Well, last weekend Ray drove over from Oklahoma City & spent the weekend, which was really good: we had a game of Fields of Glory on Saturday and discovered we knew the rules a lot less well than we thought: went out for dinner and brunches to the best bits of Little Rock that we've discovered so far: and talked our heads off.
It's rather odd to find a friend, at age 50, who feels like you've known him since age 10. We seem to have had so many parallel experiences, between wargaming and roleplaying, and identify closely with many shared ideas and thoughts (everywhere except politics where he seems to be wrongheadedly and stubbornly Republican, which I just dont get - he'd doubtless say the same, in reverse :) Saturday night we were up talking til 3 o'clock, just chewing over ideas for roleplaying: it's a damn shame OKC is so far away, too far really to run a regular RPG group from Little Rock, or I'd definitely run a campaign: but 4-5 hours drive every weekend, or even every 2nd weekend, is just too much (time, and especially cash for gas - it must be $40 each way at least I guess).
It's not just with me, Cat and Ray also enjoy talking, about America & just generally: certainly made for a great weekend.
Oh, and Bridge last night was -scorching- I haven't seen the results yet, but I don't doubt that we placed top: some of the hands I got to play were just wonderful, so tricky, but yielding great results for the right approach - I had a 3NT contract making every trick, and a 5C contract that everyone else went down 2 on, where I managed to make it, with some very tricksy discards to fool the opposition: several others too, but those were the most memorable. Cat was bidding much more precisely, and delivered exactly as promised: and her defensive play was outstanding too, she seemed to read my mind for picking the right leads, and we had a couple of spectacular results that way - a 2NT contract that should make, went down 2 because Cat found the right lead to me twice, a 4H contract that went down 3 (altho that was partly just gross optimism by our opposition, because they insisted on bidding on over a sacrificial 3D I made, and then got excited by 3H) .. oh, and funniest of all in some ways, a 4NT contract that went spectacularly down 3, where it should have been 4S making 5 (due to their initial 3S followed by my preempt 4C throwing them into a panic).
Fun times :)
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
RPGs
On a brighter note, we've started playing with a local D&D group, after a 7 year hiatus. It's run out of a games shop - the owner has a whole mezzanine that he makes available to boardgamers and RPG'ers, as they all seem to do here. This group is us, plus 4 other players and the GM: we're trying out the (brand-new) 4th Edition of D&D which - I think - is fairly terminally silly, but at least a balanced game where all the classes get a decent chance of action at all times.
As with most RPG groups, it's a bit of a mixed bag, but at least noone too awfully immature, and a couple of the players are both skillful and worth knowing (probably above average), so overall it's a positive experience.
The first try at it was pretty rough, due to lots of breaks and delays, and people arriving late, but our second session was much better: smoothflowing and enjoyable. The only real problem was the volume of noise from the gamers upstairs, but that's probably just me being spoilt for playing at home, the other players didnt seem too bothered.
As with most RPG groups, it's a bit of a mixed bag, but at least noone too awfully immature, and a couple of the players are both skillful and worth knowing (probably above average), so overall it's a positive experience.
The first try at it was pretty rough, due to lots of breaks and delays, and people arriving late, but our second session was much better: smoothflowing and enjoyable. The only real problem was the volume of noise from the gamers upstairs, but that's probably just me being spoilt for playing at home, the other players didnt seem too bothered.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Hanks - No Thanks!
well, time seems to be slipping away from me at the moment. Most of that is just (finally) getting busy at work - now that we've officially taken over the production facilities from our customer, there's actually some things that need doing (and a few, I'm discovering, that are woefully overdue in fact). It's fairly weird, working in one city, on a contract where all the clients are in another city (another state in fact), while the rest of my team are in that state, and my bosses are in yet another state. Not exactly designed for close supervision, but I'm doing my best dedicated worker bit.
Cat has given up smoking again, thank god - but because of that, her temper has been a bit frayed, unsurprisingly. She was prescribed Chantix by the doctor, to help this, but one of it's side-effects was warned as depression, and this really hit her hard, so I got her to stop it after a week: nothing is worth that level of depression and suffering, not even stopping smoking. Fortunately, the pills don't seem to have been helping that much, as their absence hasn't made it any harder, apparently.
Mind you, her temper has had some reason to fray - we bought a dining table & chair at a place called Hanks Fine Furniture (a chain of stores): and paid $75 (!) for delivery on Wednesday, a scant halfmile down the road. The arrangement was that they would phone us the previous day to confirm the time of delivery, then phone on the day, an hour before arrival, to make sure we were home. However, the only phone call we got the day before, consisted of some guy bellowing requests to speak to a Matilda, and not being willing to talk or entertain the idea he might have the wrong name: then on Wednesday, I phoned the store, and was told we were 7th on the list and should get delivery mid-afternoon.
