Humans Win

I love to play board games. You could say I'm a board game geek. Its okay. I don't mind. When I was a kid growing up in Las Vegas, the older kids in the neighborhood introduced me to Risk. I love that game. It brings back some great memories.

We own enough board games that the closet can't hold them all. I purchased a few more this last week. Now we have to find a bigger hiding place or a bigger house. Either way, I'm not going to stop acquiring games I like. My next purchase may be Battlestar Galactica.

My friend Banky introduce me to the game. The first couple of times I played I didn't think the game was all that fun. The Cylons kept kicking our butts early into the game. Banky kept telling me the game takes about 3 to 4 hours to play, but up to this point we averaged about an hour.

The game play is simple. At the beginning each person is given a loyalty card. Only you can see your card. This card tells you whether you are a cylon or human. If you are a cylon, you get to keep your identity secret as long as you desire and sabotage the humans efforts.

At the end of each player's turn a Crisis card is drawn. These cards live up to their name - Crisis. To pass a crisis each player plays skill cards that have numerical value. The skill cards are color coded and the cards that count must be of the correct color. This is where the Cylons can interfere. They can play cards of the wrong color and that subtracts from the total. If you don't get at least the numerical value required, you fail the crisis and some penalties will be incurred.

For the humans to win, they need to complete enough "jumps" to total 8 plus one final "jump." The Cylons have a few ways to win. They can inflict too much damage to the Galactica, run the humans out of either population, morale, fuel, or fuel, or have a boarding party reach the end of their trek.

With so many ways for a Cylon victory it is tough for the humans to win. In fact, I have never played when the humans win until last night. The humans finally pulled off the upset. It was touch and go for a bit. We humans were down to the minimum fuel supply. We drew the card that increased the fuel and we went about kicking Cylon bootie. The trick is to extend this into a winning streak. The odds are against us humans, but I think we are up to the challenge.

Need to Get It Together

There are many things that I need to improve about my life. Don't get me wrong. There a lot of things about my life that I love, but there are the areas I would like to improve.

Like anyone else I would love to get into shape (other than round) and lose some weight. I started going back to the gym thanks to my BFF. We were getting into a grove and then I strained a tendon in my knee. Ouch! The knee is getting closer to normal. I look forward to getting back to the gym.

I have some house projects that need attention. I'm sure Queentuffy would like me to finish those. I think the only way I'm going to finish them is to create a list and start checking off the projects as I get them done.

My career is a whole other problem. In fact it will take another blog post to cover that. The overall theme is it is time to take the steps. They may be baby steps, but steps none the less.

Loyalty

When is loyalty one-sided in life? I can't count how many times I've been asked to show loyalty to this and that. I've never asked for loyalty to be shown towards me. I guess I always figured that my loyalty will be paid back with your loyalty. Was I wrong?

Nothing will let you know about others loyalty to you like hard times. Is your loyalty contigent on times being good? As soon as the chips are down are all loyalty bets off? It seems that this is the case.

When I'm loyal to you, I will do what I can to improve your situation, make you look good, do what it takes for you to be successful. What do you do for me? Make sure we have status quo? I will go above and beyond. I have and will continue to do so for those I'm loyal. I guess you will continue to take advantage of that. Expecting more and giving less.

Well those days are over. My loyalty will now match yours. You can blame outside factors, but we both know its all on you. Thanks for taking advantage of my loyalty. My eyes are open. It won't happen again. I will find someone else who will return my loyalty and they will benefit. And you? You better hope you never need a favor from me.

Its Not My Fantasy

I just finished drafting my team for the second fantasy football team I own. Though I did an okay job, I did not feel all that excited about drafting. I think that perhaps fantasy football has run its course with me. I didn't do any research. In fact, I used spreadsheets created by the IT guy out our office. I think the fun is spending time researching, drafting and juggling the lineup. Right now I don't feel like doing any of those things. If my feelings about this does not change by next year, I will not be join any fantasy leagues. I will retire in the two leagues I'm in currently.

I have been participating in fantasy football since the early 90's. Back then there weren't any websites designed for fantasy football. The rules were simpler because the commissioner had to use the KC Star or the USA Today newspapers to figure the scoring by hand.

