Sorry Dave

Dear Dave,

Sorry for the lack of posts. Here is my Christmas tree.

There will be more when holidays are over and I don't have to spend all day every day playing "dinosaur airplane" and "Car Crash"

A Friend stops by...

One of the things that has been nice since moving is that there are more children in the neighbourhood for Liam to play with. In fact there there are three kids in Liam's kindergarten class on our street.

Right next door to us is Annika, who Liam gets along quite well with. Recently there have been days when we get a phone call and it is Annika's parents telling us that "Annika is asking to play with Liam." This is a godsend. As awesome as Liam is, sometimes it is nice when two little monsters amuse each other without the need for parents to play along.

Here are the two little monkeys, getting ready to make some trouble...
A popular game is to put ALL the bears on a table, everything else on the floor and then walk around singing.
Or maybe Liam can help Annika with her horse technique
After all the clowning, they have to have a little lie down. Notice that neither child let go of their stuffed animal of choice for the duration of play. Liam likes to take the animals on adventures. Apparently it was the Polar Bear's birthday. That was the cause for singing and celebration.
Annika is a nice little girl, I am glad that they can play so nicely together.

Differences in housing....

One of the things people sometime ask me is "do I like living in Germany?" or "what is it like living over there?" I just thought I would share a quick thought on something that I REALLY like about the area where I live.

I really really like the way that new housing is built here. I don't even know if this is specific to my little corner of Germany or across the whole country. Around here (the south west) plots of land for housing are bought on an individual basis by the people who want to build the house. This results in many single-lots being sold and built on demand.

In Canada, at least southern Ontario, Land is generally purchased in huge areas by development companies, who then build a whole bunch of houses and sell them off.

This contrast in how land is sold really changes the way towns evolve. My village/town has about 3500 people and is pretty old. There is some growth around the edges as old farms stop running andnew housing areas are built. We purchased a plot of land and built in just such an area.

Here is what the whole village looks like from up the hill.
Now here is an aerial view of my subdivision. Notice the lack of straight lines in the roads and the fact that there are still lots of empty lots. This is not "the middle of nowhere" at all. We have public transport (buses and a train station) and are 10km down the road from Tuebingen, a major university town.
This kind of area is really the kind of things people in my life-position can afford to build in. It is all young families in this area.

I was online the other day and saw this photo of housing in Markham, Ontario. Just north of Toronto. This is typical of housing in the area. It is pretty much what would be affordable to me had I chosen to stay living in southern Ontario.
To be fair, housing in Ontario is somewhat less expensive that Germany, but not that much really...

Still it could be worse. Check out Mexico city. This is a real photo...
OK, that is low income housing, but still.... wow.
n

Christmas Cookies

As it happens every year, Claudia baked a huge batch of Christmas cookies. This year she had an active helper though...

Also as happens every year, Claudia says "this time I am not making so many" and in the end we have enough cookies to feed most of southern Germany. This year was four different types, filling a tupperwear tub about as big as a small car.

The ones above are the "simple" ones that Liam was able to help with. I did not take photos of the more complex (and even more awesome) cookies... perhaps I should before the resident cookie monsters eat them all up.

Did I mention I personally represent about 40% of the Southern German cookie consuming capacity? I am a cookie-hound.

Augsburg Christmas Market

The season is upon us... did the first Christmas market visit. Augsburg.

Not so many photos, it was tricky.

Here is the booth selling treats that looks like a giant Christmas pyramid. The town hall of Augsburg is in the background. I liked how this came out. The best photo of the few that I took.
Liam was very excited, he was led into the action by Mummy and Oma.
They had a great big Naitivity, Liam liked that.
Claudia bought Liam a chocolate covered banana, that was also a big hit.
Then the adults enjoyed a gluhwien. yum

Snowman

Just in case you were tired of board game stuff... we made a snowman.

World Championship of Balloon Art

This was an unexpected highlight of the gaming expo... I did not even know that there was such a thing as competitive balloon art. Had I known about this, my career may have followed a really different path. I have always had a deep and almost disturbing love of balloon animals.
Around the balloon area were some very impressive looking "heads" on the post. Clearly political correctness and racial sensitivity was not too high on the the priority list, but other than that I think these look pretty amazing.
I also liked these very very large monkey in a tree and buzzard on a cactus ones. They were about as tall as I was.
Still not impressed? Well how about the cast of the Looney Toons cartoons?
Or the six foot tall Dinosaur skeleton?
For me the ultimate in AWESOME was the life sized BBQ, complete with a full range of cooking food. Everything from roast chickens to corn on the cob was on there, and on the side were BBQ tools as well. Even the grill was on there with little balloon coals underneath. wow. I have never wanted to be a balloon artist more than when I saw this very display.
They were also running some workshops where they showed the crowd how to do some simple animals. This group was doing a dog. Not to brag, but I already mastered the balloon dog years ago and felt I could sit this one out.Like I said, this was an unexpected treasure and real highlight of the show for me. I am not sure if I have ever seen so much awesome in one place before. As years go by and people tell me about great world destinations and events they have seen... Taj Mahal, Grand Canyon, or the Eiffel Tower, I think they will all pale in the memory of these balloon world championships. Indeed, I would rather see balloon forms of most of the worlds great landmarks.

