Random Thoughts

2017 is now upon us! With that, I will try to keep my website up to date. I have high hopes for this year. There is quite a bit going on in my life. I will be continuing to teach a Microsoft Office class at St. John’s University. In addition, I am continuing my journey towards an MBA in Business Analytics — 1 class down 11 to go. Two of my three prototype games are with publishers and hope to see the Kickstarter light in 2017.

For me, 2017 will be an organizing year. I need to get a handle on my large board game collection and figure out what I am doing with them — hopefully start having game nights at my place. Also, I need to sell my numerous miniature collections since I don’t foresee Ari nor Eli playing with them. Lastly, I need to start to climb back into the Pacific War scenario writing.

Lastly, I would like to pick my endeavor to learn iOS programming again. I let it lapse there for a bit even though I was having lots of fun!

Let’s bring on 2017! Happy New Year!

Last year, my family and I moved to NY to start a new life in LI. I went to work for St. John’s University and my wife took a part-time job at Island Exotic Veterinary Clinic.

It has been interesting thus far. We are renting our house in VA since it still has negative equity and we cannot refinance. Our current home is 1300 sqft which is small but has great location. We have been to various museums, zoos, aquariums, and local gatherings. The beaches have been a wonderful add to our things to do with the family.

The boys are growing with Ari on the tail end of Kindergarten and Eli completely healed from his surgery in February. Ari is into Legos and Minecraft, started baseball and soccer, and is doing well in school. Eli is walking, babbling, and following is older brother.

Mer continues to reinvigorate her LI roots and is “home”. I am trying to downsize collections, get my games designed/published, and dabble in iOS programming.

Let’s see what is in store for us this year!

Wow! Talk about a whirlwind year.

So let me help tee up 2014 in this blog post…

In early January, I received an offer from St. John’s University to uproot my family from Centreville, VA and head north to NY. My wife was excited to go back home and to be close to family and friends. For me, I was leaving behind a lot of friends and 11 years in the Northern VA area. I returned to work after four weeks of paternity and resigned (with seven weeks notice) my position at The George Washington University as Executive Director of Emerging Technologies and Creative Ventures.

Towards the end of January, Meredith and Eli headed north to begin looking for a place to stay. As you can imagine, it was no picnic for her. However, she did find a small house in Oyster Bay. During process, we discovered some interesting loopholes in renting homes between NY and VA — in VA, the landlord pays the agent fees… in NY, the renter pays the agent fees… double whammy! We pushed on and began packing the house up for showing to potential renters and to prep for the moving company for an early March move. Stacy did a fabulous job in locating and locking in renters for our home quickly after listing.

Time flies as you can imagine, and both of us were wrapping up with our jobs and ensuring a smooth transition out. We sought the help of great friends and family to help us with our packing and moving — Madelyn (for packing nearly 1200 games), Adeel (for moving over 100 boxes from the basement and packing the moving van), Ed (for moving the Ikea shelving from the basement and packing the moving van), Lynn (for taking stuff to Goodwill), and both of our families upon our arrival to NY. After a moving service for furniture and three moving hauls of boxes (along with the “Zombie Apocalypse”), the home was emptied and we were in NY.

I began my new job at the end of March (3/27) and immediately hit the ground running as the new Director of Academic Technology. I think I have accomplished quite a bit in the past nine months, while making new friends at St. John’s University and enjoying the enormous amount of time off. I am still working on finding fellow gamers in the area, but I am sure that will only be a matter of time. As a family we :

• got to go to the LI beaches this past summer
• visit the Bronx Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo, and Queens Zoo
• visit the New York  and Riverhead Aquarium
• visit the LI Children’s Museum and Cradle of Aviation Museum
• see an Air Show
• see a few firework shows in LI
• went apple picking in upstate NY and near Southampton, NY
• visit Sleepy Hollow
• spent time at Hershey Park
• saw the tail end of the Macy’s Day Thanksgiving Day Parade
• and I am sure I am forgetting a bunch of festivals and gatherings

Also, I can’t forget to mention that Ari started Kindergarten and has been doing very well at school.

On the gaming front, I did manage to meet up with friends at BGG.con and got one of my game designs, Mill City, signed by Don Lloyd at Knightworks Games. I am still working on many game designs, especially the one I promised my son Ari when he was still in my wife’s womb in April 2009 — On the Crab.

For Meredith, she is happily enjoying the NY area and being back near her family. She is working part-time at Island Exotic Veterinary Hospital and doing a wonderful job at raising the kids.

2015 will be another interesting year. Eli will be going in for hand surgery early in 2015. Also, we are hoping the housing market bounces back, and if not, that our renters in Northern VA stay for another year. Also, it will be interesting to see how a multi-state, additional child, rental income additions looks with the Uncle Same during the tax season. For me, I really hope I can get a game published this year and get into a regular gaming group. For the both of us, we hope that the jobs remain stable with the same, if not less stress. Lastly, we hope and pray that 2015 continues to shine down on us as 2014 did — with good health, good fortune, and wonderful life.

Have a Happy New Year!

All, I know that updating my blog has gone to the wayside. But, I wanted to share that my family and I have moved to Oyster Bay, NY. With that, I am the new Director of Academic Technology at St. John’s University. The journey at SJU has been interesting. I have completed a lot of projects over the past 8 months and continued to push forward taking on new endeavors with my new team.

http://www.jsonline.com/business/board-games-return-to-popularity-sd7lkjk-180549421.html

I like this infographic! I think it communicates the big picture of the direction of education. Smells a lot like problem based learning.

Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

So I keep digging and getting more and more excited about this concept of Gamification. What I have found interesting is this is something I have been thinking about pretty much all of my life. It is interesting to see that most of what I have found is primarily dominated by video games… especially World of Warcraft. I really would like to find some information on board game based research or efforts. For example, board games are huge in Germany. It is threaded in their family fabric, whereby families will go together to select a board game that they will play together after dinner and homework. What a concept? The enhancement of family and values along with the increase in strategic and tactical thought along with any value the game might add.

Just a thought!

I am telling you this was a very “roller coaster like” week for me. I am glad it is over. I did manage to get one play test kit out the door and to a person currently attending BGG.con. Wish I properly calculated the time it would take to assemble the play test kit. Ah well!