Board Gaming Bonanza

We had a gaming weekend down in St. Peter.  Klund, Mean Mr Mustard, and my family all got together to board game for the evening and morning.

We finally talked Klund into Betrayal at House on the Hill (base version).  There were two rounds.  In the Friday night version, Mean Mr. Mustard became the nanny for a blob that ate the rest of us.  Even with a screw up where he stood in his own blob too early he managed to take us all down.  In the morning game, the game went Bill and Ted and there was some gaming with Death featuring me as Death's almost insane and physically feeble sidekick.  They just didn't have much of a problem taking me down, although Eryn fell to her death through a floor, so I didn't leave them completely unscathed even if they did it to themselves.

Legendary of Choice was Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I played a lot of Cordie cards.  We won, although Klund was the only one taking on the big  baddie (the Mayor).

Late night Cards Against Humanity.  Not everyone's cup of tea, but I like to try to play it fairly straight.  You need friends you know aren't actual dicks that believe the card combinations and then it's fun.  And if you ditch almost all the rules, you don't really have to play awful cards if you don't want to (although you'll still have to hear them).  It's Apples to Apples for adults.

Clank: In Space!  Klund claims it is the first game of Clank he's ever won.  I've played twice now.  I like the changes in this version to make you move around the board a bit more and keep you away from the treasures until you've spent time traversing the board.

We didn't see the crystals come out much.  In the game I played with my wife they won me the game.  I had card combos to give me crystals, sell crystals, and turn crystals into card draws.

Flatline by Kane Klenko.  Sort of the sequel to Fuse.  You're trying to get all the patients through the space hospital quickly after you fail at defusing the bomb in fuse.  We goofed a bit and played with two/too many dice the first two rounds.  But then we remembered all the rules and got back on track.  We won without even engaging one of the two extra turns you can go after.  I hadn't played with five before.  That seemed to make it much easier, even with the changes to the cards for the number of players.  Just having that many dice opens up a lot more combinations.

Raiders of the North Sea.  First game we played and my win.  I maximized my extra attack points and Valkyrie deaths which helped.  Fun game.  Very much like Champions of Midgard, which I own, but without the monsters.  They're different enough it's hard to say which one I like better.  The mechanism in Champions of Midgard where you take away prestige from the other player if you're defeating the troll and they're not is fun.  And I like the aspect of CoM where going to fight the larger monsters involves equipping your ship, facing a possible derailment (hunger), and then hoping you took enough soldiers in the right mix to defeat the monster.  There's also a bit of a gambling aspect to that game in trying to determine the minimum amount you can take to defeat something so you're not constraining yourself elsewhere.  But Raiders of the North Sea is MUCH more streamlined as a game.  Much cleaner and to the point.  Then again, maybe that's why there are so many expansions and additional games in teh series.

Spirit Island.  Klund had to walk us through this one because it was a bit more complicated.  But once we got going it was a lot of fun.  I was a shadow spirit and focused on causing fear in the invaders.  We won via playing all the fear cards (generating a lot of fear), but it really is extremely collaborative trying to help each other shut down areas others can't reach or can't affect in the same way.  It was interesting to see that the difference in player abilities meant I had pulled all my special power cards into my hand by the end of the game, but Mean Mr. Mustard had barely touched his.

More Spirit Island.  You have to hold the island down with your finger so it doesn't float away.

I don't think I missed anything.  Definitely a full weekend of gaming, followed up with Superbowl LII only a few hours after getting home, the Eagles and Patriots currently duking it out on television (32 Philly to 26 New England with 9:36 in the 4th).

Gaming in St. Peter

I was supposed to go for a bike ride with Ming today, but he messed up and had me take today off when he meant Friday.  So I tried to make the best of a messed up situation and headed down to St. Peter to play board games with Klund as he he some time free.  I went early and ate at the local breakfast joint, the Nicollet Cafe.  Good basic breakfast (2 pancakes, 2 sausages, 2 strips of bacon, 2 eggs), but a bit 2 much food.  I had some time left, so I went over to the River Rock for coffee, forgetting how I don't particularly like their Americano.  Klund does a better job.

