Matching Tracksuits

games

Game Night

Friday 8 November 2024

We only have so much time together as a family of four. L will graduate in a few short months, and then her time in our house will be limited to summers. I expect that soon enough, she won’t be staying with us the entire summer. She’ll be twenty, twenty-one years old. She’ll have her own life. She’ll have her own priorities. She’ll have a job that she’ll want to continue working over the summer. Or she’ll have some internship or other. So these evenings are rare.

Some things have, of course, changed, but for poor K, nothing has changed. She always has the absolute worst luck in board games. When we play Monopoly, we call her (and she calls herself) the Slum Lord because she can never manage to get anything other than the very cheapest of properties, and the three of us end up bankrupting her in fairly short order. Tonight’s game of Sorry was no exception. But one other thing stayed the same: we all laughed heartily about it.

Laughing as a family — few things are more precious.

Friday Insanity

Friday 26 July 2024

I’ve had the matchingtracksuits.com domain registered through the same company for as long as the website has existed, which is around 19 years or so. I’ve had the actual website hosted at a few different providers, but for the last few years, I’ve used Host Gator because their cloud VPS hosting is a good value for all I do online. I also have my school site hosted here (ourenglishclass.net) as well as a Moodle installation for class content (no URL provided because only students have access). I decided it’s about time to move the domains to the same company that provides the hosting (it made sense to keep everything consolidated), so a week ago, I began the process of changing domain registrars for two of the three domains we have (kingary.net being the third). It finally went through today, and much to my surprise, it broke the two websites. Completely. And totally.

So I spent most of the day going through using phpMyAdmin to move all the necessary records from one MySQL database to another. One of the tables has 519,000 rows. Another table has a more modest 49,736. But the catch is this: I had to do massive search-and-replace operations on every table to make sure it would continue working when moved everything to the new database that now runs this site.

The upshot is this: while the site might not look all that different than it did 24 hours ago, what’s going on under the hood is completely different. It still uses WordPress, to be sure, but it’s a totally different installation in a totally different directory with a totally different database.

That was the day portion of Friday.

The evening was so much better. We took K out for her birthday dinner: she chose pho, which we all love. When we came back home, we played a family game, something we’ve never played before: a Polish game called Pytaki.It’s likely made with younger children in mind, but the premise is as simple as can be: there’s a bag of questions from which you choose a random question and then talk about it. They’re questions that show you how well you know the other people (one for K was, “What is the best way to make the person on your right happy?” she answered immediately: “Cigar and whiskey.”) or give you a chance to share a little about yourself (“What’s your favorite movie.”) Some where about family history, like “How did your parents meet?” A lovely game that we played for an hour and led to a lot of much-needed laughs.

Sequence

Tuesday 23 July 2024

“Let’s play a family board game tonight!” the Boy declared. The Girl was at track practice, and the three of us were going to head out for a mountain biking adventure before it began raining. But the Boy still wanted to do something together.

He wanted Monopoly (as always); we agreed to play Sequence.

It’s a game we’ve played a lot over the years, and somewhere, I have a picture (and a post) of us playing it with Nana and Papa.

Perhaps this will be a game we play together when the kids come back home for a visit…

Orlando 2024 Day 2

Wednesday 26 June 2024

Yesterday there was a team from Texas who, I believe, lost all their games in straight sets. L has been there: she’s been on teams that leave a tournament day without a single win. The Texas team was up 11-8 at one point, but our girls rallied and beat them.

Today, it was more of the same: straight-set victories for the first two games, including a brutal second game with sets that were 25-10 and 25-11. “It’s good to be on this side of that score,” I said to another parent, “but we’ve been on the other side, and I know how that hurts.” It does a real number on your self-confidence, and soon, the bad mistakes (like the ones they were making: hitting serves out and sloppy serve reception) pile on each other. They reach a point that essentially, the team is just as much beating themselves as being beaten. Again, we’ve been there, too.

The final game was a bit of a different story. In the first set, the girls were quickly down 2-7, but the pulled it together and ended up taking the set 25-19. The second set started out much the same, but once again, they were able to pull back and then take the set 25-21

Today was Pink Out day, when all teams wear pink uniforms and I guess thinking at least in passing about the fact that women (and a few men) die of breast cancer every year. “Believe there is hope for a cure,” one shirt reads. It has a certain religious ring to it, but it’s antithetical to the whole enterprise of looking for a cure. While it is science and not faith, belief, or hope that will cure cancer, I understand the implied optimism in the shirt, certainly a critical element for anyone fighting cancer. One of the players I noticed yesterday is clearly just after chemo. A strong female outside hitter without a single hair anywhere on hear head, she stood out in more ways than one. Perhaps the pink encourages her. Hopefully.

