Some Blog Site

In the business world, there’s a quality-control technique called “The Five Whys”. It involves asking “Why?” to solve problems. I am tempted to mock the concept (e.g. “my 3-year-old came up with that on his own”), but that is not the point of this post.

Rather, I’ve adapted the concept for learning how to play a new game. This was inspired by my attempt to play Seven Wonders recently. The guy who brought the game did a valiant effort of trying to explain how to play, but I didn’t really understand it until after we played.

I call my technique “The Five Hows”. Other people may want to learn a game differently, but I have found this is how my mind wants to work. When attempting to learn how to play a game that is new to you, ask “How?” five times:

1. How do you win the game?
2. How do you that?
3. How do you that?
4. How do you that?
5. How do you that?

Just adapt questions 2-5 to refer to the answer given in the previous question, and that’s all there is to it.

I’ll give an example, using the card game Hearts.

How do you win the game?
By scoring the fewest points

How do you score points?
By winning cards of the heart suit (or the queen of spades)

How do you win heart cards?
By playing the highest ranking card of the suit that was lead. You take all the cards that were played that hand and count any points.

How do you play a card?
By laying it face-up on the table, following suit if possible. If you are supposed to lead the hand, you decide the suit.

How do you end the game?
When someone reaches at least 100 points, the game is over. That person is the loser.

More complicated games might require more hows, but you get the idea.

But in case you don’t get the idea: the idea is to start with the big picture and work down. Don’t start with the details of how to play, start with the reason of why to play.

If all else fails, just play a practice round.

Merry Christmas Chaos!

Tomorrow is Christmas Adam, followed by Christmas Eve on the 24th.

Thanks to some commenters on my guest post for SCL, I learned about Christmas Adam – the 23rd of December.

In order to help you celebrate each day, I put together this calendar. Think of it as a post-Christmas advent calendar thingy.

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This is the blog that never ends. It just goes on and on, my friends. Some people starting writing it not knowing what it was. And now they keep on writing it forever just because

This is the blog that never ends. It just goes on and on, my friends. Some people starting writing it not knowing what it was. And now they keep on writing it forever just because

This is the blog that never ends. It just goes on and on, my friends. Some people starting writing it not knowing what it was. And now they keep on writing it forever just because

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Now it is time for another PSALM.

The boys got a Lego Star Wars set for their birthdays, and this is how the set looks and what it does (except for the green plate – we had that already).

This is the Clone Walker Battle Pack 8014. See the walker in action! Watch it move!

(It’s a big file, so you might have to click to view it. That way it doesn’t slow down the whole blog)

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One of the things about Maranatha is that they have contests almost every day (at 2:00 at the beach). They announce the contest in the morning (disc golf, water balloon catch, etc.) so that you can prepare yourself for the afternoon contest. I think if they wanted more participants they would also advertise that the winners get free ice cream (which they do, but for some reason that is never announced).

Anyway, the one contest in which I participated (along with other family members) was the sand sculpture contest. My brother-in-law spent some time that week browsing the internet researching sand sculptures, and he found one that was amusing. It was someone’s head.

You put a bucket on its side (mouth), pile up sand around it, and put seaweed on top (hair). Then you just have to make eyes and a nose somehow. Even though it isn’t 100% sand, you do use items that are normally found on a beach.

So when the announcer guy said “Today’s contest is the sand sculpture contest.” we were prepared. Then he added that they had a theme for the contest – the sculptures should be patriotic in nature. Or was it American? Either way, there was a specific theme and all we had were plans for someone’s head.

We went ahead (get it?) and built it anyway:

But to make it patriotic, we added some words: “God Bless America”

There, now it’s not just any lady – it’s Kate Smith!

Maybe not the most flattering representation of her, but an honoring tribute nonetheless. And very patriotic.

Plus the judges liked it.

On a totally unrelated note: Next year, if the theme allows, I have plans for a great Jabba the Hutt sand sculpture.

I left out a number of web browsers in yesterday’s post.

To make up for that, I am displaying some of their logos here. Your job for today’s post is to find the best web bowser logo.

No, I did not misspell “browser”. If you don’t know who Bowser is, then you probably didn’t appreciate today’s post.

Now it is time for another PSALM.

This movie was made back during Christmas break, lest you think I have time these days to make movies. The boys got a Lego Space Police set for Christmas, and this is how the set looks and what it does.

Now only 147 more to go.

If the movie player isn’t working, you can save the .mpg file to your computer and open it with your computer’s movie-player software