PERSONAL NEWS: Hiking (21 January 2007)

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A treetop view from along the American River, California.

Hi Everyone,

I got around to some hiking last weekend... on this past Sunday, 21 January 2007.

It was a small group, just the four of us (including a dog)!

Nancy:

Nancy is a spunky lady and has been one of my hiking partners on a number of walks in the past. She's very knowledgeable about organic vegetables, herbs, and homeopathic medecine. At least, that's what we usually chat about on the trail.

Paula & Company:

Paula is part of a dog rescue group and has no less than four dogs and if I heard her correctly... and two of them are three-legged! The dog she brought along on the walk was a sweetheart of a pooch and a happy puppy to boot.

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And myself (Maksim-Smelchak):

And here I am, a middle-aged guy fighting the "battle of the bulge." It looks worse here than it really is. I just started some new medications for high blood pressure that have complicated my struggle to stay thin. I always like to say that my hard work at the gym and elsewhere has led me to having an "inner tube" rather than a "spare tire." Staying fit is hard work and I have alot of respect for all the folks I see at the gym working on their health.

We hiked along bridge street towards the Nimbus Fish Hatchery, covering about four to six miles in a brisk two-hour walk.

The beginning of the trail looks like this (above), a river access road and a foor bridge at the end of it leading across the river.

And gradually the trail narrows to a bike trail and access road for the Park Rangers (above).

And eventually, we get to my favorite part of the trail, a simple beaten horse path that follows the river with some outstanding views (above).

The park trailway is technically only a strip of protected parkland that follows the river so in some places, you can see the homes of well-to-do folks in the background (above).

The river is simply georgeous this time of year. Despite the early morning wind chill factor, you can see a number of fishermen in waders doing their thing (above).

And in some places, it seems as if you can see endlessly into the woods and that the city has disappeared. It's easy to daydream while hiking in these areas (above).

This is what a happy dog looks like at the end of a walk heading for the cars (above).

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More information can be found here:

http://walkers.meetup.com/121/calendar/5394313/

All of the photos I took can be found here:

http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f23/Maksim-Smelchak/Hiking%202007/Hiking_1-21-2007/

The URL for the group I hiked with in this post can be found here:

http://walkers.meetup.com/121/?gj=sj5

Right now, the group is currently shirnking a bit as the charismatic host has taken up aqua-aerobics... Good for her! I hope she meets her fitness goals.

Have a great Sunday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

HIKING: Sac State Walk (5-6-2006)!

Hi Everyone,

Saturday had some beautiful weather and I took advantage of that gorgeous weather to go hiking along the American River with the Rancho Cordova Hiking Meet-Up Group. We met at 9:30am at the Big Lots near Watt Avenue and La Riviera and entered the park trail near there. We hiked about four to six miles and ended up back at our cars around 11:30am. We could have made it faster, but we waited up for some of the newer hikers who needed a little more time to travel the trail.

Learn more about the Rancho Cordova Hiking Meet-Up Group here:

http://walkers.meetup.com/121/

Here's a picture of much of the gang in pre-hike mode. The following are present from Left to Right: Glenn, James, Maksim (me!), Debbie and Kathie. Heather took this photo.

The above photo is of Heather and Debbie, a mother and daughter working at getting fit... both very nice people.

Heather recently won a nation-wide art competition. Mazel Tov, Heather!

Here I am on the Sac State pedestrian bridge wearing my ConQuest Sac 2006 T-shirt. I need to work on my photography skills... I always seem to leave my face in the shadows.

We did spot a little wildlife along the trail. We spotted this deer nibbling away on local greens and totally oblivious of me as I used my "incredible stalking skills" to gain the vantage point I used when taking this snapshot.

And here's Nancy, who was my de-facto trail partner for this hike. Nancy is the organic food queen... I learned a lot about goat milk, natural cow milk, soy milk, canola oil and just about anything edible that you can buy from the health section at Eliots or Bel Air / Raleys. Nancy was very nice and I very much enjoyed her company.

And I stopped by Great Escape Games after the hike and caught a few games. The highlight of the games was playing the "Game of Thrones" game adapted from the popular fantasy novels. The game plays fairly well and reminds me alot of "Diplomacy."

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/6472

Have a great Monday evening!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.
You can see all of the photos here:

http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f23/Maksim-Smelchak/Hiking%202006/

HIKING: Sunday Hike At Nimbus Hatchery (23 April 2006)!

Hi Everyone,

I went on a hike today at Nimbus Hatchery with the Rancho Cordova Walking / Hiking Meet-up Group... very nice folks and a pleasant hike. I think that there were about seven of us on the hike.

The above lady, Cheryl and I, quickly became pals and I spent much of the hike by her side. She was very kind and we chatted about a number of topics. She also had a very fancy water rig. It had a tube that came over her right shoulder so that she didn't have to pull out a water bottle like I did... fancy shmancy.

It was advertized as a four-mile hike, but I think we did closer to five or six miles. We started around eleven am and ended around one-thirty pm. Much of the trail looked like the above photo... a worn earth trail with plenty of rocks.

Here I am, doing my best to look studly. I'm wearing a T-shirt that I sort of "borrowed" from my little sister. My sister is a Rock Med volunteer and the shirt has a colorful story... Apparently it was given to her by a paramedic named "Barf Bag Bob"... you probably don't want to hear the rest of the story...

http://www.rockmed.org/

We mostly walked along the foot and horse trails and spotted a good amount of wildlife. We saw all sorts of varmints, a pheasant, some quail, a swarm of butterflies and a whole variety of small birds. The above photo is of one of the many butterflies we saw. It looked sort of like a black Monarch Butterfly.

