I started playing Clash of Clans this past weekend and Darren saw me playing, so he added me to his clan. It is going really well and I think I found the good strategy for building units and defenses.
Yesterday I put in notice at Zynga that I would be leaving. It is a big step in the right direction I think. I am looking forward to all the challenges that being on my own will bring about, and am ready to start.
This book had a lot of great advice about how to inspire the people you work with and get them to realize their potential. I noticed how the leaders around me were like the leaders they mentioned in the book and how some of them were not like the leaders mentioned. I would like to think that I could use the methods applied in the book, but I tend to Blake getting my hands dirty. I’ll try as much as I can to inspire the people around me.
After the MTG we went to Castro to have some pho at Pho Hoa. I invited Steph and Nick, and they seemed to really enjoy it. We then went over to Beachhead for some games. We played Formula D, which is a game based entirely on roll to move. Not being in control of so much of the game is really annoying, but it overall wasn’t a bad game. Adam won and Steph got 2nd, Nick, Chris, and I blew up. After that we played a game of Galaxy Trucker. I got some really hard to deal with impediments. I played the flotilla and got the summersault. I had to put in so many engines, and managed to supersheild both ships. The third round I got the Built to Order and Faulty Connections, and on top of that I didn’t realize that I could use parts from the middle to fill out the ship. I managed to make a decent ship, but everyone was getting destroyed from tons of meteors and lasers. I ended up losing when my ship hit open space with no engines.
It took a long time to get back form Stillwater Cove, as 101 was a nightmare due to being late on a holiday. I took over from Steph on the driving with about an hour to home. I went to Adams and watched him and Andrew play some MTG. I had missed out on the draft, and watching MTG being played isn’t particularly fun, but I did enjoy the talk around the table.
Steph and I went to Stillwater Cove at Pebble Beach for a nice dive. The surface swim was incredibly long, about 45 minutes. The dive was nice, we saw; large valleys, small overhangs, sunstars, sea slugs, and a lot of abalone (shells and live). We also saw the cutest adolescent harbor seal. They have the biggest puppy-dog eyes and look like a stuffed animal. We had a bit of a BBQ on the beach there. Some of the other guys were spearfishing and caught a good number of fish. I was there with Greg, Mike, Dave, Joe, Joey, and a few others that I can’t remember their names.
When I got into SF, Stephanie came and picked me up. She had just come from Kublacon, where she saw all sorts of stuff on painting minis. We went to Magda Luna (Site) with Brian and Candice. I got a really tasty potato burrito, and guac. The food was quite good, but it was a little heavy. Afterwards we went to Safeway, then went home and got to bed since we were getting up early the next day.
This was interestIng history of the discovery of the atom and all the intermediate steps along the way. They went into a lot of the personal and political relationships of the physicists. These were all very interesting, especially around how stubborn some of them got around their ideas being correct. There was also a good bit of peer pressure from the ‘best’ physicists on the less great ones. It is amazing what lengths they all went through to prove very small ideas. I was also amazed at the semantics that they argued about with the particle wave duality of matter.
The BBQ last night is making me feel a little sick this morning. Mom made some scrambled eggs for breakfast, and I had a good bit of the other half of the cantaloupe from the farmer’s market. After packing everything up they took me to the airport. All in all it has been a pretty good vacation; it has been good to see the family.
It's an Exciting World 