Random Access

Sunday : 29 January 2006
<< Rewind <<
Yesterday saw the beginning of the assault on the HALO Command Center. Somewhere, in the process of cleaning the rest of the house, I lost ground in the HCC. Sun Tzu would have been very disappointed in me. came over to help with the retaking of the room. We spent a few hours on it… and it became a living space once again.

Mother Nature decided to grace us with snow during the early afternoon.

We headed to Thanksgiving Point to see the train show. Wow. I haven’t been to something like this since I was a kid. I mean a little kid and when my father would take me to the Christmas display that the Pikesville Fire Department would have in one of their stations. Very cool. This show reminded me of that… and more. It was like being a kid – a little kid, that is – all over again. HO-scale. S-scale. N-scale. O-scale. And, LEGO scale (yes, I said “LEGO scale”). Trains and train-related paraphernalia all over. It was Nirvana, Valhalla and the Elysium Fields… all rolled into one. Being a Chessie System (the gestalt of the Chesapeake & Ohio, Baltimore & Ohio and Western Maryland Railroads) fan, I looked for cars or locomotives from that line. They’re a little hard to come by out here in the land of the Union Pacific Railroad. Go figure. I found a few things, but decided against getting anything. As I said, there was also a LEGO railroad set up, by the burgeoning Great Basin Lego Train Club, run by Reed Cowan. Right now, it’s a club of one, but he’s hoping to drum up support for it. He had a really cool setup of three interconnected lines. All of the pieces there were Reed’s; he said that he’s been collecting – and, in some cases, customizing – them for fifteen years. I talked with him for a few minutes about setting up LEGO trains… and what it took to run a line with more than one powered unit on it… and… and… and… Well, you get the idea. I roamed for a little while longer before we were ready to go. I acquired a couple of N-scale boxcars whose sides advertised “Baltimore Circus.” I was set to leave with just these, but picked up an HO-scale Chessie locomotive for me, before we left. w00t!

Back to Salt Lake, including a detour to Dr. Volt’s before heading home.

I patrolled the streets of Paragon City, getting ever-closer to Security Level 29, before heading to breakfast. I teamed up with Don and a few other people and took on some of Paragon’s less savory citizens… and former citizens. It was a good night.

Breakfast had a small turn-out, but was good. When we walked in the door, Melody came up to me and said: “I have something for you,” and led me back to the office. It turns out that my new nametag had come in. (What? Were you expecting this story to go somewhere else? Sorry.) I now have a tag that reads “Rob” and a brand-spankin’ new one that says “Rob – Crew Trainer.” Go, me! We hung out until the point at which my eyelids felt as if someone had secretly replaced my eyelashes with lead filaments. Home. Bed.

> Play >
I woke up around 10:30 this morning. Pretty impressive, considering that I wasn’t getting up to watch a football game. I got up and puttered around for a bit. and her boys came over to help me with the excavation of the HCC’s closet. Yep, “excavation.” I haven’t seen parts of the floor in there since we moved into the house. I did my best impression of John Henry racing the steam drill and burrowed into the once-before closet. Four hours later, we had not only reclaimed the space and organized it… but I had eliminated a LOT of “Wow, why wasn’t this thrown away LONG ago” waste. Boxes of it, in fact. *nod* The day was quite productive.

The High-Flying Adventures of Indigo Bolt –

I spent a few more hours in Paragon City today. I ran a couple of solo missions. I earned a few experience points. However, I proved that the “I’m not a Tanker (I’m a Blaster), but I’ll wade into the middle of this group of bad guys anyway” attitude can be hazardous to your health. I died a couple of times and racked up about 10,000 points of debt. I also discovered something: I have a power called “Voltaic Sentinel,” which creates a “pet” of ball lightning for me. It will attack enemies on its own or, if no enemies are near, it will simply hover (heh… “hover”) by my side. I’ve noticed that I mentally refer to this… “pet”… as “Sparky.” That realization made me laugh. “Sparky” and I took on ghosts, The Cabal, Fir Bolg and Tuatha de Danaan.

A little later, a couple of old teammates – and super group mates – logged and and joined me on a team. We added a couple of other heroes and took on a few missions in Croatoa and Independence Port. New team. New missions. Same “Come get you some” attitude. We took on more ghosts, Fir Bolg and Tuatha. I also made it to Security Level 29. Only 180-something thousand points to go before Level 30… and my next costume.

Stray Toasters

I spoke with my mother for a bit today. All’s well. She will not, however, be coming out here in March. It turns out that the conference that she was considering attending is scheduled at the same time as the All-County or All-State (I forget which) Competition, in which her chorus competes. On the “plus” side… God willing and the creek don’t rise, it looks as though my uncle will be visiting next weekend for the Super Bowl.
Welcome to the Year of the Dog, according to the Chinese calendar. I was born under this sign; what Chinese zodiac sign are you?
…which leads us to:
Maddox sent me a link to 3D-Painted Rooms . Pretty cool looking.
Mental Note: Cleaning is not supposed to be “fun.”
Fear of Girls – a D&D “documentary”
Toy Story 3 has been scrapped. (Does that mean that Woody and Buzz wound up on the Island of Misfit Toys?)
I discovered today that the game that I’ve been trying to find is not spelled “Clockworks,” it’s “Clockwerx.” Spelling it correctly made it much easier to search for.
“Trust not the living and walk slowly behind the dead.”
This is a quote that my father brought back with him from Vietnam. It’s one that’s been rattling around in my head for a couple of weeks, after my uncle mentioned it over my Christmas vacation.
Poll time!
“Aren’t you a little short to be a stormtrooper?” –
(The commentary, once again, made me chuckle.)
Stormtrooper in Yokohama
Crabfu Steam – live steam creations (Think: “Steampunk toys.”)
This weekend’s broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion came from Purdue University.
Wonder Woman #225 – a review from Broken Frontier
This was one of the books I picked up yesterday. It was a good story.
“It’s cute that you think you’re making a point. Really, it is.” –
: Batman 1:18 Die-Cast Batmobile Collection
: From Newsarama – Journey into Comics: In Defense of Lex Luthor
Special Edition Superman DVDs on the Way (Finally!)
“I gotta go do this, but I’ll talk to you after our set, okay?”
“Okay! Have a good ass! Uh… show.”