Book Review - The Sense of an Ending

My first foray back into fiction in a while was Julian Barnes' 2011 Man Booker prize winner, The Sense of an Ending. This was a short little novel, more of a novella really, of 163 small format pages. I did with this what I try to avoid; I read the first half in a couple of days, and then put the book down for a week or ten days before picking it back up and finishing. Even for a book of this length, the lack of continuity can be noticeable.

In the case of this particular book, which has a significant twist at the end, I found myself confused. I wondered if I mis-remembered something in the short time I had put the book aside, as it struck me that there was something not quite right in what I was remembering. If I had it to do over again, I would make it a point to read this one straight through with no breaks. C'est la vie.

Regardless, I enjoyed this book very much. It was slow paced, a minimalist character study of an aging man looking back over some of the key events in his life, both as a high school and college aged boy and how those events came back to affect him in his 60's. This was my first experience with reading Barnes, and it was a very good one. I have a couple other books of his, and might dive into another one next (I just ordered Ron Rash's new novel The Cove from Amazon this evening and might as well read something else while I wait for it to arrive).

Barnes has an eminently readable style and I wish I had tagged more nice passages as I read; there were many. I must be out of practice or something...

"History isn't the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. It's more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious nor defeated." [p. 61]

And on looking back on a long life: "There is accumulation. There is responsibility. And beyond these, there is unrest. There is great unrest." [p. 163] A fine closing passage.

Happy Easter

I do not consider myself a religious person by any means, but I do appreciate Easter as a time to gather with family and be thankful for all that we have. I know this is not the intended point of the holiday, but to me it has become a Spring Thanksgiving in a way. To all family and friends, I wish you a happy day, and hope that you are able to celebrate it in whatever way has meaning for you, surrounded by those you love.

My sous chef honing her knife skills

Peninsula Battle, 1811, Part 2

...continued.
After the brief but bloody light cavalry action on the near flank fizzled out, the infantry had moved close enough for the battle to enter its primary action - the infantry fight. Allied troops moved against the line from their left center all the way to their right flank. British against the left center, Portugese against the right center, and Spanish against the right.

The Spanish moved against the French of Gazan's brigade who were moving aggressively to oppose them. As mentioned earlier, there was some confusion as to the referee's background talk, and the French on this flank were behaving very aggressively. Gazan's troops moved through the wooded patch beyond the bridge and formed into line. Spanish came at them in attack columns.

Spanish infantry and grenadiers moving up

Meanwhile, the Portugese of Campbell's brigade would tie up the French on the hill to their front, assaulting them in line formation. The French would hold, inflicting substantial casualties on the valiant Portugese, but would be pinned in place by their attacks.

Portugese of Campbell's brigade in the assault

To the left of the Portugese, the British brigade came on in one big mass of attack columns and lines. In the area where they hit the French line, they were opposed by only a single battalion of line infantry and a battalion of converged grenadiers. The British took pretty heavy casualties in their assault, but were able to stagger the line battalion and destroy the grenadiers. With most of the French right-hand brigade tied down in square formation to protect themselves from the unopposed British light dragoons lurking on their flank, there was very little to support the French center, which was crumbling quickly.

Massed British battalions hit the French center

In order to stem the tide of the British wave approaching them, the reserve brigade of French dragoons was split up and sent in two directions; one regiment to the right to drive off the British lights and free up the infantry on that flank, the other launched itself in a charge against the British infantry in the center. The charge was successful in breaking a British battalion, but cavalry cannot hold ground, and with Brits swarming around them to blast them in subsequent turns, I am sure this will prove true here as well, although it did buy some time.

French dragoons charge to buy time

On the French left, seesaw assaults between the French and Spanish continue while the Portugese continue to chip away at the French. In the last turn we played on this night, the French battery on the hill in the center of the photo below would fall to an assault by the Portugese cacadores facing them. This success, coupled with the British advance against the center adjacent to this part of the line would cause huge concerns for the French, and seriously jeopardize their goal of holding their position solidly enough to be sure of a secure retreat across the stream to their rear.

The French left holds, but at what cost?

At the end of the night, the French position was holding firm on both flanks. The problem was that the center was crumbling badly and in danger of total collapse. To make matters worse, two more British brigades were moving up from the rear; one behind the Brits in the middle and one into the gap between the Spanish and the Portugese. All that would be served by playing a few more turns would be to see if the French could stabilize things well enough to be able to exit the table in decent order. Frankly, that looks kinda doubtful.

