Nashville Part One

Crystal has been talking a about visiting her family in Nashville for two years now. Between week long trips to the beach every summer and my desire not to spend large portions of time with small children in cars, we had not made it out yet. This summer Crystal and her cousin made a plan and last week we set out to do it.

Tuesday morning we were all ready to haul the kids 9-ish hours West in one hell or high water road trip. Then we found out one of the young ones we were going to visit had a fever. We called an audible and decided to break the trip up into two days. The first leg of Tuesday we spent at Virginia Safari Park, a zoo off of 81 that was surprisingly awesome. We walked around and fed the animals, grabbed a bite to eat and then drove our car through a path that brought us face to face with all kinds of beast. At one point we were pinned in on three sides by zebras, a lama spit on my window and we found out Crystal is legit afraid of ostriches. It was a fantastic time.

We picked up from the park and legged it down to Grandfather Mountain in Linville, NC. At the top we stepped out to a chilly 61° F afternoon. It was great for a short hike across a one mile high hanging bridge and over the top to an amazing view. After the mountain we found a hotel, beer and grabbed a bite to eat by the pool.

Wednesday morning we got up to find out the fever had broken.We had complementary breakfast at the hotel and got out on the road toward Knoxville. At noon we pulled into the city center and had lunch in the Knoxville Market Square. A great spot to relax, get a bite and take a quick stroll through a sculpture garden. Back at the car we only had three hours left to Nashville. When we pulled into the music city we got warm greetings from our family and spent time catching up.

After putting the young ones to bed, the adults went out for a night on the town. We started by celebrating our host birthday at Lockeland Table in East Nashville. It was great and very similar to the Blue Goat in Richmond. Post dinner we went to Broadway and jumped around to a few honky-tonks. I provide the wiki link because I honest had no idea what they were before we saw them. It was a blast.

Thursday we woke up and helped Crystal's cousin and her husband get out the door to work before taking Kaden and his cousin out to Riverfront Landing. A park right next to where the Titans play. It over looks the river and has a water play area and climbing walls for the kids. The boys played for hours while Crystal and I lounged in the shade with Ward. Later that evening we had an early dinner in and later on tried to teach our host how to play Pandemic after too many beers and wine.

Weekend Review: August 11th & 12th

Every weekend there are new sights, sounds, and taste to consume. There are other sensory inputs that tickle my brain too, but saying there is stuff to feel sounds creepy. This is a journal of my weekend endeavors. Enjoy!

Beach Week
Saturday we got back from a great week at the beach. Lots of family, running, swimming, beer, coffee and comics. Most of the week was spent at the ocean or in the pool. When the rain came though, I caught up on loads of comics and napping. We got to see a Cops-esque domestic disturbance late in the week and we played the crap out of Pandemic. Oh and a pirate adventure, which was great for my three year old and us.

Batman: Dark Victory
The follow up to The Long Halloween, a book I loved when I read it years ago. The story is fantastic and Tim Sale's art really grew on me. Great sequels are hard to come by, but this is one of them. A grain of salt on this, I heart batman, but it is a good story even if your not a caped crusader super fan. I was really jonesing for batman content post Dark Knight Rises and this hit the spot. Go get it, like right now.

AeroPress
The Friday before we left, my AeroPress arrived in the mail. It is a single serving coffee maker that I have been reading rave reviews about for six months. I brewed a test batch (inverted) that night to get feel for the process and the result was a clean, tasty and less bitter cup. Some 20 cups later and I have nothing but nice things to say about it. Prep and clean up are easy and it brews a damn fine coffee. I even brewed a pitcher for iced coffee and made a simple syrup to go with. Yum!

Chocolate Bourbon Cherry Floats
I'm not really into my desert and alcohol mixing. I like a good stout usually and not too sweet either (the exception). Vacation calls for a bit of experimentation though and the recipe above caught my eye. I ended up with cherry infused bourbon and black cherry soda. All of which when combined with dark chocolate ice cream was a tasty treat. Putting enough bourbon in to get the job done on the first pass is a must though, because you won't have room for a second. I doubt I will go back to drinking these with any regularity (I'd be as big as a house), but for once in a blue moon, they are great.

Pandemic
Ethan lent us Pandemic the day before we left for the beach. He and the internet have been singing it's praises for a while now and I just hadn't gotten around to it. For everyone at the beach it was a new experience, playing co-op board game. Trying to beat a virus (four actually) in what often felt like impossible odds, as a team was really great. We ended up playing 8 times in total and only winning once, but that one taste of victory kept bring us back to the table.'

This is my 500th post, that is all.

PAX East 2011: Day One

Bright and early Friday morning we awoke to make what is now an annualized trip to PAX. The flight out of Richmond was uneventful, save a bit of delayed landing due to a storm front moving into Boston. It was that very same storm that pushed our day one plans indoors. Friday was supposed to be our bean town tour, but because of the rain we ended up at PAX a day early.

