Category: Uncategorized

Back in September, I started working on my latest board game, Utu. Since then I’ve had the opportunity to playtest it with several groups of friends and family. Their feedback has been positive and helpful, and the game’s development continues apace. It’s reached the point where I’m no longer satisfied with printed cardstock and handwritten sticky notes on the backs of old Hexteria hexes. It’s time to print this thing!

In any relatively complicated game, it’s surprising how much design is involved. I needed hexes with oceans and islands, and artwork for the player mats and action boards and decks of cards. I’m not really very good at that sort of thing, so my past game designs have been a bit hit-or-miss. For Indio, I engaged my nephew Tim to design the hexes, and he did a great job with the abstract artwork I envisioned. It was much better than the heavily-modified internet photos I’d downloaded and edited. For Onward, I just found artwork on the internet and used it, because I knew I wasn’t going to be publishing the game (hence copyright wasn’t at stake). I think the results were quite good, but it felt a little like cheating to just grab other artists’ work.

Last week I spent long hours working on designs. I came up with color schemes and drew islands and oceans and underwater creatures. I copied some Polynesian tattoo patterns for the card decks. I hadn’t yet figured out what to do about the player mats and action boards. I felt kind of stuck.

Then I struck on an idea: could I generate the artwork using AI? Specifically, could I use Stable Diffusion, which I’d installed on my computer after scoring a high-end graphics card? I’d done a few experiments with it, but until now hadn’t found an opportunity to really put it to use. I updated some software and went to work.

The results were astonishing.

With prompts like “Polynesian boats on an ocean, with islands and palm trees”, it created artwork like this in about 60 seconds:

I continued modifying the prompts, dialing in the look I was going for, and was repeatedly amazed by what the software did. How about some stormy seas?

Or a sunset scene?

The hours passed quickly. I was having a ton of fun coming up with this artwork! The power of AI art was taking me in directions I hadn’t planned. Instead of having three or four island drawings, as I’d done last week, I could create a whole set of unique island art like this:

After a full day of creating artwork (it’s a time-consuming process, and sometimes results in less-than-useful results), I had the graphics I needed. I could transform my original drawn designs into these new AI-based ones. For example, here’s how an island hex changed:

Here’s a player mat, from concept to finished art:

I could even design people, so I’d have a Polynesian chief and a princess.

AI art generation is notoriously poor at rendering people (particularly eyes and fingers, for some reason) so this took some experimentation and a lot of refinement. But the final result is a thousand times better than what I could’ve done unaided.

This morning I spent a few hours compiling the cards and hexes, doing the template layouts, and finally sending all of it to the print company. In a few weeks I should have a fully designed, fully playable version of Utu to enjoy with the kids during our Christmas gathering. Woo hoo!

I saw this little exchange on the internet somewhere…

… and it reminded me that I have to keep working at being Ollie’s Cool Grandpa.

That’s not to say Brett isn’t also his Cool Grandpa; Brett is indeed pretty cool, and I think it’s perfectly legitimate to have two Cool Grandpas. As Ollie keeps growing, he also keeps getting to be more fun and interactive. Gotta stay cool.

To those who say everything is going horribly, and things are getting worse, I present Exhibit A.

I always enjoy a good white elephant Christmas party, when you never know if you’ll go home with something awesome or something completely lame. I still think the monster hat scored (which I gave to Kyra) was my favorite.

I have a long tradition of white-elephant gifts, such as three amazing vinyl LPs, five dollars in pennies, potato cookies, $2,000 in gift cards, and even last year’s Feliz Navidoug pillow. I’m also remembered for a massive CRT computer monitor that weighed around thirty pounds (rookie mistake: open the big heavy box), a puzzle featuring my friend dressed as a sexy firefighter, a Jesus Christ Atonement board game (!), and a lobster-topped serving bowl that seems to come back to our party each year.

And it’s that time again, so I was thinking of clever ideas. The best white-elephant gift is one that’s funny and somewhat useful, but not too nice or useful. After a few aborted directions, I settled on a custom-printed shower curtain. It arrived today.

This thing is so big. Six by six feet doesn’t seem that large until you unfold all of it and realize your face is a good three feet high. Pepper and I were laughing pretty hard.

In a couple of days I’m excited to see who takes this little gem home…

Little kids are entertained by just about anything. It’s so fun to watch them giggle and laugh at dumb stuff. And of course that means you’re always doing dumb stuff in an effort to make them laugh.

Take today, for example, when Ollie and I were eating crayons.

He thought it was hilarious. And of course it was way more fun than just coloring on the little kids’ menu at the restaurant!