As for today’s pictures, I focused on the setters, which I don’t think I’ve ever done. In a lot of ways, their the brains of the whole team: they read the defense, make quick adjustments, and then decide which hitter to set based on perceived weaknesses in the opponents’ defense. Their sort of like the steering wheel of the team, or the neck. “Brain” seems to take something away from the other players.

In truth, all the players are completely critical. If you don’t have good defensive specialists, you won’t get a good pass to your setter. If you don’t get a good pass to your setter, or if your setter is not on her game, you won’t get your hitters in good position to attack. If the hitters are attacking, you won’t be scoring (except from opponents’ errors and blocking, and the occasional well-placed lob to the empty back corner from the setter or a DS).

As for the evening, it was games, games, games:

Friday

Friday 22 March 2024

Tournament and family game night.

Hearts

Sunday 11 February 2024

Games

Saturday 17 December 2022

Autumnal Friday Night

Friday 8 October 2021

It is now officially autumn for some three or so weeks. The temperature hasn’t dropped so much, but it’s been a dreary week as far as the weather goes, and we’re all tired.

There’s nothing better than some hot tea and a game of Monopoly on such an evening. Well, the Monopoly — not so much.

“Do you want to play, Mama?” E asks.

“Not really, but I will.”

I give the same answer. But we both give in and play occasionally — it’s what family does.

The Dog and the Game

Friday 27 December 2019

The kids played with the dog a bit this afternoon — a good thing, because the pup, when neglected, pouts. And a pouting pup does things like dig massive holes in the backyard, run uncontrollably once inside, bark incessantly inside or out.

Afterward, another evening over the board. This time, possibly the most luck I’ve ever experienced in the silly game. Everything with buildings on it — I owned. I made my own son cry when he landed on New York Avenue with a hotel and had to pay $1,000. He literally fell into the floor and began sobbing.

“Buddy, calm down. It’s just a game. I’m lucky this time.” No help. Then I had an idea: “If you can pull yourself together, I’ll give you a surprise.” I was planning on giving everything I had to him and letting him finish L off, but her turn was right after mine and she landed on Tennessee Avenue (See that? It also had a hotel.) and had to pay $950 one turn after she’d paid me something like $600. She had nothing left: she gave me her little bit of cash and all her remaining property with a pout and said, “You win.”

Boxing Day 2019

Thursday 26 December 2019

I’ve never really been a fan of Monopoly. After about the age of ten or eleven, I determine that there was too much chance involved, and I just found it frustrating. I never played it after that.

As an adult, though, I’ve come to recognize that there is a fair amount of chance in life that just sucks money from one’s bank account. Medical emergencies, car repairs, accidents, home issues, and the like — all unplanned, all expenses.

When the Girl got Monopoly for Christmas this year, I knew I’d end up playing it with the kids. I didn’t realize how much fun it could be as an adult who can simply look at it as a game that is a fairly accurate reflection of the frustrations of adulthood and, more importantly, as a game that can provide lessons to kids and time together as a family.

We played twice today. The first time, it was just the kids and I. It only took a moment for me to realize the value for a seven-year-old. He had to read, to count money, and occasionally make change.

L dominated us, and the Boy was hemorrhaging cash to a degree that he declared he was going to quit. We talked him down, but then K returned home and we set about to preparing and eating dinner.

Afterward, the kids wanted to play again, so we sat down as a family and began. I had a little strategy in mind that I wanted to test: quality, not quantity. I bought a bunch of properties quickly, then traded at exorbitant cost to myself three or four properties for the final street to make the orange set:

  • New York Avenue
  • Tennessee Avenue
  • St. James Place

I then set about to building them up to two houses each as quickly as possible. The result: I was getting a couple of hundred bucks every few cycles of the board.

The Boy took a similar route: he ended up with all the railroads and soon was rolling in money.

Poor K was getting hit left and right: bad luck with Community Chest/Chance cards, bad luck with the dice (she must have landed on the luxury tax four or five times), and soon she was down to little cash and few unmortgaged properties.

Then I bought one more house for each of my properties and drawing $550-$600 from every poor player who landed on one of them. K finally landed on one, and it just about wiped her out.

Her reaction: she laughed. Our reaction: we laughed with her.

On our walk this evening, then, we were able to help E see that the most important thing in a game like that is just to have fun. “It’s just a game!”

Kolejka

Sunday 1 December 2019

The reality of life in Poland in the 80s was the line. The queue. People stood in line for everything. People stood in line not knowing why they were standing in line. A friend once told me, that she often ended up standing in the line just because there was a line. “If there was a line there must be something she reasoned and no matter what that something was it was something that her family could use or trade with someone else.”

Kinga told us of a story about waiting in line for shoes. “We didn’t even know what kind of shoes they were,” she said, “but they were shoes and we needed shoes.”

I had my own experiences waiting in lines in Poland in the mid-90s, but they were not due to the lack of goods. I mostly waited in line for bureaucratic reasons. When I would go to Krakow training my Visa, I would arrive at the office in question an hour or more before it opened to find the line already stretched halfway down the block.

