George invited me to join him on a Lick Observatory event through Google. I hadn’t been there before and was excited when we got there to learn that they are working on two of the most interesting problems in astronomy; exoplanets and supernovas. The exoplanet work they are doing is amazing, as they are focusing on the spectral shift method. They survey large amounts of the sky looking at stars and galaxies for long time series. We got to look through two of the telescopes. One looked at a binary star while another looked at a globular cluster. I appreciate George taking me on such an interesting adventure.
George hosted a karaoke party at his place and we had dinner at Obed before heading over. Adam, Tina, Amit, and I ended up playing Terraforming Mars. I sang a few songs as well: Enter Sandman and Dust in the Wind. The game went a little long and I won by a small margin.
Adam and I met in SF at my office and then headed to dinner at Delarosa. It was tasty food, but nothing special. We headed back and got things sorted so Adam could take the kayaks to his hotel room near the pier. I slept in the office on the futon, and it was a pretty good night’s sleep. I didn’t realize it at the time, but when things fell over at 10:30pm it was a small earthquake.
The next morning we got up dark and early. I walked my gear over to Adam’s hotel and we headed down to pier 1 1/2, where we had left off the previous trip. We each had small issues with our Oru’s. I had folded mine poorly the previous time and bent the front bulkhead. Luckily it wasn’t a terribly important part as long as we kept to moderately calm waters.
We got in and had a bit of a run in with a tug pushing a barge that wanted to get into a dock we were near. We got out of the way fast once a security boat came over and told us that’s what it wanted. We were just trying to stay still and be predictable. We left the SF coast shortly after that and made our way to Alcatraz.
It was neat to see Alcatraz from the water, and the whole way out we were at the 0 tidal flow time. This made for some very smooth water. Things started to pick up a bit more as we paddled from Alcatraz to Angel Island. The current was clearly starting to flow into the bay, and as we rounded the last point on Angel Island some strong eddies caught us and we had to fight them to get to the shore.
Once on shore we scouted out our campsite, which was slightly up a cliff from the beach. It was nicely sized and up the hill from there were the remnants of the Civil War base. We dropped our stuff off at camp in the raccoon proof bins, then headed to the ferry port. We grabbed a quick lunch at the cafe, and found out there would be a tour of the island happening in less than an hour. We waited around for that and hopped on when it started. The tour was interesting as we drove past the four military bases on the island: Civil War, WWI & WWII, Cold War, and Southeast Asia conflicts. There was also the Chinese internment camp for the Chinese Exclusion Act. Most things were close because it was a Tuesday so we didn’t get to go into any of the museums.
After getting back to the ferry area we hiked to the peak. We saw a ton of deer, vultures, and views of the bay. After the hike we ended back up at camp. I communicated with work for a bit and Adam read. I then walked around the Civil War base, and it strangely serene being there alone. I watched the sunset and enjoyed the peace of the place.
Adam had gotten cold before I got back so he got in his tent and was hanging out in there. I set up my sleeping bag on top of a table to keep it from getting dusty. I slept under the stars that night and saw some amazing shooting stars and counted satellites.
We slept in a bit the next morning and headed out at the low tide point to avoid tidal flows. As we rounded the point to head north we saw some of the rare bay porpoises. I wasn’t able to get a picture as they came up and dove quickly. We paddled up the western side of the bay from there. Adam’s hip was hurting from being stationary and not having stretched before getting in the kayak, but he pushed onward until we passed San Quentin and the Richmond bridge. We pulled out at the Gun and Rod club dock and got a ride back to the city so I could follow up with all the work things that had happened.
Debby, Andrew, George, Steph, and myself escaped the Forsaken Temple at the new Omescape location in Sunnyvale. It was a very well done room. I was annoyed that the Go board they used in one puzzle had nothing to do with the actual game of Go.
We got what I’ll call third place as the first and second places are probably the same group double entered.
We tried to go to the Indian Street Cafe, but it seemed they had been evicted. Instead we went to Merit and had a tasty dinner there.
I feel like I’ve finally figured out the master strategy for Tzolk’in. Adam and I were playing a two player round of it at George’s on Wednesday and I got a score of 150. That is the highest I’ve gotten by far, but I did break 100 doing the same strategy before. The plan is to get as many workers as quickly as possible, and then figure out how to feed them. The investment in workers is definitely worth it. Adam had a bad game and only got a score of 53.
Steph and I joined my parents on a trip to Glacier National Park. We only really had one item planned out beforehand, a rafting float, but we still got to see plenty of the gorgeous landscape in and around the park. We took a ski lift up to the summit of Big Mountain outside the park. There was a trail leading from the summit to the bottom of the ski lift, so my mom, Steph, and I hiked down while my dad enjoyed the top. We ate a few of the huckleberries that were growing along the side of the trail, and they were pretty tasty.
We stayed in Grouse Mountain Lodge in Whitefish and it was a very nice building. We wish we had remembered our bathing suits so that we could have enjoyed the hottub.
We went a little ways into the park and did the Cherry Creek trail and the Trail Through the Ceders loop.
The rafting float was very calm, as it was the lowest time of year for the stream. We had to get out and walk next to the raft for a bit, which was a nice change of pace. The float was very pretty, and the guide was great at giving good information about why the mountains had tree mohawks.
My parents came to visit, and we spent most of the weekend together. They went down the coast for a bit, and then came back for another day of spending time together. We did dinner with the Lee’s, went to Hillsdale Mall, put together the Oru and spent a little time in the water, and put together an amazing table. The table is made from an extraordinary curly koa wood. The oil finish is gorgeous and the way the curl catches the light is magnificent.
I’ve been playing a good number of games lately and haven’t talked about them so I thought I point out a few highlights.
On the left is a strange game of Terraforming Mars we played with Yutong, Adam, Haru and myself. The game almost covered all of Mars, which is not usually the case. People were getting way behind on actually finishing the goals of the game. I had a good time, but didn’t do well on the points. Haru and Yutong got good point engines in cards, and with the game going on longer they ended up getting more points from that. I also didn’t do any cities despite putting down 17 greeneries.
In the center was a great start to a game of Castles of Mad King Ludwig. It was very compact with all of them hitting double slots. I was really happy with the look and feel of the castle in this game, but the points didn’t work out in the end.
On the right I was playing a round of Betrayal Legacy. The character I had was topping out on almost all stats. The game was mine to lose, and I made a critical mistake on the last turn and also got a bad roll. I could have won it if I had been a bit more meticulous, but It was still a lot of fun. Playing optimally on that scenario wouldn’t have been much fun for anyone.
We had a group head to SF to play one of the Palace Escape Games. We had done one previously that was great, the Houdini Room. This time we had a group for the Edison Room. We got there pretty early, as we were expecting much worse traffic from the SF Marathon. We first had brunch at Causwells, which was really tasty.
We headed over to the Palace of Fine Arts, which was nice to walk around, and then we got to the room. It was really well done. The touch sensitive floor was especially interesting. I didn’t like some of the more active game parts that weren’t puzzles. They still had their place. We only got a little stuck at one point on some combo locks, but eventually got past that part. We struggled with the active touch floor segments, and lost a lot of time there. Overall I was happy with our performance, and I think everyone had a good time. We made it out with a little over 20 minutes to spare. I look forward to doing the Rosevelt Room.
It's an Exciting World 