To-Do List while Job-Free

So, I've been job-free for just a couple weeks now and I've been busy, busy, busy!  I went to Vegas for five days right after I got done training the new girl.  And boy, oh boy, I needed a drink after finishing up the training...  I don't think I've ever been to Vegas for more than a few days at a time to gamble and just hang out.  It was pretty fun.

After returning from Vegas, I went over to Chris' house a few times to help him start cleaning out his garage.  Other than that, I haven't really done a whole lot.  The last few days, I've been on jury duty and officially got put on a case yesterday.

So I've decided I need to make a "to-do list" of what I want to do while I'm not working.  Some of them are totally practical, some are completely pie-in-the-sky-weird and some are just miscellaneous notes to myself.  Either way, the to-do list, which I used all the time while working, is going to become essential to getting stuff done while I'm job-free.

• Read some books:  some poker books, Your Money or Your Life, Getting Things Done, the Four-Hour Workweek, Eat Pray Love, and more to add I'm sure...
• Watch some movies:  Catching up on my Netflix list would be awesome... but that's to fill in the cracks.
• Travel:  May - Kauai, June - Atlanta for Oasis of Fun, July - Williamsburg, VA for Gulf Games, August - NorCal for MeepleFest.  There's a decent chance I might take a road trip to the east coast for Oasis of Fun and just bum around over on that side of the country until Gulf Games about a month later.  That would be fun.  Just plain fun.
• Volunteer on a regular basis - I want to volunteer at least a couple times a month with local agencies.  Most likely, it will be Project Angel Food (prepping food to deliver to homebound clients) and AIDS Project LA (food bagging or office work).
• Get rid of stuff out of my apartment.
• Exercise.
• Eat through my pantry & freezer to save $$ on food.
• Figure out what I want to do for work - I could just get a job doing what I've been doing, but I've been contemplating what all my options are and I'm trying to figure out which direction I want to go.  Do I want to make more money with more stress and responsibilities?  Or settle for less money, but potentially much less stress?  I'm hoping that I can read some books and do some soul-searching to figure this out.
• Floss more regularly.  
• Learn some German.
• Learn Morse code (?) - this is inspired by that episode of the Amazing Race when the Asian couple got eliminated.  
• Sleep a normal amount - I've been sleeping SOOOOOO much the last couple weeks.  I need to stop oversleeping.  It makes me feel lazy and unproductive.  I also would like to keep a fairly "normal" schedule.  I tend to lean towards the night owl side of the spectrum, so it's tough.

I'm sure there will be more and I'll just have to add them as I think of them.  

Life Update

The major life update is that as of March 31st (happy birthday to me!!), I will be job-free. Not necessarily by choice, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I've been working remotely for almost the last two years for a company based out of Dallas. They hired a new president last year and she wants to have someone working out of the main office in Dallas and I did not want to move there. There were other factors involved with the decision, but that seemed to be the sticking point.

The whole process has been extremely stressful which is what led me to my latest bout of silence on the blog. This situation has made me realize that I tend to become rather hermit-y when things aren't going well. I guess I'm following that old saying, "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say it at all!" Meanwhile, my friends I see day-to-day have been getting an earful. And then another earful...

I think probably the worst part has been the uncertainty of everything for several weeks. There have been other sucky parts, but I'll keep that part to myself for now. I was so stressed about it that I eventually got SO sick!! I've never been so sick in my life. I laid in bed for five days straight. I only got out of bed because I had to do our monthly payroll. After which, I promptly climbed back in bed. Thank goodness for Edward, who insisted I go see the doctor. I had been assuming I had the flu and was afraid I had the dreaded swine flu! When I finally went to the doctor, she informed me that I had bronchitis. She then prescribed me two inhalers and some nasal spray and instructions on how long to use them. Now, two weeks later, I'm feeling much, much better.

