Saturday, It Begins...

In my last post I talked about running a Dungeons & Dragons campaign for the 1st time in over 10 years. My players are getting excited to start and I'm both excited and nervous. The players interact with the Dungeon Master (referee and creator for the game) to tell a story of sorts and each relies on the other to craft a fulfilling experience.

Almost 28 years have passed since I started playing this game. The game has gone full circle in a way going from a set of rules to use with miniature war games to a loose set of rules for role-playing games now to a hybrid of miniatures, role-playing, and structured character development like you find in most computer games. I've resisted each upgrade in the rules but in the end have changed over and enjoyed each new edition for what it is. Friends are really what make the game fun. A good bunch of players can make an afternoon or evening disappear in a moment and you wonder what has happened.

That's a little of where the nervous comes in. I've known all 3 of the players for 10+ years and I don't foresee any real problems with the game. But I've never been in a position of direction or leadership with these guys. One of the players likes to push the boundaries of the rules. Another of the players likes to have fun with his character at the expense of the other characters in play which can frustrate players. I hope I'm up to the task of maintaining order and keeping the players focused on what is important for the game to be successful.

Greyhawk is the original fantasy world created by Gary Gygax and The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh is set along the south coast of Keoland in this world. For a decade or more, Greyhawk was the only commercial campaign world and all of the modules that were created for D&D were set in this world. I have been nostalgic for these adventures lately. Maybe this is my version of a midlife crisis, missing something I loved dearly when I was young. Or maybe the newer products just aren't as good. Either way, I'm excited to be exploring the lands and their adventures again.

I'm combining products from 3 editions of the game into 1 complete product. The original adventures were written for 1st edition and the town of Saltmarsh was fully detailed in 3rd edition. Characters are being created using 2nd edition rules which are mostly compatible with 1st edition and the framework for the game will be a 1st/2nd combination. A mix of editions and rules should help to give the game a unique feel, one I hope everyone enjoys.

My reading choices of late should also help flavor the action. I have been spending a lot of time reading stories by H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard and should be able to use some influences from the Cthulhu mythos and the tales of Conan and Solomon Kane to create a tone for the game that is both mysterious but adventurous. These classic stories are not the high fantasy of Tolkien but grittier stories that deal more with simple survival and overcoming adversaries as well as exploring the unknown. All of these elements should make for some fun adventures.

Hopefully my learning and experiences from the past 10 years will be of benefit for administering the game. I'm not the same person I was then and I like to think I have a greater insight into the game and how the story-telling should work. The reactions of my players by Saturday evening should begin to tell me if I'm on the right track.

Not Very Good At This Blogging Thing...

It has been almost 5 months since I last posted to this blog. A lot has happened in that time. We've taken 3 family vacations to Disneyland (July, August, & November). I've completed my per-requisites for bariatric surgery and have submitted them to insurance for approval. Another college semester has begun and is now nearing completion. I guess not that much has really happened but it just seems like a lot.

Home life seems to be going ok. Amy has a growth around her thyroid. Biopsies have been inconclusive. Her thyroid is working normally and she doesn't want it cut out because she doesn't want to be on medicine for the rest of her life. I agree with her but if it turns out to be cancer, I don't want her to die because she doesn't want to take a pill. I want her around and I'm sure Elizabeth wants her around for a long time to come yet. Amy is researching everything and trying to wrap her head around it and make a decision. It depresses her and makes her angry. I wish I could do something to make it easier for her. I'll support whatever she wants to do.

Elizabeth is more amazing everyday. Just thinking about her makes me happy. She is turning into such a big kid already. Disneyland is quickly becoming one of her favorite places (who can blame her) and she doesn't understand why we just can't visit there all the time. She wants to help mom make dinner and play games with her on the Wii, even if her coordination & timing is still not very good. And she just wants to be with us all the time, which is ok by me. I do love taking her to the mall and watching her play with others in the kid's corral. She's a social butterfly and loves the attention but she is also good natured and shares and plays well with others. I wish I was as good of a person sometimes.

