I never did like it all that much and one day the axe just fell

I'm "pursuing new ventures," which is another way of saying I'm out of work. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I spent the last two years working under the worst manager in my professional experience and hated every minute of it. I should have bolted a long time ago, but I had some stubborn belief that I would come through it and be vindicated if I worked harder and longer. A few too many months of 12-hour days and weekends that went by without notice left me burned out and resentful. My girlfriend told me six months ago that my job was sucking the life out of me and I often thought of that passage in Hamlet:

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on’t! O fie! ’tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!

My enjoyment of life suffered, especially my hobbies, and I saw no end in sight, no bright spot indicating that the end of the dark tunnel was nigh. When the news came Wednesday morning that I was being let go, I felt as if the weight of the world had lifted from my shoulders.

Working for my ex-company had its rewards. My first year there was with a great manager and great coworkers on a great team. The pay was good, the benefits were terrific, and the opportunities for growth seemed almost unlimited. Then the re-org struck. The product I worked on was cut, most of the product team was laid off, and the writing team I was on got re-orged into a different product. I wasn't long enough in grade to transfer to another position; besides, I thought I could stick it out. Plus, the company went through layoffs, which limited a lot of internal mobility.

It didn't take long to see what a dysfunctional group we'd been dumped into. The management was a snake-pit. My first glimpse of that came in a large team meeting when the group manager yelled out from the back of the room to denigrate someone doing a presentation about a product feature. No matter what, it is never acceptable for a manager to humiliate a report in front of his/her peers. In my new team, that was SOP. Upper management seemed to have no other reason for meetings that to rip apart lower management. The product ship date slipped and slipped and slipped. Upper management was replaced by other versions of their snakelike selves. The week before last, I witnessed the new group manager shouting, "Do you want to fuck with me! Go ahead, fuck with me! Bring it on!" to someone (unseen) in an elevator. The product is still slipping...

My new manager had the art of creating chaos out of every project she touched. She created churn in my projects and then blamed me for the churn. I talked to HR; I talked to my manager's manager. Some sympathy and support there—but nothing tangible. I was told I was good at what I did, no doubt, I was just on the wrong team or had the wrong manager (ya think?). My manager's manager's best advice was to jump ship, get a contracting gig, and await an opportunity for a full-time position in another product group. Fair advice, in retrospect, but not too comforting. Not vindicating. As my girlfriend says, I'm a stubborn man. Obdurate.

So now the universe is my playground (until the money runs out). I'm looking for contract work and a chance to get back into the company full time doing something I will love, something that provides an outlet for creativity, growth, experimentation, collaboration, satisfaction—everything, in short, that my old job lacked.

I'm also looking into options for creating a blog that I can monetize for either extra income or my whole income some day. If I have any talent at all, it's typing out persiflage on a keyboard. How do I make money at it?

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.

Old school wargaming: Smackdown in Seleucia II

We played our second game of WRG 4th edition ancients today. The rules are long in the tooth, first appearing in 1973, but the cast of gamers was even longer in the tooth. Bill Stewart brought his beautifully-painted Seleucid army to face my third-century Romans (augmented by some of Bill's Camillan Romans as ersatz legionaries). On bill's side was Rich Knapton, who was seeking to redeem himself after his phalanxes routed the first time we played. The other Roman players were Bob Mackler and Dick Larson.

We set up terrain about as haphazardly as we could, diced to see who would choose their side to deploy, and then set up our forces. On the Roman side, Dick commanded the cavalry, included my just-completed dromedarii unit. Bob commanded the center legionary units, the bolt-shooters, and a unit of lanciarii. I commanded another two smaller legionary units plus the auxiliary troops.

Roman mounted wing: dromedarii in front with catafractarii and equites behind

The Seleucids were divided with Rich having the two "common" phalanxes, a unit of cataphracts, some psiloi, the light cavalry, and an elephant. Bill commanded the argyraspides (a.k.a. "silver shields"), a unit of cataphracts and another partially-cataphract cavalry unit, the peltasts, and more psiloi.

Rich came up with an idea to use command markers that we would use each turn to mark what we would do. It worked OK, but WRG ancients really don't allow for changing your orders each turn and we had a lot of paper cubes on the table, as the pictures show.