I suppose a bit of a waxy aftertaste in my mouth as I ate my pizza was a small price to pay for a little bit of joy in my grandson’s day.

The Church is building a new temple in Orem, just a couple miles from our Villa. It’ll be super convenient to go there when we visit Utah. Today we stopped in for the “open house”, where we had the opportunity to walk on a self-guided tour.

We’re excited to attend the next time we’re in the area.

Last week one of Zack’s friends was celebrating a birthday, so Zack treated him to an evening of pinball at a local arcade. Today he talked me and Pepper into stopping by, and we had a grand time. It’s been many years since I last played pinball, but it’s still as fun as I remember. They even had a copy of Addams Family, one of my favorites and a well-known classic.

Here’s a shot of Pepper playing Indiana Jones while Zack tackles a bit of Star Trek.

It’s basically a “nickel arcade” where you can play pinball and video games and air hockey and shoot baskets and all that sort of stuff for a few nickels apiece. I mostly played pinball, where each game cost a quarter, and it seemed like a great deal.

The best part: it’s about a five-minute drive from the Villa. Obviously when we go down to Utah to visit our kids in the future, we’ll always need to hit the arcade.

Today I’m grateful for Thanksgiving. It’s sort of a weird holiday, when you think about it. We celebrate the good things in our lives by absolutely stuffing ourselves with food and then taking the rest of the day to lounge around talking about how full we are. But the point, of course, is to give thanks for those good things and recognize the blessings that are ours. It’s definitely a unique holiday, and even in less-than-ideal circumstances we can all benefit from the introspection Thanksgiving brings.

As our family partook of the traditional meal today, we appreciated the chance to be together. This isn’t a great photo, but hey, that’s us.

For the past few weeks, as I’ve written these #givethanks posts, I’ve had a good time reflecting on some of the little things that make my life so good. I intentionally did not write about people in these posts– I wanted to focus on things that were perhaps a bit more mundane. Through that process, it’s been very clear to me that although each of these things brings some measure of happiness and contentment to my life, it’s the people who really make a difference. My wife, my kids, my parents, my siblings, my family, my friends, and even the strangers who cross my path… all of them have, in one way or another, shaped me into who I am today. I can never truly express the depth of my gratitude to them, and words on a web page hardly do it justice.

Not a day goes by that I don’t say a quiet prayer expressing my gratitude for something and someone. And so, as I wrap up this little series of posts, I’m filled with a warm sense that I’m truly and deeply blessed.

Today I’m grateful for the Villa. It was about two years ago when we first tossed around the idea of buying a townhouse near our kids, so we could visit them more often. College apartments aren’t very good for family gatherings, and we wanted to take advantage of our kids all living in the same area. It seemed ludicrous to buy a second home, but at the same time it was silly to keep bouncing around Airbnb rentals.

So we did it.

Right from the start– even before we’d fully furnished the place– we were having a grand time. We threw a big birthday party for Ollie, featuring three sets of great-grandparents.

Since then we’ve been down there a dozen times, sometimes for a few days, others for a couple of weeks. I never thought I’d be the kind of guy who has a “second home”, but it’s been an incredible blessing to be able to see our kids and really spend time with them.

It was– and continues to be– a fairly significant money pit. But it’s money well spent. For this.

Today I’m grateful for my health. Ironically, as I write this I can feel a cold coming on. It’s been almost a year since I was last sick– I remember it vividly because it was during the Christmas season. Since I get sick so rarely, when I do it seems like it’s a real kick in the pants. I can’t imagine what it would be like to feel crummy all day, every day. At least when I have a cold, I know it’s a passing thing and in a few days I’ll be better.

If I’m being honest, I don’t actually pay all that much attention to my health. I eat and drink whatever I want. I haven’t been to a doctor since I was a kid. I don’t exercise, although I spend plenty of time doing exercise-y things like walking, hiking, swimming, and biking. I find that jumping around in a room while watching a video of other people jumping around just isn’t very engaging. I suppose as I get older, I should make more of an effort to do that, but for most of my life I’ve had plenty of opportunity to just be out doing stuff that keeps me more or less in shape. Hence, I haven’t needed to pay attention to whether I’m getting slower or fatter. I can still fit into clothes I wore in college, which I take as a good sign. I don’t have migraines or asthma or allergies or joint pain… another good sign.

So, despite a profound lack of attention to it, my health is actually pretty great. I should give some credit to genetics: Mom and Dad are both getting on in years but still vigorous and healthy. I hope I’m in the same shape they are when I hit that age. For now, I’ll continue to be grateful for each day I wake up, healthy and strong.

Now if I can just get rid of this pesky sniffle…