Today 15April2023: Tax and Titanic Sinking Day

The wreck of the RMS Titanic happened 111 years ago today. The ship had taken massive damage from striking an iceberg, and its single riveted steel plates took damage, until this time, unimaginable. Nobody believed a collision should open a 300-foot hole in the side of a ship. The ship was of the newest and safest design, but all the liners were running north to reach New York faster.

The ship and its water-tight compartments and the crew mainly were sacrificed to save those they could, about 650 souls, with the crew and passengers lost totaling over 1,500. The lights remained on a moonless night until the ship began to break apart after all but one collapsible boat had left the ship safely (one capsized with the 2nd Officer finding and organizing survivors, mostly crew members, to stand on the back of the boat until rescued).

While we should not focus on the terrors of that night, but when the lights went out as the stern raised out of the water, that was the last view of Titanc. The movies show something of the sinking, but it was pitch black, and the only view of the ship happened when something flashed. The only thing that could be seen of the wreck from the lifeboats was the ship’s shape against the stars once the lights went out.

Also, despite the excellent models in the movies, the ship broke up more like the Twin Towers on 9/11, with 1/3 of the ship’s middle pancaking and exploding from the compression pressures of the water-filled bow and the massive engines in the stern. The decks disintegrated and fell together, imploding. As the remaining parts of the wreck began to sink, the stern broke away from the sunk wreck and started to explode from the air and water pressure. Again, Titanic was wrecked more like a building collapsing than the solid structure you see in the movies.

Some lifeboats returned to rescue the freezing and drowning, but the below-freezing water claimed most in minutes. The historical record shows a few rescues from the sea and some folks impossibly surviving the night in the water and wreckage. The sea was covered in the wreckage as anything that could float was. The newspapers say that the Titanic’s bridge’s roof was seen floating in the water–the roof is not on the wreck.

The RMS Carpathia reached the area as the sun rose. The rescue ship crew was horrified not to find the ship and shocked to find only lifeboats and only the ones from the Titanic. The 600+ folks were brought on board, and everyone gave their clothing, food, and anything to help the survivors. The Unsinkable Molly Brown would organize a relief effort for the survivors, provide the ship and captain a silver cup, and have metals struck and given to the rescuers.

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Lastly, the area would be avoided for months as the wreckage field was massive. Recovery of the lost people would happen for months. The trade routes were moved south. The uniform of the Merchant Marine now has stripes to honor the crew that mostly sacrificed themselves to save those who could be saved. Radios are always on now, and enough lifeboats for everyone are mandated on all passenger ships.

Moving away from the sad history of the date and Tax Day, going backward, I returned home before midnight, having stopped at Popeye’s for some spicy chicken to get a late dinner and to start my Birthday with fried chicken, a very guilty pleasure. After that, I read some emails, looked at work Slack channel, and found I was still not needed, and went to bed and slept immediately, woke once, and then slept until after sunrise on my 59th Birthday.

Moving back, I spent the evening with Richard, Shawn, and Caroline at Richard’s house, playing board games I selected for my birthday and picking games I owned. Mara Nostrum: Empires (2016) is a game I usually play only at conversion and has moved to my retired stacks in the garage. It needs four to seven players to experience the game as imagined by the designer, which is a hard group to get together, and harder to find players for a 4X and messy game like Mara Nostrum.

Despite the chaotic nature of the board game, throwing together empires against each other, Risk-like, and insane combat rules. The game structures the chaos in a fantastic leader-lead process that covers all those strange rules about the order of play and priority. The leader of trade, culture, and military runs that part of the game–fantastic. The game is unbalanced; when one empire does not expand, another fills, takes the resources, and often wins. There are four paths to victory, and the game ends when one empire fulfills one objective.

Richard, playing Rome, and Shawn, playing Greece, formed an unbreakable alliance and made Caroline and me mostly bystanders and victims of this plan. This made our gaming less fun, but if you step into a 4X game, that can happen, it is the nature of the games. While Mara Nostrum will return to the garage, I still like to play with it in large, aggressive groups: 4X to the max. As the Emperor said, “Use your aggressive feelings.”

We then turned away from 4X and moved to semi-cooperative with a hidden movement game, still playing the basic training version, Mind MGMT. I played the recruiter, and it was my job to recruit agents while the other players tried to find and capture me. I went with a no-strategy strategy and moved in straight lines around the edge of the playing service (The recruiter gets a dry-erase copy of the board they keep hidden). This worked as my players, knowing them, overthought my possible moves and bounced all over the board. I did have to pull the rip cord early and jump as the players’ starting location for searching was right on top of me! Unexpected.

