If you happen to spend time with your adult-age kids, as we occasionally do, they may share some of their enthusiasms with you. Our older son, Eamon, and his wife, Sakura, have become avid fans of the San Jose Earthquakes and taken us to several games. I realize that I like non-American football. I’d be up for seeing some rugby and footy, too.
Our younger son, Thom, is into what I’ll call new-wave board games. Ticket to Ride, a railroad-building game. Carcasonne, a sort of territory-acquisition game. Power Grid, the game of electrical utility domination.
He also introduced us to Pandemic. It’s different from most board games in that players cooperate to head off a series of global disease threats. The game requires consideration of what threats deserve immediate attention and a lot of planning for how to respond. We played the game once. Sadly, we were unable to prevent the world from being overrun by multiple deadly disease outbreaks.
Regarding rugby, the national collegiate final four takes place this weekend at Stanford. At 5 p.m. on Friday, No. 2 BYU (16-1) takes on No. 3 San Diego State (12-0); at 7 p.m., it’s No. 1 California (29-1) and No. 4 Army (12-1-1). The winners meet 7 p.m. Saturday for the championship. Cal, as you might know, has won 17 of the past 18 national titles, and the last five in a row. Go Bears!