Weekend Travels and Gaming!
Jun. 14th, 2006 01:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneI had some fun over the weekend: I went to Phoenix! Since I'm not totally insane (only partially), I'm not just driving 1,000 miles over there for no reason, particularly in this heat. Phoenix isn't fully up to summer temperatures, it was only 107f when I left Sunday, but it's still hot. I had a couple of things to do.
I took Thursday and Friday off work, Thursday morning I got some things done around the house that I'd been putting off and left for Phoenix around 3pm (we're an hour ahead of AZ right now for DST). Had a WONDERFUL dinner in Tucson at El Charro’s, perhaps the best Mexican food restaurant in the world, in my ever so humble opinion. Got into Phoenix around 11:30 after closing the Ina Road location of Bookman’s, perhaps the finest used bookstore chain in the world, in my ever so humble opinion.
(Bookman’s has a new t-shirt that I really want to get. It says “Eat. Poop. Read.” I think that describes an almost ideal lifestyle.)
Saturday was a game for Jim. My friend Bear, whose birthday was Tuesday, ran Champions at Jim's, I wanted to attend because Jim is having surgery this week to remove a tumor from his colon. It has responded wonderfully to radiation and chemo therapy and has shrunk to 25% of its former size in something like 18 months or so, so hopefully everything will go swimmingly. There's just no guarantees when it comes to surgery, regardless of the type, and I wanted to see him before the operation.
I succeeded in total surprise. I had to tell Bear so that he'd know I'm playing, which also includes his wife, but no one else in the gaming group knew. My parents knew I was coming, Part II of the trip is directly related to them. (I let Audrey and Michelle know so we could arrange a sushi or pizza dinner, it started as pizza (Nello's) but various circumstances turned it into sushi (Zen 32). That was Friday.)
So at the game, I arrived an hour early at 2pm, totally shocked Jim when he opened the door. He said something like “You’re early! Like a month early!” So that was fun. We got to talk quite a bit while he was finishing cleaning and prepping for the game. Later I planted myself in the least obvious corner of the living room, and Bear arrived with his wife![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aerynn_sun and John and Ben, who were both surprised. Then Richard arrived, he was a little more shocked than John and Ben. But the best arrival was joecthulhu. I have NEVER seen someone do an actual double-take. He walked in, eyes swept the room, did greetings, then froze in his tracks. Turned back to me, and visibly started. It was very funny!
Oh, andmagic_rat arrived shortly after Bear etc. IIRC, unfortunately he deduced that I was likely to be there and wasn’t terribly surprised. Rat bastard. :-)
The game was lots of fun, we got to beat up numerous hordes of zombies in New Orleans animated by Baron Samedi. I was running Rocker, a 50 Strength brick who had a multipower that gave her a heat vision killing attack, tunneling, and damage reduction, but only one power at a time. Sort of like Ultra Boy in the Legion of Super-Heroes. I ran her in Bear’s occasional Champions campaign back in ’93, she required a little bit of design re-work for the newer rules. We had eight people playing and I have no idea how many zombies we took out! Lots of fun, but then again, what Champions mission that involves lots of zombie bashing isn’t fun?!
The second part of the trip was my parents. The Fourth of July is their 50th anniversary, which is pretty darn cool. They’re leaving in a week on a month-long trip, going up to Oregon (somewhere in the south of the state around Rogue River) for my mother’s brother’s 90th birthday! From there they’re flying to Little Rock (IIRC) and going to DC, Branson, and I don’t know where else, then heading back to Phoenix. So I took them out to lunch Sunday and gave them an anniversary card, along with a Father’s Day card for that occasion.
I was hoping to see my sister and nieces, but my brother-in-law came home from Afghanistan, so that’s a definitely good thing. My sister thought he wasn’t going to go back to Afghanistan, I just worry if that will make him more likely to go to Iraq. Between the two, not that either location is particularly safe or good, I think I’d rather be in the ‘Stan.
I also got my glasses re-straightened, though I think they’re perhaps too far gone and I should start thinking about new glasses. I went to both Phoenix locations of Bookman’s and left with some great CDs: a George Burns performance from ’92, a Doctor Demento Best Of, and a PDQ Bach CD. Happy camper!
Sunday, after lunch with my parents, I raided Trader Joe’s for LOTS of goodies, then filled up the car and headed home. I would have liked to have stopped in Tucson for another El Charro repast, but I wanted to get home, so I settled for Arby’s chicken strips in Lordsburg at 11pm, that Arby’s is open 24/7, so great place to stop for a late-night nosh. Got home about 3:30am Monday and back at work at 6pm.
The drive home was as easy as you could ask: weather was fine, night was somewhat bright once the moon rose, no traffic problems. The drive out wasn’t quite as easy: major weather throughout New Mexico, there were visible clouds of dirt hanging next to the road and visibility dropped to less than a quarter mile in places. But both drives were accomplished with only one usage of rocket fuel (Starbuck’s Vanilla Frapuccinos) but many usages of the auxiliary boosters (Altoid’s Peppermint Gum).
The best thing about the drive, aside from listening to LOTS of good music with wonderful quality (well, as wonderful as car audio can easily get) from my older laptop cum MP3 player, was doing LOTS of game design work with my digital voice recorder. I came up with improved mechanics for two games that were really primitive, developed some basic mechanics for a game that was little more than a concept and basic framework, and unrelated to the trip, came up with another game design on the way up the mountain tonight after work!
I’m tired. :-) It’s 1am. I’m going to bed.