Before we made it to nerd Mecca though, we grabbed a bite at Caffe Nuovo for breakfast. I had the seafood omelette (yum) and Crystal had waffles with fresh fruit (burnt). Stomachs full we trudged through the rain to our hotel. It was nice, but it was not Mandarin Oriental nice. It was about a fourth of the cost though, so it all worked out. We dropped off our bags, were back down stairs and on the T to the Boston Convention Center in no time. A venue that felt double or even triple the size of last years spot.

The expo floor reflected that increased size. I immediately felt lost in a sea of blinking lights and nerd stink. There was so much to see and do that we ended up taking a break after seeing half of it to play some board games. We picked up Gloom and it only took us about hour to learn and play it. It's a card game that is one part strategy and two parts dark humor story telling. It is something I'd definitely consider buying in the near future.

Back in the expo hall it was on to touring the rest of the games on offer. We still want a Geek Chic table in our dinning room, but will have to wait till we get a new house. Those things are massive and wicked cool. The lines to play Portal 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic were epically long, but I wish I could have tried them. Red Faction looks like it will capture everything I loved about the last game in the series minus a sledge hammer. Machine Gun Jetpack made me want an iPad more than the game itself, but it seems cool in it's own right too.

What can best be described as life sized D&D was a highlight of the show floor for us. A party of six, picked characters in the form of laminated simplified character sheets on lanyards. Crystal was a Warlock and took the Cleric. Each party member had two powers to give you an idea of how simple we are talking. We faced off against 6ft tall cardboard cut out monsters (Strahd). Rolling basketball sized rubber dice to see if we would hit. I think every group conquered the encounter, but ours did so with style. I got the killing blow from a flank.

Board game and expo hall'ed out we grabbed some dinner. Pizza and mountain dew for +5 nerd points and then went to sit in line for the Joystiq Podcast. Last year Crystal had never heard the boys from Joystiq, but walked away really enjoying the mix of humor and game talk. This year was more of the same with Bob Ball cruising the crowd in a dinosaur costume the whole evening before revealing himself (giggle) to read an email.

After Joystiq let out we rushed over to the line for the Giant Bombcast. Crystal enjoyed this panel less and ended up playing Sudoku for most of it. I explained after the fact that Giant Bomb is my go to voice for video game opinions. That their podcast is usually funny too, but it can go long and get really into game talk. After the Bombcast panel we hitched a taxi ride back to the hotel. Hitting the bed hard for some much needed sleep.

Up Next: Boston/PAX Day 2, Sam Adams and the trip we didn't take the the Boston Aquarium

PAX East: Day Two

View All of Our PAX Pics

And now the thrilling conclusion of our tale...

Saturday morning we took the rare opportunity to sleep in, without child and in a city far from our own the Z's came easily. "Sleep in" is a bit of a misnomer I'm afraid, when you have been waking up for a year at 6 or 7 anything beyond that is gravy. We were up, showered and in a Dunkin Donuts by 9am. A Boston cream in Boston tasted the same as one Richmond, but the pleasure centers of my mind were all hands on deck just at the thought.

No repeats of our day one e-celebrity sitings at the repository of confectionery toruses, sadly. Upon entering the convention center at 10am though we saw the Tycho Brahe (Jerry Holkins). I was giddy and Crystal was more amused with my amusement than anything else. For the better part of the rest of the morning we toured the expo hall. The first place we went was to the Geek Chic booth to get a brief demonstration and pitch on the Emissary. An object I thought ownership of would be pure fantasy for the entirity of my mortal life, but was left in open mouthed amazement when Crystal expressed interest in it as our new dinning room table. I won't believe it till we are eating a meal at it, but there now exist hope.

There were tons of games to see in the expo hall as well. Split Second (pic) was a fun mix of Mario Kart and Burnout that will probably end up on my shopping list. Joe Danger (pic) caught Crystal's interest as a mix of Excite Bike and Trials HD with a cartoon aesthetic. Shank is a beat'em up that looks flipping incredible and will be mine on XBLA this year hopefully. Seeing Puzzle Quest 2 inspired Crystal to start playing the first game for the rest of the weekend. AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! (pic) was a game I had read about a number of times, but never played, I remedied that on Saturday. Finally, I played in (pic) a mini MW2 tourney and did horrible with default controls and free for all.

