Hearing, Hyperventilation and Hyperloops

The word of the week is efficacy.

Jan 11 – On Blogging

On a recent FBook post about blogging, I made this comment, which more than a few people seem to like. I think it sums up well what I've been doing with this blog over the years, for those of you who may not recall the reasons why I blog:

I write, as often as I can, probably not as often as I should. Years ago, I moved away from all my lifelong friends and family to start a new life, part of which is to focus on writing for a living. And I'm achieving that goal more recently, but there's still a fair ways to go.

As part of that life change, I started a blog to keep those I left far away updated on How Things Are Going Out Here; I've hit a million words to date and plan on going for a least a million or two more. It's something that's a part of my life, now.

It's worth it, to write out things: all the things of your day, your week, your year: your life. To show to others, or not: to communicate, to everyone or just yourself. My lady prefers to text me, not to talk on the phone( despite my radio voice ): it's what she wants, and I respect that. Over the years, I have 'met' many good friends online and we keep in touch through writing, via various mediums, though we've never met IRL. My writing has allowed me to express my creativity through MMO's, where I've created characters that have resonated with myself and others deeply over the years: that alone has taught me so much.

Write. Whoever is in your life, near or far, will appreciate the time it takes to craft words from within. You might be surprised at the voice that emerges from inside you.

Jan 12 – Trekking Towards The Future

Darn it, I wish I had more time for video games these days...

I just ran across this particular game, set in the Star Trek universe, that looks absolutely gorgeous. Call Star Trek: Excalibur, it's about:

Excalibur breaks the mould of traditional space simulation games by putting the player firmly in the boots of an experienced Starfleet captain. From the outset you will be able to control your character and command your ship as if you were standing on the bridge yourself. From taking direct control of the helm, to transferring command of any ship in your task force, or even calling your senior staff to the briefing room to discuss mission tactics; Excalibur is the most immersive Star Trek experience ever. Set six months after the events in Star Trek: Nemesis, Excalibur's story mode deals with the turbulent political scene caused by a decade of war and turmoil. From the second Borg incursion in First Contact, to the fall of the Dominion and the collapse of the Romulan political system; these events resulted in huge loss of life and changed the Alpha Quadrant forever. 

If that doesn't get your attention, have a look at this mind-blowing pre-Alpha( still in heavy development, but it's stunning! )gameplay video. I haven't seen anything this exciting in Trek ship-to-ship combat since Klingon Academy, which came out back in 2000. The visuals look just like you are playing inside a Star Trek movie, or one of the ST:TNG episodes:

ST Excalibur Pre-Alpha: Galaxy Class Raw Gameplay - Indie DB

Advances in gaming technology like this make me hunger for what's coming down the pipe: fully immersive simulation experiences using VR that put you, the player, right in the middle of the action.

Just like being there: I can hardly wait to see what's coming next!

Jan 13 – Don't Panic

I had a panic attack today at work.

At first I didn't know what was happening, really: I lost focus on my work, my heart started racing and I felt dizzy. It happened really quickly, mid-morning and it's the first time I've ever had this happen to me, in all these years of stressful things.

Fortunately, I managed to avert it - just.

Tipped off by my suddenly racing heart, I checked my heart rate using an app on my phone( which uses the camera to detect your pulse )and realized that I was letting my problems get to me all at once, which was Not Good.

Taking some calming breaths, I focused on the simple, good things in my life, telling myself that All Was Well and there is no need to overthink things. I managed to steady out my heart rate, dropping it from high 90's to low 80's within 3 minutes or so of effort and then I just sat back to keep relaxing for the next 10 minutes or so.

Crisis avoided, and nobody at work was the wiser. This time.

As I've said in previous entries in the last few months, 2016 is a make or break year for me. Today my subconscious brain just couldn't handle that anymore and my body started freaking out, but it was all to do with what I was telling myself / focusing on: finances versus future, happiness versus despair, etc.

It's a choice, and today I chose not to panic, as I've learned the hard way that it simply doesn't do any good; the same goes for worry. I just need to buckle down and Get Things Accomplished instead of letting my brain around in circles chasing its own tail, trying to fix things backwards by overthinking them. While it was a bit of a low point for me today at work, it was also a personal victory: I didn't panic, because I recognize what was happening and did something about it.

