Parentheticals

This week I attended to Google IO Extended (the free version that has fewer prizes but streams the real classes realtime). It was pretty cool. The Q looks completely useless, but when they actually do start selling Glass I might be interested in buying one. I uploaded my card game images to the printing company yesterday. I will have a deck in the mail in a few weeks hopefully. The only worry that I have is that they will convert them to cmyk and mess up the color (or something like that) I will post a blog post when I get them. Andrea had a horse head on a stick (what are those toys called? you are supposed to 'ride' on them by putting the stick between your legs and running around and making horse noises) which was broken. I cut off the stick and replaced it with a new dowel, but while I was working she got her hands on the horse head part. She was angry when I attached the new dowel to it. Apparently she wanted a decapitated horse head more than a horse head on a stick. ...

I have been working on my card game a lot recently. I am attempting to get it ready for a printing (as I have said before). I think that I will send in my print order on July 2nd (that will give me one more chance to playtest it with my family at a family dinner), and hopefully still get the physical copy before my birthday ("It's my birthday gift to me! I'm so happy!"). Andrea has been doing well, although she has started to tell us (sometimes) that she is mad, and that she is screaming. She doesn't actually scream, but she says that she is. We think that it must be something that she picked up from nursery. We were recently given a bunch of clothes for Andrea. She decided that they would be great fun to play with, and dressed her self up. She is not entirely able to get a shirt on her head, but she is close. She is, however able to take her clothes off, and we once discovered her running around the house naked. Her clothes were nowhere to be seen, but...

We have a 7 month old 4 lb Parmesan that I was considering opening - I think that we will wait till it is 8 or 9 months, though because while I was turning it I decided to take inventory of our stock of cheese. In the process I discovered a strange 4 lb cheese that was dated Dec-10-2012. I have no record of having created it, but it was 6 months old so we opened it up (funny thing is that I have a record of waxing it, but not making it). It tasted like a sharp cheddar, but it had holes like a baby swiss. It is a nice consistency (I think that I am going to fire up the grill, sautee some mushrooms and make a mushroom mystery cheeseburger) Speaking of cheese, Saturday we made another gouda. This time it held together much better than the first gouda that we made, so hopefully it ends up more like an actual gouda (the last one was crumbly). I have room for ~ 4 more lbs of cheese in the fridge, so I think that I am going to make another Parmesan. They are the best cheeses that I have ...

This weekend we built  Montessori sensorial materials  for Andrea (specifically the pink tower, the broad stair, and some rods that vary in length (though I don't know the name of that one)). Each block is cut to different specifications, so there is no 'getting into the groove of things' - every time you have to look to see what size the next block is supposed to be. We have not yet polyurethaned them, so they are not quite finished, but Andrea has already begun to use them (and she is able to pick them up successfully in smallest to largest order). She doesn't like stacking them to make large towers yet, but she has made doggy houses for the little dogs that Sheila made for her (We got those this week as well). One dog is shaped like rusty, and the other like a scotty dog, so she has been enjoying walking them around (and commanding them to sit, stay, not eat food, etc). We have been enjoying the spring-like weather as well - though I suppos...

I have begun to make more changes to my card game. I am attempting to clean up the combat more, remove confusing things, and slightly tweak the balance. I am also considering how I could change the visual appearance of the cards (but I have not made any real solid decisions there). If anyone has never played Polynesia and would like to help me play test the rules, talk to me - I could get you a copy of the rules easily, and we could work out a way to get all the cards printed and cut up. (The reason why I am interested in getting new testers is that I want people to play the game having just read the rules and without my help, so that I can simulate someone buying the game from the store and bringing it to a table of people who have never played before.) This last weekend we got together for a family dinner and played some dominion afterwards. It was fun (though I lost all of the games, I enjoy playing, and I figured out a great strategy for the last one (which I messed up by bu...