Whew ... made it back. Totally exhausted at the moment, will try to write something more substantive tomorrow. But, a couple of things in the mail:
1. A $50 ticket for turning right on red in Morristown (this is legal in Arkansas, and some states, but apparently not in W Virginia).
2. Letters for both of us from immigration, saying we'd been approved for our Green Cards!!! Woo hoo!!! Finally beat the bureaucracy :)
Now, off to sleep some more
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Lancaster
Whew, made it here.
Hit the road yesterday at 7 a.m. and finished in Harrisonburg VA at 11:30 pm, stayed the night in a nice enough hotel, and hit the road this morning at 9:30, arriving about 1 p.m. Registered at the con, had lunch, crashed out for the afternoon, then got up at 7:30 and went for dinner with Ray - Cat was still too tired & stayed in the hotel, so I brought her shrimp & beer from Red Lobster after we'd eaten.
Mind you, getting there was a chore - Ray was navigating (he;s been here before), so we spent an hour stumbling around Lancaster which - believe me - ain't that big. Did get to see an Amish buggy & horse tho, while we were lost: picturesque, but .... ekk, horse manure :((
Terribly afraid this whole trip was a collossal mistake: I'm still feeling beaten & bruised from the trip, I just dont have the resilience or energy for this punishing travel. Not sure I'm even going to play at the tournament tomorrow or Saturday. Horribly tired and depressed. Oh well, have to just sleep on it, we still have to do the journey back.
Hit the road yesterday at 7 a.m. and finished in Harrisonburg VA at 11:30 pm, stayed the night in a nice enough hotel, and hit the road this morning at 9:30, arriving about 1 p.m. Registered at the con, had lunch, crashed out for the afternoon, then got up at 7:30 and went for dinner with Ray - Cat was still too tired & stayed in the hotel, so I brought her shrimp & beer from Red Lobster after we'd eaten.
Mind you, getting there was a chore - Ray was navigating (he;s been here before), so we spent an hour stumbling around Lancaster which - believe me - ain't that big. Did get to see an Amish buggy & horse tho, while we were lost: picturesque, but .... ekk, horse manure :((
Terribly afraid this whole trip was a collossal mistake: I'm still feeling beaten & bruised from the trip, I just dont have the resilience or energy for this punishing travel. Not sure I'm even going to play at the tournament tomorrow or Saturday. Horribly tired and depressed. Oh well, have to just sleep on it, we still have to do the journey back.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Historicon
Well, we're off to Historicon shortly, so I imagine blogging will be spasmodic at best, for the next 10 days.
Actually, we're off to Memphis tomorrow for our interview with Immigration, to get our green cards, then we drive back. Ray is driving over from Oklahoma on Tuesday night, then we all set off together on Weds morning, early. (why drive back from Memphis only to repeat that journey on Weds? Well, the cost of overnight accommodation, primarily).
It's about a 1200 mile drive each way, so the plan is to drive around 900-1000 miles on Wednesday, find a local motel to crash out in, then complete the journey Thursday morning: with any luck, that leaves Thursday afternoon to register, and go gawk at the shops & tournament prep.
Friday is the Theme (Dark Ages) FOG tournament, and Saturday is the Open FOG tournament - each 3 x 3.5 hour games, pretty damn hard work. I dont have anything scheduled for Sunday, tentatively plan to go sightseeing with Cat for the day: and we have friends, Tiffana & Pete, driving from New Jersey to meet us (for the first time), for dinner on Sunday. Monday we drive back (not sure if we'll break the trip or try to do it in one hit), then Tuesday & Weds I've got off work to sit around home and recuperate :)
I'm fairly nervous about it, as the physical demands are quite high, both in terms of driving, and gaming - 3 games in a day is tough, and doing it 2 days in a row may be too much for me, have to wait and see.
That's all I've got at the moment: need to go pack toy soldiers! I'll try and write something more later, if I have time & energy.
Actually, we're off to Memphis tomorrow for our interview with Immigration, to get our green cards, then we drive back. Ray is driving over from Oklahoma on Tuesday night, then we all set off together on Weds morning, early. (why drive back from Memphis only to repeat that journey on Weds? Well, the cost of overnight accommodation, primarily).