Don't Panic, as Douglas Adams said: good advice to take to heart.

Jan 14 – Rickman and Bowie

Two big losses this week, of talented, good-hearted entertainers.

Alan Rickman was a man possessed of great skill as an actor, along with an amazing and unique voice that was instantly recognizable around the world. Of all his roles, the one I liked the most was as Dr. Lazarus in Galaxy Quest. The role allowed him to poke fun at being an actor, while still delivering a memorable performance as a character who needs to rise above his situation and embrace everything that he thought he thought he despised about himself in order to succeed. I found his performance poignant as well as humorous, a combination that always speaks of a solid match between the script and the actor.

As well, I should note that many people spoke quite highly of Alan Rickman's down-to-earth personality, in that he always behaved as a regular person and not a celebrity - this account by the actress who played Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films sums up these sentiments perfectly and is a terrific read.

The other celebrity that we lost this week was truly unique: David Bowie.

While I can't say that I am a fan of his music, I do like many of his songs and I'm chagrined to note that I wasn't all that familiar with him as a person. However, I was pleased to find out that much like Alan Rickman, everyone who came into contact with David Bowie noted what a wonderful human being he was, in addition to how he broadcasted his talent and genius simply by being in a room.

The genius side of David Bowie extended well beyond his abilities as a performer. This short interview shows how in 1995 he managed to envision where the Internet of today would develop, all the more remarkable for being an on-the-spot answer to an interviewer's question:

Jan 15 – Hearing

I got my ears tested today, for free.

A month ago, I made an appointment to get my hearing checked, as I'm not getting any younger and I've never actually had it tested before. I was pleased to find that there is a local company here that offers comprehensive audio testing of people's hearing for free, so why not?

The test took about an hour, including the time for me to answer a fairly thorough questionnaire at the start. I was placed in an audio isolation booth, which was the size of a small closet, carpeted inside for noise attenuation but with a window on one side to avoid claustrophobia. It was hot and stuffy however and I found out afterwards that the student technician forgot to turn on the exhaust fan - oops. Fortunately, I didn't experience any claustrophobia, thanks to the window.

After listening to a series of words sent to each year separately, that I had to repeat, we moved on to tones of various pitches. As I'd suspected, my right ear has become less sensitive to certain tones over the decades, I suspect mainly from traveling with loud companions in the car while I was driving. Overall, my hearing is 'average' according to the technician and the doctor both, meaning that I don't have to worry about hearing loss quite yet. They did suggest that I get my hearing tested every two years or so, depending on situational things such as workplace noise or other factors such as a genetic propensity for hearing loss.

It was a relief to know that my hearing was normal, though I was disappointed to learn that I don't have any sort of super powers in this area and I was slightly annoyed that my right ear was indeed not so great anymore. All the same, I'll keep protecting my hearing with earplugs from life's daily noise blasts and see if I can't avoid getting bionic implants until I'm well into my 80s or 90s.

Hear what I'm saying?

Jan 16 – Hyperloops

Zoom Zoom!

There has to be a faster way to get from A to B, coming in our near future, if air travel keeps getting more expensive and fuel more scarce. But what can replace aircraft in terms of their combination of speed, convenience and routes available worldwide?

Enter Elon Musk's Hyperloop.

This is truly futuristic technology here, folks. Superficially, it's similar to a small passenger train, traveling inside a closed tube from point to point at nearly the speed of sound. It's fast, too: three times as fast as the quickest bullet train.

But that's where the similarities end. Have a look:

I find this technology fascinating, as it seems to take a leap beyond the MagLev( magnetic levitation )train concepts that have been languishing in development hell for decades: nobody can get their cost down to the point where it's economically feasible to build Loops of MagLev track across North America, let alone connect up systems globally.

With the Hyperloop, the costs are far lower for even better performance, thanks to the closed-tube design that allows much higher speed due to lower air pressure inside the tube. With air friction reduced as much as possible, the system can connect cities far more economically than air travel, with far less pollution. Not to mention not having to leave the ground more than a few feet at the time. According to Elon Musk, once the distance gets over 500-700 miles, it's more economical to use aircraft - for now.

