Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Pearson International Airport
Things have been very busy for me since the cruise. The week after the cruise I was in Montreal visiting my current customer. This was followed by a week of preparing for another prototype review for that customer. This week, I am in the Toronto area at another office for the same customer. However, I hope to find more time for blogging again.
Since it has been a while, this post will cover a lot of ground.
Andrew has been playing with a couple of bands and starting to make some money here and there. He is a lead singer and plays guitar and bass guitar. His band has had a couple of out-of-town trips with the most recent to Arizona where they played at a bar and Utah where they played at a wedding. Celeste had a chance to see him play at a local bar/restaurant near home while I stayed home with the girls.
Bethany has started the SAT/ACT testing process. You can definitely tell a motivated teenager when they are willing to PAY to get up early on a weekend and take a grueling test! She is especially looking forward to getting out of school. The day after her last final, Beth is off to Norway to visit Ina and her family for three weeks!
Hayley has continued playing volleyball. She moved up a level and has real coaching instead of just me now. Her skills have definitely improved with her specialties being serving and setting. Hayley is about to graduate from 8th grade and become a freshman at the high school.
Hayley and I went to see the latest Shrek movie last weekend while Bethany was taking her SAT Subject Tests. It was fair, but not as good as the first one IMHO.
Hayley continues to be my last hope for playing my board games. Bethany is not into them at all, Andrew will play some when he is around, and Celeste will only play a few. Hayley has really enjoyed quite a few of them and occasionally I pull out an old classic. The most recent classic was Battle Masters. This is close to minatures, but still on a game board. Granted the game board is around 4' by 5' and with lots of cool plastic pieces to move around (knights, orcs, archers, beastmen, etc.). We pulled aside the dining room table to have room to play and kept it around for the weekend. Lots of fun pulling out the old stuff!
As I write this, I am in the Toronto area for work. I am outside of town without a car since my hotel is across the parking lot from my customer. I can see downtown Toronto in the distance from my hotel room, but no time on this trip to visit. I've posted some pictures from there. Also, when I checked in they were out of regular non-smoking rooms. Rather than moving me to smoking (Yuck!), they upgraded me to a suite with a Jacuzzi and Sauna. Despite all of my trips to Finland, I have never tried a sauna. I did try out the Jacuzzi, so maybe I have to give the Sauna a try tonight. Maybe. I posted some pictures of that too.
I did take a nice walk last night and found a local geocache. I was disappointed to see the the geocoins that were supposed to be there were not. However, when I read the log today I see that a new geocoin was dropped off. If the rain stays away, I may go get that one.
My hotel is very near Pearson International Airport, so I can see planes in the final approach to landing from my room. The hotel is soundproofed nicely, so it is cool to watch. This is obviously a very international destination. Here are some of the airlines that I can remember seeing from my hotel this week:
* Air Canada
* Jazz
* Continental
* United
* American
* Korean Air
* LOT (Polish Flag Air Carrier)
* AlItalia
* Lufthansa
OK, that is enough for now. I'll try to post shorter blurbs more often for a while!
Here is the Toronto skyline as seen from my hotel window:
This is the jacuzzi and sauna in my hotel room:
Here is the jacuzzi in my room when I prepared it for use:
I found a geocache in that small tree behind me:
Since it has been a while, this post will cover a lot of ground.
Andrew has been playing with a couple of bands and starting to make some money here and there. He is a lead singer and plays guitar and bass guitar. His band has had a couple of out-of-town trips with the most recent to Arizona where they played at a bar and Utah where they played at a wedding. Celeste had a chance to see him play at a local bar/restaurant near home while I stayed home with the girls.
Bethany has started the SAT/ACT testing process. You can definitely tell a motivated teenager when they are willing to PAY to get up early on a weekend and take a grueling test! She is especially looking forward to getting out of school. The day after her last final, Beth is off to Norway to visit Ina and her family for three weeks!