I'm gearing up to run a Dungeons & Dragons game for the 1st time in 10 years. Part of it is a feeling of nostalgia I've had lately which has been fueled by eBay. I've been able to buy some items I lost from my childhood and now feel a need to play with them. The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh is one of the adventure modules I remember most fondly from my early days of playing D&D and now I've bought the series and plan to run it for some friends who have never played the adventures. I hope I get it right and can make them feel the same way I did when I first set foot in the haunted mansion and then the shock of discovering the truth. I also bought a set of Traveller rules that are about 30 years old. I owned these in the early 80s and a friend borrowed them and never returned them. I don't know if I will get around to running a game but I thought it was always the best science fiction RPG on the market. Maybe someday...

I guess that's about it for now. Life is challenging but good. I feel mostly happy and look forward to the holiday season and what it brings with family and friends. I will try not to let this go so long again.

I Got Off Track...

The last month has seen my wonderful dietary progress come to a screeching halt. Two factors have contributed to this. First, the temperatures finally reached the 100s - 110s and I have no motivation to go out and walk at lunch time like I was doing through the Spring semester. Second is completely my fault. Amy had two trips for work in June and instead of coming home and cooking dinner every night I ate out a few times and made poor choices while eating out. Now, how do I get back on track?

Next week we are going to Colorado to see family for the 4th of July. I need to plan my meals carefully so as not to overeat, which is easy to do on vacation. Also, I need to come up with some activities that will keep us active some of the time we are there. Maybe we'll go to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo which has a lot of up and down walking. I will also try to get up a little early and take morning walks and enjoy the cool mountain air before coming back to Phoenix.

The following week will be busy as it is the first week of the 2nd Summer semester. Only have to work 3 days before taking Elizabeth to Disneyland for the first time. I must not eat out this week before leaving. I also need to see if I can sign up for the gym on campus for the semester and use their treadmills.

I must also come up with a list of distractions to keep me from thinking about eating during July. We just got Rockband for the Wii so I will try to complete a solo series on the game before the end of July. I also have 8 goblin archers almost painted for the Lord of the Rings miniature game. Completing the miniatures in the starter set should easily chew up 4 weeks of free time. Also should try to finish the first Conan book, I believe there are only 2 or 3 stories left in the first book.

The big things to remember for July are to stay active, don't eat junk, and keep busy.

Strange Gaming Month w/ a New 1st

After complaining about not playing much last month, June has turned around. The new Dungeons & Dragons rules (4th edition) has come out, I got a call from my friend Ron who wanted to play a new board game he bought, I made it out to a Fathers' board game day at Mike's house, and Rockband for the Wii came out.

I've known that 4th edition D&D has been coming for about a year now. I haven't read many of the preview articles and was unsure about what changes were occurring. The core d20 mechanic that was core to 3rd edition has been kept and tightened up. Issues of level balance have been addressed and characters are supposed to be playable to 30th level. The main problem I have with the new rules is the feel of the game now. It feels like a table-top version of a MMORPG like Everquest or World of Warcraft that have become immensely popular lately. Characters are supposed to fit into one of four party roles and abilities center on encounters. We played our first game with the new rules last night and it felt a little clumsy. It doesn't help that I've played D&D since 1st edition and in 28 years have become accustomed to certain things that are not true in 4th edition. I need to play some more before I can officially say whether I like or don't like the game.

My friend Ron picked up a copy of Memoir '44, a board game that is a simplified World War II battle simulation. It has a lot of cool little miniatures like tanks and cannon and the board is two-sided, one side has a beach and the other is an open field. There are lots of board elements that can be added like trees, rivers, wire obstacles, bunkers, etc. The game plays quickly, probably less than an hour for a typical game. The core mechanic is the cards that allow you to command troops in one of three different board regions. We played 3 games and I finally caught on and one the third game. The game is fairly simple to learn but had enough strategy to keep it from becoming boring.

The Fathers' board game day that occurred on June 1st consisted of me, Mike, and Damian. Damian had just had his bariatric surgery a couple of weeks before and was looking for a guy who just had major surgery. We played Stone Age, Race for the Galaxy, and The Hanging Gardens. Stone Age was an entertaining resource management game with a number of different components. I undervalued how some of the cards would play out for points. It's a game I need to spend more time with. Race for the Galaxy has been immensely popular over the last couple of months. It's a very complicated card game about civilization building. The randomness of the cards and how they come up can have an impact on play strategies. Fortunately, it plays quick and you can get in a couple of games in a short time. The Hanging Gardens is another card game based around building sets of gardens for points. The cards are placed over each other in patterns designed to match up similar squares on the cards. Again, this one plays quickly and is easy to learn. I picked up a sound strategy after two rounds of the table. It was a good weekend and was very much needed.

