Now that's cooking with FIRE!!!

Hey Now! That is what I call a fire! Recently, at a meeting of the very small sportsman's club I belong to, we had a traditional Door County (Wisconsin) fish boil. What this is, is basically a simple proceedure of boiling onions for 10 minutes, adding red potatoes for 10 minutes, then adding Lake Michigan White Fish for another 10 minutes and at the end of the 30 minute cooking time, throwing on about 12 oz of kerosene or diesel fuel (as seem in the first photo) onto the fire which super heats the fire and the water, causing a great fireball and the water to boil over. This boiling over is essential as whitefish is very fatty, and the boiling over of the water removes all the nasty fat residue and also extinguishes the huge fire you now have under your kettle! ( I have more photos of the fire and boil over and will try to post them.) Once you can get to the kettle, you can lift out the baskets that hold the fish, onions, and red potatoes and set them out on the table and it is a feeding frenzy! It tastes delicious! Also it is traditionally served with cherry pie. I am not sure about the history of this cooking recipe, but most of the people in the Wisconsin area are Northern European, either Norwegian, Swedish, or North German and I suspect that this tradition comes from the early settlers to the are of Door County, Wisconsin. I could be totally wrong, but either way, it is alot of fun and tastes great!

You can find all kinds of similar recipes by googling Door County Fish Boil, but few mention the super heating process at the end.

Enjoy!

later!

Best 4,,, ok, 2 days of Gaming...

Lots Of Pics!

Scroll down for descriptions!

Let's see.. where to start. Okay, Gen Con #40 was this last weekend, and as it says, it is the best 4 days of gaming. I headed out on Friday morning with the family and a friend in caravan mode. We got to Indy that afternoon, shortly after lunch and immediately discovered that parking is much harder to find than planned. But we persevered and found a nice cheap spot only a mile or so from the convention center. A funny thing happened on the way to the center. No sooner than we were about a block from the Mecca of gaming, we over hear a conversation that goes something like this... "The cloak was used for as a protection cloak instead of invisibility...." We knew we were in the right place. Anyway, we got in, got registered, got the incredibly heavy swag bag and were off to get a lay of the land. I have been once before, but the rest of my family and my buddy Dave had not. So we went exploring and I think they were a bit stunned by the sheer size of the convention. We did not have a game scheduled until 5pm that afternoon, but we needed to get some food and get checked into the hotel. We wandered around the exhibit hall and gawked at all the stuff on display. Not just games and gaming material but, flesh and blood. As Dave said, I was prepared for the high gamer geek level at the convention, but not prepared for the costume party and potential babe fest at Gen Con. (You can see some of the Conan Babes posing with my daughter) He was right after all. Gaming is geared toward males, aged 14-20 and most of the displays, if appropriate, took full advantage of using the babe factor to get people into the booth, or some of the female costumed characters dressed as a gamers fantasy come true. Heck, while hanging out at the True Dungeon Tavern and playing a game of Three Dragon Ante, a chain mail bikini wearing gal comes right up to us and asks us what we are playing. I don't really know what her real purpose was, but she certainly was not shy. I am kind of glad my son was gone at the time, but he got eye fulls later on throughout the weekend.

But we did not come to gawk. We came to game and game we did. We got involved in a big game of Epic Battlelore with the game designer and had a great time. (My team won!) My son was the only one to score points on the other team, so at least losing for him was not totally a loss. Then later, everyone on the family got to join a Settlers of Catan game and I think my daughter really impressed some of the strangers in the game at how good she really is at the game. It was a blast and maybe on of the best times at the convention. We were also invovled in some other games, including the huge Memoir '44 game (seen in photo #6) with none other than the CEO of the game company that makes the game! (Very cool from a gamers point of view) we did not win but we came awful danged close. The time at Gen Con was a blast and I really hope to make it again next year. My son said he definately wants to go again and so that is a good thing and makes it more likely. We will see.

Now to the photos.

