retirement activities – Page 2 – Go Retire Psychiatrist

The Geezer is Redeemed

Well, as far as this tardy Valentine’s Day gift is concerned, the Geezer is redeemed. The answer to the riddle in the 2/18/2020 post “I’m Late for Valentine’s Day” is a new Jumbo cribbage board (the Jumbo Crib).

This is the gift I forgot to order for our Valentine’s Day, which was a Canadian Hard Maple cribbage board. It arrived today from Ontario. It was shipped only this past Tuesday, so we were pleasantly surprised (almost shocked) that it arrived so quickly. It’s really big compared to our other cribbage boards.

The clues in the post a couple of days included a picture of us in rain gear at Niagara Falls, taken about 5 years ago. The picture of a bed of flowers in the shape of a Maple leaf with a bunch of falling Maple leaves was taken in Canada, just across the border.

Sena keeps telling me that she told me to order the board, but I honestly don’t remember her telling me that.

The board is made by Michaud Toys, a small, family-owned craft shop in Ontario not that far from the Niagara area. They are well-known for making excellent wooden toys, games, and puzzle boxes. They believe in family game night, which for me and Sena is almost every night.

I ordered it on Valentine’s Day, which was just last Friday. It shipped the very next Tuesday and we got it this morning.

It came with a nice storage bag, some metal pegs (2 inches long), a deck of cards, and a set of very accurate rules. It’s 27 ½” long and 8” wide. It’s great fun to play on.

It has a handy little cubby on the board which can hold the card deck, pegs, and rule booklet. This is covered by a cap which fits snugly over the hole and is secured by “powerful rare earth magnets.” They work. I can turn the board upside down and shake it—nothing pops out.

Jumbo Crib stuff

The rare earth magnets remind me of the 1970s soul music band, Rare Earth. I went to one of their concerts when I was a teenager and it was so loud that I think I suffered some mild but permanent hearing loss.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t hear Sena when she told me to order the cribbage board. Anyway, we’re celebrating!

I’m Late for Valentine’s Day

I’m a little late for Valentine’s Day, but you could give me a break because I’ve been a little busy being retired. Don’t throw things at me because I’m getting too old to duck. And I did get my wife a card, flowers, and some candy on time.

It was something else I forgot. It’ll take a few days before I can tell you what it was.

We made a Valentine’s Day wish by breaking a chicken wishbone the other day. I believe that was before Valentine’s Day. In fact, it was about a week prior.

I don’t know if there are any rules about how to you’re supposed to hold the wishbone. Some will probably say our technique was poor when they see the video.

I think if you talk about what you wish for, you’re liable to break the spell and you won’t get what you wish for. I believe you’re allowed to hint, though. Pay close attention to the video.

Happy late Valentine’s Day!

Kitchen Table Cribbage

Well, Sena and I are making progress with our cribbage playing skills. We’re in the Kitchen Table Cribbage league for sure. I think one of the main differences between American Cribbage Congress (ACC) rules and Kitchen Table Cribbage rules is that no penalty points for mistakes are scored in the latter. I’m sure there are many other differences; but you know, when I googled the term “Kitchen Table Cribbage,” I came up empty.

For us, the learning curve is pretty steep but it’s a lot of fun. We made a YouTube video of our latest efforts. We must have made at least a half dozen tries at it before we settled on one which we think had the fewest mistakes. That doesn’t mean there weren’t any. I edited out glaring errors, but I’m sure viewers will find others.

We’re also using our new v-tournament cribbage board, on which it’s easier to peg (although the video shows me fumbling with my pegs!).

I hope cribbage enthusiasts give us some credit for at least trying to illustrate the basic rules and play of the game. I could find very few videos on the web that used a demo game to help tyros pick up the basics from the players’ perspective. We had a hard time just figuring out where to place the board and how to play the cards, which I had to piece together from different web sites and a surprisingly small number of YouTube videos.

You’ll notice Sena and I help each other with the pegging and scoring hands and cribs. You can’t do that by ACC rules. And there’s a Muggins rule you can apply that lets you take advantage of your opponent’s mistakes.

I also got a free cribbage scoring app for my smartphone, although we don’t use it that much. I’m sure you can tell.

Hey, we’re Kitchen Table Cribbage players. We’ll leave Muggins to the pros.

Go Kitchen Table Cribbage!

Go Cribbage, Psychiatrist!

Sena and I started playing cribbage again yesterday after Thanksgiving dinner, for the first time in over 20 years. It was a great way to pass a little time; we hope you had as much fun in your own way.

We’re rediscovering how fun it is to play cards. We’ve been brushing up on the many rules of cribbage. It was just a practice game—BUT I WON, YEAAHHH!

OK, technically the game was null and void because I screwed up on one of the several dozen conventions such as how to cut for the starter card. Actually, I forgot it completely during one hand.

Because scoring is pretty complicated and easy to screw up, I downloaded a simple and free smartphone app to check our addition, at least until we get more practice. We’re using it to help us check our math, just until we’re more confident.

