Malachi's Log: 021022 (tuesday)

Well, I had a week off of work, and I felt like I had more to do than usual. *sigh*

On Friday the 11th, I went to Jason's (church music director) birthday party and played laser tag downtown. It was fun the first game, but there were too many people breaking the rules the second game. I came in third the first game, but next to last the second one. I guess that's what happens when you stop trying halfway through.

Doug came up on Saturday and we played some games. Mainly Puerto Rico. I we also watched the second episode of Firefly. We were going to go eat at Bellacino's, but we went to the Macaroni Grill instead.

I spent most of Sunday getting some origami together for Monday.

On Monday I went to an elementary school and taught some 5th graders how to fold an octahedron skeleton. It was good but a little rushed for time because most of the students only 35 minutes for that period and some of them only had 25, but it worked out okay.

After I had gotten back and played some Counter-Strike, I looked at The Game Keep's web site and noticed that they were having a board game night. It as already 6:30, so I got myself together and went over there. I ended up just playing some two player games with Clint. I taught him to play Set, but he didn't fare too well. Then again, Set is a harsh mistress. He taught me to play Mamma Mia!. It was kind of cute, but I didn't think it was that great. Then we played Wyatt Earp. For a rummy variant it's kind of out there, but it was fun to play. I'll probably get it eventually.

On Tuesday I went to the Incredible Baby Shower to help Kimberly "man" her booth. It was okay, but kind of long and there were a lot of people. We were on the alternative row with some of the stranger people... like the ones that think children should be breastfed. Crazy notions.

After we got back from that, I started printing out some freely downloadable board games on some card stock. I had to wait until after the baby fair thing because Kimberly needed to print cards, fliers, and brochures first. I printed out Gods, Web of Power the Card Game, Henry VIII: Intrigue in the Tudor Court: Intrigue in the Tudor Court, Orkomondo, and parts of Stuff O' Legends. Gods was the hard one to cut out because I had to use an xacto knife to cut out the hexes. I'll probably never get to play Henry VIII: Intrigue in the Tudor Court because it requires 5+ players and takes 3-4 hours. Gods is fun, if a bit light. Sort of like Carcassonne.

Wednesday I went to see Rules of Attraction with Doug, William, Andy, Joey, and Julie. It was interesting. Doug came up a little early and we watched the third episode of Firefly. Kimberly didn't make it because I forgot to wake her up early enough for her hair appointment. She met up with us after the movie, however, to go eat at the Green Hills Grille with us. The food wasn't as good as the last time I was there. It almost tasted like cleaning fluid or something. But it was fun to spend time with our friends.

Thursday I mainly stayed around the house. I ran over to The Game Keep and looked around while Kimberly was watching ER. I wanted to get Mystery Rummy: Case No. 1 Jack the Ripper, but they only had 2 and 3. I settled for a copy of Case No. 2 Murders in the Rue Morgue. It's a decent little game, and Kimberly seems to like it. We played it until around 2:00am.

Friday I left out early to go to The River with Doug and William. I meant to leave the house by 10:00, but I didn't actually leave until 11:00. It was okay, though, because we made it there before dark.

Along the way, they wanted to stop and get some alcoholic beverages. We stopped in Kingsport, but after a short phone conversation with Kimberly, we discovered that Sullivan County is dry so we drove up 11W to Bristol. Not having much luck finding anything, we took the Gate City Highway back to 23, to end up just about 10 miles up the road from where we left the beaten path, but about 45 minutes later. At that point, on the way to get groceries, we noticed that there is an ABC store between Webber City and Gate City. We got groceries and then they got some rum and jack.

I got the water going and the power on before it got dark; then Doug and I worked on making dinner. I made rice and he made a potato broccoli curry. It was good. Then we played some games.

I think we started with Carcassonne then moved on to Babylon 5. Our B5 game took a long time, and I basically sat back and watched William and Doug pound each other with the Minbari and Centauri respectively. Eventually, after I had a ton of money, I built some ships and crushed a few of their bases. This knocked William out of the game and did enough damage to Doug's economy to cause an economic victory for me. Then we got Puerto Rico out and played a couple games. I think we all enjoyed that the most.

On Saturday we went up to Natural Tunnel State Park and I got to see my grandmother, Rosa. She seemed to be doing well. We hiked down to the tunnel^* and William and I took some pictures. I think I figured out what part of his camera jitter problem is... ISO setting. There is also a smaller, man made tunnel^*, too. The large picture of the big tunnel are taken from an overlook that is just above the small tunnel. We were lucky enough to see a train come through. I got a few pictures of that, but they aren't as compelling as being right there.

We walked around a bit, but didn't take any of the other trails. There are some interesting random things. A big chunk of rail steel is sitting in the little creek, and there is a water line running over one part of the creek but it's unclear where it comes from and where it goes to. We tried skipping some rocks, but most of them weren't the right size and shape for it. That lead us into a rambling discussion of geology. I later tracked down a geologic map of Tennessee.

We left the tunnel and drove up to Duffield, VA to get some cheese and look around. It has grown up a lot since I was there last, but that's not saying much. They now have a Hardee's and a Subway in the Food Country. I picked up one bottle of Dr. Enuf and two bottles of the new Dr. Enuf herbal cherry/guarana/ginseng drink. It has a weird aftertaste that strikes the mid to back of the tongue. We drove back up to the cabin and ate some lunch. Doug and William had gotten sandwiches at Subway and I just had some cheese and crackers.

After eating we wandered around on the hill behind the cabin. It was a bit muddy and very humid, but it was fun. We saw several neat^* mushrooms^* and a pretty spider^*.

We came back to the cabin and played a quick game of Gods, which William won.

Then Doug cooked a pasta casserole, with a firey crust. It was good.

They started drinking and we started playing games. We played a lot of Puerto Rico, Carcassonne (with multiple different variations), Case No. 2 Murders in the Rue Morgue, and Sloppy Seconds. I tried a bunch of different strategies for Puerto Rico, and some of them didn't fair too well. Eventually we had each won a couple of games, which was good. It was interesting to see how quickly or slowly the games would play out. One game only got us up to scores of 25, 26, and 27. Usually we'd be closer to 35, 45, and 55.

By the time we were done, it was 6:00am. We had planned to leave by 11:00 or so, so we went to bed and set the alarm clock for 10:00. However, we kept talking. After an hour or so, William had fallen asleep, but Doug and I kept talking until the alarm clock started going off. Then I went to sleep and Doug got up for a bit before he went to sleep too.

At 11:00 I woke William up and we started cleaning the place up and packing our gear. We had everything clean and shut down by noon and we took off.

I slept for a while on the way back, and I got up in Knoxville where we stopped at The Disc Exchange and The Book Eddy. I got some neat massage books for cheap, and I got William to buy several good books and CDs.

We got to Cookeville at around 6:00pm; we sat and talked at Doug's for a bit. They invited Jody out to dinner. After he showed up I headed back to Nashville.

It was good to see Kimberly again. We watched Angel and went to bed.

Monday was back to the salt mines. Oh well. Kimberly and I played some more Mystery Rummy. She eeked out a win after several rounds of being tied, but we both broke 300 points.

* links to pictures I took

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Malachi B-J Brown malachus+spencerandbrown@gmail.com