It turns out, the game I've always called "Blotte" is actually known by the rest of the world as "Belote." In fact-ue, it has it's own Wikipedia entry.
Here's another page with Belote rules. I'm not remembering doing the whole Declaration bit. I think after the deal and the trump picking, we played out the hands like we would with Diminishing Bridge ...
Showing posts with label friendteos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friendteos. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
How to Score Blotte
We're cleaning. We have lots of stuff. I've emptied the baby's room of almost everything, but I'm left with piles of stuff that doesn't have a home. One of the items in the piles are notes on how to keep score in blotte. I've kept them for more than a decade, because you can't play blotte without them, and I'm not sure any of us play often enough to have committed it to memory. Rather than trying to save the papers, I'm posting the scoring info here, for posterity.
Of course, I would still need someone to remind me how to deal the hands. :) I also have a note that indicate the lead goes to the person sitting to the left of the trump picker. I remember you play in pairs, sitting opposite your partner, and that all the cards 6 and below are removed from the deck before dealing.
For Trump
| For Non-Trump
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Of course, I would still need someone to remind me how to deal the hands. :) I also have a note that indicate the lead goes to the person sitting to the left of the trump picker. I remember you play in pairs, sitting opposite your partner, and that all the cards 6 and below are removed from the deck before dealing.
Friday, November 21, 2008
The Great Northwest
We had a great vacation in Portland last weekend. Portland is home to some of our favorite people (and dogs.) We got to see Dad and Joy, and Nat and Austen, and Jim and Brien, though sadly we missed Lai. We ate a ton of great food, schnitzel and donuts and scampi and many, many french fries. I miss Portland.
I was enjoying the warmify filter on Picasa.
I was enjoying the warmify filter on Picasa.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Oh yeah!! More pictures!!
Jean reminded me I hadn't posted these. See, I had carefully captioned all the Parlier pictures, explaining who was in each one, and pointing out how my cousin was trying to drink water from the sprinklers the same way the dog was.....but I guess I did that in Picasa, and not with my web album, so when I loaded them to the web....there were no captions. I was so disheartened by my silly mistake, I never loaded the pictures from Anahiem. But here they are!! We had such a great weekend. Heidi and I had a fantastic time at ALA, learning about books for Tweens, and we heard some totally fantastic authors speak. And then I got to hang out with Jean and Mike! We walked for miles and miles and AB got his foot fixed. And we ate tons and tons of good food. And here are the pictures. Finally.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Walk in the Woods
In other news I'm wildly behind on posting, I took a walk recently (okay, recently is a bit generous) with these two folks:
We hiked in the lovely Portola State Park, which is a lovely little drive from my house. We did a good bout of hiking, I think we did six miles that day, through poison oak-ed woodlands and tick infested grasslands. :) This did not hamper our enjoyment in the least !!
Lovely California hillsides:
This picture is a better reflection of my poor timing as a photographer than of N, (though, I think in my archives I have more photos like this one. I'd say it's Ns "speaking French" face, but I don't think that's what was happening here)
After hiking we ate at Alice's Restaurant, which I've always wanted to do. Quite a diverse crowd in there on a Sunday afternoon.
We hiked in the lovely Portola State Park, which is a lovely little drive from my house. We did a good bout of hiking, I think we did six miles that day, through poison oak-ed woodlands and tick infested grasslands. :) This did not hamper our enjoyment in the least !!
Lovely California hillsides:
This picture is a better reflection of my poor timing as a photographer than of N, (though, I think in my archives I have more photos like this one. I'd say it's Ns "speaking French" face, but I don't think that's what was happening here)
After hiking we ate at Alice's Restaurant, which I've always wanted to do. Quite a diverse crowd in there on a Sunday afternoon.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
DC Trip -- My thoughts one week later
Ahhh, it was just a week ago that we were all in DC. Well, a week ago, technically, I was on one of two long flights back across the country, but I was reliving all the great times. I miss DC, and even more, the people who live there. We had such a nice trip. Note to self: always good to visit a place near the holidays. We saw the shiniest, sparkliest, most festive side of DC, I think. True, you risk the occasional flight delay, but the sparkliness makes up for it. PLUS! We got some winter weather!
