Category Archives: travel

Themes in the Ether

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This weekend I spent the weekend in Wimberley, Texas. One of the boardgames someone wanted to play was Goa – a trading game themed on the historically important region of India. But it’s a four-player game and we had five people, so it never got played. Perikles.jpgAnother that was high on the list and did get played was Perikles – by well-know boardgame designer (yes, there are a few), Martin Wallace.

On the return trip I listened to the NPR Puzzle podcast from the previous weekend. Will Shortz had just returned from some sort of puzzle tournament in Goa. The on-air puzzle was categories in C-H-A-M-P, and plays by Shakespeare was one of them. Can you name a P- play by Shakespeare?

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BGG.Con 2007

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I spent four days in Irving, Texas playing board games with people from all over the place. It was a fabulous good time. With a game library of over 1000 games, not including those brought by the attendees, there were orders of magnitude more options than time allowed.

My photos are on flickr, and are mostly of games.

My only regret is not playing a game of Dune, and out of print game. They had an unpunched version of it in the library. A $100-$200 value in the current market. The game is going to be re-released in a year or two but without the Dune theme.

The hottest game of the convention was Agricola, which isn’t even available yet. There was one English copy and a few German ones with the cards in sleeves and printed translations accompanying them.

There were raffle drawing giveaway items each day with fabulous lists of prizes. And every attendee received a free game of our choice (in the pile) in addition to the two small games in the swag bag. Continue reading →

James McMurtry @ Gruene Hall

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Last Friday, Tricia (aka Ruth Ann) and I had a one-day road trip to see James McMurtry at Gruene Hall. We first went to my dad’s place on Canyon Lake. Hung out and chatted. The water is very high and the gates are wide open, so we went down the 306 side of the river.

James McMurtry (photo by Cynthia Kinney)We met up with Faithe, who recently moved to San Antonio, at the Grist Mill and had a nice meal. We noticed that James was eating a few tables away. Tricia had a chat with him for a while, and we all said hi before we left. He mentioned we should go down to the river to check it out.

The Guadalupe was flowing over the bridge just down the street, and quite a torrent it was. We headed back and caught the Ded Ringers. We both quite like this young band from Austin. Good songwriters for being so young.

Most of the perimeter and picnic table seating was taken when we went in, so we stood back from the stage near the sound board. Becky (aka Lynn) and several other friends (including James’ girlfriend) showed up during the opening band. Between sets a very tall boot wearer asked us if there was “any reason we were standing here?” It being the implication that we were blocking he and his wife’s lazy asses view in the back of the room.

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Visited Countries

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I am left to wonder what TomJohnChris’ maps would look like. Or my mother’s for that matter.

-b

create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide

That’s: US, Canada, Mexico, UK, Netherlands, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Italy, Holy See, Puerto Rico, Barbados, Venesuela, St. Vincent, Grenada. (lots of other islands that are part of the US or UK or Netherlands).

I have good friends in Denmark that would put me up indefinitely.
I have friends in Australia and Honduras that would host me.

Those are trips I need to make.

Iceland is also on my list of wants to visit.