8r4d The #winter temperatures were back for a reprise this week but it wasn’t cold enough to sway us from our determination to do 10k #running on a Sunday morning. The apricity of the sunny dawn helped a little, but we were still chilled to the bone.

8r4d #datenight out at the theatre

castironguy In this house we observe #piday

8r4d It was a five hills night out #running up and down and up and down in the sub-zero temps of “who thought hills in March was a good idea?” evening run.

pixelazy This old tree at the dance studio often catches my eye because I usually only see it lit by eerie lights at night when I’m driving taxi for the family dancers.

In case you haven’t already noticed I’ve been trying to post a photo of something here daily this month. This is what happens when I work all day and forget to post until late in the evening.

8r4d Or new rehearsal space for #orchestra is pretty slick , gotta say.

gamerdad My physical copy of Civilization VII showed up via a postman who made me sign for it and everything. Woah! Haven’t done that in a while. How apropos for a history game huh?

I did what I always do with new games. I have been avoiding too many spoilers or videos about “things you should know before you play” and just trying to sink into it as the devs intended. Raw and unfiltered.

If it seems as though I’m making too big of a deal, recall that I’ve played every edition of this series and another new one kinda is a big deal.

So there it is. Take seven? The game as I understand it so far has broken away from some of the expected conventions of the predecessors, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I enjoyed six but there was a simultaneously a complexity in the game play and a lack of nuance in the world building that could be a little jarring at times. I found myself frequently customizing games to ignore certain mechanics or aspects. For example, the whole religions thing—which seems to be absent in seven from what I’ve played so far?—is something that I would ignore or turn off as a win condition in six. I just wasn’t jiving the whole religious imperialism thing.

One thing I really like so far in seven is the new city settlement aspect. It always struck me as kind of unrealistic that settlers would just go off and found a whole new city with loyalty to the whole central leader thing—and of course it could be easily gamed to spam the world with little colonies. In seven it seems like your settlers spin off more of a kind of satellite town that needs to reach a certain potential before it can self govern. So you build these little future-cities that need resources and protection from the actual cities and it makes it a little more strategic in the way that you do the expansion of empire thing.

Also, I should note, that I’ve so far only played the first age. The game is now parcelled out into Ages with different goals for each. Some folks have been complaining that this breaks the continuity of a spanning empire, but from what I’ve seen having merely but dipped my toe into the Exploration Age is that it is probably more nuanced than that. Hopefully in a good way.

All that said, I am open to a new experience. I know some folks like to grumble when a beloved franchise tries something new. But the reality is that I still have Civ VI installed on a couple devices if I really don’t like VII. Designing new games is about taking risks, after all, and when evolving a series like Civilization it seems like there is vast opportunity to try new ideas in this vast and complex simulator.

Plus, you can’t please everyone.

8r4d I’ve been experimenting with #popcorn making, trying to hit the sweet spot of ingredients to replicate that theatre taste. Getting darn close too!

8r4d A #homeowner afternoon as my sleuthing on our creeping decrease in water pressure over the last few months revealed that there was all sorts of plastic particulate in the aerators of our faucets… which quickly googled up as a hot water heater issue. So, I guess we’re due for a new hot water heater, huh?

8r4d The new #yeg #footbridge over whitemud is coming along nicely, maybe even in time for some new summer #running routes..???

8r4d Daylight savings time hits harder when it coincides with an early #running day. We clocked 8k in the cool damp of the icy streets.

8r4d I don’t think I’ve ever walked down this trail with the lights lit before.

They just finished building it in the fall and I can’t say that the dog and I ventured down this new trail as much in the winter as we did in the summer, and what with the coyotes roaming around this part of the world it’s not particularly safe after dark.

I spent the better part of the sunlit hours in front of a Zoom call doing the third day of my fourth class of my business certification work. A walk was in order, but you’d think I’d have a bunch of pent up energy to stroll forever. In reality, I was drained and we just strolled, lit by this nifty lamps which should make it safer—but then coyotes don’t care about a bit of light do they?