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6月29日 Sometimes change is a very good thing!Sometimes change is a Very Good Thing!
Sometimes change is a very good thing! In the last two weeks they routed the tour schedule for Laurie and me at work. The last three months we were working four days a week on ten hour shifts with Fridays off. Now we will be working four days a week with Mondays off. The quirky thing about this is how it changed our vacation schedule. At first we were not to sure about losing our Fridays off but then it thought that for at least one weekend we would have an additional four day weekend as we went from one quarter to the next! The effect has been to give us time for an additional long weekend in Deadwood in July! It also added another day to the big trip at the end of July. The bottom line is that instead of being in Deadwood four nights in July we will be there eight nights! Sometimes change is a very good thing!
The only downside to some of this is that all the trip preparations I had to make over the next two weekends now have to be done in one. I think I'm up to the task. I also had to cancel our plans for 'Convergence'; things were not working out there as well as we wanted anyhow. But things did work out exceptionally well for the weekend in Deadwood!
We have managed to get three nights in the historic Bullock Hotel! Since July 6th is our wedding anniversary this was particularly nice. Laurie is very fond of the Bullock.
The Bullock Hotel is an interesting place. The hotel was actually built by none other than Seth Bullock and, as I understand it, he eventually died there. The building is prominent in the middle of Deadwood and a beautiful stone and brick structure. The hotel is also allegedly haunted by the ghost of Seth Bullock. The hotel is even a bit proud of this legend; they give a three dollar tour in which you get to hear some of the stories of Seth's ghostly mischief. They will even play the 'Unsolved Mysteries' episode that featured the Bullock and its haunted legacy. When you talk to the people who work at the hotel they take the ghost stories quite seriously. It would seem that Seth still watchs over how they take care of his hotel.
The hotel has had incidents reported throughout the building but, as I have been lead to understand, the room Laurie and I will be in has had quite a few incidents. This doesn't bother Laurie in the least! I'm pretty sure she wouldn't mind running into Seth.
6月22日 Three weeks and counting....Three Weeks and Counting...
Three weeks and counting to the big trip! The plans are pretty much in place, the reservations made, all is going ahead as scheduled! I will admit that I'm anxious to hit the road. High gas prices be damned! We can do this thing even if it does hit four dollars a gallon!
Laurie and I picked up the third season of 'Deadwood' on DVD about two weeks ago. We watched the entire season in about a week and the only thing that disappointed us was that it isn't certain when the Deadwood movies will come out or if David Milch and HBO will reconsider their decision to cancel the series. It sounds like Milch's other ventures are not doing nearly as well as Deadwood did. It also seems like a no-brainer to me that with HBO losing so many of its best series, like 'Sopranos', they should keep at least one winning series going.
Now for you gamers let me tell you right here, Season Three of Deadwood was made to be gamed! The entire season revolves around George Hearst's attempts to take control of the gold interests around Deadwood. By doing this he also functionally takes control of Deadwood itself. The storyline in the series extrapolates the idea of Hearst in a power struggle with Al Swearengen and Seth Bullock for the control of the town. Swearengen simply does not like the idea of any one person controlling the financial interests of Deadwood other than himself. Bullock does not want Hearst to become a legal power onto himself; Bullock is particularly upset by Hearst's strong arm tactics against union organizers in the gold mines.
Now the historical fact of the matter is that Hearst did functionally control the town in many ways. Once Homestake Mining came into being, largely at the behest of Hearst as I understand it, this was the main employer and biggest financial contributor in the area. Now I don't know that Hearst really gave a damn about the operations of those in the 'badlands' of Deadwood. The historical evidence indicates that the saloons and brothels of Deadwood continued to operate and prosper well into the next century. Swearengen kept operating until about 1898 (that would be 22 year after the time depicted in the series) and only finally went out of business entirely due to a fire in, I believe, 1898. Swearengen finally leaves the stage entirely shortly after 1900 when he allegedly fell under the wheels of a train somewhere in Colorado.
