Posts from 2011

Salishan Gaming Late 2011

Earlier this month I hosted my 6th gaming weekend out at Salishan for my local gaming buddies (see prior outings: 2005, early 2007, late 2007, 2008, early 2...

My top longreads of 2011

I've written before about Instapaper and longreads and my reading habits haven't changed. I love Instapaper still and strongly recommend it to anyone intere...

Runewars with Dave and Chuck

Last weekend I got together with Dave and Chuck (strange fact: all three of us were born within 1 month of each other) to play Runewars. I first played thi...

Youth Football Coaching Tips

Inspired by Coach Parker's tips for coaching youth football, I thought I would share a few of my own. I haven't been doing this as long as many, but I think ...

BGG.CON 2011 Report

Last week I returned from another stellar BGG.CON gaming convention. The routine has become very attractive and fulfilling for me: play games, drink beer an...

BGG.CON 2011 Days 1 and 2

Here's a quick rundown of what I've played so far: Thursday Alien Frontiers -- One of my hope-to-play games from 2010. Reminds me of Mission: Red Planet but...

BGG.CON 2011 Preparation

Tomorrow I fly to Dallas for my 6th BGG.CON gaming convention, joining the convention a bit later than most but earlier than I usually do. As usual (in a g...

My Football Video Processing Workflow

Video capture, processing, and publishing are a huge part of my football coaching routine. We film all of our games (Julie being my go-to videographer) and ...

Headed to St. Louis

Tonight after Jacob's football game Julie, Jacob, and I will dash off to the airport to catch a red-eye to St. Louis. We are visiting our alma mater, Washi...

Review: Wits and Wagers Family

I've been a big fan of Wits & Wagers since it was first released back in 2005. I even participated in a Wits & Wagers game show back in 2006. North...

I remember Steve Jobs

I can't fully explain the impact Steve Jobs had on my life, but I can at least share a chronology of memories directly linked to his creations. I remember f...

Major weight loss operations have ended

I suspect we all have wake up triggers for health and wellness -- events or thresholds that inspire action and maybe behavior change. I had one after the Jul...

2010 Football Recap

Judging from the traffic this blog still gets I think I owe my audience much more frequent updates than I’ve been providing (here I am talking about blogging...

Sherwood Bowmen Football - new website

Julie and I (mostly Julie) put together a new website for the Sherwood Bowmen football team. We've also had great success so far using MailChimp for all our...

Review: Say Anything Family Edition

I received a play-test copy of Say Anything: Family Edition from North Star Games a short while ago and we've managed to play this new edition a few times no...

Airlines: Europe

I hosted my game group weekly session this week and got to play Airlines:Europe with 5 players (Mike, JD, Greg, and Doug). This is a remake of the Alan Moo...

Long reads and Instapaper

One of my trusted internet services is Instapaper, a simple tool to save web pages for reading later. In today's CNN and Facebook-inspired short attention sp...

Old Uncle Larry

My beloved uncle Larry passed away early this year, and I had the honor of presiding as MC for his memorial service this weekend in Florida. This is a short...

Planning for Galapagos

This is the first in a series of posts relating the Galapagos experience from March 2011. The planning for Galapagos started as a plan for a trip to Greece ...

Quito and Galapagos Travel Photos

I posted two more photo sets today - the last two from the Galapagos and Quito trip last month. Quito photos Galapagos Landscape and Travel photos

Galapagos Wildlife Photos

I've posted my first batch of photos covering our recent trip to the Galapagos - Galapagos Wildlife. I've done my best to properly identify the various spec...

Merchant of Venus

I ventured downtown to the Sellwood area yesterday to enjoy my first ever play of Merchant of Venus at Subhan's home along with Rachel and Matty. This is a...

A Victory Lost

I made a plea for help a couple of weeks ago - there are two wargames in my collection that have languished unplayed and I needed to make the stay or go cal...

Shared Computers and Idiots

I'm in NYC right now and got upgraded to a nicer hotel room at the Westin Times Square that included an iMac. I didn't use the computer, but bumped the mous...

Epic Thunderstone

Ken and I played Thunderstone tonight. Not run-of-the-mill standard Thunderstone, but epic Thunderstone. In the standard game you randomize the a fixed se...

Washington’s War with Jacob

It wasn't planned, but we played it anyway. Jacob and I had a mostly free Sunday afternoon and opted to play Washington's War, giving me a trifecta of card...

Napoleonic Wars - with 5 this time

I hosted a five player Napoleonic Wars game today - my first time playing with a full complement of players. I drew the Russians which was also a first. M...

Galapagos Photo Processing

The really enjoyable part of Galapagos and taking photos is over. Now I'm faced with the daunting task of processing these photos: That's about 120GB total...

To Galapagos

Soon we depart for our first big family trip since our Europe trip almost exactly three years ago. A year ago we were set on heading to Greece for spring bre...

