Vacation 2005 – Saturday, August 20

I just couldn’t not watch the new Battlestar Galactica Friday night at 10PM, so it was about 11:30 PM before I got to bed Friday night. Since we were flying out of JFK at 0705 Saturday morning, that meant we had to get up at 0330 in order to get showered, finalize things around the apartment, and get into a taxi and out to JFK. We made it to JFK without incident (and even a little early!) but were selected for secondary screening once we got there. HLS has got to get a better system. I am a defense contractor with a security clearance and my wife is 6-months pregnant. I don’t think we are a threat.

JetBlue is quite nice, by the way. And despite not having a meal, they did provide lots of snacks and plenty of drinks for the 5 and a half hour trip. We did discover, however, that when you have DirectTV to watch on a Saturday, that there are really not that many shows you want to watch in the middle of the day on a Saturday. And we were just too tired to read. We did manage to each sleep 30-45 minutes, but we were pretty tired. On the plane we overheard the first of several good quotes we decided to track. A young, college-aged male in the row behind us came up with this gem:

“They are going to have flights out of Newark? Is it just going to be outgoing flights or are they going to have incoming flights too?”

Cheryl wanted to tell him, “Just outgoing flights. They have to tow the planes over to New Jersey from JFK for them.” But we just laughed at his statement and cried for the future of this country.

Now let me talk about how awful the Oakland airport is with respect to getting rental cars. They have one bus for everyone, and it doesn’t have any type of ramp, so you have to pick up your luggage to get it onto the bus. And the luggage storage is in the middle of the bus, and the doors are, you guessed it, at the ends of the bus. And the bus was packed full of people. And it is not a short ride to the rental cars. From the time we landed it took 60 minutes to get luggage, get the rental bus, and get to the car. 60 minutes before we were driving out of the lot. Unacceptable.

We hit a little traffic on 17 on the way to Cheryl’s aunt Janice’s beach house in Santa Cruz. Feels weird to call her Cheryl’s aunt as she is only a few years older than Cheryl. Janice has a sailboat in Santa Cruz and was kind enough to take us out. Our friends Jeff and John met us in Santa Cruz and the 5 of us went out on the boat. Usually, we have Janice’s boyfriend Steve with us on a sail, but he was in Japan for business. So we were a little sluggish in doing things like moving the jib from one side to the other. But I think we did alright. I’ve been sailing about 4 times, and it turns out that Jeff had been sailing before, so we did alright. We wouldn’t have won any races, but we got to where we wanted to go. And it was really cool.

This is also when we discovered that our new camera rocks. We got the Cannon Powershot S2 IS. It has a 10x optical zoom, and image stabilization. We took some shots from the bouncing sailboat with full zoom and they came out perfectly focused! I’ve included a couple of shots here. Completely fell in love with the camera.

After the sail we went back to the beach house and just sat around and chatted for a while. Then John and Jeff went back to San Francisco and we went to a local brew-pub for dinner. I had the Salmon fish and chips, and of course a local beer. Very good. Finally, at dinner Cheryl and I started to really fade (had been up essentially since midnight local time), so once we got back to the house we went pretty much straight to bed. It was about 9PM.

Stardate 59631.61 - On-Line Game Table for D&D

OK, so if Outlook is running and Word is the editor for Outlook, then the Blogger tool for Word doesn’t work. Good to know.

We tried to have our weekly D&D game last night. It is getting harder and harder to get everyone together for a game. With me living in NYC, Brian on travel, Andy’s distance to Ashburn, and Trent’s new baby it is really difficult to get 100% attendance for a game. So it looks like most of our games in the future will need to be virtual.

Here is a little history…we used to play at my house in Vienna, VA when my wife and I lived down there. We had “in-person” games all the time…it was the only type of game we had. Once my wife and I moved to NYC, I turned over the game to Trent, and I only played when I happened to be back in town on business. After a year, Trent asked if I could take back over and if we could figure out a way to do the games on-line. We used NetMeeting (it was free) and I purchased a camera. So the group got together in VA (usually at Trent’s) and I pointed the camera at the battle mat and they crowded around the laptop to see what was happening in the battles. The sound was crappy, I had to wear a headset, and sometimes it was tough to get the proper perspective on things, but it worked for the short- to medium-term. Later, I purchased the program Screen Monkey and no longer used the video portion of NetMeeting, but we still used the audio portion or sometimes the phone if we got really angry at NetMeeting. We tried to use Microsoft’s IM tool for audio, but we had some intermittent issues.

