Thinking seriously about retirement...

Zanne and I are moving closer to a decision to retire me from the Lab. I love the idea of leaving all the stress behind, but it's hard to walk away from the money. Still, with the help of our financial advisor, it looks like we can easily do it. The looming question is whether to take social security now or wait. There are major advantages and disadvantages either way. We have picked a tentative date: March 10, 2023. We'll see.

Playing Midway Solitaire on one table. Just got this one, and, seeing as it is a title from Decision Games, the rules are a bit wonky. Need to clarify a few things, but making my way through the first game. So far, the Japanese have led off with two operations toward my base in the Aleutians. The first one was bloodless. The second is underway. Interesting game that pits the player (the US) against the system (Japs). The US side has few resources and lots to defend, resulting in some risky decision making.

On my main table, I'm playing the old favorite, Mage Knight. Simply a fantastic game. A real "gamer's game"--clean but complex rules, lots of hard decisions, and kind of puzzly, because you have to try to get the most out of your hand each turn. Mucho fun.

Teaching Zechariah on zoom on Sunday nights, and really enjoying it. My favorite book of the Bible, called "the Revelation of the Old Testament". There is so much here in this book that you really don't get anywhere else. My problem is figuring out how to teach it well. I think that sometimes the students come short of understanding the profound significance of some of this book--the crowning of Joshua, the announcement of the Branch, the woman in the basket, etc. 

Would love to do a week at Ocean City in September, but haven't convinced Zanne yet. She's still intimidated about travel from our last venture into the Pacific Northwest, where we both caught COVID!

 Burncycle    

I inadvertently finished my game of "White Tribe" by losing on turn 3 (1968). I was pursuing a liberal vector as head of state, in order to keep the terror level low. In 1968, the Land Tenure bill came up in the legislature. The gist of it was to empower whites to hold onto the land at the expense of blacks. I decided to abandon the bill. The Rhodesian Front Party lost a lot of popularity, and my move force a new election...which I lost. In retrospect I did not fully appreciate the political danger of moving too fast toward the left.

Anyway, that cleared the table for my latest acquisition--Burncycle. A dystopian game in which you play the side of the robots fighting for survival against the evil human corporations trying to destroy you. Looks to be a very complex game. I worked my way through the tutorial, but I have this feeling there are a lot of little rules that I will forget when I play alone. We'll see. Basically, you organize a raid into a  corporation building to complete a mission. It's a Chip Theory Game, which means it's expensive and over-produced, like Too Many Bones. Looks good on the table. 

Suzanne and I are empty-nesters now, and we love it! Really enjoy the privacy, but it is fun when the Lat kids/spouses come over to visit. We are just about done climbing out of our post-travel doldrums, and I will commence a hard training cycle on Monday.

Over the weekend I visited Bev/Craig/Asher/Micah/Grayce and Molly/Austin/Jace...and new baby girl on the way! Also visited with Sam and his girlfriend Ashley--nice girl. Jace was hilarious, and we got a great pic of him on my shoulders. Because it's a "live picture", you can view it as a video, and Jace is dancing. So cute. We ate some good food, had lots of conversations with the grandkids. We had a swimming party at Bev's house. Lots of fun. Even wandered into a political discussion with my kids, who are all pro-Trumpers! How did this happen? Where did I go wrong!?!?

Meanwhile, we continue to watch the January 6th hearings and wonder if anything will come of them. 

The SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has unleashed a firestorm of protest, both on the streets and in the media/social media. I discovered the depth of the hatred and violence of the pro-choice crowd. I always miscalculate and expect that they will engage in reasonable discourse. Instead, educated people descend immediately into name-calling and Christian-bashing. Ugh.

Hello, Blog! It's been awhile.

 As a consequence of a Facebook flamewar, someone I don't know was sneaking on me and announced with contempt that "Leonhard has a religious blog!" (She went on to demonstrate what a jerk I am, a position with which I, of course, completely agree.)

I immediately thought:  "He has a blog?!?" Oh, yeah! I forgot about that! 

Haven't posted on this for over a decade! Time to restart. Tonight's subject:  what you missed over the past eleven years. 

In brief: Zanne and I moved to Florida! Whoop! We love it. The hot, steamy weather is made for me! My knees are relatively happy. 

Only problem we have had is finding a church we can work with--no luck so far. The churches all seem to favor sermons from the pulpit instead of Bible teaching. We gave it the good old college try, but we both find it so frustrating and unfulfilling to listen to a pastor ranting, vice solid Bible teaching using exegesis and solid hermeneutics. For now, we are resorting to watching FBC online on Sundays. Hoping we can eventually find a fellowship we can work with.

We have five cats: Bella, Henry, Halle Berry, Little Man, and Boo-Boo. 

Andris and Leila (our adopted Lats) also moved here and both are now married. The four of them (including Amanda and Mike) bought a house and live together in it. They are doing an amazing job fixing it up, and they will eventually flip it. 

I'm about 2.5 years from retirement and looking forward to it. Still working remotely for the Lab. 

Currently wargaming "The White Tribe"--a solo game about the political course of Rhodesia, 1966-1980. Also have Labyrinth on another table, and "The Tigers are Burning" (Soviets vs. Germans in Ukraine, 1943-44) on the other.