Springfield or Bust

This last weekend I drove down to Springfield, MO, to visit my good friend Tony Turner. We hung out in the afternoon and he showed me the revitalization of the old downtown area that has been going on for the last six or seven years. When I was in school at Missouri State, that area was mostly abandoned and very run down. Now there are lots of new restaurants and art galleries and other shops, and that was good to see. That evening Tony and I went to the the Missouri Stave vs. Indiana State basketball game, and the Bears won, which was great. It had been over 10 years since I had been in the Hammons center, and I must admit that it isn't as impressive as it was to me back in 1992 when I was a Freshman. After seeing arenas at other schools the old HSC just doesn't seem like much. They are building a new arena, though, so in a couple years they should have a bigger arena befitting a big-time program.

Tony also hit my car with his SUV on Saturday, which was interesting. In my younger days I would have gotten mad about it, but I have matured over the last few years to the point where I just realized that it was one of those silly things that happens in life (and the damage is very minor), so why get worked up over it?

On Sunday I went to Tony's new(ish) church, Northbridge. It is a "non-traditional" model, and in fact reminded me of the Quest service at my church. Not really my thing, but it is always good to visit other churches and see that it doesn't really matter how you worship God, what matters is that God is worshipped with all your heart and mind.

And I would be remiss if I didn't note that the St. Louis Blues won their game last night against Pittsburgh. Yes, they won for the first time in a month, snapping an 11-game winless streak. So sad, but at least I got to see them win (on TV).

BattleTech

When I was younger, my favorite board game was BattleTech, a game where you control giant mecha that can lay waste to the countryside, and your foes, if you are so inclined. I haven't played in a long time, but that was because most of my old stuff got destroyed in a flood at my apartment building when I lived in Virginia close to 5 years ago. Lately, I must admit that I have been trolling eBay looking at people selling their collections and pondering buying back in. Not that I would really have the time to play it much at all, but just to have it again would be cool.

However, I just learned of a game, distributed free online, called MegaMek. This game lets you play what is essentially BattleTech on your computer. The game is designed for network play, but you can play hotseat on the same computer by simply launching two separate clients. I just got done playing a rousing battle between two lances of 'mechs and supporting hover craft, and it was a hoot. It doesn't look quite the same, but the designers have done as good as they can with a top down view, and they have tons of optional rules programmed in. As a freeware project, the interface isn't immediately accessible, but you get what you pay for, I guess. Seriously, if you have any interest in BattleTech then you need to check out MegaMek, as it lets you play for free. You don't have to buy anything: no rules, no maps, no miniatures, no nothing.

Now I have to consider simply picking up a few scenario books and just using MegaMek to play some BattleTech battles. Totally sweet!

A Secret Atlas

A Secret Atlas by Michael A. Stackpole, 2005, Bantam Spectra

And now it is time for another book by my favorite author. This one is starting off a new trilogy. The setting is heroic fantasy, but with some differences. First, magic isn't as prevalent, or handled in the same way, as other popular fantasy series. Second, the political setting has many intentional similarities to Europe in the "age of discovery" period of the late 14th through 16th centuries. Two of our main characters are part of a family of map makers, the most famous map makers in the world. This sounds rather boring, but the fact that new maps can only be drawn after people explore new areas of the world provides the key to get the adventures started.

Of course, as a Stackpole story, the internal politics of the existing nations are enough to fill many volumes. Those of you who enjoy Machiavellian twists and turns among the rulers and their pawns will find much to enjoy here. I also like how there is an obvious bureaucracy that follows its own rules, which is a nice touch of realism while allowing for even more plot threads.

The basic plot is that Keles and Jorim Anturasi, the grandsons of the world's most famous mapmaker, are sent on voyages to discover more of the world so their granfather can improve on his maps. While all of this is going on, there are significant political machinations between two of the main powers in the world, and the world may be in danger from even darker forces. This goes on for a good 500 pages or so. The last few chapters, however, really throw a spanner in the works, as there are a number of sudden changes to set up the next book. Overall, it was good and I enjoyed it, and I look forward to seeing where things go next.

Hot Times in Bluesville

So, much has happened with my beloved Blues over the past few weeks. The old coach, Mike Kitchen, was fired, and a new coach brought in. I like Mike, I thought he was a good guy. Unfortunately, none of the players wanted to win while playing for him, so out he goes. But it turns out that maybe it wasn't the coach after all, as the Note has dropped another two games after Kitchen got fired. Hey, maybe my boys just suck again this year. Unfortunately, that is looking more and more like what the situation really is.

Terrible Thursday

Yesterday was one of the worst days I have had in a while. It started out innnocently enough. I got up a little earlier than normal so I could get to work at a good time, and I got there a little after 7 A.M. I worked for a few hours, getting all ready to tackle my day (which was going to involve lots of audit documentation writing), when I get a migraine headache. It's not too bad, so I pop 3 Excedrin and hope that the drugs will work for me. The headache starts to go away, and then I lose my network connection. The entire room I was working in lost connection. Since we use electronic workpapers on my current project, that is bad. I need to access the online "file room" to access my work. Over the next hour, the network comes up for maybe 5 minutes, so nothing is happening.

My team leader takes this moment to start sending me emails saying that the work I did the previous day isn't visible in the "file room," and the people I am auditing on Friday are getting all snarky about it. Since I have no network access, it isn't like I can even check and see if what they are saying is true or not. I also have a meeting in the afternoon for which I need network access to run the teleconferencing software. My headache is getting worse, so I decide to head home so I can at least access the network and check email.

When I get home I find I can access email, but the "file room" is down, and I can't access it at all. Everyone else in the world seems to be able to access it (I literally called at least 8 people), but I can't get to it. Eventually I had my team lead copy down the information I needed into a spreadsheet so I could do my audit work, but by 4PM I was totally shot from all of the stress of just trying to access my files. Why can't they give us software and tools that work? And why could everyone else see the files and I couldn't? Crazy. Everything worked fine today, so who knows what was really going on. I just hope I don't have another day like that anytime soon.