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Monday, June 30, 2003
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weekend camping
We were blessed with good weather for camping and had a great time. For more detail, click on the picture above.
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Friday, June 27, 2003
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40% chance of precipitation
That's the forecast for Saturday -- our full day of camping. We're praying for overcast skies and somewhat cool temps.
Related Jeopardesque Category: rain
Answer: The largest average size of a raindrop.
| Place cursor here for solution. | What is 1/4 inch? [Although they can get as large as 1/3 inch during thunderstorms.] |
According to my source, if they get any bigger, friction will break them up.
Have a great weekend!
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Thursday, June 26, 2003
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it's not the heat...
Wait... it IS the heat... AND the humidity. What a weekend to pick to go camping, huh? The high temp here today was around 95. Perhaps the rain will cool us off. Anyway, in case you were wondering, here is an article about the sweatiest cities. I am NOT surprised by the #2 spot.
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Tuesday, June 24, 2003
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create-a-cartoon
The adventure below is my offering for this week. However, I had doubts about its funny factor. So, I thought I would invite you to come up with an alternate caption. Yes, YOU can provide the hilarious dialogue! Just click on 'add comment' at the bottom of this post, and share your humor! TV-PG only, please. :)
Troy: "Isn't there somewhere I can get some grub? I'm skin and bones here."
Apu: "Welcome to the Kwiki Mart!"
Homer: "Could I interest you in a tasty donut? Mmmmmmm -- donut!"
Troy: "Do you take dice as payment?"
Apu: "Thank you! Please come again!"
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Monday, June 23, 2003
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Emily says hi
As Meg and I were sitting on the couch watching the 'Maternity Ward' show on The Learning Channel, little Emily kicked, and I felt it for the first time! It was so exciting! It felt like a VERY strong heartbeat, or a slight poke from the inside. I am very proud of our little one. She's got some strong legs already! I pray that the rest of her is healthy and developing. Praise God!
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Saturday, June 21, 2003
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check it out, yo
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Friday, June 20, 2003
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site updates
In the past week, I have added new pictures and consolodated others on the picpage (see link to the left). I have also added two articles on the study notes page and one article on the gaming page. I have added button links for the 'links' and 'blogs' section (also on the left). The baby blog has a new entry (last night) and the small group page has been updated.
it's been a slow week at work :)
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wet week trivia
A gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds. Eighty percent of the world is covered in water. The earth's water supply is approximately 326 million cubic miles. [A cubic mile of water equals more than one trillion gallons.]
We are feeling it this week.
Related Jeopardesque Topic: recent weather
Answer: Of the first 22 weekends this year, this many have been wet ones in Philadelphia and Washington.
| Place cursor here for solution. | What is 17? |
Thanks to my wife, who came up with the idea for today's trivia.
Read this story about our nasty weather.
Educate yourself about water.
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Thursday, June 19, 2003
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it's funny 'cuz it's true
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Wednesday, June 18, 2003
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have your cake and eat it at work, too?
When I worked in the perdition of partitions that was the Chase Bank call center, one of the few highlights of cube life was a coworker's birthday. This meant that for a few supervised minutes, we could detach ourselves from our phone headset leashes and ingest a square of insulin-packed store-bought goodness. We were never asked to pitch in (and rightly so, on our salaries), but it seems that many offices have the practice of taking a collection for the cake. This article discusses the implications of such MO.
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Tuesday, June 17, 2003
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welcome, Troy!
Troy has been bored sitting on the shelf for three weeks, so he decides to take a look around. Nobody's home, so all the toys are about. The Carcassonne Meeples greet him. The yellow meeple says: 'I really look up to you, Troy!'
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Monday, June 16, 2003
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rainy Monday
It's Monday. That's about all I can say. I stayed up 'til the post-game interviews after the San Antonio Spurs won the NBA championship. I am very happy for them, and especially for David Robinson, as he receives a second and final championship ring before retiring. There are very few sports figures I admire more.
On a personal note, we had a good weekend. Shane and Jen Blake hosted a very fun games day (pictures can be seen on Shane's site and more will soon be posted here), and we spent Sunday lunch with folks from our church small group. All of this was bracketed by watching basketball and filled in with errands and chores.
As the Saturday teaser message promised, I will be posting 'Adventures of Troy' episodes soon. I will try to do these near the beginning of the week, and continue with the trivia near the end of the week (most likely on Fridays). In case you're wondering, Troy is the name I gave to a trophy that resides at the Dreifuss household.
To tide you over 'til then, enjoy some flash games!
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Saturday, June 14, 2003
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Coming Soon...
...to a website near you (this one): The Adventures of Troy
stay tuned!
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Friday, June 13, 2003
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basketball jones
Tonight is game 5 of the NBA finals. I know that most of you don't care, but I actually like pro basketball. I especially like the fact that the Lakers aren't in it this year. And the Spurs are some really nice guys, so I hope they win it all.
Related Jeopardesque Topic: the NBA
Answer: This hall-of-famer's silhouette is the inspiration for the NBA logo.
| Place cursor here for solution. | Who is Jerry West? |
For more information about him, click here.
