Opening Day for "42"

Today I took my boys Jonathan and Caleb on "Opening Day" for the new movie about Jackie Robinson, "42". His jersey number is the only one to be retired for all of baseball, but that doesn't keep my boys from wearing it. Caleb has worn it every year in all-stars, and it is his regular season number in Juniors this year. When Caleb was young, Robinson was the subject of one of the first book reports that he did, a small book I had in my collection. On April 15th, 2007, the 60th anniversary of his rookie year, we went to Dodger stadium for the game. He has always been one of my favorite baseball players. The movie was really good, though a bit 40's cheesy at points, but very accurate at least according to my knowledge of baseball history. I even teared up a few times over the great triumph that he had in his life. But I am also known to tear up in other baseball-related moments (World Series win in '88, visit to Cooperstown and getting a custom bat made, heck I even teared up on opening day this year as Sandy Koufax came out to throw the first pitch at Dodger stadium). The movie even referenced one of my favorite episodes of Jackie Robinson's life outside of baseball when he was in the army and nearly court-martialed that I posted HERE. It was great to share the movie with my boys, it made us proud to be Dodgers and baseball fans. 42 lives on.

Gaming Session: The State of the Wolf

We tried out 51st State for the first time tonight, it was packaged as a typical American game: small print, incoherent rule book, a bit tedious. It took awhile to really understand the game and the flow. It is essentially a card game set in a post-apocalyptic world on the east coast. Each player is a group of survivors trying to establish the 51st state out of the ruins. Each card you can raid for spoils (immediate benefit), negotiate a contract to earn a benefit each turn, or build it as a location to send workers to it for resources and skills. Many decisions to make, and each group has its own advantage. There is a card auction each turn, collection of resources, playing of cards/locations as actions and then totaling victory points. The game was longer than it should have been, but ended up good. I would play it again.

A bunch of people showed up so played Werewolf, and the games seemed to go really good and were lots of fun with 15 people. I was Moderator for both games as we had newbies, but that's fun too. We closed out the night pulling out a cool game from last year, Last Will. That's the game where you try to spent all your money, who goes broke first and the furthest in debt wins. I had an advantage playing with new players, but they caught on quickly. I was able to stay with them and actually used a farm property (I usually avoid/am scared of properties as they remain an asset too long). In the end I was able to pull out the win by just two pounds (its played in old England).

Ratings (Fun/Strategic/Interaction):

51st State: 6~8~4

Werewolf: 5~5~8

Last Will: 7~8~7

Hannah, Conan, Ryan & Me

 I had a very special treat yesterday as Hannah took me on a Daddy-daughter date as fulfillment of her Christmas present to me. We drove up to Hollywood and Burbank and went to the taping of the Conan O'Brien show at Warner Bros. studios. To her great delight, Ryan Gosling was on the show, so she was giddy all day in anticipation. In spite of her school-girl giddiness, I am amazed at how grown up she is as she finishes her senior year and gets ready for college. The show was great and a lot of fun, I don't think I had been to the taping of a show since Happy Days when I was near Hannah's age. Here are some shots of the show, with a Ryan close-up for Hannah:

We had a great time, after we checked in we drove around the area, down Bob Hope drive and hung out for awhile at Johnny Carson park. We also got a look at the various studios, and even checked a view of some of the back lots. This shot is of the airplane crash scene from the movie War of the Worlds, it was bit cold and windy up the hillside. While waiting for the show we even got in a game of Lost Cities. After the show we went out to dinner before we made the long drive back home. The best part was being with Hannah and talking about her goals and the things that she wants to do. I am sure she will be happy pursuing her dreams (maybe not Ryan Gosling though).

Medieval Times 5-6 Jan 2013

We have our annual tradition over the holidays of making graham cracker houses for Christmas, and then when New Years comes we stage a large battle scene with fire and soldiers to destroy them. This year we had a Medieval theme for which I built a castle that ended up pretty cool, and others gave it a more castle-type theme. Brittany & Matt were down for the holidays, and even my son-in-law  made a miniature Minas Tirith from LOTR. The fire that rains from the sky (napalm in our army scenarios) we determined was dragon fire and flamed ordinance from catapults. In reality we use a lengthy piece of plastic to drip the flame down from a ladder with a zipping sound - our whiffle bat worked quite well and we also mixed in a plastic sand shovel. An old set of Weapons and Warriors that we were going to throw out served well for our red & blue medieval soldiers, and the catapults and ballista added a nice touch along with some trees. We didn't use any fireworks this year, but Hannah, Jonathan, Caleb and Sarah all got to drip the fire to cool effect. The fire raged pretty quick and my castle was reduced to complete rubble and few soldiers survived. But with the glow of the flames I captured all the carnage with my camera.

