Category: Uncategorized

The Best Card Game In the World – 6 Point Pitch

There are many contenders for the throne of best card game. My vote goes to the 6 point variant of Pitch. It’s a partner game, flexible for 4 to 8 players, has variation in points available per hand, optionality of playing trump cards, and a bidding process for determining the trump suit each hand. I find all these factors make for a great playing experience.

Following are instructions for playing 6 Point Pitch. (There are many variants of Pitch – 10 Point is probably the most common – but 6 Point is the best.)

Deck: Standard 54 count playing card deck – two Jokers included in addition to the 13 cards per suit (Hearts, Spades, Clubs, Diamonds). Jokers should be labelled High and Low – use a pen to write High on one (typically colored) and Low on the other (typically black and white). Bicycle brand playing cards are recommended.

Players: Can be played with 4, 6, or 8 players. 6 player is my favorite version but all are fun. Play is the same although the potential points on the table will vary according to the number of players. The score to win also varies. 4 player – first team to 15 wins, 6 player – first to 18, 8 player – first to 21. Note: if both teams pass the required point total on the same hand the bidding team wins the game. This is called “Bidder Goes Out”.

Points: There are up to 6 points on each hand played. 3 points minimum are available.

  • Points Always Available – High, Low, Game
    • High and Low are the highest and lowest cards of the trump suit. Game is compiled from all cards played, not just trump, with the following “Game Points” assigned per card. In an entire deck of cards there are a total of 80 Game Points, with 20 in each suit broken down as follows. ** Game Points are NOT Points. There is 1 Point available each hand based on the count for Game.
      • Ace = 4 Game Points
      • King = 3 Game Points
      • Queen = 2 Game Points
      • Jack = 1 Game Point
      • 10 = 10 Game Points
  • Points Not Always Available – Jack of Trump, High Joker, Low Joker . These Points are dependent on what has been dealt and are unknown unless you hold them in your hand – other players may or may not hold these cards.

Set Up and Dealing: The Dealer deals 6 cards to each person playing going clockswise around the table staring with player on the left of Dealer, typically 2 at a time but the Dealer can also be annoying and deal 1 card at a time. Or extra annoying and deal 6 at a time. 2 at a time is the recommended dealing cadence. After dealing the cards out Dealer places the unused cards to left of Dealer on the table – this indicates who is first bidder and next dealer. Cards should be properly shuffled before each Deal / after each Hand played.

Bidding: After cards are dealt bidding starts with player to the left of Dealer. Player can bid any number from 1 to 6 or can Pass, declining to make a bid. Bidding must increase – if another player has bid 2 a minimum of 3 is needed to make a new winning bid. A Bid indicates the minimum number of Points to be taken by Bidding Team. If Bidding Team does not take that number of Points they receive negative number of the points bid. If they receive equal or above their bid they receive that number of Points.

Order of Card Strength: Cards have the following hierarchy of card strength. trump cards are stronger than non trump cards, regardless of strength. (i.e. the 2 of trump takes the Ace of any other suit.) From Highest to Lowest:

Ace > King > Queen > Jack > Joker (High) > Joker (Low) > 10 > 9 > 8 > 7 > 6 > 5 > 4 > 3 > 2

Play: Starts with the winning bidder who must lead a trump suit card. Any trump card is fine but typically the highest card is led. Play follows clock-wise around the table – players must follow the suit led but can always play trump suit. Joker cards are treated as trump cards – regardless of the trump suit Jokers are trump. The highest card played wins the round and the player that took the trick – played the winning / highest card – leads each round. After the first round a card from any suit may be led but as a reminder – players must follow the suit led but can always play trump suit. At the end of the 6 rounds the Points are counted. If the bidding team met or exceeded the bid they tally that amount of points and the non-bidding team tallies any points they collected. 3 points minimum will be avaiable, 5 points are single card points from the trump suit: High, Low, Jack, Joker (High), Joker (Low). The 6th point is the Game Point which needs to be counted from all cards played in the hand.

Rounds: Continue to deal, bid, and play until a team passes the winning score with their cumulative points and wins!

Please provide feedback if I’ve gotten any of the game rules incorrect or if additional input and I’ll update this post accordingly.

Banana Bread Recipe (Nana’s Version)

My son Arthur has a class project to showcase something from his identity and background. He picked his Nana’s banana bread because it’s a family tradition and he likes eating it.

We’re posting the recipe here so he can share it with his class (and the whole world). Hope you enjoy too!

