Progress

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Andy

The reports of all the damage in the wake of Sandy have been pretty amazing; relief over the fact that things seem to be slowly returning to normal are mixed with frustration on how slow the recovery is taking for some folks. Fortunately, no one we know directly was too badly affected by the storm.

As for us, we are continuing to move forward on getting our house settled. In fact, I think we are just about at the point where we need to start hanging pictures. Gwen and I are really happy with how everything is turning out; I’ll be posting some pictures eventually so you all can see for yourselves! I’ve also made a couple of posts over at Man Battlestations recently, including one for a Dystopian Wars event I played in, as well as a battle report for the first game of War at Sea I’ve played here in the area. Until next time!

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NEC Shutdown

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Andy

Looks like my suspicions were correct; Amtrak has shut down the Northeast Corridor (NEC) for today. No word yet on when it will be re-opened.

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Rock You Like a Hurricane

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Andy

It’s been a bit rainy around here lately, due to this Hurricane Sandy you might have heard about. Fortunately, though, it looks like we are actually going to miss the worst of it here in Suffolk, as much of the rain is passing to the north of us. Ironically enough, from what I’m seeing of the maps it looks like Groton is actually going to get hit a lot worse than we are. The forcasts are calling for some truly mind-boggling storm surges all along the coast of Long Island sound; I imagine that there could be the potential for some real damage to both downtown New London and the Submarine Base. It will be interesting to see if this will affect rail service, as well; Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor is just a few feet above sea level at New London station. Indeed, mass transit rail has already been shutdown in DC, NYC, and Boston, over fears of subway tunnels flooding out.

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Homeward Bound

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Andy

The view from the rear vestibule of Train 95, traveling south over Hell Gate Bridge, NYC.

Mission successful! I managed to grab my records and get back to the New London station in time to catch an earlier train, saving me a whole day of cooling my heels in New London. That means I won’t have to spend two nights in a row trying to sleep in a coach seat! It also means I can get back to helping Gwen with unpacking our stuff sooner. She has been a real trooper through this whole ordeal, even dealing with the cable guy today.

Sorry if any of you got an error screen from the blog earlier today; I just spent the last 45 minutes fixing a database error that was preventing the whole blog from loading. Turned out to be an easy enough fix, but it was still frustrating to have this problem crop up when I didn’t change anything myself. I’ll have to keep an eye out to see if any more problems pop up.

Until next time!

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All Aboard!

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Andy

This is something of a novelty; I’m posting this from my comfy seat in Business Class on Amtrak’s northbound Northeast Regional Train 66. As for why I’m here, more on that in a minute.

First of all, I had a fun, if busy weekend. I already posted the review of my 40k game with the Freebootas. I have also just put up a report on the Dystopoian Wars game I played with Greg on Sunday over at Man Battlestations. It felt good getting a few games in; I am kind of in the mindset of getting in what I can now, as the next few years promise to have few opportunities for such things.

Our move is going well; we have all of our stuff, the damage seems to be minor so far, and we are well into unpacking it all. We did run into a couple of small bumps in the road today, though. The first was that the cable installation we had scheduled for today didn’t happen. Apparently, the technician got stuck at his morning appointment all day for some reason, meaning that he couldn’t get to ours. We got it scheduled for tomorrow, but it still means another day without cable or internet. The horrors!

The second problem is also the reason I’m rolling north on an Amtrak train. I realized today that I forgot to retrieve my medical records from the New London clinic. Normally, I could just request these records from a clinic in Norfolk, and have them mailed down. However, I really need to have these records in time for Monday, and there is no way they can be shipped down by then. So, I am heading up to grab them myself, and then jump back on another train to head back south again. I had thought about driving, but I’m pretty sick of being inside a car after all the driving I’ve done the last couple of weeks. So, Amtrak seemed the logical choice.

I have to say, the new amenities on the Northeast Regional equipment are very nice. For example, the WiFi I’m using to update this blog! In addition, the seats now all have 120 VAC outlets, meaning that my Alienware laptop doesn’t have to worry about running out of juice. I tell you, I’m not very happy with myself for having forgot the records, but traveling up this way in relative comfort and not having to fight traffic and drowsiness behind the wheel is definitely taking some of the sting out of it. I should also mention how much help Gwen has been; she really calmed me down when I first realized this mistake (I was pretty upset!) and she was nice enough not to complain about me running off and leaving her with a house full of boxes. I think I got a keeper ;).

Until next time!

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First Game of 6th Edition

Posted on October 21, 2012 by Andy

I finally got around to playing my first game of 40k 6th edition yesterday! Actually, this was the first 40k I’ve played since I was at Adepticon back in April, so it has been quite a while. I met up with a couple of fellow Freebootas, JD_Jess, Brother Marius and his son at Dropzone Games in Glen Burnie, MD to play, and we had a great time! We ultimately played 1000 points on 1000 points, in order to keep from confusing ourselves too much while playing. Since we were playing two on two, that meant we were down to just 500 points a piece.