Jan 17 – Doing It All

Given how busy I am most days, I feel I should add things in perspective as to what I hope to actually get done this year. A few years ago, I came up with an example of how one can only do so much in one's life at any given time.

Everyone's familiar with elastic bands: they stretch, up to a point, then break.

Picture your available time as elastic band, and all the things that you want to do as objects you construction and around - pretty simple, right?

Now, there's always going to be more objects than you can stretch the band around, the matter how clever you are: that's life. You can imagine the object is all being of the uniform size, or some things being bigger than others, depending on the time commitment involved - that's totally up to you.

The point is, you can only stretch the elastic around so many things before it becomes tight. After that point, if you try to add anything else to the bundle, you risk the elastic breaking, which is a metaphor for everything coming apart, really.

Sure, you can cheat a little: stretch the elastic beforehand, arrange the objects in a more compact mass or switch things out on a regular basis: again, that's up to you.

For me, I think I almost "pre-broke" my elastic this week, with the averted panic attack: in imagining all things I had to do, I was stuffing a huge number objects into an elastic of finite size and I didn't consciously realize that I was doing it.

2016 has a lot going on for me, but I need to take it one thing at a time. I'm mentally stretch enough to do it, as long as I admit that I can't do it all at once.

That's it for me this week. I've been feeling quite tired and slightly nauseous, though I think the second part is something that's been going around of late, as many people have said the same thing at work. Signing up to get some regular exercise as well as eating better while stressing less I think is the formula for the next few months, at least until the sun is up as early in the mornings as I am again.

Calendars, Cars and Crazy Cats

The word of the week is innocuous.

Jan 4 – Marking Time

I haven't had a calendar in years.

Calendars used to be a big part of my life, as I marked up all sorts of things on t work schedules, school schedules, when TV shows are on, plus all the other sorts of life event that we all have.

I think the last calendar that I had on my wall was back in 2006, something to do with sci-fi or fantasy. In previous years, I had both wall and desk calendar versions of The Far Side comics, a favourite of mine for the decade past high school in the 90's: nothing better! Before that, I was the proud owner of a personalized animation calendar drawn by a friend of mine, with whom I've since lost touch... but I still have the calendar! I even had a Babylon 5 wall calendar, still sealed in the plastic; I think it's good again in 2019, or 2020.

You can go to TimeAndDate.com to create your own custom calendar( for free! )which you might find handy for making specialized printouts for gaming and the like. There's a proliferation of sites out there that can do this, but many limite your options unless you pay, or are full of ads, or otherwise not as easy to use.

Google Calendar is what I use nowadays, ever since moving to BC. I dabbled a bit with Yahoo's version, but since Google's become so tightly integrated into Android for mobile phones, it's a no-brainer to use it instead. Having reminders for bills, appointments and the like show up on-time on my phone has been fantastic, making me wonder how I ever did without such a useful utility.

It's still lacking the nice wall artwork though.

Jan 5 – Wheel me?

In addition to calendars, I haven't owned a car in over 8 years.

I don't really feel the lack - and I'm not alone.

It used to be, a car was a necessary thing for me, for both school and work often took me across the city or even down the highway into the next town. When I was living outside the city for about 4 years during university, it was vital to get me to work, school and to have a social life driving into town( a 25-minute ride, that ).

Living outside of town while in BC was trickier, as I didn't have a vehicle and buses didn't run where I live atop a mountain in one-road-in-and-out community. I sometimes had to leave 2-3 hours early for work and sit around in a local shop or the library - I made good use of my time, but it wasn't ideal, not by a long shot.

Nowadays, I don't need a car for work or even shopping: I can walk everywhere I need, or take the bus directly if I need to go further afield. Sure, it's easier and quicker to hope in my lady's car when we want to do things( glad she has it )but in the main things have worked out here that I just don't need, or want, a vehicle.

