Monthly Archives: July 2006

Disc Golf 07/07/2006

Muddy tracks

John apparently wanted to set up some light-gaming church function rather than playing disc golf… Oh well. Old Settlers park was almost back to normal. The fencing was taken down. Although there were muddy tracks everywhere… which dried to a concrete-like consistency. We’ll see if the buffalo grass recovers from that.

Hole 5

Hole 5 was back in place thankfully. (They should have oriented the number facing the tee). Today, I felt like I was throwing longer than average. Certinally, I would have been in competition with Gravitt had he played.

Hole 10

On hole 10, my first throw landed close to the basket. Sadly, my second shot just hit the basket. So close…

Hole 11b

On hole 11b, I encountered another group of players who were going along a different route. When I talked to them, they said that they were playing the “winter course”. Supposedly, you only play on one side of the lake and you play the holes backward. I guess, for example, from the somewhere near the goal of hole 12 to basket of hole 11b.

And of course they watched me throw. Thankfully, I threw my best throw eva there. It went over the trees and landed close to the goal. Close enough to birdie it!

On hole 12, my first throw landed 20 feet past the goal. Which was unexpected. I spent 10 minutes looking for it. On hole 13, my 80′ approach shot hit the goal. On hole 15, it was even worse. My first throw miraculously threw through the big tree and missed hitting it (there are no trees, there are no trees, …). Which was nice. However, I must have spent another 10 minutes trying to find a bright red disc in the middle of a light green bowl. I walked around for a while trying to figure out where in the hell it could have gone. Thankfully, I found it much farther to the left than I thought likely. After that, I skipped holes 16 and 17 and finshing with a par for 18.

Game Day 07/06/2006

Game #1

In the Shadow of the Emperor

It has been a while since this game has hit the table. But I did remember a couple of strategy points. The first was that winning an electorate and ascending into the elector spot for the first time is what gives you victory points. Staying there after that only keeps giving you the power. Second, the purple electorates can be won as normal, but only single barons can ascend into the elector spot.

This was a tight game. Besides the mistake of not moving a married couple into the last free spot in order to go after Ed’s spot, the only other mistake that I made was not trying to be Emperor for a turn. That would have given me some much needed victory points…

Game #2

Tichu

What is this, Mike not only played Tichu again with us, but also suggested it? Is the world coming to an end? Is Mike turning into smart-Mike?

I’m a little dissapointed here. The camera was set up, the players willing, but trying to enter the data after the fact, I still cannot figure out how the cards were played. Part of the problem is that people would not play in front of them and orient their cards correctly. So there are ambiguities that I could not resolve. Sigh. Next time, I am going to be more strict. One picture per card group played and the placement matters!

This game was painful! For the entire game, our team did not once get more card points than the others… After 7 rounds, our team scored 120 points out of 700 points which averages out to 17%. Guh!


The scorecard for a game of Tichu

GT or T bet made or lost

This team scored more points than the other or one twoed

GT/T Team #1 GT/T GT/T Team #2 GT/T
Ed & AdamR MarkH & MikeCh
T+
195
    5  
 
270
  GT+ 230  
 
380
    220  
T+
565
    235  
 
720
T+   280  
 
785
  T+ 415  
 
980
T+   420  
  1180     420  

Other games that were played:

Game #3

The game based on a painting: Siena

Kegerator

Kegerator

I stoped in at Ace Mart today to buy pastry tips after realizing that cake tips were not going to work. Of course, I had to look around. When I am building a home where money is no object, I would definately use a profesional stove, oven, and refrigerator; use stainless steel; and a fire supression system. But thats in the future…

Mmmmm…. a beer kegerator… too bad its $1000 bucks…

Disc Golf 07/04/2006

Fouth Celebrations

Jon was away for the past week in Florida, so when he came back he was raring to go. Of course, John and I went as well. Unfortunately, the neighborhood was celebrating the holiday at the park next to the disc golf. So the road was blocked off.

Fire Truck #1

A fire truck was here. John told me that his kid, Clint, correctly wondered why they call it a fire truck since it doesn’t squirt out fire but water. John replied that it should be called an un-fire truck because its job is to un-fire fires… The English language is just weird at times. Accept it.

Here, the fire truck tests out its hose by watering a tree at the tee off of hole one. Previously it was placed over the park and the firemen were throwing candies at kids. Our tax dollars at work…

Fire Truck #2

And now it un-fires kids. Who gleefuly run under it. If I was up there, I would focus the stream, turn the pressure on full, and push those kids all over the place…

Person sleeping on bench

Apparently, yesterday’s activities were too much for someone. He was sleeping it off on a bench.