Turn one saw Dick leading with his camels against Rich's cataphracts. It was a bold move—but doomed to fail. Even disordered against smelly camels, Rich's cataphracts could hurt the unarmored dromedarii enough to send them running, especially when they were supported by an elephant.

The dromedarii labor in vain against bigger, heavier opponents

In the center, Rich slowly advanced with his two phalanxes screened by his light psiloi, while Bob did the same with his legions.

The armies advance

On my side, Bill moved aggressively forward with his peltasts and cataphracts. He also ran his light javelinmen towards Bob's bolt-shooters. The bolt-shooters' fire was about as desultory it gets and Bill's light infantry just ran them over, leaving a nice hole in the Roman line.

The Roman line breached by Seleucid light troops

Meanwhile, my auxilia was mixing it up with Bill's peltasts. The first round was in my favor and I pushed the Greeks back. However, subsequent rounds did not go my way and the peltasts eventually wore me down until I routed away.

Roman auxilia push back the Seleucid peltasts for one glorious round before getting their butts kicked

In addition, Bill sent his cataphracts against my strongest legionary unit. In the initial round of kontos versus pilum, the kontos won, pushing me back in disorder. In subsequent rounds, I got pushed back three more times, which finally broke me–at which point we realized that the final three push-backs shouldn't have occurred because the cataphracts, having to resort to hand weapons after the initial charge, weren't inflicting enough casualties to cause a push back ("more that inflicted and at least one per figure"). Without being pushed back, the legionaries would have recovered their order and started pushing back the cataphracts, who would likely have rallied back to charge again later. C'est la guerre, c'est la stupidité. We weren't going to turn back the game three turns to rectify things, so we just wrote the two units off.

Cataphracts versus legionaries

On Dick's flank, the Roman catafractarii got to grips with Rich's cataphracts. This contest continued through the game. Neither side did enough casualties to push back the other, so they just sat in a disordered scrum while events moved around them. The Roman equites fought against Rich's elephants and light horse with the result of getting routed off the board.

Events in the center started looking grim. Bill's argyraspides smacked into Bob's rear legionary unit while it was changing formation. In disorder, the legonaries were helpless and routed immediately. Bob's elite lanciarii got bested by Rich's vile psiloi scum and his remaining legionary unit was suddenly facing two phalanxes.

Things are looking bad for Rome

But then THE MIRACLE happened. Beset two to one, Bob rolled high for his random factor and Rich rolled low for both his phalanxes. In the ensuing mêlée, Bob routed both phalanxes in the first round and fortune smiled on Rome for the first time in the game.

Triumphant legionaries see the backs of their beaten foe

While Bob was restoring our center, I charged my second legionary unit into Bill's cheeky psiloi, who had broken the hole in our line by wiping out the bolt-shooters. Caught in a quandry about whether to run or stand, he stood rather than evade through his argyraspides and disorder them. The legionaries broke the psiloi in the first round and they scurried off through the phalanx, which remained stationary to avoid disorder.

Next, my pursuing legionaries charged into the flank of Bill's argyraspides while his previously unengaged cavalry charged me in the flank. I looked like curtains for my legionaries, but the hung in for the first round.

Legionaries in an ugly scrum

Meanwhile, Dick had reformed the dromedarii and run them around to harass Rich's fleeing phalanxes, which by now had no hope of recovering and returning to the fight. At this point we called the game. Bob's other legionary unit had recovered and was ready to throw its weight into the battle on my flank. It was a qualified Roman win.

Post mortem

It was great playing WRG ancients again. I have always been a huge fan and this project has been a lot of fun.

We definitely need to play more to get more experience. I used to play WRG 5th edition ancients rules, Bill, Bob, and Dick used to play 6th edition, and Rich's story keeps changing (I think he started with 3rd edition). The upshot is that none of us played 4th edition and even the versions we played were played back in antiquity. (I think my last game of WRG 5th edition was played sometime in 1979 when I still had pimples.)

Our inexperience lead to some frustration, but we're all agreed to play again in the near future. I've got more painting to do...