That seems to be the sentiment of more and more people these days, which only makes sense: get what you need. And for a growing number of folks, cars are not a need. Even automotive manufacturers seem to be recognizing this, with the research into self-driving cars making a future where you can rent a car by the minute, hour or day seems far more likely( and easy! )than it ever has before.

Just start up the app and a car - model type per your needs - shows up at your door. Presto!

Jan 6 – Dang it, Occulus...

What a dissapointment.

For a few years now, g33ks everywhere have been awaiting the announcement of the release price-point for the Occulus Rift, a next-generation VR( virtual reality )helmet. I tried out a model 2 years ago here in Victoria at the now-defunct GottaCON and was impressed with the 'sense of being there' though the graphics needed some work.

Today, Occulus announced the price is... $600 USD.

What?????

To add insult to injury, you'll need a computer powerful enough to run the VR simulation, to the tune of at least another $1000 USD. So in Canadian dollars, that comes out to close to $2500 after taxes.

Um, I'll pass, thanks.

So dissapointing, as I've said. I'll likely have to wait at least another 5 years until the VR standards are finialized and the hardware comes down in price enough to be affordable, like 3D TV's( and those haven't really caught on - I have one and rarely use the feature ). I'd love to be able to jump into a game of Battlefield 3, almost literally, to be able to play using a device like the Myo as a controller instead of holding one... since my arms won't let me do so for very long any more.

Check back here in 5 years for a VR update.

Jan 7 – Feedback!

I'm walking on air today...

As some of you may recall, I sent out copies of the third draft of my novel to a dozen people, with the request that they fill out a Feedback Questionnaire. Of that group, 3 people were already members of my Critique Group, and so were giving me feedback on a monthly basis as it was.

To date, none of the other 9 people have responded, despite a few reminders...

Until today: a 13th member sent me a COMPLETE questionnaire!

It was exactly what I'd hoped for: a set of frank and honest answers, as detailed as necessary for completeness but not so brief as to leave me wondering too much. Here's just one of the parts that tickled the author in me to near-giggles:

Which characters do you find especially memorable? Were any of them forgettable? Why?

Most memorable characters in order:

1.       The Prince (can’t forget this guy…he’s very fascinating in a disagreeable sort of way)

2.       Aviilaar (omg so lovable)

3.       Niishe (obviously the central character, a coming of age warrior who I’d like to know more about)

4.       The Queen (can’t get enough of her!!! So interesting and deep)

5.       The Chamberlain (although my favourite, because I sense a like mind, maybe not as memorable as others)

It's exactly this sort of feedback that keeps me going, as I've mentioned before. Just like reviews for already-published stories, getting something back from one's readers is an accomplishment: while you can write in a vacuum, it's far better for an author to hear back about how their readers have been affected by their stories.

I'll just go and do some more air-walking now...

Jan 8 – The Valley Of The Wind

My girlfriend showed me a wonderful scifi movie tonight: Nausicaä of The Valley Of The Wind by Studio Ghibili.

It's a masterfully stirring tale about a young woman whose fate is to stand between the old world of Earth and the new. It's a post-apocalyptic story, which I wasn't aware of or I would have speedily watched it long ago.

The titular character, Nausicaä, reminds me of my own character creations for my scifi novel series: a young woman who is fearless, confident in her own abilities and plain fun to watch as she deals with all the challenges that come to face her.

It was a fun watch, and I think I'll see it again sooner than I imagine.

Jan 9 – Podcasting

I was part of a podcast today.

Back in 2014, I was invited to do a podcast for Trial By Stone, a fancast for the world of The Dark Crystal. It was a great experience, as I'd just come back fresh from my trip to NYC to tour Jim Henson Studios as well as attend the Puppets On Film / Dark Crystal Fanfest in the fall of 2014.

Fortunately, my phone didn't ring partway through the podcast this time.

I found the experience more relaxing this time around, seeming just to be five people having a fun discussion about a subject we all loved. We discussed the recent issuing of the second graphic novel called Creation Myths, a 3-part series exploring the world of The Dark Crystal before the events of the movie.

What I found interesting was how many questions everyone had, which indicates to me that the writing was as thought-provoking for me as it was for the others in the podcast. Good writing raises more questions than it answers, though in good ways: it shows that there's depths to the story being told and that those are worth exploring further.

