Japanese victory!

Peter and I played a very fun scenario tonight in which Commonwealth troops are attacking a surrounded, desperate Jap defense in 1942. His allied troops were deployed in two groups with good leadership. My guys were hidden in a cave complex with underground tunnels. The battle started out slow, with my sniper trying (unsuccessfully) to take out his leaders. Then he made the mistake of maneuvering a platoon near one of my caves. I made a very bold move in response. I surged five squads and a leader through the cave and jumped him in hand to hand combat. In short order, I had killed his platoon. But I had to face a potentially devastating return fire from another platoon with a heavy machine gun. Because I had surged an entire platoon in the assault, they were jam-packed in a very small space with little cover. Could have been a disaster.

Instead, he broke one of my squads, and then my guys were able to stealthily begin to disperse. Eventually, he killed one squad, but the rest survived and continued to pounce on his men, dispatching two more of his squads.

To Peter's credit, he didn't just give up at that point. Instead, he maneuvered a couple of platoons against my sniper, eventually overwhelming him and killing him. Then, he managed to sweep across the battlefield, capturing three objectives, while I clung to two others. By the end of the fight, he had attrited me down to a handful of troops, but I had killed almost enough to force him to surrender.

When the battle ended, I was way ahead in points and won the game. It was one hell of a fight. I think my decision to jump his platoon in the early fight was the game-winner.

What will December bring?

Hard to believe it's been almost a year since I made some serious changes in my life. Last December I decided I was tired of playing around with fitness and really got serious. Over the course of the year, I have dropped weight and kept it off, but I have vacillated when it comes to getting to my target weight.

So this week I restarted the process. One good thing is that I KNOW how to lose weight. I know what I have to do if I really want to lose it: hard workout in the morning, calorie nazi all day and night, hard workout at night. When I do that, I lose.

I've started Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shredder and did day 2 this morning. I find it a fairly good workout (Level 1 so far), but I actually think the Cardio Max Level 1 is harder. I'm going to stick with this and go to Level 2 after one week. Also ate about 1000 calories less than my target yesterday! Worked chest and treadmill last night. Result: lost 2 pounds in one day.

Doing the same today and plan to work back and do a 40-minute uphill climb tonight. My goal is to hit 185 by the end of the month, which I should be able to do fairly easily. Maybe in two weeks. Then see if I can maintain. I might even shoot for 175 over the next month, which, according to BMI (which I don't trust), is my ideal weight. We'll see.

Meanwhile...still struggling with kid issues. 'Nuff said.

About a week ago, Zanne and I managed to fall off of a 4-foot wall in the dark. I landed without injury, but Zanne banged up her left leg pretty badly. She's struggling to heal from it, but she's making progress slowly.