Conclusion - This was a very fun night, and it is great to have played some Napoleonics again. It is one of my favorite periods, and one that we have not played much of due to a lack of satisfactory rules. As for LaSalle, my conclusions this time around aren't much different from before. Some comments (all of which come with the disclaimer that we were fumbling through the rules as we went and may have been doing some things incorrectly - further reading of the rules is happening soon...):

• There is a very substantial degree of abstraction here, but in general I like the feel of the game, so I don't consider that an issue.
• Artillery is quirky. Due to the tremendously restrictive fire arcs (i.e. absolutely straight ahead only) and the turn sequence, it is possible for enemy units to sidestep the fire arc and avoid being shot at. In our game we had a number of instances of British march columns approaching over clear ground at long distance and repeatedly moving out of the arc. With a broad field of vision, no obstructions, and all the time in the world, it is ludicrous to think that the French batteries would not be firing on those approaching columns. But according to our reading of the rules at the time, they couldn't.
• Size of artillery doesn't seem to affect anything but range. From a combat perspective, assaulting the front of a 3 lb horse battery would be no different than assaulting a 12 lb foot battery. This is silly.
• The devastating effect of melee combats takes some getting used to. It is a common thing for a completely fresh unit to lose a melee decisively (most of our combats seemed to be decisive) and vaporize instantly. No degrading over time, no getting pushed back, just gone.
• Lack of unit morale rules removes complexity but makes all units seem pretty similar. The best of the best and the worst of the worst don't play tremendously differently in this game.
• There don't seem to be any formation restrictions. For example, in our game, British foot units repeatedly attacked the French in massed attack columns. This goes against drill, doctrine and history. Early war linear armies like the Prussians would have the same issue. House rules can easily fix this.

Despite a few quirks, and some house rules we are mulling over (not to mention the need to learn the rules much better so the game goes quicker), this is a fun game that we will be playing more. Now to get to those Austrians...

Peninsula Battle, 1811, part 1

Five of us got together for a game last night, including Leo, Dave, Ryan and Ryan's friend Tim. The last time we had discussed what to play next, Ryan expressed an interest in Napoleonics, which was fine with me, as it is one of my favorite historical periods but one which we haven't played much over the last few years. I used to play From Valmy to Waterloo often at conventions, and really enjoyed the rules, although it is a little too complicated to be played with a mixed group of casual players. I picked up LaSalle a couple years ago at Cold Wars when it came out, and we played it shortly after and liked it. After a long hiatus, and given that I have spent the time recently getting my armies based properly to be ready to use, we decided that the game would be a LaSalle game.

The game itself was a throw-together, as I had to clean off my gaming table, set up a game and re-learn the rules (at least well enough to be able to fumble through) all during the day on Friday. Since my 15mm collection at the moment consists of French and British with a few Spanish and Portugese thrown in for good measure, we are pretty much stuck with playing Peninsula battles for the time being. I do also have some Austrians, but not enough yet to really so anything with them. That will go on the long list of things to make progress on.

Setup - French at left, Allies at right

The game pitted three French infantry brigades with brigades of light cavalry and dragoons in support, defending against an attack by three British, one Portugese and one Spanish brigade. The Allies had one light cavalry brigade at their disposal. The French goal was to hold their position long enough for their straggling brigade to get onto the board, join its comrades, and be able to withdrawal in good order off their table edge should they need to. The Allied goal was basically to attack the French successfully enough to prevent an orderly withdrawal. Ryan and Dave played the French, with Ryan taking two infantry brigades on the left (farther) flank, while Dave took an infantry brigade and light cavalry brigade on the right (near) flank. Leo and Tim would be the Allies, with Tim taking Spanish and Portugese brigades on the right (farther) flank, and Leo taking a British brigade and the light cavalry on the left (near) flank. The other two British brigades would enter as reinforcements.

First contact - light cavalry clash

Initial moves would see Ryan swing his arriving French brigade left towards the approaching Spanish after crossing the bridge in the distance. Tim marched the Spanish down the far flank at that brigade. The British and Portugese infantry moved up the middle, while the British cavalry moved aggressively at their French counterparts on the near flank. Ryan's decision proved to have a big impact on how the game developed, and was a nice example of the "friction" of war. In the short briefings I gave each side before the game began, I thought I was pretty clear on what the French goal was. Ryan heard something a little bit different than what I intended. Which would explain my slight confusion at his choice of actions - I fully expected him, at a minimum, to march the newly arriving brigade further along the road and tie better into the existing French defensive line. If he chose to be more conservative, he could march that brigade all the way behind the French center and set up a much stronger central defense. He chose to do neither, effectively moving forward to attack the Spanish.

British and Portugese advance in the center

The first real action was the clash of the light cavalry brigades on the near flank. Dave had a distinct advantage in quality even though the numbers were even, and he had a tactically superior leader. That didn't stop him from doing the statistically improbable and losing. LaSalle is a "buckets of dice" game, and in a combat between French hussars and British light dragoons, Dave was rolling a bigger handful of dice looking for easier numbers to get, and lost badly anyway. Poof, the hussars were gone, and his brigade leader was wounded. This would be the first of a number of such "how did I lose that one?" moments in this game. As expected, we fumbled with the rules, but I think we did ok in most major areas. Some of the same things that struck me as odd last time, still struck me as odd this time. The two most readily noticeable being the very restrictive arc of fire as concerns artillery (resulting in the ability of potential target units at long range being easily able to move out of the way of enemy guns), and the other being the fact that most melee combats seem to result in one of the two sides vaporizing. It is very much an all-or-nothing combat system. As I noted the last time, it is strange to see large, good, unscathed units vaporize in one turn. But that happens a lot.

