From Battleship to Scrabble

Little Kat needed a lot of help with his Battleship final project in Java II. So this summer I said he needed to implement another game in 2 weeks. I chose the game Scrabble. The game itself is not too complicated. However the implementation of the full game was beyond Little Kat's ability.

We made some assumptions. The computer would go first and put a word vertically on the screen. The user would have to put a word horizontally that intersected with the computer word. Whoever got the highest points from their word wins.

There is no double/triple letters or words. There is no bingo. Initially Little Kat had some bugs. But he eventually got the game running pretty well. It scores both player words correctly. It detects when you enter text that is not a word. It detects if your word goes off the screen. It detects if your words does not intersect the computer word. And so on.

Little Kat actually finished his program 1 day early. He wanted to go play D&D on the last day when Scrabble was due to me. Now that his Java game development skill has increased, he can take the summer off to rest for the start of the fall semester.

Wendy's Deal

I found out I had two lunch meetings. So I decided to get some food beforehand. I had a couple for Wendy's. It was 2 meals for $10. I drove to the local Wendy's. A manager called me on the way. I pulled over and answered his many questions.

When I got to the local Wendy's, I found that it was closed for renovations. I recalled there was another one in the next town. I took the back roads. I went by Kit Kat's middle school. Then I got to the second Wendy's. There was nobody in line.

I got two small cups. There was a single soda machine with most of the flavors out of order. I chose a raspberry Fuze. At the counter, they tried to give me 2 more cups. I just took my food. Got some ketchup and took off.

The manager called me again on the ride home. Pulled over as he conferenced in another developer. We debated the schedule for running some job tomorrow. This made me late for my other lunch meeting. I did eat enough food to keep me full all day.

Flying Home

I got in my rental and left Momoko's dad's house. Took a while to find a gas station close to the airport. Security made me take my suspenders off. Inside the terminal, I got a steak burger. I put my drink down to get ketchup. Then I studied my Oracle notes as I ate hash browns. Realized I left my drink by the ketchup.

The gate attendant said it was a full flight. I was glad to have an A boarding pass. I went to the back and got a window seat. A mom and her 6-year old daughter sat in my row. Mom was chatty. She said she was in the Navy, which broke her body. She said she is disabled now. Civilian life has been profitable. She was flying out to attend her master's degree graduation.

We eventually touched down, but not before the captain said there was smoke in DC. Apparently it had blown down from Canadian fires. I hardly saw anybody from my flight at the baggage carousel. I texted Little Kat because he was my Metro ride. He called me during the flight. I could not hear him due to all the train noise. At the destination station, I called him back and he said he parked somewhere new.

I Saw Hamilton

I saw the Broadway musical Hamilton today. I picked up Momoko's niece at her house. Gave her two bags of clothes from Kit Kat. Then we drove downtown. We got to the theater a couple hours early. That allowed us to get front row parking. I tried to pay for parking at a kiosk. The screen was not working well. I got a pass for only 1 hour. I needed closer to two. Luckily when I entered my license plate, it allowed me to add time to my current pass.

Momoko's niece said she walks 1.5 hours a day. So she thought the walk to dinner would be no problem. We ended up having to sit down half way there. She had to do some texting before dinner which was odd. We got dinner at a Thai food restaurant. At first we were the only guests. I ordered Pad Thai. The noodles were much thinner than I expected. They served crushed peanuts on the side. We waited until 30 minutes to the show. The we walked back to the theater.

We got through security and visited the bathrooms. Then we entered the theater. I asked an usher how to get to my seats. She told me to go down the center aisle and we would be right at our seats. I was confused as our seats were 5 and 6, but the numbers I saw were 105 and 106. We sat down anyway. Eventually another usher asked to see our tickets. She said we were on the correct row. But we needed to move further right.

The view was not as good in these new seats. But they were much roomier, with each of us having our own arm rests. Momoko's niece studied the cast before the show. She immediately realized that Hamilton was being played by the first understudy, not the main actor. His voice was not strong. The buy playing Aaron Burr was a good singer. It was a long first act. I thought the musical was over. But it was only intermission.

I was surprised when Hamilton's wife used real fire to light a piece of paper on stage. I was also perplexed that the whole cast took a bow, However, they did not come out individually after the show. We snuck out the side entrance. But had to walk all the way around the building. I saw an opening and backed out of our spot and got in line to get the heck out.

This live version was a totally different experience than seeing the musical on TV. Even though most of the singing was piped through speakers, it was wild seeing everyone dance around on stage. I was thinking this may have been the show of the century. It was good. But I have high hopes to maybe catch Disney's Frozen one day.