Of course, they didn't actually turn up 'til 6 p.m. - when we were already at the bridge club for our weekly game - and instead of phoning an hour ahead, we got a call when they were 5 minutes away from home, plus another when they arrived & we weren't there: followed by a threat that they would just drive away & we'd have to pay another $75 to get our stuff. Well, we couldn't make it back in time anyway, not that we were inclined to, at that point, so Cat tried to discuss the problem with the store manager, three times, only to find that he was another of these idiotic bullies who is completely unwilling to listen, and insists on overriding anything you might try to say with his own opinions and worthless bombast.
We gave up on any redress, so I called the store manager, to find out how we could pick the items up ourself, and when: of course, he gave me a wrong address for the warehouse, but we eventually found it (along with the guy who cuts our lawns, who was willing to rent out his truck to carry the furniture), only to find the store manager had tacked on a second $75 delivery charge to the account. Fortunately, the warehouse manager was willing to be reasonable, and cancelled this charge, and handed over the furniture.
So that's another store we won't be going back to - a shame, they have some quite nice pieces, but with staff like that, who would want to repeat that experience. I do have to thank Robert, the lawnmower man (so to speak), for his help, and his navigational skills in getting us there!
Well, another week, another gripe: doesn't sound that positive, really, but it's not really like that: just easier to write about the most vivid, and worst, bits. There have also been some good bits, of course - bridge is going well, although playing twice a week was a bit much for both of us, so we've cut back to once a week for a while.
Mostly just, we're still adjusting, finding our way around & trying to work out how everything works. We did go out to dinner with a couple - Cindy, who works at SAIC with me, and is a keen quilter and gardener, and her husband John - which went really well, and we're planning to repeat that shortly: and gradually making friends at the bridge club.
Have to remember, we've only been here 3 months, it's not surprising we're still finding it alien.
Cat has given up smoking again, thank god - but because of that, her temper has been a bit frayed, unsurprisingly. She was prescribed Chantix by the doctor, to help this, but one of it's side-effects was warned as depression, and this really hit her hard, so I got her to stop it after a week: nothing is worth that level of depression and suffering, not even stopping smoking. Fortunately, the pills don't seem to have been helping that much, as their absence hasn't made it any harder, apparently.
Mind you, her temper has had some reason to fray - we bought a dining table & chair at a place called Hanks Fine Furniture (a chain of stores): and paid $75 (!) for delivery on Wednesday, a scant halfmile down the road. The arrangement was that they would phone us the previous day to confirm the time of delivery, then phone on the day, an hour before arrival, to make sure we were home. However, the only phone call we got the day before, consisted of some guy bellowing requests to speak to a Matilda, and not being willing to talk or entertain the idea he might have the wrong name: then on Wednesday, I phoned the store, and was told we were 7th on the list and should get delivery mid-afternoon.
Of course, they didn't actually turn up 'til 6 p.m. - when we were already at the bridge club for our weekly game - and instead of phoning an hour ahead, we got a call when they were 5 minutes away from home, plus another when they arrived & we weren't there: followed by a threat that they would just drive away & we'd have to pay another $75 to get our stuff. Well, we couldn't make it back in time anyway, not that we were inclined to, at that point, so Cat tried to discuss the problem with the store manager, three times, only to find that he was another of these idiotic bullies who is completely unwilling to listen, and insists on overriding anything you might try to say with his own opinions and worthless bombast.
We gave up on any redress, so I called the store manager, to find out how we could pick the items up ourself, and when: of course, he gave me a wrong address for the warehouse, but we eventually found it (along with the guy who cuts our lawns, who was willing to rent out his truck to carry the furniture), only to find the store manager had tacked on a second $75 delivery charge to the account. Fortunately, the warehouse manager was willing to be reasonable, and cancelled this charge, and handed over the furniture.
So that's another store we won't be going back to - a shame, they have some quite nice pieces, but with staff like that, who would want to repeat that experience. I do have to thank Robert, the lawnmower man (so to speak), for his help, and his navigational skills in getting us there!
Well, another week, another gripe: doesn't sound that positive, really, but it's not really like that: just easier to write about the most vivid, and worst, bits. There have also been some good bits, of course - bridge is going well, although playing twice a week was a bit much for both of us, so we've cut back to once a week for a while.
Mostly just, we're still adjusting, finding our way around & trying to work out how everything works. We did go out to dinner with a couple - Cindy, who works at SAIC with me, and is a keen quilter and gardener, and her husband John - which went really well, and we're planning to repeat that shortly: and gradually making friends at the bridge club.
Have to remember, we've only been here 3 months, it's not surprising we're still finding it alien.
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