What better thing to do then some 30 years after communism ended in Poland than to play a game based on this reality. That’s exactly what the game Kolejka is all about: all the frustration of communist Poland in your living room.

First Day 2015

Thursday 1 January 2015

“Let’s go to the airplane park!” There’s a small airport near downtown Greenville which has an aviation-themed park next to it. The far end of the park abuts the runway, and it’s a favorite for the kids: you can play on a fantastic playground, ride your bike around the paved oval circling the whole playground, and watch small airplanes land and take-off.

At the far end of the track, next to the runway, there is a significantly steep slope — significantly steep for a toddler, that is — and it should be a heart-stopping moment every time the Boy roars down the slope. But he does it so carefully, first going down only half the slope, then a bit more, a bit more, until he’s going down the whole thing. He’s so cautious that it takes some of the worry from both K and me. But every time we’re there without a helmet for him, I think, “Drat — should have brought that helmet.”

After dinner, it’s play time. First some family play with E’s fishing game he got for Christmas. We try to teach the Boy how to let the swinging magnet slow so that he can lower it to the fish to “catch” it, but he has a more effective way: simply grab the magnet in one hand while holding the rod in the other. Simple. But eventually we convince him.

Afterward, we split up to have some more interest-specific play. The Boy and I head up to his room to play with his cars. Although we only have the sheriff character from Cars, we choose a car to be Lightning McQueen and another to be Mater and go tractor tipping, just like in the film.

DSCF1569

The ladies, in the meantime, play Ticket to Ride, a train-based strategy game that enthralls the Boy — trains, so of course! — but is obviously too much for his young mind to comprehend.

DSCF1564

Dominoes

Tuesday 6 November 2012

The Girl has learned how to play dominoes — at least, a version of Mexican Train from a set with missing pieces. She generally tends to place her tiles on the table face up because, as she explains, she needs help. I tell her that perhaps it’s best if I don’t see what she has because it’s tempting to make decisions based on that knowledge.

DSC_5827
“Good luck, sis!”

Still, she does need the help. She often overlooks playable tiles and tends to draw without really thinking. And then there’s her tendency to get ahead of herself — a less magnanimous father would say “cheat” — and slip another tile down before I play.

DSC_5825
“Um, I might have gone a different direction, Tata.”

In the end, the Girl wins, semi-fair-and-square. I’m fairly sure there were a couple of times she played twice while I was wrestling the Boy. Then again, I know of at least one time she missed a tile and I said nothing. Perhaps I was desperate to make a decent showing.

DSC_5818
Three consecutive doubles: 10, 11, and 12.

Then again, when I draw these three tiles toward the end of the game, one can hardly fault me, I think.

The Battle

Friday 30 December 2011

The warrior comes, a vicious flanking surprise attack with that most feared weapon: the broom.

DSC_4866

A fierce battle ensues: experience versus speed, Swiffer Sweeper versus broom.

DSC_4869

If only all of our battles were so fun.

DSC_4874

And surely, I’ll look back at the epic bedtime battles, the fussy mornings, the frustrated afternoons, and I’ll wish our current battles could return.

DSC_4877

Scrabble

Tuesday 13 December 2011

We’ve been struggling to get the Girl speaking Polish on a regular basis. She’s resisted consistently until a recent trip to Poland: two weeks with Babcia, including a week with cousin S, and suddenly, she’s speaking Polish spontaneously — to her toys when she’s playing alone.

Games

And so we’ve reached a point at which the Girl can play Polish games, like Scrabble. We play a modified version: a small marker indicates both where to start and what word to spell. We work through hulajnoga (scooter), kot (cat), dom (house/home), and of course mama (mom).

It might be no surprise that the Girl won the majority of the rounds: it’s tempting sometimes to let her win to keep her interest up. (And it’s equally tempting occasionally to arrange a loss or two in order to help her learn how to lose gracefully.) This evening, though, she wins fair and square.

Stacking the Deck, Redux

Tuesday 14 December 2010

L and I are playing Candy Land. It’s a dry, boring game, to be honest, but I’m not doing it for my own entertainment: that comes from watching her.

Still, I’ve been trying lately to make it a learning experience, as a way to help her deal with her frustration. It’s a simple premise: stack the deck occasionally, placing the Candy Cane Forest card for the next drawing when she’s seventy-five percent complete.

“Oh, rats!” she declares, retreating almost to the beginning of the game board.

I try to make it a little more frustrating, dropping the ice cream cone card into place for my next drawing. Will she get frustrated that she “obviously” has no chance to win? Will she want to stop? Will she complain?

No — nothing but a laugh.

There’s only one thing left to do: make sure she gets a few doubles to catch up — not win, but catch up.

The game takes longer than it would have if we’d just drawn and let chance decide the winner. But the girl has uncanny luck and wins more often than not. A loss or two does the spirit good.