Yesterday Stephanie and I went to Brian and Candice’s for a bit of board games and Steph did her toenails. I had a headache yesterday so I didn’t go riding and had to be convinced to join in for board games even. The game Witch of Salem was the one Steph chose to play, and it was an interesting coop game. It was not exactly clear what we should be doing at any given point. There were a lot of really annoying points where we would try to go do something and then there would be a monster that prevented us from doing what we were trying to do. That is part of the game, but it wasn’t a fun part.
I went to the farmers market and got tons of vegetables. I had my customary samosa and got the usual bolani, tofu and misozuke. I dropped some stuff off at my place and then went back to beachhead to start the juicing. I made vegitable and fruit juices separately. The fruits were strawberries, carrots, apples, and tomatoes. The vegitables were broccoli, asparagus, avocado, and cucumber. I enjoyed both. I also was very glad that I wss a nontaster. Steph found the veggie juice bitter, probably from the broccoli. I hope to keep doing this and need to get a good container for the juice so I can keep it in the fridge at work.
After diving 8 of us went to a restaurant called Hula’s (Yelp). They had something called ‘Mac ‘n’ Cheese ‘n’ Cheese’ which of course Stephanie and I had to get. We also shared a Tofu Taco. Since we had already eaten lots of bonali we didn’t need to get too much to eat at the restaurant. I think it is a good plan that I at least should continue, by eating beforehand on something healthier and tasty, then getting something small and healthy at the restaurant itself. To drink I got a Mai Tai, which was a little too sweet for me, but not bad.
After that we went to Otter Bay, a company that makes custom wetsuit parts. Stephanie decided to get a custom hood made that is thicker and a set of cat ears. The cat ears are red on the front and purple on the back.
We then went to a BBQ with some of the dive community from Diver Dan’s. I saw Jim, Tommy, Aaron, and some others that I should remember their names but don’t. Aaron was a great host and we had some really tasty things. There was something called a pink greyhond that was a tasty drink, and a lot of really nice foodstuffs.
Last night Stephanie dropped me off at home so I could clean my gear and do some laundry. I put my gear out back and got my laundry in the washer, then went to lay down for 45 minutes. When I woke up I heard Brian and Nick talking so I can out to find that they and Candice were about to start a game of Wasabi (BGG) , the sushi making game. won wasabi by a narrow margin at the last second since I was able to pull of a small roll. We then continued onto Taluva (BGG) which is a really nice and interesting game. I really like it and would like to play again. The game has a lot of chances to be a king maker. I won the first game by a lot and barely lost the second day because Brian chose to kingmake Nick.
Stephanie was nice enough to drive to Monterey at 6am to make it to the Monterey Express at 7:30. We made it there a little early and ran across a few really strong fog banks on the way.
When we got out on the boat we saw a pod of dolphins and went to follow them for a few minutes before making it out to the dive site. We decided to stay inside the bay since it was a little rough as soon as we got outside the bay. There was also a really intimidating fog bank that was at the edge of the bay. Our first dive was at Hopkins Deep. The visibility wasn’t very good, at about 8 feet, and the temperature was about 48F. The second site was much nicer at about 15 feet, but it was still not a good day. We saw a big blue rockfish at Nacho, a dive site just off outer McAbee that is a single pinacle that shoots up. There were a lot of sunstars and metridiums. At Nacho we saw a nice school of fish that was a dozen or so fish a foot and a half long.
This was ok, didn’t enjoy it too terribly. It did have some good points about how to continually think about what you are doing. I do try to be deliberate, but am very bad at it. I also try to be mindful, and again, I’ve very bad at it. I’m not sure I want to listen to the next to in the series for a while, so I’ll put it off for a while. There was a lot of pseudo-sciency things in this book, but I’m not terribly surprised by it.
Since I got my new phone I haven’t really listened too many podcasts. Today I downloaded a ton of them, and got to listen to some of the podcasts I’ve been missing for a while. The one i’ve listened to the most today is “Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe.” I’m really glad to hear them take apart some of the really stupid things that are published. It also got me thinking that it might be worth while to try juicing. I’m looking at juicers on Amazon right now for a juicer. It would be really easy to just cut up the veggies and juice them each morning.
I got to play some fun volleyball today, but only one game. I was on a 3 person team and vlad was kicking ass, so we ended up winning.
This was a really nice game. The pace was good, the theme was amusing, the chance wasn’t too overwhelming. There was a lot of chance as part of the game, but the ways in which it was deployed wasn’t bad. The frequency of the chance outcomes was a little much, since there wasn’t just a good and bad outcome: there was a good, neutral, and bad. The way in which the combat worked was really interesting and something I want to think about further with respect to my board game attempts. It was very elegant and simple to understand. The pace was a little slow since we were learning, and the some of the rules interact in strange ways. I’d really like to play this again.
I played one round of this at Games night against Chris and his high school friend. I won, but by very little.
It's an Exciting World 