My valentine

Lorrin doesn't do Valentine's Day. She's a contrarian in most ways, so this is no surprise. She brought me chocolates last night, contrary to expectations, I brought her nothing as instructed–but perhaps not expected? She thinks I'm too rational, I think she's too emotional. I'm evenly tempered and mostly imperturbable, she has ups and downs followed by downs and ups (in no particular order). She's vegan–apart from eating milk chocolate; I'm vegan–apart from eating meat (sometimes). I'm an American and proud of it; she's a scatterling (with Australian citizenship) and proud of it. She's a night-owl; I'm a basket case by 10:30, but we both love sleeping in. We love cats, which is how we met. We love each other's cats. We enjoy Scrabble, although she hates losing, but I love winning so it evens out.

Relationships involve challenges and compromises in every way, ours is no exception. But what I gain from having her in my life is immeasurably more than the trade-offs having her requires. I am still obdurate, as she will attest; she is still high maintenance, which I think she enjoys. All difficulties notwithstanding, I am a better man with her and, I hope, improving. Whatever life throws my way, I hope to meet it with Lorrin by my side.

So to you, my valentine, a bit of the bard:

When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,

Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least,

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Happy Valentine's Day, sweetie.

Book report: Harry Sidebottom's Fire in the East

I have a strange relationship with historical fiction. Being a lover of history, I should naturally be drawn to it, but I often view the relationship between history and historical fiction as I do the relationship between history or literature and the movies that are based on them. There is so much distortion that I feel repelled by the fear that any book (or movie) based on history will take so many liberties as to render the experience of reading (or viewing) it painful, rather than the delight it should be. Still, historical fictions rank among my favorite books ever. Robert Graves' Count Belisaurius, I, Claudius, and Claudius the God are first rate. Gore Vidal's Julian, Burr, and Lincoln are also terrific. Rosemary Sutcliffe's "young adult" novels such as Eagle of the Ninth and The Lantern Bearers are particular favorites. I've also enjoyed some of Bernard Cornwell's series, which I see more as fictions set in historical times than historical fictions. (I may be the only one to see that distinction, but there it is.)

Nevertheless, I tend to read much more non-fiction than fiction and, as I've posted before, the cats, being antiliterary, allow me to read precious little in any case. When a fiction title comes across that interests me, I'm in a quandary about how to allocate my limited reading time.

I got Fire in the East on a friend's recommendation. The novel is set in the Roman empire during the latter half of the 3rd c. AD (257, to be precise). This alone was compelling because I have a particular interest in 3rd c. Rome, the "time of crisis." But at the back of my mind was the worry that I would only be disappointed. I started reading the book last Fall and got just more than a third of the way through before I set it aside. Not out of disgust, certainly, but because other things crowded it out until a week ago when I got re-inspired to read it. I started back at the beginning and couldn't put it down.

So, after all this long introduction, I have to say that the book is excellent.

The author, Dr. Harry Sidebottom, is a distinguished scholar of classical history. As such, he has a greater feel for accuracy than a non-specialist would master. This shows in much of the detail he presents. Descriptions of Roman arms and armor, for example, are correct for the period. (I read one novel set on the Rhine frontier in the 4th c. that unforgivably described arms and armor for the Romans that was anachronistic by almost 200 years!)

The book is a fictionalization of the fall of the Roman frontier fortress of Dura-Europos (Called Arete in the book), which sat on the Euphrates river at the extremity of Rome's eastern frontier. The city was taken in 257 by the Sassanid king Shapur I and completely destroyed, never being reoccupied. The remains of the city were only rediscovered in 1920 by a patrol of British soldiers. Sidebottom's narrative of the siege and various Sassanid assaults on the walls is gripping. The fictionalized events of the siege are still closely tied to the archeological evidence for the siege, such as the mines, counter-mines, ramp, and collapsed towers. His story of the final fall through treachery is plausible without disagreeing with any known facts or the archeological evidence. (There is no written account extant of the fall of Dura-Europos, which is why its rediscovery took 16 centuries, and why it's fertile ground for story-telling.)

The main character of the story, Marcus Clodius Ballista, is based on the very slightly known figure Balista (or Callistus) who was Dux Ripae, commander of the river defenses, on the desert frontier at this time. Ballista is portrayed as a Romanized Angle, regarded as no better than a barbarian by some of the men he commands, who has risen to high command and been entrusted by the emperors Valerian and Gallienus with holding back the Sassanids while they tend to other urgencies on the empire's vulnerable extended frontiers.

It's not giving anything away to say that the city falls in the end, but the story and characters are vibrant and compelling so that en route to the story's dénouement, you are entertained and engaged by the narrative and the complex relationships. The story ends with enough loose ends that you are left eager to hear the story continue and have the ends tied up in the following books.

