Philly Trip Report and the rest of January
For New Year's weekend, I drove with a friend up to Philly to visit jeneralist and the rest of her household, along with folks visiting from New England, Merry Olde England, other parts of PA, etc. It was a fun house party weekend to ring in the new year, with board/card games (e.g., Qwirkle, Aquarius), music, geeky conversations ranging from the golden age of comics to particle physics, old friends (anarchist_nomad, gyades, laforza8, lionessprite, LJ-free folks) and new (miss_amaranth), excellent food (I made a veggie Hoppin' John and collards for New Year's Day, which were appreciated, as were the decadent chocolate-covered potato chips I'd found and brought), and a nice bike ride which helped me get over an allergic attack, oddly enough. The tree was still up, which was nice since I hadn't gotten enough of Christmas.
The weekend after, I made it to Brunswick Games Day organized by kmusser, and got to play 7 Wonders (multi-strategy civilizations/assets building game) and a cool card game new to me, Tichu (sort of like a partners-Social Class). Then I visited my sister and her family up in Frederick, and they still had a tree up, too!
The weekend after, I went to the MidWinter Steampunk Ball (Baltimore contra crowd), with live music by Perpetual eMotion, a great band. I made Hoppin' John and greens again for book club the next day (vegetarian theme for the pot luck), where we discussed the blood and thunder (Gothic?) thrillers of Louisa May Alcott.
The rest of the month, I got to play Hollow Earth Expeditions (pulp fiction RPG) with friends, and enjoyed my neighbors' Christmas lights which stayed up until February, I think. Work went along, no major drama, a Chinese New Year lunch with teammates, and I gave a presentation about curling at a pizza night. Also, I went to a friend's Burns Night to celebrate Robert Burns and all things Scottish, where the amuse-bouche was a haggis wonton in honor of Gung Haggis Fat Choy.
The weekend after, I made it to Brunswick Games Day organized by kmusser, and got to play 7 Wonders (multi-strategy civilizations/assets building game) and a cool card game new to me, Tichu (sort of like a partners-Social Class). Then I visited my sister and her family up in Frederick, and they still had a tree up, too!
The weekend after, I went to the MidWinter Steampunk Ball (Baltimore contra crowd), with live music by Perpetual eMotion, a great band. I made Hoppin' John and greens again for book club the next day (vegetarian theme for the pot luck), where we discussed the blood and thunder (Gothic?) thrillers of Louisa May Alcott.
The rest of the month, I got to play Hollow Earth Expeditions (pulp fiction RPG) with friends, and enjoyed my neighbors' Christmas lights which stayed up until February, I think. Work went along, no major drama, a Chinese New Year lunch with teammates, and I gave a presentation about curling at a pizza night. Also, I went to a friend's Burns Night to celebrate Robert Burns and all things Scottish, where the amuse-bouche was a haggis wonton in honor of Gung Haggis Fat Choy.