Hayley has continued playing volleyball. She moved up a level and has real coaching instead of just me now. Her skills have definitely improved with her specialties being serving and setting. Hayley is about to graduate from 8th grade and become a freshman at the high school.
Hayley and I went to see the latest Shrek movie last weekend while Bethany was taking her SAT Subject Tests. It was fair, but not as good as the first one IMHO.
Hayley continues to be my last hope for playing my board games. Bethany is not into them at all, Andrew will play some when he is around, and Celeste will only play a few. Hayley has really enjoyed quite a few of them and occasionally I pull out an old classic. The most recent classic was Battle Masters. This is close to minatures, but still on a game board. Granted the game board is around 4' by 5' and with lots of cool plastic pieces to move around (knights, orcs, archers, beastmen, etc.). We pulled aside the dining room table to have room to play and kept it around for the weekend. Lots of fun pulling out the old stuff!
As I write this, I am in the Toronto area for work. I am outside of town without a car since my hotel is across the parking lot from my customer. I can see downtown Toronto in the distance from my hotel room, but no time on this trip to visit. I've posted some pictures from there. Also, when I checked in they were out of regular non-smoking rooms. Rather than moving me to smoking (Yuck!), they upgraded me to a suite with a Jacuzzi and Sauna. Despite all of my trips to Finland, I have never tried a sauna. I did try out the Jacuzzi, so maybe I have to give the Sauna a try tonight. Maybe. I posted some pictures of that too.
I did take a nice walk last night and found a local geocache. I was disappointed to see the the geocoins that were supposed to be there were not. However, when I read the log today I see that a new geocoin was dropped off. If the rain stays away, I may go get that one.
My hotel is very near Pearson International Airport, so I can see planes in the final approach to landing from my room. The hotel is soundproofed nicely, so it is cool to watch. This is obviously a very international destination. Here are some of the airlines that I can remember seeing from my hotel this week:
* Air Canada
* Jazz
* Continental
* United
* American
* Korean Air
* LOT (Polish Flag Air Carrier)
* AlItalia
* Lufthansa
OK, that is enough for now. I'll try to post shorter blurbs more often for a while!
Here is the Toronto skyline as seen from my hotel window:
This is the jacuzzi and sauna in my hotel room:
Here is the jacuzzi in my room when I prepared it for use:
I found a geocache in that small tree behind me:
Labels: Andrew, Bethany, Blogging, Family, Games, Geocaching, GPS, Hayley, Ina, Movies, Rob, School, Travel, Volleyball, Work
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Wii
My family purchased a Nintendo Wii for my birthday this year. I've only tried it a couple of times so far, but it has been a lot of fun. The "next gen" offerings for XBox and Playstation didn't really hook me. Using the motion sensitive controls on the Wii adds something unique. Sure, I can't see a player sweat realistically in my sports games, but who cares. Swinging the controller like a bat to play baseball or using the controller in a motion like rolling a bowling ball is very fun.
By the way, the pitcher does sweat when playing baseball in Wii Sports. It is a cartooney sweating that is fun to watch. Sorry Microsoft and Sony, but I choose innovative play mechanics over improved graphics.
From what I have heard from others, this will be a game that I am more likely to get the family to play too. I remember a skiing game on my old Mattel Intellivision that was a lot of fun for non-gamers. The Wii seems to have a similar appeal. It will be interesting to see if I can get my wife to play.
By the way, the pitcher does sweat when playing baseball in Wii Sports. It is a cartooney sweating that is fun to watch. Sorry Microsoft and Sony, but I choose innovative play mechanics over improved graphics.
From what I have heard from others, this will be a game that I am more likely to get the family to play too. I remember a skiing game on my old Mattel Intellivision that was a lot of fun for non-gamers. The Wii seems to have a similar appeal. It will be interesting to see if I can get my wife to play.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Over the Video Game Hill!
My video game prime is behind me. I accept that. However, what happened on a recent trip to Disneyland is downright embarrassing!
Disneyland has a fun new ride called Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters.
