I am not dead

It's been some time since I last updated the blog. It's not that I haven't been busy—it's that I've been too busy. Work is a burden. My group at work is about as organized as a swarm of blue-light special shoppers at K-Mart. We seem to rush from crisis to crisis with too little time to actually do our core work. After several months of trying to stay on top by working 12-hour days and weekends, I've given up. I need to find something else to do in the company, or elsewhere.

I have been gaming somewhat. My friend Rick and I have a semi-regular Sunday boardgame date. We started by playing a lot of Conflict of Heroes and have now branched out into other things like Race for the Galaxy and an interesting title called Age of Napoleon by Phalanx Games. I've also had a few boardgaming sessions at The Panzer Depot where we played Race for the Galaxy, Command & Colors Ancients, and some Columbia block games.

Boardgames are a nice pastime when you don't have enough time, or energy, to set up a miniatures game. I'm eagerly awaiting the release of some of Academy Games' next releases for the Conflict of Heroes series. Most anticipated is the the Price of Honor - Poland 1939 module, which adds more early war armor, like Pz Is and the Polish tankettes, but also cavalry. I'm interested to see how these work in the system. The link on Board Game Geek shows that a lot of the design is done--you can see the full counter sheets and maps. However, I'm not seeing much about its release date other than "2010," which still has more than half its course to run.

Next weekend is another Kampfgruppe Commander game at TPD. I'm not running it, so I'm not sure what the scenario will be. I will bring my camera and take pictures for the blog. I promise.

Enfliade! 2010 is coming up. I've been the convention director for the last several years, as well as taking part in planning it for many years before I was director. I resigned from the directorship after last year and for some reason this year I find myself with such low enthusiasm for going. I realize that part of it is burnout from work and now that I've resigned myself to looking elsewhere, I feel much better. So, I've made my pre-registration for the convention and booked my hotel room after a long spate of dithering.

I'm also reading more. As I have mentioned, my cats are antiliterary, but we've come to a kind of détente in recent months. The excellent Warrior of Rome series by Harry Sidebottom got me going strong and I decided to fill the time waiting for the next book in the series (due in July!) by re-reading Collen McCullough's excellent Masters of Rome series. It's every bit as engaging the second time around as the first.

Meanwhile, I've got contacts at work helping me find another position to escape to. I've had my fill of where I am and I know there must be something much more rewarding ahead.