Off through the new day's mist I run

Out from the new day's mist I have come
I hunt
Therefore I am
Harvest the land
Taking of the fallen lamb

Ok, so there's no hunting in Agricola, just lots of harvesting and lamb-taking. But it's still a damn fun game. Of course, it was more damned and more fun the more I drank. And, apparently, if your starting characters are both men, it's even easier to win!

My early strategy of plowing and gathering grain to sow went well, but not so well that I won. I definitely had plenty of grain for food, but lacked some of the high-score items at the end because of it. Nic had plenty of cattle and a large, large family (don't ask how they got started with two males...), and came out with the win.

I'd say Agricola is a good game. And Guys Game Night was a success! So, it was time well spent.

I wouldn't say Agricola is my favorite game. For depth and complexity I still think I'd take Arkham Horror or Magic. However, it is an addicting little bugger, and, as Nic said, it's "accessible" for new players. One thing I noticed was that even if you were forced out of a strategy in a round, you'd find yourself engaged readily in another lucrative venture. The addition of some on-the-fly trading also lent itself to some fun and interesting wheeling and dealing. Trading isn't a part of the official rules (it's more like 'guidelines'), but isn't explicitly disallowed; I'm not sure if the trading was born out of desperate necessity or drunken rules-lawyering, but it was fun.

Endgame, Mitch had an itty-bitty farm. I managed to finagle some cows and a boar out of someone (possibly the gameboard - it's all a bit hazy). Casey had more cattle than you could shake a stick at (or even score), and Nick had a burgeoning family and a gazillion occupations. But Nic came out on top with his large family and mansion-filled estate. His cowpens also runnethed over.

We'll have to see if we play the same game next GGN, or something different. My concern is that Agricola only plays up to 5 players, while a game like Arkham can take more (although it gets fairly nuts at that point). We had 5 last night but I invited 2 more, so we'll see. There's also an excellent game called Khronos (5-player), and a 'Spiel des Jahres' called Zooloretto, which is a sort of Zoo Tycoon boardgame. So many games, so little time!

Well, enough about gaming. I'm tearing up just thinking about all the games that got away. . .

On to fathering.

Ok, so it's not about fathering - more like fatherhood(ing).

Last night, Nic brought the professional pictures of Daphne he took a couple of weeks ago. He says maybe he wasn't on his "A game", but like Klag said, Daphne wasn't either. It's amazing to me now that, two weeks later, she can smile when she wants to, and not by accident. She has found her hands - and they have found her mouth! She has grown so much.

A couple of days ago I was standing in the hallway talking to Abby and holding Daphne, when I noticed the picture on the wall of Abby as an infant. It was taken when she was three months. Daphne is two-and-a-half months right now, and I took the picture down and walked up to Klag holding Daphne in one arm and Abby's pic in the other. I asked her "Which one is yours?"

They look uncannily similar. But I guess I believe that the eyes are truly the windows to the soul, because their cosmetic similarities do not extend to the eyes (or ears - Abby has my attached lobes, poor thing). I feel so blessed that Daphne waited to come along at this point in my (our) life. Her smiles are deep and true, sent from heaven to warm my heart. That is what I love about being a father!

I spent most of the day with my daughters at work, moving boxes and books to my new classroom. Both girls are beautiful beyond belief! Abby was able to find some friends to play with for some of the time, and I'm constantly amazed at her ability to find and make friends. Not that these kids were totally unfamiliar to her, they go to her school. But they were in an unfamiliar play setting and thrown together by chance, and she was just shining brightly!

Daphne was a very good baby, and let me work. However, she made some friends, too. Apparently I have a high tolerance for babies crying. Every time I'd go from one room to the next shuffling teacher memories around in cardboard, I'd return to find someone holding the baby (that's not as bad as it sounds, since I could see from one room to the next as I was working). Maybe its that she's so cute everyone wants to hold her, or maybe it has to do with her little sounds of distress that I'm used to but others aren't. Whatever the reason for her rescue, it appears that I'm somewhat immune to her cries.

Or, I could be losing my hearing.

At any rate, it was a joy taking my two little girls to work with me. It made being there seem somewhat easier (except there was more poop). I'm planning on setting up a 10-gallon fish tank on Friday, and I'll probably take the girls with me again. One more day and I'll be ready for school.

But that's a post for another day . . .