Cavalry massacre

Anyway, the Allies continued to advance in the center, taking some hits from French artillery as they did so. The French and Spanish continued to advance on each other on the far flank, and the British cavalry pressed their initial upper hand in the cavalry fight. The next group combat saw the French chasseurs a cheval

Once the British cavalry chased away their opponents, Dave's infantry brigade on that flank was forced to deploy into square, preventing them from doing much to deter the British brigade that was advancing toward the French center other than to keep shooting long range artillery at them. This did cause a few hits, but the British kept coming. The French light cavalry losses did also force the French to begin moving their reserve dragoon brigade toward that flank to keep the British horse from getting too frisky. In the picture below, the British foot of Abercromby's brigade are finally in position to hit the French lines.

British attack the center

Next..the infantry fight.

A Journey Without a Destination

From a miniatures painting standpoint, or just a hobby standpoint in general, I have the attention span of a flea. Always have, and in my mid 40's, almost certainly always will. I have been aware of this for a long time, of course, but have fought it. I have always put pressure on myself to try to focus on working on one project at a time, making significant strides towards completing something before moving on to the next bit of "ooh shiny!". Generally I have failed, and felt that I should do a better job of focusing my energies. It is hard for a person of my nature not to look at the blogs of some of my hobby compatriots who have the ability to do precisely what I do not and not feel a degree of wistfulness. Wistfulness that I cannot be more like the guy who lays out his 1,000 figures of unpainted lead for XYZ army and states with conviction "I will do nothing else until I finish painting these, which must be by Spring of next year". And then accomplishes his goal. I will never be that guy.

So my painting goal, and hobby goal in general, for 2012 is to embrace my inner attention-deficit self and do whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like it, with absolutely no goal or deadline in mind. I will revel in my lack of focus.

Over the last few weeks, I have painted in small chunks of time with some regularity after the girls have gone to bed. I have worked on:

• Ottoman medieval heavy infantry
• Ottoman janissary archers
• Warhammer 40k tyranids (sci fi "bugs" like in Alien)
• Warhammer 40k Imperial Guard troops (for generic sci fi "bug" hunters)
• Warhammer Empire knights (just because I like the figures)
• Warhammer Undead army troops of various kinds (again just because I like the figures, and wouldn't mind doing some medieval-ish Night of the Living Dead skirmish game at some point)
• Seven Years War artillery and crew

Many of these can be seen on my painting table above.

I've also spent a lot of time re-basing 15mm Napoleonics to prepare for a LaSalle game we are going to have tomorrow night.

I like my new approach. And given that this new approach is really no approach at all, I think I can actually stick to this one...

Adirondacks 2012

...or "Revenge on Marcy"
The trip is set, plans are well underway, and for me at least, the countdown has begun. Almost as soon as last year's trip ended, conversations began about what the 2012 trip would be. Since last year was a bigger trip, this year would be smaller; a driving trip of 5 or 6 days. A return to the Adirondacks (a trip the guys did a few years ago) was an early front runner, and at this point I'm not sure I even remember what other options were discussed. We settled on the Adirondacks quickly.

Having listened to stories from the prior trip in the years since then, and never having been there myself, the Adirondacks to me are synonymous with one thing - Mt Marcy, the highest peak in New York state. Or as Dave puts it, "the hardest day of hiking I have ever done". It what has become legend in our group's guy-lore, the hike to the summit of the mountain (generally a spectacular view), was a cold, rainy, exhausting slog at the top of which the intrepid hikers could see.... nothing. Seeing as how they characterize this as Marcy having cheated them of a full-fledged victory, the upcoming trip has earned the theme of Revenge on Marcy. Or as I like to think of it, "yikes, what have I gotten myself into?"

The plan, as I understand it at this point, is:

• Five of us going - the 4 Dakota boys plus Phil.
• Renting a minivan.
• Leaving on a Wednesday, driving much of the 6 hours, provisioning along the way, and spending Wednesday night in a motel not too far from the campground.
• Thursday morning drive the remaining distance and set up camp. 
• Have Thursday midday through Sunday night to do whatever. One of the big "whatevers" will of course be a hike to the summit of Mt Marcy. Thinking of that as a 15 mile death march with a lot of vertical climb is probably not approaching it in the proper frame of mind, but the legend has taken hold...
• Drive home Monday.

My only issue to this point is a scheduling snafu on my end. I was not at the get-together where the actual dates were determined. When told what had been picked I said "sounds great". Then a little while later it hit me that Grace's birthday is during the trip. She has not been happy at the prospect of me not being here on that day, which I completely understand. I wouldn't have chosen to have it work out that way, but there isn't anything I can do about it at this point other than to bail out on the trip entirely, which I am not going to do. I have been working on getting her more comfortable with the idea of me being here for her party the prior weekend but missing the actual day, and while she is still not thrilled, she seems to have reconciled herself to the idea. It looks like my Revenge on Marcy will be carrying the additional weight of a little fatherly guilt.