So, that's the big update. And with the free time I'll have on my hands you may get posts a little more often about random stuff I'm doing around my apartment. Some stuff I'd like to get done while I'm not working:

• Eat through my pantry & freezer. This will give me the opportunity to try out different recipes and eat everything up!!
• De-clutter my apartment! Wow, I'm REALLY looking forward to this. I've already started taking boxes of stuff to give to the Goodwill.
  
• Stick to a budget. I've started making my budget. I'm not sure if I should post it on here because I'm not sure anyone would even care about the particulars. But, I was thinking about trying to make it like a game... LOL - as John put it, "a game with limited resources"!
• Exercise more. With no job, I should be able to exercise more, right?
• Floss more regularly. I just had my cleaning today and again I promised my hygienist Mary that I would be better about flossing. I need to start setting up better habits. Time to write it down, FLYlady-style...
• Take some trips. Already planning on going to Atlanta in June for Oasis and Williamsburg in July for Gulf Games. I am contemplating taking a road trip out there and just killing time for the month in between with friends along the East Coast. I just need to find someone to babysit my kitty for a month!
• Get caught up on my reading & Netflix queue. Not very "productive," but fun!
  
• Go to the beach. I'm gonna work on my tan some... and maybe get some reading done while I'm at it!
  

Anyway, you'll see random notes to myself too as I clear stuff out of the apartment. The blog is the perfect place to record stuff that I don't want to lose! And then you get to see it too! I'm mentioning this because I'm about to post a list of restaurants from a newspaper ad/article that I've had stuck to my fridge for a couple years. I'm ready to throw it out, but I want to make a list of the restaurants in case I ever want to know what was on there.

I have no idea how long it will take to find a new job, but I intend to make good use of my time off and enjoy it!

Sooooooo behind

I'm SOOOOOO behind on blogging. The last few months have been really, really busy and it looks like it's not letting up until January. So, I'll have to post snippets when I can.

Major stuff that's been going on over the last few months:

• Went to San Francisco for Oracle Open World in October,
• Went to Belgium, Amsterdam & Essen, Germany with Chris & Jeremiah,
• Went to BGG.CON in Dallas,
• Went to the Bohemian Grove with Dave for Thanksgiving,
• Baked lots and lots of cookies, and finally...
• Have gone on lots and lots of dates, especially over the last month!

In between all that, I've been working, gaming, cooking, eating and trying to sleep! I'll have to post little tidbits about those adventures (plus any other little ones)!

Housing Swap

I love to travel. And really, the most expensive part of traveling seems to be the airfare and the lodging, whatever form it takes. I've long contemplated trying to find a housing swap to take advantage of the ability I have to work from anywhere.

So I placed an ad on Craigslist stating I have a one bedroom apartment and would be interested in swapping with someone and was open to the destination. So far, offers I've received:

• Swap for 3-6 weeks with a girl from Paris! That would be awesome...
  
• Swap during Jan - Feb for an apartment in the center of Madrid
• Swap during January for a Manhattan apartment that sounds way nicer than mine
• A local who needs a place for her parents to stay when they visit her and the new grandbaby, the parents have a place in northern Italy
• Swap during February with someone in Brooklyn

All good choices. Madrid would certainly be the most adventurous. I'd definitely need to clean up my place. They'd have to take care of my cats too. So, it's going to require some research, but I need to prioritize which of them I'm the most interested in. Hmmmm...

Camp Memories

I went to summer camp once as a child. It was the summer I lived with my dad when I was in third grade. If you know me now, one thing you'll learn is that I don't like extreme temperatures, either hot OR cold. I have very few memories on the camp I went to, but the most vivid one is doing the "polar bear swim" where we had to wake up early and swim across the short end of the very cold pool. It was traumatizing! I think we also sang songs and played Capture the Flag, but other than that, I don't remember a lot. So I've never had happy memories of camp. Luckily, that is all changed!

