Monthly Archives: September 2009

An interesting battle

Monument Cafe has had a rather unspoken battle with a handicapped driver. There are, of course, real handicapped parking spots next to the door. But apparently not enough of them. So this car has taken to trying to fit in a spot that is not designed for it. Repeatedly. The poor rose bushes suffer the brunt of the assault. And I wonder how exactly the wheelchair gets on and off the car. Maybe they don’t bother in this case.

So the new response to this situation has been to install a “do not park here” sign. Which was ignored. I wonder what the next step will be?

In bed!

Game Day 09/13/2009

Gravitt held a meetup at a new location. A pizza restaurant called Plank’s near Parmer and IH-35. I tried their plank (style I guess) pizza. It was meh. But they did have ZiegenBock on draft for a buck. You can’t beat that! Hopefully the meetups will continue with a better frequency than they have in the past.

The tables were a little small for gaming. But it’s a restaurant. What do you expect?

Race for the Galaxy

Jon and I started out with a quick two player game of Race for the Galaxy.

Age of Steam

My big game for the day was a game of Age of Steam on the original map. Jeff had wanted to play it and I was more than happy to oblige. We had two other people join who were also new to the game. Unfortunately, this was not their type of game. But they did keep playing all the same.

My position was not the best. Jon was all alone on one section of the board. I was in the middle of the board surrounded by people. I know Jon commented during the end game that he made a mistake by not upgrading his engine. While he had better goods than I did at the end, t he was not able to catch up to me.

iced tea

One of the first drinks that I started to make was iced tea. The amount of sugar in Coke/Pepsi was getting to be too much for me. So I started to look for an alternative. Iced tea sweetened with some lemon juice and agave nectar did the trick. I like the convenience of Celestial Seasonings tea bags. And I found four flavors that I liked at HEB (Mandarin Orange Spice, Black Cherry Berry, Raspberry Zinger, and Wild Berry Zinger). Unfortunately, once I find something that I like, stores stop carrying them. Luckily for me, Amazon does carry those flavors. So I buy a case of each and it lasts me for about a year.

It is not that hard to make. I fill by teapot full of water and bring it to a boil. I then take eight bags of tea and steep them in the water for 6 minutes (actually, you can forget about them and let them steep longer than that without any harm). While the water is coming up to a boil and/or steeping in the tea, I squeeze the juice of three lemons into a clean 64 ounce plastic container. I then pour in 100 grams of organic raw blue agave nectar. I fill the bottle about half way with cold water and wait for the tea to finish steeping. When it is done, I port the tea in and fill it up to the top with cold water and place it in the refrigerator for when I need it (and for it to chill back down).

A hundred grams of agave sweetener in a 64 ounce bottle works out to be 36 calories per 8 ounce serving (10 grams of carbohydrates).

Game Day 09/09/2009

Chaos in the Old World

Jeff wanted to play a new area control game about ancient gods. Unfortunately, no one had played it before or read the rules beforehand. So I am sure that we got some things wrong (not even counting the mistake when assembling the board).

While I love dice games, this one had a fatal flaw. When attacking, an enemy unit is killed on a four, five, or six. So far, so good. However, if a six is rolled, you get to roll the dice again for an extra attack. For as long as you keep rolling sixes. This was used to devastating effect on Jeff and Tim almost wiped him off of the board. Thankfully, we called the game after an hour or so and I was able to leave. I was not enjoying that game at all.

Disc Golf 09/07/2009

Jon and I are attending the Blue Skies Over Texas disc golf tournament. We met pretty early at Starbucks to car pool down there.

The unique thing about this tournament is that we play Mary Moore Seawright course twice. For the first time, we play it normally. And then, after lunch, we play it in reverse. The tees are placed where the baskets normally are and vice versa. Notice the backward spelling for the second round on the score card?

We practiced a little bit before the tournament started and I got a couple of birdies. An auspicious start indeed.

I had fun at the tournament. The only negative thing about the day was that it was quite hot out there. I must have drank four liters of liquid during the day. It was also dry and dusty. So when I finally got home and showered, the water was running dark brown.

Disc Golf 09/06/2009

I went to Old Settler’s Park for some disc golf today. It looks like another tree is down.

And two more trees were removed on the hill. Sadly, with these mando trees gone, the hole is much easier. So someone moved the tee to a new location.

And is there a new tee for the winter variant?

Apparently, there is a new Kelli attraction in the park.

I finally got a birdie on hole 16. Leaving me +2 for the round.

After a hot round, I cooled off at La Selva. Mmm, agua fresca and Mexican ice cream…

iPhone FAIL

My iPhone unexpectedly had a software problem today. Unfortunately, it exposed a catastrophic flaw. This morning, as I was out playing disc golf (using the phone: recording scores and taking pictures), I noticed a strange message on the phone. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of the message or record it. But the gist of it was that it could not authorize itself and it needed to connect to iTunes. I was able to still take notes and take pictures while it was in its problem state. But the message was worrying me. So, I thought that if I turned it off and then turned it back on, it might clear itself of the hiccup. Boy that was the wrong move! Now the phone wouldn’t even finish booting up! And it was now a very expensive brick.

So, when I finally got home, I connected my iPhone to the computer and tried to sync it. This was what I saw. My phone is locked with a passcode and it will not allow a sync. Normally, when the phone boots up, it requires you to unlock it with the passcode before it completes the bootup sequence. Well, I guess it checks for authorization BEFORE it allows you to unlock it! Now I cannot connect to it. Argh!

So I searched online and found a process to get it into recovery mode. You have to power it off forcefully (press and hold the power button and then slide to power off) and then press and hold the home button when you plug in the iPhone to the computer.

Great, my iPhone is in recovery mode. Now, all I need to do is perform a recovery option in iTunes and we are all set. Wrong! I cannot restore it. The helpful error message of 23 is my only clue. Sigh. By this time it is getting late on a Saturday. So I race down to the Apple store to see if something can be done. The store was freakin packed! And it looks like the genius bar is full for the day. But I hang around and an employee walks up to me and asks me if I need help. I explain my problem to him and he checks it out. When he comes back, he tells me that the USB connection is broken and that they have replaced my phone for me. Yea! One thing went right today. Well almost. I had been a bad person and not been performing regular syncs with my phone. So when I went back and restored my phone, I found out that the latest backup was a month old…

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