We ended up running long on the podcast, over 90 minutes and so we'll have to reconvene to finish up in a few week's time. I'll be re-reading the second issue of Creation Myths, which I have as a digital file, to see if there's anything else I can glean from its pages.

Jan 10 – Bang Nuts

Some people are just so... stupid.

This afternoon, my mother heard what sounded like gunshots coming from the woods next door to where they live on the western shore of the island. After peeking out the window, she spotted a man standing in his backyard, firing a rifle at his back fence( 12 shots, target practice? )which backs onto the woods.

Firing ANY guns inside the city aren't allowed, in case you wondered.

The RCMP showed up incredibly fast, and after checking out the area they pilitely knocked on the man's front door to see what was going on.

Apparently he told them rather colourfully what he thought of the ban on discharging firearms within city limits - which doesn't change the fact he was either ignorant of such( plain ol' stupid )or chose to ignore it( even stupider ).

This comes back to my thought that if people want a gun, they need to pass a stringent series of checks, tests and otherwise prove they are qualified to own one - apart from proving a need for one, should it come to that.

For Mister Trigger Happy today, that might have saved having police open a guns-watch file in his name. Better yet, it might have saved him from injuring someone walking in the park behind his house, as people do on a regular basis; hadn't he known this?

Anyway, nobody got hurt, which is all that matters.

Can't say the same about anyone getting smarter...

I'm in a bit of a mood today; I've a lot on my mind and as I've said before, I don't want to air it all here as a 'complaint journal' - that's not what this blog is about. Should it become necessary, I'll go talk to someone, but as in years past, there's nothing that anyone can do: it's up to me to pull myself up by my own bootstraps, and that's that. Tomorrow's Monday, the start of a new week, in a new year: I'm going to make the best of it.

Video, Victory and Viewpoints

The word of the week is pernicious.

Dec 28 – Thoughts

It's been an... odd year.

On the one hand, there's been a lot of good things going on. My job's great, my girlfriend's amazing, my family and friends are all doing well. There's a lot of good in my life now, and I'm extraordinarily grateful to be where I am compared to ten years ago, or even five.

On the flipside, I'm still worried daily about my finances. Even with my current job and stellar budgeting, I'm making little progress towards where I feel I should be now in my life. Conservatively, I'll be able to retire at age 70, given my current income and accounting for raises / changes in budget costs, which isn't acceptable. Obviously this is causing me stress, which rolls over into not being able to write, which causes more stress...

Hence the need for starting my own business in 2016, to pull ahead and close the 'gap' in my monthly budgeting. Being able to make another $500 a month would be so friggin' great, especially without having to work weekends at a second job( for minimum wage, most likely ).  Given my current health quandaries( why do my legs hurt? Why do I react so poorly to not eating on time, or having only small amounts of sugar? )I don't want to keep slogging away at my debts any long than I have to.

I'm smart, motivated and capable of making any changes needed to improve my life, as I've demonstrated many times before.

 2016 is a new year: it’s past time for new solutions to old problems.

Dec 29 – Star Wars, Twice

After work tonight, I went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens again. I met a friend for pizza beforehand and we talked for a little bit, catching up and also chewing over the film. We both agreed that while it wasn't the best Star Wars film ever made, it was certainly better than any of the prequels, at least. He also said that he had managed to see the film the first time without more than one spoiler, which I think is an achievement these days.

Seeing the film for the second time was a bit of a mixed experience for me. I found myself thrilling to the nostalgia of seeing the Millennium Falcon flying again on the silver screen, along with the ageless Chewbacca, C3PO and R2-D2 all reprising their roles. The same can't be said for the human cast, all of whom definitely showed the passage of time and while it made sense for the story, it was still hard for the young boy inside me to make the adjustment that it has been some years since I saw them last in-character.

The story itself didn't improve any in this second viewing; it still ragged around the edges and focuses far too much on the action of blowing up Starkiller base instead of properly setting the audience up to tell us what's actually been going on for all these years. To be honest, I can give credence to the complaints that this film simply rehashes the very first Star Wars in some ways: blow up the Big Bad Weapon, among other things which I'll get into here.