Continue reading →

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Moving Time Again

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Andy

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Well, Gwen and I are once again preparing to hit the road and head to our next duty station. Yesterday, the movers came to pack and load our stuff. Surprisingly, they were able to get the job done all in one day; we were initially planning on a 2-day pack and load schedule. So, this means that I have some unexpected free time today, though unfortunately it also means our stuff is going to have to be stored instead of directly delivered. I think I might work out; I’ve kind of been on my post-PRT workout “stand-down,” and I really need to get myself out of that.

The weekend is going to be quite busy! Friday, we are getting on the road as soon as my graduation ceremony is done. Then, on Saturday, I’m meeting some friends at Dropzone Games for my first game of Warhammer 40k 6th Edition. Then, on Sunday, I’m heading down to the Game Vault to play some Dystopian Wars with my friend Greg. Then, on Monday, it is off to Norfolk, so that I can meet the realator and get the keys for our new home, in order to setup for the delivery of our stuff on Tuesday. Whew! There will be several future posts growing out of this weekend, as I intend to do write-ups on the games I play this weekend.

Until next time!

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House Hunting

Posted on October 7, 2012 by Andy

Gwen and I are taking advantage of the 3-day weekend I have (thanks to Columbus Day) to do a little house-hunting down here in Norfolk. We have looked at a couple of places already, and will be looking at a few more today before we head back north. The goal is to find a place this weekend so that we can get all the lease arrangements worked out before we move in two weeks. That way, we can arrange for a point to point delivery of our stuff; the moving company won’t have to load up the truck in Groton, drive it to Norfolk, unload our stuff into a warehouse, and then load it up into another truck for delivery. We have found that doing things this way dramatically increases the chances of something getting lost or broken, which is why we are eager to avoid it this time! The primary aid for this endeavor has been the Automated Housing Referral Network, or AHRN. This DoD-sponsored service allowed us to quickly search for houses that meet our needs in terms of space, cost, location, and the like.

We are also taking the opportunity to drop off the pets with Gwen’s parents. This was kind of a tough choice for us; we are sure going to miss them for the next couple of weeks! However, Gwen and I talked it over and figured this way was best. By leaving Vesta and Phoebe at her parent’s house, they won’t have to be there when the movers show up and/or be cooped up in a motel room. Still, it isn’t easy on us!

In other news, Navy beat Air Force yesterday! I was very happy to see that result, as I honestly wasn’t expecting it based on our season so far. Things are looking good for Navy’s chances at the Commander In Chief’s trophy!

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Sins of a Solar Empire

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Andy

Had a great weekend! We didn’t do a whole lot, but we did make a little trip up to Manchester CT on Sunday. The purpose of this trip was two-fold: First, we wanted to get lunch at Chipotle, which are hard to come buy in this neck of the woods. Second, I also wanted to show Gwen the Time Machine, which is a massive toy and hobby store. The store is home to several model railroading groups, and they were all operating their layouts yesterday. I’ll have to post about that in more detail another time, it was pretty neat!

However, other than that little trip, I spent most of the weekend playing a PC game called Sins of a Solar Empire (SoaSE). This game first released back in 2008, and I’ve been playing it off and on ever since, through a number of expansions. The most recent expansion, Rebellion, just hit this summer, which is why I’m back playing it again. SoaSE belongs to a genre known as “4X,” with the X’s standing for eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate. Essentially, you have to build a stellar empire from the ground up, colonizing planets, building a space navy, and ultimately conquering your foes.

This is a tried and true game type, but what makes SoaSE interesting is that it is a Real Time Strategy game, or RTS, where as most other 4X games are turn-based. This tends to put a little more pressure on a player, as there isn’t unlimited time to survey your empire and make all the minute adjustments that you like. Often, you have to scramble to get an attack force together in order to head off an enemy before they attack you! Suffice to say, this is a very interesting hook that tends to keep me concentrated on the game in the way that turn-based games tend not too.

Well, that about does it for now! Until next time…

Oh! I almost forgot; I got some new goodies in the mail today:

http://www.manbattlestations.com/blog/2012/09/18/invaders-invasions/

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Man Battlestations!

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Andy

So, as I’ve mentioned a couple of times already, I’ve started a second website, one more dedicated to the hobby of naval miniature gaming. This project is something else entirely; where as ARS was always intended to be just my ranting and raving about my hobbies, the idea behind Man Battlestations is to grow it into a community of naval gaming enthusiasts. In this respect, I am trying to duplicate the kinds of blogs I’ve seen for games like 40k, where players post all kinds of articles on subjects like battle reports, game tactics, and the like. Additionally, Man Battlestations has a forum, which I really think of as the true heart of the site.

So far, I would say the project has been doing OK. A number of gamers from all over the world have joined the forums, and I gotten a number of encouraging comments on my blog posts. However, updating the blog and keeping track of the goings on in the forums has taken a lot of time; as I mentioned before, that has translated into fewer updates here. Still, I feel like the effort is worth it; I really believe that creating this online community is a worthwhile endeavor that will enhance the naval wargamming hobby for a lot of my fellow gamers. Until next time!

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