Being a clueless single guy, I didn't realize that Friday the 21st was the first day of winter until someone pointed it out to me when we were discussing all the snow we had already had. Gad! An event like this should thus be celebrated with a backgammon party, I thought. And so it was!

Fortunately, the weather was mild Saturday evening and so the roads were clear for travel to the event. The six of us had a grand time. Everyone was able to get a lot of play time in; even me!

I had run out to the store in the afternoon and just grabbed a couple of large jars of premade sauce, two pounds of organic linguini noodles, some chips, salsa, and Chianti. Simple stuff that would go together quickly and give me time to play. And Rick said he'd bring the garlic bread, so what more could you ask for! It's an instant party!

While I was out, I stopped off at the video store and picked up Lucky You for the movie of the night, which everyone seemed to have enjoyed, so success all around! Not sure what the deal is with some of the blurry pictures - blame it on the camera operater, I guess...

---

Rick and John going at it.

Steve's "in the house" and lost no time in getting right into the middle of things.

Linda reaching for checkers - though I think she would just as soon have liked to have grabbed Rick's throat and ripped it out - lots of trash talk here; all night; constant...

We just look happy. Note my closed fist of doom that is about to unleash the dice of destruction upon John. Yeah, baby - and that's what we're talkin' about!

Steve and John pausing briefly in the action for a picture between throwing down on each other.

Organization center: neat and ready for the chow line to form. Five minutes later the area was a disaster. What I don't understand is how just the few of us there could have gone through all that spaghetti, sauce, and wine... But after the dust cleared, there was, literally, nothing left.

Tim and John have a go at each other.

Rick and Steve pause for the aggravating camera operator. Hummm... it's really a blurry shot, too. I'll have to talk with my technical camera expert, Marissa, sometime and figure out what magic setting I am missing that this is happening.

And Linda is just saying something to the effect of, "...just shut the f_ up, and move...", or something like that, I think...