I wasn't even aware of this new ride until we came across it on a recent trip to the park. The ride was a lot of fun for the whole family.
Basically, the idea is that you are in a spaceship on a moving track. You have a blaster and you are shooting at targets along the ride. You get a score for how well you do. At the end, you can get a photo of yourself on the ride. There is a way to play this at home teamed up with the riders at Disneyland, but I haven't tried that yet.
At the end of the ride, we recovered our photos. Here is the photo of Hayley and me with our scores. As you can see, my elementary school daughter beat my score.
It gets worse. My wife, who DOES NOT PLAY VIDEO GAMES, and Bethany each beat my score as shown below.
The worst part is that my son not only blew away my score, but he also got more than 50% of my score with a second gun fired with his OFF HAND! At least I had fun. *sigh*
Disneyland has a fun new ride called Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters.
I wasn't even aware of this new ride until we came across it on a recent trip to the park. The ride was a lot of fun for the whole family.
Basically, the idea is that you are in a spaceship on a moving track. You have a blaster and you are shooting at targets along the ride. You get a score for how well you do. At the end, you can get a photo of yourself on the ride. There is a way to play this at home teamed up with the riders at Disneyland, but I haven't tried that yet.
At the end of the ride, we recovered our photos. Here is the photo of Hayley and me with our scores. As you can see, my elementary school daughter beat my score.
It gets worse. My wife, who DOES NOT PLAY VIDEO GAMES, and Bethany each beat my score as shown below.
The worst part is that my son not only blew away my score, but he also got more than 50% of my score with a second gun fired with his OFF HAND! At least I had fun. *sigh*
Labels: Disneyland, Family, Games
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Sudoku
I had heard of the number game Sudoku for a while, but had not paid any attention to it. I finally tried it for the first time on vacation last April (see my April 25, 2006 "Vacation" Blog entry). The family was on our way home from vacation on the East Coast. On the flight, we got a boxed snack. The box included a Sudoku puzzle. Hayley and I sat there and worked it out together. We had fun with it and went on to do some more puzzles in the airline magazine. I don't play it much, but it is a nice diversion once in a while when I am looking for a mild challenge.
I included a Sudoku link to an online version in my link section to the left. This is mainly there as a quick link when I want to play. I could put it in my browser favorites, but I decided to use this as a chance to remember how to add links to the blog.
I included a Sudoku link to an online version in my link section to the left. This is mainly there as a quick link when I want to play. I could put it in my browser favorites, but I decided to use this as a chance to remember how to add links to the blog.
Labels: Games
Thursday, January 04, 2007
ZONK - A dice game
In Tina's Christmas post, she mentioned that Lee got a dice game for Christmas. This reminded me of a dice game that our whole family has a lot of fun with. The rules that we use are below.
As I wrote this entry, I searched for references to Zonk. It seems like there are various variations floating around out there that we have not tried (including some that reference it as a marijuana smoking related game). Some versions use 5 dice, although we learned it using 6 dice.
Here are some examples:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~shipwrek/zonk/captjack.html
http://www.reload.ws/zonk/rules.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1006516
Here is a strategy site for a 5 dice version of the game:
http://worksunpublished.org/zonk/zonkStrategies.html
The rules below are a fun way to play that works for us though (with no drugs involved).
ZONK
A Dice Game
1. 6 (six) dice are required to play the game.
2. The object of the game is to go out with 10,000 points or more. After a person ends a turn with over 10,000 points, all of the other players are allowed one last turn to see if they can get a higher score. After all have tried, the person with the highest score wins the game. The winning player begins the next game.
3. A score of 500 points is required to get “on the board” (meaning to start tracking your score). There is no further minimum requirement. After you have started tracking your score, then there is no minimum score for following turns.
4. You can control the dice and continue to roll them as long as you get any scoring combination on your roll. If you successfully roll the dice until all 6 (six) score then you count the total of the dice and are allowed to start throwing all dice again. This can be continued as long as each roll scores points. If you continue to roll after scoring on a turn and do not roll a scoring combination on your roll, then you lose all points for that turn (i.e., a "Zonk").
