We've been pretty busy over the past month, but not so busy that I have a good excuse to not write.  Let's get caught up, shall we?

We spend the week between Christmas and New Years in Florida on the east coast just north of Vero Beach.  It was a big group - a total of about 15 - so we rented a big house on the coast and had a great time doing community meals, boogie-boarding on the beach, and just hanging out in beautiful 80 degree weather.  Dec 28 marked my 40th birthday and Julie went beyond reason and staged a massive scavenger hunt with the whole group, concluding in the mall where we managed to get asked to leave 'cause they don't allow scavenger hunts there.  We ignored them and did the best we could to stay under the radar, though it was hard to do so decorated as I was.

Other activities included sea kayaking on the Indian river, manatee chasing, airboat riding, golfing, and werewolf-playing.

The boys are doing very well this season playing classic/select basketball, especially considering how little experience they have.  Jacob is really getting a feel for playing post, at times dominating on offense but always a force on defense.  Season highlight so far is a game when he scored 23 points and had over 10 rebounds.  He certainly is growing into his skin and getting more comfortable making strong moves to the basket, and his shooting form has improved dramatically.

Matthew is a similar player - extremely strong on defense and rebounding, and just now growing into being an offensive player.  This makes sense as their athleticism can substitute for lack of experience on defense, but they really need practice and experience on ball handling and shooting.

On January 1 I took over as the President of the Board of Directors for TechStart Education Foundation (formerly the Software Association of Oregon Foundation).  I've served on the board for several years and was proud to succeed Andrew Shakman, the only president we've ever had at TechStart.  This is a volunteer position but feels like a half-time job right now, though I'm sure it will ease off as we work through the transition.  If you live in Oregon and are looking for ways to contribute to technology education for K-12, let me know.

Speaking of TechStart, Julie and I won a trip to see The Decemberists with David Hersh (CEO of Jive Software) at the TechStart Wine Gala last fallad. We finally got to see them last week after  canceled their December shows. Amazing show!  Excellent singing and acoustics brought their recent album The Crane Wife to life - great stuff.

I'm staying very involved in the local chess scene, running the chess programs at Archer Glen and Sherwood Middle School.  We had our warm-up local Sherwood tournament last Friday and Archer Glen managed to retain the coveted Jack Weeks Cup, and Matthew had an outstanding day, scoring 5 points in the 6-round tournament and earning co-champion ranking with two others.

Next up are the elementary and middle school Chess for Success regional tournaments that we are hosting here in Sherwood in February.  Hopefully we'll have some kids qualify for the state tournament.

I continue to play around and develop my photography skills (or at least pretend like I am).  Last week I journeyed up into Washington with Greg Jackson to visit Wolf Haven International for a wolf photo shoot.  This was an amazing experience as we spent all morning visiting the various wolf enclosures with other photographers.  I rented a monster Canon 600mm prime lens for the day just to see what it could do.  Amazing lens but HUGE (as you can see above), but I did get some nice shots.  Check out my photo set on Flickr for more wolf shots.

Finally, as of tomorrow I won't be able to say I'm in the middle of a mini retirement as I'm going to do some part-time consulting work for FiServ, who bought CheckFree, who bought Corillian.  Still, I won't let this stand in the way of my volunteer work, our planned vacation to Europe in March, or our 6-week visit to Keuka Lake NY in the summer. It sure will be fun to hang out with some of my old comrades from Corillian and get back on the road helping sell online banking.

Now there's one more reason Matthew will buckle down and save for a Wii.

Because there is a pretty sizable group or Portland-area techie folks that read this blog, I thought I would post this request. ORTOP needs more judges for the state tournament on January 19-20! I'll be judging on Sunday, January 20.

I just finished tabulating my games played for 2007 for Mark Jackson's annual Five & Dime report. This was a down year for me in terms of total games played (only 154) mostly due to a serious lull in gaming as I was finishing up my work around the CheckFree / Corillian acquisition then transitioning to, ahem, mini-retired life. I had one session a month in May, June, and July, then recorded zero games played until September. Things got back into full swing at BGG.CON and I've resumed my regular playing habits.

For reference here is my 2003 Report. Tabulating was harder this year as I recorded my games played manually in my Game Journal. As the year went on, more and more I was tracking games played in my Field Notes notebook, so in 2008 I'm just going to record sessions in BGG.

Dimes:

• Magic: the Gathering

Nickels:

• Command & Colors: Ancients
• Combat Commander: Europe
• Arkadia
• 18xx
• Race for the Galaxy
• Foppen
• Werewolf
• Tichu

Almost made the cut with 4 plays:

• Canal Mania
• Brass

Clearly there's a healthy dose of heavy games on this list, and as predicted last year my game playing and purchasing has taken a swing towards wargames. This also reflects a trend in my local gaming group.

I ran my weekly Game On! games class for 3-5 graders again this fall and had a great time; I think the kids did too.  I surveyed 22 of the kids at the end of the class and had them rank their top 3 games in order.  Every game got at least a few votes, so that's a good sign that I'm bringing games that kids want to play.  The table below shows the final ranking, with the score based on 3 points for 1st, 2 points for 2nd, 1 point for 3rd.  I also show the total number of kids voting for that particular game - pretty amazing that 20 of the 22 kids had Incan Gold on their top 3 list.

Game	Score	Total Votes
Incan Gold	50	20
Saboteur	27	14
Tsuro	14	9
Hey! That's My Fish	13	8
Walk the Dogs	11	5
TransEuropa	9	5
Slide 5 (aka 6 Nimmt)	8	5

We didn't get a chance to play Werewolf this year - I suspect it would have given Incan Gold a run for its money.  I thought Slide 5 would do better, but the game is a bit dry and subtle for the elementary school crowd in my opinion.  Incan Gold and Saboteur are very thematic and interactive and are sure hits in family and kid settings.