I rode up Friday night with Jon and we stopped in Bakersfield to pick up Keith. I had made it a condition of traveling that we eat at Moo Creamery, this tasty burger/ice cream place in Bakersfield. If you have never been, you have to stop on your way up. Their onion rings are delicious. I've been here twice. Each time, I think I'll save room for custom-flavored ice cream and I never have room after dinner! Here are a couple pictures of our food:


Onion Rings with Bacon & Blue Burger

Friday's special: Fish & Chips

And then when we came out, we saw this big beetle! I couldn't resist taking a picture!
Beetle outside of Moo Creamery

We arrived around 10:30 on Friday night. By the time we got there, everyone was asleep, so we just got settled in. I spent a few hours in the kitchen on Saturday helping my friend Stephanie cook for all the volunteers that Shane had up there to help close the camp down for the winter. We made grilled cheese sandwiches in the super cool kitchen. Of course I took pictures of both...
Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
The Kitchen

After helping Steph with lunch, she gave me a couple hours off to go explore the camp. Once I took a peek outside, I saw how gorgeous it is up there! It's up in the mountains, which is nice, but I think what I like best is that it's on a lake. Here's a picture I took looking down at the lake from just outside the dining hall.
View of the lake

View of the dock

We spent some time just shooting the breeze down at the dock and it was a blast.

After dinner, I rounded up the Boy Scouts that were volunteering that weekend to play Ultimate Werewolf. They could not get enough of it! We played four games in a row before the parents made them go to bed. It was really fun.

After Werewolf, I went up to the staff house to have a drink with Steph, Rimas, Justin, Christine & Cassie. We hung out for a just a bit and then everyone trickled off to bed. I ended up staying up for a while and to do some star gazing. The stars are stunning up at camp! Without light pollution, it's shocking how many you can see! I forget that there are so many of them!

I was sad to go home on Sunday. I had a great time with the folks up at camp and as I was sitting in my living room on Monday, working on payroll, I just missed the quiet beauty. I can't wait to go back next summer!

White Water Rafting Update

I never gave a recap of the white water rafting... In one very short sentence: It was awesome! It was freezing cold, but awesome.

Saturday was Bridge Day, which happens every third Saturday in October and it's the only day that base jumping is legal in the US. We rafted down the New River and that was OK, not too exciting. However it was great to watch people jump off a bridge over a gorge that's 876 ft above the river and freefall or flip and then toss their parachute into the air. It only takes eight seconds from bridge to river, so they don't even bother packing the chute because there just isn't enough time for it to deploy!!

Sunday was the best. There are two entries in the book "1,000 places to see before you die" for West Virginia and I've now hit one of them. We did the Gauley Marathon, which is the entire Gauley River - covering 23 miles and eight class five rapids. It's impossible to describe, but I'm hoping to get a picture posted soon. I haven't developed my film yet. On the way down to the river, the guides kept saying, "Be nice to us! Today's the last day of the season, so just remember.... we can't get fired!!!" And then the bus erupted into laughter! There was a lot of rubber cock talk going around too because one of the guides carries around a rubber chicken to be his boat mascot. It was hilarious!

I should add that when we woke up on Sunday, it was 30 degrees and we had to melt the ice off of our windshield. Yes, COLD. FREAKIN' COLD. Here's what I was wearing... under my wetsuit!!!
I know it's hard to tell, but I'm wearing TWO layers of long underwear, topped with a SmartWool sweater, wool socks and later, a cap under my helmet! Did I mention it was chilly? On top of all that, I put a farmer John wetsuit and a neoprene jacket & booties. Brrrrrr!

Here are a few more pictures from the trip:
With our river guide for the Gauley Marathon.... Leif!
And with our crazy, enthusiastic kayak-happy videographer... John Petro

BTW - I'd highly recommend our rafting company... If you're looking to do some beautiful white water rafting in West Virginia, call Ace Rafting. They were fabulous! All the guides were cool and had a lot of experience. When they sent me the online survey, I was only too happy to fill it out with glowing reviews. I'm not sure if it was that OR the tip that prompted this note from our guide...