Nana’s Banana Bread Recipe

Ingredients:

  • Sugar – 1 Cup
  • Shortening (Crisco or other) – 1/2 Cup
  • Eggs – 2
  • Flour – 1 3/4 Cup
  • Baking Soda – 1 Tsp
  • Salt – 1 Tsp
  • Walnuts – 1/3 Cup (Chopped)
  • Bananas – 1 1/3 Cups (Ripe, Mashed)
  • Chocolate Chips – 3/4 Cup (Optional)

Directions:

  • Mix all dry ingredients together, in order above stopping with Walnuts / before bananas.
  • Add bananas and mix well.
  • Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour in a large loaf pan or 3-4 small loaf pans. Can test with a toothpick to see if done – should come out clean after poking if done.
  • Let cool and enjoy!

Daylighting Laws = Improved Pedestrian Safety?

California passed a law recently – AB 413 – to remove parking at intersections across the state to provide better visibility and ostensibly improve pedestrian and driver safety, in addition to improving citation income. Per KPBS at time of implentation in January of 2025: “Citations will cost $65, plus a state-mandated administrative fee of $12.50, for a total of $77.50 — also the fine for parking at a red curb in the city.”

San Diego has received criticism for enforcing these rules without painting curbs red, which seems unfair and unexpected to my mind for both residents or visitors to town. A friend recently received a ticket under this rule for parking in a non-painted spot proximate to an unmarked crossing. I was surprised that the ticket totaled $115.50 – a 49% increase in a year from the $77.50 referenced by KPBS. Maybe that sort of increase is just the norm in California these days for taxes and fees?

Outside of being surprised by the much higher citation amount I also hadn’t seen any robust study on the actual safety improvement record of day lighting. To my mind I would think wider view planes for drivers would result in higher speeds and harder turns, possibly reducing safety in general.

I looked around a bit and and the NYC DOT released a report in January 2025 on daylighting with a lot of info. The images below are from the report which can be found here. From the report there is a non statistically significant increase in safety and doing a back test using fire hydrants as a proxy showed a 30% increase in injuries. The NYC document references other places as well:

Portland – No before-after analysis of injuries or fatalities
Seattle – The city does not publish safety benefit analysis metrics for this process
Hoboken – The city has not published a before-after analysis of the specific
effects of daylighting on safety
San Francisco (Tenderloin) – No data was available on injury reductions. (The city reported a 14% decrease in collisions at intersections where treatments were implemented.)

Daylighting with bollards or other structures can improve safety

Other Road Changes Improve Safety More (But likely cost more)

Analysis of Hydrant Zones (similar to daylighting) show a 30% higher injury rate

The dumb yellow line added by author

So what is the overall outcome of daylighting implementation in San Diego?

– Loss of 4,000 parking spots in the city (my estimate, probably way too low). Based on estimate of 16,000 intersections and then conservatively reducing that by half and again by half assuming some intersections will not have all four corners impacted. Then assigning a value of $2 per day to each spot times 365 days a year. $2 is Schrodinger’s Parking Rate – it’s both much too high (City charges zero) and much too low (residents would pay much more to secure). Very, very rough numbers but seem quite conservative to me and yield $2,920,000 in reduced value to users.

– Loss of $850,000 from drivers / Gain of $850,000 for City / State (estimated in budget for July 2025 – June 2026 in IBA report)


– Increase in safety? Decrease? Unknown.

Grok result for intersection number query

New San Diego Tax Proposal – $8,000 to $12,000 per second home per year

San Diego will consider a new tax on second homes in the city soon. Tomorrow, 2/25/2026, is the first subcommittee hearing.

Per Voice of San Diego this tax will be: “For the first year, $8,000 per home. The next year it would be $10,000 per home. And there would be additional surcharges for corporate-owned empty homes, starting at $4,000 in 2027.”

There are about 5,000 such units in San Diego today. The owners of these properties pay property taxes and will now have an additional tax to pay.

How are the number of second homes subject to this tax tracked? Apparently by the number of properties that claim the Rental Unit Business Tax Exemption. This form is in image below, and property owners select a descriptor for their property. Check box 2 is for “Vacation Home / Second Home – Property is not available for rent any part of the tax year. Not reported on Income Tax Forms as income property. Proof Required. Provide copy of Utility bill.”

https://voiceofsandiego.org/2026/02/23/the-second-home-tax-is-back/

The Rental Unit Business Tax varies, but for many properties is basically $55 per year.

My prediction is that owners that may be subject to the proposed new tax will simply not claim the Rental Unit Business Tax exemption and will have to pay $55 (roughly) to avoid an $8,000 to $12,000 tax. Perhaps the city will deploy in-person auditors to the properties that formerly claimed this exemption. Or we’ll have random audits for properties across the city.

Either way I would be very surprised if the projected revenue of $51,000,000 per year is close to realized.

Redwood Country Trip

Got to visit Northern California – all the way up at the northern state border – for a few days. Absolutely gorgeous area – so many trees, so much water.

A few photos from the short hikes we did during our visit. Would highly recommend visiting and really enjoyed our time in Crescent City for the location and proximity to a wide variety of parks and beaches.

We also got to visit the Capitol building in Sacramento for a short visit, which was very good. Sacramento seemed like a town with a lot of history, I’d like to visit again.