After a quick lunch in the mall it was back to the convention center to see even more. The board game rooms were packed (pic) with folks playing all kinds of games. Before we could checkout a game though I was drawn to the siren song of Surfacescapes. Simply put it is D&D 4th edition played on the interactive screen of a Microsoft Surface. Impressive stuff for sure, but better expressed through their videos. Drooling complete we played a quick demo of Zombie Dice (pic) and then checked out Ninja vs Ninja. Being two folks of limited time, NvN was a great game for us to cut our teeth on. Next we played Zombie Fluxx and were sold pretty quick on it. We ended up playing for more than an hour and then hunting for a set to buy. They were sold out, but I have since ordered it online.

Dinner was more of the same, a trip to the food court and then right back to PAX to get in line for the live Joystiq Podcast. We ended up waiting in line for an hour and a half (pic). Thankfully the time was spent sitting and playing our DSes. We were rewarded for our wait though, as the first 10 or so rows of seats (pics) had video games waiting for their recipients. Crystal got a copy of Tropico 3 and I the Force Unleashed: Sith Edition. The live cast (pic) was great, my face hurt from smiling and laughing through the whole hour.

We wrapped up our night with another line, for an hour this time, to see the Scott Kurtz's panel. A semi drunk Scott showed up on time and just started telling stories. He is an amazingly funny story teller, we laughed, things got emotional and we laughed some more. His panel ended up going an hour over and we did not get back to our hotel till 1am. A bit discouraging given our 5am wake up call for our flight, but well worth the lack of sleep.

Sunday was an early morning flight and reflection on a whirlwind weekend in Boston. We had a ton of fun in the city and even more at PAX. We are already planning to go at the very least to two days of PAX next year. Hopefully we can shoot for all three.

Dice Printing

Using dice to create printing press style geometric designs is both creative and nerdy in a way that gets me super excited about art.

[Via: Make]

How I Roll

In the vein of embracing my inner geek and getting fix to what has become a D&D addiction I hosted my first Virtual Tabletop (VTT) game on Monday night. The live and in color game that I have been a player in since late spring has run into scheduling problems. Problems easy enough to foresee when trying to get five adult males with varying responsibilities, spouses and children together regularly on a Friday night. Though the live group will continue I have taken the role of DM in the virtual space to quench my thirst.

Being the dungeon master, while being a super geeky title, essentially means playing the narrator and referee for our game/story. So, I started out by putting together a world that I could tell stories in. Mind you it could have been easier to use one of the canned realms that are readily available, but that would require knowing the ins and outs of the lore and history. I'd rather I write my own and know it like the back of my hand. Next was finding and orienting myself with a set of tools that would make a tabletop game possible on the internet. Thankfully there are literally a ton of tools available for VTT. I ended up going with RPTools as it was free, updated regularly and well documented.

Knowing I had two local players interested made finding my ideal number of four to six players seem a little less daunting. I was hoping to at the very least get four, so when I had eleven respond with interest I was at a loss as to how I would manage that many players. I came to the conclusion that it was impossible to do so and ended up letting things play out for another week. Players who took an active role and interest in joining the game were in and the ones who did not went on the waiting list. In the end I wound up with six players and a relatively balanced group.

So this past Monday I took my players through a flashback/prologue/tutorial game to get them acquainted with the software and D&D's play mechanics. It went really well and helped me figure out a few things I could do differently once the actual game starts. The first being make slightly more detailed story notes. NPC dialogue felt a little like I was staggering in the dark to find a light switch. When I had a DC to move the story forward near the end of the evening I didn't know what skill to check it against. I read advice prior to the game that said I should just make a call and check it later to keep the game moving, but of course I went right to my rulebook the second I couldn't come up with it. Somethings to work on for sure.

Father's Day Log

Over on GeekDad (my favorite new blog) Curtis Silver posted a rise and fall, time stamped log of his Father's day activities. I enjoyed reading it and thought I'd give my own Father's Day tale the same treatment...

7:22 am I awake to the sound of Crystal getting out of bed for what is probably not the first time. She heads to Kaden's room to presumably feed him. I cover my head with a pillow and fade to black before she even makes it down the hallway.

8:31 am Round two of my body waking me up, this time I listen and rise like a zombie to find Crystal and Kaden. I don't eat their brains, but find them playing downstairs and join them.

10:14 am We play, eat cereal and generally lounge around till it is time for Kaden to feed again. Crystal takes him to the glider and I head to the shower.

10:49 am The three of us pack into the car and head to the military surplus store. I have needed new cargo shorts for months now. Between bike rides and yard work I have two pairs of shorts left without holes.

11:11 am We pull up to the store only to find the lights off and the store hours posted with the word "closed" next to Sunday.

11:13 am Well crap, what do we do now? Lunch!

11:26 am We decide on Carytown for lunch and make our way there. I point out the train station to Kaden from the front seat. From the back seat Crystal informs me that he is asleep.

11:56 am We arrive at Carry St. and park on the same block as the restaurant we plan to eat at. We leave the stroller in the car for the time being and walk over to Coppola's.