Near the end of the year last year (2004), I decided I needed a break from running the games. Except for the year Trent ran things (and I ran a game in NYC), I had been DMing games since 1997 pretty much every week. I needed a break and asked Rick (who joined as a member a year ago to replace Eric who had dropped out) to take over.

Now we are in the situation where we just cannot get everyone together anymore, and we need to move to on-line full-time. Thank goodness for Skype. Great tool for audio over the Internet. Works really, really well even in conference mode. Blows the audio for NetMeeting out of the water. We’ve been using Skype not for a while, and it is our audio tool of choice.

Last night, we tried to use Skype and NetMeeting with video to show the battle mat while Rick tries to figure out what on-line tools he wants to use. It was a disaster. NetMeeting was awful…I was the only one who could connect to Trent and see the video. Once, Brian tried to connect to Trent’s IP and I got the approval dialog box! Total crap. So here is a brief e-mail traffic on what we are going to do, and it contains links to some alternative programs that you can investigate if you are looking for an on-line gaming table solution. These are my opinions, and I am not a reviewer, nor have I performed any in-depth analysis of any of these products. For what it is worth, here are my thoughts as expressed in an e-mail to the group, in answer to a message from Rick (also included):

Actually, I know that Trent was probably pissed at having to give up his free night just to screw around with the technology, but I think it was actually useful to have all of us on the line so we could talk about what works and what doesn’t and what we would like to see in a utility. What we learned:

• NetMeeting blows big chunks of vomit.
• Skype has excellent sound quality…much better than anything else we have ever used.
• Fantasy Grounds is cheap, the graphics are top-notch, and even with Brian’s slow connection speed was good. It does peg the CPU.

I agree that we just need mapping and comms at the most basic level, although I do like a lot of the features we ran through with Fantasy Grounds last night in the demo copy.

My thoughts on others:

• KloogWerks – This is really a combat system. I experimented with it and while it is cool and it looks good it tracks way more stuff then we would want (I expect). It tracks initiative, distances to target, etc. You have to input all your character data and it does all the rolls, manages all the HP automatically, assigns damage, etc. I think it is more than we want/need.
• OpenRPG – I downloaded this once, but never got around to really looking at it. It does require a lot of other free software to work, as I recall.
• Screenmonkey – This suited our needs, except when I loaded in a big map. Not sure if 1.5 is any better than what I had been using. Advantage here is cheap and easy to use (not a ton of features, but it worked well for us in the past, I thought).
• Fantasy Grounds – The reviews were very positive that Rick sent out. I also watched (skimmed) the video – he talks briefly about getting other tokens. I really think this program is pretty cool.

I really, really liked Fantasy Grounds. I guess I would vote for it first, and Screenmonkey second. But Rick would have more prep work with Fantasy Grounds, I think. But the advantage of Fantasy Grounds is that if we don’t like a feature we just don’t use it. With Screenmonkey if we decide we want a specific feature we’re probably screwed. And Fantasy Grounds really looks cool.

---Curt

---

From: Rick
Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2005 23:39
Subject: electronic gaming...

ok - so I was all prepared for a great session and netmeeting really let me down.

I think the conclusion we've come to is this group for the time being is going electronic - brian's in bfe, andy's locked into dc traffic, curt's in new york, and trent's a bit tied up. So virtual tabletop is the solution. I'll miss the pizza and beer/pop.

We played around with fantasy grounds - I've heard good things about it and it looked fairly simple to use in our playing around tonight. Price is $20 for the client. There's also ghostorb which looks pretty sophisticated and is a service at $4.50 a month (currently free, but supposedly about to come out of beta any day).

At the most basic level our needs are:

a) mapping
b) communication

Fantasy grounds offers mapping and text communication. GhostOrb offers mapping, voice, and text communication. Skype offers voice communication.

Just taking a look at other forums...

KloogWerks - looks cool - one word - java
http://www.kloogeinc.com/screenshots.html

OpenRPG - free - one word - opensource
http://www.openrpg.com/index.php?page=features

Screenmonkey has "upgraded" to v1.5 -
http://www.nbos.com/products/screenmonkey/screenmonkey-features.htm
benefits as I see it is that the only thing you need is a web browser and a connection to the internet. The "lite" version is free and pretty well featured. Also now offers window chat capabilities, so in theory if we are having difficulties with internet voice communications we can be text based communication.

At first look I'm inclined to test out and dig into screenmonkey and fantasy grounds. Any other thoughts?

Rick

Stardate 59631.57 - Testing Blogger for Word

Here is my test.

