I did not get much of any game playing done in August.
The family played Vantage, but didn’t ended it incomplete to get to bed.
Then Heather and I played Vantage with friends and after several deaths (and running out of time) decided to call it a defeat.
We’re still really enjoying the game though. So much to explore. It’s really about the journey–not the destination, so leaving a game incomplete doesn’t seem like a waste of time. And being defeated is okay since you got to learn more about the world.
Did lots of reading but volumes two and three of the Baroque Cycle took a long time to get through.
The Confusion by Neal Stephenson
Volume two of the Baroque Cycle. The adventures continue around the world. Capers, betrayals, antics, and science.
The System of the World by Neal Stephenson
Volume three of the Baroque Cycle. We bring the 4300+ page story to a conclusion back in England. Isaac Newton’s mastery of the Mint is called in question after an epic heist. Our protagonist is imprisoned and led to the gallows. And alchemy brings someone back from the dead.
I enjoyed the series, but as I mentioned on volume one, I’m not sure how it would land for someone with no prior knowledge or interest in the early scientific revolution and its characters. Some knowledge of France and French helps too throughout.
An excerpt from The System of the World which I connected with from the end of Book 7 (Currency) – Chapter 8 (Westminster Palace):
Other men seemed to’ve been blessed with the ability to live in the moment, and to have experiences (Daniel imagined) in the raw vivid way that animals did. But not he. How would the ceremony, the pageantry of the Queen’s visit to Parliament look, to one who could see them thus? Colorful, magnificent, mesmerizing, Daniel supposed. He’d never know. Daniel could only see this as a sick old lady paying a call on a room full of anxious blokes who hadn’t bathed in a while.
I often feel like other people exist in a state of immersion that doesn’t exist for me. Seen most particularly in things like crowds. Many people seem to become one with a crowd (like at a sporting event) where the crowd becomes their own and whole self. Only as the crowd disperses do they regain their sense of self and individuality. I, rather, look around and wonder what’s happening to everyone and have the continual dialog running through my head wherein I see, process, and analyze the events around me but perhaps don’t experience them. At least, by outward appearances, I don’t seem to experience them in the same way as others anyway.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
And now, for something completely different. This is one of Jess’ favorite authors, so I thought I’d give it a try.
It’s written entirely in present tense which gives it a strange feeling–which goes well with the story which is about a strange circus.
There are competing magic systems at play, but unlike, say, Sanderson, we’re not giving some in-depth explanation of how they work. It’s left vague and dreamlike.
It was certainly different than anything I’ve read recently. I liked it alright.
After getting the 2 expansions for Heat: Pedal to the Metal I needed an organizer. As sold you can’t consolidate all the components into the original box. The box, however, does have plenty of room once you remove the original insert. My design criteria included that it needed to fit with no lid lift and in such a way that turning the box sideways or upside down wouldn’t make a mess.
I found one existing organizer design, but didn’t like it and decided to make my own. After many hours of designing, tweaking, redesigning, poking, and prodding I completed it. I’m pretty happy with it.
I also finally completed, in preparation for the upcoming family reunion, the model of the Dickerson family house in Cromwell. I had been working on it last autumn, needed some details about the porch over the old garage, got them in the winter, and then couldn’t decide what to do with the model. To print it big enough for the smallest details to come out was going to require it be something like 11″ in the longest dimension. Too big. But also, it was going to need a lot of supports due to the roof overhangs and that was going to be a pain.
I finally decided to drop the finest details and modify the overhangs to be printable by adding subtle arches underneath them or removing sections that simply couldn’t be printed without supports. I then printed one for my parents and for each sibling and gave them out at the family reunion.
And only now as I’m writing this do I realize I never took pictures of all the printed houses! Lame. So here are some pictures of my prototype printed in purple. The final ones were printed in blue on a green base with some minor tweaks to improve issues I found in the prototype. I’m been considering printing one for myself in grey and painting it, but haven’t made up my mind yet.
I won another game of Hardback. The “fan fiction” mods make for some interesting tweaks to the game play.
Jess and I played Harvest with friends. Definitely a game you need to play a few times to get a feel for the timing of tasks and nuances of resource management. I lost.
Played Heat at the board game meetup. We played the Tunnel Vision expansion. It adds one track that has a slight nuance to it and a few new cards (as well as parts for another player). I lost.
Vantage was just released and arrived before we left on vacation. I got it to the table for the family before leaving since I was excited about it. It’s a cooperative exploration game where the point is to enjoy the journey. So it’s not really about winning or losing, but we were successful in achieving our mission goal.
The girls had a blast and we did smoothies for dinner to keep playing and then played past their bedtime and they were insistent we play again the next day.
It’s chill. You wander around this planet discovering people and places and secrets. You can pursue a mission goal or just enjoy the journey.
Set during the end of the Scientific Revolution we get a historical-fiction look into the lives of members of the Royal Society and Louis XIV’s court as well as happenings around the world. Court intrigue. Vagabond action and adventure. Scientific discovery. Technical advancement.
Long. Very long. 944 pages in print. But I enjoyed the story. Not sure how much appeal it would have to someone with no existing knowledge of Newton, Hook, Huygens, Leibniz, Louis XIV, etc.
A Burglar’s Guide to the City by Geoff Manaugh
Nominally a discussion on urban design and architecture and its impact on criminology, but I was a little disappointed in the depth. Can’t put my finger on exactly what was missing, but I wanted more.
Wedding of the Waters by Peter Bernstein
Our vacation was going to take us across midstate New York so I thought it appropriate to visit the Erie Canal and to learn more about it before the trip.
Interesting exposition of why build the canal where they did as well as the political interest of using a canal to bind the interior of the country to the seaboard via commerce.
Quicksilver took up most of June and after Wedding of the Waters I started the 2nd book in the Baroque Cycle which I haven’t finished by the end of July.
