Un-Widgey Nights

07.09.2013

Over the past couple of alternating Friday nights, I've found myself at Dealnews having a game night with Keith as his boys have a LAN party. The details of that aren't all that important past "hey, we've got an excuse to play some boardgames!" The first Friday night I joined Keith along with Phil, Daniel, and Richard for a double header of Ticket to Ride and Roborally. Somehow, even though Keith and I were the experienced ones in both games, we won neither. Both were fun, though. It was the first time I had ever been in a 5-player game for either Ticket to Ride or Roborally, and that many players changes your strategy a lot more than I thought it would have.

2 weeks later we again got together, but Daniel and Richard were replaced by Joe. We brought out 2 different games: Frag (one of my perennial favorites) and King of Tokyo (which I had just gotten the previous week, and as a bonus it was written by the same guy that made Roborally). Phil nor Joe had played Frag before, so it was fun to watch them learn. Joe was pulling great cards and pretty much taking it out on Phil. Joe declared "this game is awesome" while Phil decided "this game sucks". The next round Phil was getting good cards while Joe was getting crap. Phil changed his tune and decided "this game is awesome" while Joe joined the "this game sucks" crowd. After those 2 rounds, Joe had to leave so Keith, Phil, and I played a couple of rounds of King of Tokyo. As is our way we played the first round wrong (we left Tokyo when we shouldn't have). Once we had that figured out, the game became more challenging and felt right.

These little game nights have been fun. Somehow, Phil gets ganged up on (with everything we've played, Phil has yet to win a game or a round of a game). Technically these have not been part of the sanctioned Widgey season because everyone hasn't been vetted in. Maybe Keith needs to bring out the trophy and then everybody will be begging for some sanctioning.

Just for fun I ran the Widgey season stats as if the above 2 nights were sanctioned. With the current stats Jerry and I are tied for 1st place. With the above games added I move into 1st place by 1 point, due mainly to Daniel and Richard and Joe having good win-loss records.

Current Standings

	Wins & Losses					Win %			Points Rank + Win % Rank - # of Wins
	Wins	Losses	Points	Ranking		Win %	Ranking		Combined Points	Combined Ranking
Russ	6	6	36	1		50.0%	6		1	1
Jer	5	1	22	2		83.3%	4		1	1
Keith	4	2	20	3		66.7%	5		4	4
Joe	3	0	12	4		100.0%	1		2	3
Steve	1	0	4	6		100.0%	1		6	5
Alex	2	2	12	4		50.0%	6		8	7
Richard	1	0	4	6		100.0%	1		6	5

If the extra games were counted:

	Wins & Losses					Win %			Points Rank + Win % Rank - # of Wins
	Wins	Losses	Points	Ranking		Win %	Ranking		Combined Points	Combined Ranking
Russ	8	11	54	1		42.1%	8		1	1
Jer	5	1	22	3		83.3%	4		2	2
Keith	5	8	36	2		38.5%	9		6	4
Joe	3	0	12	5		100.0%	1		3	3
Steve	1	0	4	9		100.0%	1		9	5
Alex	2	2	12	5		50.0%	6		9	5
Richard	2	1	10	7		66.7%	5		10	8
Phil	0	8	16	4		0.0%	10		14	10
Daniel	1	0	4	9		100.0%	1		9	5
Joe H	1	1	6	8		50.0%	6		13	9

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Busy Week

07.08.2013

This week:

• Monday - new garage cabinet additions finally being shipped. Should get to the house between 12-4. I ordered them a month ago and they were supposed to ship within 2 weeks. I'm actually surprised they shipped at all.
• Tuesday - pick up Brenda at the airport and ferry her to Florence. Before then I have a trip to the comic store to ask questions on behalf of a couple of friends. Actually, looking at the stack of things on my desk, I need to go to the bank and post office, too.
• Wednesday - next-to-the-last insurance required trip to the doctor before I'm qualified (in BCBS eyes) for weight loss surgery. There's also a trip to the chiropractor and Cheap Wings Night with Gina & Jacob.
• Thursday - Nothing's written down, but I bet this is the day my new glasses come in. "Progressive" lenses. I'm old! It's also the day my grandparents move after 48 years. I think they may be moving a mile.
• Friday - Either a trip to Florence to see how the move went, or begin construction on Monday's delivered cabinetry. Probably do some of the stuff that got overlooked over the week, too.

My weeks aren't usually this busy. I'm a little stressed about it. Even though nothing major is happening to cause stress, it's the the sheer, out of the ordinary volume of stuff going on. Next week is more normal - I've only got 2 things written down for next week.

So far, at least.

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Sprained Back

07.03.2013

I managed to sprain my back Monday morning. To make it a better story, I sprained it while making the bed.

It's been a while since I messed up my back, especially enough to put me in bed for a day or more. This past weekend I caught up on some lost sleep and managed to spend most of Sunday in bed. I'm paranoid whenever I do that, because nothing can mess up my back more than laying around all day (or all weekend).

Monday morning I got up and felt fine. I took a shower and still felt fine. I made the bed after taking a shower. When going back to dry my hair, I noticed I couldn't stand up straight. My back was ll out of kilter. So it seems I threw my back out while making the bed.

My back hurt enough that instead of turning left to go to work when I left the house, I turned right and went to the chiropractor. He chirpracted, but I still wasn't fixed. I went back home, laid down, and applied ice. Later in the afternoon I returned to the chiropractor and he did more chiropracticy. Alas, I was still crooked. Tuesday repeated more of the same.

This morning I used the chiropractor as my pain diagram, pointing out on his body where I hurt. He popped some different things this time. By the time he was finished I felt better. I think all the bones are back in the right spot, but the muscles that were trying to force everything back to the right place are screaming.

With that, I'm taking it easy the rest of the day and still applying ice.

This week has gone nothing like I planned when it started.

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Yes I'm still alive

06.26.2013

I've not posted anything in a while, at first because nothing was going on. Then I didn't post anything because between email, Facebook, text messaging, and phone calls, everyone was caught up with anything interesting. At some point my loop between those methods of disseminating information became disjointed, and as such I don't know who I've updated with what.

Now I'm taking a moment to organize my thoughts. A flurry of posts will follow.

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Fun Is Reading

06.07.2013

Last night I wrapped up John Scalzi's The Last Colony after about a week of off-an-on reading, although I probably read the first third in a day and the last third in a day. Being a slow reader, any time I read a book in a week I either enjoy it or it's a short book. Or maybe both. This time it was a little of both - just over 300 pages and I enjoyed the story.

This book wraps up a trilogy (Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades being the first two) with a couple of characters, but the sci-fi universe Scalzi created continues in his latest book (The Human Division, which I'll probably start this weekend).

It's nice to just relax with a good book to enjoy. I've felt like I've had so much stuff going on around the house between my Spring cleaning surge and wrapping up the little details of Zombie Mall that just sitting back and reading feels good. I'm not productive at all. I almost feel bad, but I don't know why (I'm the only one that's making me do all of this other stuff, so I'm not letting anyone down).

I'm hoping my reading break will give my creative juices a jump start. I've got some graphics stuff to whip up for Zombie Mall that's not exactly exciting, so I've been putting it off. Maybe after 1 more book, the aforementioned Human Division, I'll be ready to wrap that up.

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