In general, there two phases to the game, sometimes called the “play” and the “show.” In the play you try to earn points by making plays of scoring cards, such as 15s, pairs, runs, and so on. You keep a running tally of the cards by counting each card as it’s played. But you can’t go over 31. In the show, you score cards and the crib (a special hand that only the dealer scores) to which the two players each contribute two cards. Games usually go to 121 and you keep score on a cribbage board on which you “peg” your points as you make them. See the ACC for the full rules (see below).

And, it just so happens that today is the 29^th of the month—which reminds us of the very rare but possible 29 score in cribbage (see below). We’ve not played in so long that we’re really green beginners, as you can tell in the video. Making the video was just as much fun as playing the game.

I’m sure anybody who is experienced will cringe as they watch us play. Probably even dead cribbage experts will turn in their graves. We think it’s a hoot. We made mistakes and Sena even got the giggles.

The biggest organization in the world for cribbage is the American Cribbage Congress (ACC), which was established in 1980. They have an annual Tournament of Champions in Reno, Nevada. You can find out anything you want to know about cribbage on their website.

There are many branch cribbage clubs located across North America, called ACC Grass Roots clubs. There’s even one in Ankeny, Iowa, called Club #17, Capital City. You play 9 games in an evening, rotating from table to table so you can play someone different each time. I notice that the club in Ankeny tells you not to worry if you have trouble moving through the rotation scheme, because they allow for stationary seats. There are awards given, such as for getting the extremely rare 29-point hand, which some say is as rare as a golfer getting a hole-in-one.

And I notice that photos of players on the ACC websites show mostly people my age—not implying anything at all. They say games usually take only 15 to 20 minutes. Sena and I took much longer than that today. I guess you could say that, as mentioned on the Capital City website, we play what they call “kitchen table cribbage.”

Go cribbage!

Moaning and Groaning About Deck Maintenance

We’re pretty dedicated to maintaining everything about our property, including deck maintenance. Check that; actually, my wife is dedicated. I’m usually hard to find when it comes to chores like that. When it’s time for deck cleaning and sealing, there is always some emergency I need to address on the other side of town or I’ve been temporarily abducted by aliens.

Sena is usually not one for moaning and groaning about these jobs, but painting the deck rail spindles is an exception—each and every spindle, separately and painstakingly swabbed with a brush so that every tiny spot is covered with sealant.

The right kind of sealant is critical. She usually likes water-based sealant, but the local hardware store salesman managed to sell her an oil-based product that was on sale. There’s debate about the relative merits of water-based vs oil-based sealants.

In general, the water-based products are a lot easier to work with and provide excellent deck protection. Oil-based sealants have been around a lot longer, penetrate better, and naturally repel water. Most of them nowadays have a low risk rating as volatile organic compounds (VOC), meaning they are environmentally safe. On the other hand, Sena is finding it takes more than one coat of the oil-based product to get adequate coverage, and she has to use a brush instead of a pump pressure sprayer. It takes longer to finish the job—which elicits more moaning and groaning.

We’re not 100% sold on the assurance by experts that either one puts down a finish that will last for several years. We live in Iowa and shovel the deck several times a season, so moaning and groaning about this could happen pretty much every two or three years.

Just for the sake of full transparency about my role in this job—I was banned last year for reasons which would normally remain opaque but who cares?

That cleaning and sealing chore last year was a major challenge. I somehow had to figure out how to reach the yard side of the spindles to cover them with sealant. The trouble was that I was not tall enough to reach them. I think it is to my credit and possibly my eternal fame that I immediately came up with an ingenious solution—a boom lift truck. I have some simple instructions to pass on to those who learn certain skills quickly and don’t mind spending a little time in a state penitentiary.

Now, we didn’t own one but it just so happened that across the street there was a lot of construction going on in a new subdivision development. The average boom lift truck with a cage or bucket would have made a pretty big dent in our bank account.

You should pick a weekend day to successfully pull this off—I mean execute this procedure. Usually the construction crews are short-handed and they’re too busy smoking cigarettes to pay much attention to what’s going on around them.

Pick a two-story house under construction, which is more likely to need a boom lift truck for applying various exterior features like windows, cedar shakes, shingles and escape hatches. It’s likely to be left running with the key in the ignition. There might be a couple of construction guys hanging around, which you can get rid of by shouting “Hey look, there goes Elvis!”

This always works—pretty much. While they raced off, fumbling with particle board scraps which they could possibly get an autograph scribbled on using lumber crayon, I climbed into the nearest boom lift truck.

There’s usually a button to start it. The one I found was already running. Reverse gear was difficult to find; it was just as easy to hit the gas and dislodge the portico cover on the way back to the street. By this time, a couple of construction workers and a rottweiler had spotted me and were racing back across the lot, yelling and barking.

This was not a problem. I managed to get the rig up on two wheels and whipped around. I contributed to their cardio workout as they sprinted back the way they came. I finally caught all of the pursuers including the dog in the basket. It didn’t take me long to figure out where to dump them. There were plenty of basement holes dug. They were making quite a bit of progress in that subdivision!

I made it back home in time for lunch. I had to eat fast because I could hear sirens up the street. I could get only a few rail spindles covered before I discovered that I might have to quick like find a hideout—I mean alternative living quarters.

Anyway, you’ll have to do some calculations to figure out how much progress you can make with this method. I’ve refined it in several ways and I plan to post an update on these instruction when I’m out on parole—I mean back from vacation.