Stephanie and I joined her parents on a day trip to Half Moon Bay. We walked along the sea cliffs for a while, and stopped by the Ritz. We had lunch at one of the best restaurants in downtown and then walked around for a bit. There was a great olive oil bar across the street that we stopped into, and I got some garlic olive oil, and an herb vinegar. They both were very tasty.
Adam, Tina, Andrew, and I played a game of Mage Knight on Saturday 9/26. It was a great game, and I had a very interesting build. I had taken a lot of learning cards early one, and so my deck was getting massive with extra advanced actions. The issue was that we were doing single large assaults and I couldn’t go through my deck fast enough to make it useful. I ended up just making life harder for myself. Tina did the units strategy, which worked great for the single huge assault. I think I understand more about the game now because of that.
We played the newest expansion and it was pretty bland. The differences between the factions weren’t pronounced enough, and the final bosses were just strange.
The company did an offsite in Tahoe for a few days and it was a great time. We left Wednesday afternoon and go to Tahoe just before sunset. The first thing a few of us did was to go down to the hottub. We were then split into teams for the weekend, and I was on the Silver team (grey is boring). That night we went to the casino there, the Montbleu. I did very well, with +$25 on slots, +$50 on roulette, and +$100 on Blackjack. I was by far the biggest winner that night. There was a large group playing craps, and having some fun doing that. I didn’t join them since I’m not familiar with the way craps works. We had dinner at a nice steakhouse there, and pretty much everyone got the filet mignon. The food was delicious, the wine was tasty, and the conversation was excellent.
We got back to the house a little later, and played HOTS until very late. We managed to get a 5v5, as well as a few 4v4’s, and 3v3’s. The 3v3’s were interesting and fun, since we all went middle lane.
The next day we had a big breakfast and went to the lake. I brought my dive gear, so I was the only one able to swim for any period of time. That also made it a lot easier to do the tubing, since when I fell off I wasn’t freezing cold. We had lunch in Emerald Cove, and I swam over to the island there. I hiked to the small house on top, then swam around the base of the island looking for crayfish. I found a few, but only managed to catch one. I ended up letting the one go since he wasn’t enough for a meal.
We got back and had a big cookout, some board games, and a serious discussion. For the board games I was part of the group that played Puerto Rico. I got in a tough spot and lost pretty badly. I don’t really care for Puerto Rico anymore. It was fun at first but once we figured out that whoever sits to the left of the person who produces wins, it became a waiting game.
The next day we went up the gondolas and got a great view from the top of the mountain. I got some alone time at the peak while most everyone else was zip-lining.
Darren and I had a great couple conversations on the way home, and I look forward to future such discussions.
Steph and I participated in the Hunger Challenge, and it made me think a good bit about how I look at food. Food broke down into 3 big categories when I was doing my analysis, Caloric, Enjoyment, and Nutritious. The breakdown of costs wasn’t exactly as I had expected. I expected the Caloric < Nutritious < Enjoyment. What I found was that the Enjoyment < Nutritious foods in most cases. If I wanted some chocolate, cheese, or hot sauce, it would cost about a dollar and I would get a decent amount of it. If I wanted a head of broccoli, asparagus, bell peppers, spinach, etc. I could buy some for around a dollar, but it wasn’t very substantial on its own. Carrots were the exception to that, being both cheap and decently nutritious. The meats I bought were pretty terrible, and I don’t think I’ll be doing that again soon. I found that the vegetarian options weren’t that bad, and that they could be tasty if spiced right. Rice and beans is delicious if you have a half dozen different ways to spice it, for when the mood hits. I had cheese, hot sauce, peanuts, ginger and garlic, soy/fish sauce, and meats if I wanted to add something to it. I bought way too much food, and am still eating some of it.
The bag ‘from’ the food bank did make a huge difference, since it added a lot of variety and healthy foods to the diet that wouldn’t normally be in the budget; mainly fruits.
We went to Sonoma with Kevin, Andrew, Debby, and Lindsay. It was a great time staying at the Airbnb that Lindsay got, and we had a delicious dessert for the end of the hunger challenge. It was the brownie in a box, and cinnamon cake in a box that I added an egg to and baked. It was pretty tasty. We then played some Scattergories and some Presidents. I wasn’t doing too well at either, but got really lucky on the Presidents and ended as VP.
The next day We went to get Mani-Pedi’s The guys enjoyed it, and played MTG while waiting to start.
We also got brunch with Adam and Brian. 
The wedding itself was a ton of fun, and they had great music, great food, good drinks, and a Philz coffee truck. We danced a ton, and had a great time doing it.