It's about a 1200 mile drive each way, so the plan is to drive around 900-1000 miles on Wednesday, find a local motel to crash out in, then complete the journey Thursday morning: with any luck, that leaves Thursday afternoon to register, and go gawk at the shops & tournament prep.
Friday is the Theme (Dark Ages) FOG tournament, and Saturday is the Open FOG tournament - each 3 x 3.5 hour games, pretty damn hard work. I dont have anything scheduled for Sunday, tentatively plan to go sightseeing with Cat for the day: and we have friends, Tiffana & Pete, driving from New Jersey to meet us (for the first time), for dinner on Sunday. Monday we drive back (not sure if we'll break the trip or try to do it in one hit), then Tuesday & Weds I've got off work to sit around home and recuperate :)
I'm fairly nervous about it, as the physical demands are quite high, both in terms of driving, and gaming - 3 games in a day is tough, and doing it 2 days in a row may be too much for me, have to wait and see.
That's all I've got at the moment: need to go pack toy soldiers! I'll try and write something more later, if I have time & energy.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Friedrich, again
Still reading Friedrich's bio, and just come to the battles of Rossbach and Leuthen. Wow ... I mean, just ... wow. Rossbach of course I knew the outlines of, and Leuthen I'd heard of, and both were of course famous victories for Freddy, but to see them in detail, back to back, I'm just stunned.
Fascinating, fought just a month apart, and such comprehensive, devastating victories: and they work almost as bookends, with Rossbach such a sweeping, comprehensive cavalry victory, and Leuthen a crushing infantry victory.
The one thing I hadn't appreciated, with either of them, is just the odds facing the Prussians - at Rossbach they attacked with 21,000 facing a French/Imperial army of 45,000 (admittedly 10,000 were Imperial troops of no military value to speak of), and at Leuthen 30,000 against 61,000 Austrians ... two to one odds in both cases, and he never hesitated a moment to launch an attack. I don't know if I'd ever be that bold.
The funny thing is, when I look at the French manouevres at Rossbach, it actually looks like Soubise was aiming at Friedrich's Leuthen manouevre (indeed his favorite manouevre) - the attack en echelon on his open right. Unfortunately for them, instead of having some low hills to hide the fact of their columns turning to the flank, they were on an open bare hill, and Friedrich was the one with low hills to hide his manouevring, so their columns went head-first into his front, rather than outflanking it. Good thinking guys, some work on the execution still needed.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Just starting to plan our excursion to Historicon in a couple of weeks. This is the big (huge) toy soldiers convention, held in Lancaster PA each year (Amish country!), in mid-July. It's always enormous & well-attended, with 4000-5000 competitors and ghu knows how many spectators. Of course, everything is on offer - SciFi gaming, American Civil War, Ancients, Napoleonics, Renaiisance, Steam Punk, John Carter of Mars, Dinosaur-racing, and much more strange and exotic things.
Ray is driving over from Oklahoma on the Tuesday, and we'll set off on Weds - planning to break the journey partway there on Weds night, and arrive on Thursday (it's about 1000 miles driving from Little Rock); we'll stay til Sunday night, then drive back Monday - not sure if we'll do the return in one day or two.
I've also arranged to meet online friends from New Jersey, for dinner on Sunday night (that's always a bit nerve-making, sometimes it's worked well, others not so much). Cat will, I imagine, be busy doing the tourist thing, there seems to be quite a bit to do. I am only planning to be wargaming on Friday & Saturday (that should exhaust me), so I may join her on Sunday in looking around.
Fascinating, fought just a month apart, and such comprehensive, devastating victories: and they work almost as bookends, with Rossbach such a sweeping, comprehensive cavalry victory, and Leuthen a crushing infantry victory.
The one thing I hadn't appreciated, with either of them, is just the odds facing the Prussians - at Rossbach they attacked with 21,000 facing a French/Imperial army of 45,000 (admittedly 10,000 were Imperial troops of no military value to speak of), and at Leuthen 30,000 against 61,000 Austrians ... two to one odds in both cases, and he never hesitated a moment to launch an attack. I don't know if I'd ever be that bold.
