Tina signed us up for an escape room at the Palace of Fine Arts in SF. I hadn’t been there before so I headed down early and worked from the garden there. It was a really nice day, and the gardens were gorgeous.
Everyone else showed up around 3:30pm and we went into the escape room. We ended up doing pretty well; escaping with 7 minutes remaining. I really enjoyed the puzzles, and some were pretty difficult. We missed a few obvious hints, but that happens.
Adam found a kayaking class in Redwood City, and I decided to join him for it. He had a new folding kayak, much like the one Steph had used for kayak camping several years ago. It was working out well for him until we got to the self righting exercises. Since it didn’t have bulkheads it would sink easily and become unrecoverable. He decided to look into the self recovery options later with the manufacturer, but we were able to pull off the assisted recovery without too much of a problem. It was harder than I had expected in my kayak, despite it being a normal kayak. I had a good time, and the people /instructors were pretty great.
Tina organized a hike on Thursday to El Corte De Madera. She was nice enough to drive, and it turned out to be a perfect day for the hike. The others were a little cold, but I was pretty comfortable. We were joined by Jeremy and Candice and two others I didn’t know well. The hike was about 5 miles and afterwards we went to Alice’s Cafe for lunch.
Last Tuesday we played some Gloomhaven at George’s. Steph was in China so I took over her character. Adam started up a new character that is interesting. I don’t think the style of play on Adam’s new character suits him, but I’m sure he can adapt to it. We did a side quest that was a good bit of fun, lots of demons and golems. George had a key trick that saved us when he walled off a group of enemies.
Random kitty picture:
Wednesday we met up for tacos at Speedy’s. Irene was playing it risky again, and had tacos despite her GI issues. We played some Castles, with Irene getting two massive purple room scores. I was able to get a lot of the overall goals putting me in a solid second. I watched the others play towerfall after that.
Steph took the day off on Thursday and we hung around the house as well as getting a few new plants for the garden. That evening we joined the others (Lindsay, Debby, Andrew, Kevin) for our flight to LA for the weekend.
We got in a little later than scheduled and checked into a pretty nice Airbnb while Andrew and Debby went to Jen’s place.
The next morning we all met up at Grand Central Market. Steph and I got some delicious avocado toast, that also had a nice cheese and some cherry tomatoes. Steph got a grilled cheese sandwich that was pretty tasty as well. We grabbed our coffees and headed over to The Broad museum. We were pretty far back in line, but among the first to get callback times for the special exhibit, an infinity room with lights. It was pretty spectacular.
After The Broad we went to Pizzeria Mozza. This was a place we had seen on Youtube and Netflix shows and really wanted to try. It was pretty good, and I think Debby’s breakfast pizza was the best. After a short rest at the Airbnb we went to Korea Town. On the way everyone else got mani pedis, while I talked to my parents. We also stopped by a mall and did a little karaoke while we waited. We had reservations at a Korean BBQ place, and all ate way too much. Our clothes also smelled strongly of the meat smoke and had to be quarantined.
The next day we had breakfast again at Grand Central Market, then headed to the next Airbnb in Santa Monica. We got in a little early so we got some Impossible Burgers at Umami burger. We ate them in the Airbnb while Debby and Andrew came over. The burgers weren’t bad, but also not good. I was pretty tired so I took a one hour nap while the others headed to the beach.
They didn’t spend long there, and we met up on 3rd to do some light shopping before heading to dinner. We went to an okonomiyaki place and it was delicious.
After dinner we wandered around and got some tasty bread pudding.
Sunday we split up after brunch, some going to the beach again, some going to a VR Star Wars experience.
Steph had to head to the airport for her flight to china, so she didn’t get to participate. Also we met up with Grant there. Grant got recognized by one of the people who worked there, and was thanked for his work on Star Wars.
Jen showed me her bunnies, as we stopped by her place to grab Debby and Andrew’s things.
We had a Tina, Adam, and Brian over for Mage Knight on Sunday. I got to play the crystal dragon character, and did well with it. We did a hybrid scenario with 4 cities plus Volkaire’s camp. It turned out just fine, and we won with little effort. I got two training cards, so burnt 11 total cards in upgrades.
This was an odd book. The true account of a research experiment of three schizophrenic patients who believed themselves to be Christ/God. They were put together for daily discussion sessions over the period of a little over 2 years. This was one of the shortest discussions we’ve had on a book, and the person who wanted to read it originally didn’t show up to the meeting.
There were some major ethical issues with the research. The biggest one in my opinion was when the researchers wrote letters to one of the men pretending to be his wife. The man had never married and clearly had major problems around women. The then manipulated him into doing things by having his wife ask him to do it. They also had him wait around for the wife’s visits and had the wife write she was disappointed he didn’t show when he did show up and the wife didn’t show up. It was a horrible situation.
There were plenty of other odd things they did, but nothing quite as bad as that. It was a strange book, with a strange format. I wouldn’t recommend it, but I would say reading the wikipedia on it is worthwhile.
I went back to Atlanta for Easter to spend time with family. Stephanie stayed in the Bay Area.
I got in early Friday morning and my mom was nice enough to pick me up from the airport. We got a great sunrise as we headed to their place, and the drive was pretty much traffic free. I got a good nap in before heading downstairs to say hi to everyone. Dad was up and Kim and Grace had come over. Grace was a lot more interactive than the last time I saw her. She was walking and able to make noises, but not quite words. I gave her the early gift for her first birthday which was a brightly colored xylophone.
We then went to the botanical gardens, and walked around for a bit. I talked to Kim for most of the time, and played with Grace some. She gave me a nasty look when I pretended to take one of her Cheerios. Jeff and Katie joined us for dinner.
The next morning mom and I headed to Birmingham to see Nana. Mom was nice enough to drive the whole way. I was glad to see Nana, and she seemed to be doing ok. Coleman was moving around some, which is better than how he had been from what I’ve heard. We had lunch there, which was a really tasty tomato and shrimp dish from Coleman. On the drive home we stopped by the park where Steph and I are thinking of having a wedding celebration in the Southeast. It was nice, and we couldn’t go to the exact building because there was currently a wedding going on in it.
The next day was Easter and everyone came over for a big lunch. Benjamin came by and we got to talk a little about his plans to do a PhD in machine learning. I pointed him to several good resources that I used for my first glimpses into it. That evening I worked on a website for my dad, so that he could show off his guitars: http://geisertguitars.com.
the next morning mom dropped me off at the airport and I had an uneventful flight home.
We joined a lot of people at Karaoke at George’s and had a good time of it. I did a few songs and then let others sing theirs. The list grew rapidly, and I was happy to join in on a few. I did the Zazu from ‘Just Can’t Wait to be King.’ We also played some codenames. I got to be codemaster and finished in 2 clues.
Tina organized the Gloomhaven box and I helped a bit. It was well done in many ways, but had a few oversights. She found the ‘Open when you feel you deserve it’ card under the insert. We will probably open it next time we have all 5 people together. I had a good time and I think everyone else did as well.
It's an Exciting World 