Fire in the East is the first of a series of three novels following Marcus Clodius Ballista's adventures in Rome's time of crisis. The next book–on order from the UK–is King of Kings, which covers Ballista's involvement in the events following the fall of Arete (Dura-Europos) and leading to the emperor Valerian's failed campaign against the Sassanids. The third novel, Lion of the Sun (to be published July, 2010), continues the story in 260.

Beloved Toto

Lorrin's excellent cat Toto died yesterday. He had stopped eating altogether on Monday and after a series of vet visits and an ultrasound, the worst was confirmed: he was wracked with cancer. The prognosis for his recovery was not good. He was on I.V. as well as being force fed with a syringe in order to build up his strength, but he seemed to slip farther away with every day. On Friday morning, Lorrin made the hard decision to euthanize him.

Toto had been with Lorrin since she found him as an emaciated abandoned kitten wandering in an industrial park in Sydney, Australia. At the time she found him, he was all tail, paws, and ears. He later grew into the ears and (somewhat) into the tail, but his paws remained outsized.

He was the stateliest, most serene cat I've ever known. He would walk into a room with his tail high as if he were an emperor out taking the air. But he wasn't aloof and imperious; despite the stern, eagle-eyed stare he had mastered since his youth, his calmness and gentleness revealed his true nature. He was friendly and loving, always had a purr for you, and he possessed a most zen-like character.

His loss is heartbreaking. Lorrin is devastated and her other cat, Jasper, is confused about Toto's sudden illness and disappearance. I will miss seeing him whenever I go to Lorrin's. He liked me and would sit beside me or on my lap and purr whenever I was there. I loved him and regret that he remains only in fond memories.

To Lorrin, he was all the world. She had him for 16 years, most of her adult life, on two continents. He was her pole star amid the tumults of life and her companion in its triumphs and joys.

Goodbye, Mr. Toto. You were a great-hearted and loving cat, a prince among your species. We will remember you fondly.

Holiday board gaming

I managed to get a few board games in over the holidays, which is always a treat. I have so many board games and I play too few.

Men of Iron

Today's game was Men of Iron – Volume I: The Rebirth of Infantry from GMT Games. This came out in 2005 and I've had it sitting in my closet unpunched for almost five years. It looked interesting back when I bought it and now I'm eager to play some more. Dave Schueler and I played the Battle of Courtrai scenario. I've had an interest in this battle since I read about it in Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror about 30 years ago. The scenario was one of the reasons I bought the game in the first place, so it was a nice treat to play it at last.

The historical battle, fought in 1302, was one of those affairs lost by the side who should have won if only their commanders weren't arrogant, impetuous, and stupid—in other words, French nobles. An insurrection in Flanders brought a French force of mounted men at arms and footsoldiers commanded by Robert, Comte d'Artois to the city of Courtrai (modern Kortrijk in Belgium) to hand out some whup-ass to a force composed mainly of burghers with pikes and a curious little weapon called the godendag. The Flemish burghers, and a small handful of knights fighting on foot, were commanded by William of Jülich.

Flemish burghers with godendags

Up until this time, the mounted knight was the über-weapon of the medieval world. From the time of Charlemagne, heavily armored men on horseback pretty much kicked butt on whatever poor, footslogging oiks they came across. William and his men, who were poor, footslogging oiks, knew this and they prepared the ground in front of their position with ditches filled with water from the Groeninghebeke, a small stream that ran across the front of the Flemish position. The idea was that the mounted knights would be hard-pressed to get any impetus against the Flemish infantry because they would be disordered by the rough, marshy ground.

In a rash act of good sense, Robert sent his footsoldiers in first, supported by Genoese crossbowmen. These troops began to make way against the Flemish line, which created all kinds of panic among the French knights who feared that the glory of winning the battle may fall to their social inferiors. To avert this looming disaster, Robert recalled his footsoldiers and let his mounted knights charge in—right into the ditches where their impetus was checked and Flemish burghers with godendags (the word means "good day") bashed their brains in. The Flemish were under orders not to take prisoners and about 1000 knights were killed in this inglorious episode of the battle. Robert was among the fallen, as were most of the French leaders. The rest of the French army took to their heels and the Flemish chased them for miles.

