both menitioned that they liked how quickly the game rules can be picked up and that you spend most of your time playing the game. My brother took first, my brother-in-law took second. I made a gamble on the chapel early game, but it slowed my card drawing and slowing my development of a card drawing engine. The game's pace was good and didn't drag. A good solid game.

After that we brought out Mundus Novus, a game of spice trading. It is a card game of trading to get sets or sequences to acquire doubloons or special cards to make it easier to get sets or sequences. I always like this game, but it is hard to teach. Unlike San Juan, it tries to be universal with the use of symbols rather than words. This move has made the game less intuitive. Still, it is a clever game with interesting decisions and interactions between players.

Finally, we wrapped up with a game of Love letter. I have spoken of it before and I don't really want to repeat myself, but this is a good game. This is a treasure, a game that you can play with anyone. It is fun and fast with a little bit of card counting to imply strategy.

It was a fun night. Board games and friends. Good times!

Posted with Blogsy

Shedding (entry 97)

I must confess that I had forgotten how sleepy, perhaps lethargic is a better word, paternal leave can be. The days do tend to blend together and one's passions and ambitions are forgotten in the volume of time that paternal leave accords. It might be more the fact that children are beings of now, particularly when they are under a year old, and despite one's best efforts you find yourself shrinking your horizon to a couple hours, a day, maybe two, as find yourself more in their world then your own.

Despite these feelings of being too passive (as I often feel when I come to this blog) I have been active to an evolutionary way, allowing small things to accumulate. The value of these changes are a matter of debate, but I will start with the easy one. I have lost weight through a combination of mostly eating at home and the long morning walks I take my son on for his nap. I didn't realize it was happening until my jeans stopped fitting. I have decided to add some upper strength (push up and chin ups) and some yogas to my week to see if I can improve further. This extra energy has been consumed by my children, but there is something satisfying to being able to carry both of them up the stairs without being winded.

I still seem to be obsessed with the Internet, particularly You Tube. A mix of board and video game reviews and playthroughs, courses on history, biology, news and event analysis, long interviews-- these fill the background of my days. I notice that I struggle with silence now, uncomfortable with being alone with my mind. I think I have eluded to the loneliness of paternal leave for men (I am not sure if it is unique to me, but I have read several newspapers essays that share my experience) and this mental tic is likely a cause of it. I believe warmer weather will help with this (if only to make the weather nicer to walk in).

I have started reading again, mostly web articles, which is an effort to rebuild my concentration, which my Internet obsession and various other activities has so greatly destroyed. I have been researching some interesting developments in improving your memory through flash cards, updated into digital forms. They appear to be thoroughly tested methods, so I am giving them a try, once I decided on what I want to memorize...French maybe?

My weekends seem very full, with most of my relaxing happening in the few hours between the kid's bedtime and mine during the week. Doing a little bit of things that will hopefully develop into something.

I think I will leave it there, my rambling shedding of winter blah, ending only with the happy thought that out my sunroom's window new shoots of grass are popping out. Spring is here with all its sunny promises.

S

 

Posted with Blogsy

The Long Reboot

As is our habit, my wife and I endeavored to watch all the nominees for best picture. This year was a bit of a challenge due to us having a six month old and the recent trend of Oscar nominated films not being on DVD or digital rental until after the Oscars air. Still we were able to see five of them.
The whole process made me think about reboots. The Oscars did not all impress me, but they did seem to avoid formula. They were a contrast to the superhero/sci fi movies that seemed to work within a box of convention that rarely surprise me now.
I say this with a degree of sadness. Sci fi use to ask all the question, challenge me as a reader. Now they ask the same old questions and have been stripped of their harsher political edges. The mental equivalent of comfort food.
I guess I am getting older and the superhero movies are not growing up with me. I am not sure if this is a bad thing or not.

Now just have to figure out when I can see twelve years a slave.

S

Settlers of Catan (entry 98)

Last weekend, we were visiting friends and I had the opportunity to play two full games of Settlers of Catan (with the Knights of Catan expansion). I have menitioned my love of board games before on the blog, but I had not really had a chance to dig into a eurogame (more mathy than "American" style games). It was nice to play a thinking game; it reminded me why I love them. The strategy, the mental work of figuring out the math, making plans, revising plans. I tend to prefer the European games as they tend to use luck as a disrupting element rather than a main component of the game, so you don't feel that you are working a slot machine but an actual game. They also have many roads to victory allowing for everyone to still be "in the running" through the entire of the game. I really recommend trying these sort of games, as they show a different way of thinking about the world; a contrast to the constant use of sports metaphors when thinking how things are. I can be convinced that life is a like a semi-cooperative game over it being an American football game.