The funny thing is, when I look at the French manouevres at Rossbach, it actually looks like Soubise was aiming at Friedrich's Leuthen manouevre (indeed his favorite manouevre) - the attack en echelon on his open right. Unfortunately for them, instead of having some low hills to hide the fact of their columns turning to the flank, they were on an open bare hill, and Friedrich was the one with low hills to hide his manouevring, so their columns went head-first into his front, rather than outflanking it. Good thinking guys, some work on the execution still needed.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Just starting to plan our excursion to Historicon in a couple of weeks. This is the big (huge) toy soldiers convention, held in Lancaster PA each year (Amish country!), in mid-July. It's always enormous & well-attended, with 4000-5000 competitors and ghu knows how many spectators. Of course, everything is on offer - SciFi gaming, American Civil War, Ancients, Napoleonics, Renaiisance, Steam Punk, John Carter of Mars, Dinosaur-racing, and much more strange and exotic things.
Ray is driving over from Oklahoma on the Tuesday, and we'll set off on Weds - planning to break the journey partway there on Weds night, and arrive on Thursday (it's about 1000 miles driving from Little Rock); we'll stay til Sunday night, then drive back Monday - not sure if we'll do the return in one day or two.
I've also arranged to meet online friends from New Jersey, for dinner on Sunday night (that's always a bit nerve-making, sometimes it's worked well, others not so much). Cat will, I imagine, be busy doing the tourist thing, there seems to be quite a bit to do. I am only planning to be wargaming on Friday & Saturday (that should exhaust me), so I may join her on Sunday in looking around.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Travelled!
Well, that was a fairly low-key trip, all things considered. I drove us to the edge of Memphis, then turned driving over to Cat - on the theory that she's more experienced at American city driving, and I'm better at reading maps - which I guess worked out, as we got to the places we aimed for with a minimum of confusion and no real delay.
The actual USCIS thing was short & very easy: fill out a form, wait a couple of minutes, get digitally fingerprinted (no ink, no mess! god bless technology), have your signature & picture taken, that's it. Not sure what comes next, I think it will be back to Memphis for an actual interview face to face... but as we did this twice with our L-visas (once in London plus again in DC on entering the States), then maybe that step gets skipped?
We stopped at a Bennigans (at last, somewhere where they haven't been shut down!), and had Monte Cristo sandwiches, I think the high point of the week for Cat - she had been really longing to try one again. Having had a bite of hers (cold) last time, I was quite keen to try one myself, but I have to say they are much nicer once lukewarm or cold - when new-cooked and hot, they are not so great.
Cat had been feeling pretty low and out of sorts all day, so we cancelled the tourist stuff for the day: after all, it's only a 2 hour drive, if we fancy a daytrip any weekend, it's an easy reach, so we drove back slow & easy.
The traffic was moderate going both ways (well, by UK motorway standards - very heavy by NZ standards!), and man, were there a lot of 18wheelers & lorries on the road. I must say, tho, that the US truckers seem a lot more professional and courteous than the ones you encounter in the UK (most of course being EU-based): they stick to the speed limits much more, give you space to pass & are quite happy to pull over a bit to help, and (most of all) dont play Block The Traffic by occupying all the lanes & travelling at the same speed, the way so many truckers in the UK always delight in doing. Given that the Interstate we were on is only 2lanes each way, that would have been quite easy to do, but while the truckers would overtake their slower brethren & caravans, (and the occasional slow car), they were fairly careful to pull over immediately after, and to not let a buildup of delayed cars occur at all.
Two other differences I noticed in the open-road driving: one was the recurrence, indeed almost prevalence, of enormous peels of rubber - blownout 18wheeler tires, I assume. This despite passing at least 3 workcrews at different points, tidying them up & collecting them. Compared to the UK/EU motorways, there seemed to be a huge number of them: I guess the profit margin thing here (or the less stringent inspection regime?) drives the truckers to try and eke out every
last mile from their tires.
The other big difference was the absence of the usual stream of broken-down or burnt-out cars dotting the side of the motorways. I think in the whole journey, we saw 2 breakdowns, and in both cases they were obviously being attended to (if not necessarily fixed). I would guess, driving a similar distance in the UK (say up to Birmingham and back, we would expect to see at least 20 breakdowns of various ages, plus another 6 or 8 burnt-out cars ... each way.
