Archive for the 'Unification Wars' Category
August 29th, 2007 -- Posted in Driving in San Diego, Unification Wars |
Well I have been really busy today and am taking a brief time to write something before I go back to work. I have already worked through lunch getting a few things done and now it is time to take a breather for a little while.
The way to work this morning was interesting again today. I was following one of the people that lives up a few streets from me. He ran two stop signs and a red light and luckily I didn’t have to follow him past the red light.
I then got behind someone who was too busy talking on her cell phone to use her turn signals. So it was just a little frustrating watching these people on my way to work and knowing that there are a lot more of these folks on the roads here.
I got to work and had to light off the full OTCIXS/TADIXS for a demonstration and introductory lesson. I was glad everything worked great and everything went smoothly. I got through about half of the classroom work and will finish that up tomorrow. Then we will roll into the lab and that really goes fast.
I did take a little time trying to figure out something game related for a fed mate, but he won’t be happy with the answer. Laila and I have been playing around with the way we post op and we were trying to have him use the same method but with the ships he uses it will not work.
Anyway I am now being requested to look something up so let me check that out and get this one posted for the day. Work comes first and I guess I have taken enough of a break today.
August 28th, 2007 -- Posted in Driving in San Diego, Unification Wars |
This morning was one of those mornings where I got up when the clock went off and then just hit the snooze twice and stayed in bed. I still managed to get up and get a shower and all and got online before 6 AM but I was really not very motivated to get going this morning.
Anyway the first thing that happened when I logged on this morning is that I found out one of our members hit one of our allies. Then when I saw who he hit I got even angrier. Jedi’s fed carries the same banner as our fed so there can be no confusion about that one. Also this fed mate would have had to be pretty low in PR to attack that empire. Needless to say I am pretty angry that someone would hit a member of our training fed.
Also this person failed to post OP when he came in so I will be watching. He is never on when Joe, Sam or I are on so I usually don’t see him, but Laila is my eyes and ears when I am asleep and lets me know what is going on. If this guy has a problem with not hitting allies and not posting OP then he can do it someplace else, as I will have no time for him.
The way to work was a nightmare this morning. The guy 2 doors up either lent or sold something to a friend and the item was too big to fit in the guy’s trunk. So they kind of tied the trunk halfway shut and he drove really slow to get out of our little subdivision. Guess who was behind the guy?
Anyway, once I got out of the subdivision I was fine until I got to the freeway and then it was a parking lot. Because it was a parking lot everyone was using the off ramp lanes to get a jump on traffic meaning they could like pass a whole ten cars before forcing their way back into the freeway lanes and extending he backup further.
I don’t know why people have to do dumb stuff like that. When one person cuts another off on the freeway it starts a chain reaction for miles behind as people brake for the brake lights ahead.
If everyone would just follow the laws and be courteous the freeways would run smoothly. Of course this is California and everyone is too busy fixing their hair, talking on their cell phone, or reading the paper on their way to work so that is probably too much to ask.
Well time to get ready to go give the test and get going for the day.
August 16th, 2007 -- Posted in Internet, Unification Wars, Work |
Yesterday our federation leader resigned from the federation and when into long term vacation mode. As many college students, the game takes away from study time and also having a somewhat normal life. As his time available to play grew less and less, he lost track of the normal goings on in the federation and sometimes would disrupt things a bit, but in the long run he did a very good job while there, and we look forward to his return when he has more time to play.
Last night was ok, a few of us ironed out some misunderstandings and the game went on though I was somewhat tied up in the chat and wasted taking advantage of my turns. We got everyone taken care of and then since all fed business was done for the night I went ahead and went to bed early, even before the 11 PM news comes on.
Just before going to bed last night Skype started giving us difficulties and it was totally down this morning. I forgot how to use trillion and yahoo for voice so Laila and I just used text chat this morning for stuff. I hope Skype will be back up when I get home tonight. If not I will figure out how to get the other stuff running for voice.
I am wondering if it had anything to do with the earthquake in Peru last night because that is about the time Skype started acting strange, or it might be the typhoon going through Manila last night causing problems.
Today at work I almost finished the antenna classroom stuff and will finish it up tomorrow. I also watched Petty Officer Kelly move one of the workstations today. The new antennas we installed are a lot bigger than the old ones and when one set of them were rotated if they were in the wrong position could hit the workstation so he moved it.