Before I point out the games, I thought this picture was particularly strange, because it seems to imply Ming has his own fallout shelter in St. Peter.  Maybe he has them all over the country and I just haven't been paying enough attention.



We played a slew of games.  Several rounds of Klund's new game, Onitama.  I saw it reviewed on one of the games for couples series on Actualol.  It was as fun as it looks. Guyblin on Medium claims it's replaced chess for them. I think it would be a great work game and a great game as a gift for nieces and nephews.  Fast, very fast.  Here's the Actualol video it was in.

Then we tried Kane Klenko's Covert.  I've owned it for a while, but hadn't gotten around to playing it (there's a lot of those at the house).  So we sussed it out.  It's a bit like Pandemic.  A bit like Ticket to Ride.  And a bit of Klenko's dice placement.  It took a little bit of time to get in the right frame of mind, but then it made sense.  There are some interesting mechanics, like the code bar where you try to make the codes match the codes on cards you have in order to claim spy resources that are worth victory points or usable as means toward completing missions.

Very Pandemic feel to the board.  Missions to the right, "resource" type cards which double as special bonuses and flight cards to the left, and suitcase/codes at the top.


Here's the view from behind my screen.  It's the winner's view, I finished 7 missions (you need six to win, but there's a last chance to finish a mission).  A lot of my success had to do with finishing a mission that gave me an extra set of lockpicks in all situations and capitalizing on grabbing a bunch of lockpick-based missions.


It would have been more difficult with more people.  Playing your dice to get cards and movement requires that you have a die that's sequential (up or down) with a previous die.  That wasn't too hard with two of us.  With a few more people it might get crowded and tricky.


We followed Covert up with two rounds of Dead of Winter.  Klund hadn't played it before and I think it's better with more than two people, but we played straight coop and used a hard mission on our second try.  We won both times, partially because we got a lot of firepower without exposure in the right places.  During our second game (collect medicine from remote locations) we actually managed to pull a card that removed all food in the school pile, meaning every single card drawn after that was a useful card.  I almost wish we had done worse just to get a better feel for the game and what makes it fun (when things get stressful).  We could see it looming with food shortages and waste accumulating, but just never got there.


And we finished off the day with Seasons.  A game I've had forever, courtesy of my sister reviewing my Amazon wish list, but haven't played because there are a number of things that predate me almost dying that suddenly became something I wouldn't do because they predate almost dying.  Weird.  Psychological.  But true.  The rules were hard to figure out using the printed rules and we had to resort to a mix of printed and online rules.  But once we got going, it was straight forward.  Roll dice, collect resources, the ability to play cards, and points, and use the cards to make points, sell resources for points, and get better cards, to score.  In some ways, a bit like Magic the Gathering meets Dominion with a dice component.  Klund thumped me.  Absolutely crushed me.  I'm not sure it's a game I'd play regularly, but I'd like to see it played with three or more to see how it changes, and it might be a good game to play with nieces and nephews.

And, I should add, an absolutely beautiful day for a convertible ride to and from St. Peter, MN.

Minneopa State Park

Wednesday was supposed to be nice, and it was.  Really nice.  80 degrees plus.  Set a record in the Twin Cities for that day.  So it worked out well that we planned a trip down to Minneopa State Park near Mankato to enjoy the weather with the top down and drop off a Cards Against Humanity expansion for Klund and Mrs. Klund.

The Klunds are off sampling wine, but they have housesitters.  Serial killer in a van housesitters.



Minneopa was a little park.  And the water wasn't exactly running high.  But it was good for an hour of amusement.  These signs always confuse me.  Shouldn't ALL pets be on a leash?  Even if they're exotic instead of domestic?  I'm pretty sure they mean, "don't worry about the squirrels", but those aren't really pets.  And if they were.  They'd need a leash.


This sign sort of grossed Eryn out.  I dared her to lick the ice flow in the falls to see if it tasted of fecal matter.  Then she said, "How would I know if it tasted like fecal matter?!"  I said if she's smelled it, she's tasted it.  Which seemed to bother her even more.  There was a more in depth sign that pointed out sometimes the falls are green with algal blooms and sometimes brown from sediment, and fecal matter is there pretty much 24x7x365.  A result of being at the end of the watershed in a heavily farmed area.