I think that this is caused by the American love for (and dependence on) their cars, in a way that has never even penetrated in the UK, where car maintenance seems to be considered optional - to the point that simple things like oil & filter changes are considered an unneeded expense, or an occasional opportunity to be robbed blind by the mechanics.
Of course the UK mechanics truly are a band of ruthless cowboys, and as a class are quite piratical and utterly untrustworthy (with quite a few honorable exceptions, I'll freely admit).
Even so, it was always an occasion for mirth on our parts over the sheer volume of breakdowns we would see on the English motorways, and we would speculate on the underlying thought processes, or lack thereof. It's not as tho cars are cheaper in the UK, after all - quite the reverse. Still, it was very pleasant to not see the same littering the sides of I40 yesterday.
Cat disagreed with my guess of the cause, pointing out the number of cars we see in Little Rock with astonishing dings and dents, and quite commonly missing windowscreens - replaced with clear plastic & duct tape: but I dredged up the analysis I'd read a few months ago, about the effects of poverty on car ownership in the US as the cause of this.
Briefly, the bottom slice (12%? 15? 18? I forget) has such poor creditworthiness that they cannot get car loans at anything like reasonable terms, so - as they still need cars, public transport being a bit of a joke in almost all of America - they are reduced to purchasing wrecks: played out cars at the end of their useful lives, costing $500-$1000 typically, i.e. the sort of amount they can buy for cash (or buy on horrible credit terms & afford the monthly payments) ... and expected to last only months, perhaps a year if you're lucky.
Of course, in straitened circumstances like that, it is essential to get every last possible mile out of their investments, to delay the next purchase as long as possible: hence driving them in quite unsafe conditions, provided they still actually can move, and don't get stopped/ticketed too often to make them financially viable (fortunately there are very few police assigned to traffic duties so that is a low risk).
The irony of it is that, between the repeated purchases, and the price of those repairs that seem worth the cost, they could in many cases afford the payments on a much better quality of used car, but having been judged and found wanting by the Creditworthiness Judges (ha), they aren't given that access. Makes you think it might be something the government could address .. like so many things involving the Credit Rating gestapo.
Enough rambling for the moment :)
The actual USCIS thing was short & very easy: fill out a form, wait a couple of minutes, get digitally fingerprinted (no ink, no mess! god bless technology), have your signature & picture taken, that's it. Not sure what comes next, I think it will be back to Memphis for an actual interview face to face... but as we did this twice with our L-visas (once in London plus again in DC on entering the States), then maybe that step gets skipped?
We stopped at a Bennigans (at last, somewhere where they haven't been shut down!), and had Monte Cristo sandwiches, I think the high point of the week for Cat - she had been really longing to try one again. Having had a bite of hers (cold) last time, I was quite keen to try one myself, but I have to say they are much nicer once lukewarm or cold - when new-cooked and hot, they are not so great.
Cat had been feeling pretty low and out of sorts all day, so we cancelled the tourist stuff for the day: after all, it's only a 2 hour drive, if we fancy a daytrip any weekend, it's an easy reach, so we drove back slow & easy.
The traffic was moderate going both ways (well, by UK motorway standards - very heavy by NZ standards!), and man, were there a lot of 18wheelers & lorries on the road. I must say, tho, that the US truckers seem a lot more professional and courteous than the ones you encounter in the UK (most of course being EU-based): they stick to the speed limits much more, give you space to pass & are quite happy to pull over a bit to help, and (most of all) dont play Block The Traffic by occupying all the lanes & travelling at the same speed, the way so many truckers in the UK always delight in doing. Given that the Interstate we were on is only 2lanes each way, that would have been quite easy to do, but while the truckers would overtake their slower brethren & caravans, (and the occasional slow car), they were fairly careful to pull over immediately after, and to not let a buildup of delayed cars occur at all.
Two other differences I noticed in the open-road driving: one was the recurrence, indeed almost prevalence, of enormous peels of rubber - blownout 18wheeler tires, I assume. This despite passing at least 3 workcrews at different points, tidying them up & collecting them. Compared to the UK/EU motorways, there seemed to be a huge number of them: I guess the profit margin thing here (or the less stringent inspection regime?) drives the truckers to try and eke out every
last mile from their tires.
