Monthly Archives: July 2007

Things that go boom in the night

I had a quick thunderstorm pass through here tonight. It probably only lasted about twenty minutes or so. There was one lightning strike that must have been extremely close. I hear this *BOOM* boom boom boom boom. And the power goes out briefly. I tried looking outside to see where it might have hit but the rain was rather intense and I didn’t see any fires.

So, I am heating a small pan with water and some oil in it. It is at a rolling boil when the oil starts popping. But then it moves to a state that I haven’t seen before. The oil would pop up above the water and then explode (probably from the flames around the pan). Like fireworks were going off. It was an strange mix of scary and interesting. Note to self: This is not a safe cooking method….

links

Japanese POW Draws His Memories Of Internment In The USSR link via

VW Bus sidecar link via

Boy vacuuming cat link via

Man with tiny brain shocks doctors link via

Five ballpark promotions that went wrong link via

Mini Son of PryThing link via

The Englishman who is leading the Tour de France (One day ahead of the actual race, aided by his mum and fuelled by jam butties and Coca-Cola) link via

Fedex – Castaway link via

Don’t cut people off if your phone number is on the car link via

Disc Golf 07/28/2007

Roller-bladders

With Wilco being the site of The Games Of Texas, I had no choice but to play at Old Settler’s again. And boy was it humid out there today. Last night there were rains, and this morning the sun was evaporating all of that water. Making me sweat constantly.

It seems that there were some roller-bladders out today. Which reminds me that I need to attend a Texas Roller Girls event some time soon before the season ends…

Sweaty hands

During the past two cycling trips I have had this unexpected problem. Its been rather hot out (after all it is Texas and it is Summer). My arms are covered in sweat. And that sweat flows down the arms to my hands where it drips off. And drips and drips and drips. For the whole trip. So at the end of the ride, my hands are rather pruney. I guess I need to try out some wrist sweatbands…

Disc Golf 07/27/2007

Crawdad

John and I went to Old Settler’s Park to play disc golf as the recent rains have closed Wilco. And it seems that the rains have washed up a dead crawfish. Who knew? Maybe I should set up a trap or something…

John Putting on 2

Man, its been a while since I’ve played here.

John retrieving disc on 4

And it is surprising just how easy it is to loose your fine control and throw discs in the hazards. Like streams…

At hole 16, I could see some rain off to the east. And it was not that far off. Within a couple of minutes you could feel the temperature drop five degrees — a rain cooled air warning. Some drops started falling around hole 18 but we were in the cars quickly after that.

Game Day 07/26/2007

Game #2

Easy Come, Easy Go

Jon call me up at 6:30 and tells me he is still at work. Sigh… Where are your priorities, Jon?! So we played some light filler games. Three games of the dice fest called Easy Come Easy Go. And the winning condition certainly slipped in and out of your fingers easily enough.

Game #2

Bunte Runde

After three games of Easy Come, Easy Go, we played a game of Bunte Runde. Without the rules. But we think that we remembered enough of the key points to get the gist of it correct. The only hiccup was during the final scoring and we just played that everyone would score all of their points.

Game #3

Arkadia

Next up was Arkadia. Which was good. Definitely a recommended game to buy. My mistake was playing off by myself and not figuring out what colors upstream people were going for and to go after them as well.

During game play, Doug had this quote:

Men are tight in this game!

So that, coupled with the strange noises Doug kept making during the game (annoying his brother Jon), got us off on a tangent. We made strange noises as well and said that they were porn noises… Poor John dealt with us with patience.

Tichu

On Doug’s third Tichu call, he had two bombs (an eight bomb and a two bomb). And yet I still was able to stop him. I was a little bit too safe during this game. And it cost me the win. In hindsight, there were two Tichu calls that I could have made but didn’t. I considered making them before playing, of course. But, in the end, decided against it. Sigh…


07/26/2007 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
MarkH & JohnG Jon & DougG
 
175
T+   25  
  475 T+   25  
 
460
T- T+ 140  
  460     340  
T+ 610   T- 290  
  640    
460
T+
 
695
    505  
  730    
570
 
  735    
565
T-
  760    
640
 
  760     940 T+
 
835
    965  
GT- 635     1165  

Tichu and Tex-Mex 07/22/2007

Traci calls Tichu

Another gathering of Tex-Mex eating Tichuers at Mesa Rosa. I started off with a risky Tichu. On the next hand, Traci calls Tichu (you see her hand above) and then passes. Which is not usually done except when signaling your partner to not make a Tichu call or a random wish. John then over-Tichues and eventually goes out first. His play of trips was key since Traci did not want to get rid of her only three Aces.

On the last hand, I have AAAAKJ00765xx and I call Tichu before the pass. My partner passes me a King. Which is good. I like using these as singles since people will not usually play a Dragon or Phoenix on top of them. I split up my Aces during a pair battle and took a lot of points with them.


07/22/2007 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
MarkH & JohnG Wayne & Traci
T+
210
    -10  
 
370
T+   -70 T-
 
540
T+   -40  
 
725
T+   -25  
T+
950
    -50  
Tichu at Mexican Ice cream

We left Mesa Rosa for the Mexican Ice cream store and played a couple of more hands…

Disc Golf 07/21/2007

Jon throwing rocks

The group played at the winter course on Old Settler’s Park. Jon was having a little bit of a bad day it seems. And he also passed up on climbing a tree to retrieve his disc choosing instead to throw rocks at it.