Ah…Sunday…that was one of the craziest days ever… For starters, it was the 13th anniversary of me becoming a landed immigrant. Boy, those 13 long years…flew by so quickly… Anyway, the morning began as usual with two services. The pastor at cfc made me laugh when he crosses his hand to make an “X” whenever he says any word that begins with “ex…” The series is on “An Extraordinary Joe”…so you see how it might be funny that way… After the two services, there was lunch at church, and then we were off to an adventure that we didn’t expect… First, Li Zhen Harry Danny Forest and I headed to New City Supermarket. Apparently there was a fight to get shotgun that was quite interesting in its own right… The ride was filled with conversations where accusations about who liked what girl were flying abound, and I started to wonder what have I done…heh. Bought stuffs at the market, then off to Wholesale for more groceries, where Danny and Forest decided to bring a ton of liquids back home, hence space in the car was at a premium. Everyone (except me, of course) had at least 25 pounds of liquids on their lap… That was relieved after a short trip to Sports National and then Li Zhen’s place, where we offloaded 2 people…excellent start, I’d say. And then things went downhill from there…literally…well, you know, the drive off of the apartment was a downhill one…

The plan for the rest of the day was to play squash and go home. We went to Conestoga to get Forest a squash racquet, which he did. We came back to Li Zhen’s place again, since both Harry and Li Zhen left stuffs in my car…oops. We then offload stuffs at Danny’s place, then Forest’s place…when we got to my place, however, I was thinking that I should take a closer parking spot, so I went for it…and got stuck in the snow. And nothing that the three of us have done could get the car out of it. My front wheels were grinding on the ice and some card boards, and that wasn’t good. We were desperate and depressed. I could only pray, and then started a futile attempt to chip the ice near the wheel. Eventually called Ed for help, and he brought 5 (!) brothers here. With the seven of them, they pushed the car out after a few more tries, and that was a major relief. Wow…that was just an incredible display of love within brothers in Christ…I almost cried, but didn’t… It was simply an overwhelmingly amazing moment to see this happen.

Backing away from the pseudo tearjerker, we finally offloaded my stuffs and went to PAC for some squashing, adding Jessie to the mix. This would be the second time I’ve played this year, and of course I sucked… I think the goal for the entire thing was to beat Forest somehow…heh. I was in terrible shape (as always), so I kept needing to rest and stuff. I have to say, I really don’t like squash at all…but for the sake of being physically active, what other choice do I have? (Well, choices that are not blocked by God, that is.) I invited the squashers to a dumpling dinner at my place, which was nice, but really, I still think a generation gap exists between myself and this group of youngsters. But, I think they accepted me, so I can’t complain. Sent them home afterwards, and that ended this crazy day. I’m grateful to God for everything that happened.

I haven’t posted in a while, and so many things have happened…so instead of making one giant post about everything, I think I’ll go back to my previous ways of writing and just write 3 things in one post…

Crazy weather: So the school was closed Thursday afternoon and all of Friday…that was because of a lot of freezing rain, ice pellets and snow that came down. And they came down hard. But somehow it felt incredible… Eventually this made the snow really funny to step on…there’s a squishing feeling to it… Anyway, never before have I experienced more than one school closures in one winter season, so this must have been a pretty brutal winter. Meanwhile, right now, there’s a wind warning and a windchill warning going on. Strong winds have been howling all day long, and the temperature is dropping down pretty quickly. Another crazy weather day… (In related news, I lost my left glove for good…I thought the weather’s supposed to get warmer, so I didn’t think much about it, but now I’m having second thoughts…)

I had a supervisor meeting today, and it wasn’t too bad since I did try to read something beforehand (surprisingly). I guess the research is going somewhere, but I’m not sure where…

School closure boardgaming reports…2 days, 3 sessions, 7 people, 12 games. Thursday evening: Ed and Ingrid came to my place to play games. We opened up the Ticket to Ride expansion, and off we go.

• Ticket expansion game 1: There were lots of new destination tickets, so it was hard to guess where everyone’s going now, which is good. I kept a Boston-Washington ticket, which is a short route involving only two short tracks of length 2 each, Boston-New York, New York-Washington. At game start, I had enough train cards to claims Boston-New York. Apparently this set off a big panic with Ed and Ingrid, and they subsequently claimed New York-Washington (blocking my original route) and New York-Pittsburgh (blocking my detour route)…hence, I had to give up on that 4-point ticket… The rest of the game was tight as well, with lots of blockings and stuff. Ed ended up claiming the longest road bonus with all 45 trains on one line! I finished 6 tickets to claim the Globetrotter bonus, but that wasn’t enough… Final score: Ed 149, Ingrid 92, Me 146.
• Ticket expansion game 2: Ingrid was not happy about that first game, so we played a second game. This time, Ingrid kept getting destination tickets, and that got her the big win. Final score: Ed 141, Ingrid 183, Me 120.
• Carcassonne: Of course, once Ingrid has won, she wanted to move on to a new game, so there it was, our first crack at Carcassonne. The rules were not too hard to explain, and the game featured Ingrid and I eventually sharing a giant city. But, most likely because of my experience playing this game on my own, I won this one. Final score: Ed 88, Ingrid 91, Me 109. So we ended this night with each one winning once (and of course, I always win last)…