12:07 pm Kaden is still asleep while Crystal and I enjoy turkey sandwiches, sodas and conversation.

12:44 pm We head back to the car and pick up the stroller. Kaden is still counting sheep as we walk down to our local gaming store. Crystal checks out the board games and I hunt down some more dice, static grass and game markers for my growing D&D fascination.

1:04 pm On the way back to the car Crystal and I get a craving for ice cream and Kaden's craving for sleep is still winning out. We stop by and Ben & Jerry's and consume some tasty chocolate treats.

1:42 pm We arrive home in time for Kaden to eat lunch and then play with him till he gets sleeply yet again.

2:11 pm Crystal goes off to play with jewelry and I sit down to play some video games.

2:45 pm Kaden is up! Crystal brings him downstairs and gives him to me to change.

2:48 pm Midway through changing him my streak of not getting peed on for the first two months and three weeks of his life is broken. I catch it right in the chest and then dodge out of the way only to have him readjust and get me a second time. He and I both think it is pretty funny.

3:01pm I change clothes and go back to gaming.

4:12 pm We pack up and head to my parent's place for a cook out with Crystal's family and my own.

4:29 pm At my parent's Crystal heads upstairs to feed Kaden and I go to Gabriel's room to bother him.

4:32 pm I find a plastic battle axe and shield in his room and hit him with it as he explains that his girlfriend bought it for him as a joke when she found out he played WoW.

4:57 pm I get called downstairs to cook burgers and hot dogs.

5:19 pm Foods On! We eat till we can't anymore and retire to the family room to chat and watch Kaden being cute.

7:16 pm Home, food and sleep call to us, so we say goodnight to the family and head to our humble abode.

8:02 pm It's bath time for Kaden, we splash, play and get him cleaned up for bedtime.

8:32 pm Kaden is down for the count, so Crystal and I sit down to watch TV and enjoy each others company.

10:31 pm Sleep calls to Crystal next, I kiss her good night and retire to my office to post pictures from the weekend and play video games.

1:02 am The day is long over and my eyes will barely stay open. I snuggle up to Crystal and fall asleep to thoughts of building model trains with Kaden.

Pictures from our cookout on Sunday are here and pictures from Crystal's cousin's son's first birthday are here.

The Dragon Zombie Casino

Zombies!!!
I have long detested card games, except when they were used in drinking, but even then they seemed unnecessary. By extension I also saved a little loathing for boardgames as well. Monopoly takes too long, Risk is craps for the slight more intelligent, but less funded and Operation is a practice in frustration. As a young man there were a few times in my life that I fell head over heels for a game though. Axis and Allies was and is the bee's knees and gave me a taste for a slightly more complex, albeit geeky board game at a young age. In college I discovered Cheapass Games and their roster of "cheap", but crazy fun board games.

Most recently I found Zombies!!! (the three exclamation points are important) by way of Xbox live. The "Z" is not on xbox live arcade yet, but they are shopping the license around. The second article I read about this prompted me to buy the actual board game. Pre Kaden I got in two games of it and was impressed by the dollars to fun ratio. First, anything that includes zombies is fun and second the game is very well thought out and a depature from most everything you have probably played before.

D&D
I wasn't old enough and was probably too worried about girls and skateboarding anyway to be bitten by the Dungeons and Dragons bug in high or middle school. My nerdiness has grown like the Grinch's heart post college though. I rediscovered comics, started a 40k army and jumped with both feet into a MMO for going on five years. So the idea of going further into the cave to play a pen and paper rpg doesn't seem as daunting as it would have seven or eight years ago. The most simple and interesting way to describe it is interactive group based story telling. The dungeon master (DM) is essentially telling a story to the players, but the players control their actions. It ends up being a give and take improvisation that is rises or falls based on the people playing.

This past Friday and the Friday two weeks prior, I have gotten together with a group of like mined geeks to start a 4th edition campaign. I am playing as a cleric and starting to get addiceted to the game after only two sessions. I picked up a mini and two sets of dice on Thursday and started reading the DM and Monster Manual handbooks this weekend. In theory I would like to start up my own campaign late this summer or early this fall. We shall see.

Casino
I have seen a lot of Scorsese films and enjoyed the vast majority. So when Netflix, after canceling my account, sent me one last DVD I felt an obligation to watch it before sending it back the next day. It some how happened to be Casino at the top of my que, which I probably added two or three years ago and forgot about. In any case, I'm happy to have finally watched it. Pesci, DeNiro and Stone all shine equally bright in their rolls. Some of the narration gets a little old and the audio mix was hit and miss, but that could have been the DVD and not the film itself. Ultimately it can't live up to Raging Bull or Taxi Driver, but that is hard to take as a slight when he has made so many good movies.