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Back to the Bay, Season Two Finale
Nov. 28th, 2022 07:38 pmI. I Game Once More
I had a wonderful plentitude of gaming while in the Bay Area this year. Everything I brought (Between 2 Cities, Boomerang: Australia, Railroad Ink Challenge Lush Green Edition) got played, most of it multitude times. And, I was also introduced to a number of new games. It was the best gaming I've had since we moved (and makes me really determined to get a local gaming group going, now that we finally seem to be in a lull for both COVID and my need to absolutely 100% remain well for upcoming events & medical procedures).
That culminated on Black Friday when Eric V. was kind enough to set up gaming at his house with Sam and Eric L. Not only did he provide good company & a trio of games to play, but also delicious air-fried potato wedges and a very tasty turkey burger. Mmm-mmm.
The new games:
HONSHU. This is a cute little card-based city building game built around one major limitation: each card shows six different areas with different advantages, and when you place a new card, you have to cover up at least one area on either the new card or an old card. It was a fun game and I could definitely see picking it up, but on the other hand I didn't feel a _need_ to pick it up because I've already got the co-op SPRAWLOPOLIS offering a similar card-based city-building play.
ANNO 1800. This Martin Wallace game was our main play for the day. It was a dense technology building game where you're constantly trying to produce the resources to make new technologies and/or fulfill order cards. I enjoyed it, I decided it was a bit dense/long, and I've thought about it a few times since, so I could pick it up if I had a group interested in games of this density (but generally I let all but a few Wallace games go when I moved, as I decided they're a bit denser/more economic than I usually play).
JOAN OF ARC. This is the Orléans draft-and-write game. It's one of the denser X-and-write games that I've seen, and was overall pretty great. There were considerable different paths to take (though you apparently need to do them all somewhat), a lot of ability to build up tactical advantages with building, and a drafting choice every turn that was hard. I loved it even aside for my enjoyment of the original board game. It went on my definite buy list ... except there's no US edition right now! (And the US publisher of Orléans, TMG, is gone.) I think it was an Essen release, so maybe it'll sneak into the supply chain by next year, but at the moment I can only find it for about €50 in the English edition or €35 in the German (including shipping), which isn't too bad for the gameplay you get, but I'm not willing to put out €25 of that for shipping.
I stayed later than I intended, but got home to our AirBnB a bit after 9pm, and just had a little packing left to do.
II. I Karen a Bit in Our Travel
Saturday morning it was up at 6am (4am Hawaii time!) to make sure we were all ready to go, and then we were off in a Lyft to the Oakland Airport before 8am. No problems on checkin, and security was quick, none of which tends to be the case at Oakland Airport (which is no Amsterdam, but it tends to have long lines everywhere). We in fact didn't have any problems until we were getting onto the plane and Kimberly's boarding pass made the scanner flash red and beep.
I should back up and note that we brought Jeeves, one of Kimberly's scooters, along for the trip. She's walking again since the recovery from her surgery, but she has a tendon that gets tight after she walks for 10 or 15 minutes. So, we brought it mainly for the day we went into SF.
On the way flying in to the Bay Area, we checked Jeeves at the front desk, because we had a tight transfer on Maui, so we didn't want to have to wait for the scooter to be ready. But in Oakland, we brought it to the gate instead, to check there, since we didn't know how far back we'd be in Oakland airport.
Kimberly's boarding pass beeped because she had an exit row.
Now, this really shouldn't be a problem. She can stand, she can walk for 15 minutes. She's perfectly capable of executing exit-row requirements. But either the FAA or Hawaiian is actively discriminating against people with mobility limitations by treating them all as if they're the same. So the gate agent told us that because Kimberly rode her scooter to the gate, she couldn't sit in the exit row. (And that it would have been fine if we'd checked it back at check-in.)
Kimberly and I were nonplussed, because we knew that the rigidity of the rule as stated by the gate agent was not just discriminatory but ridiculous. I mentioned the possibility of an ADA complaint. The gate agent offered to put us in another "comfort+" row, claiming they were all the same. But, they're not. We only relented when the gate agent offered to call her manager. I said no, that wouldn't change anything, but she called anyway, apparently because she had listened to our arguments and really wanted to see if there was anything to be done.
Nope, but she ended up not only giving us the row right behind first class (which has considerable more leg room than anywhere else on the plane, including first class itself, even though it's just another "comfort+" row), but also keeping the other seat in our row empty (because as it turns out flying the *Saturday* after Thanksgiving back to Hawaii results in a plane more than half empty).
I was a bit embarrassed afterward because I realized that I'd Karened a bit, but we had a really comfortable flight back, once more with no one next to us to give us COVID.
(I just read the claim that only 1 out of 20 Americans hasn't had COVID at this point; wow.)
III. We Return
We were very happy to get back home on Saturday afternoon.
Mango had a funny moment when we came in the door: he looked at us very suspiciously at first, then his whole face lit up and he ran at Kimberly.
All three cats have been staying pretty close to us since we got home (although Elmer is starting to fade back to his alone time).
It's been gray and cool, but not Bay Area gray and cool, so we're thrilled to be home.
IV. We Begin Rearranging the House
Theoretically, carpenters will be in sometime this week to start installation of the cabinets & shelves that we've been waiting almost three years on (!!!), and which will allow us to finally complete our settling into our home.
So on Sunday Kimberly and I rearranged all the cabinets to get them them into the right places for the carpenters (as we previously hadn't understood the different between "furniture edges" and "non-furniture edges") and then we moved my research book-shelf upstairs, to soon be replaced with cabinets.
It's in the Living Room now, and is just the first thing that'll be brought up there, as it's time to bring up the Christmas Tree too.
