Preparation Day

Leaving for the airport tomorrow evening, 8:00 pm. My ticket id isn't being recognized by online early check-in on El Al's web site, which has me worried.

My Apartment

I'm letting a Pardes student stay in my apartment in exchange for taking care of the dog and general housekeeping. My kids will also be coming in and out.

Call Phone

My boss handed me a Verizon Kyocera K127 pre-paid cellphone with no cash on it. He said I might be able to add cash to it. I tried doing that online, but Verizon wasn't recognizing the phone number.

Called Verizon, and they said that my phone, which appears to be barely used and can't have been bought more than a few months ago, was now an older model, was locked into their network, would not work with their network, and that I should throw it into the garbage! Holy crap.

I'm bringing it anyway, just in case I can find a way to unlock it or upgrade it an a Verizon location.

Meanwhile, I checked the rates for my Orange cellphone, and, if I use their special long-distance call rate plan, I can avoid the 19 NIS/minute calling rate and call for a measly 9 NIS/minute, which is around $2.40/minute. Holy crap. No thanks.

Shabbat Gaming

Friday night I was able to help our hosts who had been playing Blokus incorrectly and found the game to be boring (they were playing two-player on a full board, one color each; the game always ended in a tie).

Saturday lunch I brought games to Mace and kids. Ksenia and two of the kids played Tigris and Euphrates, however they seem to have played it terribly wrong. I think they fought all conflicts, internal and external, in red, and Ksenia picked six tiles at the end of each of her turns, rather than back up to six as she was supposed to.

Meanwhile, Mace, Shachar, and I played two games of Dominion. We had a nice set: Moat, Workshop, Village, Throne Room, Festival, Witch, Lab, Smithy, Remodel, Militia.

I still struggled to get to 5 for a while. Shachar seemed to be doing better than I was. Eventually I started sailing, with the occasional Throne Room/Witch thrown in for good measure. Poor Mace ended the game with 10 curses. Shachar gave me a few, but I remodeled all but two of them. I won.

Mace wanted to play again with the same set, as he was just starting to get a feel for the game. Wicth was only used once this game. Once again I felt that I was starting slowly, as the other two both got to 5 and 6 several ties before I did. And still I managed a win. Didn't hurt having 15 treasure and a Throne Room/Remodel one round, which allowed me to toss two golds for two provinces and also buy another province in a single round. I was pulling my entire deck. Shachar was, too, but he just wasn't remodeling right. Or something.