Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda!

Woulda - been nice to win at Settlers of Catan, but you know you just have to let others win from time to time. And so won Moonsong on Sunday. Quite fun really. I learned of the game last fall and have been enjoying playing the game every few weeks. As noted on Wikipedia, the Settlers of Catan is a multiplayer board game designed by Klaus Teuber. It was first published in 1995 in Germany by Franckh-Kosmos Verlag (Kosmos) under the name Die Siedler von Catan.

Settlers was one of the first German-style board games to achieve popularity outside Europe, and has been called the killer app of the genre. Over 15 million games in the Catan series have been sold, and the game has been translated into thirty languages from the original German. The game has rapidly become popular in part because its mechanics are relatively simple, while its dynamics are quite complex. The game is well suited for family play, since no one gets eliminated, and players who are behind can strive towards goals that are within their reach. The standard game has many expansions.

Coulda - gotten online last night to do a blog posting and yet I did not as I made several phone calls and just relaxed after a pretty nice day to kick off the week. Mark, the owner, was in the office and we hired a new Controller and soon it will be a whole new feeling. Things are changing and we had a chance to have lunch together. Mind you, in the 12+ years I have worked for him I have gone out to lunch with him only a handful of times. We got to have lunch at a place called The Pumphouse. He was sure we had been before, after walking in I was sure I had not! Granted I did enjoy a nice shrimp Caesar salad, but between the enhancement of the hired help and the plethora of sports dominated TV's all around, I was glad lunch ran just under 30 minutes. My Gay card is intact!

Shoulda - brought home the paperwork on the group in Italy as they left yesterday and sure enough had a bit of a challenge with them with the first phone call coming in at 11:10pm and then it was getting all the details handled as their arrival into Rome was on a different airline and they were going to miss the 1st scheduled tour bus to take them to see highlights of Rome including The Colosseum. After finally getting logged into work to save driving over at that hour to the office I got the number to call. Sure enough the office in Rome was closed for our inbound operator. So I called the emergency number to reach someone 24 hours a day per their lingo. It had been forwarded to the office and no option to leave a message. Just said to call back after 9am.

Well that was just a tad unhelpful as the flight landed at 9:20am originally and now was going to be just past noon. The initial reply once we connected with the inbound operator was, "It's not our fault. It will cost you $150 Euro's minimum." By the end of the day, there was no charge. Oh the power of dealing with a wholesaler and a long established outbound operator here in the states. If it has not been for the phone issue we would likely have had to pay. I so owe Babs multiple cocktails at this point! So now I have had some food and going to watch the President speak from the White House and then likely calling it an early evening. Need some good sleep. Cheers!