The other big difference was the absence of the usual stream of broken-down or burnt-out cars dotting the side of the motorways. I think in the whole journey, we saw 2 breakdowns, and in both cases they were obviously being attended to (if not necessarily fixed). I would guess, driving a similar distance in the UK (say up to Birmingham and back, we would expect to see at least 20 breakdowns of various ages, plus another 6 or 8 burnt-out cars ... each way.
I think that this is caused by the American love for (and dependence on) their cars, in a way that has never even penetrated in the UK, where car maintenance seems to be considered optional - to the point that simple things like oil & filter changes are considered an unneeded expense, or an occasional opportunity to be robbed blind by the mechanics.
Of course the UK mechanics truly are a band of ruthless cowboys, and as a class are quite piratical and utterly untrustworthy (with quite a few honorable exceptions, I'll freely admit).
Even so, it was always an occasion for mirth on our parts over the sheer volume of breakdowns we would see on the English motorways, and we would speculate on the underlying thought processes, or lack thereof. It's not as tho cars are cheaper in the UK, after all - quite the reverse. Still, it was very pleasant to not see the same littering the sides of I40 yesterday.
Cat disagreed with my guess of the cause, pointing out the number of cars we see in Little Rock with astonishing dings and dents, and quite commonly missing windowscreens - replaced with clear plastic & duct tape: but I dredged up the analysis I'd read a few months ago, about the effects of poverty on car ownership in the US as the cause of this.
Briefly, the bottom slice (12%? 15? 18? I forget) has such poor creditworthiness that they cannot get car loans at anything like reasonable terms, so - as they still need cars, public transport being a bit of a joke in almost all of America - they are reduced to purchasing wrecks: played out cars at the end of their useful lives, costing $500-$1000 typically, i.e. the sort of amount they can buy for cash (or buy on horrible credit terms & afford the monthly payments) ... and expected to last only months, perhaps a year if you're lucky.
Of course, in straitened circumstances like that, it is essential to get every last possible mile out of their investments, to delay the next purchase as long as possible: hence driving them in quite unsafe conditions, provided they still actually can move, and don't get stopped/ticketed too often to make them financially viable (fortunately there are very few police assigned to traffic duties so that is a low risk).
The irony of it is that, between the repeated purchases, and the price of those repairs that seem worth the cost, they could in many cases afford the payments on a much better quality of used car, but having been judged and found wanting by the Creditworthiness Judges (ha), they aren't given that access. Makes you think it might be something the government could address .. like so many things involving the Credit Rating gestapo.
Enough rambling for the moment :)
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Travelling
OK, feeling a bit excited today - we're off to Memphis on a day-trip tomorrow.
We're going to Graceland, Graceland
Memphis, Tennessee ....
Funny how some places are just, what's the phrase, 'storied in myth and legend' - in the case of Memphis, apparently 899 different songs!
Long distance information
get me Memphis Tennesse
Then I'm walking in Memphis
walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Handy's cast in bronze
And he's standing in a little park
With a trumpet in his hand
Like he's listening back to the good old bands
And the click of high heeled shoes
Old Furry sings the blues
Once we have green cards, we can do things like shift our UK credit-card debt (run up by the move over here) to a low-interest bank loan, so we can get it paid off in a couple of years (at worst), rather than paying the weasel-strangling interest rates the credit-card companies charge: and contemplate getting mortgage approval & go looking for a repossessed house to snap up at bargain prices. Lord knows, there are a ton of those around at the moment - over 800 in the Little Rock area, and it's one of the least-affected areas. It must be utterly ghastly in parts of Florida & California, and I know bits of Ohio & Michigan have whole suburbs where all the houses are either in repossession, or simply abandoned. Scarey, scarey stuff.
Lets go to memphis in the meantime baby
Memphis in the meantime girl
But still and all, it's nice to look forward to a day-trip: it's only a 2-hour drive from Little Rock, so we're planning to go fairly early, and take time to pass by Graceland (neither of us is a big enough fan of Da King to pay actual cash to go in, I think), visit old Beale Street & look at the Daisy, & of course WC Handy's statue (damn, just writing the name makes Bing's version of St Louis Blues echo in my head), and anything else that might spring to eye :) Oh, plus have a look for gaming shops: if there are any that run weekend games, then a 2hour drive might be worth making once a month or so, just to get some gaming opponents.
So, prolly no blogging tomorrow if we're going to make an early start.