I did get captured, but I managed to run for twelve moves, which, while short of winning, was good, I thought. My plan worked, and I spent five turns without the other players knowing where the recruiter was. It was fun to give the Kickstarter and colorful Mind MGMT game a spin–hidden movement-styled games being a favorite for me. I hope to play my copy someday and play the campaign game (it adds superpowers to players–the losing side gets the new power to balance the game, and then you play a rematch).

Before this, I was with Evan at Rogue’s Taphouse in NE Portland. There I had fish and chips and played a game of Concordia, another favorite board game–but I was crushed by Evan in the game. Evan collected the Mars cards and ended the game and thus creating an unreachable score for me. He played his best–a good win for him. Next time!

Here is the picture of one of my worst losses in Concordia; I was not quite lapped by Evan.

My sister, soon-to-be brother-in-law, and Mom Wild sent me a gift card to Guardian Games in Portland. We stopped by to get it. Unfortunately, Air Volvo was parked near a wall, and every alarm went off as I tried to parallel park it next to the wall. I can usually get it on the first try, but the alarms unnerved me. No paint was lost, despite doubts from Air Volvo’s safety equipment.

We had time for another game, I still watching my phone and Slack channel and emails at work, and we played my updated Wingspan now with European and Asian birds and a wooden bird feeder (the paper one was showing its use). This is a fast game for two. I had two bird cards with the new blue powers and a little engine for putting food on cards (worth one point each at the game’s end). Evan and I split the turn goals with a matching score of sixteen. The high-point birds, and food on cards, let me carry the game by six points–about one bird card. Our usual close game for two.

Before traveling to Portland in low traffic, Evan and I met at Susie’s place at the hummingbird house in Portland (Tigard) at Allegiance Senior Care LLC, 9925 SW 82nd. Ave. Portland (Tigard), OR 97223; phone (503) 246-4116. We spent some hours with Susie watching a movie, Frozen 2, as it was still cold, windy, and cloudy in Tigard. I arrived about 11:20 with two sets of flowers, to Susie’s delight; all the flowers had faded from Easter. Anassa was happy to replace the dying flowers with one set on the shared dinner table and one in Susie’s room.

Anassa moved Susie to her rocking chair, and Susie was happy to just hang out and watch something from Disney. We stopped the movie on Disney+ to call Leta, her mother, and they had a friendly chat on my iPhone using FaceTime to see each other. Susie’s sister, Barb, was at Leta’s to look into placing a new deck on Leta’s house. The old porch has been removed to remove the raccoon and rodent entrances to the house, and Leta is looking forward to sitting on a deck in the summer. Barb and Susie chatted briefly, too.

We completed the movie after that, and Susie was sad but understanding and let me leave. I had trouble not crying as Susie gets lonely when I am not there and misses me. I come every day.

Before this, I was up and worked a bit on my radio project. I managed to mount the light in the face plate, a LED for a ship model with that yellowish old-school lighting look, and even temporarily mount the parts in the wooden box. I then tested and fitted the insides, and while it looks a bit like a mess, it is not that bad. Sadly, I had a cut-out problem from a weak soldering and did that work again for the radio (!) break-out board. The problem stopped. It looks nice, and I am only about 1/2 done.

I will have the face plate on straight for the final build!

Yes, the huge magnets for the speakers are a bit close to the microcontroller, hum. But we are far away from the radio–it should be OK.

Aside: As a model or an electronic project that is large or long-running starts to finish, the most challenging part is not to break something already done. This is very true with plastic masts on ship models. My first complex build, HMS Dreadnought in 350-scale, had me replacing the masts multiple times, and the model now has masts I built from scratch after destroying the originals. In addition, wooden sailing ship models must be built in the correct sequence to reach the ties for the rigging (you just don’t have a tiny crew to help you grab and tie down the ropes).

In the morning, I started slowly and discovered the ants were back. So, I have opened a new offensive with more ant baits. These ants are from different paths and should soon fade away. I will put some more baits outside. I prefer less drastic chemicals, but I have been unable to stop them except with baits (they contain boric acid, a very light poison used on ants and cockroaches with minimal environmental damage).

I wrote Friday’s blog on Friday night, so I was not rushed.

I dressed, loaded the car with many board games, and started my day with a poppy seed bagel from NYC (my supply was frozen while fresh and reheated well). After that, I had liberal coffee, drinking the whole of my French Press while working on my radio and bills. I try to pay bills and download the current transactions every day–it does not pay to put this off.

Thanks for reading.