Almost two years ago, we went to a local brewpub for trivia night. We met some new people and had a grand time. Well, last week we were talking with some friends and agreed it would be fun to play again. This evening we headed over there and sat down at the bar, ready to show off our knowledge of completely useless facts.
In honor of Fat Bear Week, we named our team The Fat Bears (although honestly I don’t think anyone else at the bar got the joke). We went through four rounds of grueling questions, guessing on some and nailing others. In the end, we won!
Okay, sure, it looks like we came in second. But we were given the crown because PTA Bigfork was the sponsor for the event, so they weren’t allowed to win. And technically it wasn’t a crown– it was a $120 gift card for the bar. Nice! That means we can fund several more trivia nights with our friends.
As everyone knows, Katmai National Park in Alaska is hosting its annual Fat Bear Week competition. This time of year, all the bears are loading up on carbs for their long winter, so they’re all hilariously huge. I don’t think they’ve announced this year’s winner, but a quick search turned up some classy fat bear photos:
Fat bears don’t just roam Alaska, though… we had one in our driveway last night! Here’s the video (it was shot at 3am so it’s pretty dark):
I suppose pretty soon, when these fatties lay down for a nap, we won’t have to worry so much about walking outside and running into one…
As I continue to refine and finalize my Hexteria game, I keep reading things that say it’s important to consider color-blind players. Roughly one man in twelve is color-blind, and one in two hundred women. Many game design guides recommend using more than just color to differentiate pieces; shapes are useful. I’m pleased that Hexteria has cool pieces which have not only unique colors, but unique (and thematic) shapes.
However, each player has a set of pieces they use as they deploy their forces in the game, and those pieces come in four colors: red, green, blue, and yellow. It’s worth noting that many (most?) board games with three or four players have pieces in these same colors. It’s sort of an unofficial “standard” across the genre. However, since color-blind people overwhelmingly have red-green blindness, it means they can’t easily distinguish those two players in a game!
Here’s an example of the meeples I’m using, in the traditional colors:
And here’s what they look like to someone who’s red-green color-blind:
Oops. How can they know which pieces belong to the red and green players?
So, knowing all this and thinking about how to make Hexteria more “accessible”, I’m planning to change the colors of the players’ pieces. Behold the purple, orange, white, and black version:
A color-blind person would see them like this:
Ah, much better! Plus, they won’t conflict with the other pieces on the board, which also happen to be red, green, blue, and yellow. Double win.
As I continue on this journey of game development, I’m learning a ton of stuff. This might seem like an insignificant thing, but I’m hoping that at some point, a color-blind player sits down to play Hexteria and thinks, “This is great!” instead of “Oh no, another game where I can’t tell which pieces are mine…”
It all started when I was walking around the yard on Thursday and noticed a strange hole in the grass. A piece of the turf was missing, and I could see a white pipe underneath:
More to the point, the pipe was cracked. That’s roughly a one-inch gap between the two pieces of PVC. I dug a bit and learned that it’s a 4-inch pipe, meaning it’s probably being used for drainage. Sure enough, a bit of investigation revealed that it’s attached to a drainpipe from one of our gutters. But… cracked? There’s no way a 4-inch pipe filled with water and froze (it rained a few days ago, but it hasn’t been below 40). After more thought, Pepper came up with the theory that the ground has settled over the past 20 years and the pipe was just pushed under immense pressure until it cracked and chucked up a little piece of the ground. But… where’s the piece of grass that’s missing?
So it’s all very mysterious, but the fact remains that I had to fix the pipe. I didn’t want to dig everything up, install another section of pipe, seal the ends, yada yada. Been there, done that. Instead, I bought some silicone tape used for wrapping pipes and started digging. As I excavated the pipe, I found a wire going right through it.
What the…?
Even better, as I kept digging I found another pipe– this one maybe an inch across– beneath everything.
We’re pretty sure that’s a sprinkler line, and I’m guessing the wire is for locating the wire from aboveground (I know they do that sort of thing with gas lines). But somehow, the wire goes straight through the drainage pipe. Maybe it popped up when the ground heaved or something? No, wait, looking more closely at the 4″ pipe, it shows signs of being sawed, rather than cracked. What’s going on here? I don’t know.
In any case, the repairs commenced. I wrapped the whole thing in duct tape, then wrapped that in silicone tape, and then applied another generous layer of duct tape. The final result looks exactly as professional as you’d expect.
Whatever. If it leaks a little bit of rainwater, it’s no big deal. I covered everything back up and called it a day.
But I’m still scratching my head about the whole thing.
Our third and last kid just finished his mission. Alex was first, then Kyra, and now Zaque. Two years and a week after leaving for Oklahoma, he flew into the Salt Lake City airport. Mom always gets the first hug.
Kyra was pretty thrilled to see her little brother, too.
Although it’s been good to have intermittent communication with him throughout his mission, it’s always better to see him in person. He’s still the same fun-loving guy (who takes after his dad) we sent away a couple of years ago.
He’s also a smidge taller, and although it’s close, I may have to admit he has a half-inch on me.
We had a great weekend together. He settled into his new digs: an apartment two blocks from Kyra’s, where he’s rooming with his best friend from high school (also a missionary who returned a few months ago) and four other gents. He bought my Civic, which was our excuse for buying a Tesla a few months ago, and we took care of the fun stuff like title and registration. I took him to Walmart so he could stock up on groceries and other college necessities, and we unloaded a couple bins of stuff he’d been storing at our house since he left.
