Author Archives: Mark

Wurst Fest redux

Group

A bunch of us went down to Wurst Fest today. We arrived a little early and my stomach was growling as I waited…

Four wursts

Wurst fest is about the German beer and German sausages: four different kinds (including one sweet). And at least four different kinds of beers to wash it down with.

Rox taking my picture

Rox took a picture of me taking a picture of sausages. God, how I hate the crappy quality of cell phone cameras.

potato pancakes
deep fried oreos

Potato pancakes with applesauce and deep-fried oreos also stopped by inside my tummy.

Chapel with a chicken on his head

Chapel broke down and bought a fest-hat.

European Vacation

I haven been wanting to attend Essen — the board gaming convention Mecca. And I finally found someone willing to go with me. Since the flight is so long, I decided to visit another city and settled on Amsterdam. Marty, my traveling companion, was able to get work to pay for him to visit London afterward and I crashed at his hotel for an extra 10 pounds a night. You cannot beat that price for downtown London!

More, after the cut…

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Disc Golf 10/11/2008

Jon

Today’s weather for disc golf was beautiful: warm, not windy, and no strong sun. And yet, the sky looked like a cold, winter day. It was overcast out there.

Hole 5

I did pretty well today. I had a birdie on hole 5. And was ahead for most of the day. Until the last hole, 18. Which gave me worse than a snowman.

Disc Golf 10/04/2008

Ramirez party

Jon and I had wanted to play disc golf today at Old Settler’s Park. But it was not meant to be. Apparently, they were holding a huge track and field event. School buses were everywhere. We decided to play elsewhere. Like at the Rivery in Georgetown. And it seems that it was a good thing that we arrived somewhat early. It seems that the Ramirez family was holding a party. (Afterwards, we come back to our cars to find that the parking spots were overwhelmed by people attending this reunion). And, while we were playing, we also realized that Cat Hollow would not have been a good place to play because of the Hairy Man Festival going on there!

Hole 1

Hole 1 was an easy birdie.

Hole6

I looks like someone is trying to make a maker for hole 6? But it looks more like a 5 to me.

Cool Chair

And it looks like someone left a cool art chair on the course around hole 8. It was covered in many decorations like fur, rocks, shells, and tiny statues.

Disc Golf 09/27/2008

Jon and Nick

Jon, Nick and myself played at Cat Hollow Today.

Hole 3
Hole 18

I got a couple of birdies on holes 3 and 18. 18 is especially tough. There is a row of trees that block easy access to the basket. You have to throw a high hyzer to the right and up and over the trees. And, if you make it over them, it would then fall back to the left land close to the basket. Or, at least, that is the plan. This time it both made it over the trees and landed close enough for a birdie!

Game Day 09/25/2008

Game #1

Galaxy Trucker

First up on the table was Galaxy Trucker. I like this game. It is thematic. And both parts of the game are fun for me. The tension building your ship while competing with everyone else for the same parts. And the tension of trying to stay alive during the delivery run. The events can be brutal. You just might loose large chunks of your space ship.

Game #2

Race For The Galaxy

We kept within the Science Fiction theme tonight and played Race For the Galaxy. My cards eventually fit into a clear strategy: build and score developments. I was also able to set up a trading chain which netted me seven or so cards every other turn. But I knew I had to end the game early. I didn’t want the others to catch up to me. Fortunately, I was able to do so and win the game.

Yet another loaner car

BMW X-5

Here is yet another loaner car. Which I have had my fill of recently. What with the two separate replace the header gasket incidents recently.

This time I am driving a BMW X-5. When I bought the car, part of the deal was replacing the car’s chip with a performance upgrade. Apparently, they couldn’t just install it before I bought it. I had to first buy the car, then drive it off the lot, and then come back in to have it upgraded. Whatever. Bureaucracy or State Laws at their finest, I guess.

Last Thursday, I drop the car off and here I am with the car. Almost a week later. Not the speediest upgrade. But, I can’t complain with a free rental. However, when I get the bill, I notice that part of the bill is $130 in freight! That is crazy! Like almost plane travel transportation crazy. That part of the bill I can complain about…

Back to the car, or SUV. Sesh, it is a pig. Big, heavy, extremely slow. I don’t know why people would buy cars like these. Sure, its roomy. But it is underpowered and a gas guzzler.

42

This is the first time I have had all seven doubles in my hand! I was the first to bid and I automatically called plunge (a convention meaning that you have four or more doubles in your hand and one of them is the six/six). Unfortunately, this was the wrong thing to do. The score was six to two and we were winning. The last player on the other team raised my bid to four marks. Which won the bid. And he also made me completely irrelevant by calling “doubles are a suit of their own”.

This is another reason why I hate 42. There are lay-down hands or even very-likely to succeed hands, and
yet you can just up the bid and try for a lucky chance. Like, for instance, that you partner holds the bone, or bones, that will stop you (this being a 1 in 3 chance).

One time I blind plunged. My partner hears this and raises the bid. He has the other three doubles and a punt (a bone that is not under one of his doubles). This was an automatic four point swing. With the game being the first to seven points, that is a huge jump.

Disc Golf 09/20/2008

Discs in the muck

Mike, Jon, and I went out to the Brenbrook subdivision to play disc golf at the new course. This was our second time out there. I drove us out there in my BMW X5 loaner car. The directions that the iPhone gave us was a little squirrelly. But we made it to the proper location.

Hole 5 was rather tough because the out of bounds areas were not mowed down like it was for the rest of the course. Jon managed to narrowly miss throwing his disc in the lake. And I managed to get stung by a wasp.

Hole 9

I did get a birdie on hole 9. But it was not that tough. The hole is only a short distance away and it is in a wide open field.

Mike and Jon

Hole 17 was not that hard with the severe drought that we have been through. The pond where you throw your disc over is completely dry.

They have made one improvement to this course. They put concrete tubes that act as bridges where you have to cross water. But this course still needs a lot of improvement. There are no signs for the tees. And there are a couple of places where you can get confused as to where to go next.