My apartment is detached completely from the outside world. My windows go into a hallway, as does my door. While extremely cozy, I often feel like I am underground or in a vault. it is an ideal price, size, and location for my life, but I can start to feel early signs of cabin fever when at home for too long.

The thing I miss the most by living in my underground home is the lack of running water. There is a stream right outside the back of the building, but I can never hear it. People will talk about gigantic storms from the night before at work while I just nod; being oblivious to any meteorological event during my slumber.

Tonight I introduced one of my favorite 'lite' games to my family: Blueprints. In this game each person is an architect trying to build according to the blueprints you have been assigned. It is a ton of fun while also causing phrases like "You took the piece I needed!?!" Family bonding is always best when there is frustration involved.

One of the key elements in the game is the resource pool in the middle. At the beginning of the game a large number of dice are rolled. Then on your turn you take a piece and replace it with something else. While this seems calm, players have to think about what piece they can take now to best set them up for success in the future.

One of the main reasons I picked this year to study architecture is because of the City of Bridges: Pittsburgh. While most cities around the globe have them, Pittsburgh has the most at over 400! With this book I wanted to, as the title says, understand more about these amazing structure.

But I can't lie, even though it doesn't have too much "architecture jargon," this book is quite dry. Short, but dry. While there were plenty of cool tidbits, one made me look at bridges in an entirely different light.