Category Archives: Life

Wedding, Boston, and things

Posted on by

Tim got married last weekend. It was an awesome time, and was definitely the best wedding I’ve ever been to.

More photos will be posted at some point when I am not in Boston.

Because, yeah, right now I’m in Boston (well, Cambridge, anyway). It has been a fun time. Yesterday we did an 11+ mile walk around Cambridge and Boston. Today’s plans include more hiking. I really like this area… I think if it weren’t for the prices of everything, it’s somewhere I would be happy to live in.

MIT has a building uglier than Gates! Yay!

Food, Kickstarter, cards, and thou (but not really)

Posted on by

Life goes. Yay life.

I’ve started cooking again, which I think is a sign that I am generally happier. This is a good thing. Here’s a couple of the things I’ve made in the past few days (when I, unfortunately, neglected to get pictures of any of it). I’m still using organic and local ingredients when possible, so I made it all with organic chicken, organic eggs, organic carrots, and locally-grown zucchini. I feel like I’m eating better that way. Yay.

Chicken “Parmesean”

2 chicken breasts, sliced in half lengthwise
1 egg
1c breadcrumbs
1/2 jar pasta sauce
1/2 box whole wheat spaghetti
4 slices of cheese (I used extra sharp cheddar)

Dip chicken breasts in egg, then liberally coat with breadcrumbs. Brown both sides in a skillet over medium heat. Move to a baking pan, top with a little sauce (not enough to even cover each piece) and place cheese on top. Bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes. Serve over spaghetti with remaining sauce.

Chicken and rice and veggies

2 chicken breasts, sliced in half lengthwise
1/2 package frozen mixed vegetables
1c dry rice
1/2 zucchini, sliced
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
Spices to taste (I used an Indian Curry blend from Giant Eagle)

Cover chicken in spices and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.
Add frozen vegetables to rice with 2c water. (You can also add some herbs and it comes out very tasty.) Bring to a boil, then simmer on low heat for ~20 minutes until done.
Put carrots and zucchini in a bowl, add a little water, cover, and microwave for 4 minutes on high.
Serve chicken with rice and vegetables.

They’re both really low effort to make (throw stuff together and surf the web while it all cooks) and are much healthier than eating out due to lack of added oil, salt, and sugar.

In other, non-food news, I have been exploring the awesomeness that is Kickstarter recently. I’ve already pledged to three board games (all of which succeeded), and am contemplating pledging a fourth.

  • Ground Floor looks kind of like Puerto Rico, except it has elements of placement like Agricola, which are two of my favorite games. It also looks like it has a good theme.
  • My Happy Farm is a *lot* of fun, and I’m sad it didn’t get more support. I already received and played the print-and-play version, and it’s a very cute, very entertaining game that is a good time-filler while you’re waiting for people to show up or finish other games.
  • Pixel Lincoln looks like a very interesting deck-building game. I tend to like deck-building games (Dominion is good, Rune Age is better, and Ascension is… interesting), and this looks like a very interesting twist on one.
  • Currently looking at Flash Point, which Greg has apparently played at Yubin’s before, and which has excellent reviews online. Still I don’t particularly need to spend another $65. We will see. The only cooperative board game I’ve played previously is Pandemic, and I find that to be a little too fiddly.

Each game also comes with a lot of awesome extras (like Ground Floor coming with an entire extra game, or Pixel Lincoln coming with a bunch of extra cards), which makes supporting through Kickstarter more than worthwhile.

Also been starting up on People Wars again, after a hiatus following Carnival (and the last expansion). I always like working on my card games, and always find it interesting to look back at my card game history and seeing how they’ve evolved.
In particular, since People Wars represents the fifth iteration of the same basic game, it’s interesting to see how it’s been refined over the years (8 years now!), and to look at how certain things have worked (dual characters, storage cards, working on GPA/tasks) and other things haven’t (trigger text, group nodes, division of characters into primary affiliations).
I suppose it’s kind of sad, but I still consider the PPA TCG/Student Wars/People Wars game series to be one of my most fulfilling accomplishments. Sometimes I wish I had the skill (or luck?) to work on card games as a career, but I also enjoy my current job, and my current job probably pays the bills far better. (Likewise with photography, although I haven’t felt urges to do that professionally for a while.)

So yeah. This post has gotten far too long and contains far too many words. Have a picture of My Happy Farm

and a card from the upcoming People Wars expansion

Ohio walk failure

Posted on by

Mission “Walk to Ohio” was a failure. I skipped out at the 26 mile mark (just past Midway, which is a suitable name) and came home. I probably could have made it to dinner (another ~5 miles) and maybe West Virginia (another ~6 miles after that), but a car was being called for some other people anyway, and the decision at that point was either heading back or finishing the entire 45 miles, which I didn’t feel like I could do. (Route here.)