Other than that life goes on and I will again be glad when the weekend arrives as I feel a bit beat up this week.
August 6th, 2007 -- Posted in Navy Stuffs, Training, Unification Wars |
The weekend is over and another Monday is here. Hopefully it will be a quiet week. I did get back to Stargate Warriors last night and so now hopefully I will be able to convince some of the fed members to start working towards a goal of having us all at about the same PR level to save turns and for better protection.
I have been playing around a bit with the My Space account. It is almost the same as this one here on Blogdrive and I am just going to copy the posts I make here as I am lazy and already maintaining two blogs.
It is easier to post pictures on Blogdrive maybe because I have a premium account. Anyway I actually blogged over the weekend as you can notice. It was fun blogging about Navy stuff again so I was thinking of posting some more ship stuff. I just don’t have the ability to get on the Internet at work to download some pictures. So I will find pictures and post them when I get home.
For the regular readers of my blog some of this may be a repeat, but it will be good for the new folks to catch up with things about me. It will also give me a chance to make my blog a little more interesting I hope.
After I joined the Navy in 1974 they sent me off to boot camp in San Diego and then a few schools in Great Lakes, Illinois. I attended Basic Electronics and Electricity, Electronics’ Technician Class “A” School – Radar, and Interior Communications Technician Class “C” – CCTV Systems schools. I completed all my schools by November 1975 and then left for my first ship, USS White Plains (AFS-4) homeported in Yokosuka, Japan.
I was nervous about going to my first ship and even more nervous knowing it was homeported in another country, but all in all it turned out to be a great duty station and I saw a lot of the world while being stationed there.
I reported as a young ETR3 (Electronics Technician Radar Third Class Petty Officer) and was immediately assigned to the ship’s closed circuit television station as the maintenance man. The system was not fully installed and the ship was in the yards for overhaul so my first task was getting everything put back together.
The White Plains was an underway replenishment ship and was designed to deliver food and whatever else was needed to ships at sea. We spent a lot of time operating out of Yokosuka and Subic Bay, Philippines since that was where we picked up our supplies. We operated in the area bounded by Australia to the south, Guam to the east, Japan in the north, and the Straits of Hormuz in the East, so it was quite a big area. It was also a hard working ship and everyone used to have to take part in loading supplies and working somewhere during our underway replenishments.
I was first assigned to the Cargo Control Office where I kept track of how many pallets were delivered to the customer ships, but was later moved to the bridge where I kept a record of course and speed changes. It sometimes resulted in some pretty long hours of standing during the replenishments but I learned a lot about ship handling and all that came to help me out later in my career.
I had a lot of fun there and it tested my technical knowledge as well as my patience because as a junior petty officer I was assigned to all the various collateral stuff that junior people are assigned to, like compartment PO, Laundry PO, Damage Control PO, and others. I did manage to make ETR2 while I was there and I saw a lot of the world, made some good friends, and gained a lot of experience.
So there you have it, my first ship and a little about myself.
Real quickly one of my friends had something nice happen to him over the weekend. My buddy Petty Officer Kelly was supposed to go to Africa to be part of the UN Peacekeeping forces earlier this year but was excused for medical reasons, nothing major, but it disqualified him. When he received his orders he moved his wife and family to the Bakersfield area so they could be closer to family and has been visiting them on weekends.
Friday on his way to visit he had a blowout on his motorcycle and was helped out by a couple of older motorcycle riders. He had his blowout at night in the Los Angeles area. He was walking the bike to an area where there were tire stores and motorcycle shops when an elderly man, he said 71 years old rode up and asked him what was wrong.
Kelly told him what had happened and the guy got him to a hotel to go to bed for the night. The next morning the guy and another buddy of his helped get the bike towed to the motorcycle shop and got the tire put on. They even paid for the new tire and got him on his way. When he tried to pay them back they just said next time he is in the area they would like a navy ball cap and they thanked him for his service to the country.
I love it when I hear stuff like this after you see the troops humiliated and marginalized by the press. Contrary to the press people do appreciate the sacrifices and all made by our servicemen and women.
Anyway, back to work now.
