Sunday, November 04, 2007

This House... Is Clean

Got the results for the mold tests, and they are much improved. There was a single stachybotrys spore left in the Room of Death, down from over 400 originally. That's not quite perfect, but given that there was one last jet engine running in that room for nearly three days after the fact, I'll take it. Moisture readings were down to 15%, which is what I'd expect given a lack of insulation in the room. We'll keep an eye on these things with a regular check up next year, but at least now we can start getting the roofers in to ensure we don't have any leaks, plus get the flooring and electrical work done. Once we have that it's time for insulation and drywall, and then we'll have a place for our computer equipment. Total cost, borne entirely by us: $5000 for testing and remediation. I'm estimating finishing the room to be another $2000, although some of that has already been spent as we'd paid to have the wallpaper removed and the room painted.

The upstairs bookcase system will take a little longer, six weeks. I was hoping to get the books put away before Thanksgiving, but I'll take anything at this point. I also need to get a couple of folding tables and lamps for the game room. Quite a bit is out of the room, which is excellent news, although the extra bedroom is unusable for now and my sister-in-law will need the room long before we get the bookcases. What a puzzle.

I did get the new Starcraft boardgame up and run through one turn. For a Risk-type game, it looks very promising, although a bit of a brain burner (mostly because of the quasi-FILO-stack type execution of orders - each planet has orders that are executed in *reverse* order that they were placed in, although each player gets to determine which of his exposed orders will be executed). There are a lot of rules, especially for special cases, but I sense that the game play will be fluid and interesting, although there is the usual rich-get-richer problem that seems to be the bane of Risk/A&A. The quasi-3D modular board also looks very interesting, with some pretty good ideas to make it easier to parse. Definitely one I'm looking forward to trying out, even though I'm thinking the box is *way* too big for a game with this component set. Get this - no Plano, as every faction will get it's own quart-sized Ziplock with all of their pieces.

That's it for today, I'll post again once I have some more from the Bad Inspectors.

2 comments:

Greg W said...

Congratulations on the house.

Guardian Games had StarCraft out on a table today at the meetup but it sat unplayed. I've heard StarCraft is more of a brain burner than Twilight Imperium with less pay-off. I'm still curious. I've had a couple chances to play but passed so far. I'll be curious to read a more detailed report on it.

Greg W said...

Don't know if you spend much time on the Geek, here's a dorky but amusing review of StarCraft:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/236691