Is it bad if I say that I “killed” my history professor?

Yesterday (I would have posted then, but my phone decided to lobotomize itself so I can’t get all my pictures) was the day of the big Wings of Glory game at Dork Club. Wings of Glory, originally called Wings of War, is a strategy game where you control a WWI era fighter plane and try to shoot down the other WWI fighter planes.

It’s a fun game. You get to control old airplanes, what’s not to love?

We started the night by breaking off into two teams: British vs. Germans (no Nazis; they didn’t exist for another twenty years). We didn’t exactly have set deployment zones, but the way we set up would be sufficient. I was in control of a Sopwith Camel (you know, the one Snoopy pretends his doghouse is?) and there were a few German types nearby, as well as another Sopwith Camel. We went after the nearest Fokker triplane (which is what the Red Baron flew, but he was on the other side of the map), and while we chased that one down a big dogfight started on the other side of the map (That’s where the Red Baron was. Professor Morillo, my history professor, was controlling him.)

Here’s the World War 1 Flying Ace. Sadly, the game does not have a piece for him

On my side of the map, me and the other guy quickly chased down and destroyed the triplane we’d spotted (controlled by one of my fellow Kappa Sigs, Rob Barber). On the other side, stuff happened, and quite a few planes took damage. Deciding we were better needed over there, me and the other guy turned and sped over to the big fight. On the way, I happened to run into Morillo’s plane, which had flown out of the fight a bit earlier. As he was in range, I decided to take a shot.

I shot him down.

I shot down my history professor. Hopefully this won’t affect me going into finals. Anyway, The other Germans were shot down in due order, ending that round of play.

Round 2 began, and I found myself up against three German planes… that didn’t go so well. I managed to survive for awhile, but eventually my luck ran out and I got shot down. Poor me. On the other side of the map, Morillo got shot down again, although the Brits took a bit of damage and Morillo’s daughter kept almost flying over the edge of the map. The guys who shot me down went over to try and help, but they got shot down too. So, another win for the Brits.

After that, we packed up and left, mostly because people had other things going on that night/week (like sleep). I got some good pictures, but sadly my phone is kind of dead, so it might be some time before we get to see them.

Things happened last night. Good things.

Last night was the ThanksGaming event for Dork Club. Basically, five hours of different games, food, and more games. I will give a more thorough explanation.

So, I arrived an hour or so before the event actually began so I could unpack my Pirates stuff. Pirates is a game where you build little fleets of 18th century sailing ships and crew, go out and get gold, and blow each other up. Fun. I’ve got about 282 ships, so there are a lot of combinations to be had there. Unfortunately, I’ve had lots of time to figure out those combinations, and everyone else has not, so I was at a bit of an advantage there.

Here’s all 282 of them, more or less. Arr!

After playing that for a little bit, we moved on to another game: King of Tokyo. I’ve already expressed my enthusiasm for giant monsters beating each other up in my last blog post (Pacific Rim), and this game is just that; a bunch of monsters beating each other up so they can become king of Tokyo. I was playing as Cyber Bunny, which is a giant robot bunny being driven by a smaller bunny. I lost, because Pandakaï is OP (seriously, he has a special power-up that allows him to turn over any dice roll he wants).

Sllllllllllaaaaaaaaappppppppp!

After Pandakaï won again, we decided to play Bang! The Dice Game. It’s kind of like King of Tokyo, but in the Old West with gunslingers and such instead of giant robot bunnies. I died a few times, and I got shot up by indians a few times (not as bad as some of the others- one guy took 5+ arrows to the face). There was much fun had by all, and I want to play that game sometime soon.

Then we played another game (well, I say we, but I sat this one out because there were six of us and the game calls for five). It was fairly confusing for beginners, being as it had a lot of things going on at once and only ten minutes to do so, but I think the players had fun with it. I’m sure if we sat down and read the rules more thoroughly it’d be even better, but meh, what can you do?

That game finished, we decided to take a small break and wait for food to arrive. By that, I mean we started playing Cards Against Humanity.

I feel evil now.

After that, food arrived. We all helped ourselves to lots of pizza and soda, and played a few more rounds of Bang! (more Death-by-arrows ensued). Then it was getting a little late, so we wrapped up and I got all my Pirates stuff stored away (somehow- I think I might have mispackaged them).

All things considered, it was a good way to get back to Wabash.

Wednesday: Baron Von Morillo’s Flying Circus comes to town…

So, I’m back in Indiana. Not at Wabash, not yet, but that can wait until tomorrow. For now, I am staying with my sister near Indianapolis.

But that’s not what I want to talk about. I am going to talk about my Thanksgiving, and my journey home.

So, Thanksgiving; It was great. My cousin, her husband, and their baby daughter came for a visit, and it was nice to get a chance to talk to them and tell them about my experiences at Wabash and my trip home. After that, we sat down and had dinner (the usual arrangements for Thanksgiving- turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, rolls, stuffing, green beans, cranberry sauce) and talked some more about what had been going on in our lives (also, it’s rather amusing to see babies eat). Once dinner was finished, I went out and picked up my girlfriend and brought her back to my house for pie and apple crisp. Yup. Then we just sat around for a little bit and talked some more.

I really miss this. Yeah, I do get a chance to talk with my friends at Wabash at mealtimes, but I miss sitting around post-meal, talking with family, and just relaxing (I have to do homework after meals). I didn’t have to worry about anything, except waking up in time to catch my flight the next day, and not really worrying felt really good.

The next day, I woke up around 7 (actually earlier, because my cousin and her family were staying the night, and the baby realized she wasn’t at home and proceeded to have a freak out) and finished packing my things. I said my goodbyes and my dad drove me to the airport (after a quick stop at the donut shop- I have yet to find a donut shop around Crawfordsville). Because I had printed out my boarding pass earlier, I was able to make it to the gate in no time at all. Of course, then I had to wait around for a little longer for the plane to arrive, but I managed to make it through with what I had.

First flight was not very eventful; I got another aisle seat (so I could get off the plane faster) and this time they actually passed out headphones for their TV sets. So I decided to kill time and watch Pacific Rim (Robots punching giant aliens in the face- what’s not to love?). We landed in Denver a bit ahead of schedule, and I got to the next gate with some time to kill. I helped myself to a snack of an orange, half a cookie, and some chocolate covered raisins, and then got on the next plane. Originally I was seated next to some foreign girl (I think she was German… or Dutch), although she ended up moving once we reached cruising altitude so the guy next to her could have his fiance sit next to him. Being as I had some free time on my hands, I got to work reading the Aeneid and actually managed to finish what needed to be done for Freshman Tutorial.

Then I fell asleep.

I woke up about 40 minutes before landing (by a baby, of all things- second time that day), and seeing as I had little else to do I waited patiently until we landed. After that, I gathered my things and met up with my sister, and we went out for burgers and shakes.

And that was my trip back to Indiana. I’ll talk a bit more about what happened in between my flights to and from Oregon in a later blog, but probably after I’ve gotten a chance to unwind and get back into the habit of things at Wabash. Oh, and there’s a bit Dork Club thing tomorrow, so you’ll hear from me on that.