Bella has started doing this every time I sit down at the dining table to work. She sits next to my chair, and stares. If I don't respond, she'll put one paw on my leg and wait. If that doesn't work, she'll start climbing up onto my leg, standing next to me, leaning on me. While I find it remarkably endearing, after the tenth time in a day, the tenth day in a row, its starting to be annoying.

Between Annie's continual whining, Bella grabbing food off the table, Annie's growling and dog issues, and Bella's deafness, I think it may be time to start working full time at the HackerDojo when I'm not at a client's office. It is possible to get too much of a good thing. Well, too much of a Bella, anyway.

I bought my new computer four months ago. I returned it two weeks later, when I realized the option I really wanted was available, and purchased the one I really wanted: a Macbook Pro 15" with a matte screen. I really don't like the shiny screen.

Before purchasing the computer, I consulted with various sources to get the skinny on what features I should get, and which expensive ones I should avoid. Where I'd love to have the 8GB of memory, until I really need it, I decided it wasn't worth the extra $600. The 500GB 7200rpm hard drives hadn't passed muster yet, either, so I should avoid those. My current hard drive is 500GB, but only 350GB full, so I figured, okay, I can clear off another 50GB of data, and move over to the new laptop.

That was three months ago. I still hadn't switched to the new laptop. Three months, that laptop I wanted SO BADLY has been sitting in my office, unused.

Wow, that really sucks.

It pointed out three things to me:

1. I should really check in before making a big purchase: I may not really really want it.
2. I should wait before making a big purchase: I may not need it.
3. I really have a hard time letting go of things. I should work on being less attached.

Having had "switch to dymock" on my monthly goals list for the last two months, I figured it was time to do something about the laptop. I don't want it on my list for a third month (since, if it's not complete after three months, my agreement with Mom is that we have to pay someone to complete the task for us), so I figured I address the fundamental issue: hard drive space.

Today, I installed a 500GB 7200rpm harddrive into my new laptop, having not even used the 350GB in it, booted the 350GB harddrive via USB, installed SuperDuper! on it, formatted the 500GB harddrive (naming it CIDER), copied the full 350GB drive to CIDER, the 500GB drive, and marking CIDER the boot drive.

I now have my new laptop, and no excuse not to switch.

I am very excited about this.

Its name is Dymock, a bitter apple used to make delicious hard cider.

Today's was the eighth day of the nine days of chocolate, with a delightful Dominican Republic 70% dark chocolate. Remember, I'm not a dark chocolate fan. This chocolate, however, was my favorite of the eight I've had so far. There was a hint of nut and a hint of fruit, without being bitter. I recommend this one, and wish I could buy this one separate from the other 9.

I went to the Cows practice today. I felt a little bad about leaving Kris and his parents for three hours on a Sunday morning, when they were going to be here only a few days. Soon into the morning, however, when I realized that Kris and his parents were going to watch the Pittsburgh football game on television, I decided that being outside and moving around would squash any feelings of guilt, and left.

Unlinke most weeks, we actually warmed up as a team, instead of having individuals dribble in, hang out, socialize, maybe throw a little bit, jog a few steps, then jump into whatever game was happening. I feel warming up as a team is important, so I was happy we did.

After playing a game to three, Adrian suggested we run a couple drills. The first one was a timing drill, where a cutter runs out about 15 yards, turns and cuts back for the disc. At the same moment the cutter begins his cut, a second cutter runs deep. The first cutter catches the disc, turns and fires the disc out to the second cutter running deep. We were practicing sharp cuts in, cutting out and back across the field preventing same-lane hucks (though Adrian didn't make that statement as succinctly as Kris does), and the timing of both.

There were details that we needed to work out in this drill: was the first cut out and straight back along the path, or flared out to the side? The answer was the former, but even when I cut that way, the thrower who initiated the drill threw far outside me and I missed my catch. Eh, it happens, I picked up the disc, threw a good huck, and without checking if it was caught, ran to the second line.

On my second cut, my insides disagreed with everything I was doing, and I cramped spectacularly badly. Walking off the field was an effort of heroic proportions, and figuring out what to do more than that was impossible. Eventually, the pain subsided and I was able to make it to the restroom and, eventually, back to the field as the second drill started.

The second drill was a defensive drill of sorts, run in a line. The thrower stood in one spot, the receiver started in front of the receiver facing her, the defense stood 8 yards or so back, facing the thrower also. The drill was for the receiver to run backwards, facing the thrower the whole time, and catch the disc. The thrower couldn't throw the disc until the receiver had passed the mid-point between the thrower and where the defense started. The defense ran forward to block the disc.

When I arrived, the two groups had just split into boys and girls, I assumed because the girls were worried about being clobbered by the boys. I was an itty bitty small bit annoyed at the separation, because, well, we play a mixed game, boys are part of that game, and in game situations, boys are going to poach off onto the girls. Separating the two in practice creates an artificial situation that doesn't accurately reflect real games.

Okay, fine. Whatever. I went to play with the girls.

After half-heartedly running the drill two times, while the boys were kicking ass, laying out to get that defensive block, aggressively reaching around to deflect the disc before the receiver catches it, the girls degenerated into a talk / complain fest on how stupid the drill was, and how did we make this drill meaningful. I don't know what happened at that moment, but, wow, did I immediately switch to coach mode.

Yes, Santa Clara women, I want to thank you once again for teaching me how to take control of a group of unfocussed women and focus them again. I should probably thank Kris, too, for teaching me that every drill is a chance to practice an aspect of the game, but that works only if you know what to apply the drill to.