Did I enjoy it though? Yes, most definitely. I certainly hope, as I've already mentioned, that there will be an Extended Cut released sometime later in 2016 that does a more credible job of setting up the story properly.

I'm still not sure I'll buy it, but I'll definitely watch it.

Dec 30 – What's shaking?

Well, that was a bit of a surprise!

At 11:39pm last night, a small earthquake rattled Vancouver Island, originating just offshore to the East and 42km deep. It felt like a large truck passing by very closely to my apartment, rattling everything but not long enough for things to shake off shelves or fall off walls.

It certainly woke me up, though.

My sister and I stayed up for another hour, just in case there might've been any following aftershocks, though those can happen days or even weeks later, depending on the tremor. Depending on where people were on the island, some felt it as clearly as we did, while others( like my parents )slept right through it as their homes are built right into the bedrock and didn't move much at all.

This quake also served as a reminder for emergency preparedness: to have a plan and supplies ready in case a much larger quake comes calling. In both regards, we're underprepared at home and that's worrying to us. We each have emergency plans at work, but only insofar as to evacuate the building: once were outside and accounted for, we're on our own. Having supplies ready at home for at least 72 hours on our own is vital, as is ensuring that the same can be said for my parents who live on the other side of the city.

It will cost a few hundred dollars to have food supplies, emergency kits and other gear ready at hand to be sure we're prepared in case of disaster. Here on Vancouver Island, an earthquake is the most likely natural disaster that we'll face, even beyond a tsunami, as we are protected in the lee of the curving west shore of the Island.

Dec 31 – Mini Vay-kay

I left the country today for little while.

My girlfriend and I headed over to the United States to visit her parents for New Year's. We caught the early ferry, sailing at 9am from Tsawassen on calm seas under sunny skies: perfect weather for traveling. I especially appreciated the lack of wind and wave action on the ferry, as I tend to get seasick rather easily but a single Gravol this time did the trick so that I felt perfectly fine for the hour and a half it took to cross from Vancouver Island. We cruised through the border without too much away and within a few hours we were past Bellingham WA and near her hometown.

As these sunny skies meant that there was a very high barometric pressure locally, my head was far more susceptible to sound and I had to take precautions to avoid getting a headache. Fortunately, I packed my Parrot sound-cancelling headphones and they proved extremely useful: during the drive, they cut the car's engine noise to almost nothing - yay!

We spent the afternoon visiting with her parents, joined later on by her brother and his immediate family for the evening. As it turned out, I ended up providing the entertainment tonight, as there were no set plans other than counting down the time until the new year. I decided it would be the perfect time to watch some excellent animated videos from my YouTube playlists and this was facilitated by her parents having a Roku3 internet player installed on their entertainment system, fortunately. I could simple cue up the videos on my phone while connected wirelessly to the Roku3 and voilà: the videos played on the big TV, like magic! Everyone enjoyed my selection and we whiled away the hours, though none of us actually made it through to the midnight countdown at the end.

It was a good way to spend the last day of the year.

Jan 1 – Hello 2016!

My lady and I decided to stay an extra day in the states today.

Getting up a little bit late, we and her parents headed out to find some breakfast. As it turns out, every open place that we went to was packed, which apparently was unusual - I blame the sunny skies for people wanting to get out and about on this day off work.

We ended up driving for about an hour to a few places and then coming back to wait at one of our first choices, which turned out just fine in the end though we were certainly hungry by the time the food arrived!

After our brunch breakfast, we did a driving tour of the area to show me some of the sights. We drove as far as Deception Pass, where we parked and walked across the bridge, which spans the gap in the coastal hills and is almost 200 feet above the water.

I didn't really enjoy walking across it, truth be told: the handrail was only a little over waist-high and that combined with the bitingly cold wind made it rather than unpleasant walk despite the sunshine. I was glad to get back into the car and just to around the picturesque landscape, admiring the mountains that were the backdrop to all of that area of Washington State. It was a lovely afternoon of being a tourist, comfortably chauffeured.

