How’s the board gaming in Fairbanks? Excellent question, and thanks for asking.
First, I’ll back up. It’s almost a commonplace that the internet changed the world, but for most of us 
—those who remember the pre-internet days—there are moments that underscore the nugget of energy that throbs within that observation. Moving to Fairbanks pulled the nugget out of the earth and gave me a shock. I’m really not sure where that metaphor is going, but there’s just enough logic there to sustain it. At least for this paragraph.
In an acronym, here’s what happened: BGG. Within a few days of arriving in Fairbanks, and updating my various online spaces to reflect my new location, I received a “geekmail” message on BoardGameGeek.com from Koldfoot. He invited me to a game night at his home, then a weekend game get-together over the Fourth of July, and I finally got a chance to attend a game night on a recent Friday. At the game night that I missed, he mentioned that a new board game enthusiast had come to town, and I had a message—on Geekmail—from a local guy, Mark, the next day. We’ve met, and Dana and I are taking our family over to their house for dinner tomorrow.
How’s the gaming? Good! The players in town seem to favor deeply strategic games (we played St. Petersburg and Parthenon on the one night I visited), and it looks like they favor a lot of player interaction. I can bring a lot of the more intense games off the shelf without worrying that the game might have too many moving parts—a worry that I had a couple of years ago, but that worry had evaporated by the time we were moving. In some ways, this is like stepping out of my old game group into a group that’s a only a little bit further along in terms of gaming intensity. I miss the familiar Lincoln personalities and faces, but I’m excited by the new group and the new games.