Happy Birthday David

My brother Morgan and I visited David for his birthday. We brought along a big surprise... We parked down the street from Shane's house, and walked to their backyard, where David and Shane were playing catch. Shane had positioned David with his back to the gate, and was asking him what would make him surprised for his birthday, as I let the dog loose....


It was quite the happy reunion, complete with hotdogs!


Of course, we had to don our magical helms, choose our weapons, and fight to the death in the age-old style of Mortal Combat!


I slid the sword deep into my foe's chest... and he expired with much honour and dignity. Then we fought again!


Uncle Morgan buys the bestest presents!


A new battle sprung up between the three warring factions....



But alliances were made, and even Uncle Morgan's superior air power proved to be insufficient against the combined onslaught of the reunited father and son.


Man, my GI Joe had kung-fu grip, and I was damn happy for it! I'm jealous of all the cool toys kids have these days. OTOH, I'd probably just blow them up with firecrackers.

Smash-up Derby

I had never been to one of these. It's held at the Lorain County Fair each year. As far as I know, this is the only fair to hold this particular contest.

I've been to smash-up derbys before. I've even seen a motorcycle derby. I had never seen a Combine smash-up derby though. Yeah, Combines. If you're too lazy to follow the link, a Combine is used to harvest grain. They are relatively expensive, and can be quite large. On to the pictures:


There were 5 heats. Each heat had either 5 or 6 combines. They started off with the older, smaller models, and worked up to the larger ones.


I was cheering for the Pink Panther, and he did pretty good, but only the last two combines from each heat move to the finals. Pink didn't make it.


As each combine came out, the announcer would tell us the year, make, model and price of the vehicle. The first ones cost around $10,000 new, which at the time of purchase was a lot of money. I think the most expensive one cost $85k, new.

There were broken axels, one guy lost a main drive wheel. We saw a yellow combine get pushed from one end of the field all the way to our end, right into the concrete wall, and he had both of his steering wheels torn off from the impact.


Love that diesel smell...


Throughout the evening, folks commented on my niece's jacket:


Again and again, she was compared to Sgt. Pepper. Eventually, she asked me, "Who IS this Sgt Pepper guy, anyway?" After I stopped laughing, I told her, "Ever hear of a group called the 'Beatles'?" She told me she was going for the Michael Jackson look. Oh well, generation gap. It reminded me of the Mindset List.

My nephew (background) and his cousin (foreground) expressed their enthusiasm.


Between the 5th heat and the final heat, they had the pick-up derby. THAT looked like a lot of fun! Come to think of it, my dad has a 1988 Ford Ranger at home that he isn't using....


Me, my sister, my niece, and my nephew's cousin, as well as my brother, brother-in-law, and nephew went to the show.


The final heat was the longest. It lasted about 15 minutes. Overall, the derby lasted about 3 hours. Not bad for 8 bucks.


By the end, we were cold, hungry, and ready to go home. I didn't pay attention to who won. I was thinking about that 45 minute motorcycle ride I still had to get home.


It was pretty cool to see, but I put that in the "Once is enough" category.

Hammamia pictures for David

Hey kid, I know you miss your doggy so here's a couple of pictures for you. I can't believe my old treefort has any remnants left in those branches.


Grandpa doesn't think she's very smart, because he gave her a dog biscuit, and she's so busy jumping up and down and running in circles that she doesn't see it, even though he's pointing at it.



She looks hungry doesn't she? Wait, isn't that food on the ground right next to her foot? It's a good thing she's got a home, because I don't think Hammy could find food on her own!

David, here's a picture of Amos for you too. Look how grey he's gotten! Dad says he's 14 or 15 years old now.



Pops is pointing out his Silverqueen sweet corn, which should be ripe in another week:


The worlds largest cellphone! I took the picture next to one of Dad's watermelons, to show the gigantic scale.



I can just hear what my dad will say about me when he reads this blog: "That asshole! Imagine making fun of my watermelons."

The cable removal is going well.

We've gotten all the splices cut out and have moved on to the cable removal phase. Nothing works better than the simplicity of a few half-hitches and a clove-hitch to grip the cable.



We set a wheel at the bottom, which allowed the cable to come out smoothly. The plate at the bottom, which the wheel is shackled to, is held down to the concrete with nine 3/4" bolts. It's not going anywhere!



We've got a bit more cable to remove, then we'll start "swabbing" the pipes to remove any mud that may have built up over the last several decades.

I do enjoy a summer morning, motorcycle ride, in the country...



...along curved roads, past fields of corn and soybeans...



...up and down hills...



...to arrive at an old friend's home. One who knows just the right way to say "Welcome"

The Box is dead

Due to a player base made up of cheaters and assholes, and internal strife among the staff, the VZ/TZ Everquest Emu has been shut down.

I was just getting some good gear, and learning the finer points of PvP!

Oh well. It was always just a diversion.

There is talk that the box will live again, and talk that another EQ EMU server will take it's place, and talk about a completely new server, with a completely different rule set. We'll see what happens.

For now, I'm just not playing EQ; catching up on some other things instead.

