Cancer Sucks Part 2

Last year, my wife dealt with breast cancer. She had a lumpectomy and radiation. So far, there's been no sign of re-occurrence, for which we are extremely happy. Even my dad's treatment for bladder cancer seems to have gone well. You can never be sure but for these things, no news is good news.

However, we have learned that our dog, Surie, has a mass cell tumor. We thought initially that it was just a wart on the back of her leg. But Sylvie noticed that it had gotten a bit bigger so off to the vet we went. Dr Peter was pretty certain that it was benign and nothing to worry about. But he wanted to make sure and he took a biopsy. The thing is not benign but it is slow growing.

So Surie's going to have surgery. The tricky bit is that the vet needs to make sure he gets the entire tumor because this type has deep roots. If things go well, Surie will have just a bit of a dimple on the back of one of her legs.

Update: the surgery went well and there won't be much of a scar or dimple. It's going to be tough to keep her from bouncing around the house like she normally does.

New Skillz!

One of the first projects that we wanted to do in the house was to add a back splash to the kitchen. The existing quality paint was in good shape but we wanted something even more durable. With a bit of time on my hands, I dedicated two days to get the job done.

I've not tiled before but thanks to watching a number of DIY shows, I had a rough idea of the process. A couple of You Tube consultations filled in some gaps. The rest was going to be a combination of practice and trial and error.

We had originally thought of using sheets of small silver, grey, and black tiles but sticker shock had us looking for alternatives. Fortunately, someone at Patti Lynn Interiors suggested a subway tile base with an accent stripe of fancy tiles. This was much friendlier on the wallet.

Actually, I want to thank all of the folks at Patti Lynn. They were very helpful in answering my questions, providing us with design solutions, and with kitting me out with the proper equipment. The right tools made the job smooth and (relatively) quick. 

The first day was a long one as I had to cut and tile the entire back splash (about 16 feet long or so). A profession would have done this in a few hours but I was taking my time and making sure I did things properly. I was racing the clock to finish my self-imposed curfew of  10 pm. The second day was grouting and cleaning up. 

I'm very pleased with the result

Napoleonic at Mike's

Continuing with my catching up on gaming activities...

Mike hosted a Napoleonic game with me running a Austro-Russian force against Stephen running the French. I generally went with the initial setup that Mike had made with the main exception being beefing up the center right by going 3 deep with my regiments. Stephen counter by stuffing the town with troops and moving all of his light troops to his left.

I got off to a really good start with some effective bombardment on the left. This prepared my cavalry for a successful charge. In the center, my plan was to sit tight and not take casualties while pushing hard for church. I felt that Stephen had left this area a bit open and there looked to be a gap between the town and the light troops to the far right. Here is result of these opening moves. On the far left, my first wave of cavalry had succeeded in chasing off the French cavalry and effectively pinning the French infantry by causing them to start turning to face the Austrian cavalry. On the right of the following photo, I was pushing hard on the church and overwhelming the defenders with weight of numbers. Not in the photo are Stephen's light troops, which were marching (leisurely as it turned out because Stephen forgot or did not hear that troops could double their speed if they were more than 18" from the enemy). I turned my militia to face them (more as a speed bump than actual effectiveness).





















I continued with some clutch rolling on the left and continued to roll up the French with a devastating combined arms offensive of artillery, cavalry, and infantry. Stephen emptied the town to counter my church offensive and I was losing momentum. But I had succeeded in drawing out all of his reserves and putting some wear onto them. Meanwhile, my Russian grenadiers were coming up to deliver the final blow. On my right though, things were crumbling as the French lights swung into action and started to chew up my right flank.

At this point, we called the game with Mike awarding the Austro-Russians with a minor victory.

My thanks to Mike for hosting and to Stephen for providing a hard fought challenge.