Wednesday and losing at Scythe

I rose late and started the blog in my PJs near 9. I had a banana and a cup of locally roasted coffee from Kenya. I updated Quicken and checked there. I wrote all morning with various distractions. The day was another California-like day with bright sunlight and few clouds. The heat is only in the low 80s (27C), but it strikes. It feels like Oregon has been moved to Northern California. The fires and smoke are in the Cascade Mountains and further east, and the winds carry the smoke to the north and east. Bend, Oregon, air quality was terrible on Wednesday, according to the Internet sites that track this.

I washed up, shaved, and so on just before noon. I headed to Walgreens to purchase more eyedrops, which is about $21 a bottle (I figure that is 75 cents a drop), with you supplying your phone number and losing your privacy. I then headed to the food carts in the back of the parking lot. My usual place was not open for lunch, so I talked to the gal at Mouthful Momo. I had their noodle soup and hot chai. It was excellent.

 

I had my laptop with me and tried to write some more of my Holmes and Watson story. I added a half page of text, but I still felt like I did not have the original’s style or cadence. When I was done with my food, the area was quiet, with other dinners appearing as I finished.

I decided to risk a walk just after lunch, and Air Volvo soon arrived at Reedville Creek Park. Despite the walk, lunch remained inside. It was warm. The park was testing its water system, and the black-topped section of the trail shaded by trees was cool and damp. The sunstruck part of the trail was hot and dry where I startled an owl with me, seeing it escape with its wide face and heavy body. I have seldom seen our local owls—they fly at night.

I made two loops, and my feet and back hurt. To change things up, I decided to walk in the opposite direction I usually follow. It is always strange how different things look when coming in the other direction, almost like a new world. I managed the third and then a difficult fourth loop.

I made a mistake. I saw a thistle flowering near the trail and bent over to take a photo. I lost sight of the horizon and lowered my head, bad. I managed to stand up and find where the ground and sky were without incident. I smiled as it would have been bad to fall into the now-photographed prickly plant and the ditch! I sat at a nearby bench and regathered my balance and my self-confidence, which had nearly been scattered into a bad moment with a thistle.

Aside: I suggested in a Facebook posting that the thistle is, while lovely, invasive (usually coming to Oregon as part of birdseed from other states). I had some dispute on that fact. I left it in place as it is a park, and the staff usually just mows them down.

I reversed back to my usual direction and walked the last loop. I stopped at a bench as it was a hard loop to finish for me. The water sprayer test now included the nearby sprinklers, and I quickly finished the last loop without being hosed down. Today’s park visit was more exciting than usual, with owls, sprinklers, thistle-doom, and cooled paths.

Air Volvo returned me to the house without incident. I rested and read. I rose and started working on my miniature electronic projects again. I am just trying to load the test programs on the hardware. I crash the hardware with a system panic (I have never had this before). I made an early dinner; I was dual-tasking. Dinner was couscous (burning the spices for the first batch and restarting–my multi-tasking was less successful) and a pan-fried pork chop with Morocco-style spices.

I could not load the simple test of blink (blink a light on and off as a basic test) as the device seemed quite dead now. Instead, I watched more of the newish movie Midway and enjoyed my couscous and slightly overcooked pork chop. Next, I packed Vindication, another board game, in the Air Volvo cargo hold, with six or more games already filling up the cargo area. While I was loading Air Volvo, Richard sent me a note that there were more planets for another game, Unsettled, but I have those. Richard and I will find some time in the future to play more of Unsettled, a space-themed cooperative game where you are trying to complete a life-saving mission before it is too late. The motto of the game: Try not to die! More to follow!

Andrew, Z, and I met at First United Methodist in Beaverton and played a board game while the praise band practiced. Z picked out Scythe to play, surprising me. I had brought the alternative cards for encounters, which are insanely unbalanced but fun–I seldom use them as they unbalance what is already a difficult game.

Scythe is an Amera-Trash (includes combat and land grabs with some engine building) and 4X game: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate. It is not a mean game (resources are not constrained) but can swing suddenly. I explained the game to Andrew while Z listened and thought I had covered enough to play.

Z got Z’s favorite (to my later regret) white-colored Poland-like faction with the ability to get two options on an encounter (much more powerful with the crazy encounter cards). I got the yellow step-based warriors: Khanites. Andrew got the red-colored Russ. Andrew understood well that money was also victory points, and soon was collecting it and ignoring Z and I. Z launched a well-planned attack on both Andrew and me and soon was leading. I pushed Z back. Andrew just quietly got more money. I was running up the star objectives and was hoping to soon stop the game and win, but we ran out of time as the Praise Band practice ended before we did.

My plans and those of Z were uncompleted. Z’s last move was an encounter that earned 9 money. Pushing ten coins above me. Andrew had accumulated forty coins and would have been hard to beat had my plans completed. Next time. Z danced and smiled with her crushing of me. Andrew looked happy and enjoyed the 4X-style Scythe board game.

We said our goodbyes, and soon, Air Volvo had me home. There, I worked out how to force the XIAO to download an update (you have to hold down some tiny buttons) and soon had it running blink again. I then reloaded the troublesome code, and it crashed hard again with a panic. Yes, the code is wrong, but I could not find an online solution. More to follow. It is test code that, well, was unsuccessful.

I did some laundry and read more of the story of a family moving to Casablanca from the UK. The story is tiresome as things never improve, but I will push through and hope for a happy resolution. I shower and soon sleep, remembering to put in the eye grease before I sleep. I wake at 2ish with the house cold now and climb under the covers. I have turned off the AC/heat as it is not too hot. Our temperatures now have a desert-like shift, with the early morning in the 50s (10C) and the late afternoon in the 80s (27C).

Some updates on roses:

My bourbon rose, Souvenir du Président Lincoln, is reblooming.

The English rose, Wedgwood, is a climber and as tall as my fence.

And the tea rose that came with the house and is likely older than me is continuously blooming. The flowers slightly smaller from the heat of the late summer.

Thanks for reading.