On January 26th I attended Winter Fantasy Con 2013 in Fort Wayne [my photoset]. This is my first time to a real gaming convention other than GenCon. It was a much smaller convention (by a couple orders of magnitude).

Fort Wayne has built themselves a shiny new convention center. So the location was very nice. I arrived late on Friday and stayed in the adjoining hotel connected by skywalk. Unfortunately it was too late and registration was closed. So I woke up early Saturday to get registered.

The low-tech event ticketing system was effective and I was easily able to buy my way into all three gaming slots on Saturday. The choice of games was limited to mainstream titles including D&D 4, D&D Next, and Pathfinder. Those are the big crowd pleasers and only weird indie/small press RPG weirdos like myself would want other choices in the line-up.

I played two sessions of D&D Next which is a game that I wanted to try out last year at GenCon. It is interesting and definitely brings some simplicity and an old-school RPG feel back to D&D.

Near the end of my Pathfinder game I received a text message from Tony indicating that GenCon was having a promotional give-away of a free pass to GenCon 2013 at the convention. So as soon as my game concluded I snuck away and defeated the guy in a roll-off of d20s and won the pass.

All in all a good convention. The timing is particularly nice since it provides a gaming opportunity in the boring winter months and is separated from GenCon by about half a year.

Today I received an embedded development environment with a little ARM CPU running at 700 MHz, a half gig of RAM, and 4G of permanent storage. It can have gcc, gdb, emacs, and a whole damn X-Window environment installed.

Not bad at all for 35 USD. I think the Raspberry Pi and I are going to be good friends.

You may have noticed the lack of transmissions recently. The current server setup has degenerated to the point that it is no longer even remotely usable.

Alternatives are being investigated, but it may take some time. I appreciate your patience.

In March we celebrated Ittie's birthday with a Mexican themed party at Alice's place. The theme was particularly appropriate on account of the vacation to Puerto Vallarta we took over the Christmas break in celebration of her impending birthday.

On March 14th 2011 Sara's grandfather Homer P. Hargrave Jr. passed away. He was a kind man who lived a very interesting life.

After his mother died at a young age he was adopted by Colleen Moore. Yes, that Colleen Moore. He grew up in Chicago and served in the 11th Airborne Division in the Pacific during World War II. After the war he was a member of the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

He served on the Junior Chamber of Commerce's Atoms for Peace campaign earning their Distinguished Service Award. He ran for congress in 1958. His campaign to unseat Sidney Yates from Illinois's 9th congressional district was unsuccessful. His family in Hollywood and his political life allowed him to meet a number of interesting people. He shows up in the congressional record as an associate of both Ronald Reagan and Hugh Hefner.

He loved history, backgammon, martinis, ice cream, and most especially his family. He will be missed.

Trying to catch up on log entries with some happenings from February. You already know that my nephew was born.

Sara and I also attended the Winter Warmer at the Lafayette Brewing Company (their annual Barleywine & Strong Ale tasting). We had never gone before since the tickets sell out in a matter of hours. But some very kind folks from the Tippecanoe Homebrewers' Circle had some spare tickets that we could buy. It was a nice event and I will try to attend again. Photos here.

Of course there was also Saint Valentine's Day. The recipe was mostly good, but the frosting turned out too hard to apply to the cupcakes, so it was kind of a mess. The flaming strawberry part worked out well.

On Sunday February 6th (Superbowl Sunday) my sister gave birth to my first nephew. The next generation has begun. Photos here.

Sara and I have had some nice evenings with friends recently. On January 29th Jeff and Katie joined us for a night of sushi (at Maru) and beer (at Jake's). It was good to catch up with them and have the "college bar" experience again.

The next weekend we (February 5th) we finally got to hang out with Joe and Kristen again. They were very kind to host us at their home and provide dinner. It is amazing how their children have grown.

Christmas was a little different this year. Early in the season we attended a holiday / birthday / terrible sweater party with Sara's grad-school friends hosted by Jared and Mary Ann.

On the 17th we had an early gift exchange with my family.

For Christmas itself Sara and I were given the amazing opportunity to travel to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with her family. This was an opportunity made possible by the astounding generosity of her grandmother.

• 2010.12.25 : On Christmas morning we were picked up and delivered to the airport. The flight was pleasantly uneventful, but Sara did win a giant candy cane in a trivia contest by guessing the correct number of seats on the plane and the national origin of the flight attendant.
  
  
• 2010.12.26 : After getting settled into the resort the night before Sara and I took a cab into the city proper and explored a bit. We waled along the Malecón (pier) and discovered sand sculptures as well as more permanent sculptures. We walked the markets and the island situated in the Rio Cuale where we discovered leaf-cutter ants. After making our way back to the resort we were treated to a fantastic Asian meal at Gong
  
  
• 2010.12.27 : We awoke early on the 27th to make our way out into the jungle for our zip-line tour through the canopy. I wasn't supposed to bring my camera, but as you can see I don't always do as I am told. After spending all morning zipping through the jungle on a cable we spent the afternoon relaxing. In the evening we were treated to another excellent dinner at a beach party hosted by our resort. The most interesting treat at the beach party was the "coco loco", a rum drink served in a coconut.
  