Notes and Text Files with DropBox

A while back I wrote about my current Mac OS X ecosystem. Part of this ecosystem has evolved quite a bit - I'm no longer using Notational Velocity or SimpleN...

Josh Ritter at the Crystal Ballroom

I'm not much for writing concern reviews but I was so moved by the Josh Ritter show last night at the Crystal Ballroom that I planned to write some words. ...

How Google Voice Saved me from AT&T

I first obtained a Google Voice number back on December 18, 2007 - back then it was still GrandCentral Communications but had been acquired by Google earlier...

Jacob’s Eagle Scout Board of Review

Tonight Julie and I will accompany Jacob to his Eagle Scout board of review. This is a culmination of many years of work for Jacob and is the final step bef...

Shooting Birds at Tualatin River Refuge

Julie and I took an early morning walk on Saturday morning at the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge to test out my new Canon 300mm f/4 lens with a 1.4x...

Diving into A Game of Thrones LCG

Given that I'm diving deep into the Game of Thrones Living Card Game (LCG) from Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) I thought others might benefit from a detailed di...

Napoleonic Wars with KC and Jacob

On Saturday KC, Jacob and I played the classic card-driven game Napoleonic Wars. KC was interested in something longer and deeper and when he opened the doo...

Jetta TDI Fuel Economy After 3 Months

We bought a new 2010 Volkswagen Jetta TDI on Oct 31 2010. It is my primary commuting car and I couldn't be happier. It has more-than-adequate iPhone integ...

Basketball Season

I haven't written much about basketball season lately and given how much of my family life revolves around it this time of year it is at least worth an aside...

Game of Thrones LCG with Three Players

Jacob, Matthew and I just finished a three player game. I can see why people say this shines in multiplayer - the title selection and "who do I want to hurt...

A Game of Thrones Living Card Game

KC came over for a great day of gaming - 3 player Napoleonic Wars with Jacob followed by two games of A Game of Thrones Living Card Game. A while back (4-5 y...

Salishan Gaming Photos

I posted some better photos from the Salishan gaming weekend. Here are a few of the choice picks.

18xx Order from Deep Thought Games

I finally broke down and placed another Deep Thought Games 18xx game order. I still have two unplayed 18xx game in my collection (1870 and 2038) but I feel c...

Salishan Gaming Day 4

The photo tells it all - I spent most of the day with Doug, Matt, and Eric playing the new Civilization boardgame. This is everything I like to see in a civ...

Salishan Gaming 2011 - Day 3

Today was another banner day. A great mix of deep longer games with light fare, good food and friends, and some excellent aged bourbon. The day started with ...

Salishan Gaming 2011 - Days 1 and 2

KC and Rita arrived at my Sherwood home late Thursday afternoon and after stopping for happy hour at the 101 Roadhouse we were at Salishan and ready to dive ...

Command and Colors: Napoleonics Scenario 2

Ken and I are trying to reserve Wednesday nights for two player wargaming (lighter stuff) and last night was our second try of Command and Colors:Napoleonics...

Dungeons and Dragons - Then and Now

I first introduced Jacob and Matthew to Dungeons and Dragons towards the end of 2003, and shortly thereafter we started a D&D 3.0 campaign with Ken and B...

Kicking the FIOS router to the curb

I've been on Verizon (now Frontier) Fios for several years and mostly love it. Bandwidth has been consistently good and we never have TV outages (unlike Dir...

Salishan Gaming Plans

I like to host an annual gaming event at our Salishan beach house but had to skip last year after starting a new job. The last event was in December 2008 an...

WWII: Barbarossa to Berlin, Starting

I doubt we'll get too far this weekend, but Jacob and I started a game of WWII: Barbarossa to Berlin this afternoon. I traded away Paths of Glory (a WWI game...

Neue Heimat

I had some games to deliver to another PDX gamer and we agreed to meet at the Lucky Lab in SE Portland tonight. I planned to stay until about 8pm and we had...

Carson City

Doug, Mike, and I played Carson City last night - a first play for Doug and Mike, and my only play since a five-player introduction at BGG.CON back in Novemb...

Holiday Gaming

The last week has brought a big increase in quality game time. I'm especially appreciative that I've had some great 1x1 gaming with several folks that I shou...

Football Season Wrap-Up

Hard to imagine how a football season could turn out any better for our family (other than the Cowboys missing the playoffs this year). Highlights: Jacob's...

My Five and Dime for 2010

This was clearly a down year in my games played in 2010 with only two "nickels": Thunderstone and 18xx. A few games knocked on the door: the perennial favori...

My Favorite Podcasts

I spend about 90 minutes commuting in the car each day and primarily listen to podcasts when alone in the car. I think I'm about 7 years into regular podcast...