8r4d A spicy evening so we headed into the shade of the creek for some easy trail #running through the suburban creek, those same trails we avoid in the winter but call us a lot more strongly on hot #summer days.

gamerdad As much as I flip flop around with my reading habits, when I really get into a book I tend to stick with it. Sadly, that wasn’t the case when I bought this tome of a non-fiction book over two decades ago. Something compelled me to tackle it again recently though and I’ve made some serious progress—I mean, not enough to offer a coherent opinion yet, but certainly enough to state here that I’m actually reading this one now. Officially, like.

8r4d A couple weeks in and I’ve written about ten thousand words on the new #keyboard in a variety of settings: home, cafe, backyard and on my lap. I thought the colourful lights were a bit of a gimmick and sure, it mostly is, but I do get a bit of a kick out of writing at night which is about the only time they are bright enough to notice.

gamerdad I think this was my fifth full play thru since installing this classic on #ps5 a couple weeks ago. I kinda found myself getting into an obsessive groove trying to win this thing on some measure. I would play a great game and then some group I’d barely met on the other side of the map would come up the middle for a culture win or something out of left field. My concession to my own sanity was to turn off all win conditions except for a total point victory. Managing this thing on a console with a controller versus a keyboard makes juggling five different win conditions almost untenable. That said, I still tried to play a balanced game. I founded a custom religion and defended my cities against evangelical takeover. I completed the space race and settled Mars. I built a whole bunch of cultural districts and created nearly twenty works of art/culture. And when some group picked a fight with me and declared war against one of my cities, I took the real low road and started nuking and razing their cities until they begged for a peace deal. I think the only thing I really didn’t excel at was Wonder building, but when the ideal time came round for that I happened to be quite busy trying to keep up a holy war, so… excuses excuses, huh? Overall, I think I might shelf this one for a while now that I trounced at least one round. We’ll see. It is a pretty zen game for those quiet days at home.

squwetchy A theme park might literally be among the worst places in the world to try urban sketching.

There is nowhere to get more than five minutes of peace to draw. So I embraced that: I went with the intention of seeing what I could accomplish in the least amount of time possible. I adopted a loose af sketching style and a sloppy/abstract watercolour style and spent literally no more than 5 minutes sketching— standing in a queue, waiting outside a bathroom for my fam, after lunch—and then painting with super-limited time and supplies back at the hotel.

The result was 28 sketches over the week (i filled a sketch book!) and about 6 hours total invested in drawing and painting. They are not neat nor tidy. They are not photo perfect by any stretch. They are vibes. Impressions. And the whole collection, despite a few flops and a leaky sketchbook seam, is an awesome souvenir.

gamerdad Sometimes you need to play a game with no other objective than making something interesting.

8r4d We did one of our holiday Monday breakfast #running meetups for Canada Day today. Five kicks earned us some eggs and bacon back at A&W and of course a hot cup of coffee.

8r4d Who knows how long this little bush might survive as I’ve not had great luck with my front #flower bed but I put a rose in earlier this year and it bloomed for the first time this morning!

8r4d We started collecting those Starbucks #coffee mugs with the stylized art and locations on them a while ago, and they have turned into quite a collection, so much so that we’ve kinda sworn off buying any more. That is also a good thing because they changed up the style in North America and they are hard to find. Sure, the new Disney series doesn’t perfectly match the style of the rest of our collection, but I couldn’t help adding just one more #starwars limited edition to my set. And who says I haven’t been to Hoth anyways?

8r4d A rendezvous with a long lost puppy post vacation. [read more...]

8r4d We don’t have these dumb things in Canada, do we? [read more...]

8r4dsfeets Last day in Anaheim and #breakfast before we fly. You wouldn’t have thought it, and neither did we before we sat down and ordered, but mediocre pancakes were literally the most expensive meal of our trip. Two stars, would not recommend.