Running out of cameras

I have been re-painting cameras, including this Russian SLR, that I first painted over a year ago but which were pretty awful. I'll likely re-do about the first dozen whenever I don't have a new camera. As of now, I only have one camera left in reserve that I've not painted yet. Dianne was going to come over this evening to join Paul and the rest of us for a game of Carcassonne but she had to cancel last minute due to family emergency.

more birthday events

As usual, we stretch the celebration of our birthdays over a few days so as to include more people and have an excuse to do more interesting things. On day two of Willliam's birth-week, we had family over in the afternoon (Quinn just got back from Thailand and Sean just returned from Toronto). We introduced Sean and Quinn to Carcassonne. We then had supper with Mike and Allan and came back to the house for Fiasco and Dominion. Quite a game day.

Mike in town, telling stories

Mike made a sort of surprise trip to Regina this week. We played some story cubes and some Dr. Who Fluxx and a short game of Carcassonne.

Lamb stew with Carcassonne and Allan too

William and I did some errands on Tuesday which included a trip to the comic store (German Expressionist JLA, more on that later) and we got big carrots (for stew) and big top Carcassonne to play with Allan when he was over. It's a pretty good set. We only played a compacted game so it will be interesting to see how it mixes with a larger range of the game. 

Allen and sold out movie

Allen was over for supper (as well as Margaret's brother) and we tried to go to Wonder Woman but it was sold out. Played a few fun rounds of Super Fight at a cafe then came home for a short round of Carcassonne. My work day included a great meeting with Xincheng with what I think is a huge break-through on his story:

Biggest Carcassonne game

For the first time ever we played Carcassonne with every piece that we could. Berny, Mike, and Paul came over and along with William, the game took 8.5 hours.  Oddly, the scores were very close. Paul won but he beat Berny by only a few points. We were all fairly close.

Family birthday party

As William's birthday stretches near the end of its one week schedule, we had all of his grandparents plus my sister and her family over, as well as George Bessai and the girls. We served lemon meringue pie, peach pie, and cheesecake. While the girls were at the Rider's game, William and I watched "That Obscure Object of Desire" by Bunuel. After the football, the girls returned for some Catan and Carcassonne and we ate some new Lays butter chicken potato chips (wow! these were great! they actually taste like butter chicken!). I was a day behind on my "bad film series" but caught up.

Filmpool AGM

The Filmpool AGM was held at the Artesian today. Went smoothly. When I got home, Margaret was making balloon lanterns. We played a short came of Carcassonne in the back yard. My cable isn't working well and I suspect it is because they increased my Internet speed which messed everything up last  year.

First game of Carcassonne of the season

It has been a bit of a strange Christmas season without much of our usual game play sorts of socialization. Tonight Paul was over and we played the new shepherd expansion of Carcassonne, which was very satisfying. 

Virginia Thompson at Slate Gallery

This evening Virginia Thompson and I finally crossed paths. She's been in town for the past few weeks producing the Corner Gas movie but I hadn't been fortunate enough to run into her. Had a nice chat at the Slate Gallery opening.
This afternoon the girls were over and they all helped Emma learn to play Carcassonne. The basic set only takes about 35 minutes to play (as it says on the box) which seemed impossible when we usually play with many extra sets.

Small Carcassonne game, never "the big one"

Mike ended up staying an extra night this weekend so we had a game of Carcassonne. However, as we were starting past 7:30, we used only a select number of add-on sets, less than usual. As it was, the game took until 11 and William was nearly asleep for his final few turns. Unless we plan around it and start in the afternoon, I doubt we'll ever put all the available tiles together to play the ultimate game we've talked about for the past year. 

Vacation to mountains of Alberta part 4 Books and Fossils

We took possession of the cottage yesterday. It is surprisingly close to Frank's Slide, the early 20th century landslide disaster in which half a mountain fell over a town and the road and rails in the pass. Yesterday we settled in and drove off to find a small waterfall and stream where the kids did some tubing.