August 2nd, 2007 -- Posted in News, Sympathy and Prayers, Unification Wars, Work |
Yesterday we had a few things for the class to get done and one of the other instructors and I spent the afternoon tutoring one of our students who was having difficulties. We actually stayed late and so on the way home rather than mess with cooking and all I stopped off and picked up a couple of pizza’s for dinner. I then swung by a neighborhood store and picked up some lottery tickets and then was going to the post office to check the box, but there was an accident blocking the parking lot so instead I just went home.
I flipped on the TV and was getting on the computer when I noticed Fox News was reporting an incident in Minneapolis about a bridge collapse. The initial reports were kind of sketchy but then they started showing pictures and I was shocked. The bridge was huge and the damage devastating. There was a semi and a school bus along with many cars.
Through the rest of the evening I watched as they kept reporting and on particular thing caught my ear. I guess a year earlier they had discovered some cracks and I guess they didn’t follow it up. If this is true I can just imagine the lawsuits.
It also got me thinking about how many bridges I cross each day on the way to and from work and while traveling around town. I sure hope Caltrans has been keeping up the maintenance on ours here. Also it makes me worry about how they would hold up in an earthquake since I do live in an area prone to earthquakes.
I know that a few years back they did a lot of retrofitting of the freeway bridges in San Diego to make them less susceptible to collapse during a quake, but when you see something like that on the news it really gets you thinking.
A few weeks they had the tanker truck that had a wreck and when it caught fire caused the bridge up there to collapse. I just hope that things like that could be prevented. Anyway I will hold the victims in my prayers and I hope the recovery process moves quickly.
This morning was quite a frustrating day. I got up on time and all, but I had to install faults as soon as I got to work and a few of the radios were not cooperating. Anyway instead of having the class start troubleshooting at 7:15 as planned we didn’t get them started until 8. Then I had to cut the troubleshooting time back a bit because on of the instructors has an evaluation today and borrowed the class for an hour. At least I am ahead of schedule so we will just work on more troubleshooting tomorrow and if we have to finish up on Monday.
Today I may be able to go back to Stargate Warriors. I had PM’ed an admin asking how long it would be until I could go back and was told the period is 14 days, but someone we know from another fed quit and it was only seven days. I just want to make sure so I do not wind up fedless. I will talk to the folks tonight when I get home. Laila wants me to start posting the standings for planets and OP posted of the fed page. It should not be too hard and so I will get that all put together. Other than that I guess things are going great.
Well time to get back to doing the job. My break is over and I have some stuff to get done.
July 23rd, 2007 -- Posted in Unification Wars, Work |
Well today is really starting out strange. I am here but none of the other staff or students has shown up. Since it is not my class maybe they were told to come in later or something, I don’t know.
Again I took the weekend off from blogging. Actually I took the weekend off from a few things. I did get my chores done and all of that but I really basically just rested and stayed on the couch much of the daytime and posted op and chatted at night.
I got all my stuff ironed yesterday, and I have been making a lot of progress with my infrastructure in the game.
I finally figured out how to move stuff around in my Yahoo account so I have classified users. Also for the game chat we now are using Yahoo instead of the IRC because it is more convenient and causes less lag in the game.
Well I guess the grocery store workers have voted on a contract. They were going to go out on strike. I still can’t see why baggers and cashiers need to make that much money, as that is not a career job, but so be it. That is why I will continue to buy stuff at the commissary and have given up on shopping out in town mostly.
This morning on my way to work I was listening to the radio when an interesting point was brought up. Over and over again since the Athenian’s democracies fall apart after about 200 years. As the people continues to vote for the people that will give them the most from the government funds the people grow more and more dependant and apathetic until the government is overthrown and a dictator installed. Well we are at 221 years old now, so how long will it last? When grocery store baggers get over $8.00 an hour, the time has come to stand back and wonder where we are going.
Well it is the normal start time for the day and still no staff or students are here. I wonder if there is a holiday or something I was not told about. There have already been calls from people wanting to talk to the military staff. This could get interesting. I do know the guys like to go to the gym and work out before class, and that might be where they are, but since the senior guy is on vacation they have been taking a few freedoms.
Well I guess that is about it for now. I can at least get the lab set up for the day.
