A good weekend. Saturday the local health insurance company sponsored free admission to a Halloween Celebration at the Farmer's Market opposite my parent's street. Mrs. Ha's office was invited, and we agreed to meet her friend and family there, and later head over to their house for dinner (they live in the same suburb I went to high school in). Back in the day it was a little shack, and I'd cut across the empty fields to get a friend's apartment to play Traveller (sometimes on a snow day my other friends would pick me up on their unreliable snow mobile), now it's much more developed. We ate our free doughnut, let the kids play, saw the goats and got our free pumpkins before leaving, quite the value for the $12,000 they got from me. We also ran into a few people we knew, a pediatrician from eight year old's class, a nursing practitioner we met through old friends, and the doctor Mrs. Ha works with.

Off to her friends' house, even after a long detour to find white zinfandel we got there before they did. Eight year old and their son (around eight) got along on great, just like before, thirteen year old and their twelve year old didn't interact too much, aside from kicking a soccer ball back and forth. They even like different music, with the girl liking rock, such as BLink 182, Green Day, Paramore, and thirteen year old liking Disney.

Sunday my parents were out of town at a reunion, so we stuck around the house, in between vacuuming and shopping, I was able to brew up a batch of stout, even though ale season is pretty much done. I had the fixin's, and I need the beer.

No books finished, so I present Anathem wiki. I still dig the book, though I'm considering the Millenials nearly a deux ex machina.

One of the most exciting things in my life was going to a different blood lab, the one my wife goes to. I normally use one near work, it's small, crowded, and the magazines suck (a wine one, and a crappy parenting pulp). I checked out the one my wife goes to, near her work, between Westfall and the canal. I was the second one in line, read a bit of Smithsonian, and was soon called back for draining.

Another exciting news would be my sister getting married on March 13th, in Phoenix, at a Ren fest. We don't understand the date and location, and it's likely we won't be attending since the girls would have to miss school and it would cost a lot. The whole thing is odd.

Thirteen year old and I have been playing a lot of Risk. We played one night, we used a scenario with two neutral colors, and territories assigned by dealing out the deck. She ended up with South America after a few turns, I ended up with Australia. She made the mistake of trying to take Europe without protecting her flanks (she took it, but left two armies in the Ukraine while I had about eight in the middle east) and not pressing on Siam (she had 24 armies in China and India to my 12). We called it a draw right after I got all of Asia.

Work, dang busy, still wrestling with a sporadically unable to recreate problem, in addition to all my other crap. We have a team building exercise this afternoon, so I have a short day, except for a conference call at 4:00 about the sporadic productivity killing problem at the customer down south that I am still unable to recreate. So, a short quick diary.