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Thursday, June 12, 2003
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stats
I love looking at my sitemeter.com stats! I just found out that dreifuss.org is #1 on a yahoo search for 'board game blog.' Woo hoo!
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the results are in...
In the poll, votes for boy beat votes for girl 12 to 8. But the minority had it right! Check the baby blog for Meg's writeup of yesterday's events and visit this page to see the latest pictures of our little one.
God bless,
Bert and Meg
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Today's the day [maybe]
Today at 2:40 we have an appointment with the Ultrasound machine. We will hopefully find out whether d3 will be a little girl or a little boy. This is also your chance to find out whether your vote on the baby gender poll was correct. Stay tuned as we will announce the results here. By the way, this is your last chance to vote in the poll! See the link on the left to share your opinion.
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Tuesday, June 10, 2003
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did you hear the one about...
In honor of Meg's grandfather, I have posted the jokes he sent to us. Enjoy...
1. Two peanuts walk into a bar. One was a salted.
2. A jumper cable walks into a bar. The bartender says "I'll serve you, but don't start anything."
3. A sandwich walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Sorry we don't serve food in here."
4. A dyslexic man walks into a bra.
5. A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says: "A beer please, and one for the road."
6. Two antennas meet on a roof, fall in love and get married. The ceremony wasn't much but the reception was great.
7. Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other: "Does this taste funny to you?"
8. "Doc, I can't stop singing 'The Green, Green Grass of Home'."
"That sounds like Tom Jones syndrome."
"Is it common?"
"It's not unusual."
9. Two cows standing next to each other in a field, Daisy says to Dolly "I was artificially inseminated this morning."
"I don't believe you," said Dolly. "It's true, no bull!"
10.Two hydrogen atoms walk into a bar. One says, "I've lost my electron."
The other says, "Are you sure?"
The first replies, "Yes, I'm positive."
11. A man takes his Rottweiler to the vet and says, "My dog's cross-eyed, is there anything you can do for him?"
"Well," says the vet, "let's have a look at him." So he picks the dog up and examines his eyes, then checks his teeth. Finally, he says "I'm going to have to put him down." "What, just because he's cross-eyed?" "No, because he's really heavy."
12. I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn't find any.
13. I went to the butcher's the other day and I bet him $50 that he couldn't reach the meat off the top shelf. He said, "No, the steaks are too high."
14. I went to a seafood disco rave last week...and pulled a mussel.
15. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly; but when they lit a fire in the craft, it sank, proving once and for all that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.
16. What do you call a fish with no eyes? A fish.
17. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says, "Dam."
I have been corrected. Meg's grandfather didn't send them to us, but Meg says that these are jokes that are in his style. Bop: If you're reading this and don't agree, comment away! Or just send us some more jokes!
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Monday, June 09, 2003
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MmmmmmmmmmmRE
Our church small group is going camping at the end of the month. Our friend Aron has taken charge of the meal planning, and decided to bring some MREs along for lunch on Saturday [MRE = Meals Ready to Eat]. Having a dad that was a Vietnam War veteran, I know about these, but they have improved considerably since the late 60s version that my dad had. Take a gander at the menu for today's MRE.
- main course (there are over 20 different kinds)
- crackers and peanut butter or cheese
- drink mix
- candy, dried fruit, or some kind of dessert
- water activated heater
- instant coffee, cream, sugar
- tabasco sauce
- salt pack
- chiclet gum
- matches
- toilet paper
- moist towelette
- spoon!
Mmmmmmmmm -- water activated heater!
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Friday, June 06, 2003
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buggy
Working with software, you hate to hear the word 'bug.' But actually my least favorite bug is the cockroach. There's a story I could tell you about my Oma's house in the middle of the summer, but I will spare you.
Which brings us to this week's trivia...
Jeopardesque Category: Computer History
Answer: Although the term 'bug' to refer to a problem with machinery originated as early as 1889 (according to the Oxford English Dictionary), this particular one--found in a Mark II computer in 1945--is credited with the modern term.
| Place cursor here for solution. | What is a moth? |
Enjoy a bug-free weekend!
It's not a bug, it's a feature.
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Thursday, June 05, 2003
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the baby blog has content!
Meg has written a long entry on d3's baby blog. It's not too long though, so go over and read it!
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our site gets a facelift
It's been 21 months since I began this blog/website, and I figured it was time for a style change. Many thanks go out to Greg and Shane for their help in getting this implemented. Please visit their sites as a return favor. If you have any comments, suggestions, or disparaging remarks, please submit them by clicking 'Add Comment.' Good day.
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Wednesday, June 04, 2003
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the 'study notes' page has been updated
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Monday, June 02, 2003
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'master of all games' tournament
On Saturday, I participated in Scott and Kerry's 'Master of All Games' Tournament. This has been a work in the making for some time, and was met with much excitement. I had been studying the games on their 'possible games list' and was ready to have some fun and possibly make it to the top 4 to earn my dinner. [Entry fee was $7 which included the price of pizza, and the top 4 placed gamers would at least get the entry fee back, with final #1 and #2 receiving an extra cash prize]
It began at 12:30pm with the random selection of games and table/player arrangements. Six genres of games meant six regular rounds. Then, the top four would meet in a bracket final four of two-player games.