It wasn’t long before he settled into some old habits, like video games with his brother.
End of the line, Elder! He’s taller, wiser, and maturer than he was when he left. And I’m excited to see what comes next for this fine lad.
While visiting Thom and Katie, I was treated to a whole stack of artwork from Sefton. Apparently at four years old, he’s found his passion in drawing, and he literally goes through page after page (from a ream of paper on his little art desk) with scribbles and drawings and messages. It’s fun to have him describe his works. For example, here’s one he gave me after his dad and I returned from our backpacking trip:
He told me the yellow line with the little yellow dots is a beach with sand, and of course the blue line at the bottom is a lake (Thom and I had told him we were going to be camping beside a lake). The grey circles are rocks along the shoreline, and the yellow man is throwing one of the rocks into the lake– hence the curved lines showing its trajectory, and the splash of blue. There are also two trees, one of which (in the center) has a spider in his web. The red blobs in the sky are clouds, which naturally turn red near sunset, especially from the recent smoke in the area. The little M’s are birds, as every child artist knows. I asked him if he’d sign his work in the lower right corner, so I’d know who drew it, but he just laughed uproariously as he signed his name in the upper left corner. Katie says he’s going through a bit of a contrarian phase, so any time you ask him for something, he’ll sort of give it to you, but not in the way you ask. He thinks it’s hilarious.
So yeah, it’s fun to have a budding artist in the family. I’m not quite sure what Thom and Katie are going to do with the literally hundreds of drawings he’s made for them, but this one is just for me.
Another year, another fall backpacking trip with Thom. This annual tradition stretches back into the mists of history, and it’s always a good time. This year we went to a place called Ice Lake, up in the North Cascades. Since I have commitments to seminary and the high-school debate team that’ll keep me pretty busy in October (the usual time we head out), we pushed up our trip to mid-September. That meant the weather was gorgeous for hiking.
One thing I love about the Cascades– and I’m sure Thom will back me up on this– is how the mountains are everywhere. They tower over you on the trail, they pop up at every turn, and they stretch off into the distance.
Although it was too early for the larch to be turning, the heather was a brilliant fiery red.
Let me say something about the trail. Our campsite was about eight miles into the backcountry, and the first mile of the trail was quite pleasant. We walked along the mostly level path through the forest, chatting about Thom’s new business idea. And then the trail started to angle upward. And that continued for… well, the remaining seven miles. Imagine, if you will, climbing stairs. Now imagine the stairs are either so dusty you literally slide down them while throwing up big clouds, or so rocky you have to pick your way along as the rocks slip beneath your feet. Got it? Now, imagine that for seven miles.
Thom is an accomplished mountaineer, so this was just a walk in the park. And although I’m an accomplished hiker, the trails I frequent are typically pretty flat. This uphill stuff kicked my butt. And then kicked a bunch of clouds of dust in my face, just for good measure.
So, yeah, it was a tough climb to our campsite. The advantage of a crazy trail like this, though, is that you get the whole place to yourself. Once we reached Ice Lake and set up our tent, we saw that no one was around… probably for miles.
The lake was a brilliant blue, with hints of green from glacial meltwater. Up close, the water is crystal clear. Beautiful.
As we did a day hike around the area, I was reminded of why I love the Cascades. What a view!
Since it’s autumn, the weather is always dicey, and sure enough, our hike back out was done in a steady 45-degree cold rain. Despite the crushing hike up, and the cold rain down, it was a grand time. I love this tradition and already look forward to another trip with Thom in a year.
One of the big stories of the 2020 (err, 2021) Olympics was Simone Biles’ withdrawal from the gymnastics competition. Widely regarded as one of the greatest gymnasts of all time, everyone was shocked when she bowed out for personal reasons. The vitriol was quick and plentiful. Her response, a few weeks later, is pure gold.
“This Olympics doesn’t erase the past accomplishments I’ve achieved, nor does it define who I am as an athlete. [To my detractors] keep talking, because I can’t hear you over my 7 Olympic medals.”
Today marked the third time we were in Glacier in seven days. We had already done a few of the “classic” hikes, so we figured we’d go to the Many Glacier area for a change of scenery. Well, the weather was pretty cold and grey, and as we arrived at the entrance gate we learned that it was completely packed… the rangers weren’t allowing more cars into that area of the park. They suggested we turn around and park alongside the road and wait for a few hours until they could open it up to traffic again. A few hours? Nah. Glacier is big, so we decided we’d just go back to the “main” park and see some things we hadn’t on our previous visits.
We started with St. Mary Lake, which is always a treat.
The sky remained grey, which doesn’t make for thrilling photos, but at least it was warming up.
Since Pepper and her sister hadn’t seen St. Mary Falls, Virginia Falls, and all the falls in between, we agreed to hike that trail again.
I took some more waterfall shots; although they were the same falls as last week’s hike, I did my best to capture some different angles.
My sweetheart looks great beside a waterfall!
As the day waned, we all agreed it had been great to be in Glacier all these times. It never gets old. Also, we had dinner at my favorite pizza place on our way home all three days. You can’t go wrong with that.