Work is going quite well. We started a large cable replacement job that should last a few months. Here I'm cutting out splices before we pull the cable out. Once the hydraulic guillotine cutter is tied up in place, I'll exit the manhole and my partner will operate the hydraulic pump, so the cable will be cut without anyone nearby, for safety.


We made the first cut on all three cables, on the left side of the splice. Now I can stay in the manhole for the second cut, and rig the splices to be lifted out.


I've been riding my motorcycle to work, on nice days, and getting some rides in on the weekends too. I'm thinking of heading out soon to see mom and pop.

Last weekend I found some small bunnies in my backyard, when I mowed an area I don't always mow. I caught 2, to show to the neighbor's grand-daughter, but since she didn't come over that day, I let the bunnies go. I've seen them since, running around the backyard.

That's about it.

What I've been up too

That one day at my sister's house, playing WoW did me in. I went home, reformatted my hard-drive and installed WinXP, then installed Everquest. I had to check it out again, after 5 years. I had spent so much time with my character, that when I loaded him up, it was like visiting a long lost friend. I talked with some of my old guildmates, and started a new character with another friend who had just gotten back into it. It was really cool!

Then I had a problem with Sony's CS department. Evidently, I misunderstood the rep I talked to, thinking he said I'd have 30 days to check out Everquest again before having to start the subscription. He said he told me 3 days. So after 3 days, in which I had just barely remembered how to open doors, move around, and set up my keyboard, my account was suspended. I called CS again, and this time I got an asshole for a CS rep. He told me he'd give me 3 more days, and that "You should be thankful that Sony was so nice. Now get that subscription going again."

I did log back on, and talked with my old friends, and played some more, to find out just how easy it had become. Sony had added mercenaries (NPC characters) which were better than real players. My old friends were still in a high-end guild, and one linked me an item gotten off a raid mob, and an item gotten off a single-group mob. They were nearly identical! The raid item was slightly superior, but the game designers had catered to the whining masses and made the game way too easy. There was no challenge.

That, coupled with the idiot CS rep made up my mind, and I just let my account expire. I took a few screenshots for old memories.

The best part of Everquest, as I remember it when I first got started, was the way the game made you feel you were IN the game. It was total immersion. I had played Doom and Half Life before, but nothing was like Everquest. Everquest was the Dungeons and Dragons of the new century. (Of course I had played D&D too!) Anyway, the game mechanics made me feel emotions as if it were real life. When my character advanced in levels, or skills, I felt like I was getting better. When my character died, there was a real sense of loss. One of the best parts of the original game was the fact that when your character died, you had to go find your corpse. If you waited too long, that corpse would "rot" and you'd lose everything on it. That was a HUGE incentive to 1.) Not die. and 2.) Be sure to get your corpse quickly. Of course when you died, you would spawn back at your original bind point, and where your corpse was may be quite far away.

Another facet of the game I really enjoyed was the seeming expanse of the world. One had to run everywhere! This gave the illusion of a very large world. Continents were seperated by oceans that one had to take a boat to cross. A boat ride would take ~ 10 minutes of real life time, adding to the illusion of a real world, with far-off places. Because of this, one didn't see too many races from the distant continents, and when you travelled to those far off places, you may not be welcome by all.

There was the constant threat of danger, which would wane as you grew in levels, but never quite disappear.

With the current Everquest, there is no risk. It's easy to pass from continent to continent by clicking on a stone. If you die, your corpse is easily accessible, with no dangerous corpse runs. They took all the fun out of the game to make it easy, the bastards!



Then I went searching for something I had heard about years before, an Everquest emulator. EQEmu was a project developed by fans of the game, who didn't like the direction the game was taking under Sony's leadership.

I found this site through Google. The play guide got me started, and after solving a few minor problems, I was up and running!

I read the descriptions of the various servers, and started off with VZ/TZ which is a Player vs. Player (PvP) server. PvP is quite different from PvE (Player vs. Environment), and it takes a little getting used to. Fighting a character that is controlled by a real live person is much more difficult than fighting an NPC (non-player character) that has been programmed to act and react a certain way. But with the higher difficulty, comes a more challenging (ie, FUN) experience.

I tried to get some of my friends to play, but they chickened out on the PvP aspect (You KNOW who you are...Kendes...Kolm...Barm.) Barm told me to check out another server Scars of Amerous, so I did. He told me to be sure to see the weapon merchant in Surefall Glade, where we pop into the game, then go fight in Crushbone.

The weapon merchant sold me, for nothing, gear that I had gotten before after months of raiding. He just gave it to me! That made me laugh, but nothing prepared me for running into this guy, weilding this weapon:


That weapon is the warrior epic 1.0, and in it's heyday, was the most awesome, and most desired weapon of any warrior class character. So I killed the Orc and took the epic. A few hours later, I was level 75.

Barm still tries to get me to play on that server, but it's too damn easy. I do like to stop in now and then though.

So, over the past several weeks, I've been playing EQ, and not blogging. Why did I take a break now? Not by choice. The man who manages the VZ/TZ server (the hardware, or "box") is moving, and the box is down for a few days.

Once it's up again...I'll probably be gone again.

I can't wait!

