Overdue update

I haven't posted in almost a month... so what have I been up to?

Frisbee
As usual, I've been playing Ultimate. Practice has begun for the Tucson Men's team, Monsoon. My current frisbee schedule is Conditioning on Monday, League on Wednesday, Practice on Thursday, and Pickup on Sunday. Last year with this schedule I actually got into pretty good shape by Potlatch (4th of July), but I feel like right now I'm in terrible shape, and I feel like I've been moving really slow... so I don't know if that schedule will be enough.

I will note that my league team is leading the league after the regular season! Wednesday is Quarterfinals, and if we win that game then we will have semifinals and finals next week :)

Diet
In an effort to get into better shape, I've decided to lose some weight. I've been watching it for a while and hovering around 175-178 pounds. I'd said before that I'd rather weigh 165-170, but I haven't been actively trying to lose weight. Well, now I am. I've cut soda down to 1 during the week and maybe another on the weekend (down from 1 per day), and I've stopped eating the brownies Mandy has been bringing to game nights. I think I've already lost a couple of pounds this week!

Travel
Despite being out of work for the last 6 months, I have gone on a number of trips. Most recently I flew to Utah for a frisbee tournament. My flight would have had a layover in Los Angeles, so I talked to Stephanie and arranged to go to L.A. on Thursday and hang out with her*, then continue on to Utah on Friday. Steph had a game night at her house that Thursday night and I played a couple of games I'd not played before - one was called Big Boss, the other Corsairs. Unfortunately, neither one was terribly good. Big Boss wasn't terrible, but was largely dependent on what cards you draw (and it's not a card game, and some cards are way better than others). Corsairs was, as one guy put it, 8 minutes of fun in a 45 minute package.

* I had asked Steph before buying the ticket if stopping off in L.A. was a good idea or not, and she said she thought it would be fun... but I really got the impression she didn't want me there. I knew she would have work to do, so I brought my computer and planned to be as flexible as possible. When not doing work though, Steph spent almost all her time on the phone with another friend or else grilling me for being cheap. She kept asking if there was anything I wanted to do, and I kept saying that the only thing I wanted to do in particular while I was there was to play 1 game of Fermat with her, and she blew that off. She also swapped me off of her team for Times Up immediately after I mentioned that for once we'd be the same team. I don't know if I've ever felt less welcome.

Other recent trips include:
* Las Vegas for the GAMA trade show - a trade show for the Game industry. Mike, Erin and I learned a lot and made a lot of contacts there, and for me in particular I'm referring to a game designer we met who has a game we (Tasty Minstrel Games) might want to publish. Also, the designer guy was really cool, I liked him a lot.

* Portland for Gamestorm and to visit Jeremy. Jeremy and Amelia will be moving back to Seattle, just in time for me to visit them again on my annual 4th of July trip for Potlatch.

Upcoming trips:
* San Fransisco for KublaCon game convention in about 2 weeks
* Eugene Oregon for Solstice frisbee tournament in June
* Seattle for Potlatch frisbee tournament in July
* L.A. for Strategicon game convention in September
* Dallas for BGG.con game convention in November

Work
I still haven't found an engineering job, but things are looking up for Bobbie's new company Mooradian and Associates, so I'm hopeful for some full time employment there. I may be getting a phone call to do some temporary "consulting" for them in the meantime. So I guess that's good.

Movies
I went to see Star Trek the other day. I've never been a big fan of Star Trek, but I can say that they did a good job with the new movie. The casting was great, and I really liked the movie. If I had to complain, I'd say they drew out some of the early scenes with Kirk as a kid, and then they really rushed to get all the characters aboard the Enterprise.

I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, so I'll be a little cryptic - I was really surprised to see that guy on the icy planet (not Scotty and his little buddy). I'm SO glad that wasn't in the previews! I noticed that the story made it possible for them to really re-start the franchise from the beginning, like James Bond got a reboot with Casino Royale and Batman Begins started that franchise from scratch again. They did it in such a way that the original series can remain intact and not cause contradictions for big fans. The only old Star Trek movie I remember is Star Trek IV - the one where they go back in time to save the whales. I remember Scotty talking to an old Macintosh, and someone says "no, no... you have to use the mouse!" After which he picks up the mouse and tries talking into it.

I also recently saw Monsters Vs Aliens, The Watchmen, and Push (all pretty good), as well as Taken (awful). On my satellite I watched Journey to the Center of the Earth (terrible), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (not bad), and I've recorded but not watched Traitor, Pan's Labrynth, Intacto (seen before - neat movie), and Ghost in the Shell II (I heard something bad about it since I recorded it).

Television
As for TV I've been watching a lot of Crossing Jordan. Some channel plays it every weekday morning at 5am. I watched all of season 6, and then they started over with season 1 so I'm watching that. I like that they play them in order. I have watched maybe the first half of season 7 of 24... it's not terribly good. I still think the only interesting thing they can do with that franchise is to have Jack Bauer turn into a terrorist - maybe in a feature film as opposed to another season of the show. Other shows I've been watching are Chuck, Heroes (thank god it's over - it's finally starting to get a little better), In Plain Sight, Scrubs, Burn Notice (starting again soon!), The Unusuals (pretty dumb), and something called Deadliest Warrior where they pit 2 of history's deadliest warriors against each other by studying their weapons via modern technology and then simulating a fight to see who would win. They reveal the outcome by acting it out, and it's all very cool. They've done Pirate vs Knight, Ninja vs Spartan, Apache vs Gladiator, Viking vs Samurai, and Mafia vs Yakuza so far.