Hi, there, Dear Reader. It’s late morning in Lithia, Florida, on Monday, May 2, 2022. It is a warm spring day in the Tampa Bay area. Currently, the temperature is 77°F (25°C) under sunny skies. With the wind blowing from the east-southeast at 3 MPH (5 KM/H) and humidity at 94%, the feels-like temperature is 75°F (24°C). The forecast for today calls for partly sunny skies and a high of 91°F (33°C). Tonight, the skies will be partly cloudy. The low will be 70°F (21°C).
Yesterday was another uneventful Sunday here in FishHawk. We did get thunderstorms as predicted, but they popped in and out rather late in the evening. The Caregiver had enough time to paint part of the front of the house, and I had enough time to use my laptop out in the kitchenette before the storms passed through Lithia – the town where the huge, and I mean huge, planned community where I live now – is located.
Speaking of laptops, I tried to play Crusade in Europe there so I could resume my Old Gamers Never Die how-to series of tutorials on that game today. I said tried because although Crusade in Europe was tweaked so it would compatible with today’s computers – the original version was released on various platforms back in 1985, the same year I started attending Miami-Dade Community College – it does not mesh perfectly with Windows 10 or 11.
I’ve already mentioned that you can’t save games to the hard drive so you can play the longer scenarios at your convenience. What I did not mention before is that if you forget that you’re playing Crusade in Europe in DOSBox mode, which simulates the game’s original DOS environment from 1985, and go back to Windows 10 (or 11) to check email or your social media accounts, you’re screwed. The game doesn’t X out, precisely, but it will run on DOSBox in a separate and minimized window…with no way to expand the view to the full-screen perspective you started playing in.
Anyway, I apparently forgot about that, and when I decided to take a quick break just to check my email account, I got out of Crusade in Europe and totally undid the various gains I had made in the Normandy-set Breakout from the Beaches scenario (the third one in The Battle for Normandy).
I must add that I tend to do that “accidental exit” thing from Crusade in Europe when I try to play it on my laptop. Oh, I have done it on this computer (my new Lenovo wireless PC) a couple of times, but because the laptop is (of course) smaller than my desktop computer and its layout is different, I always do it on the smaller machine.
I don’t think I’ll play Crusade in Europe today. I am tired, headachy – again – and simply don’t feel the urge to spend a couple of hours gaming. Maybe tomorrow.
Speaking of tomorrow, I will be receiving my pre-ordered copy of James D. Hornfischer’s Who Can Hold the Sea: The U.S. Navy in the Cold War 1945-1960. I am a fan of the late naval historian’s work – I own three other books by him. This is the first of three books that will be published posthumously; Hornfischer died 11 months ago at the age of 55 after battling cancer for several years.
I first bought one of Hornfischer’s books – Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal – when it was published by Bantam in 2011. This was during the first year of my mother’s final illness, and the book was one of the various books, movies, and TV shows that kept me entertained – and sane – during that time. And one of the last books I read (and finished) in my former Miami home was Hornfischer’s first published book, The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy’s Finest Hour.
Amazon informs me that my copy of Who Can Hold the Sea has not shipped yet, but it should be delivered by 9 PM tomorrow.
I don’t have much else to report, so I will close this up. Until next time, Dear Reader, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.
A Certain Point of View, Too 
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