Great

Microsoft Solitaire

I have played this a lot!  The Star Challenges are what appeal to me the most--I have 1026 stars currently.  For some of the themes I have trouble distinguishing between whatever two colors they choose to swap for red and black; usually I can fix that by playing with the Android color-blindness compensation settings.  I think I have all the achievements too, except for the Daily Challenge ones.

The expert level Spider and Freecell games can be real stumpers.  Also harder Klondike can be difficult to strategize.  More then once I have asked Anna to figure out a Klondike deal for me and she beats it on the first try.

It is fun to play on PC occasionally too, very nice that all my progress syncs.

Completion status
Rating

The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin

Much more going on in this third book, which I really liked.  More big events and especially more explanations of the history of the world.

It reminds me of a college class where the lectures were pretty boring but then one day the lecture involved some real-world uses for the stuff we were studying (how some industrial plants use huge inductors to fix their power factor and decrease their electricity bill).  I told the professor that I really enjoyed the lecture that day, which he probably already knew because I wasn't nodding off in the back of class...shame.  And he responded that you have to lay a little theoretical foundation so that you can understand the exciting real-world stuff.  I see a similar parallel here where the first two books were good enough but sometime frustrating, and this one was the big payoff.

After finishing the second book I read some news articles about the "puppies" factions attempting to influence the Hugo voting around the times that these three novels were coming out.  Definitely an unfortunate series of events!

I found myself questioning the wisdom of letting the Hugo winners list heavily influence my selection of reading...maybe populism isn't necessarily the best indicator of quality (to be clear, nothing against this trilogy in particular).  But on the flip side, I can remember having sympathized with criticisms of other awards (Oscars or similar?) that are selected by industry members, thinking that a group of insiders like that may not be very representative of my interests as a consumer.

Completion status
Rating

2007 Suzuki DL1000 V-Strom

Bought from the dealership in Mandan--I think it was some sort of consignment thing.

Soon after buying I ordered crash bars and a set of luggage mounts and cases.  Cool big huge aluminum boxes.  I installed all of this on the back patio at Jean's Place in Medora.  I also added heated grips.  It came with cruise control which was a pretty awesome feature to have.

Tiny Bubbles

This is a puzzle game with a UI that is well-suited for a touchscreen.  I did pay for the DLC that removes ads (I almost always do this).

The puzzles are all very well designed.  There are several groups of levels that have some nice variations.  For example some types have new bubbles constantly being added so there is that element of randomness being added.  And others are very carefully designed to play a specific way, even requiring careful timing as the bubbles collapse on a few of them.  On a few of the levels I got impatient and used the hints.  In general, as I played the game I would become tired of it after 6-8 puzzles (30 minutes?).  I think that is fine, as this allowed me to kill time on many different occasions and I always enjoyed playing those 6-8 rounds until I tired of it.  Maybe it means that the game was mentally stimulating and tired me out.

There is one mechanism throughout the game where two bubbles of different colors combine to make a third color of bubbles.  In the normal color mode I believe it is pretty intuitive how they combine, for example yellow+blue=green.  Unfortunately I am color-blind and I had some challenges with the normal color mode.  Fortunately is a colorblind mode and those colors are easy for me to distinguish.  Unfortunately then the colors don't combine very intuitively, for example white+yellow=darker yellow.  After a while I just memorized the combinations, so it isn't a game-ruining issue.

I could maybe see myself replaying some levels in the future.  There is an Infinity mode where you get some moves every few hours.  I did a couple cycles of this but wasn't that interested.  This is probably a mechanic to drive you to purchasing micro-transactions.  I almost universally avoid those.

There are achievements; I don't have any desire to finish them out.

Completion status
Rating