The last game so far for the month is Rockband for the Wii and this marks the first time I've spent more money in a month on video games than I have on traditional table-top games. But I had to have this game. We played the Xbox 360 version a couple of months ago at Sam's while we were grocery shopping and I have never had so much fun. I have been eagerly anticipating this release for Wii and I even got up at 7am on a Sunday so we could get to the store to pick it up early. It was a good thing too. I got the last copy they had in stock. We took it home, cleaned up the living room, and spent about 30 minutes assembling the different components. The game comes with a guitar, drum set, and microphone and it is completely awesome. I played with this for about two and a half hours until Elizabeth got bored (she's 3 so it was ok). But Amy (my wife), Elizabeth (our daughter), and I even made it through a song without getting booed off the stage. It was amazing that Elizabeth could hit the drums enough to keep up. I can't wait to get home and spend more time with this game. I freakin' love it.

So June was a good month. I had a lot of fun and feel better about life in general. July should be fun for other reasons. It's vacation month. We're going to Colorado to see family over the 4th of July week. The following weekend is Disneyland for the 1st time with Elizabeth. It should be a blast.

More Gaming!?!

The title demonstrates both what I want to do more of this summer but also the frustration of how. I love to play games. There are few things I would rather spend my time doing. I'll play board games, card games, war games, miniatures games, role-playing games, even computer and video games though I really enjoy social interaction and computer and video games are not very good for talking to people.

And there in lies the problem. How do you get people together to play games? I own a lot of games and spend hundreds of dollars a year expanding my collection. One look at my collection on Board Game Geek (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/viewcollection.php3?username=Kronus&own=1&startletter=ALL&galleryview=1) demonstrates I have a lot of options to share with people.

The hard part is getting people together. My friends are spread all over the valley from Surprise to East Mesa. That's 60 miles one way! And gas is almost $4 a gallon so it can be expansive to get people together to play games. I try to alleviate the pain in the pocket by providing lunch when I host but it is still expensive.

Time is the other challenge. Last fall I was able to get guys together for 3 monthly game sessions in October, November, and December. I think everyone enjoyed it and I had a great time. But then it fell apart through the spring because of Amy traveling so much for work. I was only able to go to Game Depot once for the monthly game night. Weekends became more valuable for family time. And the different friends have their time demands too from work to college to family. I understand it, I just wish sometimes there was a way to do it all.

Maybe that's the real point. You hear about people wanting it all, having it all. But can you? Even with planning and budgeting can you really find or make time to do everything you want to do with your life? And I don't have very high time demands. I just want to spend time with my family and friends. It's a worthy goal worth working towards. Here's to more gaming in June.

I'm Completely Lame

My wife and I are discusing what we would like to do with our summer vacation. We had originally planned to go visit her family on the big island of Hawai'i. It has been two years since we have been able to visit and Amy was feeling like a trip was due. Of course, that was before Aloha Airlines and ATA went out of business. Combine that with rising fuel costs and a trip that cost us $1,500 two years ago is going to cost us between $2,700-3,200 this year. The cost may be prohibitive enough to keep us from going because it would prevent us from doing anything else this summer.

Amy would also like to take Elizabeth to Disneyland this summer but we could also do that on a 3 day weekend, which we have all summer. And I would like to go see my family in Colorado Springs this year because we didn't get to go last year.

I guess where my personal lameness comes in is when Amy asked what else I might want to do this summer, I could not come up with any answers that did not involve travelling to see either friends or family. I seem to have no sense of adventure or daring. All the places I suggested were places I had been before and would not involve doing anything new. It was difficult to come up with new places I want to visit, at least in the U.S.

Washington, D.C. would be nice to visit for the history and museums. Combine that with colonial Williamsburg and Bush Gardens and maybe a trip to see Ronnie and Dan in Galax and that sounds like a nice trip but expensive. Boston and the New England Atlantic coast would also be a nice trip but very crowded for the summer months. Amy talked about going to Newfoundland, Canada and it sounds like it could be awesome to me but I'm not excited about 17+ hours travel time to get there. Seeing the viking ruins in Labradour would be very cool. And just being in Canada would be a bonus, at least to me.