OK, I have downloaded the Blogger for Word tool and am trying to compose this in Word, and then have it posted to my Blog.  Not sure if it will work correctly or not, as it warns that if you use Word as the editor for Outlook (which I do) then you may have some issues.

Leaving for vacation soon!!  Cannot wait!!

Stardate 59618.52 - Weekend Events

Still getting ready for the vacation. Managed to miss the rain both today and Saturday....luck was with us. Then we went all the way down to B&H to look at cameras (maybe getting a new one for the vacation) and they were closed today! So our luck ran out. Spent part of the weekend finally clear-coating a piece of furniture that we purchased almost 10 years ago...a Crate & Barrel pseudo-butcher block wine rack sort of table. We're going to turn it into a changing table for the baby. But we never sealed it with clear-coat, so we did that. 2 coats everywhere but the top...three coats there. We also took a trip to Buy Buy Baby to look at strollers and cribs.

We also watched a couple of movies this weekend. Meet the Fockers was bad. Two thumbs down. Major let-down from the first one, which was much better and funnier. Also we saw Dazed and Confused. Two thumbs sideways. It was billed as a comedy, but it is more a period piece about the 70s. Not much plot, not much point.

It was nice to have a weekend with minimal work (I did some administrative items for an hour Sat morning), and no travel. I spent some time playing Neverwinter Nights (I'm working on getting through it for the second time...this time running a female Ranger, whereas I ran a male Paladin the first time). It is interesting how dialog with the other characters changes slightly in many places depending on what sex you play in the game.

Since I keep posting pictures to keep people entertained, here is one of me and Cheryl in Ohio, taken by her brother Steve. Enjoy!! Now I'm going to go to the kitchen and see if Cheryl needs any help with dinner.

Captain's Log, Supplemental - Another Picture

Ok, ok. Last picture today. Here is me in England with Sarah Michelle Gellar. She is really quite short for someone who slays all those vampires. People ask me why she looks mad and I say it is because I put my arm around her and she didn't like that. In case you think it might not actually be her, I'll tell you where the picture was taken: Madame Tussauds. Still confused? Madame Tussauds is a wax mueseum. It is actually her wax dummy.

Captain's Log, Supplemental - Another Picture

Here is a cute picture I just ran across of me and Cheryl and her nephew Ethan from last Christmas in NJ. I look like I need to lose weight in this shot. And as usual, when I smile you cannot see my eyes.

Denise and Greg and Curt and Cheryl

Since I know Denise (orange hat) reads this blog on occasion (she left me a comment once), I decided to put up a picture of her and her husband and us on a hike back in 2003. Damn. Doesn't seem like it should have been that long ago. I'm closing in on 40 years old much faster than I would like....

We look hot and sweaty because it was a hot and sweaty hike.

Captain's Log, Supplemental

Here are Cheryl and me at the Capitol after her brother's wedding. She is showing a little at this point.

Captain's Log, Supplemental

From our camping trip to the Finger Lakes...

What a squared-away campsite! That Starfleet training sure comes in handy! Our tent is great. Check-out that awesome rain-fly!

Stardate 59606.37 - Vacation Plans

Working hard to get everything in place for our big vacation coming up...our last trip before the baby arrives in November. Looking forward to some R&R and getting away from work, although based on the numbers of e-mail I receive daily (about 120) I'm probably going to be checking e-mail while I'm away, just to keep my inbox from filling up. Crazy.

All is progressing well with the pregnancy. Cheryl has an appointment (standard) with the doctor, and she'll get a note just in case the airline wants to give us a hassle. Would hate to show up for vacation and have the airline say, "She looks too far along to fly!"

Seems like everyone is having babies right now...my friend Trent, my wife's brother. Oh, and we're keeping any names secret until the birth. We're open to suggestions, but we are not telling. I just keep telling people we're going to name her after my wife's D&D character: Liljana.

Stardate 59566.28 - Reviews

Dawn of the Dead (remake) - Two thumbs up!! The ending was not "Hollywood", the characters were well acted, and it was just tongue-in-cheek enough to be fairly humorous. It was pretty gory, however, and is not for the weak-stomached.

Bridget Jones - Edge of Reason - Two thumbs down. Not good. Couple of funny moment, but it was such a huge deviation from the book that we really didn't like it.

Also went to see The Waifs at Joe's Pub Monday night. Terrific show!! They have one final concert tonight, and then they are off for about 12 months. The lead act, Ben Weaver, who is married to one of the Waifs (Donna), was not very good, in my opinion. I bought his CD hoping that the studio version of him would be better...it is not. In fact, it is worse than him live. Sorry Donna and Ben! At least Ben got my $15. The two people we went to see the show with both loved The Waifs so much they both purchased the double live album at the door on the way out.