Outdoor Gear

Last year's camping trip with the guys, and my first, was to the Dakotas. This year's trip in June will be smaller in scope, a Wednesday to Monday excursion to the Adirondacks around Mount Marcy in New York. Dave posted a blog entry recently that got me to thinking about the same subject - what gear, if any, do I need to get between now and then?


Campsite camping near a parked minivan loaded with stuff is certainly a different thing than backpacking, and my first round of gear purchasing in 2010 was for the Pinchot Trail backpacking trip in upstate Pennsylvania. Last year I picked up a few more things for the Dakotas, but that exercise was really more about making sure I had the proper quantity of clothing for a 9 day trip with limited laundry options. For that trip, I relied on others for most of what I did not have. Some of that will be the case this time as well; I don't see the need to go out and purchase a 2-man tent as long as Dave has room for me in his again (and by virtue of being able to claim familial prerogative, I hope he will...).

Thinking about what I could potentially buy, it really comes down to a few odds and ends, but nothing of real substance, as the core pieces of my gear are perfectly adequate as is.

• I could use a small camp lantern, the kind that is about the size of your fist and weighs next to nothing, runs on small batteries, and puts out an adequate amount of light for most general purposes.
• A few extra pieces of base layer clothing, even for warmer weather. Hypothermia. Not good.
• I don't think I have a pair of rain pants; I should.

And that paltry list is really about it.

The main thing that I want to do in the way of prep for this trip (other than lose a few pounds that have crept back and get my legs in better hiking shape) is to spend some time looking at cooking options (equipment and recipes) in order to be able to make some camp meals that are a step up from meal after meal of burgers and hot dogs. The idea of buying and taking cooking gear in limited space on a plane was not very practical, but this is a driving trip, so that opens up some possibilities that weren't there before. If nothing else, it gives me something fun to look into...

Good News, Bad News

or... My Wallet May Never Be the Same
As a dedicated Foodie and fairly serious recreational cook, I was pretty pleased when I heard last year that the empty supermarket space less a mile from my house was going to be turned into a Whole Foods Market. Delay after delay kept pushing back the opening date, but after months of waiting, it finally opened a couple days ago.

I knew what to expect, having shopped at them when visiting in-laws who used to live in Providence, but this is the first one anywhere close enough to home to be a threat. And I mean threat in a good way. I am a huge fan of Whole Foods. I love their selection of fresh food and healthy prepared foods. They have a cheese section unlike any other around (my motto is "cheese makes everything better"). Fresh veggie selection is fantastic. I am not a hard core organic guy by any means, but I do respect what they have built themselves to be. But practically speaking this all comes with a price. Hence the threat. My wallet may never be the same.

I went into the store today for the first time to get things for dinner. I wanted to buy everything. I never wanted to have to leave. I exercised what I would consider to be remarkable restraint. But still...

If Pennsylvania weren't so screwed up with the "state store" liquor monopoly and they were allowed to carry wines, it would be heaven. Or more heaven than it already is.

So... Good news. We have a Whole Foods. Bad news.... Keep Eric out of the Whole Foods. At least some of the time.

Cold Wars 2012

Due to a cheerleading competition in Hershey PA tomorrow and Sunday that will be an overnight trip for the family, the extent of my involvement in the Cold Wars convention in Lancaster this year was limited to a day of shopping and visiting with friends today. This was disappointing for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that with the move of Historicon from the Philadelphia area to Fredericksburg Virginia this year, this will be my last show until Fall In in November.

On the way out to the show I made the obligatory slight detour to get a couple of geocaches, and arrived at the venue by about 11:00am. I had no particular plans for the day other than to buy a few things and to wander around. There are enough people I have met at these shows over the years that there are always familiar faces to run into, and I knew Leo would be there. In a way it's kind of a strange thing, but I think I enjoy just wandering around and soaking it all it rather than to actually play in a game, although I do that on occasion as well. I like just browsing and finding things that inspire me to get back to painting, or terrain making, or whatever area of interest is rekindled (or kindled) by something I see.

I did go into this show with a few specific things that I wanted to pick up, and for the most part I stuck to that plan. Things that I wanted (and bought) were:

• A couple of European village building from Miniature Building Authority, and a ruined wall section to expand on the wall set that I have been accumulating over the past few years. These guys are really nice, and make the most beautiful buildings, which are pre-painted and ready to go right out of the box. I still have visions of running a game someday in the not-too-distant future of a medieval siege assault on a town. [See attached pictures of the MBA buildings I purchased]
• A few more bags of Old Glory 25mm figures - Ottoman foot spearmen and archers, Ottoman akincji light cavalry, Seven Years War Prussian heavy artillery, and one bag of medieval french crossbowmen.
• The new edition of Chris Parker's Day of Battle rules, which have been published by On Military Matters. I have become detached from what Chris was doing with this edition of his rules, so I am anxious to read through it and give it a go.
• The pleasant surprise of the show was three units of French 15mm Napoleonic dragoons, professionally painted and reasonably priced. My pickiness generally prevents me from finding anything I like at a reasonable enough price at the flea market, but today I got lucky. And you can never have too many dragoons...

As usual, I have come home inspired to paint, and have cleared everything but a few units of partially painted Ottoman medievals off the painting table. I will sneak some time in with them, and will post pictures soon.

