Gaming Weekend

Had a pretty long weekend of gaming. Friday I went over to Jeff’s place again and we played a couple of quick games and chatted for awhile. I found out he’s from San Diego area and went to college for a degree in Film. Saturday I went over to Dan’s place and played various games. I met some good people there, in the one game of Hacienda it was Jim, Eric, Mark, and Greg. Also played a great old game called Merchants of Venus. Then I went over to Max’s later that night. Sunday was another day of gaming at Jeff’s again with Jessie, Brian, and Dave. I got in a game of Cosmic Encounter among many others. That game day might have gone on a little too long as people started to I think get on each others nerves or something towards the end. But overall it was good. Monday I took off from work and mainly just hung around the house. Good weekend all in all.

Hiking in the Dark

Well the past few days have a been a lot of fun. Thursday I went over to Greg’s house and played a game of Kingmaker with him, Jeff, Dan, and Dave. He had a great house and a very neatly decorated game room. I then went over to Jeff’s on Friday night for a game of GCACW, which ended up being a 7 hour war game. I was the south and he was the north. I really enjoyed playing my first chit based war game, but handling the chits was a bit tedious at times. Saturday I went over to John, Michelle and Jake’s home to play Descent with them. They have a really nice home and an amazing family. They all love playing games and we had a very close game with me as the overlord. Then today I went on an outstanding hike with Jesse and Jade. Jade was not feeling well for it, however. I thought she might stay at home or we do a shorter hike, but she insisted she would be ok. We went up to the Peralta trailhead in the Superstition Wilderness, AZ. We did a 12 mile loop around Weaver’s needle using Peralta Trail, Lost Dutchman Trail, and Trails 234 and finally 235. This was really a neat hike for me as I had been up to the saddle at 2.3 miles to look at the needle many times, but never actually gone past that point. Many parts of the trail on the back were rocky and somewhat hard to follow. Trail 234 was also quite steep in parts. We got a late start and had to stop for about an hour total to rest since Jade wasn’t feeling well. Sunset today was at 5:48pm and we got back to car at about 6:37pm. Fortunately the moon was full so we were not trying to walk the last 10-20 minutes in complete darkness. I feel great after the hike and was not struggling during any part of it. This is great, since I’d like to attempt the Grand Canyon rim to rim hike again sometime in May this year.

Backing Hiking Again

Last week I had planned on going hiking, but got sick on Friday with a cold and was not able to make it. I instead stayed home and played some Rock Band with Pat and Kim on Saturday. Sunday Joe and Max came over for some games. This past weekend I managed to make it over to Gamer’s Inn on Friday night and got in on a game of Struggle of Empires, which was a decent game overall. Saturday I played a longer game of Onward Christian Soldiers with Jeff and some people he knows at Bookman’s in Mesa. They seem to have a monthly war game meet up there. The guy who put the game together was Greg, who is also a financial planner. I got his card and plan to talk to him about some investments. He lives down in Chandler and hopefully we can get a chance to play some games at some point in the future. After that event ended, Jeff invited me over to play this train game that I can’t remember the name of right now. Jessie and Jeff and myself played it until about midnight, then we talked for a bit before I left. They are a fun couple to hang out with and I am glad to have met both of them. I also got a chance to try some Elk stew that Jessie had made, and it was quite good. Yesterday Jesse and I went hiking to Rogers Canyon. The dirt road drive into the trailhead takes about an hour with another hour to reach that from my house. This was one of the first backpacking trails I went on about 7 years ago now with Jesse. We started a bit too late to get quite to the end with the Indian ruins, but it was a gorgeous hike, all along the river, which was flowing very nicely after all the winter rains. At one point in the trail we ran into a skunk, and Jesse of course decided to try and scare it off. Perhaps not a bad idea or perhaps a very bad idea. It did eventually wander off, but at one point it did turn and start moving towards Jesse, which I found rather amusing, as I had taken up a position some distance behind Jesse. A very enjoyable hike.

Happy New Years

Had more fun holiday events the past few days. On Sunday I went over to Jeff and Jessie’s new house for a housewarming / board gaming event. Their house is really awesome, a prefect size and floor plan. We played a number of games and hung out. Dave and Brian also were there. Monday was new years eve and I went over to Dave’s place for a Rocky Horror Picture Show event with some games afterwards. Everyone dressed up as one of the people in the movie. I was Riff Raff after getting the suggestion from Jessie. I found the parts I needed for his costume from goodwill for only $14 total, plus another $1 at the dollar store for some eye shadow. It came out pretty nicely actually. Jeff dressed up as frank-n-furter and it was quite a site to see. We played a game of Bang! after that and then Jessie, Jeff, Dave, Crystal and myself did some rock band and some puzzle fighter until about 5am when I called it quits. I was glad to stay over there that long, as I wanted to avoid the drunk drivers as much as possible. Also at the party were Dan, Paul, Jim and his friend Brooke. Paul is an entertaining person. We had a conversation about how he only buys army pants for $10 bucks. He likes to keep it simple! Jeff moved out here in 2003 and is currently 27. Jessie grew up in Miami, FL and just turned 30 on December 8th. Jeff was saying he does a board game day on his birthday, which is sometime in July. Today was Heroscape game day over at Matt’s place again. Had a fun time and talked with his wife, Melissa for awhile. She is a school teacher and has been teaching special education for about 9 years now. On my way back from that, right at my neighborhood a couple was stopped by the side of the road and flagged me down. They had a flat tire and actually just bought a place about 2 months ago up in the neighborhood above me. The guy’s named was Chris and he noticed my Heroscape map in the back of the car. We exchanged email addresses, as he sounded like he might be interested in giving some gaming a try. I gave them a ride up to their house and also got my jack so I could help him swap out the tire. He works for a traffic engineering company. They bought this house as their dream house, and it certainly is a nice one. I’ll drop him a note tomorrow just to touch base with him. They seemed like a pretty nice couple, so it might be nice to have an opportunity to get to know them a little better. Oh they also mentioned that they went hiking around the ridge around our neighborhood, so they perhaps might also enjoy hiking.