I was completely surprised that he wrote that note and touched. I had a great time hanging out with him all day and you could tell that he had a great heart.

I hope some of the pictures I took on the Lower Gauley turn out well because I took pictures of the fall foilage. It was gorgeous!! I've never seen anything like it!

Weather Update from Beckley, WV

While I'm happy to be having the opportunity to go white water rafting for the first time... I didn't count on the high to be 52F and the low to be 31F. At least the high on Sunday's supposed to be a balmy 61F!!

Sheesh! It'll be fun! I'm psyched!

White Water Rafting This Weekend

I've been very neglectful lately on the blogging. It seems I've barely had enough time to sleep lately, much less blog! Hopefully that will change by next week. I'm going on a trip this weekend, but after that, I'll be home for a shocking four weeks in a row! I'm really looking forward to a few weeks without flying off somewhere. It'll give me a chance to start thinking about Christmas! I feel like Christmas is right around the corner. Where did this year go?!

I'm a bit nervous (and excited) about my next trip. I'm heading out to West Virginia this weekend to do some very chilly, white water rafting. I've never gone rafting before, but it's something I've always been interested in doing. Whenever I've imagined it, I've pictured myself in my bikini, drinking beers on a toasty day on the river. I certainly didn't imagine wearing wool long underwear to keep warm because the water is in the 40s! My friend who went last year said she had a great time, so I'm keeping focused on that! I am already anticipating the sheer exhaustion that will undoubtedly come along with class four and five rivers. I'm just glad I'll have a helmet and a personal flotation device. My goal is to survive!

And as a related side note... On Monday, I made my first trip ev-er to REI. That place is a money pit. I bought some SmartWool long underwear and a sweater. The sweater retailed for $140!!! But it's super-cute and I can wear it hiking on Tuesdays and I love it. They gave me a coupon for 20% off, but even with that, I spent more on clothes than I did for the actual rafting trip. On the plus side, I'm stocked up on all the winter clothes I'll probably ever need for the rest of my life!


Quick update: Here's a video they sent out that shows (in warmer weather!) where I'll be this weekend. Also, I forgot to mention that this weekend is Bridge Day and there will be base jumpers hopping off local bridge that crosses the gorge. We'll get to watch from the water below!



More blogging to come next week... I'm sure there will be a boyfriend update in there somewhere! Until then...

My Quarterly One-in-a-Million

I love to post about the weird things that happen to me because it's usually a case of "Whatta small world!" So, drum roll please... this quarter's weird happening is this...

Last week, I got reconnected with some friends from high school, so I decided to comb through a few years of graduating classes to see who was on Facebook. I saw this guy Andrew on the c/o '89 list that I wasn't friends with, but I knew him because he was a few years ahead of me (c/o '93!). I clicked on his profile and saw that he lives in San Diego and thought, "Yea, someone else who escaped Florida to beautiful California!" But I didn't friend him because I wasn't actually friends with him. Knowing who someone is doesn't really qualify you to be "friends" with them, right?

So, I was hanging out with Travis on Saturday and he was checking his email... I peeked over his shoulder and saw a message from Facebook that said, "Andrew has added you as a friend on Facebook..." I asked Travis, "Wait, open that email... do you know that guy?" and he said, "Yeah, he's one of my San Diego friends, he's really cool!" I couldn't believe it! I told Travis (probably loudly and excitedly), "Oh my goodness! I totally know that guy! He went to my high school! In FLORIDA!!!" And then I got the scoop on him because apparently, Travis has known him since 2002! And Mike knows him too. Isn't that just weird?! Chris said that the fact my high school is across the country does make it even weirder. Especially considering our classes were pretty small back then. I think my class had about 250(?) people and his was even smaller.

