Saturday we went sailing out of Santa Cruz, and it was really nice. Steph and I were joined by Ray, Monica, Chris, Francis, Michael, and Ray’s Friend Paul. The girls got sick when we went out to the high wind and rough sea. It was fun out in the heavy wind, but the light wind was terrible. The area inside the mile buoy was full of weak swirling winds. Steph took a long turn fighting them while I ate, but I took back over when that was through. She got us out to the good wind and it was nice. I got tired of holding the wheel and my shoes were terrible at gripping the surface. Ray took over for a while and did really well. As long as we weren’t doing jibes, I’d be fine with anyone taking the wheel. Afterwards we went to the Penny Ice Creamery. There was a little stand that we found first that was a block and a half from the main building. We walked over there once we asked the girl at the booth where the main building was. I got some amazing coffee and praline.
Yesterday morning I took the kitties over to one of the offices Steph’s company operates out of and introduced the kitties to the robots that Steph is working on. The owner of the company wanted to get videos of the cats riding the robots. He didn’t quite understand how one interacts with cats, or how hard cats are to control. There is the phrase ‘herding cats’ after all, which is not about how easy cats are to control. Archer and Lana were doing really well with the robots, and we got them to play on/with the robots as Steph drove them around. Archer went after the pink furry tail plaything when we taped that to the robot, and when we taped on the laser pointer Lana went after the dot. They got more comfortable with the robots, but wouldn’t put up with the robots driving while they were on top. We tried putting them on top of the robots and then driving it off really quickly for a bit of video, but even that didn’t work. We stopped that when Archer had his foot run over. He was fine, but didn’t want to go close to the robot after that. One thing that I found very strange is that they weren’t interested in the treats while they were at the office. Even when I tried to make them eat a few, they wouldn’t have any of it. It was a big adventure for the kitties, and me. We cuddled a lot afterwards as I worked on the games.
Today we had a lot more interesting maneuvers for the motorcycling. It wasn’t nearly as tiring and not nearly as hot it seemed. I had a good time and was taking corners a little too quickly in some situations. We all did rather well on everything except the U-turn box. Adam had the hardest time with the U-turn box, but he managed to pull it out in the end. I think that situation is the one we have to worry about the least, as you can always just roll the bike instead of riding it in tight quarters. I didn’t do great on the test, but was far from the worst score. Jeremy did the best with a score of 1.
We had our first course on the motorcycles yesterday. It was hot out and we were all dying in the log sleeves. Some people even had the leather jackets that you might normally need for riding at full speed. With the speeds we were going at (max at about 15mph) there was little or no respite from the heat with any kind of wind. The class went at a good pace, but some of the other riders weren’t particularly learning quickly. Everyone in our group did really well. Steph got a difficult bike and couldn’t easily shift. She also dropped the bike twice, which I thought was a little funny. By the end of the day I was feeling rather comfortable on the bike, and I’d be willing to take a motorcycle out on the road (not yet highway). I probably was on the nicest of the bikes there, and it was really easy to handle and shift with.
Thursday night instead of going to games 6 of us went to a motorcycle class in Santa Clara from BikeSmart. It was Tina, Adam, Amit, Steph, Jeremy, and myself; mainly the group that is going to Thailand in November. The class was pretty slow and the instructor slowed things down even more. It probably would have take us about 1 hour to go through the book alone and then 1 hour to watch all the videos. Instead we slowly went through and took about 5 hours for the whole process. We all either missed 1 question or none on the test.
After the class we all went to BJ’s for some buffalo wings and dessert. It was all very tasty despite the service being terrible and the place being incredibly cold. Had it been full the amount of AC might have been appropriate.
The last day in Seattle Wit, Brian, Candice, and I went to breakfast at a waffle place. The waffles were soooo tasty, and I got the bacon maple syrup one. We then went to Pike’s Place Market and looked at all the various and odd things. There were a few fish stalls, flower stalls, and bakeries, but most of the rest of the places were knick-knack places. There was a really tasty chocolate pasta, but I would never want to cook with it since it would make a gigantic dessert.
We went to Yard house after the market and said goodbye to Wit along the way. At yardhouse we just relaxed and played a few games on Brian’s iPad. After a drink and some appetizers I hopped on the train for the airport and showed up a good number of hours early. Since I was flying through LAX I happened to be on the same flight as Ash so I talked to her and gave her Stephanie’s feedback on the video. The flights were non-eventful, and I was barely able to catch the connecting flight. It was on a twin turbo prop, which is something I wasn’t expecting. The plane still got me to SJC quickly. Steph was nice enough to pick me up from the airport, and we went back to my place. The kitties were happy to see me and I did a thorough cleaning of the bathroom before going to bed.
This morning Steph and I went to a Russian bakery called Piroshky Piroshky. It was really tasty, and we grabbed some for lunch. I went to the panels that Steph liked today, and I had a pretty good time about it. The Hey Ash panel was hilarious, and we got to see some pre-released footage. I really like how they have a group of friends that just started making a web series. It makes me want to have a web series. I said by to Steph and walked her to the train station. Brian and I played some Lovers in a Dangerous Space Time, and it was really fun. I look forward to being able to play it with Steph. I think they’ll be releasing on Mac based on what their website says, but you never know. A group of us went to dinner at Palomino, and it was very tasty. Afterwards we spent a while just hanging out.—–
Sunday Steph and I took a relaxed approach to the conference. We went to a few panels, stopped by a few booths, and nothing really stood about about Sunday. We had a tasty lunch, but long wait at the Pho place. Later, we went to the Double Fine party, and had a drink. We had a relaxed evening, with dinner on our own at a really cute little hole-in-the-wall called zig-zag cafe. It was fantastic, but Steph ran off early to go to a panel. I really enjoyed the quite time with her.
We had a late start to the day since we wanted to go to the Glass Gardens and let Andrew go around the convention for a while.
Steph was nice enough to help me out with handing out the flyers for Apocalypse Overload. She was looking good in her Faith costume. I was in my Dr. Horrible costume, and it made a huge difference. I really don’t like random outreach, in person or online, but that is what I’m doing for now.
We went into the convention and saw some more of the indie mega booth. I really like that corner of the expo. We ran into David and Candice there and went to watch David battle it out in an Assassin’s Creed 4 multiplayer competition. He got 2nd by 7 seconds.
Steph and I went to a Pho place for lunch, which was delicious. The service was slow, but they were so overcrowded that wasn’t surprising. We went to two panels on gender and gaming together, which was cool to hear about. Most of it was saying that people should be respected in the way that they want to be respected, and that the system is broken in favor of specific groups.
I stayed behind to work, while Steph, Candice, and David went to a Geeky Burlesque show, and Brian and Nick went QR code hunting.