Back to Settlers, it was an interesting experience to play one of the building blocks of Eurogames. It is probably the best known euro-style designer board game. I would argue it is similar to Monopoly in that a lot of people have copied or have worked to build a better version of the game. As a person who plays a lot of games, I have played these "Children of Catan" and I can honestly say they have improved on the original design so it is weird to plan an earlier model so to speak. It threw me off my game. I came in second both times, but the first game I stalled at 9 points (you need13 to win) because my strategy was not taking into account the expansion. The second game was better with two players having 12 points when the winner reached 13. The couple we were playing with plays it all the time which is always a challenge, but there is a lot of luck in the game as well. The winner knew the game and rolled well. I was proud of my performance in the second game as it showed improvement.

(as a complete side bar, the biggest design challenge for these sort of games is removing "dead time" where you are waiting for your turn to happen. The main problem is that you acquire/lose resources at the start of your turn which makes it hard to plan until the start of your turn, with all the other players watching you)

To dove tail this experience, we had a first game night of the year (at the new house). It was a small affair but a number of games were played. Augustus which is essentially Roman Bingo, Tsuro a tile laying game, and Village (another euro game). These are all newer games and have learned lessons from Catan. That said, they are more "light" games (Village to a lesser extent) and so the mental bar was a little lower. But as a wise game reviewer once said, "the important question you need to ask is 'Is Everyone having fun?'" In answer to that question I would say yes.

Now I just need to convince six people to play Twilight Imperium. :)

S

Posted with Blogsy

Losing track of the days (entry 99)

I have started my parterity leave. Six months with the kid. It is early days but the experience is already different in that my second child seems a little more laid back. I don't know if it's my son or the fact this is my second time around, but it doesn't seem as stressful. I would like to say that it's the extra years of fatherhood, but it might be more the fact that my son is a happy buddha, crying only for a specific problem.

I don't want to mislead you, I am weary. A newborn is taxing in their need for large amounts of attention and the physical demands of lugging a heavy baby around (looking forward to the crawling/walking phase) . Actually giving it a bit of thought. My exhaustion might be more from the fact I have to get up every morning to drive my first child to school (I hate driving in this Toronto) and picking her up. When we only had one, I was able to sleep in. Now there are no more days of staying in. This might not be such a bad thing when the weather is better.

Circling back, it hasn't been too bad, despite the disruption. Trying to get myself into a schedule which makes us both happy. I have been walking more (discovering the new neighbourhood), trying to get back into cooking and reading. Still, it is fun work.

Not much more news, watched three of the Oscar movies so far (Gravity, Captain Philips, Philomena). My favorite so far is Philomena. It really surprised me, cutting the fiction close to reality. I also have a soft spot of journalist movies. I am also a Coogan fan and Judi Dench was amazing.

Well, caught up. We try to make blog entries part of my schedule. Till next time.

S

Posted with Blogsy

The start of things (entry 100)

I am sitting in my new house. It still seems surreal to type it. After such a long journey, which was a bit of a emotional roller coaster (to say the least), it's hard to believe that the next chapter of our lives is underway. S and I have been joking with each other that the day the condo sold was our New Year's for 2014. The calendar didn't line up with the major change in our life and the celebration of the New Year seemed a little odd as we were still in the condo and didn't own the house yet. The stasis didn't end until we had the keys and we're starting our move.

So, the meditation I tend to do on New Year's Day was a bit muted. Although I still managed to make a challenging list of tasks to get all twisted about when they are not struck out. There are some things one can't help but do.

Paternal leave is quickly approaching as well, a reminder that another "beginning" is happening. My son turns six months old this week. The turning point where he starts to develop a personality (or rather a more noticeable one) and starts doing the big firsts–crawl, words, walks, rolls overs and all that–which S refers to as "the better six months of parental leave" which I can't argue with. He's more of a person now.

In short 2014 feels like a year of action (reaction?) rather than waiting. I look forward to it.