Stardate 59544.37 - Baby Girl on the Way

While we have not made a general announcement via e-mail or anything, my wife is around 21 weeks pregnant right now and we are expecting a baby girl in November 2005 (approximately stardate 59866). Perhaps I will write about that experience here.

While everything seems good so far we are still a little apprehensive after previous pregancies did not work out. So far, however, all seems well with this one.

Stardate 59536.01 - Another Movie Review

Forgot to add:

The Chronicles of Riddick

Thumb sideways - Cheryl did not watch this one either. The first movie, Pitch Black, which was not set up for a sequel, was really good. Making a sequel was a bit of a stretch, and the ending is a little over the top.

Stardate 59535.53: Naples Italy

It has been some time since I have written here, so I will put in several separate entries so that people can ignore the ones they don’t care about. You hear that, my 1-2 readers? Don’t just read the first article below. There are several new ones.

Recently spent 15 days in Europe on business: Germany, Belgium, and Italy. Now, I love Italy. Cheryl and I spent 2 weeks in the north on vacation with another couple and we all absolutely loved the country. The other couple even went back this year for another 2 weeks. But I have to say that Naples is not the north. Not even close. Naples is a pit. Awful. Hot, crowded, dirty, polluted, and miserable to try and get anywhere. We found a small area of pretty good restaurants, but it required a shuttle ride from the hotel and a taxi ride back.

I was do disappointed as I loved the north so much and I was so excited to be back in Italy with someone else footing the bill but Naples just plain sucked. I guess you can use Naples to launch off to other islands nearby that are nice, but I recommend no one spend any time in the city of Naples.

Stardate 59535.53: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

It has been some time since I have written here, so I will put in several separate entries so that people can ignore the ones they don’t care about. You hear that, my 1-2 readers? Don’t just read the first article below. There are at least two new ones.

This is the most stupid situation I can imagine. Wait…no, GW did win a second term.

Here is the deal, the software for GTA had code in it, that only when coupled with a third-party software modification, adds sex scenes. Every idiot senator and lawmaker seems to be going after the game's maker, Rockstar Games Inc. Bear in mind that the game is rated “M”, so that only people 17 and older are supposed to purchase it. The “M” rating covers “intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language”.

First, the idiots think it should be rated “A”. I think the modification should be rated “A”, but the game by itself DOES NOT CONTAIN the sex acts. So “M” is appropriate.

Second, the idiots say that people under 17 get the game. Blame the parents. Blame the retailers. Do not blame the game maker. Blaming the game maker for people underage getting the game is like blaming the MPAA or Paramount when a theater in Wisconsin permits 14-year olds into a “R” movie. The fault is with the theater, not the MPAA or Paramount. Likewise, don’t blame the game maker if the stores are selling it to underage buyers or if parents are purchasing it for their kids.

Third, where are the damn parents? To all you parents out there…YOU have the responsibility to monitor your kids games, TV, movies, Internet use, book reading, etc. Don’t blame HBO for a series like Deadwood, and don’t blame Rockstar Games for GTA…blame YOURSELVES for not monitoring your kids more closely.

This whole situation really pisses me off. Lets focus on people breaking the law by…oh I don’t know…maybe leaking the names of CIA operatives, and focus less on video games.

Stardate 59535.53: Movie/Play Reviews

Have seen a bunch of stuff recently:

• Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. Two Thumps up. Hysterical movie that both Cheryl and I really enjoyed.
• The Replacement Killers. Thumb up. Cheryl was away when I rented this, but I enjoyed it. Mira Sorvino is hot, hot, hot.
• War of the Worlds. Two thumbs down. Stupid ending that came about way too quickly, horrible lack of motivation for the characters (particularly the idiot son), and a really stupid Hollywood move at the end that removed all credibility the movie may have tried to squeak by with. Awful, awful, awful. Yes, the special effects were good, but they are good in everything now.
• The Outlaw Josey Wales [1976]. Thumb up. Cheryl missed seeing this one. A retired USMC Colonel recommended this one to me, so I added it to our Netflix list. Couldn’t believe I had never seen it. One critic said “best movie of 1976”. It was quite good.
• Kidnapping Caucasian Style (Shurik's New Adventures) [1971]. Russian movie with English subtitles. That way Cheryl and I can both enjoy it. Two thumbs up. Very silly, but funny.
• Avenue Q. Saw this on Broadway. Thumbs up all around…me and my Mom and 2 relatives. I now have to go back and take Cheryl. I also MUST find the soundtrack now.
• Catch Me If You Can. Two thumbs up. Liked it more than I thought I would.
• The Beach. Liked the book somewhat, did not like the movie. If you did not read the book, you will not get the movie. Two thumbs down, or maybe sideways since we had read the book.
• The Day After Tomorrow. Two thumbs up. Another one I did not expect to like as much as I did. Living in NYC makes this one even more interesting.

