On a Variety of Recent Activities

Sunday June 14, 2009 at 4:39pm weddings, trips, friends, churches, songwriting, music, gitp, gaming Comments (7) »

Sheri, Llama and I took a trip out to North Carolina this weekend to attend our friend Kevin's wedding. It was a nice little ceremony. We're all very happy for them. Stephanie is sweet, and well suited to Kevin in a number of ways. It was good to see him so obviously happy too.

I must confess a bit of mild camera-gear-envy with respect to the photographers' toys. Also, there was a penguin cake at the reception, which was cool.

We got to see some other mutual friends there too - William and Ginger and Mike and Bethany. It's always good to see people we don't get to hang out with much (esp. Ginger who just moved away from us). We spent saturday afternoon and evening hanging out and playing games with Ginger and William. It was a lot of fun - we don't play games as much as we used to.

The car ride was a bit long, and I think Llama was starting to get a little loopy by 2am when we got home, but the trip was successfully completed.

This morning we went to Hopwood Christian Church. We had originally thought we were still going to be in NC this morning and so had arranged for Sheri to have this morning off at our church, but we ended up coming home saturday night and so decided to visit somewhere else. It was nice, actually. Jim Street had a great message about how to bless a fish (heh), and it was probably the most thought-provoking message i've heard in a while - and one that I truly thought embodies the spirit of christianity. We saw the Rosolinas (who we're still trying to have over for dinner sometime) there and also Brian West and his family (who i hadn't had a chance to talk much to in a while). Brian and Danielle invited us over for lunch, and we ended up hanging out and talking for a quite a while.

Brian is trying to get motivated to record some of his songs, and I think this is a great idea. He's been writing for a long time, and he's really into it - but most of his stuff just gets left on the page after it's written and he doesn't have any really good sounding recordings of any of it. We had a lengthy and interesting talk about the technical and artistic aspects of songwriting and recording. I really hope he does something with this. I've even offered to help with the technical stuff which intimidates him a little - not because i'm great, but because i've at least done it before. Maybe it'll get him started.

Tonight we're supposed to have a planning meeting for OotsCon '09. Our crowd this year looks a little smaller and some key people will be missing (and they will be missed), but some *other* people are able to make it this year. Hopefully it will be as successful as it's been the last two years. It's really not about the numbers, it's about the fun - there were only 13 11 of us at the first OotsCon back in '07. Hopefully we'll be able to get our plans ironed out.

My homebrew gaming system has reached Alpha status. I have just a couple more mechanical aspects to iron out, and then the first round of playtesting will begin with whoever i can get to help me out with this. I've discussed the theory of the system at some length with Sheri and Tony, and they both seemed to think it has some potential. It is definitely a bit different in its root philosophy from the games like D&D that we're used to - but I personally think these differences are a *good* thing. At whatever point the system reaches Beta, I'll be posting some more detailed info on it.


~PS

Zeb The Troll says...

Wait, there were 13 that first year? I'm only recalling 4 from out of town (me, Amanda, Dave, and Ron). *does math* Wow, you guys have a pretty big circle there. We're sorry that Ginger moved away from you guys, but I'm glad she came this way. We really need to get together with her soon and meet this William character we've been hearing about. ;-) If we get a chance, I'd love to hear some about your homebrew system. *11 days until the meetup. I know because I have a countdown on my blog to help me keep track!* Can't wait to see you guys again. ~Zeb

Penguinsushi says...

Hmm. Yeah, i think so. Raldor was still here, and Archives Ninja... ...circle is smaller now :(. Anyway, Let's see: You Alarra Zaragon Gitman Raldor Archives Ninja Masked Llama Hippie Mtn Faerie Bardic Bunny Me Hmm... I'm now getting 11. The biggest reason I got the number 13 was because I remember you all having a 6-on-6 kubb game while I was taking pictures...perhaps I'm counting Mrs Raldor and...someone else? (one of Hippie's kids?) Maybe i'm wrong? Maybe it was 5-on-5? *shrug* Sheri & Llama can tell you I'd be more than happy to jabber to you about the gaming system i'm working on at some point. Heh. We're looking forward to it too! We had our meeting last night, and we'll hopefully be posting some info soon - once we confirm a couple of things with outside sources. Can't wait! ~PS

SnowShoeHare says...

There has to be someone missing in the count. There had to be 13 because there was only 1 kubb stick each--and there are 6 sticks so 6 to a side... Who's missing?.... hmm...Try looking at the pictures?

Penguinsushi says...

I'm wrong! After exhuming and reviewing the pictures, the Kubb game *was* only 5-on-5. I guess you all just didn't used one of the Kubb sticks. Looks like we had 11 at the first meet-up. ~PS

Alarra says...

Yes, that's right. I remember us deciding not to use the 6th stick.

Littlest Penguin says...

So, this year are we using speed Kubb rules or normal? I seem to remember some marathon games last year.

Penguinsushi says...

That will probably depend on popular demand. I like it, but some might feel cheated if they don't get to play the "real" version. I would say that Speed Kubb would probably be best for the *large* Kubb games - those with more than two to a team. Also, we'll have a few sets, so if people want to play "regulation" kubb with smaller groups (or even in larger groups as long as they *know* it might take till tuesday), that could be cool... ~PS

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