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Back in May I mentioned that Julie and I committed to doing a sprint triathlon this summer.  This weekend Julie and I finished the Mid-Summer Triathlon, held on the NE side of Portland around Blue Lake.

Julie swimming her first leg.  She had a great time of around 13 minutes for the half-mile swim.

Saturday Julie participated in the women’s sprint triathlon, which is about half the distance of a full olympic triathlon (1/2 mile swim, 12.5 mile bike, 3 mile run).  She set some lofty goals for herself and surpassed them easily; in fact, she finished 38th overall and 7th in her age division.

Julie with Jacob and Matthew after her finish.

I’m not surprised that she did so well, having trained with her.  She has stayed in much better shape than I over the years and if she’s conitnues training I think she could become competitive.

After Julie’s event the boys participated in the splash, pedal, and dash event.  This was a fun little event – 50 yard swim, 3/4 bike ride, 1/4 mile run.

Jacob getting ready for his swim.

The best result from this event was that both boys are now very interested in getting into some more competitive events – we’re going to try and get them to run a 5k with us sometime before the end of the year.

Matthew takes off on the bike segment.

I was more than a bit nervous about my event.  The swim in particular is intimidating, even though I’ve been training for several months.  Swimming more than a few lengths of a pool was unheard of for me just a short year ago, and I still think I have a ways to go technique-wise.  I definitely have a ways to go conditioning-wise.  My goal for the tri was to finish in less than 1:45 – to do that I thought I needed to finish the swim in 20 minutes.  This is about the pace I’ve been able to do in the pool.

Here I am running from the swim to the transition area for the bike ride.

 Things in the lake were a bit tougher than I expected.  My split time there was around 23 minutes or so (results haven’t been posted yet).  At least I know what I need to work on…

Near the finish of the bike leg.

 The bike portion was a blast – mostly flat along Marine Dr. and the Columbia River.  I was able to average about 16–17MPH without really pushing myself too hard.  This is significantly better than I’ve been able to do around Sherwood on rides that involved more hill climbing and wind.  I finished the bike in just over 45 minutes, just slightly over my goal.

My chase team follows me in at the end of my run.

The run portion went almost exactly as expected.  My pace these days is at around a 10 minute mile, which offers plenty of room for improvement.  To think that in high school I could run about 6:30 pace… a small amount of weight loss and more speed training should get me closer to an 8 minute pace.

My supports with me after the finish.

In the end I’m glad I did it, but this is not something I want to do more than 1–2 times per year.  Julie and I have committed to doing more events throughout the year (mostly runs) to keep us focused, then resume triathlon training in the spring for (perhaps) the same event.  This is a great one for beginners as the bike and run are both flat.

Here are some tips for Podcasters to make the listening experience a bit more user friendly:

• Number your episodes sequentially.  This makes it easy to determine if I've missed an episode and helps sort them in my media library and my playing device.
• Include the episode number in the first 10 characters or so of the title tag.  Most media players do not have a lot of screen real estate and it can be very difficult to select the right episode without this information early in the title.  Check out the Tips from the Top Floor feed; each of the episodes starts with tftf## title making it extremely easy to sort and view them in my iPod.  Boardgames To Go also does a good job in this area, while the Dice Tower has been inconsistent in their title tags (though they do keep the episode number).  GeekSpeak (BoardGameSpeak?) uses date information in the title but I would rather see them go with a format like bgs## - Show Title instead.  Dates are better left in the RSS or Atom tags, which leads to my next point...
• Include the pubDate tag in your feed!  If you do this, you don't need to put it in the title.  The Dice Tower needs to add this to its feed.
• There are a number of iTunes-specific RSS tags that are probably worth considering if you want to play well in their classification scheme. 

There are a few new(er) ones on the block worth mentioning:

• Lumbersmiths - Jeff has been a long-time reader of my weblog and is now recording the adventures of his own gaming group down in Dallas (hey, we need to hook up at BGG.Con!).  So far he's doing a fine job - I especially like the photos.
• Gone Gaming by Boredgamegeeks - This looks promising.  While similar to the GameWire collection of weblogs, there are two things that stand out as better for me: I can read all of the entries together at the site, and the RSS feed has full content.  I understand why GameWire does not (they want to direct traffic to GameFest), but reading postings offline is a must for me so full-content RSS feeds == goodness.
• &games  – Not a new weblog, but I only recently discovered it.  Coldfoot does a nice job and has some entertaining commentary.

We had a family meeting Wednesday night and decided to do a game night Friday evening.  Jacob and I will be on the coast at Adventure Cove camping with the Cub Scouts while Matthew and Julie will spend the week at Camp Ireland at day camp – we needed some time together with just the four of us.  Consensus was to start with a light opener then tackle the new Days of Wonder release Shadows Over Camelot.

I was eager to finally try the light auction game For Sale. I recently picked up the Uberplay reprint and was able to teach the game in less than 5 minutes; we played in about 20.

Jacob, Julie, and Matthew during our game of For Sale.

This was a big hit!  Jacob pulled out the victory with Julie and I close behind tied for second.  Matthew wasn’t that far back and everyone enjoyed it.  I love games with a simple mechanic or two that can be played quickly.  For Sale is played in two phases: first is the buying of properties, second is the selling.  When buying properties, a number of cards are turned up equal to the number of players who then bid in clockwise fashion for the privilege of getting the best property.  When a player passes he gives half of his bid (rounded up) to the bank and takes the worst available property.  The player with the highest bid after all of the other players have passed pays the full amount of the bid and gets the best property.  This is repeated until all of the properties have been auctioned.