Amy on the other hand has been on a number of trips already this year for work. She went to the Alamo and San Antonio in January, to Puerto Rico in March, and Philadelphia in April. She has seen much more of the country than I have. And she's going to San Francisco in June for another conference.

That may be where we end up for one of our trips this summer instead of Hawai'i. Amy has been before and would really like to see the Redwood National park. I think it would be cool too. I have to admit I'm more interested in doing stuff that would keep Elizabeth entertained, at least for a couple more years. Maybe I'll develop an interest in something once Elizabeth is easier to travel with and has more interests.

Yeah for me!

I started dieting and keeping a food journal on February 7th of this year. My first official weight was taken on February 11th and I weighed in at 506 lbs. Two months later on April 14th I weighed in at 460 lbs. I've lost 46 lbs in two months. Woo hoo!

I'm a long way from done and I've learned a lot about how I think and feel about food. The big thing was to realize that I'm like an addict trying to kick a habit. It would, and sometimes still does, make me angry when I cannot eat what I want to when I want to. I mean I get really angry and nasty sometimes. Realizing that and being able to step back and focus those energies in different directions is a lesson I'm still learning but putting a lot of work into.

A big part of the lesson is not investing my personal happiness in eating. I viewed eating as a reward and treat and I have to reduce how much I value that as a reward. I haven't cut it out completely but I do try to be smart about it. Cold Stone Creamery has a sugar-free, fat-free sweet cream that can be mixed with anything and the largest size is 330 calories before the mix-in. I still think of this as a treat but have been limiting having this treat to one to two times a month.

I eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch five to six days a week, typically two packets of Quaker Weight Control instant oatmeal (320 calories) for breakfast and two ham & swiss sandwiches, 6 oz baby carrots, and fruit (535-605 calories depending on fruit) for lunch. Dinner is where I get my dietary variety and it tends to be my calorie-heavy meal. My daily intake varies from 1,650-2,050 and I try to keep the average for the week under 2,000 a day.

This work is all in preparation for having Bariatric surgery. That will be a major, life-changing event. I am working hard to get ready for this and I'll have about a year or so to lose as much weight as I can before my body starts to normalize itself after the surgery. So far, so good.

A mythic figure passes...

Gary Gygax died this week. Most people would say "who?" He was the inventor, along with Dave Arneson, of Dungeons & Dragons, a game that had a profound impact on my childhood and provided direction for my life though I may not have always recognized it. And the impact was not wholly positive.

I started playing Dungeons & Dragons Christmas 1980 when my friend Anthony got the basic set as a gift from his older brother Tim and we were off. My first character was a dwarf named Gorgy who met an ignoble end at the bottom of spiked pit. Tim was our Dungeon Master (person who creates and manages the game adventures) for our first few sessions but it did not take Anthony long to take over the reigns.

We played all through the 80s with a variety of people. My friend George was steady companion for a couple of years until his dad passed away and he had to move away. Kevin, Matt (Fish), Frierman, and Sledg were regulars at most games with a constantly rotating cast of bit players to flesh out our adventuring parties.

Any time we could get two or three people together we played. We would play before going to school at 5:30 in the morning. We would play most days after school. We would spend entire weekends playing from the time school ended on Friday until late Sunday nights. We sometimes played as many as 60 hours a week. It never got old. There was always something new to explore or if Anthony would need time he would just let us loose in a town for a while and we could always stir up something. Good times.

I never thought about what all that game playing was doing to me physically, mentally, and emotionally at the time. Now I realize that some of the stuff I learned and did was good and some was not. Some of the positive impacts were that I developed a vast imagination, improved my math skills, cultivated a love of reading, and a passion for history. Some of the most negative were the hours of inactivity laid the groundwork for massive weight gain, my poor social skills which would not see dramatic improvement until my time at Oneonta State, and a sever lack of exposure to the opposite sex because very few women, in my experience, play Dungeons & Dragons. All of these gifts, good and bad, are the legacy of how Gary Gygax touched my life.