5. Scoring
When you decide to stop rolling, calculate your score according to the table below. Only 1’s and 5’s score anything when rolled alone. All other values must be rolled together to make a scoring combination.
Rolling 1’s, When rolled singly = 100
Thrown in sets of three = 1000
Each added ‘1’ thrown at the same time doubles the score.
Four thrown at once = 2000
Five thrown at once = 4000
Six thrown at once = 8000
Rolling 5’s, When rolled singly = 50
Thrown in sets of three = 500
Each added ‘5’ thrown at the same time doubles the score.
Four thrown at once = 1000
Five thrown at once = 2000
Six thrown at once = 4000
3 of a kind (2’s, 3’s, 4’s, 6’s) = 100x face value of dice
Example:
Roll three 4’s = 400
Roll three 6’s = 600
Double the ‘3 of a kind’ score for each added die rolled at the same time
Example:
Roll four 4’s = 800
Roll five 4’s = 1600
Roll six 4’s = 3200
3 pair thrown all at once = 1500
3 of one number and 3 of another thrown all at once = 1000
A straight (1,2,3,4,5,6) thrown all at once = 2000
The roller can decide how to score the dice if multiple options are available.
Example: Roll four 2's and two 1's in a single roll of all six dice.
Score option 1 uses four 2's = 400 and two 1's = 200 for a total of 600
Score option 2 uses 2 pairs of 2's and one pair of 3's for 3 pair = 1500
Note that with this example the roller can pickup all six dice and roll again to continue scoring. However, this runs the risk of a Zonk and losing all points for the turn.
To play a longer game, extend the required points to win to 20,000 or more.
As I wrote this entry, I searched for references to Zonk. It seems like there are various variations floating around out there that we have not tried (including some that reference it as a marijuana smoking related game). Some versions use 5 dice, although we learned it using 6 dice.
Here are some examples:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~shipwrek/zonk/captjack.html
http://www.reload.ws/zonk/rules.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1006516
Here is a strategy site for a 5 dice version of the game:
http://worksunpublished.org/zonk/zonkStrategies.html
The rules below are a fun way to play that works for us though (with no drugs involved).
ZONK
A Dice Game
1. 6 (six) dice are required to play the game.
2. The object of the game is to go out with 10,000 points or more. After a person ends a turn with over 10,000 points, all of the other players are allowed one last turn to see if they can get a higher score. After all have tried, the person with the highest score wins the game. The winning player begins the next game.
3. A score of 500 points is required to get “on the board” (meaning to start tracking your score). There is no further minimum requirement. After you have started tracking your score, then there is no minimum score for following turns.
4. You can control the dice and continue to roll them as long as you get any scoring combination on your roll. If you successfully roll the dice until all 6 (six) score then you count the total of the dice and are allowed to start throwing all dice again. This can be continued as long as each roll scores points. If you continue to roll after scoring on a turn and do not roll a scoring combination on your roll, then you lose all points for that turn (i.e., a "Zonk").
5. Scoring
When you decide to stop rolling, calculate your score according to the table below. Only 1’s and 5’s score anything when rolled alone. All other values must be rolled together to make a scoring combination.
Rolling 1’s, When rolled singly = 100
Thrown in sets of three = 1000
Each added ‘1’ thrown at the same time doubles the score.
Four thrown at once = 2000
Five thrown at once = 4000
Six thrown at once = 8000
Rolling 5’s, When rolled singly = 50
Thrown in sets of three = 500
Each added ‘5’ thrown at the same time doubles the score.