We're going to Graceland, Graceland
Memphis, Tennessee ....
(Paul Simon)
Funny how some places are just, what's the phrase, 'storied in myth and legend' - in the case of Memphis, apparently 899 different songs!
Long distance information
get me Memphis Tennesse
(Chuck Berry)
Of course, we're not exactly going for romantic or enchanting reasons - in fact, it's just a visit to the nearest USCIS (Citizenship & Immigration Services) office, in order to get our 'biometrics' recorded ... i.e. fingerprint, retina scan, not sure if there's anything else. Just the next in many steps of getting our status adjusted from temporary visa-holders to green-card permanent residents (i.e. able to come & go at our pleasure).Then I'm walking in Memphis
walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
(Marc Cohn)
Of course, we're keen to press on with this, both because it will permit Cat to seek paid employment once she's shifted off her L2-visa, and because the banks & credit card companies here will (by and large) not offer any credit of any sort to temporary residents. I say by and large, because I did get approved for a Mastercard which (by accident I think) didnt ask or check my residency status: but then, it has a ceiling of $500.Handy's cast in bronze
And he's standing in a little park
With a trumpet in his hand
Like he's listening back to the good old bands
And the click of high heeled shoes
Old Furry sings the blues
(Joni Mitchell)
Once we have green cards, we can do things like shift our UK credit-card debt (run up by the move over here) to a low-interest bank loan, so we can get it paid off in a couple of years (at worst), rather than paying the weasel-strangling interest rates the credit-card companies charge: and contemplate getting mortgage approval & go looking for a repossessed house to snap up at bargain prices. Lord knows, there are a ton of those around at the moment - over 800 in the Little Rock area, and it's one of the least-affected areas. It must be utterly ghastly in parts of Florida & California, and I know bits of Ohio & Michigan have whole suburbs where all the houses are either in repossession, or simply abandoned. Scarey, scarey stuff.
Lets go to memphis in the meantime baby
Memphis in the meantime girl
(John Hiatt)
But still and all, it's nice to look forward to a day-trip: it's only a 2-hour drive from Little Rock, so we're planning to go fairly early, and take time to pass by Graceland (neither of us is a big enough fan of Da King to pay actual cash to go in, I think), visit old Beale Street & look at the Daisy, & of course WC Handy's statue (damn, just writing the name makes Bing's version of St Louis Blues echo in my head), and anything else that might spring to eye :) Oh, plus have a look for gaming shops: if there are any that run weekend games, then a 2hour drive might be worth making once a month or so, just to get some gaming opponents.
So, prolly no blogging tomorrow if we're going to make an early start.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Another road trip
Well, another fairly successful trip - this time to Baton Rouge in Louisiana, to visit my friend Dudley and play a tournament in the city. We drove down on Thursday, a seven hour drive through southern Arkansas, a bit of Mississippi, and north Louisiana. The drive itself went smoothly, on the US65 & US 61 highways, but - man - some things surprised me. I've been told that Arkansas is the second poorest state, but Little Rock & the surrounding area all look pretty prosperous and well-kept - even the slums of South Little Rock look passably prosperous, even if incredibly threatening and dangerous (the lines of police yellow tape seem to be the common decoration for houses).
So, I thought, well, sure, Arkansas is poor by American standards, but that doesn't mean poor. Wow, was I wrong - southern Arkansas is rural poor, with a capital P - shacks I wouldn't put a dog in, ruinous 'mobile' home trailers, and squalor that reminded me of the worst bits of East Cape: actually, worse than that I think. Lots of the land seemed to be cultivated & unfenced, which (apparently) is due to being owned & farmed by big Agribusinesses, which I'm sure is economically efficient, but not so great for the individuals left living there. The bit of Mississippi we drove through looked much the same (not too surprising, as Mississippi is the one state poorer than Arkansas).
Funnily enough, once we crossed the state line into Louisiana (Loosyana), it changed like the click of fingers, and there were lots of fairly prosperous looking medium-sized farms, with neat, well-maintained farmhouses.