Posted with Blogsy

Nuggets of Wisdom

A couple of hits:

I have been reading about critical thinking in board games. The starting point for this research has been chessmasters as it seems to be the game with the most extensive discussion about how to improve your game (versus the designer games I play which are cool but rather new when compared against the classic game of kings). The revelation from this delving has been the importance of physical exercise. For a mental game like chess, it was surprising to see the importance chessmasters stressed on daily physical exercise and a good diet. A sort of base for the pyramid of their skill. A healthy body, follow by rigor puzzle/exercise of your game, followed by lots and lots of playing. These words of wisdom could apply to any task really. The end of this is that I have begun exercising again. Eating better to follow.

The previous post eluded to my exhaustion. One of the things I have missed because of this situation has been my reading. I am lacking the mental power to engage with the hard books I like to read. I was struck by this thought by two annoying comments. The first was a comic by Penny Arcade with a comment of doing something just to be reminded how smart one is. The other is the flippant comment of my boss that "Reading is for suckers". The former made me doubt, the latter made me annoyed.

Finally, the writing is happening. Slowly, with some mental pain, but I have broken 21,000 words on the novel. The reassuring thing for me is that I still know the story has legs to make it to novel length. In my previous attempts I get sense around 5,000 words and find I don't have enough to say, or the story's idea has fallen apart. This is not happening this time and I am quite excited about it.

I hope that we can keep this up.

Posted with Blogsy

Tired...of Waiting

I am not sure how Real Estate agents deal with the long waiting game of selling property. It is a very mentally taxing experience, as you really don't have much you can do (apart from some cleaning) but wait for someone to put in an offer. I guess it's less stressful when it is someone else's money, but now being in the process I am not sure how anything is sold or bought. I am very much looking forward to moving in November.

The selling experience has not been helped by having a newborn. My son seems a lot easier than the first time we had a baby.Still, a bit of a sleep debt accumulating here as well as the added complexity of baby's older sibling needing attention. Again, looking forward to being in the house by November.

I should clarify that these are "background noise". There has been a lot of happy things going on this Fall. Another book club meeting happened, attended a baby shower in an amazing hidden treasure of a house, board games, birthdays, etc. These have been welcome distractions from the previous mentioned stresses.

Still, I expect to be more coherent by the end of November. Baby son will be sleep training and will have his own room. My daughter will finally have a basement, backyard, and bedroom to play in and not keep constantly clean (as is the case right now in the condo. It is rough to have to constantly maintain a place that is lived in but doesn't look lived in). Just a couple of weeks to go.

Today I hiked on a trail just North of my work for the second time, going further than the last. It was a wonderful walk, winding through a natural area before ducking under the 401 and flowing into a formal park and suburban neighbourhood. Listening to Enya, I found myself at the top of the hill that commanded a view of the Don Mill area, with its towers floating in an ocean of trees. The hum of highway and a cold sun completed the scene. I need to give myself a couple more of such moments to carry me to November.

Soon...

The End of Summer

My daughter is going back to school on Tuesday, and there is a sense that we are moving back to a schedule after a very busy summer. Our second child, a boy, was born which was (and is) a stressful and sleep depriving experience (it appears every child of mine has to have a birth story). We also bought a house and are in the process of selling our condo. The time has been swept up in baby caring, daughter entertaining, condo staging, storage locker filling, house planning, leaving August a blur of not sleeping and work. My work has been busy as well, but I think it might be more the fact I have a low energy level (or rather more energy demands), but I think I am getting my stride again.

That said, I haven't really been writing, drawing, or even reading. This is starting to change with each day as our son sleeps longer and we have started to build a routine again. I think Z going back to school will help a lot with that, as four year olds seems to crave patterns. Drudgery is a foreign concept to them.

In my lazy mood I have been consuming some videos on the You Tubes. Mostly game instruction videos (Radho Runs Through, Watch it Played, Tabletop, etc.) and some Web shows like Geek & Sundry and Comedians in cars getting coffee. The last one is a surprising initially, until you realize it is essentially a conversation between smart funny people filmed in a New York stylish way. Highly recommend.

I can honestly say that a full life is a good life. If I cut back on the You Tube, get a bit more exercise it would be perfect. That is what Autumn is for, my favourite season. Let September begin.

 

Posted with Blogsy