On Sunday nights I still play regularly. We have a group of 5-6 people who meet most weeks and play for a couple hours. It's still the most fun I have regularly. And I'm looking forward to the new edition of the rules in June. I can't wait. I guess the good outweighs the bad.

Old books and older memories

I have finally begun to unpack some books that have not seen the light of day in over 5 years. It's fun to see them again, like running into someone from high school you haven't seen in a long time. Just handling a book, looking at the cover artwork, running my finger along a scar or stain in the cover brings back memories of when I read the book and things that were going on in my life at that time.

One of the sets I found in a box was the 25th anniversary silver jubilee edition of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Now I'm sure these books bring up lots of memories for many people. The books are loved by millions of people. My aunt gave them to me the same Christmas my friend Anthony received the first commercial Dungeons & Dragons basic set and these two events combined to spark my imagination and interest in the world around me. My mom even says the books set the pattern for my life to come as I pursued a history degree in college.

Another set of books from the boxes are Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone, Count Brass, and Corum series. These books really generate images of the old, independent book store where I bought these books. It was in the old Lakeland Mall that was on Lake Parker and it had book stacks that went to the ceiling and creaky, wooden floors and the most wonderful smell. Of all the book stores I've ever been in, it still conjures up my favorite images probably because it was the place I bought many of the books I loved in the 80s and early 90s. Sadly it no longer exists as the entire mall shut down.

Then there are other books in the boxes that have triggered sad memories. How to Kill Your Girlfriend's Cat was a book that belonged to my friend Tracy, a friend I knew from kindergarten through my senior year of high school and who I shared an apartment for a brief time after high school. He was the traditional, good-looking quarterback of the football team who had no shortage of female admirers. His girlfriend at the time I was living with him was a nice girl named Kim. She was still in high school, a senior. We had only graduated the year before so it wasn't anything creepy like he was trolling for younger girls or something. She bought him the book as a joke because she had a cat he did not like.

The sad memories in relation to the book are two-fold. One was that we should not have lived together. It cost us our friendship. During school, I had a kind of hero-worship thing for him. He was popular, good-looking, and socially adept and those are the only things that matter when you are in high school. Living with him highlighted how imperfect he was and it really disillusioned me. I haven't spoken with him in almost 20 years. The other sad part was his imperfections in relation to his girlfriend Kim. She was a diminutive brunette, smart, funny, attractive. And she was completely loyal to him. He was not so loyal in return. Tracy slept with any female who stayed longer than five minutes in the apartment. Our neighbor, his brother's girlfriend, girls who followed him home from some party somewhere; there was no shortage of girls who came through the apartment. Kim did not deserve that kind of treatment. And it was hard for me to view him as a friend after that.

Finally making some progress

After visiting the health insurance office twice in three days and spending almost $600 in out-of-pocket medical expenses in a week we're finally heading in a positive direction toward getting bariatric surgery. It was refreshing to get some honest answers out of the insurance company representative. They told us that insurance will cover the hospital and surgeon but all of the pre-certification testing would not be covered so we are saving in anticipation of more expenses to come. And we saw the dietician and got our six month diet plans for follow-up with our primary care physician. Amy has already lost like 10 pounds and I've had to cinch my belt another notch.

Now we're dealing with learning what a normal amount of food for a day looks and feels like. I've been keeping a food diary for two weeks so far to track my daily calorie intake. Most days are ok. I'm already feeling better. My knees do not hurt as much and I can walk around for more than a few minutes without aching. Just losing a couple of pounds have already made a big change in how I feel. I wonder how much better I'll feel after losing 250 pounds. I remember my high school days in central Florida and we used to go all over the place hiking, swimming, tubing, and biking. It would be amazing to feel like that again. And it will be amazing to be able to keep up with Elizabeth. She is so full of energy and is so much fun. I want to be able to climb up on play sets with her.

The one thing I need to be mindful of is not to take the stress of the diet out on other people. And it is stressful to go from not caring or even thinking about what you are eating to having to read labels and measure and weigh your food and realize you've hit calorie limit for that meal and stop eating even if you do not feel full.

Fortunately, it does not take long for the stomach to catch up with the normal amounts of food and adjust. We even ate out last Saturday night and Amy and I each brought half of the meal home for lunch the next day. It was impressive to Amy that I stopped eating and packaged my dinner without finishing it because I always finish my meal.