Four thrown at once = 1000
Five thrown at once = 2000
Six thrown at once = 4000
3 of a kind (2’s, 3’s, 4’s, 6’s) = 100x face value of dice
Example:
Roll three 4’s = 400
Roll three 6’s = 600
Double the ‘3 of a kind’ score for each added die rolled at the same time
Example:
Roll four 4’s = 800
Roll five 4’s = 1600
Roll six 4’s = 3200
3 pair thrown all at once = 1500
3 of one number and 3 of another thrown all at once = 1000
A straight (1,2,3,4,5,6) thrown all at once = 2000
The roller can decide how to score the dice if multiple options are available.
Example: Roll four 2's and two 1's in a single roll of all six dice.
Score option 1 uses four 2's = 400 and two 1's = 200 for a total of 600
Score option 2 uses 2 pairs of 2's and one pair of 3's for 3 pair = 1500
Note that with this example the roller can pickup all six dice and roll again to continue scoring. However, this runs the risk of a Zonk and losing all points for the turn.
To play a longer game, extend the required points to win to 20,000 or more.
Labels: Games
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Games vs. Chores
Reading Joe's posts about games got me thinking about my definition of a game. It is pretty simple. Following a set of rules is either a game or a chore. If I am having fun, then it is a game. If I am not having fun, then it is a chore.
Performing tasks that I get paid for at work is sometimes a game. Playing certain "games" is sometimes a chore.
P.S. I finally got un-lazy and added a link for Joe to the left. I check out daily Blogs through the links to the left EXCEPT for Joe's. I jump to his from other people's Blogs. I finally updated my links to get to this directly.
P.P.S. I also used this post to experiment with how to add a link to text with HTML. It's something that I have needed to learn and this was a good chance. So I followed rules and had fun with it -- today's post was a game!
Performing tasks that I get paid for at work is sometimes a game. Playing certain "games" is sometimes a chore.
P.S. I finally got un-lazy and added a link for Joe to the left. I check out daily Blogs through the links to the left EXCEPT for Joe's. I jump to his from other people's Blogs. I finally updated my links to get to this directly.
P.P.S. I also used this post to experiment with how to add a link to text with HTML. It's something that I have needed to learn and this was a good chance. So I followed rules and had fun with it -- today's post was a game!
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Healing Heroes
Talking about the family being sick reminded me of my most recent City of Heroes game time. I've been trying out the healer/defender role.
Of course it is always a blast to play with my friends I grew up with (which is most of the audience for this blog). We have a group of heroes that are exclusively used when we play together. However, I started a healer character recently for play time when the group is not around which I have really enjoyed. I get a very different view of the battle being in a support role vs. my front-line fighter in the regular group. Its even fun running around throwing random heals on people that I am not fighting with. Heroes really seem to like healers.
Of course it is always a blast to play with my friends I grew up with (which is most of the audience for this blog). We have a group of heroes that are exclusively used when we play together. However, I started a healer character recently for play time when the group is not around which I have really enjoyed. I get a very different view of the battle being in a support role vs. my front-line fighter in the regular group. Its even fun running around throwing random heals on people that I am not fighting with. Heroes really seem to like healers.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Just Tuesday?
When my alarm clock went off this morning, I was surprised. In my head, I was thinking that it was Saturday. I got over that pretty quickly and realized that it was just Tuesday. However, it made me realize that when I was working really long hours and traveling all the time the days seemed to really fly by. Now that things are getting back down to normal (last week was only 53 hours and trending downward) it seems like life is slowing down. That's a good thing. While I like the weekends as much as anyone else, I don't want my life to always be going by as a blur of activity.
Tonight I will get online to play City of Heroes with my friends again. It is a bad sign when I come home and my family is surprised that I am not bringing work home with me (ok, I brought work home last night -- but not tonight). Even the fact that I have had time to start this Blog and update it fairly regularly is a good sign.
Maybe I'll keep my sanity intact after all.
Tonight I will get online to play City of Heroes with my friends again. It is a bad sign when I come home and my family is surprised that I am not bringing work home with me (ok, I brought work home last night -- but not tonight). Even the fact that I have had time to start this Blog and update it fairly regularly is a good sign.
Maybe I'll keep my sanity intact after all.