Stardate 59395.68 - Trip to Finger Lakes

Just got back from a terrific trip camping at the Finger Lakes. We stayed at Taughannock Falls State Park with its knifing 215-foot freefall waterfall in the Cayuga Lake area. We did some great hikes, and took in a couple of cool wineries. We ate dinner almost every night in Ithaca, home to Cornell University. It is a very cool college town, with really good food. We even ate at the famous Moosewood restaurant, although it was weird paying money to eat a meal out that we've probably cooked at home from one of their cookbooks. The best wineries that we went to were Thirsty Owl Wine Company and Lucas. Didn't like Americana - the server gave off a bad vibe. Also went to a hard cider place that was really cool with very nice people: Bellwether Hard Cider. We had perfect weather except for a very cold first night (thank goodness for 20 degree sleeping bags!) and a rainy final night (so we had to pack up everything wet and then dry it out in our Manhattan apartment!). It was just five days (Wed - Sun) but it was a much-needed break from work. Speaking of which, I have to get back on the clock.
Excalibur out.

Stardate 59333.11 - Hitchhiker's Guide

Went to see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on Saturday. Two thumbs up! This rating is despite the sound problems the theater we went to see it at was experiencing. The music was too loud, and the voices were too soft. I have never worked in a movie theater, so I don't know what causes this situation, but it was very annoying. I did see that the movie hit #1 over the weekend, which was a big surprise to me because my theater was only 50% full at 1630, while the line for The Translator at 1600 stretched for a block (which is why we saw Hitchhiker instead).

On Sunday we went hiking in the rain. Got home in time for the sun to come out. Big shout out to the Mianus Gorge. Close to NYC, and pretty cool hiking. It is the first land project of the Nature Conservancy (which we support), and it is the first Natural History Landmark designated by the US Federal Government.

Excalibur Out.

Stardate 59324.46 - Recent Activities

We recently took a day trip to Cold Spring, and had a great time! Very cool place! And pretty close to NYC.

We’ve also been to see a couple of plays recently.

1. Doubt was not as good as the hype. I guess I'd give it a thumbs-sideways. Cheryl says thumbs down. And it was more than 90 minutes long with no intermission. I know movies are that long and you don't get a bathroom break, but there is something different about a play.
   
2. Midnight and Magnolias was not so good. More lines were flubbed than I expected, and the acting was a bit over the top. Thumbs down. Cheryl says thumbs down as well.
   
3. We also saw an interesting work in progress entitled MORBIDITY & MORTALITY This one was very interesting, and as a work in progress the actors still had their scripts and the venue was quite small and intimate. Very cool, but the ending may need a little work. Two thumbs up.

This weekend I think we will see the Interpreter and do a little hiking.

Excalibur out.

Stardate 59297.33 - April Update

Looks like I am down to posting about once per month. I started this as an experiment as I was not up to speed on blogging (becoming management has a way of sucking all your technical skills out of your head and replacing them with schedules of meetings after meetings after meetings). It takes a lot of work to do this on any type of regular basis, and to be honest, I'd rather focus my efforts on my D&D game or on playing computer games in my off time. I also don't have any readers of this blog as far as I can tell.

Here are a couple of bloggs I have started reading regularly that I really enjoy. I offer them up as suggestions:

http://blog.scifi.com/battlestar/ - Ron Moore's Battlestar Galatica Blog - Updated after every new show. He provides a lot of information from background on specific episodes to political commentary to thoughts on Star Trek. And one of my personal pet peeves/interests on these types of shows, he published the "official" rank structure for BG.

http://www.wilwheaton.net/ - Wil Wheaton (yes, that Wil Wheaton) talks about everything from his appearance on celebrity poker shows to auditions to his family to the recent death of one of his cats. Surprisingly good. I had my doubts when he started writing a column for Dungeon Magazine, but it was so good I checked out his Blog and have been hooked ever since.

Those are the two big one. I also use RSS to keep up to date with Federal Computer Week and SciFi Wire (news), but not sure who else is interested in that combination. Oh, and I'm a huge fan of Tell Me About It - advice for the under 30 crowd (even though I passed that age many years ago).

Lunch over...back to work.
Excalibur out.