Special Olympics Basketball - University of Delaware

It never ceases to amaze me how busy the girls are these days. And us along with them. Today's main activity, other than Grace's ubiquitous cheer practice in the morning, was Julia's Special Olympics Delaware basketball event at the Bob Carpenter Center at the University of Delaware.

Julia (#65) wants the ball...

Due to the early start of the basketball event, and the overlap with Grace's practice, we had to split up. Amp took Julia, and I did cheer. By the time Julia's first game was done (a loss in which Julia played well and had a great time), Grace was finished. To avoid being stuck in two separate cars, Amp drove back from Newark and picked the two of us up. We grabbed a quick lunch and got back to Newark in plenty of time for Julia's second game.

The team Julia plays on has fun, but generally isn't too competitive. Much to my surprise and delight, a pair of late baskets and a couple of successful free throws had her team pull out a last minute win, 10-8. In this grouping, points are a very precious commodity, and piling up 6 points in the last few minutes of the game was a scoring binge the likes of which I had never seen out of them. Julia was thrilled with the win, and the parents had a good chuckle at the first basketball win some of us had ever seen. Going 1-1 in two games was good for a silver medal, and Julia couldn't have been more proud (or me either).

Many thanks to all of the wonderful volunteers who spend so many hours making these events a success, and to the University of Delaware which is such a terrific host.

Leap Day Geocaching

I haven't done much geocaching in the last few months, and written about it even less, but today was a "must do" in terms of getting a cache, if at all possible. I suspect there are a great many geocachers out there who felt the same way. I am not aggressively going after filling as many empty dates on the calendar as possible, but I am adding a few here and there. Since I began caching less than two years ago, this is my first Leap Day opportunity, and if I failed to get a find today my next opportunity would be in 2016. I hope to be a lot closer to filling in my calendar by then. As it turns out, my having been mostly inactive for a while means that I had a number of newer cache hides that looked like they would be easy to get. With rain  forecast for the afternoon, I decided to stop for one on the way to work. It was as easy as expected, and so with very little effort, I get to check Leap Day off my list...

A Day at the Circus

Julia had gone to the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus this past Thursday evening with a youth group from the Mary Campbell Center. She loved it, came home all excited, and begged Amp and I to take the whole family this weekend before it left town. So that's what we did.

We got four tickets for the 3pm matinee show this afternoon. We got best available seats, which turned out to be one section over and the same row from where Amp and I had Flyers season tickets for 4 years (3 of them in this building).

The show was very similar to what I remember the last time we went several years ago. Clowns, many different kinds of acrobatic acts, lions and tigers, elephants, more acrobatics, trained dogs and cats, and more acrobatics. Two of the more interesting things were me were the horse riding acrobatics and a motorcycle stunt where they had as many as 8 little motorcycles riding around simultaneously inside a small metal spherical cage.

I think we all enjoyed ourselves, to a point, although we liked different parts of it. Amp and I liked the acrobatics and the stunts. In that respect it was a little bit like the kind of thing you see at a Cirque de Soleil show. The kids liked some of that, but liked the animal tricks. That part I could for the most part have done without. Training cats and dogs to do all sorts of wacky stunts is one thing (and that part was entertaining), but I have no interest whatsoever in seeing majestic wild animals like lions, tigers and elephants roll over and pay dead on command, or jump around on little stools. Something about that strikes me as wrong. Or at least unnecessary. And that is without even getting into the whole discussion of whether the animals are treated well or not. The protesters outside every show with their gruesome pictures would have you believe the animals are virtually tortured. I hope that is not true.

One way or another, I don't think we will be going back to the circus anytime soon. It was ok, but we have now done it twice with the kids, and twice is enough for me. And I don't think the kids loved it so much that they will be pushing hard to go again. But you never know...

Painting Table - February

I have been painting again recently after one of my periodic bouts of inactivity, and I was noticing the other night that right at this moment I have to have to oddest collection of stuff that I have ever had in progress on the table at one point in time. I gathered up a few samples of each bunch and took a picture.

On either end of the front row is a medieval knight figure, flanking a few Warhammer fantasy Empire archers. Off to the left are 3 Warhammer 40k Tyranids (science fiction bug-things like in Alien or Starship Troopers). These go along with the Imperial Guard walker at back right. Empire fantasy Knights in blue and red schemes are in the middle. The are sandwiched between pieces of a Vampire army for them to fight - almost completed Dire Wolves in front and assembled but un-primed skeleton cavalry behind. Each of these samplings is the tip of its own iceberg.

Why the fantasy and sci-fi figures all of a sudden? Good question. I'm not really sure what possessed me to take the plunge other than that I have always had wide ranging interests, and that despite the ridiculous pricing, I have always been greatly impressed with the quality of Games Workshop's figures. I have periodically bought a box of this or that over the years, but never really done anything with them other than assemble some of them. For whatever reason, the thing that got me out of my painting doldrums this time around was the decision to pull out some of these figures and paint something completely different. And these are completely different...