July 18th, 2007 -- Posted in Driving in San Diego, Unification Wars, Work |
Last night I was really happy to get reset early and I actually went to bed before 10:30 for some much needed sleep. I woke up at four this morning looked at the clock and went back to sleep until the alarm went off. That gave me some extra time to chat with Laila and check game stats and all.
Today the freeway was practically empty which was surprising. The neighborhood roads were a little congested as the guys with shopping carts were out rooting through people’s trash today. The recycling center still hasn’t opened, but there is already a bunch of activity in the neighborhood. I wonder if there is another one open somewhere close that I haven’t seen.
Today work should be really quiet as my class graduates and I won’t start teaching the new class until they get to receivers. I will be helping when they have labs and all. I am a little worried as they appear to be a bit behind right now and it is a big class. I guess I’ll see later today when I get a look at the schedule and see where they are at. It just seems to me they are a bit behind, but I could be wrong.
Yesterday since I aggravated my tooth and all I decided rather than to attempt to eat lunch I would use the lunch hour to gas up the car. I was traveling on fumes and figured I would catch shorter lines if I went at lunch. Anyway I got in the car and drove towards the 32nd Street gate, but when I got there it was secured to outbound traffic, because they had painted new crosswalks, speed limit and lines. I had to make a u-turn and head all the way to the back gate and then go back to 32nd Street to get to the gas station. My gauge was almost to 0 when I finally pulled in to the gas station and filled up. Then when I started to head back to the building they had opened the gate to outbound traffic and were getting ready to close it to inbound traffic. I guess it was just bad timing on my part. At least the car is full again and I probably won’t have to gas up again for a month.
When I did get home I signed on and updated my posting on UC and then fell asleep at the keyboard off and on for a while. It is nice using the IRC for chat because if someone wants to get a hold of you it has an audible alarm, so that would wake me up and I could update and go back to my nap.
I did go over 10 million planets yesterday so that was a good achievement and I have been able to attack and win even with my defensive miner ships. Judy also had a good day picking up about 100K planets too.
Well I am back. I got my class graduated and then we took care of a few equipment problems that have been plaguing one of our labs. I don’t normally work there but sometimes a new set of eyes help.
We have been having compatibility problems with some new equipment we got and it has been driving the boys crazy. Anyway I went over this morning and we were looking at some stuff when I suggested that we switch ports on the master unit and that cleared up much of our problem. After that is was just reconfiguring some stuff and we had to repair one unit that had a bad circuit card.
We then also repaired a computer terminal, so all in all it was a great day. Now lunch time has rolled around and today is MWR pizza day, but since I can’t eat pizza I will go ahead and wait until I get home so I can eat something I don’t have to chew.
I guess that is about it for now. Time to see what the next item to fix is. Since we are on a roll, might as well keep going.
July 17th, 2007 -- Posted in TV and Radio, Unification Wars |
Last night was one of those nights where we had a heck of a time getting reset. Every time we sent someone out they got stuck out there and it really had us backlogged. To make matters worse, I was in one of those conditions where I kept falling asleep at the keyboard, waking up when I heard the little bell go off for a hit.
I was waiting for Laila to go out when I think she heard me yawning or snoring and told me to get to bed. I was going to try and stay up but it was already 11 PM and I knew I had to get up early. It also looked like it would be a while before she got a chance to go out, so I went ahead and went to bed after making sure my static was posted.
Earlier in the evening I had made one of those frozen lasagna dinners and I always modify them by adding extra cheese and stuff. It was also something that didn’t take a whole lot of effort to cook. When it was done I got mine and had a little difficulty eating some of it because my front teeth had to be used and so I aggravated the injury a little. It wasn’t too bad until I tried to go to sleep upstairs and then it kept waking me up. So after a restless night sleep I went ahead and got up and got ready for work.
Laila also has been having a dental problem with one of her molars and so she was in a little pain this morning also. Because it was hurting her to talk we bypassed the morning routine and I went ahead and drank some extra coffee and made some game moves. It was then time to head out for work and so I jumped into the car and off I went. As soon as I started the car the idiot light came on telling me I was low on gas. I kind of knew that when I left work yesterday, but I thought I had enough to get home and back to work so I just went home yesterday rather than wait in line at the gas station.
I had enough to get to work so I was cool to go and I think if I were to fill it up over the lunch hour the line will be shorter. I was a little worried about running out of gas on the way to work though. It was a good feeling to pull into the parking place this morning.