In the evening, we spent time with her parents after a generous meal. We watched a movie that they'd ordered through NetFlix: Age Of Adeline, about a woman who stops aging through a freak accident. It was well done, with a few scifi hints and while the ending was rather pedestrian, it wrapped things up nicely without getting too sappy.

Early to bed for us all, as we'd had a full day. Whew!

Jan 2 – We See Eagles!

It was a leisurely goodbye today.

Both of my girlfriend’s parents had to work, so we said our goodbyes early in the morning. We ourselves packed things up, then went in search of breakfast, ending up at the Calico Cupboard where we had spent some of our afternoon yesterday and I had some of the best biscuits and sausage gravy I've ever tasted - yum! We hit the highway well before noon and thanked our lucky stars again at being able to travel under such lovely conditions: while it was cold, it was a cloudless sunny sky, lovely...

On our way back, we spotted something incredible: bald eagles!

Not just one or even three or four, but dozens of the great birds had gathered in a flat open stretch of farmland near the highway. It seemed like it was the perfect hunting area for small animals, which the Eagles would see as prey under the sunny skies. The area was nothing but farms, with numerous small stands of trees in which the Eagles could perch while watching for lunch. We must've seen over 20 of them in the 20 min. we drove through the area, perched in trees, on rooftops and even a pair on a traffic sign in a construction zone! That's not to mention at least a dozen that we spotted in the air, soaring around with their majestic spread of wings against the azure sky.

What a trip to forget to bring my camera!

We made the afternoon ferry handily and I had another excellent crossing, without a trace of seasickness thanks again to a Gravol pill and extraordinarily smooth seas. We were back in Victoria well before dinner and after a brief pause, we spent the evening together watching the ever-enjoyable antics of Johnny Depp in The Pirates Of The Caribbean.

Hello, 2016: you made it here in leisurely style. Well done!

Jan 3 – Laserdiscs And Mechs

One of the things I brought back from my trip this week were laserdiscs.

Four large boxes of nearly 50 titles were waiting for me at my girlfriend's parents when we arrived a few days ago. Thanks to fortuitous timing on a sale I stumbled across, I was able to get them all shipped to their place for free, which saved me an incredible amount of money - huzzah! Even better, I didn't pay any duty on them whatsoever yesterday, despite declaring them at the border: apparently my luck held for that as well.

Playing a pre-Special-Editon of The Empire Strikes Back today, I was disappointed to see a fair amount of noise as well as visual garbage on-screen and my heart fell a little. I quickly opened up a sealed disc of Babylon 5 and loaded it to see how it compared. To my relief, the quality was better, especially after I tweaked the TV settings a little - while not quite up to DVD specs overall, there were no signal artifacts at all, so I am hoping that there's a solution for the other disc out there on the 'net somewhere. New( well, old... )tech, new problems, as the saying goes - I'll check out all the discs this month and see how they stack up overall, as well as change out some video cables and do other things to narrow down any issues. I'm just happy the things played, to be honest.

Speaking of playing, today I loaded up some Mechwarrior Online, a game I haven't played in over a year, ever since my Windows7 desktop decided to go quirky for gaming purposes. It was still excellent, in terms of gameplay and graphics, though I quickly realized my skills had atrophied somewhat: I got killed a lot in the first batch of matches. Once I found my feet, I held my own pretty well, and I won the last game of the day with a crippled mech by making a one-shot-kill in a 1-on-1 duel with the only other surviving opponent - yes!!!! It felt pretty good to see this score screen( see above ), one of the best I've ever had in MWO. It was especially good to know I'd made the winning shot, all on my own, with my both teams watching and yelling advice to each of us lone survivors. It was David versus a crippled Goliath( me )and I pulled it off.

That was a good note to end the weekend with.

It was a great week, full of relaxation and travel, again with only 1 day of work - sweet! It's now back to the 5-day work week for the next while, which is fine, as it's a new year with lots coming down the pipe: working on my 2nd novel, prepping for a trip to the Seattle convention in April, getting my business ready for the arrival of the Glowforge in a few months... 2016's going to be pretty full, I think!