One interesting note about the battle is that many of the slain knights wore golden spurs they had won in tournaments. The Flemish stripped these from the corpses and nailed them to the altar of the Church of Our Lady in Courtrai. The battle was ever afterwards called "The Battle of the Golden Spurs." The spurs remained on the altar for 80 years until another French army won a battle at Roosebeke (1382), near Courtrai, and in the aftermath of their victory, burned Courtrai and took back their lost spurs.

The game Dave and I played had a different result. I played the French, less stupidly than Robert d'Artois, and managed to break through with my infantry and finally made a ditch-free gap that my mounted knights could exploit. It was touch and go for a while and I seemed to be alternately on the verge of winning and losing. It pretty much came down to the wire until Dave's Flemish reached their break point. The only casualty of note was John of Renesse, a Flemish leader, who perished in an early stage of the game. I lost a lot of infantry, but only two out of 12 men at arms units. In this scenario, Flemish units eliminated or forced to retire by mounted men at arms count double for determining the break point. The rule is supposed to encourage the French player to "do a Robert" and risk his men at arms who face greater risk of loss because of the ditches as well as risk being unhorsed by the nasty godendags.

I think the system works pretty well. Richard Berg, the game designer, made a generic system that can be applied to several historical battles with scenario-specific rules. The activation system offers some interesting choices. A player can keep activating commands and moving as long as he rolls the commander's activation number. Unless he passes, fails an activation, or has an activation seized from him by his opponent, there is no structural reason in the rules why a player can't just keep moving and fighting. Of course, odds being what they are, a player will fail activation at some point. But the trick for the opponent is whether to challenge a new activation or to hope for a failed activation, which will allow you to activate a command yourself. A failed challenge gives your opponent another free activation, but if your opponent is on a roll with good dice, he will be able to keep exploiting any successes, or mitigating any disasters before you can do anything to react. So, you may feel you need to jump in and take the initiative back.

The Volume I bit of the game title makes it sound like more are coming (or might have come in the intervening years since the game was published). Oh, alas. This game covers the battles of Courtrai, Falkirk, Bannockburn, Crecy, Poitiers, and Najera. I hoped that another volume would cover some of the later Hundred Years Wars battles as well as some of the Swiss wars of the period. However, GMT does have a volume covering the Crusades on its P500 list. As with anything on the P500 list, this game could be years in coming...

Conflict of Heroes

Another game played over the holidays was Conflict of Heroes: Storms of Steel – Kursk 1943. This game is the second volume of the Conflict of Heroes series from Academy Games (Uwe Eickert). This volume introduces a refined activation system that makes for better game flow and also better ability to react to your opponent's actions. As the title indicates, the scenarios are set during the Kursk battles of July, 1943 (Tiger tanks!). Dave and I played the Black Knights of the Steppe scenario today after Men of Iron. He was German and I was Russian. It was a tight game, but in the end I managed to salvage a win. I played the scenario once before as the German and lost. It's a tough win for them.

A few weeks back we played the Wounded Tiger scenario. I was German and Dave Russian. I lost the immobilized Tiger to an aggressive attack that managed to come around to my rear and get an attack at point blank range. (It's like Oddball said in Kelly's Heroes, "A Tiger has only one weak point; that's its ass. You gotta hit it point blank and you gotta hit it from behind.") Unluckily for Dave, he couldn't get the rest of my tanks and the Pz VI and Pz IIIs wreaked havoc on his T-70s and T-34s—much to both our surprise.

This series is excellent and I hope Uwe continues to add more titles. The rumor I hear is that the next volume will move from the steppes of Russia to the jungles of Guadalcanal.

Richard III

The third game that got some play over the holidays was the latest block game from Columbia, Richard III: The Wars of the Roses. I have a longstanding interest in the WotR, so this was a nice title to see coming. I played my beloved Yorkists and Dave played the nasty Lancastrians. The game is played in three "campaigns" that roughly approximate the three main historical phases of the wars. I managed to win the kingship—for Richard of York—in the first campaign and held it through the other two. No paper crown for his severed head this time around. It looked uncertain on several occasions, Dave blasted me in several battles with those newfangled cannon things, but I managed to hang on through every battle, even if I had to run from a few to avoid annihilation. This game is fun and playable and worth more playing time.