Even without a lot of water they were pretty.  This is the upper falls.


And a nice picture of Eryn looking at them.


Here she is with Minneopa Falls behind her.  For a moment, I thought this was all there was to see.  So why would you leave Minneapolis and Minnehaha Falls?


But there was more.

Panorama

At the end of the sidewalk were steps that led down into the area below the falls and back up again along a ridge.  No geocaches as it's a state park, but perhaps Eryn can get herself Chived for doing what she wants.  Not exactly dangerous.  The sign is there because the fence is washed out way back there behind her.


You can get down below the lower falls, and there's still a bit of ice hanging out.  This photo would probably bother Eryn.  It looks like she's posing, but she's really just trying to get her jacket off.  Remember? 80+!


The falls without people in the picture.


But not really.  If you could blow it up enough, there are carvings almost everywhere.  It's one of the most scratched up areas I've ever seen.  Next to the falls, High on the walls right by the falls.  On the cliffs near the falls.  On the cliffs opposite the falls.  Next to the stairs going down and going up.  It's graffiti central.  I think the best one can hope for is that archaeologists of the future find it interesting.


Here you can see the carving in the context of the falls.

Panorama

Eryn sitting near the falls.  My wife was amused to see ERYON carved near her.  She didn't do that.  She knows how to spell her name.


The use wasp nests for bulbs in the state parks.  We're that hardcore in Minnesota.  I'm surprised they leave it there given it's near the picnic area.  You'd think everyone would be surrounded in wasps.


Oh no!  But that's only a fall, not falls!


There we go.  Two is officially fallS.


We stopped for a sandwich in Mankato and enjoyed all the dust devils and wind.  Not hard to believe Minnesota is in a drought.  And hit the rest stop on our way home where we were treated to this near the Cambria warehouse.  Apparently he's driving a lot more than we were.

Gaming and Things

We spent the weekend in St. Peter hanging out with the Klunds, playing a lot of games, drinking Klund's coffee, and generally having a good time with them and Mean Mr. Mustard.  There was a lot of board gaming.  Several rounds of King of Tokyo, Castle Dice, Settlers of Cataan, and a spirited round of Cards Against Humanity after the kids went to bed. Or at least put on their headphones and pretended we didn't exist. Klund coined the term "Blueberry" to refer to throwing out a card that just didn't matter to get it out of your hand.  Ms. Klund learned a lot of new words.

Speaking of which, you can take part in their 10 Days or Whatever of Kwanzaa.  I don't know what you get, but $15.00 is less than two weeks of coffee, so I figure I can't go wrong.

I finished out the long weekend, which really involved two days of remote work, which was sort of not-to-the-point, by getting the trim up on the garage door.  I found some non-expanding foam and a trim nail gun and sealed off all the big gusts of wind blowing into the house.  There's still a small breeze near the top left because a.) it's cold outside, and b.) the outside (garage facing) sheetrock isn't level and the door came with edging, so it wouldn't insert completely straight.  I pondered ripping the wood edging off and didn't.  Then I pondered beating the hell out of the sheetrock with a hammer and didn't.  I reused the weird under the trim edging they inserted previously to make up for their unlevel wall and it's 95% correct.  If I add some additional weatherstripping at the top, it'll be good.  But I suspect I'll have to rip it out of there and reinsert it before I sell the house (or hire someone to do it for me...)

Lots of Things to Do!

It's shaping up to be a busy month. I'm pondering this as my itinerary:

• It's already too late for Minneapolis Oktoberfest, Kielbasa fest, and the Granite City Oktoberfest. Next year!
• Friday, September 17. Devil, by M. Night Shyamalan, just so I can ruin it for Ming by telling him the plot. I have part of the work day reserved to go. Anyone interested?
• Saturday, September 18, breakfast at Junior's followed by board gaming at my house. Primarily Eurogaming as Troy won't be around. You're all invited. To both events. Gaming at 10:00 a.m. Breakfast is usually around 8:30.
• Sunday, September 19, breakfast at the Capital View Cafe. I have $6 off. You're all invited. I'll spread the $6 amongst the guests. Probably as a tip.
• Sunday, September 19 again - Gasthaus Bavarian Hunter Oktoberfest...Kyle? Is this kid friendly, do you suppose? Eryn would probably enjoy traveling to Wisconsin to an Oktoberfest. Wait...what sort of lame Oktoberfest is noon to 6 p.m.? An "all ages welcome" Oktoberfest. Woo hoo! I can take the family and drink. Twofer.
• Friday, September 24 - the 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins at CTC.
• Saturday, September 25 - Tater Tour, NHCC - you're all invited. I'm doing the 25 mile version
• Saturday, September 25 - Decadent Weimar Republic Kabarett Night at the Black Forest with Le Cirque Rouge.
• Sunday 26 - Mom's birthday, better send her a present
• Tuesday 28 - Home Brew Night as part of the Oktoberfest at Black Forest.
• Saturday, October 2 - Chilifest - you must be 6'2" or taller to attend. I will be attendings this rather than the Dallas, Wisconsin, Oktoberfest: http://www.vikingbrewing.com/ofest.htm
• Sunday, October 3 - Drain the Keg night at the Black Forest.
• October 8 or 9 - Twin Cities Oktoberfest at the State Fair grounds. The important part is the coupon for a free beer: http://www.twincitiesoktoberfest.com/index.php/admission.html. And the beer server with the large chest and small outfit.
• October 8 or 9 - Gasthoff Oktoberfest in north Minneapolis. This is an either/or with the Twin Cities Oktoberfest. Maybe. Could always do both in one night. That would be some serious Oktoberfest-ing.
• October 22 - Soap Factory Haunted Basement. Ming's going too. CRAP! That's the same day as the CTC Robin Hood play. Grr...that's what I get for not sending myself all the dates ASAP. We'll have to move the play.
• Saturday, October 30, Rosemount Halloween Haunted Trial as Eryn wants to go to something sort of spooky. We might visit Ming and his neighbor for a spooky garage as well.
• Sunday, October 31 - Halloween! Someone might be going as Hermione Granger again this year.
• Somewhere in that mix, I need to schedule a geocaching day with Kevin. Maybe a week day, as I have a lot of vacation left.

Geocaching, St. Peter Style

Apparently it takes me two days to do anything. So I'm going to mention that I went to breakfast with Erik this morning, just so I can blog about something the same day it happened. We had a good breakfast at Junior's, although they didn't open until 30 minutes after we wanted to start breakfast and it was incredibly cold in the restaurant while we were ordering. The grill provides a lot of the heat, and if you're the only two in there other than the two children of the cook, who are obviously going to have heart attacks by age 8, the grill isn't running at full capacity.

Also, my sister is pondering urban chickens. It's not often I can find something I can come down firmly against, but urban chickens appear to be one of those things. Dirty. Lots of work (she only thought a poodle was a pain in the ass). Expensive (small animal license). Dangerous (disease and 744 hits on the med site related to beak injuries). Flashbacks for my father (who grew up in an incubation room). Neighbors (who shouldn't approve and have veto rights if you're within 100'). And readily available organic eggs in about a million other locations in Minnesota. On the positive note, maybe my sometimes sensitive niece will be excited when chicken harvesting season comes around.

So, Sunday I went geocaching. All day. Ming, Kyle, Logan (1st Grade) and I traveled down to Jordan where Kyle lost his geocaching virginity at Riefsgraf Lion's Park. Here are Ming and Logan celebrating Kyle losing his virginity. It was good that Kyle found the first cache, even if it was a micro instead of something more fun, as it proved the efficacy of his new GPS. I sent him a route pocket query that I imported and exported using the Geocaching Swiss Army Knife (gsak at http://www.gsak.net/). That's an excellent piece of software, and it allows me to export in a format I like, including the terrain difficulty, cache size, find difficulty and last four find status values. I think the only issue I bumped into were a few missing recent caches because the area I tagged (Eagan to Mankato) had over 500 caches, so it throw out the most recent ones. Easily remedied by using two overlapping pocket caches. Klund gave me a few of the ins and outs about using the macros, and it may be one of my better purchase decisions in quite some time.