In my coach mode, I immediately suggested everyone look at this as a zone defense. You have the thrower, you have the receiver, and you're over on the side as wing. You see the thrower looking at the receiver, so you pull away from your area and go hard hard hard to the receiver. You want to see how the thrower is standing, is she going to throw forehand or backhand, which side of the receiver is she going to aim for? As the receiver, you want to be aware of where a defender might be so that you can block her out with your body. As both receiver and defense, you want to be aggressive to the disc. Both of you want want want that disc.

I totally became animated in the way that I do. As Paul calls it, the full body talking. I don't know where that habit came from, but it's there, and that's how I talk when excited, and I look like a dork and I don't care. I really shoudl, however, get a picture of myself doing it.

After my rearrangement of everyone's thinking of the drill and gift of purpose, we ran the drill a few more times, with my standing on the side, giving encouragement and cheers. We went from a gap of maybe four feet between the defense and the receiver when the disc was caught to maybe 2 or 3 inches. I encouraged everyone to be aggressive to the disc, go go go go go! We started getting blocks. And the receivers adjusted so that we had close calls, but good body box outs. It was great to see the adjustment.

Yet.

As much as it was great to see the adjustment, I was frustrated by everyone's (well, all the women's) lack of ability to see how a drill could be applied to the game. Instead of trying to understand why this drill may be helpful, they just wanted to modify the drill into something known, something comfortable, something where the defense is at a strong disadvantage and there's no motivation to be aggressive on the disc. Turns out, though I was wrong as to when I thought the situation of the drill applied (not zone, but in a poaching defense), I was right in how most of the drill, as well as the aspect of aggressiveness to the disc the drill was trying to improve.

The drill was also supposed to show us how to look past the receiver to the motions of the thrower to help anticipate where the disc would go, in order to improve the defense's line of attack, according to Adrian's after-drill summary, so even I learned something new. Unfortunately, Adrian didn't explain this before the drill, but after, in a Socratic method of learning. I felt I had been the only one to have even TRY to learn the lesson, though.

Mischief has this problem, too, where, instead of respecting the drill and running it, trying to figure out what to get out of it, everyone wants to change the drill or improve it (or maybe "improve" it). While I recognize that some drills are poorly designed and may result in enforcing bad habits, most well-run drills enforce good habits even when they're new to the player. That those players want to alter the drill before trying, before fully committing to running the drill with fire and intensity, frustrates me.

I don't know if the fundamental issue I had was lack of personal responsibility to take the task at hand and find the good in it, or an issue with lack of respect for the person who cares about the team and has has taken the time to set up and explain the drill, or some other issue entirely. I see this is the team I'm on and I want the team to play well. Even if they lose, if they played smart, we can leave the field heads up.

I must be channelling Kris McQueen again.

On a completely separate note, I really wish I had been fearless as a tiny person. Adrian's kids just climb up to high places and climb back down, not seeming to worry about, oh, I don't know, FALLING or such?

Crazy kids. Heck, I wish I were that fearless even now.

After meeting up with Kris' cousin Tim, Kris, Bob, Lil and I went over to Andy's for some games. Andy had not only rearranged his living room / dining room area, but he had also bought a few new games for the evening. Tonights game was Powergrid.

The goal of the game is to build and power 17 power stations. Each player starts with two power stations, and builds more each round. For each city that is powered at the end of the round, a player receives funds. Powering requires purchasing resources to run the power stations: oil, coal, garbage or barrels of fissionable material for the nuclear plant. Of course, if you had managed to purchase the a wind, turbine, solar or fusion plant, no additional resources are needed to generate electricity from the plant.

Kris needed to work some, and I wanted to work some during the evening, so I managed to finagle us on the same team. For the record, this was the most entertaining way I could possibly think to play this game. Not because we were both half distracted, but because I've always played board/table games against Kris, not with Kris (ultimate doesn't count here, people), and hoo boy, was it fun to work with him in this game. He suggested moves I would never have thought of (bold! daring! exciting! stupid!), and I suggested strategies he'd never try (horde! conserve! expand! explode!). Together, we captured the Eastern Seaboard:

Part of the game that changes each step of the game (because, really, the way "step" and "phase" are translated during the game is completely backwards: step should be phase and phase should be step, and knowing this, I'm using the terms the way they SHOULD be used, not the way the documentation suggests) is the order of play: the team that is currently losing gets to go first in one part of the round, but the leading team goes first in a different part of the round. I had suggested a couple times that we deliberately not expand during a round in order to drop into last place so that we would first in the resource buying and power station building steps.

Not building not only dropped us back a power station, it also enabled us to horde our money for a round so that we could break free of the station block that Andy, Andy and Bob had successfully put against us. We were able to build on the transmission lines across country and build in Billings, then Seattle and Portland. A good part of this was based on the green energy power stations we had acquired early in the game. Since the transmission lines were so expensive on the West Coast, no one really built too far west, and we ended up being the East Coast / West Coast king pins:

And, in doing so, opened up the whole board again for everyone to play. Once one player (the player known as KrisKitt, in this case) powers seven cities, each city can have two players building power stations in them. Andy and Andy quickly shared the Eastern Seaboard with us, but, by that point, we has solidified our resources.

Kris and I built six cities in the last round to win at 12:45 in the morning, way too late for most of the McQueens to be thinking coherently. Our resource hording allowed us to build a power plant that powered all of them (green energy be damned! Though I really did want the clean fusion power plant, sigh...), and we won, with a city to spare.

It was a fun game. I'd play it again. If Andy suggests Diplomacy, I'll diplomatically suggest we power up.