Seth Bullock is another matter also. He was directly involved in helping crush union organizing in the mines. The specific incident involved a large group of heavily armed miners taking over a mine and demanding the right to organize. I've also read that they were demanding simply that working conditions be improved and the union organizing was just incidental to their efforts. In any case the mining company requested Seth call up his militia to deal with the rebellious miners. By all accounts even troops from Fort Meade were sent to assist in the efforts. One account even states that the army brought a piece of artillery and aimed it at the mouth of the mine!
Now Seth's actions can be viewed in two different lights at this point. He might just be seen as a tool of the mining interests in crushing the strike. After all, the laws of the time would have sided with the mining company as this being an unlawful siezure of their property and Seth would have been operating within his capacity as a law enforcement officer. It can also be said that Seth was operating in the best interests of the rebellious miners. The mining company had managed to assemble a pretty formidable amount of firepower outside the mine and would have been within its rights to use it. They would have risked the destruction of their mine but probably would have considered this an acceptable cost in the exchange for crushing the activisim.
Seth's action prevented this bit of bloodshed. He found the air intake for the mine and put a beehive down it. By all accounts the enraged bees drove the miners out of the mine and brought the whole rebellion to a relatively peaceful conclusion. I believe that Seth's ultimate goal was always to avoid bloodshed and this action achieved just that. I don't know that it ultimately served the interests of either the miners or the mining company. The miners would have to wait and use more legally acceptable tactics to gain their goals. The mining company may have wanted a violent showdown in order to crush the organizational efforts among the miners. You don't have to look far in the history of the time to find ample evidence of corporations using violence as a way of dealing with union efforts.
The whole situation depicted in the third season of HBO's 'Deadwood' series makes for a wonderful scenario of gaming. On one side you have George Hearst and his personal circle of toughs, best exemplified by 'The Captain'. You see Hearst manipulating the interests of the town from the hotel he purchased from E. B. Farnum. Eventually his toughs murder two of the union organizers among his Cornish miners and this inflames Bullock against Hearst. Soon Hearst is doing what he can to intimidate the other controlling interests of Deadwood into working for him. He manages to control Sy Tolliver without too much trouble but Al Swearengen represents a special problem. He even goes so far as cutting off one of Al's fingers in an effort to crush Al's will.
Eventually a confrontation comes between Al's chief enforcer Dan Dority and Hearst's enforcer 'The Captain'. It resolves itself in a grisly, muddy public brawl in the main street of Deadwood. By the time it is done 'The Captain' is dead and Hearst is resolved to stronger action. After Bullock publicly humiliates Hearst the trip to a final confrontation is accelerated even further. Hearst wires the Pinkerton Agency for as many armed men as they can send. Soon we have 25 heavily armed ruthless Pinkerton gunmen at Hearst's command. Eventually this number will grow to 50 men; all conspicuosly armed with Colt revolvers and a wide variety of repeating rifles and a few large caliber rolling block rifles.
Then you have the other side of the conflict. Al Swearengen has a much smaller set of assets to draw upon. He delays sending Dan Dority to hire gunmen while he resolves a course of action. He loosely allies himself with Bullock but Bullock also is limited in what he has as resources. Swearengen has essentially four men and none are skilled gunfighters. Bullock is depicted as a skilled gunfighter but he only has his deputy Charlie Utter to back him up. I found it of interest that Bullock is using a 1860 model Colt Army Conversion in the show. It was not the cutting edge of firearms technology in 1877 but still a formidable weapon in capable hands.
Eventually Al decides to enlist the help of 'Hawkeye' to recruit gunfighters and talks Wu into bringing 150 armed Chinamen into the camp. Both groups are questionable in quality but add visible numbers to Swearengen's camp. Hawkeye's group of gunfighters consist of 19 and a half. When qustioned about what the half was we find out one of them is a midget who is really mean with a knife. I will note now that you see this nasty midget twice later in the same episode. Wu's Chinamen also show up later but are even more questionable in their quality as gunfighters. Al promises to provide them with firearms and during the one scene you see them some appear to be armed. The real question is how skilled and determined they might be in a fight? I think that Als initial consideration was the appearance they would provide rather than their actual value in a fight. The whole last episode really revolves around the desperate measures Al is willing to resort to in order to avoid a losing gunbattle.