A short while back Steve (I think Steve Sexton, though I'm not sure) asked me to post my all-time top 10 games.  Here they are, but I'm not even going to try and post them in order - how do you rank For Sale against Combat Commander?  While there is a tad cult-of-the-new flavor to this list, there are certainly some old classics here as well.

• Magic: the Gathering - You don't need to empty the piggy bank to enjoy this game, though it is worth spending $30-$50 each year to try out new expansion theme decks.  Or... watch eBay and buy theme decks in sets from a few years ago and lag behind the new releases.  I don't think there's ever been a more innovative gaming system design than Magic, and this game is the reason why I got back into the gaming hobby exactly 13 years ago this week while spending Christmas in Vegas with Julie's mom and brothers.
• Antike - While this game is far from perfect there are so many things I like about it and it is always a blast when I get to sit down and play it.  The human factors and graphical design are first-rate.  The rondel was a significant innovation in action-selection mechanic.  It plays very fast with minimal downtime - how many build/explore/conquer games have that trait?
• For Sale - My favorite filler, this is a game you can play with kids, non-gamers, and hardcore gamers.  My parents have a copy and we hope to get some games in during our Christmas Florida trip.
• Amun-Re - This is my favorite Knizia game and every time I play it I'm reminded of how much I miss seeing new heavy Knizia games.  While there are many who think this is a weaker entry in Knizia's list of games, I don't think I'm out of line putting this on my list as it continues to stake out a top 50 spot on BoardGameGeek.
• Twilight Struggle - I'm very enamored with card-driven games right now so I figured I should put one on the list.  While TS is my favorite so far, I think Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage could easily replace this game if I can manage to get a few more plays in.
• Combat Commander - Along with Twilight Struggle this is a newish game that perhaps needs more time to stabilize, but Jacob and I just played this again with one of the new paratrooper scenarios (25a I think, morning on the ghost front at the start of the Bulge) and loved it.  It took a little while to re-acquaint ourselves with the rules, but nothing like what we've gone through in the past with other squad-level wargames (ahem, ASL?).
• Ticket to Ride: Europe - The Ticket to Ride family of games are the best gateway games out there, and TtR:Europe is my favorite of the crop.  I like the tighter board and use of stations, plus the geography makes for a more interesting game for us ignorant Americans.
• Wallenstein - If I had to choose a single favorite game, the next three would all be candidates.  Wallenstein (and the newer release Shogun) was probably the first heavy Euro game I played and is a game I will play just about anywhere, anytime.  I've logged a ton of plays on Spielbyweb but there's nothing quite like the real-life experience of dropping wooden cubes into a tower and seeing what falls out.
• Acquire - I never played this back in the 70s and 80s when I was hooked on Avalon Hill wargames and APBA sports games so my experience is more recent with the Hasbro/Avalon Hill edition.  This game is simply a masterpiece of design that stands the test of time and holds up against all modern challengers.
• 18xx - I'm a newcomer to 18xx games and play with a very friendly (read: not cut-throat) crowd and have grown to love the system and its games.  The mechanics and rules just feel natural and right to me, probably because the games are decent simulations of real-life business with very few abstractions getting in the way.

Well, there's the list!  Feel free to challenge entries or omissions in the comments.

I hosted another fantastic weekend of gaming about a weekend ago at Salishan.  We enjoyed our largest crowd ever, peaking at about 15 people, and though things were a bit crowded the gaming action was non-stop and very fulfilling.  You can see more photos at my Flickr site.  You should also check out Mike's posts on day 1, day 2, and day 3.

As for the games I played, there seemed to be a higher percentage of heavier games than in years past.  Here's the list:

• Duel in the Dark
• Lost Cities (these first two were actually played at my home with Mike while we awaited KC's arrival for the carpool)
• Vegas Showdown
• Race for the Galaxy (x4)
• Ra
• Tichu
• R-Eco
• League of Six
• King of Siam
• Power Grid (with new power plant deck on the USA map)
• Mordred
• Limits
• To Court the King
• Conquest of Paradise (x2)
• Razzia
• Magic: the Gathering
• Indonesia
• Zing
• Canal Mania (x2)
• Cuba
• Antike
• Brass

I was thrilled that Jacob came along and spent much more time boardgaming than Wii- or XBox-gaming.  He and Brandon stayed very engaged with us boring adults throughout the weekend and each won their fair share of games.

Not that there wasn't any Wii action going on.

KC (and sometimes Jacob) and I entertained (?) everyone with some acoustic guitar playing and singing.  KC and I have a nice partnership going - I choose the songs, strum the simple chords, sing lead vocal while KC improvises solo lines while singing harmonies.

New game highlights for me were League of Six and Conquest of Paradise.  I did very poorly in League of Six but enjoyed the mechanics and tension in the game, though it may be a bit too chaotic with 5 players.  Conquest of Paradise is a very nice exploration game with just enough conflict to keep wargamers interested.

Thanks to my guests for being such nice... guests, and thanks to the cooks for preparing meals for all of us.  Until next year!

I use Google Reader to read syndicated blogs, and have started to be more thorough about sharing interesting posts I read. If you are interested in subscribing to this, check out my Google Reader Shared Items feed.

This may rank as the dumbest, most inane video you watch this year so feel free to just move along. Really, there's nothing to see here.

Still here? Enjoy the show. This was done over about a 1 hour period a few nights ago using GarageBand and some basic audio equipment. Jacob did a nice job on electric guitar and I especially appreciate the hard work Gabbi put into her vocal performance. That solid percussion section and backup vocal work you here is from none other than Julie and Matthew.

I finally got around to compiling a highlight video for Jacob's season. These are all defensive highlights - look for #66, usually starting as a left defensive end.