Liz's wedding was a masterpiece

Which it should have been, being the second time around! The first wedding had broken out in the middle of a hockey game.

Liz had a perfect day for it, which was amazing since the weather was crappy before, and right afterwards. She looked stunning in her cream (I know that isn't the correct name for that color) dress, which had a stripe of red going down the train. I thought it might have been a racing stripe...but she stuck around for the entire ceremony. Kyle was dapper in his tux, standing tall, but not quite at attention. My buddy, Rick had just gotten his Marv haircut that morning, and Cheryl was attractive in her mother-of-the-bride dress.

The coolest part of the wedding ceremony was when Liz and Kyle knelt down before the statue of Mary, to pray together. Just then, sunlight came streaming through the stained-glass window, to light them up. It couldn't have been choreographed better to look like God was blessing them.

I had picked up a head cold on Friday, and exacerbated it by drinking many beers that night, after the rehearsal dinner at Rick's house. The entire day, Saturday, I was plagued with a runny nose, headache, and worst of all, an incessant tickle in my chest that would send me into a burst of coughing. I was barely able to control it by concentrating on breathing slowly, and shallowly, but that made for very poor conversation.

I debated on skipping the reception, but in the end, I went. They served great food, and the reception was as nice as the ceremony itself. The highlight being, during the introductions, the groom preceded the bride, then began jumping up and wriggling his body, with his hands at his side. I was wondering what kind of weird fish dance he was supposed to be doing?! When I saw Liz come out, miming the use of a fishing rod, I realized that she was reeling him in. It was very funny.

I stayed in bed all day Sunday, and most of Monday, drinking prodigious amounts of OJ mixed with water, and sweating. I didn't feel too bad this morning, but took off anyway, because I didn't want to work in the rain, and have a relapse. My buddy suggested Nyquil, which I went to the store for, and it seemed to work. I took it at noon, slept from 1 to 5pm, and felt decent. I just took another dose, at 10pm, to last me through the night.

I bought a couple of suits

It's a slow news day. Yup, I finally buckled and bought a suit. My buddy's daughter is getting married on Saturday, and I figured I'd get a suit for it. Every man *should* have two suits anyway, one for festive and one for sombre occasions. The experience wasn't nearly as bad as I expected, though I've been dreading and avoiding it. The two gentlemen who helped me knew their trade, were polite and patient, and completely natural and unpretentious. I felt at ease as the fellow told me that the bottom button is never buttoned on the suit jacket, and explained why the pants were so long. I'm a Goober.

At least I'll be a well-dressed Goober at the wedding and reception.

Easter

Easter morning was bright and sunny, though a bit cool yet. My daffodils have started to bloom, adding a nice splash of color to the front of the house.


I headed off to my sister's house for Easter dinner and some fun, but first I stopped at Mom & Dad's to see how the old farm looks. Dad's demo of the quonset hut is coming along. It's sad to see the old buildings falling apart. There used to be a corn-crib and a grainery too.

The barn looks in FINE shape still. Look at those straight lines. They sure knew how to build to last 100 years ago. Of course the new siding and paint job we put on 10 years ago helps. Notice the ladder leading to the top of the pear tree? Pop is fearless at 77. I'd be nervous about going up that ladder, and I make a living climbing!


Hammamia was happy to see me. Or bored. (This picture is for David)


My sister Megan, and her daughters were already there when Mom, Dad, and I arrived. I told Autumn that she had the wrong color scheme for this holiday.


Shelby let me create a character on her World of Warcraft account (actually, Kerry's account), just to check it out. Beautiful graphics! Sometimes I miss the old Everquest days.

I took some time to show my dad the old pictures my cousins had put up on the GENI site, and we tried to get the names of some of the people Aunt Joann couldn't remember. Dad had a few more names, and he really enjoyed seeing those pictures. He said it was like a history lesson. Then I headed out to the Man Den, for a few cold beers, Cavs AND Indians games, and to see my brother-in-law's (Kerry's husband, Tom) new project with his nephew. James' car is a 1970 Olds 442.






Some day, it'll look like my other brother-in-law's car (Stacey's husband, Brian). It's the exact same car. I wish I knew how to do automotive work. It looks like it would be very rewarding. One of these days, I'll get some pictures of the car Tom has already restored.

Back home again

When I got home from Indiana, Tina and I took Katie for a walk at the local park. While Katie made dootie, Tina prepared to do her duty. Dootie-duty. (I'm a damn fine writer, aren't I?)


No one told Katie that she wasn't supposed to go for a swim, so while I walked out onto little "duck island", Katie followed me, though she took the muddy route. I couldn't stop laughing while Tina was yelling for Katie to get out of the mud. I didn't mention that Tina wore a white sweater that day, did I...?

I ran her around a bit to try her, and wipe some of the mud off.


We put her in the back of the truck for the ride home, then right into the laundry sink for a bath. She used to be afraid of that sink, but now she just sits down under the warm water and enjoys it.

I don't know why Katie used to be afraid of the sink. Just because it looks like it belongs in a slaughterhouse. Those stains do look like blood, don't they? Hmmmm.


Yes, I made Tina do all the work while I cheered from the sidelines.