Despite having the flu, we had a pretty amazing break around here.

My daughter has been hugely into Jet Lag The Game, for quite a while now, but we’ve just joined Nebula to access their supplemental podcast (like me, my daughter is quite into podcasts), so we’ve been on a huge Jet Lag kick.

So much so that I adapted the idea of the game into something we could do around San Diego together. I wrote a number of different challenges–things from the show like Calculate Boba and new things like Review a Cookie for a Friend–and then we split up the city into neighborhoods. Upon visiting a neighborhood, she drew a challenge. If she completed it, she could claim the neighborhood. The day ended when five neighborhoods were claimed.

We filmed the experience each time (we’ve done this game on three separate days), and my daughter was able to practice some rudimentary video editing skills and put the days videos together into a short video. (To be honest, I practiced my own rudimentary skills by putting together a longer cut of the day’s videos.) Now, we have a fun memory to look back on (which we’ve done several times).

Not posting those videos publicly because I value my daughter’s privacy. But they were great fun!

Elsewise, I’ve spent some time this break cracking into my gaming backlog and writing about it. Trying to shake the rust off my writing skills. Goal is to write 250 words a day. They do not have to be good words or even good strings of words, but I do have to put the work in.

A few treasures have been found amongst my backlog so far–and a few games that were quickly deleted after checking them out. But that’s the point–poke around and see what’s worth the hard drive space and what isn’t. Life is too short to stick with an experience that isn’t mostly satisfying.

This endeavor has also helped me with my goal of not buying new video games. I have a ton of “new” video games at home–things I bought or received long ago but never touched. This year, my goal is to check out 100 of them.

So, yeah, overall a very fun break. Nice to be with family and/or get some alone time. My year is filled with people, so it’s nice for this introvert to cocoon and recharge.