That was a good birthday, by nearly any definition. We took it real easy on Saturday, being still exhausted from our trip. There was no swimming classes, and I didn't even work out. Mrs. Ha cooked me a nice dinner of shrimp and pasta, and she and the girls made a great chocolate cake out of a Nigella cookbook. There were even presents, an assortment of nuts, bolts and washer, Knizia's Spy game, and some long workout shorts I guess skimpy red nylon soccer shorts aren't becoming on a middle aged man). Forty two can be a good year.

I just signed my life away for eleven year old's school, or at least $4500 of it. I'm hoping we get some financial aid for having obscene credit card debt. It's a crunch week, she had to get a lot of things ready for her school of the arts audition on Saturday. Last night she finished her box as a project, she still has to draw a bookcase and finish her application essay. We probably won't know where she'll go until the end of March.

While we were scrambling to finish the box (rather I was motivating her and giving her tips while she did all the work), the girls said they learned the Time Warp at the school meeting on Wednesday. I'm sure the method teaching it was fine, and the lyrics appeared to be changed (they didn't sing about a pelvic thrust), but I'm not sure I'll show them Rocky Horror, at least not yet.

We watched The Panic in Needle Park, a very early Al Pacino movie where he's a random heroin user hanging out with other low-lifes in Manhattan. Interesting for the period it portrays, and the sordid junkie lifestyle, but not much beyond that, I found Drugstore Cowboy much more entertaining. Mrs. Ha also watched Personal Velocity again while I reread Night Watch.

It seems like every fantasy and science fiction writer feels compelled to tackle the grandfather paradox, in this case it was Pratchett in Night Watch. I spent Saturday reading this (for the first time, I've reread it since), it is a good way to spend your birthday. It's another Vimes book, nearly all Vimes, even Vimes in two roles. While in hot pursuit of a sociopath, he gets caught in a severe temporal event and sent back in time three decades, to become a mentor to his youthful self and a few other watchmen, many of whom are recurring characters. He becomes a catalyst for a change in the Watch We also see lot of Vetinari in action. The story is exquisitely plotted, as a good grandfather paradox story must be. I'm thinking it's my current favorite discworld novel. What's your favorite Time Travel Story?

In Nazi books, I finished Hitler's Last Offensive, yet another Bulge book. I was reading this in Niagara Falls, and Porsche-dad said it looked interesting, so I may give it to him, as I enjoyed A Time For Trumpets more.

My honey lager is darn tasty, I don't know if it will last until Saint Paddy's day though.

In wargaming news, I got a Panzer Grenadier supplement, Sinister Forces, about the SS, the NKVD, and other unsavory units in ETO of WWII, and a wuick game about the fall of France and the low countries in 1940. The both look fun, and the supplement had a few historical essays that were worth reading.