cellio | last few days

Wow. On Thursday I turned on the dehumidifier in our house, and in the first four hours it pulled more than half a gallon of moisture out of the air. I guess it was time. :-) (Today, it pulled over a gallon in approximately 7 hours. With AC running on the first floor.)

This Shabbat was the bar mitzvah of one of the regulars in our morning minyan. He is, in fact, the only pre-bar-mitzvah person (well, was) to come regularly. (He comes with his father.) They actually came to the early service and stayed until they had to go get ready for the late service with the family. And the bar mitzvah has said he's interested in reading torah in our minyan -- great! I picked up another reader last week too, so if both of them stick we'll be in pretty good shape.

On the way home on Saturday I ran into lyev, so I lured him back to our place to hang out for a while and eat. I'd prepared a low-key lunch -- just a pot of stew and fresh fruit. It figures -- I plan something more elaborate and get no guests, but I slack and I get someone. :-) Oh well. Lyev showed us a new translation of a 16th-century fencing manual, and demonstrated some of the moves. It looked nifty. Not that I know anything about fencing, but I could see how valuable a source this would be for those who do.

Tonight we hosted an SCA pot-luck dinner. The theme was fruit, and we had a good balance of dishes. (We knew we were running the risk of six fruit salads and five pies, but we decided to do it anyway.) I made a (supposedly) Moroccan dish with chicken and dates which went over well; I also made a pineapple kugel for the vegetarians. No vegetarians showed up, as it turned out, but the omnivores were happy to eat it. :-) There was one casualty: one of the guests took a turn a little too quickly on the drive over, and his car is now wearing the strawberry torte. Oops. I hope that cleaned up without too much trouble.

The conversation was very pleasant, and after most people had left a few of us decided to play a game of Merchants of Amsterdam. (It's a Rio Grande game, so in some ways it's like all the other Rio Grande games. But it's fun.) The one person who had never played before won.

Next weekend is the kingdom Academy in Stormsport (Erie). They're holding the event at a synagogue (on a Saturday -- wonder how they managed that?), and the person in charge asked me to coordinate a special track of classes on Jewish topics to which the congregation would be invited. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out. We have some good classes lined up.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Have you taken a look over at Boardgamegeek (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/)? There is at least one geeklist of Italian Games (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist.php3?action=view&listid=405). I know we had some folks playing Princes of Florentine at the Game Gather on Saturday.

As for Machiavelli -- a great game (I have the map up on my office wall), but its so hard, as you get older, to find folks willing to take the time for a Diplomacy-style game. Its so much easier to play Ticket to Ride or some other "german" game.

By the way, if you look on the Geek, I tried to start a list of Jewish-themed games (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist.php3?action=view&listid=2098). There aren't that many.

last few days

Re: Gaming