The whole third season of 'Deadwood' readily lends itself to scenario construction. There are so many potential elements to add to the scenario that I can easily imagine a complete campaign supplement for any game system. The special rules would be fascinating! Imagine a special consideration for Trixie's interesting tactic in her attempted assassination of George Hearst? The idea of her walking topless through the hotel lobby so distracting everbody that they didn't notice the Derringer in her hand!
Also consider all the other parties that might come into play in such a game? During the elections we find 260 troopers relatively nearby in Sturgis. We also have in this season, somewhat briefly, Wyatt and Morgan Earp. They did make a historical appearance in Deadwood working as woodcutters. In the series they are depicted as more than a little capable of taking one side or another. The series is filled with possibilities!
Well, enough of this now. There is more to be done to get ready for the trip in July. We now have a nifty new Panasonic digital camcorder to learn how to use! This will greatly expand the things we can do on the road! I'm also learning how to best use these nice little, and I mean little, Western Digital portable harddrives I have. I can carry 240 gig in my shirt pocket! Technology is a wonderful thing!
6月17日 Preparing for battle...Preparing for battle...
My wife and I first met due to our mutual interest in history; I had a passion then for the American Civil War and she had her passion for the Battle of the Little Bighorn. My interests shift around with whatever other interests I have going on at the time. If I'm gaming the Russian Front then I'm interested in visiting Aberdeen Proving Grounds to see the Ordnance Museum. If I'm naval gaming then I want to visit Annapolis. My wife is always loyal to her interest in the Custers and the Little Bighorn.
Today I was doing further planning for our July trip which includes our attending the Little Bighorn Association convention in North Platte. I thought it might be a good idea to bone up a bit on the discussions around the historical research on the battle. The best place to do this seemed to be the LBHA online forums. Now I am than familiar with how some researchers get more than a little excited about their particular subjects. I've seen some pretty spirited debates take place over such things as Pickett's Charge or the Battle of the Bulge. This is all just part of any scholarly discussion in ongoing research.
I never expected the sort of passionate rhetoric I found around some of the discussions about the Little Bighorn! Some of this might be the open wounds that still remain 130 years after the battle. This only increased my intrigue with the topic. So much still remains open for debate about what actually happened. It seems that for some people this borders on the whole perception of what the western expansion was about.
I'm not one to shy away from such a discussion. It does mean that I will have to delve into this topic more in the short time we have until we hit the road... 6月16日 Travel Planning and Idle SpeculationLess than a month to the 'Great Expedition of 2007'!
I've been spending a lot of time the last two days making some of the final plans and arrangements for the big trip in July. This might be called our adventure into the Historic Old West. I'm very pleased to say things are falling together rather nicely. I haven't had a lot of time to update the blog even though there has been more than a little write about. I will definitely write more again as we get closer to the departure date and the plans firm up even more.
The one question that a few people have asked me is how much gas prices have effected our planning. The truth is they are a factor but a lot less of a factor than people might think. Right now gas prices are gradually declining; I just filled the tank at $2.78 a gallon and then passed two stations offering it for $2.74 a gallon. This is much better than the $3.44 a gallon we were paying a month ago but I also know that as we approach the 4th of July holiday the prices will inevitably shoot up again. We are budgetted to handle about $3.50 without a lot of pain. Even if it goes over that I really doubt it will effect our plans all that much.
Where we might be influenced more by the gasoline prices is not our vacation plans but the overall day-to-day economy. The thing that strikes me as morbidly funny is that as we all rely more and more on Ethanol the use of corn as a fuel source is influencing our food prices. Someday a bag of corn chips might be a valuable commodity in itself.
This leads me to wonder about things. Can our industrial society actually support an expanding economy on all of these new alternative energy sources? Can we really continue our present level of relative prosperity without the use of fossil fuels? I wonder if somewhere down the road we will suddenly realise that all these alternative technologies are just not going to cut it? Could we possibly be setting ourselves up for a sort of economic collapse as the new energy infrastructure fails?
