The Donut Guy Blog

ConkliOdd – Donuts, Games and Life

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  • Live Your Summer

    Sunset

    When I look at the calendar, everything tells me that we are in the summer. We’ve hit the summer solstice, and if you look outward, the weather has gotten nicer. Beyond that the heat waves or a clear sign that boy it is the warm time with the sun. But many days I don’t feel like it’s summer.

    In our past, summer was marked by a genuine break of our regular schedule. I still see it now with my kids and what they are doing as they are now out of school. Taking that time for themselves to let all the stress of the entire school year leave them. For others that breaking schedule can come from a planned regular vacation. Many folks plan to go similar places or the same time of year each year to make a marked change to their schedule. In other industry tasks can slow down at certain points of the year which make you feel that level of break in your regular schedule.

    For me and what I am doing now in education, there is not a break. The cycle is year long. Students enter community college when it feels right to them and typically can enter right before the start of the term. This means each summer we are working hard with students right up until the time of the first day of classes. With that in mind, it’s hard to recoup and find that time to recharge going into the next year.

    Starting my third summer in this position, I find that it’s important to plan a real break even when it’s hard. I can feel guilty when I take time from work because I know all the things that need to be done. Beyond that complicated things happen when I’m not there. The wheel keeps spinning, even when we’re not there to help it turn. One of the first steps of avoiding being ground down by that wheel is to recognize that.

    My former father-in-law told me that his key to success was training people to do what his job was meant to do so that when anybody took time, including himself that there was a plan and people capable of success. That is the game plan to live your summer. Train or help the people around you to fill in the blanks. Fill in the blanks for them when you can. Recognize that some things cannot be filled and then have to wait for your return. Each of these might be a different balance based on where you work, but by doing this, you set yourself up to take a break. Live your summer no matter the time of year that is going to happen. Gain ground and recharge. Use it to put yourself in the position that you want to be to succeed when you come back. 

    I care a lot about avoiding burnout and making sure the people around me avoid it too. That includes anyone in the eyes of this space. Make a plan to live your summer and get help if it’s hard to do so.

  • What Makes A Good Donut?

    The Donut Pub NYC

    I have come across so many different types of donuts in my time I get the question often “What is a good donut ?”. From those who are getting gourmet delights to those who are grabbing a bag from the county fair, everyone has a perspective on what makes a good donut. Everything is to taste when it comes to food, and donuts are subjective and varied by those who make them, the regions they come from, and the nature of those eating them.

    This is what makes traveling for donuts exciting. You don’t know what a shop or a person specializes in until you get a chance to check their donuts out. You get to learn more from reviews like mine or from your friends who have been there, but your taste buds are your own. As an example, I am allergic to chocolate these days. Gone are the fond memories of eating chocolate as a child and it has been replaced with the 40-year-old who gets a headache when he eats it. My pallet does not want a chocolate doughnut. That does not make my taste any better or worse than anyone else, just different.

    The better question to ask then what makes a good donut is to ask what do you love about donuts.  You and your mouth are looking for something very specific every time you bite into a doughnut. I’m sure you understand because you’ve have had donuts in your lifetime that just didn’t fit with what you were hoping they would. Listening to your pallet in any food is important to understand yourself and what you like. Each donut will tell you about about themselves in a bite, and that’s where the connection to it being good.

    That is the homework.  In this blog I’ll be telling you what I find great about donuts that I like. What makes the donuts I tried to be great. I encourage you to test that for yourself. There may be a big difference between a cake donut and a yeast donut to your mouth feel. You might not like a certain kind of sprinkle. It’s all about getting out there and trying the donuts and seeing how you feel. Remember when it feels good. Those donuts are awesome.

  • Everyone Needs an Origins Type Convention

    Origins game fair created some really great memories for me as a first time convention attendee. I was very stressed about the idea of only attending one full day of the convention and if I would get the real feeling out of being there. I quickly found that my fears were unfounded, and I met both friends and new friends having such a good peaceful convention.

    The vibe for anybody who’s never been is tremendously calm and open.  I was told that in advance, but when you come to the Columbus Convention Center and see it for yourself you find that you have space. Space to sit down, space to relax, and space to travel all over to see things. There is a wide variety to see and do at the convention while easily walking around.

    First, the food is amazing. Having North Market within the block just makes your options for food automatically great. There was a line sometimes at lunch, but nothing too dramatic. I was able to try the donuts, Indian cuisine and classic Polish food, which made amazing flavors ready to eat quickly. The coffee also is not too shabby. The only improvement I could see would be opening the drink and dining options inside the convention center open longer during the convention. I didn’t want to go so far for a coffee when I would’ve been happy to buy it inside the building.

    Let’s talk games. I was able to go to the media mixer the night before the convention started, and I found myself in some really great looking games. Starting with some small box options, Envy Born Games has put together a beautiful solo game with Hercules and the 12 Labors. The mechanics as well as the art are superb with real complexity of game play. Similarly, I found the game Cats Versus Cucumbers to have delightful whimsy as it’s coming soon to Kickstarter. It is designed by Ammon Anderson, designer of Gnome Hollow, who I got to see many times during my limited stay at origins. He is easily becoming a favorite designer with his work on another great game with All Play; Twinkle Twinkle.

    The game makes charting a beautiful starry sky beautifully designed to earn yourself points and play a game style of drafting with strategy. We were taught the game directly by Ammon and you can easily see his passion for the games being created. Definitely someone to watch out when games are released.