California has such a wide variety of climates and topography, it’s really amazing. Although some of the windy mountain roads can lead to car sickness. . . .

Hess Bike Tour – June 1, 2024

Tacos, water views, and good company

Map link: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1AJqlbNMHbQuSPoMmYpTS1nK94G0om3s&usp=sharing

Starting in North Park at 8 AM, approx 4 hour ride with tacos, coffee, and cool ocean breezes. Hit me up if you’d like to join us. Cheers!

Carvana Is Awesome + Cars Are Expensive

My spousal equivalent (SE) had a job promotion opportunity in 2021 that would require driving to work. A focus of our family decisions has been to have a pretty centralized area for daily activities (work, school, activities, residence, groceries, etc) for convenience, community ties, and cost so the need for a dedicated car for work transport was a pretty big factor in our decision on the job opportunity.

SE decided to take the opportunity and consequently we ended up buying a 2nd vehicle. We purchased a 2019 Hyundai Ioniq Plug-In Hybrid from Carvana for $23,990 in early 2022. This vehicle purchase was the absolute best car purchase experience of my life and I would highly recommend checking out Carvana. I’m not really big into car finishes and features; mostly looking for good value and convenience so that might vary for others. I think it took about 15 minutes start to finish to select, purchase (including financing, registration, etc.) this vehicle. 10 days later I picked it up (about 10 minutes total, mostly for signing documents) and drove it home.

About a year after making this purchase SE got the opportunity to transfer back to a closer work location. Making the move was a no-brainer but we kept the vehicle, mostly because of potential uses for it – who knows when a friend might borrow, or a kid is sick, or the adults in the house just want to do something at the same time in different places. So we kept the second car until after being out of town for a month, and then not using the car for another month after returning we considered getting rid of it.

The anchoring effect was strong – we already had the car so moving from the current default took effort. But we decided to go ahead (and we’ll probably purchase another second vehicle at some point in the future, but who knows?).

How much did this modestly priced vehicle cost us over our ownership period? Approximately $667.46 per month. Probably on the low side, but I’m trying to be conservative to not inflate the actual numbers – I had to estimate for oil changes, repairs, gasoline, as we don’t track tightly.

Median household income in San Diego is $89,457 so to put in perspective, this sort of modestly priced used car would cost about 9% of the median household pre-tax income here in SD.

We sold the car on Carvana and again the experience was great – quick, simple, and easy. I’d estimate we took about a 15% discount to what we might have achieved trying to sell the car ourselves on Craigslist or other sites. We sold the car for $16,940 in September 2023, about 18 months after purchasing it.

Owning a car (or 2 or 5) varies between households, but the cost is pretty significant for the average household. Wanted to share our recent vehicle purchase and sale info.

Howth Cliff Walk – A Dublin Highlight

I was recently in Dublin for the college football kick-off game of Notre Dame vs. Navy (Go Irish!). The weather was lovely, the Guinness was smooth, and the company was pleasant. A friend suggested a coastal hike in Howth, a peninsula just to the East of center Dublin. I’d never heard of the area but sounded like a fun activity so we took the Dart Train to it’s end point in Howth.

The hike was an absolute stand-out of the trip and I’d highly recommend to anyone visiting Dublin. I really like having some physical activity each day when traveling, so it was a great pair with a night out in the pubs. There are a few different options for the Howth Coastal Walk and we did the longest, a full circle hike beginning and ending at the Howth Dart (Train) station in the main commercial area on the North side of the peninsula. There are a number of way-finding signs to get you started from the train station and once on the route it’s pretty apparent which way to go. The total was 7.5 miles, about 1,000 feet elevation gain, and took about 3.5 hours. The ocean was in view for the entire hike, as well as views of Dublin, some large sheep grazing, and a rolling golf course. There were a couple of spots to stop and jump in the ocean, which was about 60 degrees, but we didn’t take a dip – I wish we would have looking back now.

All in all a great half day activity in central Dublin. 5 stars.

Lovesong Coffee Opens in North Park

Auspicious rain accompanied the opening of Lovesong Coffee on December 12 in North Park. Located at 3022 North Park Way, San Diego, CA 92104, this space is gorgeous. Light colors and plants abound, and tiered seating occupies a rear corner.

There’s a breeze block wall at the rear of the shop, behind which is the in-house 6 pound roasting set up for the beans. A unique feature is a small bodega / market in the front of the shop with a variety of food products (snacks, drinks, Grillo’s Pickles).

I stopped in for a house drip coffee which was very good, and my companion had a specialty latte – Bees Kneez – which she enjoyed. The current menu can be found here.

With a fantastic location in the heart of North Park and tons of natural light and great design I expect this spot to be a smashing success. Hopefully they can add some street trees on the curb which would soften the front and add some light shade to the large roll-up window.