January 2007 Archives

Thanks to Gina's expert party planning, I had a wonderful 25th birthday weekend, and the fun will continue into this coming weekend when Mom and Annie meet me in Blacksburg (weather permitting). A bunch of us had dinner at Fairfax's Blue Iguana (the swordfish was tasty, even if hundreds of fishermen had to swim the ocean to bring it to me). Afterward, we headed back to Coors Park for some old-fashioned goofy pirate-themed games and a non-pirate-themed murder mystery game. Thanks to everyone who came to the party, sent well wishes, and generally made me feel warm and fuzzy inside and glad to be alive! Sorry that murder mystery took so long to figure out, too...

Just go ahead and take a look at the pirate party pictures, ok?

And that's it for tonight. Still no success on the site upgrade, since class drains all time.

Against my better judgment, since I just got started back posting after a long hiatus, I'm going to try fixing some of the problems with my comments database this week. If Project BS goes down for the count, I'll try my best to get it back as soon as possible. Wish me luck!

In what has the makings for an episode of The Office, I'm going in this evening to work to help out with the installation of some new computers. It will be me and a few other volunteers, plus some contractors doing the actual installations. I wish I could do something to make it more interesting, but I'm going to take notes, so maybe I can tell you the results of the night. Or I'll make up some really elaborate story and tell you that. Either way, it's golden.

UPDATE: Well, aside from a little bit of hackysack and discussions about office dodgeball, we were actually kept busy enough that we didn't have to resort to much else to stay entertained. On top of that, the work finished early and I stopped by Gerritt's place to hang out for a bit. Not bad, not bad!

There's been an overwhelming demand for me to shed some light on the mysterious game that is puckleball. As I mentioned in the Flickr gallery for Debra's wedding, Puckleball is a game that Gerritt, Stephen, and I developed during the wedding weekend, while we were staying up late with nothing better to do than to create some sort of mystical new game. The basement rec room contained one of those 4-in-1 game tables on which you can play pool, air hockey, ping-pong, and baccarat or something, but none of the pieces were in place to play a full version of any of the games. Thus, boredom breeds innovation, and puckleball was born. Gerritt and Stephen laid out the original field of play before I arrived that weekend, and then Gerritt and I refined some more of the rules, leading to many tournaments over the next two days.

THE SET-UP

First, transform the table into an air hockey arena. You need four or five of those spongy water ball things that soak up water so you can throw them at your friend's face in the pool. Make sure they're dry, and space them evenly among the center line of the table. These are the Squeezles. Find eight to ten ping-pong balls and split them evenly between the two players. Finally, each player gets two air hockey paddles, or "puckles."

THE BASIC GAME

Each player agrees upon a number of rounds to play. (I think we played a best-of-seven series.) At the beginning of each round, each player may strategically place their two puckles into the field of play, where they cannot be moved until the start of the next round. The player may not place the puckle directly in front of the goal area. The two players then take turns rolling (not throwing) their ball across the table, through the Squeezles and past the Puckles, trying to sink as many of their balls into the opposing players' goal area as possible. The opposing player cannot use anything but their puckles to defend their goal, and only one puckle can be moved at the start of the next round. The round continues until all balls are played, and whoever sinks the most balls wins that round! Whoever takes the most rounds wins the game.

VARIATIONS

We had a couple of variations that I don't quite remember well enough. They had to do with tiebreakers, mostly, and one involved an extra Puckle that you could move before you played each ball, but it only came into play in later rounds. I think we also had someone throw a whiffleball or something across the table at critical times, as well, or we would have if we kept having ties and had to go into extra innings.

So there you have it! If any of you people who actually played the game remember any other details, please comment them. And if anybody else actually ends up playing this again and we witness the birth of a new national sensation, then please let me know so you can electronically transfer my cut.

The title's not lying: I did, as soon as I got to open my new digital camera a little early before Christmas. I took advantage of the beautiful weather that day and took a hike up to the top of the hill behind our house (like I've done so many times before) to see what I could see. I got a lot of nice shots and tried out many of the varied settings on the camera. I finally feel more like an actual photographer now! I like the way many of these turned out, and I'm eager to do a photo safari up here near DC again sometime.

For now, check out the gallery and let me know what you think!

Maybe it's because I just watched the second half of the 24 premiere tonight, but I've got conspiracies on the brain. Was there some hidden motive behind stopping most of my friends who blog, including me, from posting anything for weeks?

It's doubtful.

I know on my end, finals turned into Christmas shopping turned into spending time with loved ones turned into home for the holidays turned into New Year's celebrations turned into just plain laziness and lots of late nights. I think the longer I went without posting, the more and more buildup I was putting into what had to be my "first entry back," until it became such a daunting task to break the whitespace that I kept putting it off. At any rate, it's nothing that we need to call Jack Bauer in to solve or beat up, or vampire-bite.

I'm going to take Josh's cue and do a few bullet points hitting the first few highlights I can think of:

-My biggest Christmas present this year was a new digital camera. I didn't want to go as high up as an SLR at this point. I just couldn't justify the cost versus the amount of time I have to photograph things. I did, however, want to have something a little more than a point-and-shoot, so I went with a "prosumer" Sony model. Some enthusiasts are divided on Sonys, but I had no trouble with my old Cybershot, and so far I'm really pleased with the DSC-H5. The first batch of pictures taken with the new hotness should be up on my Flickr page this week. (I have, at least, kept Flickr mostly up-to-date.)

-I've begun transferring old VHS home movies to DVD in earnest, and I've come across some surprising old tapes that I either was too embarrassed to remember or just plain didn't know about. I'm debating whether to post some of the funnier clips, but I certainly am enjoying myself. Amanda visited DC recently and brought with her a tape from our first grade class doing a reading lesson and performing a play. Looking at myself at that age, I can see the makings of the shy kid of later years, but I also see a bit of a smart-aleck, which may have been what caused people to make fun of me later on in school too. Either way, it's darn funny.

Time for all good government employees to get some sleep.