Trips

We had two week long trips this year. The first was to New York in September to visit my brother. He had a second child this summer and I wanted to meet him.

We did a lot less touring than we did on our first trip. But we did go to see Roosevelt Island where we did some geocaching, and we had a great dinner at Aquavit.

We also went to San Carlos with our friend Doug in October. We have taken both of our parents, but this was the first time a friend came along. We flew into Phoenix and rented a car. It was a fun trip. We did most of the geocaches in town, took a hike in Nacapule canyon, and spent a lot of time on the beach.

We also went to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs with friends for an after hours tour. And I went to Grand Junctions for my cousin Brenda’s wedding.

Violin

I’m still not taking violin lessons, but I am still practicing violin. After stopping lessons, I’ve been going back through the Suzuki material, trying to play the pieces with more accuracy and at the correct speed. The first few books went quick, but books 4 and 5 took longer and at the beginning of 2016 I was in the middle of book 5.

I got 354 hours of practice in 2017, so I am falling a bit behind my goal of an hour per day. I’m currently in the middle of book 7. The next song that I will work on is the song that I played for my first violin recital in 2012. That was the first time that I made a recording of myself playing, so I’m looking forward to comparing with my past self. That first recital happened after playing for three years.

In June I bought the Yamaha YEV-105; a five string electric violin. I’m using that as my main practice violin and have been teaching myself viola. That has gone a little better than I expected. I started with the book “From Violin to Viola” and then Suzuki viola book 4. Learning the alto clef wasn’t too bad, and getting used to an extra string (above when playing viola music, and below when playing violin) didn’t take too long either. I’m still not as comfortable in the alto clef as I am in the treble clef.

When I read about learning viola after violin, several people said that the easiest way to play was to pretend that the music is in the treble clef and that you are playing violin in third position. That sounded crazy, but is actually very natural. Unfortunately, you don’t have to learn the alto clef to play like that, and once the viola music has higher positions and/or lots of accidentals, it’s better to know what the notes are.

Touch Games

This was a very productive year for Dark Infinity. We made 13 new games, including 7 board game conversion. We didn’t do any conventions with Mesa Mundi this year, but we did take the table to the Conclave of Gamers here in Denver where we were interviewed by Distract-O-Vision. They made a nice video of us and our table.

In roughly chronological order, we wrote: Terra Mystica, Starship Factory, Card Games(Linko, Karma, Turn the Tide, Oh Hell, Sequence), Concordia, Tzolkin, Castles of Burgundy, Can’t Stop, Qwixx, Spin Mummy, Gem Thieves, Medici, and Age of Discovery.

Other

We continued our tradition of hosting a bi-weekly game night and also enjoyed quite a few off-week game nights hosted by our friends.

My brother’s family came to Colorado for Christmas this year and it was fun to see them and to have our whole family together in Loveland.

Plans

We don’t have any big plans for 2017. Mostly more of the same – making touch table games, violin, etc. We will go to San Carlos again for a longer visit this spring, but we don’t have any other trips planned.

In addition to meeting my new niece, we also took the opportunity to get legally married. Colorado has separate-but-equal civil unions, but with DOMA struck down, we needed to get married in a state where it is truly legal for the federal government to treat us as married.

We also wanted to go to New York to visit a haunted house called Blackout. Unlike most haunted houses, at Blackout you go through the experience alone, the actors can touch you, you have to sign a waiver, and there is even a safe word. They call themselves a “haunted experience” and I wasn’t really as scared as I was disturbed.

I’ve posted pictures of our sight-seeing here: Gallery.

We spent two weekends at my brother’s apartment. They took us to see MoMA PS1 and to eat at the restaurant there. There was a new exhibit at PS1 and it was very crowded – but the people were fun to watch and the food at the restaurant was good. They also took us to a tasty ramen restaurant and for a walk around their neighborhood.

During the week we toured on our own. We saw a lot of the standard sights: Statue of Liberty, 9/11 memorial, Rockefeller center, Empire state building, Brooklyn bridge, Central park, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Guggenheim.

We also went to the Society of Illustrators, the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, Grand Central, the central library, Zuccotti park, the Museum of American Finance (where we saw a solid gold, gem encrusted Monopoly set), Flushing meadows, and a couple of game stores.

Another highlight of the trip was our visit to wd~50. This is the first restaurant that we have been to that has as Michelin star. It is known for its use of molecular gastronomy to enhance its dishes. It was the most interesting meal that I have ever eaten (and the most expensive).