So I friended him with a message something like this: Hey, this is Stephanie ____ and I went to ____ HS too (c/o '93) and I just found out that you know Travis & Mike!"

And he friended me back. It will be interesting to see him again. I haven't seen him since 1989. Wow... what are the odds?

I let him talk me into rutabagas!

On my way in to Huntsville for Gulf Games, I stopped at Niki West's Steak and Seafood in Birmingham. It's a big cafeteria and I found it by calling Dave and having him check his "Roadfood" book for any points of interest in Birmingham. He gave me directions over the phone and it was so easy to find, only about a mile off of the freeway.

The food was pretty tasty. I had a fried pork chop and a few side dishes, my favorite being a broccoli, rice & cheese mixture. I let the guy talk me into rutabagas! I'd never had them before, but they were sweet, surprisingly.

It was definitely worth the stop and I'd go there again!

Here was my dinner:

I made it to Mississippi safely

I made it safely to Mississippi and so far am having a wonderful time! Carolyn and her husband Eric have been completely gracious hosts, staying up with me chatting with me until almost 1:00 AM! Their son, Gabriel is totally as cute as his pictures and was amazingly still awake when I arrived! They also have two dogs - Beatrice, a harlequin Great Dane and Chloe, a boxer-lab mix. Chloe loooooves attention, while Beatrice is sort of a bully, but I've been standing my ground. Not as easy as you'd think when you're face to face with a dog that could take a big chunk out of you with one bite! But so far, it's been working!

Tomorrow, I get to sleep in (yea!) and then Carolyn, Gabe & I are going to meet up with Eric for his lunch break at Mint Julep! Apparently, they have awesome fried chicken! Who would've thought I'd be interested in that?! Yes, pictures will be forthcoming. Of people AND food!

Going to the South

I'm headed to Alabama in a couple weeks to go to Gulf Games. I have a friend I met in a discussion room on MSN about personal finance. I had posted a message about anyone wanting a referral to ING for $$ to contact me and I think she may have been the only person who did! Lucky for me! Wow, hard to believe that was back in October 2005!

I've never actually met her, but at the beginning we exchanged several LONG emails and got to "know" one another. I keep up with her and her family through her blog. So, I am thrilled to report that I'm going to visit her before I head over to Huntsville for Gulf Games!

I'm going to fly into Jackson, MS on Tuesday night and drive out to her place, spend the night, hang out with her on Wednesday during the day and then drive up to Huntsville that night! I'm so excited to actually be going out to visit her!! I'm also very excited to see her baby, Gabe! He looks super-cute in the photos. It's been a while since I've been around a baby. Oh, babies. They're so darn cute!

Working for the Weekend

I've never tried to make it seem any other way. My job used to be a pretty cushy one! This week has been crazy! With the promotion has come more work!! I'm hoping it's more of a transitional thing, but I can't be sure for a few months. Now I'm just working on the more money aspect... I apologize for not being in more contact with my friends. Work has been using more than its fair share of energy out of me!

However, I had recently been thinking that my job wasn't challenging enough. I guess this is the answer to my ponderings! It's been stressful, but I'm hoping it will be challenging, fun and a great learning experience. The CEO of the new parent company came out yesterday for a "town hall" meeting. It was pretty informative and the atmosphere they endorse is a good one. So far, my experience in dealing with several other people out-of-state is that the intent seems to be the actuality with regard to helpfulness, lack of politics and teamwork. It might turn out to be better than I had hoped!

That said, I have worked WAAAAAY too much this week, so I can't wait to escape from here this afternoon and run down to LAX to hop on a plane and visit with my sister and nephew this weekend! My nephew turns 8 next week, but he's having a birthday party on Sunday. I'm also going to a holiday party with my sister on Saturday night. I haven't been out to visit them in a while! It's supposed to be downright cold too. My sister called to warn me that the high for Sunday would be in the 20s!! I'm definitely taking the wool/fur coat and the long underwear! Not to mention, gloves, scarf and hat! It'll be nice for a change of pace. Speaking of, I need to run home at lunch and pack!