Today I wanted to take it easy and not go anywhere, so I let the others leave to pick up water shoes in town while I sat back with a book in the sun. My dream was short lived when everyone returned in an  hour to pick up things they forgot. Declaring an interest in a nearby beach, I came along. The "beach" turned out to be a lake with not a  hint of sand and only occasional shore-line. I found a nice spot and continued my book, reading it aloud to William ("Such Wicked Intent", a Frankenstein novel by Kenneth Opel). It is not a dense book and has a good flow, so I ended up reading the entire thing out loud over the next few days.  

 William and I were drawn away from our reading session by exciting news of fossils. Further down the shore was an outcropping of some sort of sedimentary rock, similar to slate (very flat and smooth). We found numerous small sea creatures embedded in them. I hit my head on a low branch TWICE.

This evening we played Carcassonne, introducing a number of extra packs to the girls..I brought a number of games, each of which we played only once. 

Next Holiday Entry - Previous Holiday Entry

Gelato with Mike and his beard

Mike is in town and he spent some time trying to solve my computer crashing problem, so we concluded the day with a trip to the Naked Bean on Broad Street to check out their ice cream.
Later this evening we played some games including the fifth mini-pack for Carcassonne, the witch and wizard. Paul and Margaret tied for the win.

Still tipsy

I still felt tipsy this morning and took until mid afternoon to get back to normal. Lots of advil helped. The grad students started doing presentations and I had a production committee meeting and had a meeting the school later on. We also went and bought a new stainless steel wok and a ceramic frying pan. This evening Paul came over and we had a round of Carcassonne. 

Mike and Carcassonne

I met with Erik for a while today over lunch at Ngoc to relaunch the edit of Sockvile. Mike came into town and we played a game of Carcassonne. We used all the tiles but set a timer because we realized we would take until 3am to finish (and William just couldn't keep going that late).

Game night with cake

Carcassonne game

The cousins plus Paul came over today and we played a few games including two shorter sessions of Carcassonne and some Dominion. We icing sugared the chocolate snowman cake; the detailing on his carrot nose and buttons was excellent. I was rather shocked that we had completed our games by ten; the girls had to go home so I'd only set up limited versions of Carcassonne, half the pieces we could have used. I don't know if we'll have another chance as they are leaving in a couple of days.

Chillin'at home

It was very cold again today, -30 and lots of wind to bring it feeling like -40. I managed to stay home all day. William had a friend over. This evening we played a short round of Carcassonne, using the new pieces I bought last summer for the first time. William built one of the best cities we've ever had, totaling 62 points. He was very happy about it.

PEI 1

We drove over the bridge to Prince Edward Island today. The bridge is cool and not as frightening as some bridges (I get nervous on them sometimes). We visited with Margaret's old family friend Eddy Edmonds who was a colleague of JRR Tolkien before moving to Canada. We had a nice walk around Charlottetown and had a pricey but excellent sea food dinner. William is crazy for it. I found some nice stores, bought three Animorphs books William hadn't read, and a Carcassonne set I'd never seen before even though it was supposed to be six months old.

not kid stuff

Today I woke up early, being back to my regular schedule of bad nights, but then fell back asleep and everyone had a slow start to the day. In fact, William never did get out of his pajamas. Margaret and I went to Sylvia Ziemann's opening of her tremendously alluring miniature houses, each demonstrating a different approach to post-world-disaster architecture, complete with functional tvs and (non-functional) toilets. They are up for another couple weeks at the Dunlop branch at the Sherwood Village library.
This evening Margeret went out paper making and William and I tried out the two player Carcassonne Wheel of Fortune variant I bought a few months ago. We had fun. I tried to take the opportunity to teach him the strategies to compete at the game. I pointed out how when we usually play, Paul and I viciously attack each other but not him because he is eight. However, when he turns nine, these rules might change so he'd best be prepared.

Gerald mention on Wikipedia

There is a Wikipedia entry for the late great Regina artist Roger Ing. A film clip that I uploaded to the film archives and have declared to be public domain (as part of a project I wanted all the students to do last year) is liked to the Wikipedia site.
Today was very cold but William and I went swimming anyway. I thought I would die but then we spent 15 minutes in the sauna and now I feel warm at last. I bought a new Carcassonne set with 72 more tiles. The map will be huge now.