Grand Canyon

On this day in 1919, much of the area around the Grand Canyon was designated as a National Park.

Hypocrisy

Remember when every liberal was horrified at how the Patriot Act trampled on our civil rights? I told a friend of mine "The Dems are against it now, but if they get in power, they'll suddenly decide it's not all that bad after all." Sure enough, the extension passed today.

Indian History

We don't hear much about Indian history before the Honorable East India Company took over, but I'm starting to read about the rise of the Maratha Empire, Anglo-Mysore wars, and the Anglo-Maratha wars.

Now what I need is a wargame that covers the period.

AAR: Yazoo River, 1862

Three showed for play of IRONCLADS scenario 5 "First Encounter". This is an 1862 action with the rebel ram Arkansas steaming down the Yazoo river in Mississippi, meeting three Yankee warships: the armored Carondelet, a smallish wooden ram Queen of the West and the tiny tinclad Tyler. It is an intense and bloody action on a very narrow river with lots of shoals and ramming possibilities--some points of the river are only two or three spaces wide. The Confederate goal is to simply get Arkansas off the downriver map edge; the Union goal is stop it. We played the scenario twice.

First play through was with me playing Carondelet, Bob taking the two wooden vessels, and Ryan as the Arkansas. The Union send Queen of the West to lead, letting her heavily armored bow soak up Confederate shot. This worked up to the point where Arkansas rammed and crippled her. Carondelet gave Arkansas a ram in return, doing minor damage but slowing her. The rebel ship pushed through and moved downriver, with Carondelet and Tyler in a stern chase, chipping away at the Confederate armor. Tyler was badly damaged by return fire and was unable to close enough to get a decisive shot. however, through some good gunnery and several stern rams, Carondelet managed to put Arkansas under at the last minute. Hard fought and very close. Ryan said he misplayed his gun ammo type--you want solid shot for attacking the Carondelet and shell for the two wooden ships, but to do that you have to be able to guess which guns are going to be able to fire at which targets.Just a couple of turns of the right ammo type could easily have disabled Carondelet's bow guns, which would likely have let Arkansas get away.

In the second play through, I took the rebel ironclad. I decided not to waste time with fancy maneuvering, but to rely on my heavy ram to just plow through them if need be. The Union again led with Queen of the West, which Ryan maneuvered quite well; he forced me into a bow-to-bow ram, which did a lot of damage to me although it crippled Queen. I sank her with gunfire while Carondelet came around the river bend. Carondelet attempted to ram me, but excellent Confederate gunnery (i.e., really good dice) at point blank range shot off her ram and punched holes her hull, resulting in a boiler explosion; she took on water and grounded herself on a shoal to avoid sinking. At the same time, more excellent gunnery (more good dice) set Tyler ablaze; I followed up with a ram and put her under. Arkansas had taken quite a bit of self-inflicted damage from the rams and was low in the water, but she was still mobile and able to steam safely downriver to victory.

Two great games in about 4 hours of play. I'm not much into US Civil War history, but the maneuvering constraints of a narrow river and fast current make this a really interesting scenario.

Josh departure

Josh is off to Australia.

He had an art project to finish from last semester, and spent a little too much time in December on Call of Duty rather than his actual duty, so he was up till around 4am Thursday morning with paintbrush and charcoal. We got up at 6am, got on the road at 6:40, and made the trip in three hours. With DC traffic, that trip is just as likely to take five hours, as it did for our drive back. Thankfully, we got there in time to meet Josh's professor and turn in his project. Then we packed all the paintings and drawings back in the car, waited while Josh visited with friends--Diana took a nap in the car, I tried to finish reading my new John Ringo book, Live Free or Die--and thence to the airport.

He was booked on a Qantas flight, which would have been operated by American, which had cancelled the flight and re-booked Josh on United, which said that extra bag will be $200, please. We pointed out that our ticket was with Qantas and Qantas had said it would be $135, but the ticket agent said "my plane, my rules". Took Josh to the "ticketed passengers only" point, exchanged hugs, and took a couple of pictures as he headed to the gate. Then Diana and I headed home, quite slowly thanks to the aforementioned DC traffic. I could have, while "driving", read more of Live Free or Die, if I hadn't selflessly given it to Josh.

Josh called a few minutes ago from LAX to say that he'd arrived and found the gate for the trans-Pacific leg. He'll be leaving at 11:45pm on Thursday, Los Angeles time, and arriving at 7:45am Saturday, Brisbane time, so he's missing Friday (although from our point of view, he arrives at 4:45pm Friday).

edit: He called via Skype on Saturday night (our time) to say that he has arrived, gotten unpacked, met people, and had to leave in a minute to go play Australian football.

Absolute zero

Among other things, this article answers "where is the coldest place in the Solar System?", and the answer is not what you probably think.

Country Clubs

Why is it called a "country club" when the most country-like aspect is the golf course? Why not add steeplechase and polo and skeet shooting or pheasant hunting--ideally, all at the same time? "Fore!" blam! "I say, Carruthers, good shot...what's that? One must play each fragment of the golf ball separately?" I can see the fox hunters in a melee with the polo riders, with occasional golf balls taking a toll of both sides.