Staying with Dudley was, well, not exactly what we'd expected: Dudley was a Sergeant Major of Marines, and I guess I was expecting him to have carried their ferocious discipline to his home, but not so much. His wife was away (her annual trip back home to Oz) when we arrived, and he had 3 teenagers still at home to handle: I guess because they were stepkids, he was much gentler with them than I'd expected. Unfortunately, it also meant they had the usual teenage effect on the environment.
He'd kindly taken Friday off to get ready for the tournament, and to show us around the town, which was great - the capital building & the spot where Huey Long was assassinatied were particularly fascinating.
Saturday was 3 games (thru til 9 at night), plus one game on Sunday for the tournament. Hard going, and I lost my first game - being fairly rusty - but managed to win the other 3 games, and sneak into 3rd place (the guy that beat me wound up 4th, having gotten a draw in the last round). Reasonably pleased, but my position was mostly due to a moment's inattention by my 3rd opponent, and some truly heroic dicing on the part of my light horse, in the last game - I really didn't deserve to win that one.
After the Sunday game, we drove back home - for some reason, on the way back the GPS routed us through a ton of back roads and avoided both the highways we'd used to drive down. Cat got quite wrought at this & was convinced the GPS had gotten us lost, but I insisted it had just determined a fractionally faster route (which I think is correct, it saved us 5 or 6 minutes off the 7 hour trip). I wish there was some way of turning that option off, though, the extra stress it causes isn't worth the small saving of time, and the much greater concentration required on small, windy roads. Finally got back to LR around 8, then went to a local cafe for dinner, and home by 9.
Since then, I've had 3 days off work : I originally arranged for a week, as the original plan - truncated for financial considerations - was to take more time, and visit New Orleans as well. Oh well, next time we go there, I guess. Nice to have time to catch up on simple stuff, and goof off, too :)
So, I thought, well, sure, Arkansas is poor by American standards, but that doesn't mean poor. Wow, was I wrong - southern Arkansas is rural poor, with a capital P - shacks I wouldn't put a dog in, ruinous 'mobile' home trailers, and squalor that reminded me of the worst bits of East Cape: actually, worse than that I think. Lots of the land seemed to be cultivated & unfenced, which (apparently) is due to being owned & farmed by big Agribusinesses, which I'm sure is economically efficient, but not so great for the individuals left living there. The bit of Mississippi we drove through looked much the same (not too surprising, as Mississippi is the one state poorer than Arkansas).
Funnily enough, once we crossed the state line into Louisiana (Loosyana), it changed like the click of fingers, and there were lots of fairly prosperous looking medium-sized farms, with neat, well-maintained farmhouses.
Staying with Dudley was, well, not exactly what we'd expected: Dudley was a Sergeant Major of Marines, and I guess I was expecting him to have carried their ferocious discipline to his home, but not so much. His wife was away (her annual trip back home to Oz) when we arrived, and he had 3 teenagers still at home to handle: I guess because they were stepkids, he was much gentler with them than I'd expected. Unfortunately, it also meant they had the usual teenage effect on the environment.
He'd kindly taken Friday off to get ready for the tournament, and to show us around the town, which was great - the capital building & the spot where Huey Long was assassinatied were particularly fascinating.
Saturday was 3 games (thru til 9 at night), plus one game on Sunday for the tournament. Hard going, and I lost my first game - being fairly rusty - but managed to win the other 3 games, and sneak into 3rd place (the guy that beat me wound up 4th, having gotten a draw in the last round). Reasonably pleased, but my position was mostly due to a moment's inattention by my 3rd opponent, and some truly heroic dicing on the part of my light horse, in the last game - I really didn't deserve to win that one.
After the Sunday game, we drove back home - for some reason, on the way back the GPS routed us through a ton of back roads and avoided both the highways we'd used to drive down. Cat got quite wrought at this & was convinced the GPS had gotten us lost, but I insisted it had just determined a fractionally faster route (which I think is correct, it saved us 5 or 6 minutes off the 7 hour trip). I wish there was some way of turning that option off, though, the extra stress it causes isn't worth the small saving of time, and the much greater concentration required on small, windy roads. Finally got back to LR around 8, then went to a local cafe for dinner, and home by 9.
Since then, I've had 3 days off work : I originally arranged for a week, as the original plan - truncated for financial considerations - was to take more time, and visit New Orleans as well. Oh well, next time we go there, I guess. Nice to have time to catch up on simple stuff, and goof off, too :)
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