Lightning Trucks

After we finished the course, we headed over to Bone Daddy’s. It is a Bar-B-Que joint over on Research Blvd. I noticed that there must be a Ford Lightning club meeting or something. Three Lightning trucks parked in a row. Cool!

Shiner draft beer

Their selection of draft beer was not the best. But they did have 32oz mugs which were quite large…

Game Day 07/03/2006

Game #1

Struggle of Empires

Wow, what a struggle it is to get others to play this game. I always thought that the whole point of long game days was to play long and meaty games. At least I was able to find four other players to play this game with me.

This game has a number of interesting components to it. First, there are battles (either against neutral chips or against others). You make a risk assessment against the outcome of the battle. At even strength, you have a 40% chance of success. At plus one strength, it is 60%. Etc… Second, there is the disposition of players to one of the two sides in a war. Both the player order and which players are on what sides are determined by a series of bids. And third, there are all kinds of special power cards that are available. Do you go for allies in specific regions, general bonuses for battle, or extra money in specific regions? Many possibilities for strategy there…

I started out in the colonies (East Indies, India, Africa, and South America) and the German States. Luckily, no one fought me or even invaded in the East Indies and Africa. I tried to gain a greater presence in the German States but the dice were not with me. Finally one person (Susan) tried to come into India. However, I was lucky. She could have done a sneak attack against me, but she decided not to. On my next turn, I quickly moved a ship and army in (I should have instead put a ship and fort in). Later, she fought and won against my army, but didn’t have enough actions to kick my control markers out (which is all that count anyways). And she finally settled for a second place presence.

During the first two scorings, I was in the lead. But it was clear to me that I was slowly loosing ground. Carl was taking over some rich territories in Europe, but he was spending a lot of money trying to control who was on each side (I didn’t really understand his motivation to put John and me versus everyone else. He never fought me). After final scoring, I was in third place, but when 1st and 2nd places in unrest moved Mike and Carl back, I ended up in first place!

All told, it took us three hours to play this game after the rules were explained. Which is quite reasonable, I think.

Game #2

Crystal Faire

Another playing of this game and this time we found that we got a rule slightly wrong. During the adjustment phase, each player is allowed to fill the crystals back up to three. And then they can take either 0, 1, or 2 and move however many crystals are left. I think that it would make the victory point levels for crystals much more chaotic. We’ll see…

I still am not completely likeing the trading phase. It doesn’t seem crystal clear to me what people will offer or what I should offer (pun intented).

Game #3

Tichu

What is this? Mike volunteering to play Tichu? WTF?! Not much unusual to report apart from that. Well, Adam did play the rare straight which included an unused bomb in it. On the last hand, I called Grand-Tichu blind and was smacked down by Adam for that. He had all of the controls and I had nothing…


The scorecard for a game of Tichu

GT or T bet made or lost

This team scored more points than the other or one twoed

GT/T Team #1 GT/T GT/T Team #2 GT/T
Ed & MarkH AdamR & MikeCh
  200     0  
  210    
90
 
 
295
  T+ 205  
T+
490
    210  
  475    
325
 
  405 T- T+
495
 
T+
585
    515  
  600   T+
700
 
T- 545   T+
855
 
  570    
930
 
 
425
GT-   975  
  275 GT- T+ 1125  

Disc Golf 07/03/2006

Adam at Georgetown

With three days of disc golfing planned, we visited each of the three closest major courses to us. Today was at The Rivery in Georgetown and it was Adam’s first time at this course. He did pretty well as a beginner here.

On hole 5, I got my disc stuck high up in the grape-vine on a tree. Without Jon here, I was forced to try and climb the tree myself. I got halfway up and decided that that was as far as I was willing to climb. So I started shaking the tree. But it wasn’t budging. After trying to reach it with a metal sign pole (far too heavy), and a big rock (far too awkward in my left hand), I resorted to shaking the tree even harder. It finally fell down! And I climbed down hot, sweaty, and covered in stuff…

On hole 7, I was behind. But I had a lucky 40′ putt to remain tied with Adam. Previously I had used a tree as a back-board to make another putt here.

Pâte à choux

Pote a Chox before

Good Eats is the only cooking show on today that can inspire me. And after watching Choux Shine, I knew I had to try out making éclairs from a flour paste that the French call Pâte à choux. My problem was the icing tip. It was way too small. And even switching to the largest flat leaf one, it was still too small.

Sigh. I need to buy some professional ones at the restaurant supply store on Lamar.

Pote a Chox after

They did come out all right. Tiny, little, miss-shaped, finger-sized eclairs.

Disc Golf 07/01/2006

Beer trash

For Saturday, another round of disc golf at Cat Hollow. No temporary fencing fortunately. I did notice that there is an aweful lot of beer drinking going on. 50% of the cans in the garbage seem to be beer cans…