Game-wise, I borrowed Apples to Apples Jr. for the birthday party. Since it'll be 20 degrees outside, I doubt we'll be turning the kids loose outside!

Home from BGG.CON 2007

I just got home from BGG.CON 2007. I will have to go back and clean up previous blog posts sent from my phone (it doesn't like apostrophes for some reason), but the short of it is that we had a pretty fun time! I will also have to blog in more detail about events at the con.

It's late though and I really need some sleep. Zzzzzzz...

Leaving for BGG.CON tomorrow!

Wow, today has just FLOWN by! I've been trying to get everything done, but didn't succeed. At least the stuff that got left is stuff that's OK to wait until my return on Monday.

And, for the record, Agricola is like gamer gold. I've received more than a few requests from my long distance gamer friends for me to teach them how to play Agricola. And I will be happy to. I feel like I'll be able to recite it in my sleep by the end of the weekend!

My Coolio BGG.CON schedule thus far...
Wednesday: Going for a fancy steak dinner, then setting up
Thursday: Gaming and going to the Spurs vs. Mavericks game
Friday: Puzzle hunt with my hand-picked, totally awesome, smarty-pants team!, Transamerica tournament
Saturday: Game show and more gaming!
Sunday: Gaming plus going to the Redskins vs. Cowboys game

It's going to be a packed weekend. I want to play Agricola once a day if possible while there, eat lots of BBQ and play lotsa Time's Up and Werewolf! OOOOoooo... Ultimate Werewolf!!!

Oh, I feel sorry for everyone NOT going. It's going to be a blast!

Vacation Time

I was working on updating and reconciling the vacation time for all the employees at work and reviewed my own account.

I have been on vacation for 33 days this year (so far!), with another 3 days scheduled off for BGG.CON. Plus, I'll get another week off between Christmas and New Year's because my company is shut down. We have the option of using vacation time to cover two of those days, but I probably won't. I have been off of work for almost two months this year and that's not including holidays.

WOW! And of those days, 20 were paid, so that means, by the end of the year, I'll have 18 days off without pay. I didn't realize it was so high. That's almost a month's worth! I knew I had taken a lot of days off, but putting a number on it like that was shocking!

The breakdown: I earn 10 hours a month of vacation (three weeks a year) and I started the year with about 9 days of vacation. So, I still actually have a day or two on the books. But I think I better save them up because I'm already starting to plan the trips I want to take next year!! I might have to consider taking less vacation time though... or not. Life is for living, right?

Essen 2007 - Thursday

Somehow I managed to take an expired ATM card with me on vacation, so I had to get money from Ron all throughout France and Belgium. We kept doing the Avenue Q "Bad Idea Bear" voice, "We should get more mo-ney!" everyday. It's amazing how fast you can burn through cash in Paris. Hardly anywhere takes credit cards in Europe, so it's pretty much cash-and-carry.

Why do I mention this? Because Thursday morning was spent trying to find a bank to give me an advance on my Visa. While I did this, Ron met up with a friend of ours who had obtained a couple of exhibitors' passes for us. So, we didn't have to buy tickets and the exhibitor passes give the holders free subway and bus usage during the time of the show! That saved us a bundle of money, which of course, was just spent on games!

There is only one bank in Essen that can do cash advances on a Visa card. It is the Reise Bank at the main station in Essen. It's upstairs right next to the Burger King. Burger King has a new product in Germany... a Whopper topped with jalopenos and onions and apparently, it's very "angry"! I had to take a picture!

Angry Whopper

I took out 600 Euros and then headed back to the Messe to continue the buying spree!

I went in and watched a group play In the Year of the Dragon, a new Alea game. Then I wandered about, picking up the new Settlers scenario from Kosmos and other tidbits.

We ran into Eric who was sent to Essen by Doug Garrett and I think the shirt speaks for itself!