My first game was Scrabble, and one of my opponents was Gee. The game went by pretty quickly, and I had a steady, yet modest lead throughout. I was very pleased to start the tournament with a win and 13 points.
My second game was die Mauer. Since this is a game that I enjoy and have played several times, I felt fortunate to have been selected to play this one. Andrew sat across from me during the game, and we had our eye on one another, knowing that we both were in a 4-way tie for first place. I actually played a pretty good game, getting rid of all of my pieces about 7 or 8 times, and 5 in a row at the end of the game. But a 42 point round (points are bad in this game) cost me first place, and the win went to Andrew.
The next round was Trivial Pursuit IV for me, and I barely eked out 3rd place out of 4. We then played a party game called 'Electronic Catch Phrase' and I managed 4th out of 8. Round five was Through The Desert, and I placed 2nd out of 3, which is worse than it sounds, b/c I was the only one who had played this game out of the three of us. Mike finished first in that one, with an astounding 80 points to my 71. This was perhaps the most intense of the regular rounds for me.
The last genre was card games, and at this point I was ranked fifth. I was placed in a game of Hearts with Mike, Steve, and Kerry. Now, Mike and Steve were both pretty high on the rankings. I think that Mike was 2nd or 3rd, and Steve was 6th or 7th. So, this game had the potential to really make or break the three of us. Having played Hearts quite a bit in my youth, I was glad to be in this one, even with the competition. As it turned out, Mike had hardly played the game before, and Kerry didn't like it. However, I heard that Steve was really good at it and was one of the few games that he played often, so I kept a close watch to my left. I managed to avoid getting many points until the next to last hand (or maybe the hand before that), where I was stuck with the Queen of Spades (worth 13 points in a game where you're not supposed to get points) and a few hearts. This left Steve in the lead. Then the last hand began, and I am glad that it came before time ran out for the round, because Steve took quite a few points, which gave me the lead, and a place in the final four.
After the last card game ended, the points were tallied and the final four players determined. At #1 was Andrew, which was no surprise because he had held that position all day. At #2 was Mike, who had played well all day. I ended up at #3, and Gee was at #4. And so the Final Four began.
Now, the list of games for two players consisted mainly of abstract strategy games--a genre that is not my best. To determine what games were to be played, each of us ranked our top six out of the ten, and then lists were compared to see which game was best ranked between the competitors. Andrew and Gee chose DVONN, which is the same game that Mike and I chose. The rules state that the same game cannot be played twice, much less at the same time, so the game with the #1 player broke the tie and so A & G played Dvonn. The second choice, based on the lists of Mike and myself was Zertz--a game which neither of us had played before.
Since none of us were very familiar with the games that we were playing, rules were explained by a third party (as in all the games played that day) and both tables played a practice game before the 'real thing.' Mike won our practice game, and I thought I was a goner. Stragegy almost completely eluded me in this game. However, I capitalized on a mistake late in the game that gave me the win. At the #1/#4 table, Andrew won the practice game, and Gee won the real one.
So, in the final game it was Mr. Gee and me. The game was Gipf, which was very fitting, since the other two final four games were from the Gipf project. It's also a game that neither of us had played much. Gee had played a couple of times before, and I had never played against a human opponent. I knew we had a tough game ahead of us. We both knew how to play the game however, since we both had studied the rules, so we jumped right in with a practice game. Gee won that warm-up game, and I don't remember really what happened, except what was going through my mind: 'Oh great, he really understands this game--I'm a goner.'
What then ensued was mostly a blur to me. All I know is that two out of three of my Gipf pieces were captured, and when the third one is gone, that's the game. I then managed to take Gee's second Gipf piece, and then it was back-and-forth. I noticed at one point that Gee only had a few regular pieces left, and when you run out of those, you lose, too. But he managed to get a few of those back, and the pressure was on again. From then on out I was concentrating on keeping my last Gipf piece safe, but I felt that Gee was gaining some ground for set-ups to remove it. I even blurted out 'You're going to win' or something like that near the end. What I didn't notice was that he was running out of regular pieces again. When he made his last move, I could hardly believe it, because he set me up to take his last Gipf piece! But what I didn't realize was that he HAD to do it b/c he had no more regular pieces. So, I did the spike to his set and won the so-called 'Master of All Games' tournament.
It was a wild ride. Eleven hours and eight games later, I was the victor. Granted, there were only twelve competitors and it was all amongst friends, but it felt good. I posed for pictures and was awarded the trophy and $22 (70% of the remaining pool of entry fees). I tell you, after a day like that, I came home and had no desire to play any of my online board games. That was enough. But I did play a game with my wife on Sunday, and I am ready now to play some games for the sheer fun of it!
Links: Pictures of the Trophy / Gee's account of MOAG / 'Master of All Games' website / The Gipf Project
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