I passed my motorcycle training course without incident, so that's pretty good. We had one lady lose her bike in the dirt yesterday, which was pretty exciting for a few seconds. I was somewhat disappointed that none of the training involved speeds over 20 miles per hour, as the speed limits around here are 25-40 mph. Of course, if you've got a bunch of folks who are scared to get out of first gear, if they can even get there, it's probably a good idea not to have them riding quickly. Last night I went to start up my bike and give it a little test run, but the battery was too low to start. Early this morning I went and got a charger, and I rode it around the trailer park a little without dumping it on the speed bumps or losing it while trying to turn into the driveway. I definitely notice the extra 200 pounds that it has over the little dual-sport I rode for the STAR course. There's a middle-school parking lot across the street that is supposedly open in summers for people to practice riding. I'll probably take my bike over there and work on my skills some more, because girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.

I picked up the Festung Europa expansion for Flames of War, which covers the late-war army lists for the game. One thing that bothered me about the book was the pictures of games in progress. All of the figures were bunched together so much; it really had the "parking lot" look that is often referenced on the message boards. In one photo the tanks were literally parked front slope to front slope, duking it out. I'm not sure if it's a function of it being a company-level game or playing on too-small tables so you can fit a tournament into a small venue. Looking at the vehicle charts the firing ranges appear to allow for some amount of standoff distance. I don't have the main rulebook yet so I can't really speculate on how the game would work if you cut it down to smaller battles involving platoons with attachments rather than full companies.