Eric

We walked around, browsing booths, stopped by to say "hi" to Ted and Jeremiah. Ted was there selling his Age of Steam maps, his brand new Ultimate Werewolf (I *had* to buy a copy of this!) and his CCG Start Player. Here's the guys, hanging at the booth!

Ted and Jeremiah at the Bezier Games booth

We then stopped by the Bambus Spiele booth and played Down Under. Gunter Cornett, the designer, taught us how to play. Unfortunately for Dale, he had only preliminary copies. It is currently in production.

Me, Gunter Cornett, Ron and Dale

We went by the Ystari booth to check out the Caylus in 3D that we had heard about. It was SUPER cute!!

The whole game board

Close-up of the castle

Close-up of Buildings

We stopped by another game booth that had Liebe & Intrige, a game with a very cute theme (you're trying to marry off your three Victorian daughters!), but just a so-so game. We had more fun hamming it up than with the actual gameplay. I liked it, but not enough to shell out the cash for it.

We ran into Scott & Nataline and I played a quick game of Carcassonne with Scott. Before we started, he asked, "So just how many hours have you spent playing Guitar Hero?" I replied, "A LOT!"

We walked around more and then soon joined a big group to go eat Egyptian food for dinner. I had never had it before and it was pretty tasty. It's pretty typical food from that region of the world: grilled marinated meats, rice, veggies. The food was pretty good, but the service was not so friendly.

I should preface the next paragraph with the following information: The conversion rate while we were in Europe was about $1.42=1 Euro AND you don't "tip" in Europe. It's included in the price of the meal. So the higher the bill, the more the server will make automatically, whether they're fabulous or terrible. OK, with that in mind...

One thing that was SO annoying in Europe was that it's almost impossible to get a free glass of water in a restaurant. They will almost NEVER bring you tap water to drink, even if you specify that's what you want. At this restaurant, I did manage to squeeze one glass of water out of our server, but when I asked for a refill, they brought me a bottle of water that costs 2.50 Euros (about $3.50 for a small bottle) and when I asked again for tap water, they pretended like they couldn't speak English and didn't understand me. Soda is about 3 Euros and it's non-refillable. Beer at the hotel was about 1.75 Euros! I ended up drinking a lot of beer while we were in Europe because it was cheaper than drinking water or soda! I suppose that's enough of a rant about that!

Our Egyptian Dinner Group

The Appetizer Plate

Mixed plate with sausage, shrimp, chicken and lamb

After dinner, we headed back over to the Savoy for some gaming! Ron and I played Giganten der Luft with Brian and Jim. Ron liked it better than I did. It's okay, but I think for a dice-rolling, upgrading-to-more-better-dice game of the sort, I'd rather play To Court the King.

By this time, it was getting late, so we booked out of there and luckily caught the very last subway to get home! When we got back to the hotel, we were tired, so we just went to bed. At least I don't remember staying up to play anything.

Pre-Essen 2007

Essen is a gamer's mecca! When I got more into gaming, I thought, "That is where I need to go!" It helps too that I love traveling and immediately decided that I could extend the trip to more than just those four days. I mean, really! Who wants to take a 12 hour plane ride just to turn around 4 days later and come home? Not me! So I found a traveling partner (Ron, at the moment, my favorite person to travel with!) and we narrowed our trip down to France or Italy and then decided on Paris, France.

Tuesday
We met up with Ward in Amsterdam on Monday and traveled with him on Tuesday to Essen. Once we got him settled in, we ran into Dale & Brian and hung out and went out to the Curryhaus and had sausages with this like curried ketchup sauce on them. It wasn't as gross as it sounds and even better, it was CHEAP! I can't remember what we did after that, I think just hung out and played a game probably!