Photo #1 This is the D&D room sponsored by Wizards of the Coast. Everyone there is playing a Role-Playing Game... and what you see is only about a third of the room!

Photo #2 This is the kid gaming room, normally filled with a bunch of really good games, but lo and behold, Dave and I found Rock 'em, Sock 'em Robots! We had to relive the childhood of the 70's once again! (I seem to recall them being bigger when I had them.)

Photos 3&4 Julian in the Role Playing game room with some of the gaming mock ups! Nice atmosphere for gaming, and the floor, much like a dungeon tile door, I think could double as a dance floor!

Photo 5 The kids with Lord Vader.... There was another Darth Vader at the con, but he was not any taller than I am so, he had to be an impostor.... We also think that George Lucas was spotted at convention too.

Photo 6 The big "Overlord" version of Memoir '44. It was an 8 player game with myself, Dave, Julian and the overall commander, Henry on one side.

Photo 7 This is Julian and I with E. Gary Gygax, the creater of Dungeons & Dragons, the game the created all other role playing games and started Gen Con 40 years ago. Meeting him was a bigger thrill than I expected it to be. After all, he is responsible for some of my best memories as a kid. It was actually an honor to get to meet him. I did have him sign my DM guide... okay... call me a geek now!

Photo 8 The Conan Babes in front of the Conan video game booth. These girls were here all day long and had probably been asked by thousands of guys to take pictures, but this was the first time I actually saw them looked excited to take a photo! They really glammed on to Cora taking a photo with them. And speaking of Conan, I got to talk with the Secretary and Treasurer of the Robert E. Howard foundation and got some really good info on some stuff for a new blog posting... but that is for another time.

As of right now, I have to stop typing. So, if you can, go to Gen Con next time! You will not be disappointed!

Later!

Game On!

Update on things...

Okay! So what has happened since we last met? Quite a bit actually! My son returned from his trip to England, Wales and Ireland. We are still getting stories from him and it seems to have been a really great experience for him. He had a great time and made some really good, new friends. It took him a while to get back into the swing of things at home, but after finding him a job walking beans for a week or so, that helped put him back on track.

Both of the kids had birthdays. My daughter turned 9 and my son turned into an official teenager. I think we had good days for them. Each of them had friends over and we got them some nice, but not out of world gifts. It is nice that they are not be more discerning about their gifts and that one or two, rather than more is enough for them. We also planned a large party for them with some other family that has a birthday in August. We rented out the local sportsman's club and had a family day of fishing, shooting, cookout and just hanging out. Later that evening, the invited friends showed up for a DJ that came to play tunes for them. All in all, it was a great evening. Things learned from this party though... Glow stick liquid can irritate some peoples skin, and glow sticks float on the lake and they certainly can't stay in the lake, so loading a canoe on a van at 10pm is not much fun and physically holding it to the top of a van is quite a workout...

Other things...
on a down side, a family in town, very good friends of ours, are facing the decision of having to move in the near future to follow a job. This pretty much sucks for them because of all the reasons it would. Packing, selling, leaving school, etc. But it sucks for us too, as they are probably some of our best friends in town. It would really be a downer to have them leave. We, and they, are holding out hope that something will keep them in the area. But right now, I don't have much hope. It would also mean that I will have to look for a new gamer buddy, as he is my main gaming friend.

Speaking of games, I am heading out, with the family, to Gen Con over the upcoming weekend. It was a great time last year, which was my initial year. I convinced the family to go and I hope that we all have a great time. I have some apprehension that there may be some logistical problems, but I hope we all have a good time. (If you don't know what Gen Con is, think of it as the Mecca of gaming conventions with 30,000 other people who share the same love of gaming as you might.)

And school starts up in one week, and think that maybe, just maybe, my kids are looking forward to it. I think that three months of travel, heat, and just hanging out at home has killed their enthusiasm for summer vacation. We will see. I personally am looking forward to having them back in a routine.

So, that is it for now!

Talk at you later!