Archive for May, 2008



The Parable of the Beach Ball

Thursday 22 May 2008 @ 12:05 am
We’re coming up on the official start of summer, Memorial Day. A long weekend, bar-b-ques, the lake, swimming pools, camping. It’ll be great. Summer is a care free time to enjoy life and overcome all of the obstacles that normally hold you down. As you dig out all of your gear, the bar-b-que grill, the long fork, your bathing suite, sun tan lotion and the beach balls, here’s a little something for you to chew on - an article that I wrote called “the Parable of the Beach Ball”, a story that talks about how you can overcome those who would hold you down.

Your Fellow “Creative Genius“,
;-) Texaiano

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Yeah! Everything’s Back!!

Tuesday 20 May 2008 @ 12:11 am

OK. I hate the new WordPress interface, and I despise the fact that I lost all of my data and had to start over again. I tried for several days to restore the database to no avail. Anyway…lucky for me, I had saved all of my posts, keywords, categories and pages in backup text files. I finally took each backup post and manually recreated each post. If you find something missing, please let me know. Until then, we’re back in business. Look for rest of my line art examples soon.




Site Wipeout - Starting Over

Wednesday 14 May 2008 @ 6:48 pm

I upgraded my site to WP 2.5.1 last night and it hosed by site. In the process of “fixing” the problem, I wiped everything out. I’ve tried restoring the database, but it isn’t working, so I am going to report everything. The dates will be messed up, but atleast all of the links will be there. If you have any issues finding something, please drop me a line and let me know. -Texaiano




Wahoo - The Marble Game

Friday 9 May 2008 @ 5:56 am

Wahoo - The Board Game

I’ve been telling you about my Granny and Pa, as well as using their portrait to illustrate some photo to line art techniques. I’m working on one final article in the line art series which will tie these all togeather. Until then, let me share with you a game that I played as a child. We called it “Marbles” but most people know it as “Wahoo.” I spent many hours playing this game as a child. I hope that you can find as much pleasure in it as I did.

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Wahoo - The Marble Game

Materials:
Wooden Game Board
4 like colored marbles per player
Set of Dice (NOTE: only one [1] die is used for the game play)

Set up:

Each player starts with four marbles of the same color or pattern, chooses one of the diagonal rows of holes, also known as the holding space, and places the four marbles in the holes.

Start:

Each player gets a turn to roll one dice. In order to move a marble into play, the player must roll a one (1) or a six (6) in order to start. Upon rolling a one or a six, the player can move one marble into the starting position (the first hole in the third, left most column across from his marbles. If the player doesn’t have a marble in play, and he doesn’t roll a one or a six, he forfeits his move.

Play:

Once the player has at least one marble in play on the board, he can roll the die and advance his marble the number of spaces indicated. If he rolls a one (1) or a six (6), he can play again, otherwise, he must hand the die to the player on his left (clockwise). A player can jump his opponents marbles, and if he advances the number of spaces indicated and finds an opponents piece occupying the target space, he can send his opponent’s piece back to the holding space (diagonal line). If, however, a player’s own marble is in front of the marble he wants to move, he can not jump his own piece. He can only move his marbles if there are sufficient spaces between the marble he wants to move and the marble in front of it. If a player finds that he can not meet these conditions, he forfeits his turn.

Special Note:

Note: If a player has a marble on the corner and rolls a six (6), he may jump directly across to the next corner. (Note: Once landing on corner, he can not move his marble any more spaces; for this special case, jumping the corner constitutes moving the six [6] spaces indicated.)

Winning the Game:

To win the game, a player must successfully move all four of his marbles into play, advance them around the playing board, and return them to the “home” position, which is the middle row adjacent on the left to the holding area. The rule about not jumping one’s own pieces applies here, so the marbles must be moved into place, on the home row, in the order which they appear on the board. Once all four marbles are “home”, the player wins.