Garnet Valley Cheer Challenge - January 28, 2012

Spirit Squad

Since my daughters got involved in cheerleading a couple of years ago, the month of February has become cheer month. Practices occur once or twice a week for extended periods, and pretty much every weekend in February has an event somewhere. This year there are to be events at Garnet Valley, Chichester, Wilmington, Ridley and a big one that is an overnight trip out to Hershey.

The first of these events was on our home turf, the 10th annual Garnet Valley Cheer Challenge. Many of these events tend to be structured the same way, with an earlier session lasting three or four hours that has club teams and girls ranging in age from "ankle biters" at 5 or 6 years old through high schoolers. A later session of another 3 hours or so has school teams from middle schools and high schools. Both Julia's Spirit Squad and Grace's BYC Pee Wees are club squads, and compete in the earlier sessions.

Cartwheeling Grace

I have written before about how touched I am by the reception that Julia's Spirit squad receives every time they perform, and today was no exception. They performed first, received their customary standing ovation, I teared up, and they were presented with a first place trophy for winning their division. As Julia likes to point out, they are undefeated in their careers, never having not come in first. We try to keep Grace from pointing out too loudly that they are the only team in their division. For these kids more so than anyone, it is the effort that counts, and I couldn't be more proud.

Flexible Grace

Grace's Pee Wee division team went fairly early on, and did very very well. Grace has a prominent position in things, and at one point does a solo cartwheel pass in front of the entire rest of the squad as they build a pyramid. Forgive the gushing Dad, but she nailed it. Watching the other 5 or 6 teams in their division, I thought that they had a pretty good chance of finishing second or third, but that first place seemed like a lock for another squad. When the awards were announced at the end of the session, first place went to who I expected (and writing this later, I honestly forget who, but it may have been Drexel Hill). Grace's squad got second place.

Julia, Grace and Coach Emily

A very good start to the month.

Stop and Watch

A topic of conversation came up with some friends (again) recently, and it is one that has come up periodically with different people over the years in similar flavors. Basically, the question is this: what movies will you always stop and watch some of if you flip past them while changing channels on the television. Here is what came readily to mind for me (in no particular order). Most are obvious, but some are less so...

• The Hunt for Red October - Still the best Tom Clancy movie. Played to death on cable but I will watch some every time. "Vassily... One ping. One ping only"
• Terminator 1 or 2. You can't beat liquid bad guy...
• Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The original is of course a classic, but Last Crusade was the best of the lot for me. I choose to pretend the 2nd (Indy and the Incredibly Annoying Kid) never happened.
• Star Wars, but only the 1st or 2nd (episodes 4 and 5). No fighting teddy bears, and the whole second set just never soaked in nearly the same way as the first trilogy. So much CGI stuff was going on that I think they lost the people, and with it a lot of the reason to care. And they didn't have Harrison Ford.
• Raising Arizona. Hilarious lesser known movie.
• The Princess Bride - I had read this book in college shortly before they made the movie of it, and it is both a great movie and a faithful adaptation of an excellent little book. "Inconceivable!" "You keep using that word... I don't think it means what you think it means."
• The Rock - Sean Connery on Alcatraz. I'm not even sure why, as this isn't a great movie... I think it's just the Alcatraz part.
• Any of the Lord of the Rings films. Favorite books from childhood, and fantastic movie versions. Different, but great.
• Roman Holiday or Sabrina - I fall in love with Audrey Hepburn every time.
• Most but not all of the Star Trek movies. I was not a big fan of the original show, but loved the Next Generation. Most of the movies are very good. Older crew is a campy good time, and the NG crew is terrific.
• Gladiator. Strength and honor. "On my command, unleash hell".
• The Usual Suspects - Kevin Spacey alone is worth watching.
• The Firm - Not a big Tom Cruise fan, but this is the best movie adaptation of the best John Grisham book.
• Apollo 13 - A Ron Howard masterpiece.
• Jaws - There are still moments of breathtaking suspense in this for me despite having seen it countless times. "We're gonna need a bigger boat."
• Pulp Fiction - This is an odd one for me, because when I first saw it I thought it was overrated (vastly overrated actually). I don't think so anymore. I do still think Tarrantino as a whole is overrated, but not this film, which I now find to be hypnotic.
• Alien and Aliens - The first was classic suspense, implying mainly but not showing, while the second one will always remind me of the summer in college where I worked the grounds crew at Paxon Hollow Golf Club and the guys repeated lines from this endlessly. I think at one point in time I could recite the movie line for line...
• You rarely see the old 1970's and early 1980's James Bond films shown anymore, but I still love them. You Only Live Twice is still my favorite. But Thunderball, Goldfinger and all the others of that era are all great. "Do you expect me to talk?". "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die."
• A couple of guilty pleasure Ridley Scott films: Kingdom of Heaven and Robin Hood. If you ignore the historical... um... liberties... these are a pair of enjoyable period pieces in an era of history that I love.

..to be Continued...

