Home work

Finished putting the aquamarine and bronze tile up on the kitchen backsplash. Next step will be grouting but that can wait a bit, and in the meantime, it looks better than I'd expected. Also painted the kitchen trim, installed the shade in the office, cleaned this, scrubbed that, fixed the other, and generally scrambled around getting things ready for Gwen to arrive at the house tomorrow.

Gwen!

Huzzah! Gwen arrived safely in DC, where Josh (and roses) met her.

Detroit

The City of Detroit filed for bankruptcy today--not the first municipal bankruptcy lately, but the largest one.

Tiling the Backsplash

Over the past few days I've been chipping the eggshell and brown tiles off the kitchen walls. We've received three boxes of aquamarine-and-bronze glass mosaic tile, and we've gotten mastic and a special order of grout and a trowel with 3/16" vee notches. Diana painted the wall white, so the brown and grey drywall doesn't show through anywhere, and then I sanded it to rough it up a little so the mastic would grab better.

So, all preparations being complete, tonight I started putting up the sheets of tiles. Drag the stove out of the way. Lift off the counter tops. Get out a level and draw vertical lines and horizontal lines for guides. Spread white goo over the wall, making neat lines with the trowel because the tiles are transparent and I don't know if you'll be able see the ridges and furrows in the mastic after I squish the tiles on. The first three sheets go on reasonably well, and I can slide them across the mastic well enough to get them lined up evenly with each other. Number four is a problem, as I have to cut out some tiles to fit over an electrical socket, and when I try to slide the sheet to adjust the position, individual tiles start coming off. It's intensely frustraing, but I eventually get the sheet more or less into place. Then to finish off that size I need a third of a sheet; fortunately these sheets are fifteen tiles across, so it's easy to cut. I stick that on the wall, press everything down, put the stove and countertop  back into place, and call it "done" for the night. It only took about two hours although it was more laborious than I expected.

Carcassonne

Gwen likes Carcassonne, so we got a copy in preparation for her coming to the US. Oddly, I've played it with Canadians and Australians, but never with a group which is primarily Americans.

As it happens, we also received a copy of Trireme. When it arrived in the mail, the conversation went thus:

"Son, I got you something."
"It's A BOX!"
"And you know what's inside it?"
"Wait, there's something INSIDE it?"
"Yes -- another box!"
"IT'S MORE THAN I EVER DREAMED!"

Later, Josh posted: "Got a copy of Trireme in the mail today...SOON THE WORLD WILL BE SHATTERED BENEATH THE CORVII OF ROME!...I mean, uh, "thanks Dad".

Murat's Charge

Among the other stuff happening today, Josh and I got an interesting game of Command and Colors Napoleonic in today, using the Murat's Charge scenario. It was notable because, as Josh observed, I played the Russians as if they were French, and he played the French as if they were Russians.

More books

Picked up Neal Stephenson's Reamde, which reminds me rather more of Snow Crash and particularly Cryptonomicon than of Anathem or the Baroque Cycle, which is good.

Also got Orson Scott Card's Empire, just to support him.