Though being tourists wasn't the first priority (hanging out was our first priority) we did still see quite a bit of stuff. H's great apartment, and some of her DC crew (though we missed Todd! Rats!) We hit some great monuments, Lincoln, Washington, the Korean War Memorial, the WWII memorial, and the Casa Blanca. We ate a ton of great food, much of it prepared by Heteo. We had a quick peek at the National Arboretum, in it's holiday splendor. And H and I took a jaunt through the zoo, on my last morning there. A lovely zoo, not very crowded while we were visiting, we had a great view of the cheetahs and the pandas, the sloth bear and the fishing cat. Did you know there was such a thing as the Fishing Cat?
Thanks so much, H to hosting us, and to Jim and Lai and Brien for meeting up with us for an awesome afternoon at a museum cafe. Shoot, I miss you guys!!! I hope we can all hang out again soon. Eat more salt oat cookies, take another run through the buffet at the Museum of the Native American, wander through more monuments (after sundown, cause of the great light) and just generally hang out and have good times.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Last Weekend's Exploits
Last weekend, Veteran's day weekend, which could be considered two weekends ago now, depending on how you count it....Nathan and I had the good fortune to host BOTH Jean AND Heteo for a whole evening. Then H traveled on to see other teos, and Jean braved the trek to Pacific Grove to visit the Who-Whos. H and J experienced the daily Laredo Hike, though sadly, they didn't really get to see our totem dog, Barkie. AND, Jean watched both the Fellowship of the Rings AND the Two Towers, which, as you can tell, excites me to extensive use of capital letters.
A delightful weekend all around, though perhaps under photographed, and I am STOKED we'll be doing it all again in just a few weeks, in the East Farthing.
Enjoy the pics of our kitchen, with Jean knitting, Nathan reading about making ice cream, Heteo arriving, and the bunnies doing what they do best. The second link is for the Pacific Grove pics, which I stored in a separate album. Somehow, two slide shows running at the same time seeemed almost dangerous. :)
A delightful weekend all around, though perhaps under photographed, and I am STOKED we'll be doing it all again in just a few weeks, in the East Farthing.
Enjoy the pics of our kitchen, with Jean knitting, Nathan reading about making ice cream, Heteo arriving, and the bunnies doing what they do best. The second link is for the Pacific Grove pics, which I stored in a separate album. Somehow, two slide shows running at the same time seeemed almost dangerous. :)
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| From Who Whos, 2007 |
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Late Lassen Update
Oh, hello world. I went to Lassen with Lisa more than a week ago, and I haven't mentioned it yet. That's because of the 412 computers in our house, none of them had all the right parts working that I needed to take the pictures from my camera and put them on the web. Seems shocking, but it's true. Luckily, the local IT department defragged my laptop repeatedly, and we're back in business.
I'm going to try the new slideshow feature in Picasa. Or, it's new to me anyways. Let me know what you think. Good way to enjoy photos in a blog, or kinda annoying. I heart feedback.
Okay, it's working on my end. I think. You can click on the link to see the photos in Picasa itself. Wow, these Google products sure are slick!
Lisa and I had a good trip. Lassen is definitely a more laid back park than Yosemite. Far fewer folks, no shuttle system, available parking. Less active bears. Sure, there were signs about how to stash your food and stuff, but we're seasoned enough to know what it looks like when you'll most likely have a bear in your campground at night. The language on the warning signs gets ramped up. There are either photos of cars bears have torn into, or actual cars that bears have ripped open to demonstrate how serious the rangers are about those bear boxes. In Kings Canyon, where Lisa and I had our closest encounters with bears, we'd left our bear box open while we carried food to the table, and a ranger came by to say that was dangerous. Less than a minute, and we had a ranger at our table. THAT's when you'll see a bear in your campground.
Lassen also has plenty of lupine, as you'll see from my photos. I'm a bit lupine-obsessed it seems. We walked around three different lakes, visited fumaroles, and hiked down and up the sides of an impressive waterfall. We're ready to go back, and drive the "Volcano Highway" between Lassen and Crater Lake. Maybe next summer!!