Next comes the selling phase.  In addition to the property cards, there are an equal number of “checks” that correspond to the income from selling cards.  This phase starts with a random draw of a number of checks equal to the number of players – the checks are valued anywhere from 0 to $15,000.  Each player secretly chooses a property to sell, then all players simultaneously reveal.  The best property revealed gets the best check, and so on.  Simple but elegent, this one should come out often.

We then decided to learn and play the new cooperative game Shadows Over Camelot.  Coop games are generally a big hit in my family, and for many reasons I like Jacob and Matthew to play games where they work together rather than against each other.

Jacob and Matthew strategize in Shadows Over Camelot.

 The production of this game is, as expected, first rate (read about the mechanics here).  Learning the game was not trivial – I’m glad I was able to observe part of a session at work first, as learning from the rulebook was a bit challenging for everyone.  We misplayed a few rules in our first game, and I suspect we are violating the spirit of the discussion/cooperation rules.  Who cares – we had a blast.

Julie, Jacob, and Matthew examining the board.

We lost our first game to the siege engines but it was close.  Everyone wanted a re-match tonight (Saturday) so we gave it another try.  It played much faster this time and we won fairly easily.  In both games we played without the traitor – I wanted us to win as a group before introducing that element of the game.  Next time we’ll give it a try.

I somewhat reluctantly started listening to Podcasts about a month or two ago.  I say reluctantly because initially I didn’t really see the point of downloading amateurish audio content, plus the mechanics of listening in the “early days” (5–6 months ago) were a bit of a pain.  I did listen to the first 6 GeekSpeak episodes last year on my PC but dropped out for several months.  This June I took the time to wire up iTunes and my iPod to a few Podcasts using the fantastic iPodder software and subscribed to the trifecta of GeekSpeak, BoardGames To Go, and The Dice Tower.  They are now regular commute listening for me, and Jacob has even been requesting Geek Speak when we drive out to the coast.   I’ve listened to each enough to write some commentary, so here goes.

As far as boardgame oriented Podcasts go, this is the one that started it all.  Derk and Aldie (Aldie and Derk?) continue to innovate with BoardGameGeek and GeekSpeak sets the benchmark by which the others will be measured.  This show has the A-list guests and the shows continue to improve.  Some highlights include Mike Fitzgerald, Peter Sarrett, and Guido Teuber.  I’m less fond of some of the interludes in the show – the Origins reporting by Ted Cheatham was painful and the audio quality of Aldie’s soundseeing tour of the Gathering was poor.  When they stick to their core, which is interviewing notable guests.  This podcast also happens to be Jacob’s favorite, mostly because of Derk’s antics. Maybe it would hurt the chemistry, but at times I do wish Derk would tone down the sarcastic digs against his guests (and Reiner).  I guess I expect more respect for the guests – a few pokes now and then are fine but keep it professional.  Think of GeekSpeak as the Daily Show of boardgame Podcasts.

Mark Johnson has maintained a popular weblog for some time and recently started producing a Podcast on boardgames.  Mark’s Podcast is more of a solo effort and has a keen focus on reviews, session reports, and special topics of interest to Mark.  Mark is also experimenting with including his kids on Podcasts – I think this is a great idea when done in moderation.  It is difficult enough for the run-of-the-mill amateur Podcaster to maintain a level of quality to keep audience interest; with kids on the show I think the challenge is even greater.  Mark is at his best when he covers special topics, and his intro shows (Intro to Podcasting and Intro to Boardgames) are top notch.  I particularly like Mark’s humility (Derk could use a bit more of this ) and willingness to listen to listener feedback and adjust accordingly.  Think of Mark and Boardgames To Go as the the Jim Lehrer of Podcasts.  A bit dry at times, but solid content worth tuning into.

The Dice Tower is the brainchild and production of Tom Vasel and Joe Steadman. For entertainment value, The Dice Tower sits right in between GeekSpeak and Boardgames To Go.  I appreciate that Tom and Joe aren’t trying to just be another Derk and Aldie – they’ve taken a unique approach to their shows, relying on banter and the push-pull of their different interests.  Tom prefers European-style boardgames while Joe is a grognard wargame enthusiast.  I particularly enjoy their top 10 lists (favorite publishers, favorite gateway games, etc.) as it is interesting hearing their different views and the ensuing dialog.  At times their banter becomes a bit too vitriolic for my tastes – I understand they are good friends and the jabs are probably good natured, but without knowing them (and seeing body language) the exchanges seem a bit over-the-top at times.  I suggest they tone down the conflict and keep it civil without losing the healthy debates that make the show entertaining.  Think of the Dice Tower as the Hannity and Colmes of boardgame Podcasts.

Well, that’s just one man’s opinion and I’ll keep listening to all three and hope to see even more (unique) Podcasts show up on the net.

Here are some snapshots from this year's visit to Keuka Lake in western NY (we do this every year - read more here).

Julie's college roomate Deb joined us for the July 4 weekend; I took her new husband Eli and son Philip out sailing on the flying dutchman.

Philip loved playing Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper (my new favorite).  Recommendation: listen to the GeekSpeak interview of this game's designer Mike Fitzgerald.

We had a rousing game of Bang! that everyone enjoyed.

At the very end of our trip last year we picked up a used Walker Bay rowboat.  This is now one of Jacob's favorite activities, though Matthew certainly enjoys being a passenger.

We had a great skiing year - Jacob was able to get up and stay up on a slalom ski (not shown here) and Matthew was able to ski on two.

Jacob and I spent three mornings out fishing deep for lake trout.  We did reasonably well, cooking fish for two meals.  This picture was our big surprise - a 19 inch largemouth caught about 40 feet below the surface.