  
• 2010.12.28 : On the 28th the whole family got together to explore the city in earnest. We had a fantastic lunch at Le Bistro Jazz Cafe. We were seated at a fantastic table overlooking the river. After lunch Sara and I took the opportunity to explore La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe). After splitting off from the remainder of the family we explored downtown a bit more with Katie.
  
  
• 2010.12.29 : Sara and I rented a car and decided to head north. Our destination was the Alta Vista Archaeological Zone. It took us a couple hours to get to approximately the right place and then another hour to actually find it. The signage non-existent and the roads went from bad, to worse, to impassable. At one point we ended up in dense brush on a road intended for ATVs. We eventually abandoned our car near a Soursop (a.k.a. Guanábana, annona muricata) plantation and walked the last 1-2 miles. The archaeological site contains petroglyphs carved into the rocks by an Aztecan tribe called the Tecoxquines more than 2000 years ago. The site is laid out in a very climactic way. At first the stone carvings are sparse and difficult to find. As you progress up the stream they become more common and more elaborate. At the very end of the stream there is an amazing little waterfall flowing over rock shelves that have eroded into surprisingly regular cuboid blocks.
  
  After our archaeological adventure we made our way to the local beach town of Chacala for a lunch on the beach. The difference between this little town and the giant beach resorts of Puerto Vallarta was striking. We saw tiny little hotels renting rooms for less than 20 USD per night. After lunch we headed back by way of Bucerías. That evening we were once again treated to an amazing meal at Tramonto.
  
  
• 2010.12.30 : We still had our rental car, so we packed up with Charlie Sr. and Charlie Jr. and headed south to Mismaloya. I wanted to see Los Arcos (a set of arch shaped islands in Banderas Bay). The rocky beach near the town was home to crabs, sea urchins, and all kinds of interesting sea life. At the end of the beach were the ruins of the set of the 1963 film The Night of the Iguana. For lunch I drove us inland and straight up some very steep hills. Despite some concern we made it to the El Eden Restaurant. It is a tourist trap located over a beautiful waterfall that was featured in the 1987 film Predator. The food was overpriced and mediocre as you might expect, but getting seated at a table overlooking the waterfall made up for it. We explored the site, but did not swim in the pools and flat rock slides. Afterward we descended into Puerto Vallarta proper and did a bit of shopping before returning to the resort for dinner at the Havana Moon restaurant.
  
  
• 2010.12.31 : After a relaxing morning Sara and I went into town for some Mexican food (which had been somewhat lacking up to this point in our trip). We were hoping to have some truly strange food (cricket tacos!) at El Arrayán, but unfortunately they were closed. Instead we wandered the art district a bit and found Si Señor which provided a very nice lunch out on the patio overlooking the city. After lunch we finished buying our trinkets and headed back for a lazy afternoon. I wandered the grounds of the resort and even found my way onto the roof where I snapped some nice photos. As evening fell we celebrated New Year's Eve and an early birthday party for Ittie in the hotel room. We watched fireworks displays all along the bay from the balcony of our rooms before retiring for the evening.
  
  
• 2011.01.01 : With a new year before us we packed up and made the return flight to Chicago.

Happy holidays from Puerto Vallarta.

For our paper anniversary I bought Sara and myself tickets to see Gogol Bordello with Forro in the Dark at The Vogue in Broad Ripple.

It was a truly great show. We ended up with great seats on the upper level which was something of an accomplishment since it was general admission. I didn't know anything about Forro in the Dark (the opener), but they were surprisingly good simple fun Brazilian music. By the time Gogol Bordello took the stage everyone had lots of energy. As an added bonus they played a heroically long encore. As Eugene said "It seems like we don't see each other very often. Let's get some more shit done."

An interesting bit of trivia: Eugene mentioned that he was nearly sent to Indiana when he originally came to the US as a a political refugee; he ended up in Vermont instead.

Once again this year Phil was gracious enough to host a truly excellent All Hallows Eve party. In addition to providing the space, making tasty treats, and setting up clever decorations he and Ashley also created great costumes complete with moving props powered by little electro-motors.

Brad and Liz came over from Cincinnati and everyone had a great time. Sara and I had surealism themed costumes this year. I was Son of Man by René Magritte and Sara did The Burning Giraffe by Salvador Dalí. My photos of the event are available to those who are interested.

Since the trick-or-treaters were not out until Sunday we were once again able to get a good count. It was 33 this year. Back to a high not seen since 2007.