Check out the complete slideshow:

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Battles with the Brother

 It has been awhile since I have been able to play games with my brother Randy, I would like to more often as we approach games in a similar way and it is always fun. We got to dig into some decent two player games that I have not been able to get on the table, so I was stoked to do so. The first one that I have been dying to play but pretty much would only play it with Randy due to the historical nuances to it (he is a history buff), is A Few Acres of Snow. It is actually fairly simple to play, a card driven war game, but each side has their own unique set of cards, units and even abilities. I played the British and Randy the French. As the French he had better alliances with the Native Indians and income from fur trade, while I started with more money and cities with abilities. Once he started raiding my towns I went into defensive mode, fortifying my positions and cutting off his paths. We only had three city sieges in the whole game, and none were successful. As this game has a deck-building component, I spent energy thinning my deck and upgrading my towns until I won in a whimpy way by camping and protecting. It is a pretty cool game, although not much variety, but I would play it again.

We also played the Civil War game Battle Cry, and just set up the first simple scenario. It is also card driven, but more limited in your choices. I made a rash bold move with my artillery and Cavalry at the beginning of the game that cost me both of them, and was on the run from there. I battled back with some hit & run tactics, but ended up having 4 flag bearers on the run and it was just a matter of time before Randy picked them off for the victory. The picture below shows my stupid artillery charge in blue on the right that led to defeat:

We also got in a game of Jab:Realtime Boxing, but I had the clear advantage of having played before. It seems I can only win that game when I play someone older than me.

Gaming Session: Another visit to the Village

 Tonight we got to play Village, a great game I haven't been able to play that often. I again went for the points by building wagons and traveling, but could not overcome the points I missed by not selling at the market that Nate concentrated on. There are many good choices to make in this game, but the coolest part are the generations of your family that pass away and trying to get them into the Village chronicle instead of the unknown graves.

Sarah and Silent Phantom

My daughter Sarah and I had a rare treat this weekend, we had some time to ourselves and watched Phantom of the Opera together. This has always been a treat that we have shared, we both loved the movie adaptation of the musical and have often sung the songs together. But this occasion was different as I had recorded the original 1925 silent film version that starred Lon Chaney as the Phantom. I didn't know if Sarah would be able to sit through the whole thing with no dialogue except for occasional text slides to read that were shown intermittedly. But we were both enthralled with it! It was captivating and we found ourselves singing some of the musical dialogue at the appropriate times during the movie as part of the storyline. It is actually a pretty good movie, and I have always been an admirerer of Lon Chaney, the "Man of a Thousand Faces" who was in so many monster movies. Growing up as a young kid I would read about him and even create and put on my own monster movie make-up to be like him.

 When it got to the masquerade ball, the film had some color in it, rare in those days. It was striking as the Phantom appeared in a red costume and a skull mask. The coolest part was the rooftop scene with Christine and Raoul, with the Phantom on a statue and his red cape and costume billowing in the wind.
 

This Phantom story and the music have always been something that Sarah and I have shared over the years. When she was quite young (age 3) we would play the DVD with the subtitles on (I didn't know the words as well as she did) and we would sing and act out the scene on the roof between Christine and Raoul, singing "All I Ask of You." Sarah would always have a rose in hand, and would kiss me as Christine (Shell would also fill in as Phantom when needed!).

 

We performed it together at a family reunion in Southern Utah once, and even used it to try out for a stake musical together. It has kind of been "our" song. Of course it became a couple costume for us at Halloween time as well.



When the musical came locally to the Segerstrom Performing Arts center, I gave her tickets for her birthday for us to see it together. We got all dressed up as a formal daddy-daughter date, she felt so regal walking into the theater. It was an AMAZING musical that we will not forget, with the crashing chandelier and disappearance of the Phantom in the end. These will always be special memories that I have shared with Sarah.