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The dog days of winter
I got a lot of spring vegetables planted, and my dad helped put fences around all my garden beds to keep the dogs out. However, it turns out that a certain beagle is more persistent than expected, and he managed to scoop big chunks of dirt out of one of the pea beds despite the fence, the little stinker. My dad reinforced the fence with some bamboo ( Read more... ) -
After the storm
The Bay Area received a substantial amount of rain in January. While the water was much needed to replenish what was used during the drought, it also resulted in a lot of flooding and damaged roads. It also meant that it was hard to do any work out in the yard, with everything so wet ( Read more... ) -
January board game report
My parents joined me in playing a lot of my games this month. Here is the list of all the new-to-them games, along with their top picks for the month.
( Click for meeple goodness ) -
Filling in the gaps
I keep wanting to wait until I've finished my trip report before adding new current updates, but then I keep not doing the trip report. My computer with all the image editing software is in my bedroom, which has two enormous leaky windows, making it uncomfortably cold to stay in during the winter. I keep the door shut so I don't waste money trying ( Read more... ) -
Top Games of 2016
These lists are to sum up my thoughts on the best new board game releases of the year. One caveat is that I still haven't gotten to play all of my new games. Items excluded due to this include Agility, Allegiance: A Realm Divided, Colony, and Kanagawa, among others.
( Top 10 2016 Games ) -
Europe Vacation 2016 - Part IV - Frankfurt
On Tuesday, October 18, we boarded a train to Koblenz that traveled roughly along the Mosel River. One interesting thing we noticed about the train is that it didn't have windows built to open in emergencies; instead, there are glass breaking tools attached to the walls at intervals, with nearby windows marked with red spots where people are ( Read more... ) -
Europe Vacation 2016 - Part III - Taking the Scenic Route
Sunday, October 16, we returned to the main Essen train station for the next leg of our journey. We stood near the platforms for a while as I tried to decipher the route map to find which train on which platform we would need to take. Eventually I gave up on that and left my parents watching the luggage while I searched other areas of the station ( Read more... ) -
Europe Vacation 2016 - Part II - Essen
On October 12, we hauled our luggage through the Underground to the airport and left on a flight for Dusseldorf. The first thing we had to do was figure out how to catch a train to our destination, Essen. I spent several minutes fiddling with the ticket vending machine and managed to get a group ticket, but I wasn't quite sure how to read the route ( Read more... ) -
Europe Vacation 2016 - Part I - London
My trip started on October 9, when I hopped on an outbound plane at SFO. My first stop was LAX, where I had to make a transfer. If you've never been through LAX, let me just say that they have a serious signage deficiency. I had to stop and ask staff several times where I was supposed to go for my connection, because there weren't any signs showing ( Read more... ) -
Playing along
It is taking me substantially longer than I expected to get my European vacation trip report finished. This is mainly due to the large quantity of pictures that I need to sort through and edit.
In the meantime, I have been enjoying visiting with friends, playing board games, and getting caught up on all the TV I missed while I was away. mangaroo came ( Read more... )