I took Thursday and Friday off work, Thursday morning I got some things done around the house that I'd been putting off and left for Phoenix around 3pm (we're an hour ahead of AZ right now for DST). Had a WONDERFUL dinner in Tucson at El Charro’s, perhaps the best Mexican food restaurant in the world, in my ever so humble opinion. Got into Phoenix around 11:30 after closing the Ina Road location of Bookman’s, perhaps the finest used bookstore chain in the world, in my ever so humble opinion.
(Bookman’s has a new t-shirt that I really want to get. It says “Eat. Poop. Read.” I think that describes an almost ideal lifestyle.)
Saturday was a game for Jim. My friend Bear, whose birthday was Tuesday, ran Champions at Jim's, I wanted to attend because Jim is having surgery this week to remove a tumor from his colon. It has responded wonderfully to radiation and chemo therapy and has shrunk to 25% of its former size in something like 18 months or so, so hopefully everything will go swimmingly. There's just no guarantees when it comes to surgery, regardless of the type, and I wanted to see him before the operation.
I succeeded in total surprise. I had to tell Bear so that he'd know I'm playing, which also includes his wife, but no one else in the gaming group knew. My parents knew I was coming, Part II of the trip is directly related to them. (I let Audrey and Michelle know so we could arrange a sushi or pizza dinner, it started as pizza (Nello's) but various circumstances turned it into sushi (Zen 32). That was Friday.)
So at the game, I arrived an hour early at 2pm, totally shocked Jim when he opened the door. He said something like “You’re early! Like a month early!” So that was fun. We got to talk quite a bit while he was finishing cleaning and prepping for the game. Later I planted myself in the least obvious corner of the living room, and Bear arrived with his wife
aerynn_sun and John and Ben, who were both surprised. Then Richard arrived, he was a little more shocked than John and Ben. But the best arrival was joecthulhu. I have NEVER seen someone do an actual double-take. He walked in, eyes swept the room, did greetings, then froze in his tracks. Turned back to me, and visibly started. It was very funny!Oh, and
magic_rat arrived shortly after Bear etc. IIRC, unfortunately he deduced that I was likely to be there and wasn’t terribly surprised. Rat bastard. :-)The game was lots of fun, we got to beat up numerous hordes of zombies in New Orleans animated by Baron Samedi. I was running Rocker, a 50 Strength brick who had a multipower that gave her a heat vision killing attack, tunneling, and damage reduction, but only one power at a time. Sort of like Ultra Boy in the Legion of Super-Heroes. I ran her in Bear’s occasional Champions campaign back in ’93, she required a little bit of design re-work for the newer rules. We had eight people playing and I have no idea how many zombies we took out! Lots of fun, but then again, what Champions mission that involves lots of zombie bashing isn’t fun?!
The second part of the trip was my parents. The Fourth of July is their 50th anniversary, which is pretty darn cool. They’re leaving in a week on a month-long trip, going up to Oregon (somewhere in the south of the state around Rogue River) for my mother’s brother’s 90th birthday! From there they’re flying to Little Rock (IIRC) and going to DC, Branson, and I don’t know where else, then heading back to Phoenix. So I took them out to lunch Sunday and gave them an anniversary card, along with a Father’s Day card for that occasion.
I was hoping to see my sister and nieces, but my brother-in-law came home from Afghanistan, so that’s a definitely good thing. My sister thought he wasn’t going to go back to Afghanistan, I just worry if that will make him more likely to go to Iraq. Between the two, not that either location is particularly safe or good, I think I’d rather be in the ‘Stan.
I also got my glasses re-straightened, though I think they’re perhaps too far gone and I should start thinking about new glasses. I went to both Phoenix locations of Bookman’s and left with some great CDs: a George Burns performance from ’92, a Doctor Demento Best Of, and a PDQ Bach CD. Happy camper!
Sunday, after lunch with my parents, I raided Trader Joe’s for LOTS of goodies, then filled up the car and headed home. I would have liked to have stopped in Tucson for another El Charro repast, but I wanted to get home, so I settled for Arby’s chicken strips in Lordsburg at 11pm, that Arby’s is open 24/7, so great place to stop for a late-night nosh. Got home about 3:30am Monday and back at work at 6pm.
The drive home was as easy as you could ask: weather was fine, night was somewhat bright once the moon rose, no traffic problems. The drive out wasn’t quite as easy: major weather throughout New Mexico, there were visible clouds of dirt hanging next to the road and visibility dropped to less than a quarter mile in places. But both drives were accomplished with only one usage of rocket fuel (Starbuck’s Vanilla Frapuccinos) but many usages of the auxiliary boosters (Altoid’s Peppermint Gum).
The best thing about the drive, aside from listening to LOTS of good music with wonderful quality (well, as wonderful as car audio can easily get) from my older laptop cum MP3 player, was doing LOTS of game design work with my digital voice recorder. I came up with improved mechanics for two games that were really primitive, developed some basic mechanics for a game that was little more than a concept and basic framework, and unrelated to the trip, came up with another game design on the way up the mountain tonight after work!
I’m tired. :-) It’s 1am. I’m going to bed.
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-14 08:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-14 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-14 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 12:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-14 03:40 pm (UTC)He just raided Trader Joe's up in DC for me as well. The best thing he brought back was the milk chocolate bar permeated with flaked espresso beans.
Your "3 word life philosophy" made me laugh. What would mine be? Probably: Create, Communicate, Liberate.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-14 07:20 pm (UTC)The heat? Well, it wasn't 115, I think that's about the only good thing that can be said about it. :-)