I'm going to try the new slideshow feature in Picasa. Or, it's new to me anyways. Let me know what you think. Good way to enjoy photos in a blog, or kinda annoying. I heart feedback.
Okay, it's working on my end. I think. You can click on the link to see the photos in Picasa itself. Wow, these Google products sure are slick!
Lisa and I had a good trip. Lassen is definitely a more laid back park than Yosemite. Far fewer folks, no shuttle system, available parking. Less active bears. Sure, there were signs about how to stash your food and stuff, but we're seasoned enough to know what it looks like when you'll most likely have a bear in your campground at night. The language on the warning signs gets ramped up. There are either photos of cars bears have torn into, or actual cars that bears have ripped open to demonstrate how serious the rangers are about those bear boxes. In Kings Canyon, where Lisa and I had our closest encounters with bears, we'd left our bear box open while we carried food to the table, and a ranger came by to say that was dangerous. Less than a minute, and we had a ranger at our table. THAT's when you'll see a bear in your campground.
Lassen also has plenty of lupine, as you'll see from my photos. I'm a bit lupine-obsessed it seems. We walked around three different lakes, visited fumaroles, and hiked down and up the sides of an impressive waterfall. We're ready to go back, and drive the "Volcano Highway" between Lassen and Crater Lake. Maybe next summer!!
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
My Favorite Marathon and Tidal Waves
Ah, blog friends, I'm sorry that for the most part you live too far away to come to a movie marathon. But we did have a great one this last weekend. We started at 10 a.m., a little later than we intended, and it lasted until one in the morning. Sarah wins a prize for being the only guest to make it through all three movies, but both Lisa and N.S.L. arrived not far into The Two Towers.
It had been SO LONG since I'd seen the movies. Even little bits of the movies. I mean, at one point, I was watching some part of the movies almost daily, and it had been probably close to 18 months since I'd seen any of them. There was stuff in there I felt like I'd never seen before. Lines that seemed completely new. AND, this time through, there was the bonus of being able to say "We were THERE!" when we saw familiar bits of New Zealand.
Oh, and we had good food!! Gina stopped by and dropped off HOMEMADE donuts! Donuts, the traditional food of Bastille Day of course. Nathan and I had made homemade ice cream. There were Toll House cookie bars. I made an enchilada casserole. We had dips and chips and salsa. Sooooo much good food.
The best part though was the thoughtful discussion that came up. The Teos had some great questions about Middle Earth. "So, if orcs are descended from elves, are they also immortal?" or "If Gandalf is somewhat super-human, a Maia, how come he couldn't kick Saruman's fesse in the first movie?" or "How would Aragorn and Arwen have kids, if they aren't the same race?" I mean, these are the questions of TRUE Tolkien dorks. Between Sarah and I and Nathan searching the Encyclopedia of Arda, we came up with the answers.
I've spent every free moment since watching the commentary on ROTK. I'd never watched it before. How is this possible, I ask you. Or if I'd watched it, I'd forgotten it. But there's a bit in there about the dream of the tidal wave that Faramir has in the book, and that Eowyn has in the movie. Turns out it was Tolkien himself who originally had the dream. I'd known this at one point, but forgotten it, so I got to have the "Whoa. That's so cool!" moment all over again. I remembered we'd had a great email exchange about this. I've also had tidal wave dreams in the past and found them oddly relevant. And there are some interesting allusions to tidal wave dreams in other things I've read. I'm including our previous conversations here, because I find us so interesting. This'll be long.
Ah, technology. I've used my Google webspace and put it all on it's own little page.
Two things:
1) I got so engrossed in this project that I forgot to go upstairs and tell the knitters that their Knitting Librarian was out sick today. Argh.
2) I'd forgotten that we used to use the fact that Jim took Greek as a general Trump Card of Geekiness. "Oh yeah? You think I just did something chart worthy? Well, you took Greek!" (Jean, kind of a "You like Keeler!" moment.) But you know what Jim? Jean also took Greek.