We ate breakfast at Cindy's in Belle Plaine where we met Klund and Eli (grade 2). Apparently, the developer who sits 10' away from me - Robin - grew up in Belle Plaine and the owner of Cindy's graduated a year ahead of her. This didn't save it. Klund turned up a review that listed Cindy's as a 1. My food wasn't a 1, but a 2 might have been generous, particularly as the tables and chairs were covered with dust when we sat down (and perhaps a few bits of food) and Logan stated at one point, "This isn't a very good pancake." It's hard to f-up a pancake for a first grader - you pretty much have to try. The primary problem was the food hit the table about four minutes before it finished cooking. Bleah. Even so, it was better than Emma Krumbee's, which we hit at Belle Plaine on the way back. Wow was that bad. The service was bad, although that didn't stop the waitress from telling everyone it was because it was sooooo busy (it was busy, there were people waiting outside, but it wasn't that busy, and the real issue was that she couldn't take orders from multiple tables at once. It was a very asynchronous operation with one table getting water, then an order, then a delivery, then the rest of the delivery that was missed). The food was bad. My burger was sort of gray, overdone, and had visible bits of fat. The Canadian bacon was obviously boiled. The apple sauce was not a sauce (Logan's observation). NEVER AGAIN. Next time we'll soldier it out until we get to House of Wu up by 35W.

But on a positive note, Bob's Apple Barn was still open when we drove past, and we had assumed it would be closed. I had the weirdest barley-based root beer I've ever tasted, and Ming went wild buying candy, but no pie. Which is really strange for him as he's got a sort of piemania.

Back to Belle Plaine in the morning, after the breakfast at Cindy's. We went in search of a few caches in Belle Plaine, a surprisingly historic little town. I know it's historic because this house says so. Watch out Kyle. That looks like a Willie E. Coyote trap.


That house sported a two storey out house. Watch out below. There's one like it in Deadwood (South Dakota), but I didn't realize I didn't have to go that far. The cache is nearby, but not in the outhouse itself.


Belle Plaine also has the Church of the Transfiguration. That means they take your geocache and turn it into nothingness. Six people looking and this was our only Did Not Find of the day. Someone noted that they'd parked and walked right to it. Dicks. I had my arm up to the shoulder under the church, braving squirrels, raccoons, and spiders. Only the power of Christ compelled them not to bite me.


Neat looking roof. All those wood shingles must be a pain. One of them is probably the geocache as the hint recommended praying.


Here's the church from the front so you can read all about it if you like. Don't skip the part about the generations of angry geocachers whose prayers weren't answered.


We finished up Belle Plaine at the Veterans' Park where they have a nice virtual cache with a Huey helicopter. I'm not going to post a picture of the sign, as you might be able to get credit for the cache. But here's Huey the Helicopter. That's Kyle in the cockpit, trying to fly away from Cindy's.


Proof that geocaching can be a very communal activity. I suspect there are pictures out there by Diane Fossey that look awfully similar(sans all the GPSes).


After Belle Plaine, we hit a rest stop just a few miles south. Two of the caches were straight forward, but the third led us to a chasm and coordinates that seemed to place the cache about 68' out into the chasm. Which was strange. Because the difficulty was 1.5 (out of 5) and the terrain was 1.5 (out of 5). Nonetheless, every GPS pointed downward, so we hit the leafy hill, sliding and slipping into the ravine. The first tree Kyle grabbed, about six inches around and 20+' tall, cracked and almost fell on his head. Ming kicked loose a log as big as I was that tumbled toward me like something out of an Ewok trap. And Eli kicked loose a rock about twice the size of my head that tumbled down so fast it gave me a real-life appreciation for what an avalanche looks like and why it kills you. We looked about, struggled back to the top, and then found the cache about 10' away from where we'd left our things.

Kyle, Ming and Logan. That cache is down there further. Just a bit. It's so close...NOT.


Ming and Logan struggling to the top. I saved Logan's life shortly after this by helping him up the final few feet. If I hadn't, he'd be there still.


