Defeat and Victory and Stuff

My debtor in Morgantown has now defaulted on me twice. Enough is enough. Foreclosure time.

I now have a riding mower, and it certainly makes managing the property easier. In addition, Zanne and I figured out where our actual boundaries are and discovered that the northeast boundary is quite further than we thought. So we up and planted a nice pine tree out there and made a perty little island of mulch around it. It looks nice, but everyone in the neighborhood wonders why there's a tree out there in the middle of nowhere. I respond by leveling my shotgun and shouting: "Get off my lawn!"

Peter came over tonight, and we played two games of Combat Commander: Europe. In the first, his Germans attacked my Russians, who were holed up in a military school. I made a tactical blunder by setting up my defenses too far forward. (I do that a lot.) His Germans set up a heavy machine gun on a hill that ranged my defenses easily. As the battle opened, I had some good luck and got fooled into thinking I was a genius. But his firepower soon changed that, and I lost half my men to that machine gun. Then he advanced a squad with a flamethrower down a line of buildings I was defending, and I kept retreating until he finally whacked one of my guys. Then, I counterattacked and killed the flamethrower squad in hand to hand combat. But he kept attacking, and my guys finally surrendered, the pussies. Very bad set-up on my part.

In our second game, Peter chose to play scenario 3--one of my favorites. I actually wrote up an article on it a while back, using military terrain analysis to analyze the scenario. I made a small mistake in setting up, but I was able to whack Peter pretty good anyway. As I expected, he made his main effort on my left and ran into a virtual wall of concertina wire, along with my devastating machine gun fire. He pressed his attack, but in the closing moments, I was reinforced with an infantry gun that sent one of his squads to hell and ended the fight. Much funness.

September Update

Been in the new house for about a month, and we love it. Every corner of it reminds me of my Zanne-Zanne. I really feel that we worked together perfectly to create each part. I love the dark hard-wood floors and cabinets, the beautiful stained staircase, and, of course, the porch. Zanne painted Joe's room, Kadey's room, and the guest room, and they look amazing.

So far I installed the chandelier, fixed up the family room ceiling fan (after Matt installed), installed Joe's and Kadey's fans, installed edging on the flower bed, and cleared out the garage. I'm contemplating what to do with the east side of the house--there are lots of possibilities there. Mainly, we need to save and budget for projects.

Meanwhile, I'm completing a few projects at the Lab, trying to clear the decks so that I can get back to writing about the evolution of strategy in the war on terror.

Played a great game of Combat Commander: Europe with Peter the other day. I set up an American defense against his German night attack. Although his attack on my left flank was making progress--especially with the flamethrower--it was too little too late, and I won.

Have been looking hard at the evolution vs. intelligent design debate lately. A frustrating endeavor, because I feel torn between evidence in both directions. In the end, I'm concluding that I should relax. Never be afraid of the truth. Never accept the conclusions of any particular crowd, because fanatics lurk everywhere, and they can't be trusted. Remember that "science" is the same crowd that decides every other year that eggs are good for you/will kill you quickly. Scientists used to believe rats spontaneously generated from garbage and that the earth was the center of the universe.

In the end, I will die and know the truth. And then I will laugh at all of you ignoramuses.