Dallas, Texas

National Meeting and a little Sightseeing

Texas School Book Depository

I spent the week in Dallas, Texas for an annual national sales meeting, and as much as it pains a Philadelphia Eagles fan to say this, it's a nice city. The meeting was great, the hotel was very nice (the Hilton Anatole), the food was terrific, and I had a chance to see a few historic sites (however briefly). And I also managed to squeeze in 5 geocaches, making Texas a new state for me, my 19th.

Over the course of the week, we ate very well. The food at the hotel was terrific, and we had a couple dinners out at places that I really enjoyed. One was at an upscale Mexican restaurant named Javier's, and another was at a place called Gilley's (after Mickey Gilley, country music star of days gone by). Javier's was fantastic Mexican cuisine (not TexMex tacos and the like), while Gilley's was a touristy Texas roadhouse place complete with line dancing lessons, calf roping (from a fake horse, on a fake calf) and mechanical bull riding. It was pretty hokey, but had a certain charm I guess, and the barbecue was pretty good.

View down Elm Street (Grassy Knoll on right)

The business trip was a Tuesday through Friday meeting that required a flight down on Monday afternoon due to available flight scheduling. The meeting didn't actually start until Tuesday around lunchtime, so that left Tuesday morning mostly free. As any good geocacher would, I had figured out where my hotel was located and what was nearby, and was happy to find that there were a number of geocaches within reasonable walking distance of my hotel. Additionally, the historic district of the city was less than two miles away, and was an easy $10 cab ride away.

I got up at a reasonable hour on Tuesday morning and got a cab to Pioneer Plaza in the historic district. There were two virtual caches there within a couple hundred yards of each other, and virtuals are rare enough that they are worth seeking out. The first one, Rush Hour, was a giant group statue of a cattle drive,  complete with separate life sized statues of a trail boss, his herd, and other cowboys. It was a cool thing to see, and was my first Texas cache. On the other side of the Plaza, beyond a very old cemetery, was Men in the Gray Flannel Suits, a virtual that brought me to a very nice Confederate monument. Being a history buff in general, and a Civil War history buff in specific, I always love it when a cache brings me to a place like this.

Fence corner on the Grassy Knoll

After spending some time looking at the old graves and marveling at the history laid to rest here, I began the three or four tenths of a mile walk to Dealey Plaza. My third and final virtual cache was to be The Grassy Knoll, a monument at the site of the John F Kennedy assassination. I intentionally saved this as the last of the three virtuals I was trying to get in this area because I was afraid (and rightly so) that if I went to this one first I might well just spend all my time wandering around... looking... thinking... taking pictures. I am glad that I went in the order that I did, or that may well have been true.

As a history buff, there are certain places that evoke a very strong feeling, and despite the fact that the JFK assassination happened before I was born, this location was very powerful.

Kill Shot?

Approaching from the southeast, I had great views of the current County Administration building that was the Texas School Book Repository at the time, with the 6th floor windows in plain view. Elm Street itself bends in an "S" curve down the slope from the intersection below the building, passes beneath the slight rise of the Grassy Knoll, and passes under a train bridge before merging into the highway on-ramps on the other side. At the top of the Grassy Knoll is the famous fence corner at the edge of the parking lot behind, the spot from which conspiracy theorists say the actual kill shot on JFK was fired. In the picture I have included as a view from the fence corner, I tried to capture a single vehicle at the exact spot the presidential limo would have been when the obvious shot in the Zapruder film struck. I did a pretty good job, as there is a white "X" painted at that spot on the road, and you can see it just behind the shadow of the SUV in the picture.

I spent about a half hour wandering around, taking pictures, and just soaking in the feeling of the place. It was odd that a place I had never been to before could in some ways seem familiar. I can honestly say that this was one of the coolest places that geocaching has ever brought me to. I would have liked to see this no matter what, but if I were not looking for caches in Dallas while I was here, I probably would not have gone out of my way to come here with only a little time to spend. I am glad I did.

Hiking Log

I have created a page on this blog to list the hikes I have taken, where they were, how long, etc... It's a simple list of when and where I have been. I have a few entries in, and will try to complete it as best I can before being diligent about keeping track going forward.

Eric Johnson at the Colonial Theater - 1/7/12

...continued...
Andy McKee's 40 minute 8 song set ended at around 9:00pm, and Eric Johnson and his three piece band took the stage about a half hour later at 9:30. Johnson was touring with a bass player and a drummer, and that was it. They took the stage. Johnson mumbled a brief "hello"to the audience, and they launched into their first song.

That would be pretty consistent over the set that would last for about an hour and a half. Sometimes Johnson would say something to the audience between songs, but more often than not, one song would just move into the next. Generally, the extent of his banter with the crowd would be along the lines of "how's everybody doing tonight?". But what Johnson may lack in charisma and stage presence, he more than made up for in ability. I have seen some great guitarists live, including Clapton several times, ditto Mark Knopfler, Stevie Ray Vaughn once (Spectrum 1982 opening for the Moody Blues), and Derek Trucks, and I can honestly say that none of them could match EJ purely on speed. The man's fingers simply flew across the neck of his Strat (or Gibson SG some of the time), and perfectly cleanly and with fantastic clear tone. Words cannot really do justice to his technical ability.