Friday afternoon: Amidst the crazy snow outside, Harry and Jessie came to my place to play…

• Ticket expansion games 1-3: I don’t remember much about these games, except to say that there were a ton of unintentional blockings going on there. The distribution of the new destination tickets must have been a bit unbalanced to make that happen…but at least it made for interesting games. In any case, each of us won once (as it seems to always happen), and Harry scored a record low!
  Game 1 scores: Jessie 99, Harry 118, Me 83. (Harry and I tied for longest route at 29 each, but Harry had the most tickets completed, so he claimed both bonuses.)
  Game 2 scores: Jessie 122, Harry 121, Me 100. (I completed the most tickets, but I had only short routes, so the bonus didn’t matter. Harry lost by only 1 point!)
  Game 3 scores: Jessie 74, Harry 25, Me 168. (I think I got lucky with the destination draws, and Harry’s record may never be broken there.)
• Carcassonne: I explained the rules again, and they seem to get it quickly. Harry and Jessie eventually shared a gigantic city that they couldn’t complete. When it was close to the end of the game, I drew a tile that was necessary to complete the city…well, completing the city was more interesting than winning the game, so I completed the city for them, hence losing this game. Final scores: Jessie 93, Harry 92, Me 72. So Harry lost by 1 again…
• Ticket expansion game 4: Yes, we played one more game, apparently deciding that having a tie is not good. This time, there was not much blocking going on… Final scores: Jessie 124, Harry 142, Me 97. So Harry got the last laugh (so to speak).

Friday evening: I insisted on playing Modern Art, which is an auction game, and which I have dreamed about playing for two straight nights in Montreal…heh. Wouldn’t you believe it, we ended up playing 4 games…it’s apparently that interesting…

• Game 1: First game of the night. Li Zhen took over Ed half way through the first season and made it a really wild game…heh. This is the probably the best game of the evening, as we were buying and selling paintings like crazy, and that was just in the first season! And also, people were bidding at surprisingly high prices, making me really rich…heh. Meanwhile, I wasn’t able to purchase many paintings, since I’m kind of conservative with money (both here and in real life). But, somehow, with Li Zhen taking prices really high, I won this game…go figure. Final scores: Li Zhen 220, Harry 229, Ingrid 415, Me 467.
• Game 2: Brian joined us in this one. It was a bit too quick, though, as people were trying to cash in by finishing a season early. But, somehow, I won again…really! Final scores: Li Zhen 358, Ingrid 266, Ed 362, Brian 334, Me 375.
• Game 3: It was yet another very quick game, and people are starting to figure out how to play this one (except me, even though I won the first two). An intriguing move by Brian to end a season early without buying a painting led Ed and Harry to deduce (correctly) that Brian had many cards from the same artist, and used that to end the last season early as well so that Brian doesn’t get to use his advantage…hmm…these people think too much, I think. Anyway, Ingrid won this one, though she believes that we all think Ed was helping her…heh. Final scores: Harry 230, Ingrid 335, Ed 265, Brian 221, Me 257.
• Game 4: Last game of the night, and it started out quick but ended up being quite interesting, I think. We ended up having one artist on the leaderboard for all 4 seasons, making each such painting worth 100 at the end! And another one that was #1 for the last 3 seasons, making each such painting worth 90! There was one painting which Ingrid sold in an open auction where the price went from 20 up to around 55, in increments of 1…and Ed drove us crazy several times when he made his bid after it’s “going twice”…heh. Anyway, Ed won this one eventually, and he liked this one.
• A few notes: Supposedly the denomination is in $1000 dollars, so a score of 350 is actually $350,000, but at the end we just dropped the illusion of value…; the chips that were used as money tokens are kind of hard to handle, so we sort of wanted to use poker chips instead…; this game is best played with all new players, I believe…once people start to figure out how to play, it’s not that much fun anymore (namely, I don’t win anymore…heh); as I said, I’m pretty conservative, so I always buy lower than other people, hence I don’t buy many paintings…I think I’ve only won a blind auction once…; it appears that without Li Zhen jacking up the prices, I will never win…heh; it was slightly funny when Ed and Ingrid used the actual “art” on the painting (which is totally irrelevant to the game) as a selling point in the auctions.