If we faced that sort of future what might we resort to? Desperation often breeds desperate measures. 6月9日 Home Improvements and the Booming Prairie ChickenHome Improvements and the Booming Prairie Chicken
Yesterday was a very big day in our household! The fifty year old roof came off our house as we carried out the plan repair and replacement of the shingles and vents. This was a project long in the planning and financing but soon it will be done! All that remains now is the nifty new gutters and a last bit of financial work. It did give me an odd bit of satisfaction to see our roof looking better than our neighbors! Laurie and I have never been the type to try to "keep up with the Jones" but right now, for a shining moment, we have the best looking roof in South Saint Paul!
This also marks the start of the final countdown to the 'Great Trip of 2007'! We are within a month of the trip and now all the planning starts to fall into place. Over the next weeks I will be preparing the photographic equipment (and possibly taking this to a new level of digital technology) and the vehicle. This will be the fifth major trip with the 'Booming Prairie Chicken' and it is nearly out from under it's 50,000 mile warranty but I have the greatest confidence in our Vue. On the basis of our experience with the 2005 Saturn Vue I believe we will keep buying Saturns in the future.
The new Toshiba laptop, the one I am doing this blog on now, far exceeds my best expectations. I am thoroughly convinced of the capabilities of duo-core processors and I can say that Microsoft's 'Vista' is just fine too. I've heard so much negative hype about 'Vista' but I have literally no problems with it. Now I have to admit that having two gig of DDR probably helps the whole process but, frankly, this is the direction personal technology is going. I am also becoming more convinced that wireless technology in one form or another is the wave of the future. This is quite a statement from a guy who has made his living the last twelve years selling or provisioning some sort of wire-line technology. The bulk of the telecommunications industry is rapidly shifting this way; it was recently announced by my own company, Qwest Communications, that we were getting into CDMA. Qwest sort of sat on the fence waiting to see a common standard adopted. There still isn't a common standard but, at this point, if you don't adopt some kind of wireless standard, any kind of wireless standard, you stand to lose a critical amount of market share. Well, for better or for worse, we are in the wireless broadband game now!
6月7日 Politics is a Blood SportPolitics is a Blood Sport
I don't remember who said this but the statement is true. In the last few weeks we have seen how true this is. I've been watching the intents of the Democratic Party show itself. I was a little amazed at the fall of Cindy Sheehan after she served no more useful purpose for the Democrats. She was a good tool for them to use to get into power. Now I am really wondering who the so-called 'Anti-War Movement' will lash out at more; the Evil Republicans or the Democrats who betrayed them?
I also find it interesting to watch the Democratic Presidential Hopefuls carefully waltz around each other. They never quite want to engage in the sort of political bloodletting they will inevitably have to engage in. Only one of them can carry the Democratic ticket. They will eventually have to go at each other's throats or they'll all retreat to some backroom somewhere to quietly hammer out a compromise. I just wonder if a Hillary-Obama ticket is still possible?
Then you have the Republican Hopefuls! They are now so quick to stick their forks into the corpse of the Bush Administration! The only one who seems somehow above this political cannabalism is Fred Thompson. For me this man is still an enigma; could he be the next great conservative hope?
Then you have Minnesota! We elect a Democratic Majority but the Republican Governor remains entrenched and is now stolidly standing for some of the values that he was initially elected for. I was worried that Pawlenty had totally given in the special interests that must camp outside his office. The Democrats just don't have quite enough votes.
Then you have me. I'm not too fond of either party. They both make promises but once they take the oath of office how they vote is anyone's guess. It is really amazing how many lose sight of those who voted for them. 6月3日 Kinkos and the Demon of Chess!Kinkos and the Demon of Chess
The Old West gaming project is moving ahead again! Today I spent some time and money at Kinkos trying to determine if it would be easier and cheaper to simply have them print the PDF files that will become my miniature town. Now Kinkos has changed a bit since the last time I visited one; they have turned over more of their floor space to selling office products. One thing I noticed right off is that they are aiming their products at the mobile computing sort, the laptop user, and for me this is helpful. I do literally all of my computer work off of my laptop and the two desktops we have are both tenatively scheduled to be allocated for more mundane duties.
