We Survived Math Camp

British Vittles

britsnacks

I had said earlier in the week that the math conference I was working at not only represented teachers from almost every state, but also represented a handful of countries.  Among those were a couple of Brits, one of which decided to bring a bunch of items for us to try.  On the final day he set out a bunch of things that had not been consumed on a table for anyone to grab.  I nabbed a box of Jaffa Cakes initially, since I had heard about them from various people but never tried them.  This box represents the various things that were not taken, and since we were picking up the place to make it presentable they all came home with us.  I’ve had a Cadbury bar before, so I have not broken into it yet, but I have managed to try both “cakes” and “biscuits”.

I am not sure what I was expecting when it came to Jaffa Cakes, but the reality was absolutely nothing like I was expecting.  To put it into terms for the American palette when we think “sponge cake” we tend to think a Twinkie or one of the ubiquitous yellow cakes you buy to make strawberry shortcake.  This version of sponge cake tastes more like a stale vanilla wafer that has been sitting out on a table for a week and soaking up moisture.  The orange filling tasted a bit like a melted gummy bear, and the chocolate was more a kin to bakers chocolate.  The end result was not unpleasant but just not what I had been expecting.  I actually kinda like them, but I think that might be the fact that I am consuming something that I cannot otherwise get, so there is a bit of a forbidden fruit aspect to them.

On the other hand the Hobnobs or simply “biscuits” are rather good.  Like it doesn’t take any stretch of the imagination to wonder why they are popular.  It is like a cross between an oatmeal cookie and a saltine cracker.  More so almost like really good granola made into a cookie form.  While I doubt I would go out of my way to eat a Jaffa Cake, I would totally be down with biscuits in the future.  All of this time I honestly thought that British biscuits were just American cookies, but nope it is a completely different animal.  We have things here called digestive biscuits, so I am honestly wondering if they are related to these kinds of biscuits.  Now the cool thing is that if I ever get a hankering for either of these items… there is a British foods import shop in town that stocks all sorts of stuff like this.  I likely would not have gone out of my way to try these things, but I am happy that I now know what they taste like.

We Survived Math Camp

I have to say it feels good to be able to say that we survived math camp.  I feel like we need a t-shirt or something to commemorate the event.  I honestly have a massive respect for the individuals who have hosted the event in the other locations, because the amount of prep work and little details that went into this undertaking was a bit staggering.  On top of that the fact that my wife and I lived in a sort of split household during the course of the events, meant that neither of us slept really well.  The first thing we did upon getting home yesterday was taking a nap.  I was surprised at just how many people had arranged for trips to the airport of their own volition rather than needing to run multiple car loads this time around.  I ran a single load on Saturday evening, and then another yesterday.  I have one more to take this morning, but for the most part there was not the mass number of loads that we had as folks arrived.

While I feel like I really had little to do with it, it feels nice to see people talking about how much they enjoyed their time in our city.  It is weird how after spending all this time prepping…  I take comments about the school system with personal pride.  I found myself using the royal we throughout the course of the week, like I was actually part of it or something.  Granted I have done a lot of work for the school system over the years as my wife needed this or that, but I never really felt connected to it other than “that’s the place my wife works”.  After essentially living for a week out of the building, and supporting those inhabiting it… I feel a deep connection to it all.

In other news… I tried Chicken and Waffles yet again… and yet again I don’t really see why the meal is heralded as so awesome.  After the conference split up about 11 am all of the folks what did not need to immediately rush to the airport went out to eat.  There I ordered chicken and waffles, since it was a place I had never eaten before.  I’ve tried it three or four times now… and every time it is a rather bland chicken breast or chicken strips over a nice big thick waffle… with all of it drenched in syrup.  It is charming but nothing earth shattering and overall I find the meal rather bland.  I just feel like I am somehow missing some cultural touchstone.  Like maybe I am supposed to be enthralled by the absurdity of putting chicken and waffles together.  But considering growing up I made grilled cheese sandwiches with waffles…  it doesn’t seem that odd to me.

Ding 40

ffxiv 2014-07-27 22-23-10-700 When we finally got settled in for the night, I popped back into Final Fantasy XIV to work on my dragoon some more.  Since the last time I played the game actively, it has made a number of really nice quality of life improvements.  Namely the addition of the Duty Roulette system that allows you to get assigned to a random dungeon out of a large stack of potentials.  The best part about this is that the experience gain inside the dungeon seems to scale to your level.  That means you could get assigned to a level 15 like Halatali and still get the same experience you would running a much higher level dungeon like Cutters Cry.  For the purpose of leveling this means you have extremely rapid queues, and while the gear that drops inside may not be usable, the experience gain stays consistent.

ffxiv 2014-07-27 21-18-19-766 Another nifty thing that I learned last night is that apparently while we were gone, they added in some perks for having an account authenticator.  In addition to having the three discounted teleport locations, you can now set a single free location if you have you account set up with the authenticator.  Since my grand company of choice is the Flames, that made it an absolute no brainer for me to use Uldah as my freebie. This now allows me to move Coerthas to one of the discounted locations, since I no longer need it for Uldah.  For better or worse Coerthas seems to be the best place for running FATEs, and I will likely be there until at least level 46 when Mor Dhona really starts in proper.  In any case alternating between Duty Roulette and FATEs seems to be a rather enjoyable way to level, and if I get much play time today I will probably be able to push through to 45.

We have a number of errands to run today, and another math camp person to run to the airport.  However once I get back from that my plan is to work on the level 40 Dragoon quest.  Since the 35 quest so simplistic, I am expecting this one to be a major undertaking.  The warrior quest chain had some definite gimme quests, but others that took all the skills I had learned to that point to be able to push through them.  The cool thing is that it seems like we are starting to get a bit more activity in the game.  A number of friends were talking about firing it back up last night, so it will be interesting to see how active it gets in the coming days.  Cactuar is still an extremely populated server, as all weekend long it was barred from new character creation.  However as of this morning it was open again.  Hopefully the couple of new people can get in and create a character today.

#FFXIV

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