While on the way in this morning Rick Roberts and his listener’s were talking about something I heard on the news last night. A man was driving while drunk with his 9 year old son in his car when his vehicle left the road and hit a parked truck. The man ran off and left the boy behind and the boy died at the scene. The man was apprehended by police and stated the reason he ran off was because he was here illegally and afraid he was going to be deported. Also his wife has been all over the news saying that if he were to have legal papers this wouldn’t have happened. What? If he were here he wouldn’t be driving while drunk? If he were here legally he would not have had the accident? If he were here legally he wouldn’t have ran off to let his son die?
What if the truck had been occupied? How many would he have killed then? This one is another one that is over the top in my book. Pundits have been all over the news saying that if he were here legally he wouldn’t have run off and maybe the boy would have lived. Perhaps if he were not here illegally he wouldn’t be drunk driving on our roads putting his son and other people at risk.
Also on another note last night watching the O’Reilly Factor he reported that Jet Blue is a sponsor of the Daily Kos, a very left leaning website. Jet Blue has seen the last of my business as a result. Their CEO was interviewed and seemed to not have a clue. Why would they sponsor a site that has insulted the Pope, was happy about Tony Snow’s cancer coming back, and hoped that an assassination attempt on the vice president would be successful? Maybe they didn’t read the crap that is posted there or something but if they are going to sponsor a site like that, they obviously do not want my business.
Well that is what is on my mind today. Got to get to work.
July 11th, 2007 -- Posted in Health Issues, San Diego, Sports, Unification Wars |
Today my mouth feels a little better. I have been really careful to keep the area clean and I have been really careful when shaving and brushing my teeth. I hope it heals quickly so I can get back to eating solid foods. It really is a bummer to cook something good for the kids and then have to have soup myself, even though I did fudge a bit and tried some lasagna last night. But being careful I was able to chew with my back teeth and was careful to not bite with the loose ones in front.
I watched most of the Baseball All Star game last night. It was really cool to see the tribute to Willie Mays and a little sad that there are so few role models in the sport today. He was awesome both on and off the field.
It was also sad to see the National League lose again. The inside the park home run by Ichiro Suzuki was a special treat. I guess there is always next year.
To switch to another subject that I have blogged about in the past, there is a new recycling center opening up by our local post office. They closed the old one up there about a year or so ago. I don’t know why they closed it but I was glad when they did, because all it did was attract a bad element. Here in San Diego we have a trash pickup day, mine is Thursday and every two weeks they also pick up recycled materials. We have special blue trash cans for paper, cans and bottles.
On July first they raised the deposit on bottles and cans to encourage recycling, I don’t know how high they raised it but it used to be 2 cents per can and 5 cents per plastic bottle. I don’t know how much it was for glass bottles.
Anyway between them raising the prices you can get for turning them in and also with the recycling center opening back up in the neighborhood the bums are back. Today a few streets away was trash day and I saw about five or six folks out with shopping carts going through peoples trash and recycling bins. You would figure there would be a law against it. Maybe there is but it is not being enforced. I would think that with the city having money problems and all that they would start enforcing it and keeping people from rooting through people’s trash. After all when I put out my recycling bin I feel I am contributing to the city as well as doing my part for the environment. I should not be contributing to someone’s drug habit or whatever else is holding these people back in society. I also hate the fact that now when I go to the post office or the local stores that I have to pass by more and more pan handlers. I hope to see this recycling center go the way of the other one, preferably before it opens up for business.
Last night one of our Fed mates used a racial slur in the chat, and that was extremely depressing to see. He tried to justify it by saying the word was not offensive in his country of France but I don’t care where you are from or who you are. There is no place in this world for words like that and as I have traveled to many countries in my time those words are know as offensive anywhere you go. I was impressed by the way it was handled in the chat and I hope I don’t have to see things like that in the future. It is very hurtful to many people and totally uncalled for.
Laila was a little upset this morning when I got up and I really can’t blame her. She is the only member of all our allied feds that is on the ranked outpost posting list, though I think a few of us are getting close. She spends all her free time watching out for others and rarely makes a mistake that results in losses. She is always trying to help outers and improve her knowledge of the game.