This is what I call the Seven Dwarves "Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we go" shot... James is in the front of this photo. He's a former US Marine and loves to hunt in Wyoming. His wife Kathie, is behind him. They're a very nice couple. James and I spoke about world politics during the hike and I enjoyed the chat.

I later learned the name of the trail thanks to this handy sign, which wasn't so handy... The little red dot that showed where "here" was must have faded off of the map. On the map key, but not on the map of the trail area. Bummer.

In a number of areas, the trail passes by the river and we saw some canoeists and kayakers.

The path eventually turned into a morass of mud and unpassable areas so we backtracked to the bike trail. The walk back was as pleasant as the one on the way there. Some horse riders passed us at one point. We also found an ampitheatre area with a big fire pit and logs to sit on.

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On the way home, I stopped by a local Persian market and bought some Taftoon bread, a sort of pita-like flat bread. I also bought some Persian carrot-orange jam (Sima's), a jar of Israeli cocoa spead (HaShahar H'aole) and a jar of Persian pickles with onions and garlic. Bon apetit!

And I'm sure that they will go well with the novel I'm currently reading:

Against Gravity by Farnoosh Moshiri, formerly of Tehran, Iran. It's an interesting novel and I didn't think I'd be enjoying it, but I am. It's about a Persian emmigre that has moved to Texas and her life there. Very clever and the characters are strangely likeable.

http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,0_0143035681,00.html

And, as a side note, since I've received several E-mails about it, Persian and Iranian are about the same thing. It breaks down like this... most folks who escaped the Ayatollah's regime in 1979 and after prefer to be called Persians. Persian is also the older historical term. The Ayotollah's regime prefer to be called Iranians and the terms "Iran" and "Iranian" have became the de facto default since. So, Iranian nationalists along the former Shah's line like to be called Persians and Iranian nationalists along the Ayatollah's line like to be called Iranians. You say to-ma-to, I say to-mah-to; you say po-ta-to, I say...

See! That degree I earned in International Relations is good for something other than collecting dust...

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Have a great Sunday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.
Learn more about the group here:

http://walkers.meetup.com/121/

P.S.S.
I have all of the photos from the hike here:

http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f23/Maksim-Smelchak/Hiking%202006/

GAMING NEWS: Saturday With The Gang (1 April 2006)!

Hi Everyone,

Yesterday, I ended up getting a chance to game thanks to Dave Story... You see, Dave has a low threshold for gaming frustration and Charles has been wanting to play "Sword of Rome" for some time now. Now, Dave owes Charles so Charles roped him into playing on Saturday and then along comes a certain fool that we all know... me! So, I ended up taking Dave's place yesterday and he got off Scott- free!

"Sword of Rome" isn't a bad game... just a long one... and some of the mechanics are known to drive some players out of their gourds... like... Kimbo, myself and poor Mike yesterday!

So, all four of us showed up yesterday...

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Game #1. Sword of Rome

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/7480

Players:
- Charles: Samnites / Estruscans
- Kimbo: Gauls
- Maksim: Greeks
- Mike: Romans

("Sword of Rome" graphic image courtesy of BGG.)

And while we decided to call the game a draw, Mike was probably the big winner. He played a good game... if the dice just didn't trip him up!

And I probably lost simply based upon my kvetching total being met very early in the day. Charles just about expired from the laughter generated by the friendly rivalry between Mike and I. And poor Kimbo hit a miasma of hypoglycemia before we decided to take a lunch break. Oh, the inhumanity we endure to wargame! LOL

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Game #2. Commands & Colors: Ancients

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/14105

Scenario #10 The Battle of Zama!

Players:
- Maksim: Romans - 8 banners - Win!
- Mike: Carthaginians - 2 banners.

This was the big one... where the Carthaginians finally lost it all after putting up the good fight before the Roman juggernaught. And Mike and I ended up with relatively historical results... he was slaughtered and I took minimal casualties for the victory. As consolation to Mike, the Carthos don't have the odds with them in that battle.

As a side note, we're going to need to research how elephants work because we had a little confusion there... does the 'phant rampage if it can't retreat... or only rampage when it dies?

I can also see that some leaders are far more useful in command of infantry than cavalry. My Roman cavalry leaders did little to nothing but take sling fire. I'm thinking of transfering the Roman cavalry leader to an infantry unit next game.

We'll have to ask our local C&C:A experts about these things, which would probably be Dick and Kimbo!

We would have asked Kimbo on the sport, but he had to leave before we broke out C&C:A as the last game of the day.

Since Zama is such a huge battle, both Mike and I found the Line Command card to be invaluable and we both had some.

Our lines essentially advanced on each other though the battle until the weight of both slammed into each other and contact was made.

As a Roman player, I used smaller cards for most of my beginning turns to set up a few huge Line Command gambits.

Mike appeared to be moving his troops piecemeal except for his elephants, which slammed into my line of medium troops rather well. Unfortunately, they didn't do that much damage for such huge behemoths (Although I recall that Carthaginian elephants were actually rather small as elephants go).

While the mediums seemed dangerous, it was actually Roman light infantry that did most of the work. They prepped the targets, engaged in close combat and then ran when they took enough of their own damage.

It was a good game and Mike might have done better had his rolling been a little hotter or had he had a better hand of cards.

ROMA VICTOR!

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Have a great Sunday!

I think I'm going to have a good one as I'll be meeting up with a friend and have a full day planned including a nice hike along the river...

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.
The C&C:A part of this post was crossposted at BGG here:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/867864#867864