Southern German Board Game Expo - part 4

I wanted to look for games for the little people. I love board games, and I hope that one day Liam will play with me, but at the moment he needs something a little more simple. Claudia had bought him a couple of little people games that he really likes, and I wanted to see what else was on the horizon.

I saw a few things that I think Liam could already enjoy or at least would be able to partake of fairly soon.

First up I saw this booth selling "Balloon Balls." Think of them as a sort of pillow case shaped for an ordinary balloon. When filled up, they make a pretty great indoor ball. The case adds enough weight and toughness that you can really whack it around, yet it is light enough that it will not break any indoor things too easily. On top of all that, it was only 3 Euro. I bought the green and white one for Liam and he has enjoyed it lots already. Yesterday he and hit little friend were playing football in the living room with Claudia and the giggles I heard indicated success.
Next there was a booth for specialized wooden blocks. What made these blocks special is that they have channels and tunnels carved into them so that you can make a sort of track, then drop a marble in the top and watch it roll through your sculpture to the bottom. This is not a new toy and I have seen it in the shops here for years. Like many wooden toys, they are a little pricey and I thought out of Liam's current skill range. It was neat to see an enormous dump of them here though and little kids were free to stop and dig right into the mess for a good play.
One more game suitable for the younger people was called "Weykick." I would describe this as sort of upside-down magnetic air hockey.... if that makes sense. This game came in 3 flavours, soccer, hockey and tennis. Naturally I tried out the hockey version.
Each player takes control of 1 or 2 players by moving magnets below the wooden playing table. The players themselves are magnetic and move in response. The players try to shoot a small puck (or ball in soccer game) into their opponents goal. The first player to score ten goals wins
I destroyed the guy running the booth. My table hockey skills are legendary. It was a fun game, but as with most hand made wooden things, pretty darn expensive. The cheapest model was about 120 Euro which I felt was too much. I think I would rather wait a little longer and buy a more traditional "rod-hockey" when Liam is a bit older. Everyone in Canada would know what I mean...Still plenty more expo action to come...

Southern German Board Game Expo - part 3

The next thing I saw was the Württemburg Chess Club. I quite like chess although have not played much in the last (many) years. I recall my good friend Rob Savelle teaching me to play when we were both young lads in Grade 2. I also recall that Rob could pretty consistently beat me, probably still can.
The interesting thing they had here was an Chess puzzle up on a big 1.5 metre board. I am very proud to say I was the first person in the expo to solve it. Here is the puzzle... White to mate in 1 move, take your guess in the comments and I will post the answer in a bit. I got my name entered in whatever contest they were running by solving it, so who knows, after the expo I may have a prize on the way.
Right next to the Chess club was the Go club, where they were playing/teaching on some really beautiful sets. I would love to have one for decoration. I think chess/go sets are one of the few games that you can leave out on display as an object of art.
Stay tuned, I have plenty more to come. The awesome is just getting started.

Southern German Board Game Expo - part 2

Upon entering Hall 6, It was a lot like I was expecting. I have been to quite a few trade shows over the years and the set up is pretty standard. Booths of various sizes, either from game publishers promoting their own products, or game resellers selling a wider range.

The first booth I visited was Asmodee games, a French company, but I linked to the US site in case anyone is interested. They were mainly featuring two new games; Formula D, a car racing game, and Ghost Stories, a ghost hunting game.

Formula D is a remake of the older Formula de, a game I was always interested in checking out. It is a roll and move game on a big racetrack, but with really beautiful parts. I say roll and move, but the mechanic is made interesting by using different dice to represent different gears.
The board has two sides, one for Formula 1 type racing and one for street racing. They are two huge fold out boards that join together into an enormous track. It looks awesome. here is the setup on the Formula 1 side, it is the real life Monaco track. I am sure they will release expansion boards of other famous tracks (the old Formula de did anyway...)
Here is an extreme close up of a (street racing) car and one of the special dice.
Each player also gets a little gear box which shows what gear you are in, and consequently which movement dice you should roll on your turn. It also shows "points" which represent damage to your car. If you have collisions or do some risky moves, it damages the car and hurts your ability to win.
I played a round of this in the "beginner" flavour and it was really fun. It was 35 euro though and I could not really justify spending that much money on a game I just tried the one time. It was also my first game of the show and I just logged it in my head as one to think about later. Here are some of my opponents in the demo.
The other game Asmodee was promoting was called Ghost Stories.
This one took the cake for most impressive display. They had a 3D super fancy version set up to show off some awsomeness. As much as I like displays like this, they kind of generate a misleading impression of the game. Compare the next two photos, the AWSOME next to what the game actually looks like.
The Game itself is a Co-operative one (you all work together against the game) in which the players try to banish evil spirits haunting a town in some eastern mythological land. Being a co-op game, you all win together or lose together.

I did not play this one, there were no groups starting up and it looked like it would take a little longer than I wanted to spend on that booth. I do say it had one of the most impressive displays around though.

That is it for my first booth. If you are interested in the game, go check out the publisher's site or boardgamegeek, both give good coverage.