    The game of the convention to me was  The Game Makers by Bezier. This game is the most in-joke for the board game community ever, but also has solid gameplay in multiple mechanics. You have an inherited factory that you were going to turn into your dream board game assembly line. Every person at any convention and in many stores will feel this as their dream. Seeing it being played, you can find so much value in the different mechanics between worker placement and rotation of resources. Also, it’s using forklift meeples. We love a good forklift, but this game goes beyond that. This is going to be a staple for board gamers easily, and it makes me crave to play a heavier game than I typically do. That draw right there is the sign that it’s going places.

    Looking towards TTRPG‘s, I also found some really unique opportunities. Specifically I met with Eerie Games and discussed their finalist for the best core rulebook. Para is a unique tarot based RPG that allows you to feel a level of unique play versus dice. The story setting itself inside a teenage character in their angst era also makes it very relatable for a lot of different play groups. I also want to shout out their game Once Upon a F!!!!!!!! Time that takes you into the fantasy world like Alice in Wonderland, but subverted to turn everything against you. This company definitely can go places that I feel strongly ties a narrative story to a unique gameplay. Definitely worth checking out. 

    Origins also hosts Columbus in Darkness, a live play group set in the World of Darkness canon. Seeing folks set up for both dressing up and for live play made me want to take time in the future to enjoy this type of experience. It may not be sparkly vampires, but it draws those with a gothic nature into its web of intrigue. 

    Overall, I hope to find my way back to origins again someday.  I won’t make it there next year because of conferences and graduation, but I see it some other time in my future. If you are looking for a chill convention, then you should find it in your future too.

    Twinkle Twinkle

  • All TicTacs Are Chewy

    Why does all candy have to have a chewy version now?  You’ve seen it for the past several years where a candy company decides that there sugar rocks go too hard. Somebody out there with more gums than teeth is not taking advantage of our amazing delight. In that moment a chewy version is born.

    Today’s grand offender is the chewy TicTac. I don’t know about anybody else, but this is not something I asked for. TicTac’s as nice little mints or fruit candy already hold a place in everyone’s nostalgia and flavor heart. Anytime there is a nostalgic flavor you run the risk of not capturing that flavor magic that brings people back. That is the problem with these chewy TicTac’s.

    I grabbed myself a version of the sour ones and I have had the sour style TicTac’s.  First of all, these are not sour. I don’t know what marketing genius put that together, but you have to usually line up the flavor pallet with that word. Secondly, it does not taste like the classic TicTac. Specifically I talk about the orange flavor, which is the god amongst TicTacs. I could go through a whole container on a car trip. Unfortunately, I could not even bring myself to finish the bag of chewy disaster once I got it. The orange is all wrong in the worst way. It doesn’t bring back nostalgia, but instead brings disappointment.

    Also, I felt like regular TicTac‘s were already chewy. It does not take much to crunch on a Tic Tac and I find myself doing it often. Though they go a bit faster, the flavor profile can be very satisfying. I’ve always been the type to bite my lollipops and certain hard candies so this just might be me.

    Lastly,  I hope you didn’t come here thinking about mint chewy TicTac’s. The regular ones are already too minty to begin with, and I cannot imagine chewing that level of torture. 

  • Three Years of Donuts

    To the date is been three years since I made a video of reviewing a donut. So where am I instead of Origins Game Fair this weekend?  Apparently, I’m starting a blog.

    Over the last few months, I’ve been thinking a lot more about what I want to do with the content I make, and where it goes . Being a creative person I have ideas and thoughts all the time, but they don’t make it to the screen or to post because of life being busy and obligations. Those thoughts that go unfulfilled or unexpressed eat at you sometimes. Also, I know that some of my ideas and thoughts, if I were able to get them out, there would get me to new and different people who I would love to connect with and create more connections. With that in mind about a month ago, I seriously started looking curating a blog.

    I love to write. Actually, to be truly honest, I am a storyteller.  It may not be the art of writing versus the art of creating that I really love, but it’s a muscle that I have found myself exercising more frequently in the last few years. It’s not easy to find time for it, but when I do through creating content or being a brand new Dungeon-master for campaigns I feel fulfillment that I have not in other places.

    I also feel that through talking about things that I can block out in nice organized places. It’s so hard when making videos to get them linked together and strung together the way I like them. Through the art of blogging and storytelling I have the ability to weave the web that I want to.

    Much like anything else I create I have no idea if this will connect with folks. I hope that it does but more so I hope that I gain the sense of organization and clarity that I think will come with writing. Maybe it will open up a few doors that have been closed as well as we tried to wade through the world of making content. 

    We will be talking about games. We will be talking about geeky movies. We will be talking about donuts. We will be talking about tabletop role-play games. None of that should be surprising if you have seen the videos I make. What might be surprising is we are going to talk about education. We are going to talk about working in higher education and for colleges. We’re going to talk about advocacy for others and helping people. We’re going to talk about scouting and the outdoors. We’re going to talk about what it’s like to be a parent and navigating hard things in life. These are the things that I find it hard to make videos on sometimes, but I want to share. 

    My hope is that the space provides you some thoughts or ideas or someplace to go when you want to think about something. I hope these words that I put out give you positive reinforcement on days you need it, resources reach out to, and maybe a few laughs. At the very least, you’ll know a lot more about donuts than you ever thought possible. And that is awesome.