I'm sitting here at a coffee shop in downtown Hammondsport, NY uploading some photographs for an online photography course I'm taking over at BetterPhoto.com. We're having a blast as usual on Keuka Lake. Waterskiing, tubing, just hanging out. Jacob caught a lunker 21 inch lake trout early Monday morning that we ate for lunch. We may go out again Friday morning to get enough for a fish fry Friday night.

This really is a special place for us and we regret not making it last summer. We are trying to work out a plan for next summer that would allow us to spend 6 weeks here next summer - this would involve a significant change in baseball plans. The goal is to teach the boys some stewardship for the cottages and get deep into the area, including attending the local Boy Scout summer camp nearby on a neighboring lake.

I recently borrowed 18FL from Eric Landes to try another easier 2-player 18xx game with Jacob. We played a couple of weekends ago, again with good results, but it is clearly time to move onto some multiplayer 18xx. Playing with two players (especially as nice as we play) does drag a bit towards the end-game - we felt as if we were on autopilot and stopped a turn short with the bank nearly out of money but not quite.

Jacob played the southern tier primarily, building the line to Cuba knowing it would get wiped out, then building it again in the final phase. When I say we played nice, I mean real nice - nobody tokened out Ft. Lauderdale or Miami, allowing the northern lines to run freely to Cuba.

Final scores: Chris $9,747, Jacob $7,995. Time to reach out to Eric to schedule a 3 or 4 player game, perhaps we try out 1850 again and play along the Mississippi.

Blogging from the iphone here... Still not too used to typing on this gadget. We are off to NY to visit Keuka lake for a week. Stay tuned - maybe you'll see some photos of lake trout or sailboats soon.

Matthew's team went undefeated during the regular season and finished fourth in the state at the Midget Federal level - a great accomplishment though we know they could easily have finished first in the state as they beat each of the teams that finished ahead of them at least twice during the season. That's why you play the games though!

• Memorial Day Tournament in Bend
• Reedville Federal Tournament
• vs. Westview
• State Tournament

• Memorial Day Tournament in Bend
• Reedville Junior Federal Tournament
• vs. Westview
• Newberg Junior Federal Tournament

• Get back to posting more regularly. I promise to post every day for the next three months, with the exception of days when I don't feel like it. I have a backlog of posts to write on topics such as baseball, photography, and Max Michael and family visiting.
• Do a lot of photography. I'm taking an online course at BetterPhoto and am loving it.
• Coach football. I'll be assisting my friend Jim again this fall, running the defense for Matthew's 5th-6th grade team. This starts August 6.
• Get back to playing more games. I'm averaging 1 session per month right now, and I'd like to get it up to 1 per week.
• Reflect. My main "work" to do over the next 3 months is to reflect, brainstorm, and start acting on some of the vocational ideas I have churning around in my brain right now. I'll probably write about this process right here.
• Hang out. Be more of a day-to-day presence with Julie and the boys. Jacob and I are out at Salishan right now. We golfed yesterday and plan on doing some surf casting on the beach in about 45 minutes. This sort of casual time is critical right now for the boys.

I'm 99% certain that this is the first digital photograph I ever took.  Back in April 1997 I purchased an Epson PhotoPC 500 for a tidy sum (I bet you can buy a decent DSLR body for the same amount today!) and tried it out with some shots of Jacob at age 2.  Hard to believe I've been taking digital shots for over 10 years now.

Gaming sessions have been few and far between over the past 2 months.  I looked at my game journal and noticed an entry on May 1 (my session at Mike's) and one play of Battleground: Fantasy Warfare with Jacob on May 15.  Needless to say I was excited to host a few friends for gaming last night.

We had a special guest: Peter Drake from Lewis and Clark College.  Peter is a professor of computer science there and will be using 24/7: the Game as a game to implement for a spring CS course next year.  He is using agile development techniques (eXtreme Programming I believe) and wants to have periodic visits from a real onsite customer, so he reached out to Sunriver Games.  Last night was a chance for him to meet the designer, get a copy of the game, and join us for some gaming.

I invested no time ahead of the session learning anything new (I'm itching to play Winds of Plunder) so I suggested the classic Union Pacific.  Most of us have played the game many times, but we still managed to screw up the rules.  We forgot to have each player secretly lay down a company share at the start of the game.  When the first scoring round came up, nobody had any shares out so nobody scored.  Probably not a big deal.

I always enjoy this game, but lately I wonder if I should just be playing Ticket to Ride (or one of the expansions) instead.  There's less tension in UP than TtR I think, and it can become all too clear who is going to win as you hit the second to last scoring round.

Peter wanted to learn how to play 24/7 so Carey taught the game and we played a four-player partnership game.  Dave and I absolutely crushed Carey and Peter, nearly doubling their score.  There's a decent amount of luck-of-the-draw in the game but I always enjoy it.  We had some nice discussions about how to best implement an artificial intelligence (AI) for the game, something Peter will likely include in his class.

We completed the evening with a game of Loco!, the Knizia card game.  I played this once before and enjoyed it then, but playing it a second time makes me realize just how chaotic the game is.  We all struggled with choices on what cards to play - either we just don't get the game, or there really aren't good approaches to the game with four players.  I think I would have enjoyed a game of Tichu or Die Sieben Siegal more.