Summer vacation 2013
<p>The last couple of weeks have been my vacation, and full of incident.This explains the absence of blogging.</p>
<p>First, World Boardgaming Championships.  I did respectably, making quarter- and semi-finals in a couple of events, but failed in my goal to make the Power Grid finals again this year and place higher than fifth. </p>
<p>I did very well in Conflict of Heroes, though; my final game &#8211; with the tournament organizer &#8211; was a an epic slugfest that attracted the attention of Uwe Eickert (the game&#8217;s designer) who watched the last half enthralled. I lost by only 1 point and was told I&#8217;d be put on the Wall of Honor.  I like my chances at the finals next year.</p>
<p>Then Summer Weapons Retreat. Huge fun as usual; I spent most of the week working on Florentine (two-sword) technique. with some excursions into polearm and hand-and-a-half sword.  I&#8217;ve posted a few pictures on <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/108967323530519754654/posts">my G+ feed</a>.</p>
<p>First full day I was home, a thunderstorm blew out the router in my basement. Yes I had it on a UPS, but ground surges (though rare) do happen; this one toasted the Ethernet switch.  Diagnosing, replacing, and dealing with the second-order effects of that ate most of yesterday.</p>
<p>Now life is back to relatively normal, though it will take a few days for the muscle aches from a week of hard training to entirely subside.  Blogging will resume.</p>
