Sunday, May 21, 2017

Dates these last three weeks, plus some big news


Two weekends ago my wife's sister Stacey came for a visit. That Monday we went rafting down the Provo river and went horseback riding. This is the first time I've ever been horseback riding. It was a lot of fun. They were part of the High Adventure experience that Stacey bought us. I took work off (and missed out on some meetings hahaha) and we got babysitters for Henry. Some pictures:

Stacey on left, then me, then Heather

From left to right: Stacey, Heather, Andrew


We went rafting down the Provo Canyon river

I get a kiss on the cheek


We went out to eat later that night, and Henry got some cool new shades which he's sporting in this picture:
Henry rocks his shades
 Stacey stayed at our apartment and slept on our living room floor. Here are some pictures of Henry also conked out on our living room floor:




Heather and Stacey
 The next day I went to work and Heather dropped off Stacey at the airport. Henry then spent the next few hours going goo-goo over the airplanes there.

"Plane! Plane!"
 The next weekend, (about a week ago), Heather and I used our Pass of All Passes to get into Seven Peaks for free and went mini-golfing with Henry. I love mini-golfing, especially on cool outdoor courses, and I love free dates, so it was a win-win.


Henry mini-golfing for the first time



After mini-golfing (Heather beat me) we went to my school where my school's dance team was having a performance. (A free performance, I might add.) It was a lot of fun to be able to support some of my students as they displayed their talents. Also a few of my students specifically invited me so it was nice that I was able to go. After the performances and after talking to some of my students afterwards, Heather, Henry, and I went out for ice-cream.
Me in front of my school, American Preparatory Academy

 This weekend Heather had not one, not three, but two softball games with her co-ed team. (She won both of them by the way.) So Henry and I went out to support her in her playing.  After the second game the team had a BBQ. Heather, Henry and I might have forgot to put on sunscreen and might have gotten a little bit sunburnt.



And then that night we all went to a soccer game. Henry was free and Heather and I got in with our Pass of All Passes. Our team won, 5 to 2.



The big news is that Heather and I are going to have another baby! She will be born sometime in November!

Monday, May 1, 2017

International Tabletop Day, Grand Canyon

April 29th was International Tabletop Day! Unfortunately, I did not get the chance to play any games that day. :( But I did play Dominion with Heather and Ryan, who was visiting us for two more days last week. He came down to see Emalyn's parents who were there for a graduation. I had school and stuff and he wanted to spend time with Emalyn so we didn't play as many games as we did last time, but we did get in a game of Dominion. Ryan won, with Heather in second and I came in dead last. There were Rats, Expands, and Hunting Grounds, and so I was like, "I'll get Rats and then Expands and it will be awesome and I can even trash Hunting Grounds for VP."  But I failed to remember that: 1) Expand isn't a very good card, and 2) I totally should have bought King's Court instead. Yep, that's right, there were also King's Courts in the kingdom. That's the route Ryan took, which explains how he won. BY the time the game was over we were all really tired and decided to call it a night. Ryan left at 5 the next morning so we didn't play any games the next day, which was International Tabletop day.

I managed to finally format all my art files into the game crafter's specifications and upload them all onto the website. I was ready to publish the game and let Alan Bahr know so that he could buy it and play it and like it and publish it, but then the website was, "you have to purchase it before you can publish it." Plus, when I went to do that it decided it would be a great idea to tack on a surprise extra ten dollars for shipping, and then even after I did all of that it gave me a countdown for 10 days before I could allow others to purchase it. The clock is still counting down. Right now there is 7 days 23 hours left before I can make it available  to Alan to purchase to play to like to publish.  So: in comparison to this website (the game crafter) to the other website I have used to get game parts (print and play games) I much prefer print and play games. Plus their stuff is cheaper anyway.

So yeah, my first experience with game crafter was not the most pleasant one. I'd rather go through print and play games any day. Okay, so the thing with the whole "you have to purchase it first and then we'll give you a 10 day timer before you can make it available" is there so that if you mess up a file or something, you'll get the copy and know before you make it available for everyone to buy with that mistake. Yeah, I get it. But here's the thing: last year in working with print and play games I made a mistake on two of my files, and guess what? The company e-mailed me and said, "hey, there's a problem, could you fix it?" And I was like, "Yeah, totally." And then I sent them the new file and they printed it off and it was great. So why can't game crafter do that instead of forcing you to buy an entire copy of it just to see if there was any little mistake? Anyway, I'm done talking about this.

Grand Canyon University. That is the name of the school where I am currently getting my master's degree through an online program. My wife has been encouraging me to go back to school for years, to further my education, and to get a teaching certificate (right now I'm teaching through an APT thing which is something Utah is doing where you don't need to be certified to teach because Utah wanted more people to become teachers). my master's program is for secondary education and will get me a teaching license for both the state of Utah and the state of Arizona. Figuring Heather and I are planning on moving down to Arizona once she finishes up school here, this was a fantastic opportunity. So now I have homework again. Yay.