Last night she was the last to refresh her DP time, through no fault of her own. She wound up going out very late and basically I was falling asleep at the keyboard. A few members said they would watch over her and sent me off to bed, but when I got up this morning she said that after I went to bed, they did to, leaving her out with only static outpost. That would not bother me so much if I were out with only static, because to break my main with the stack I use and the system defense I have would be extremely hard at the PR I play at.
Laila’s empire is much weaker than mine and is susceptible to attack. She feels betrayed, even though I did explain to her that while I went to bed at Midnight it would have been 2 AM or 3 AM where some of the team mates were. If she would have known that they were not able to stay up, they should have told her not to go out and posted static for her to go out later should nobody post, as we do have some players overseas that come on while we are asleep.
Anyway, today she will not be playing actively because she has to take care of some personal business regarding our court cases and will not be there. They can then get a taste of what it is like when she is not there all night as she usually is. I think some folks have grown to take her for granted, and that is wrong.
Today was pretty cool, as my class knocked out all the first set of troubleshooting problems and almost all of the second set. That means tomorrow we will finish second set and start the final set.
The new class started today and is pretty big. I will start teaching them on Wednesday, next week after my current class graduates. I would have liked to have started with them from day 1, but such is life.
I suppose that is it for today. I have to get this done and get back to the job since the lunch hour is ending.
July 5th, 2007 -- Posted in Family, Unification Wars |
Sorry for not blogging yesterday but from the moment I got up and logged on, I was busy with chats and since it was a holiday and all we had a few more people on during the day. At the same time we had a few folks missing in our game, so we had to protect for them.
Any way yesterday was not a good day for some members of the fed, with some suffering some very bad losses as a result of being double teamed or coming out of DP unattended. In one case three retals were used in less than a few seconds on an unattended empire carrying outpost. The first hit dropped the empire below outpost level with an unsuccessful retaliation from 4B above. The empire fell almost 1 billion in PR and though we had five people posting that hit took it below all of our stacks. The second two hits were successful retaliations from 5 B above which resulted in the loss of over 1 million planets.
I got a lot of discussion in all the chats as we in the fed really felt bad, but we were reassured by people of the other feds that there was not a thing we could have done to prevent the loss. Anyway that was pretty much the topic of the day, as the spammers came down and double teamed our folks. It was suicide and then spam hit pretty much all afternoon.
I got a lot of infrastructure researched and started making up spreadsheets with both battle records and ship types to help me learn more about them. Everyone seems to have an opinion on what ships work best for this and that and the opinions vary greatly amongst people. I will just rely on what I work on and see how that goes.
So while working on the game and all I got a few things done around the house. Judy and Carlos went over to Rose’s house for a visit and I really didn’t want to do any traveling around figuring all the nuts would be on the road for the holidays. Also we have a heat wave going on so it was better to stay within the friendly confines of the house.
I did make hamburgers for dinner to fit with the holiday, and didn’t use patties this time but made them from scratch. The kids loved them.
This morning we didn’t have to be in as early so I got up and went online to collect my space programs and check my op. I have to start learning to be a little more careful because I messed up and put 32,000 planets on an outer instead of on my main and that was a huge mistake. I corrected it with a planetary restructure and it allowed me to use some PCC’s that I had to increase my planet count a little. That was actually good since while I was out yesterday there were very few people to hit and I did not have the opportunity to gain much before I got put in.
It was strange coming to work today because there was absolutely no traffic what so ever. Even at the gate there was no traffic and so it was a quiet day. I got through all tech manual stuff and then called it a day when we got to system identification. I don’t want to get to far ahead because I want to teach the schematics on Monday.
So I guess that is it for the day. Oh yeah I can hardly wait to hear the new rounds of democratic talking points on the Scooter Libby thing. So he got his jail term suspended by the President. All because he didn’t remember what someone told him or had some contradictory stuff. It has already been proven that Valerie Plame was exposed by others so I have a hard time seeing this guy not get a full pardon.
And now Slick Willy and Hillary our protesting against it. Didn’t Bill pardon Mark Rich, who had moved to France to avoid prosecution and his own brother was pardoned for drug use. Slick Willy of course says his pardons are different, and I guess that is true. George Bush is not making any money off his pardons. So I will watch the insanity continue.
Well I have got to go get stuff done. Have a great day.
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