The Phoenix Goes Down:

The Phoenix has finally been knocked over, after standing over 3 1/2 years and surviving many attacks from errant cats, little red wagons, vacuum cleaners, and what have you. There was no special ceremony for it; instead, it was knocked over when my mom's boyfriend was moving some furniture, supposedly. His account was that it fell fast and pieces of it spread far.

As of 1/7/2008, no tower has been built in its place. Now that I am in college (and have been for quite some time now), I don't spend much time at home anymore, and when I do, I am busy working or doing game show tape trades. Maybe some day when I am settled down in one place, I might sit, design, and build another huge Jenga tower. But for the immediate future, my time playing with blocks seems to have ceased.

The tower stood for such a long time because I started building it just days before I entered my first (and a very long-lasting) relationship, and it was sort of a reminder of one of the very happiest times in my life.

Another V-Day Incident With The Phoenix:

As the story goes, someone was walking up the stairs, tripped, and spilled coffee. In an effort to keep the coffee from spilling into the red wagon full of papers below, it was swiftly kicked out of the way...right into the fence of the tower. Had the fence not been there, the tower would have most assuredly been destroyed. However, the only damage occurred on the ornamental lobby flanks, and one piece was missing out of the 13th floor.

As of 6/20/2006, the damage has been repaired. Also, a donation of 42 Jenga blocks has been made by Andy Edwards.

Domineer II Remembered:

The Domineer II Tower Party (demolition party) video is now available for download in the Tower Descriptions section below.

A Coupla' Things:

• I rebuilt the second tower in The Complex. It's only five floors, but it uses a very unique design that one of my buddies came up with at the Domineer 2 Tower Party, of which...
• the video was found today while looking through DV tapes.

The Phoenix:

The Phoenix arose after the Beige Tower was mysteriously knocked down while I was away on 10/23. The remnants of the Beige Tower have yet to be repaired or cleared.

It is suspected that the Beige Tower fell on Bona Fortuna and caused its top 3 floors to be knocked off yet again. The bottom of Bona Fortuna was messed up in the collapse, but I finally repaired it on 11/5. On 11/7, I repaired the top three and added three more floors and an antenna to Bona Fortuna, bringing its grand total to 38 floors, and now I officially re-christen Bona Fortuna as "The Phoenix."

On 11/8, 2 more floors were added to the Phoenix, bringing the grand total to 40.

Tower Complex:

On this day, two more packs of Jengas were added to my collection, giving me a grand total of 10 sets. I decided to build a tower with the two new sets, so in 35 minutes, I completed the Beige Tower next to the current tower (Bona Fortuna) and created the first Jenga Tower Complex.

Another Disfiguration of the Tower:

A Terrorist Attack, or Natural Incident?

Today, I returned home from a convention to find fuzzy balls on the floor, a couple of Jenga blocks on the ground, and... the back half of the 34th and the 35th floor were gone. The tower has not lost any height. The incident amazed me--the tower did not completely fall. At this point, the top floors have not been reassembled.

There are two suspects. The prime suspect in the attack is my cat Dweezil, who in extreme boredom may have tried to swat off the little fuzz balls (placed diligently by Santa on Christmas Eve) from the top of the tower. The second one is fate and gravity: over the months, the tower has settled and it is possible that the top blocks have started to lean back. It seems like the remaining part of the structure at the top is indeed leaning back. More details will be posted; for now, the tower remains partially disfigured.

New Tower Plans:

I drew up plans for a 35-story building to construct with 8 sets of Jenga blocks (432 blocks). The tower will reach almost eleven feet into the air.

Old plans were drawn up in May, but after losing them & spending months looking for them, I finally drew up new ones. Maybe I'll scan the plans and post them just for fun.

On 10/23/2003, after two weeks and one attempt, the tower has been finished! See its picture below.

Domineer 2 Is Gone!

The 2nd ever destruction party was held today, this time for Domineer 2, which went down with one of the most spectacular falls on video, and in memory for that matter. The video of it will be posted shortly. The party proceeded in such a manner that invitees actually played a game of Jenga with the tower, removing the antenna, then removing blocks on the bottom to put on the top. The tower was built all the way up to 32 floors, setting a new height record, then the top 5 collapsed, and were rebuilt, but the second time did the tower in. The durable top part finally gave way after 1 year, 1 month, and 13 days, but the last nine floors remained. A similar yet even more interesting game of Jenga took place with the nearly indestructible lower 9 floors (as proven by not just this, but its survival of the first 3 attempts). Finally the lower part, lasting 1 year, 6 months, and 20 days, was destroyed too, except for the first floor, which we simply kicked over.

For those of you who might be confused, the tower party did not last two years--those figures were simply statements of how old those segments of the building were on this day.

Milestone & A Dilemma:

As you may have discerned by now (unless you thought the tower had been destroyed and I just didn't write about it), Domineer II is celebrating the 1-year, 1-month anniversary of its completion. If it can hold out for 5 more days, the entire structure will become the longest-lasting Jenga tower built by me. Ribbon was tied around the middle of the tower to commemorate its 1-year birthday last month, a picture of which I should post here soon.

As you might know, the first 8 or so floors became the longest-lasting structure sometime in December 2002. The rest of the tower was significantly delayed as similar anniversaries of the first 3 attempts occurred, but since April 2003, the lower floors of the fourth attempt finally started to break the record too. Now at this point in time, the top of the tower (and the last part to be completed) will also celebrate the milestone.

The dilemma for me lies in when to have its demolition party. I intended to hold it in December 2002, but many could not make it, so I delayed it partially because I wanted this tower to break the longevity record. Now that the entire structure has almost done this, the celebration could be held back further if people leave for vacations this summer of 2003.

New Tower Plans:

After a 6-month hiatus, I finally decided to build a new tower. This time, I wanted to go higher than ever before. I bought a new set of Jenga blocks (7 sets, 378 blocks), and drew up a plan for a 30-story tower that would use all the blocks.

I put the plan in motion, and started to build the tower in the family room. Halfway up, I realized the plan was too tall for that room. Also, there were not enough braces in the plan, so splitting of floors started to occur and it became very unstable. I made it up to floor 21, then I stopped. It lasted overnight, then the next afternoon, I destroyed it.

After a couple of weeks, on Nov. 3, I started to build the tower out in the foyer, a 2-story area of the house which gives me about 20 feet of vertical space to build in. That night, I got to 25 floors, and the building started to fall. I saved it, and demolished it until I reached the problem area on the 13th floor. The second time around, on the 4th, I recorded construction on video. The tower fell when I was working on the 29th floor. Unfortunately, I could not save the tower, and it fell on its own. Every floor up until the tenth was left intact, which is 1/3 of the tower. Later on, someone messed up the top (11th) floor, and that inspired me to repair it. After another unsuccessful 3rd try on Christmas Day, I finally mustered up the mental concentration power again on March 14, 2002. It took me a couple of weeks, but I finally got it up to 30! You can now see a picture of the complete tower below.

The Big Picture:

I've gotten around to scanning, editing, and posting the picture of "Sky High," so now you can see a picture of the tower that only lasted for a minute, and held the record for tallest tower from April 1999 to November 2001.