The next day we had brunch again, but in downtown Sonoma, then went to the Larson Family Winery. The ladies got tastings, while the gentlemen were still recovering from the previous night. 
When we got back we had dinner with Roy and our newest roommate, Jimena.
All in all a fantastic weekend.
Steph, Erik, and I played Roll for the Galaxy. It was a really enjoyable game. We ended up getting a good 4 games in, since it was so quick. I won one game, and Steph won another. Erik’s friend won the others, with Erik getting last in pretty much every one.
I did a surprise birthday weekend for Steph, we left early on Friday morning, and made it our first stop around 10am. The guy we were meeting was about 30 minutes late, but it wasn’t a big deal. We went horseback riding at Salinas River State Beach. It was an amazing ride. There were some whales right off the coast that we noticed because of all the whale watching boats around them. They were tail slapping which was cool to see. We rode through the dunes for the first third of it, then up and down the beach for the rest.
After that we went to a little restaurant in Pacific Grove called Julia’s. The food there was absolutely amazing. They had a garlic, red onion, and blue cheese pizza. It was probably the best pizza I’ve had. The strong flavors worked really well together.
We then went to the Lone Oak Lodge to check in and Steph got a good nap. We then went to the Bamboo Reef because Steph had forgotten her thermals, and she rented some there. We took a short walk to the next planned stop, which was Monterey Day Spa. We got an amazing couples massage there. We wandered along Cannery Row until we got to our next stop, Bistro Moulin. This is one of Steph’s favorite restaurants, especially for the gnocchi. It was tasty as ever, and the duck I got was phenomenal.
We then dropped down to Breakwater and went on a fun night dive. It was pretty obvious that we were both a bit rusty. The dive went really well though with a bunch of octopi out and about. There were also a lot of huge sheep’s head crabs actually active since it was night. We also saw some purple crabs that looked like they were hugging (probably mating) and another one that had a huge clutch of eggs.
We retired for the night after that, since we didn’t get back to the hotel until around 11pm. In the morning we went to the last stop, Point Lobos. This was a great dive as well. There was a juvenile harbor seal that was following us around, and was playing with Steph’s legs (although she didn’t realize it). There were also a lot of jellyfish on that dive, of several different types. We walked around a little, since we hadn’t seen the park above the water before.
I played Troyes on Thursday game night with Adam, Tina, and Brian. It had been a long time since I’d last played it, and I had forgotten a lot of the mechanics. They also added in the expansion. I got a ton of money early, so didn’t worry about it for a while. At the end of the game I had to consider money again, but it didn’t really come up as a major issue. I didn’t get any specialized point cards, so I didn’t score very well. Despite that I got a close third. Adam won with his use of the expansion.
We had a pretty good time in Atlanta when we went to visit family.
We got the late night Friday flight and got into Atlanta around 7am. We went over to my parents house for a nice breakfast, after which we headed downtown to the Dragon Con parade. It was decent, but not as good as the previous time I had seen it, which was probably 4 years prior. We then went to Jeff’s and Steph got a much needed nap. Jeff and I went to pick up some fruit and tried to find some dry ice for an experiment I wanted to run, but we couldn’t find any at the Safeway near his house. We eventually found some at Publix, just a little further away. We got the fruit and dry ice set up, and then hung out until Steph woke up. At that point we went to the Mexican restaurant nearby Jeff’s place and were joined by The rest of the family. We didn’t really do anything that night. The next morning, I went to church with mom and dad. The new pastor was there and he gave a sermon on the amazing powers of Jesus to heal the blind and deaf. I thought about how amazing modern medicine was to heal the blind and deaf. Steph and I went over to the Botanical Gardens after I got back from my parent’s place. It was a really nice walk around the gardens and the orchids there are gorgeous. I really liked seeing the nature lady in her full glory, since last time I’d seen her it was winter.
We went to my parents for dinner, and got a bunch of delicious food. Jeff grilled up some steak, and we tried the fruit, but it wasn’t particularly carbonated. After dinner we stopped by Publix to get some more dry ice. We put the fruits in the containers with the dry ice and this time they did well. The next morning we went to Birmingham with my parents. Fred was having an 81st birthday party for Nana, and we joined him. Tila, Coleman, Karin, Brenda, Rodger, Cindy, Ben, Jacob, and Adriane were also there. It was a really nice time, and Steph was able to show off the diving and robot. I was glad I got to see everyone, as the age is starting to show for pretty much everyone but Fred. We went back to Atlanta and worked from home the next day. The flight back was late, but otherwise uneventful.
It's an Exciting World 