The other thing that would become obvious over the course of the evening was the number of different types of music that he could play well; blues, rock, a quick-picking country song off his new album, pure jazz, and covers of a number of different songs. Scattered throughout the set he did Dear Prudence by the Beatles, April Come She Will by Paul Simon, a Coltrane jazz song (Mr. P. C.), and The Wind Cries Mary by Hendrix (as one of the two songs in the encore). And due to the majority of the songs being all instrumental (with many long jams), the show definitely had a different feel to it. Not bad by any means, just different. Most concerts by a musician of this stature would be one known song after another (the "greatest hits on tour" phenomenon); this was a good old fashioned jam fest. Sure, they were songs, but the feel was of three good musicians just airing it out onstage.

My autographed CD...

I have to admit that while liking Eric Johnson, and knowing a little bit about him, he is one of those artists where I have a couple of albums, like him, but for the most part couldn't name many of his songs despite being able to hum or sing along with the ones on the discs I have. So for a few of the songs last night, I recognized them, but couldn't name them for you. The one obvious "have to play it" song is Cliffs of Dover, which was his last song before leaving the stage prior to the encore. It was fantastic, and mostly made up for my disappointment in him not playing SRV. As I said in my post about this upcoming concert, SRV is the one song I would be disappointed if he didn't play. He didn't play it. Oh well. What he did play was astounding. I have left many concerts by my favorite bands saying "that was fantastic", but not many where I have left saying "wow, what was that I just saw?!?!". Last night was one of those. I suspect that I will own most if not all of his available works by the end of the week...

Merry Christmas to me!

[Afterthought and update - A little digging around after writing this post found that some of the names of the songs he did were When the Sun Meets the Sky, Zap, and Dry Ice (by the Electromagnets, an early Eric Johnson band) as the final encore song. Songs I have since positively identified from the newer Up Close album include Fatdaddy, Gem and On the Way, but I am sure there were others as well.]

Opening Act - Andy McKee - 1/7/12

The Colonial Theater
My Christmas present from Dave and his family was tickets for Dave and I to go see Eric Johnson at the Colonial Theater in Phoenixville last night. I love live music, I have always liked Eric Johnson, and the opportunity to see anyone good in a small venue is a treat.

I work right down the street from the venue, and have driven past it hundreds of times, but have never been inside. Having looked at the website linked above, I knew that it is a 658 seat old style movie house, from back in the days when the town movie theater was the only game in town. They tend to be beautiful ornate old buildings (although generally in various states of shabbiness). When we got inside and make our way to our 8th row seats, this proved to be no exception. It was pretty well maintained, and seemed smaller than I would have expected for the seating capacity. There was a small stage with a drum kits, some mikes and some amps, and that's about it. We were perhaps 30 feet from the stage front. (I also picked up an autographed CD/DVD combo of EJ's legendary 1984 Austin City Limits concert on the way through the lobby...he was 29 then, and is 57 now).

As it turned out, Lori bought a single ticket at the last minute and went with us, but would be sitting by herself. She had a seat next to the mixing board at the very back of the floor, but when she went to sit down, and usher told her that they should not have sold that seat to anyone and put her in the front row of the balcony instead (a much better seat).

Opening Act - Andy McKee

I hadn't realized that there was an opening act until Dave had sent me a message earlier in the day, but he knew of the guy, Andy McKee, and had done some YouTube searching to see him. He told me I had to see it to believe it, and he was right. McKee plays what he terms "percussive guitar", meaning that he both plays the acoustic guitar but also uses the body of the guitar as a drum.

Wikipedia calls him a fingerstyle guitarist. He plays with an amazing combination of strumming, plucking, finger tapping, hammering on with the left hand only while the right hand is doing something else entirely, and probably a bunch of techniques I can't even describe. He played about 8 songs in a 40 minute set, and Dave and I were flabbergasted by the end of it. I swear he had a third hand somewhere that we couldn't see. It truly was wizardry. I am a fan. A big fan. He was funny, engaging, and talented in a style of playing that I can honestly say I had never seen before. What a treat.

Check out his biggest YouTube hit "Drifting" here, and another song that I absolutely love, "Rylynn", both of which he played last night.

As an aside, he also played a guitar the likes of which I had never seen. The frets weren't perpendicular to the neck, but fanned out from the middle; the center fret bars were upright, but those nearer the neck leaned toward the neck, and those nearer the body leaned toward the body. He also re-tuned his guitar to all sorts of crazy tunings between each song while bantering with the audience. That's harder to do quickly than it looks.

Next... The Main Event

Eric Johnson - coming soon!

Just a teaser... Guitarist Eric Johnson is scheduled to come to the 658-seat Colonial theater in Phoenixville tomorrow night at 7pm. Dave and I are in the 8th row. Merry Christmas to me, and thanks to Dave and his family for the terrific gift! Expect a full review after the show. If he doesn't do my favorite song of his, I will be disappointed.

If anyone out there in the ether happens to be at the show, stop by and say hi. We'll be the two middle-aged guys who can't dance... (That's probably not specific enough, but it's the best I can do)