Maybe tomorrow.
I had a wonderful plentitude of gaming while in the Bay Area this year. Everything I brought (Between 2 Cities, Boomerang: Australia, Railroad Ink Challenge Lush Green Edition) got played, most of it multitude times. And, I was also introduced to a number of new games. It was the best gaming I've had since we moved (and makes me really determined to get a local gaming group going, now that we finally seem to be in a lull for both COVID and my need to absolutely 100% remain well for upcoming events & medical procedures).
That culminated on Black Friday when Eric V. was kind enough to set up gaming at his house with Sam and Eric L. Not only did he provide good company & a trio of games to play, but also delicious air-fried potato wedges and a very tasty turkey burger. Mmm-mmm.
The new games:
HONSHU. This is a cute little card-based city building game built around one major limitation: each card shows six different areas with different advantages, and when you place a new card, you have to cover up at least one area on either the new card or an old card. It was a fun game and I could definitely see picking it up, but on the other hand I didn't feel a _need_ to pick it up because I've already got the co-op SPRAWLOPOLIS offering a similar card-based city-building play.
ANNO 1800. This Martin Wallace game was our main play for the day. It was a dense technology building game where you're constantly trying to produce the resources to make new technologies and/or fulfill order cards. I enjoyed it, I decided it was a bit dense/long, and I've thought about it a few times since, so I could pick it up if I had a group interested in games of this density (but generally I let all but a few Wallace games go when I moved, as I decided they're a bit denser/more economic than I usually play).
JOAN OF ARC. This is the Orléans draft-and-write game. It's one of the denser X-and-write games that I've seen, and was overall pretty great. There were considerable different paths to take (though you apparently need to do them all somewhat), a lot of ability to build up tactical advantages with building, and a drafting choice every turn that was hard. I loved it even aside for my enjoyment of the original board game. It went on my definite buy list ... except there's no US edition right now! (And the US publisher of Orléans, TMG, is gone.) I think it was an Essen release, so maybe it'll sneak into the supply chain by next year, but at the moment I can only find it for about €50 in the English edition or €35 in the German (including shipping), which isn't too bad for the gameplay you get, but I'm not willing to put out €25 of that for shipping.
I stayed later than I intended, but got home to our AirBnB a bit after 9pm, and just had a little packing left to do.
II. I Karen a Bit in Our Travel
Saturday morning it was up at 6am (4am Hawaii time!) to make sure we were all ready to go, and then we were off in a Lyft to the Oakland Airport before 8am. No problems on checkin, and security was quick, none of which tends to be the case at Oakland Airport (which is no Amsterdam, but it tends to have long lines everywhere). We in fact didn't have any problems until we were getting onto the plane and Kimberly's boarding pass made the scanner flash red and beep.
I should back up and note that we brought Jeeves, one of Kimberly's scooters, along for the trip. She's walking again since the recovery from her surgery, but she has a tendon that gets tight after she walks for 10 or 15 minutes. So, we brought it mainly for the day we went into SF.
On the way flying in to the Bay Area, we checked Jeeves at the front desk, because we had a tight transfer on Maui, so we didn't want to have to wait for the scooter to be ready. But in Oakland, we brought it to the gate instead, to check there, since we didn't know how far back we'd be in Oakland airport.
Kimberly's boarding pass beeped because she had an exit row.
Now, this really shouldn't be a problem. She can stand, she can walk for 15 minutes. She's perfectly capable of executing exit-row requirements. But either the FAA or Hawaiian is actively discriminating against people with mobility limitations by treating them all as if they're the same. So the gate agent told us that because Kimberly rode her scooter to the gate, she couldn't sit in the exit row. (And that it would have been fine if we'd checked it back at check-in.)
Kimberly and I were nonplussed, because we knew that the rigidity of the rule as stated by the gate agent was not just discriminatory but ridiculous. I mentioned the possibility of an ADA complaint. The gate agent offered to put us in another "comfort+" row, claiming they were all the same. But, they're not. We only relented when the gate agent offered to call her manager. I said no, that wouldn't change anything, but she called anyway, apparently because she had listened to our arguments and really wanted to see if there was anything to be done.
Nope, but she ended up not only giving us the row right behind first class (which has considerable more leg room than anywhere else on the plane, including first class itself, even though it's just another "comfort+" row), but also keeping the other seat in our row empty (because as it turns out flying the *Saturday* after Thanksgiving back to Hawaii results in a plane more than half empty).
I was a bit embarrassed afterward because I realized that I'd Karened a bit, but we had a really comfortable flight back, once more with no one next to us to give us COVID.
(I just read the claim that only 1 out of 20 Americans hasn't had COVID at this point; wow.)
III. We Return
We were very happy to get back home on Saturday afternoon.
Mango had a funny moment when we came in the door: he looked at us very suspiciously at first, then his whole face lit up and he ran at Kimberly.
All three cats have been staying pretty close to us since we got home (although Elmer is starting to fade back to his alone time).
It's been gray and cool, but not Bay Area gray and cool, so we're thrilled to be home.
IV. We Begin Rearranging the House
Theoretically, carpenters will be in sometime this week to start installation of the cabinets & shelves that we've been waiting almost three years on (!!!), and which will allow us to finally complete our settling into our home.
So on Sunday Kimberly and I rearranged all the cabinets to get them them into the right places for the carpenters (as we previously hadn't understood the different between "furniture edges" and "non-furniture edges") and then we moved my research book-shelf upstairs, to soon be replaced with cabinets.
It's in the Living Room now, and is just the first thing that'll be brought up there, as it's time to bring up the Christmas Tree too.
Maybe tomorrow.