Now days there are websites and television shows telling you who to draft and in what order. We have wesites to set the lineups, check for free agents, and calculate the scoring. I miss the simple days of buying a magazine and figuring it out myself.

So, I think this will be my final year of fantasy football. I look forward to watching the games with nothing on the line for me personally. I will be watching for the pure joy of watching. Nothing more. Besides I prefer college football. My sundays will be free next year. Lets go fishing.

Been Busy

Tonight is the first night this week that I have spent in front of the TV with the wife. It is nice. Though it didn't start off this care free. I went to the gym with my best friend. He has been keeping me motivated. Lord knows I need all the motivation I can get. I should be concentrating on some school work, but I am enjoying the nothingness of it all.

I wouldn't be enjoying nothing so much if it wasn't for the busy week. I'll start my explanation with Monday. Monday started like any other work day. First I didn't want to get up. Secondly I made it through the soul crushing day. Lastly I played tennis with said best friend. Boy it felt good to play some tennis. Tennis has a way of exposing how out of shape I am. After some good tennis fun, I got some pointers on punching. I wasn't allowed to hit anyone, but I did get some good shots on the heavy bag. All done with activity I went home just in time to have a small dinner and do some homework. When finished it was way past my bedtime.

Step 1 and 2 were the same for Tuesday as for Monday. The cherry on top of this day was bowling. Somehow I ended up on a team in a bowling league. I bowled surprisingly well considering I haven't bowled for a while. My scores were 168, 128 and 133. I was happy. Again I ended up getting home late. The wife was already in bed. She was the smart one.

Oh, I almost forgot step 2a of Tuesday. We had a new refrigerator delivered from Nebraska Furniture Mart. I had to spend time unloading the old fridge and loading the new one. It's amazing how much you can fit into a 22 cubic foot fridge. By the way, my NFM experience was great. The delivery drivers were professional and courteous. The fridge is still slightly larger than the space calls for. The dish washer door doesn't open all the way, but far enough to still be useful.

Today repeated steps 1 and 2. I got to miss lunch because of training. It wasn't so bad. Going to the gym was good, and now I'm here watching Glee and blogging. Ahhhh! Tomorrow I will rest even more and I have Friday off for the ultimate relaxing day. Yay me.

For the record. I'm not complaining. I enjoy having a busy social life. I need to have fun time. Life is too short and serious to not have fun on a daily basis. If you believe me, buy an Xbox 360 and friend me (Kipkillagin1). We can play some Halo 3.

My Wife's Heart is Bigger than our House

We live in a 1400 s.f. house. It is even smaller than that sounds. The wife and I love to entertain. There are times when I wish our house was bigger. We have a lot of great friends. We want to invite them all to our game nights. The problem is we have room for 8 to 10 people and we would like to invite 20.

My wife would feed and entertain the world if they could fit into our house. She loves have a large circle of friends and would do about anything for them. I hope they realize how lucky they are to have her as a friend.

If it were up to me, we would keep the circle smaller. I like knowing and liking a lot of people, but I believe in only having a small group of Best Friends. I like to have one or two guy buddies that I can call on to play tennis, go workout, play a game, or just hang. My wife would say they same thing, but the exception would be the number of buddies.

I'm lucky she likes and cares for so many people. I get to meet a lot of great people that way. I get to have a lot of great times entertaining and playing games. Just remember if I get a hold of you alone to do something, you are considered a best friend. And that is an exclusive club. Hopefully, you feel the same about me.

Fry Daddy

I am frying some chicken to serve to our guests at game night. The theme is a picnic. We are having cold fried chicken, potato salad, chips, and watermelon. The recipe I'm following is from this website http://gregbeckchicken.blogspot.com/

Chicken marinating in a bowl. Waiting for their turn in the fryer. Patience my pretties.

It's frying time. Everyone in the pool! The sound of something frying makes me salivate. Don't worry I kept it contained.

The first batch all done. Of course we sampled one. It was surprisingly good. Only five or six more batches left. It is going to be a late night.