I think having done the West Virginia portion before made me less inclined to push myself, which in retrospect was the right decision. Final count is five blisters and one (still) red sore spot, which means continuing onward for another 11 miles would not have been smart.

For self reference, in the (likely) event that I attempt such a walk next year, shoes are hugely important. The pair I wore today I had only worn once before, and for less than three miles. I found that the tops pinch my foot too much, causing pain starting even before mile 10. Wearing my old pair of boots would have been a better idea, since they have more top padding. Also, I need to buy medical tape or similar to bind my toes before starting. My feet and toes are kind of weirdly bent, so the way I walk causes lots of rubbing of toes together and of toes and sock. Protecting them beforehand would have helped greatly.

Still, I think it was a good experience. Photos will be posted at some point.

Greg, Keith, and David are still going and hoping to hit Ohio around midnight. Best of luck to them.

Edit: Photos have been posted here.

Edit edit: Ohio group made it to Ohio and back safely. Huzzah!

Edit edit edit: Greg has a much more comprehensive writeup here. Yay for anti-aliasing weeds! :D

Whee trip

Posted on by

I suppose I should write an update given I’ve been away for a month and I’m about to head home.

I have been in Thailand, with a week-long excursion to Japan. I’ve had multi-day excursions to Chang Mai and Amphawa. I have eaten lots of good, and lots of not-so-good food. I have taken a few thousand photos. I’ve gone shopping nearly every day (although much more rarely for things for myself or for gifts; my parents recently purchased a condo and we needed to outfit it, culminating in a bed and mattress which were delivered yesterday). I’ve spent lots of time with relatives and been missing people back home and had a much-needed break from work. And I’m sad it’s almost over.

Photos will be forthcoming at some point, maybe. Possibly not, given I still haven’t done anything with the photos of my last Thailand trip and Europe excursion. We shall see.

Life and cameras

Posted on by

life has gotten an update bringing it up to today. Yay life.

Last week was a stop in Phoenix to visit my parents. We went to the Pima Air and Space Museum.

Also last week was Kathleen’s wedding. Yay wedding!

Other photos from the trip can be found at photos.

So I safely made it back to Pittsburgh this weekend… and I went from the awesome San Francisco weather to the awesome Phoenix weather to… surprise, surprise, awesome Pittsburgh weather. Actually, it’s been unusually nice for March… more like mid-April weather than anything.
As such, I have been taking extended breaks in the afternoon from work to go enjoy the weather and photograph.




Also shot some photos of 8 today.


Been pondering camera lenses (and future body purchases) lately.
At this point, I have two paths I can go down: I can invest in AF-S DX lenses that will work with the more intro-level Nikon DSLRs, and replace my D90 with a lower-level body (like the D3100 or D5100) when it dies… or I can invest in more full-frame lenses (like all of my current lenses except for one) and get a full-frame body (like the D800) when it dies.
The big difference here would be between the 18-200mm DX lens and the 28-300mm FX lens. Each will be between $700 and $900, so both is not a reasonable option. (Not to mention they cover most of the same range anyway, so it’d be dumb to get both.)

I’m really not sure that a more expensive, more professional body is worthwhile. I mean, yes, I use my camera way more than most people. But I don’t shoot studio shots, or sports, or things that would require me to have instant access to a wide range of features that the more professional bodies offer. (I don’t even ever use most of the features, like white balance settings or bracketing or viewfinder grid lines or AF modes.) As such, the only benefit to the D800 would be the full-frame sensor, but that alone is not worth the $2500 difference in cost between bodies.

Which leaves me feeling like I should aim towards a lower-level body. These have the benefit of being cheaper ($500 or so) and ligher (which is important given how much I carry my camera around). I can’t think of one feature the lower-level bodies lack that I would miss. (Well, maybe support for the infrared remote. But that is so minor and I’ve used my remote exactly once since I got it.)
So the only downside here would be that none of my current lenses will autofocus with the bodies, meaning I would have to invest in a new series of lenses. If I do this, I’ll probably invest in DX lenses (which are not full-frame), which means that a future transition to a full-frame camera would be much more difficult than it is now. But this still seems like the right thing to do.

Which means my next purchase will likely be the 35mm f/1.8 DX lens. At some point, I should probably also switch out my 50mm f/1.8 with the AF-S version and sell my 70-300mm.

Yay cameras.