Now the actual cost of printing these nifty 'Whitewash City' PDF's? Exactly $1.29 per sheet in full color onto 8.5" X 11" 110 weight paper. Since what is needed for most of these buildings is only four sheets the printing is roughly five dollars a building. Now we need to start figuring what it will run me to do it on my Epson RX600 printer. The one thing I will have to add to this though is that Kinkos had literally all the supplies to do the construction work right there and reasonably priced. They also had a work space I could do the all the cutting and gluing in. When I consider the clutter of our house right now this does seem like a definite plus.
Now onto the 'Demon of Chess'! Years ago I worked as a supervisor for a private security company. It was kind of a lazy job in which my biggest responsibility was making sure my guards were awake and looked reasonably responsible. I was not the greatest paragon of virtue in my own regard but I had one particular fellow who set the standards for laziness and general sloth. The fact was he even seemed to take a certain pride in the unofficial title people had crowned him with; the 'Slackmaster'. Tom was not the sort of guard that most security companies would want to claim ownership too but I always had to grant that he was his own man.
The thing was Tom had me figured out from the first day we set eyes on each other. You see Tom and I both shared a common addiction and like any addict we quickly recognised it in each other. We both were hopelessly hooked on chess. I tell you right now that this silly game can take on a life all its own and come to dominate the mind and soul of a person. If you don't believe me just do a little study of the history of the game. Look at the lives of some of the grandmasters; some of the greatest minds in this game had miserable personal lives. It always seemed to me that they surrendered their lives to some off personal demon that was embodied in thirty-two pieces on a sixty-four square board.
All Tom had to do was pull out this board and cheap set of pieces he hauled around with him. I would ignore whatever recent transgression he had committed as we pondered the mysteries of the game. He had me figured out and we both knew that the fantasy of the game could rule out reality for those bits of time in the early morning as we supposedly worked.
Now I am feeling the bite of the game again. It probably started when I played my first games again with the 'Chess Titans' program that comes automatically with Microsoft's Vista. It was like an alcoholic taking that one drink. You just can't stop with one. Now I've gone so far as to reactivate my membership in the United States Chess Federation and found myself digging my old Drueke's tournament board out of the basement. Now I am keeping a mind to the fact that I can't allow the demon of chess to dominate my other activities. I will tell you now that this game can take on a life of its own. It can be an addiction.
The fact is I think I'll be fine but you will have to forgive me if I add some chess stuff to the blog. It is fascinating to see what has happened in the chess world since I departed it. It is still a crazy and wonderful place filled with fanatics and geeks and, sometimes, genius. It is also a place with its own darkside. Maybe someday I will have to write something about the life of Alexander Alekhine? 6月1日 The Grabill CollectionThe Grabill Collection
I'll probably be making a few entries over the weekend as I sort through some of the goods Laurie and I brought back from our latest trip to the Black Hills. I actually got these pictures through Ebay just before we left on the last trip. Grabill was a photographer in the Black Hills, and Deadwood in particular, during most of the gold rush. I don't know a lot about him yet but will know more soon. I've got 190 of his pictures in high definition digital format; his work is public domain now so you might see me using it a bit.
For you wargamers you should pay particular attention to the two pictures that feature artillery. The one weapon is a Civil War era Rodman's 3-inch Ordnance Rifle and the other is a Hotchkiss 1.65 inch Mountain Gun. The Frontier Army used a lot of Civil War surplus for a couple decades after the war. The Rodman's Ordnance Rifle was considered to be one of the finest artillery pieces of the muzzle-loading artillery era. The Hotchkiss gun was only available later and had the dubious distinction of being the artillery that was used at the Wounded Knee massacre. I've found a large number of Grabill's images were from the aftermath of this grim episode. The Hotchkiss gun represented a real revolution in technology for the Frontier Army; its a rapid-fire breechloading artillery piece of notable accuracy. |
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