Dr. Christopher Duffy at 2011 SYW Convention in March

I've just received an e-mail announcing that Dr. Christopher Duffy will be attending the 2011 Seven Years War Association Convention in South Bend, Indiana, USA, on the weekend of March 25-26, 2011. They will be at the Ramada Inn, and details are here : http://www.sywconvention.com/

He's written 20 or so books and at least 19 of them are apropos for the 18th Century wargamer and enthusiast, and the other one is good too. One of them, Fire and Stone,  shows the wargames played at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst when Professor Duffy was there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Duffy                 That's his bio on the Wikipedia.

It is a siege game showing Airfix troops for the 18th Century, and has a neat set of rules in the back. These rules are notable for having  used the concept of the telescoping of time, some years before another set of wargame rules copyrighted it. They are both good rules, but that always did rankle me.

I had mentioned a few weeks ago that I missed all the trips they had taken to the Eastern European battlefields and also missed the one they took a few months ago to the scenes of the Forty-Five in Scotland. To me everything is too expensive and I do not get much time off work at all, but I regret all the events I've had to miss out on.

College football fans will recognize South Bend as the location of Notre  Dame University.

There's not a chance my car could be trusted to go that far, and I would need to rent one. Every year my plans fall through and the Boss schedules me to work anyway. There won't be many more opportunities, however. Just got the car out of the shop after the flat tire I got for Christmas, and now this morning the electricity went out for a couple hours, too. Had to break out the oil lamp. God provides sunlight for those without electricity, but the natural temperature outside being 13 degrees Fahrenheit, or 19 below freezing, meant that it got colder and colder by four degrees per hour.

In other years the featured guest at the SYWA Convention has been Professor Dennis Showalter, whose book 'The Wars of Frederick the Great' is also available on the links provided here on the blog.

On the link to the SYW Convention site, be sure to have a look at the Gallery, where there are hundreds of  pictures posted from past conventions, all 18th Century and featuring many familiar faces from the wargaming boards such as TMP, as well as the hundreds of blogs. Maybe this year, me too.