Wednesday
We had to do laundry when got up and ended up (due to having trouble finding the hotel) being late to the Agricola demo that we had signed up for. By the time we got there, they had already started. But luckily Curt & Anne were there playing, so we got to catch up with them! Then I think we ran into Dale, Greg & Ward. Plus, this started the game buying spree! I bought a copy of Agricola and the Fan Bohnanza which has different artwork for each card. I had all of them autographed by Uwe Rosenberg, the designer of the games.

Curt and Anne playing Agricola

We then walked around and I bought more games (mainly the ones I was worried would sell out) and we went back to our hotel to drop them off. Meanwhile, it started raining! When we got everything up to the room, we headed down to the bar of the restaurant because we had seen some people with games on the table and thought we could maybe meet some people to play a game with. So we headed down and stopped at the first table. They were playing a game I'd never seen before and with good reason! We discovered after sitting there a little bit that these guys were pitching their prototypes to Kosmos! It was interesting to hear the comments from the Kosmos guy. We talked to the designer guys and found out that they were from Italy and work together. They were: Leo Colovini, Carlo A. Rossi, Alfredo Berni, Dario de Toffoli and Alessandro Zucchini (AKA: Alex). I never really spoke to Leo or Dario, but we did end up hanging out with Alfredo, Carlo and Alex a few times.

Here are a few pics of the Italian guys:

Carlo in black & Alex in white

Me and Alfredo

Ron, Alfredo and Leo

Later in the evening, we met up with Ted, Patrick and Jeremiah to play Jamaica with people who helped make the game - Laurent and Malcolm. We were later joined by Sebastien Pauchon, designer of Yspahan and Jamaica. We had fun and I got a chance to chat with Sebastien and tell him how much I love Yspahan!!

Sebastien with Jamaica box

Malcolm and Laurent

Meanwhile Dale & Brian showed up and I played Jamaica with them while Ron moved over to play Parys, a prototype of the new Ystari game coming out. He liked it quite a bit. I never did get a chance to play it.

Then the Italian guys showed up and we decided to bust out my new copy of Master of Rules and try that out. It's pretty good!

Carlo, Ron, Tim and Alfredo

BTW - Tim is from Edmonton and was on his honeymoon and happened to notice that Essen was happening. He was super nice. His wife Jocelyn was too!

Alfredo and me being goofy

Wow! I am realizing that ALL this happened BEFORE the show even started!! Yikes. This is going to have to be broken up. So there you go. The pre-Essen breakdown!

Lots of stuff to do tonight

Yesterday, I made a coffee date for tonight with a guy I met online. Other than that, I have a TON of stuff to do tonight. My apartment is loaded with games and I am terribly behind on blogging about the trip. I'm so tempted to get a laptop sometimes. Is there a way to rent them? That would've been great to have one with me. I could've written about stuff while on the train and then just posted it later when I got to an internet cafe.

I arrived home on Sunday with almost nothing to do for the next week and now I have five straight days of gaming lined up! It seems that having games from Essen can make me a very popular girl! :-)

I started writing up some posts about my trip and I think what's going to happen is that they are going to be posted out of order. I'm starting with Essen since that's freshest in my mind. But it's somewhat slow going because work is really busy right now. I'm hoping to get something posted tonight in between cleaning and laundry. And I really want to post pictures with the posts. I haven't even looked through all 627 pictures yet! I'm getting on it though. I have to, because Wednesday starts the game fest that is my life.

Safely back home

I made it back home last night, went straightaway to get some yummy carnitas tacos at Las Fuentes. Ron and I had to get back to my apartment to sort out our bags because we had clothes stuffed all over the place. I downloaded my 627 pictures I took while on vacation too, but it will just take me some time to sort them out and recap our adventures.

Overall, we had a great time and it feels like I was gone for months, not just two weeks! Luckily, I hit the "I'm ready to go home now" on Saturday, the day before we did come home!

I'm back at work, sorting through my hundreds of email and trying to make sure nothing went horribly wrong while I was gone. I'll try to post this week about our trip!