It had been SO LONG since I'd seen the movies. Even little bits of the movies. I mean, at one point, I was watching some part of the movies almost daily, and it had been probably close to 18 months since I'd seen any of them. There was stuff in there I felt like I'd never seen before. Lines that seemed completely new. AND, this time through, there was the bonus of being able to say "We were THERE!" when we saw familiar bits of New Zealand.
Oh, and we had good food!! Gina stopped by and dropped off HOMEMADE donuts! Donuts, the traditional food of Bastille Day of course. Nathan and I had made homemade ice cream. There were Toll House cookie bars. I made an enchilada casserole. We had dips and chips and salsa. Sooooo much good food.
The best part though was the thoughtful discussion that came up. The Teos had some great questions about Middle Earth. "So, if orcs are descended from elves, are they also immortal?" or "If Gandalf is somewhat super-human, a Maia, how come he couldn't kick Saruman's fesse in the first movie?" or "How would Aragorn and Arwen have kids, if they aren't the same race?" I mean, these are the questions of TRUE Tolkien dorks. Between Sarah and I and Nathan searching the Encyclopedia of Arda, we came up with the answers.
I've spent every free moment since watching the commentary on ROTK. I'd never watched it before. How is this possible, I ask you. Or if I'd watched it, I'd forgotten it. But there's a bit in there about the dream of the tidal wave that Faramir has in the book, and that Eowyn has in the movie. Turns out it was Tolkien himself who originally had the dream. I'd known this at one point, but forgotten it, so I got to have the "Whoa. That's so cool!" moment all over again. I remembered we'd had a great email exchange about this. I've also had tidal wave dreams in the past and found them oddly relevant. And there are some interesting allusions to tidal wave dreams in other things I've read. I'm including our previous conversations here, because I find us so interesting. This'll be long.
Ah, technology. I've used my Google webspace and put it all on it's own little page.
Two things:
1) I got so engrossed in this project that I forgot to go upstairs and tell the knitters that their Knitting Librarian was out sick today. Argh.
2) I'd forgotten that we used to use the fact that Jim took Greek as a general Trump Card of Geekiness. "Oh yeah? You think I just did something chart worthy? Well, you took Greek!" (Jean, kind of a "You like Keeler!" moment.) But you know what Jim? Jean also took Greek.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Crafty friends and family
Lately I’ve been the lucky recipient of several crafty gifts, all of which I’d like to showcase here. If you are the crafter who made the gift below, and you would like a larger picture than these, click on the photo for a bigger version. I’ll email you a gigantic version if that would be better. Thanks all!
First, a lovely plate that was a wedding gift. A Joy Baldwin original:
From blogstuff
Next, a quilt, made by Vicki Davis, in honor of our wedding:
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| From blog stuff |
And then, lovely socks, made by Jean Kenny:
modelled by me:
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| From blog stuff |
in their original packaging:
and modelled by the bunnies, Macaroni going for a traditional sock look, and Disco Stu going for a more scarf-esqe approach:
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| From blog stuff |
Monday, August 7, 2006
65% nerdy
Well, once Jean took the quiz, I had to take it too. I’m like sheep that way. Of course, they know this, as one of the questions was “Why did you take this quiz” with one of the answers being “To find out if I’m more nerdy than someone else.” You know what it’s missing, though, are my answers. Was it really Max Planck? Turns out it wasn’t. Nothing a little Google image search couldn’t tell me. I took the test without Googling. Some others I know might not be able to restrain themselves. Though, one of our more charming mottos in this apartment is “We settle our arguments the way they should be settled — with Google.” Okay. Now back to reading up on what’s hot in the world of Public Libraries. I’m studying for a job interview. Take that nerds of the world.
One Response to “65% nerdy”
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How much of a nerd am I that I thought it was cheating to look stuff up while taking the quiz? Or is that just my repressed asian upbringing?
Reading down through the quiz, one of the multiple choice answers was: I looked it up online. Or something to that effect. I smacked myself in the head thinking: This quiz is open book???
Does that make me more of a nerd? Or just a dork? Or maybe I am just a rules-abiding geek…
jean said this on August 8th, 2006 at 9:26 am