Saturday Games @ PDX

I am writing this Sunday morning, and I am time-boxed as I am cooking for the church this morning. I will cover only some events, and I will go backward as there is less going on in the morning.

Former President Trump was shot today at a rally in Pennsylvania. I was following events of that terrible happening all early evening and night. I imagine nearly everyone in the USA was following.

I arrived in Air Volvo at the Volvo Cave as the clock told me Saturday was over and Sunday had started; it was past midnight when I quickly got into my PJs and tried to sleep. The excitement of playing Wyrmspan made it a little hard to find sleep, but I soon nodded off.

Ashley and Andrew had invited the DMZ (Dondrea, Michael–me, and Z) to dinner and games at their apartment in Slabtown, Portland. According to Ashley, this is “Little California” in NW Portland. I had not been in this area in years (before the pandemic), and the dive bars were gone. It was clearly upscale and gentrified. The crowd on the street looked young and reminded me of Hell’s Kitchen in NYC, an area that had changed from scary to hip.

Ashley and Andrew had made a wonderful Hawian-style dinner of bits of chicken cooked in hot oil marinated in a flour mix. Salad, a pasta salad, and rice finished this out. Spicy sauces were available for the chicken. Dondrea brought some sparkling wine and fresh pineapple. I bought the games.

We got out the board game Wyrmspan after dinner. This would be a five-player game, and Ashley had not played before, and Dondrea had only played once. I taught the game, and this made the game seem filled with complex rules and processes, but the play in Wyrnspan just flows and is easy to follow, and soon Ashley did not need much help, and Dondrea would pull ahead and become the person to catch. Z stalled and was not much of a threat. Andrew appeared to pull ahead like Dondrea.

I helped Ashley and others to make better decisions as the game was new to them. Z found (as I did) that with five players, those excellent cards on display seldom make it around to you! Dondrea, Z, and Ashley completed a row (the gold one) of dragons and used that to get many cards. I completed only one row, but I was the first player to complete three columns (unfortunately, the Dragon Guild scoring for columns was filled before I could get it, losing me nine points!). Andrew would do this for nine points, as he did get the scoring bonus. I learned that by having three good rows, but not complete rows, and not spending on the last excavation column, I could play more dragons, and exploring all my caves gave me a balanced set of resources and cards. This took me to first place, with Dondrea nearly catching me; Ashley was next in points. Andrew was ahead of Z, who had little luck in this play (that happens to me sometimes). Everyone had a good time, and everyone liked the game.

Moving to the afternoon, I received my COBRA paperwork from Nike in snail mail (instead of email!), and I immediately filled out the form to resume my medical coverage for about $750 a month. My severance package has Nike paying for the first six months of COBRA (June-December), and then I can pay the cost and get another year of coverage. I looked through the papers and read some. There is small print and lots of pages trying to say you might have better options on the Marketplace via what we usually call Obamacare. With me recovering from brain surgery, it did seem to be the best time to start shopping for insurance!

I used my new Epson tank color printer to scan my signed application for coverage (effective and backdated to 1 July 2024). I emailed the forms to Wageworks (now called HealthEquity), which is apparently running Nike’s Healthcare coverage purchases. I was distressed that my healthcare coverage lapsed while this process was running and then will be made effective without loss once I get these forms in and accepted.

I received my quarterly statement on Susie’s IRA, which is higher and doing well. This IRA uses the PAX fund (now IMPAX), which was the first socially responsible mutual fund. It was created by some Methodists in Washinton, D.C., to give folks a place to invest in small amounts and follow the Methodist Church’s traditions for not investing in guns or “sin” companies. It was also a balanced fund and included a mix of equities and bonds to reduce the risk (but often did not rise as fast as other funds and often did not fall as fast). The PAX was beat up by the double hit of the Great Recession that managed to crash bonds and equities prices at the same time. As it was in an IRA, we road out the pain, and now PAX has returned to the slow rise, and with socially responsible investing more popular, the rise is accelerating. I am tempted to roll over my 401K to PAX.

I managed to find time (but the blog was not finished until almost noon) to travel to Reedville Creek Park and walk four loops, with the last loop being hard to finish. I was late, and the sun was hot. The park was busy, with many folks walking or running the loop. I completed 4K steps.

One group was curious. A group of six Asian men was sitting on a bench (one was standing, as there was no room for all of them), all furious, tapping on their phones. They did not look up or talk to each other; they showed no emotions other than extreme attention to their phones. They would then rise as a group. Walk slowly on the loop, still looking only at their phones, and then sit at another bench with one guy standing. They would later rise and walk back to the previous bench, never stopping the tapping and only looking at their phones. I thought it was very Alice in Wonderland or The Matrix.

I rose later, around 8AM, and went slow with many interruptions.

And I will stop there as I am reaching my time limit. Thanks for reading!