I'm excited about this process beginning and I'm looking forward to more good things.

Stupid people broke into my car

Last weekend, someone broke into my car. It did not require a lot of effort on their part; one of the windows on my car is broken and does not roll up all the way. That's how they got in.

After that they seemed to some kind of a brain fart because they did not steal anything that was really worth anything. They did not steal my car stereo or the car seat for my daughter, both easily worth a couple hundred dollars. When they opened my trunk, they did not touch the box of collectible magazines, some of which are worth $50-100 each. Nope, the only thing they took was my old briefcase from college with my Sunday night gaming supplies; 1 D&D players handbook ($20), 1 bag of dice ($20-30), 2-3 miniatures ($10-15), and a couple of old adventure modules from the 1980s ($20-40) as well as some hand written notes and a couple of CDs with data saved on them.

It will cost me between $70-100 and some time on EBay to replace everything I lost and all I absolutely have to replace is the Player's Handbook and dice ($40). This is still frustrating because I had collected some of the dice I had over the last 15 years and they may not be available anymore. And the Player's Handbook is for version 3.5 and the D&D rules are updating to 4th edition this June so I'm going to replace a book I've owned for 5 years so I can use it from 5 more months and then buy another handbook. (That sounds a lot like the complaints I get from students regarding textbooks. Hmm.)

The truly disappointing thing is that whoever took my briefcase probably does not care about any of this stuff. They saw a professional-looking, black leather briefcase and thought it might have a laptop or Ipod or some other handy electronic device in it. Had they even tried to look, they would have discovered the case was unlocked and it was obvious that there was nothing of value to anyone who doesn't play D&D. But I lost in the case of some of the notes and hand-drawn maps things I had kept for over 25 years (I started playing D&D in 1980). So I've lost a piece of my childhood in the form of a town map I created and some character notes on paper that was once bright white but is now yellowed with age. And I've lost name badges and game handouts from events I participated in during my college years. Memories that cannot be replaced and have a value which cannot be measured.

Hell Week 1, Day 1

I have finished Day 1 of Hell week 1 at work. The faculty are all back and scrambling to get ready for classes. Everybody wants something and with our enrollment being down everyone is worried about whether their classes will go or if they will get switched or cancelled. The next three days tend to be emotional as you take classes away from adjuncts and give them to residential faculty whose classes are not meeting enrollment minimums.

Not much student interaction this week. A few students will turn in calculators they forgot about last semester or will come in early to rent one for this semester. Once in a while a student will be looking for a signature to skip a class and I'll need to send them to a faculty member.

We have seen a steady decline in our enrollment over the last 6 or 7 semesters. The decline has been especially noticeable in our daytime classes. Our evening classes have been mostly holding their own and the parking lot if full a night when I leave. But most of our residential faculty teach daytime classes and when they have to cancel a class an adjunct losses a class and is sometimes put out of work completely.

The adjuncts who have full time jobs and teach for us part-time for extra money I do not feel so bad for. It's the retirees and other adjuncts where this is their primary or only source of income that I feel bad for. That is what makes this an emotional week, at least for me. Hopefully we'll have some better news for the remainder of the week.

Hi!

I thought I would start a blog just to put down random thoughts when I have them. My wife is saying"2008? It's gonna be great!" It's a year that will hopefully see more good times and some positive changes.

First up is my daughter's birthday. She turns three on January 10th but we will have the party on Sunday the 13th. It will be the first big event we've had at our new house and it should be fun with a mix of family and friends in attendance. I'm a little nervous because friends and family don't always mix well together. For that matter, family does not always mix well but we're expecting good things this time around.

Elizabeth was almost overwhelmed with Christmas and we're hoping for more of the same on her birthday. We tend to spoil her and this will be no different. At times, I wonder if we're not very good parents but she is so happy, charming, and well-behaved most of the time that I don't stress about it often. Still...

After looking at the last two paragraphs, it would seem like I worry about a lot of things I have no control over. So maybe I shouldn't worry. Most of the time it does not feel like I worry but maybe the secret "me" is worrying when I'm not. Now I'm worrying about worrying. Ahhh! Enough for now.