An idea of the slope. Picture yourself at the bottom with a head caved in by a rock and a log on your chest. Not too far away I a.) took a picture of the earth cache, despite that I despise them, and b.) picked a pod from a tree that Kyle was sure was going to get me in trouble with the guy with a sherrif's badge. But he just wanted to know if we'd found the cache.


For our last several caches we hit 7 Mile Creek in St. Peter. There are about 25 there, so it was a good spot to do some hiking. We went up, and down, some big hills. There's a geocache near this spot. It's a mint tin, and it looks like a piece of trash. Ming set it on the bridge and ignored it for a while because there was so much rusty water inside it couldn't be a cache. Nasty. And Kyle almost got bit by a squirrel, so it was a tetanus danger zone.


Horses fording the creek near where Eli tried to get us to cross.


I took a picture of Kirby Pass just to make sure if they never found our bodies, and only my camera, they'd know where we'd been. All Blair Witch like. Shortly after this pass, we hiked up a monster hill to find two of the caches. Klund and I flanked the cache while everyone else assaulted the front. Neither way was easy. At the top I tried to take a leak, but Kyle told Eli I had the GPS Eli wanted. So I ended up trying to pee away from him, explain where the GPS was, and cease my sharking of two nearby hikers. The end result is a nice picture of Eli standing next to me while I pee on Facebook.


The final cache of the day.


We finished out the day, as previously mentioned, at Emma Krummiebees, and by whispering all the way home "Shhhh, Logan's asleep" and asking "Logan, did you make a skunk in your pants?" after smelling some pigs. Logan's response was to yell at us, "I'm not asleep!" It's surprising that you can get an hour's amusement out of so little material.

Fourteen caches found, one not found! Excellent day, and thanks to everyone who went!

St. Peter Geocaching

Over the long weekend, we spent two days in St. Peter, Minnesota, once again hosted by the Klunds and the Klund-ish grandparents. You'd think we'd see less of the Grandklunds now that two of them have moved into an RV, but they were all there. It makes for a kickin' Wii crowd and cards crowd most visits. And they were there to share the caramel apple pie we bought at Jim's Apple Orchard.

We'd gone past the big yellow signs for Jim's a few times, but never stopped because it was usually off season. But this time, both going down and coming back, there were dozens of cars. I recommend stopping. My apple caramel pie was hot when they handed it over. There are hundreds of kinds of honey and jam (beer and root beer) and apples. And there's something like 300 kinds of candy, which kept Eryn entranced for some time. If you've driven far enough south on 169 from the cities, you'll recognize the place from Eda Cherry's blog (via MNSpeak).

We spent the weekend eating, gaming, geocaching, and riding the Red Jacket Trail (named after a Seneca Indian chief). I've never met anyone other than Kevin who thinks a family ride with tagalongs involves an initial five miles of bicycling up hill. But it made for a lot of exercise in a short trip.

We found three geocaches in St. Peter. This is your spoiler warning if you like to geocache down that way. I'll be ruining some of the fun if you read on.

The location of the first cache. So cunningly hidden that you can't even see the Klunds milling about in the photo.


There they are! It's like they appeared out of nowhere right next to the cache. It looks hot and dry, but there were a startling number of mosquitoes hanging out just waiting for geocachers.


Cache #2 follows the geocaching rule, "If it looks out of place, suspect it." That goes double for chunks of cement in the woods. We flipped it over, and there was the micro.


The only cache that was really in the thick of it. And tricky to boot. Klund had the clue, but it's still hidden plainly in sight.


A few Klunds roll the dice on avian flu and bird mites.


Once it's ascertained it's a cache, the elder Klund is willing to touch it. I don't know why he's standing like that. It sort of reminds me of old movies where actors walked stiffly and carried both arms crooked and near their midsection. Like Charlie Chaplin. Which reminds me of a joke. What do you call Charlie Chaplin's horse? Snow Patrol. Or something like that. It was funnier in person.


Finally, unrelated to geocaching, a post for Mrs. Klund.


And, according to this post, watching someone else do it on YouTube is reason enough to try it yourself...


And in case you think only guys are that stupid, here's a woman doing the same thing. I think that's a copy of Contemporary Dentistry she's using. I think it's interesting that they're actually referred to as Bible Cysts because this is a traditional method of removing them.