Catching Up

Think I may be catching a summer cold.

I'm completely exhausted today. May be related to fighting off a cold.

Pulled a 4.0 out of Developmental Psych this term

Pulled a 3.9 out of Anatomy & Physiology 252. Grr... so close.

Everyone says I need a vacation.

Have a to-do list about 1,000 items long for Fall.

Might go to Puerto Rico in November

Or could take a trip to California in September.

(Did I mention everyone thinks I need a vacation?)

I don't really want a vacation.

Mostly wanna stay home and sleep.

Will write more when I'm not so tired.

Leave your name and number and I'll get back to you...

Just a quick apology to everyone I owe email or a phone call to. It's finals week; got two tests tomorrow - a 150-point lecture exam on digestive/urinary/reproduction systems, and a 200-point comprehensive lab final. Yeah, both on the same day (9:00 a.m., and 11:30 a.m., if anyone cares).

Point is, I've been swamped this week and my InBox is full of email I should answer and work I should get done (sorry, Alex and Jamie!) Gimme a day or so to recover, and I'll get to what I can. Work a 24-hour shift on Monday, but by Tuesday I should be able to get through those emails and get answers back to y'all.

Forgive me? (Insert best pathetic puppy-dog look here).

Wang, wang, wang...

Got some pics up from Dragonflight. Nothing spectacular, but at least it'll give a look at what the heck a gaming con is all about. Well, this one anyway...

Click here for the DF 2004 pics. They'll open - as always - in a new web browser.

Now to get that psych paper finished...

Home, Sweet Home

Got back from Dragonflight last night, not nearly as tired as I thought I'd be. I slept about 5 hours Friday night (well, actually, Saturday morning from about 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., after being up for 24) and about 6 on Saturday night. Tired, but not the exhausted-can't-move-never-want-to-do-it-again tired that usually hits me. Might be that I'm in better shape, might be that sleeping at the fire station has somehow modified my sleep habits, might be the caffeine intake...

Anyway, it was a great con, as usual and as expected. I still stand by my long-time conviction that Dragonflight is the best gaming con in the Pacific Northwest. If you've never been, plan for next year!

In a nutshell, I got to see a lot of old friends and make some new ones. Signed a lot of copies of GURPS SWAT, but not a single All the King's Men, both of which were released since my last con appearance. Doesn't bother me, though. Seems SWAT has been well recieved by gamers in general, and word of mouth means a lot in the RPG industry.

Anyway, I managed to play not only SWAT, but GURPS Imperial Rome, GURPS Space (Star Trek), and a seriously kickin' game of Horror Rules (which, in itself, is a seriously kickin' game!), plus a plethora of board games to boot. Details when I have time to actually sit down and write them out. But trust me, it was a really good convention. Kudos to all the folks behind it.

Next con on the list for me will probably be either Orycon this Fall and/or Game Storm in the Spring, depending on my schedule. Both are in Portland, Oregon. Watch this space for further announcements.

Dragonflight pictures up when I have time. Now back to our regularly scheduled finals-week-cramming.

Gone Again

Taking off tomorrow - Friday - for Seattle, for Dragonflight, and will be gone until Sunday night. It looks like a busy subsequent week, since it's finals at the college and I have a couple shifts with the FD as well, so I probably won't get the "post-2004-Dragonflight" report done until later in the week, or early next.

One of these days I'll invest in wireless for my laptop, and actually post daily updates as the con progresses. Technology: what a concept.

Anyway, once again, if you're in the Seattle area this weekend, stop by and say howdy. Here's hoping it's a great con. Knowing the Dragonflight folks, it probably will be.

See you all in a few days.

Hot

You know, I'm never really one to complain about the weather much. I don't mind the rain, don't mind the cold, don't mind the heat. And today was cooler than yesterday, I think, but it really felt hot today. Maybe it was the humidity, maybe it was a string of calls during dayshift and no real time to cool off between.

Medic 21 seems to stay hot even with the a/c blowing lately - personally I think the air in the patient compartment needs new freon, but I don't know if any of The Powers That Be are listening to me whine. But the environmental controls show 90+ degrees back there when we tone out, and even after several minutes of full a/c, it's only down to 85 or so. Whine, whine, whine...

Had multiple calls in a row today, including three MVCs (can't call 'em MVAs anymore, since we're not qualified to say they're "accidents" - now they're "Motor Vehicle Collisions"). Anyway, one was a multicar/multipatient thing on I-5 that could have been way worse. (I now have a huge amount of respect for how well BMW builds their convertibles and how well some women can drive them; or maybe just how fortunate some people are).

Anyway, it was seriously hot standing on the blacktop, backboarding and loading patients. In all fairness, however, our transport turned out to be worth standing in the heat for. She seemed in good spirits, considering what she'd been through, and was one of those calls that makes me glad I'm out there - unlike the pukers, the spitters, and the ones the cops have to handcuff. I hope everything turns out okay for her; she didn't deserve today.

She wanted us to tell her jokes en route to the hospital, but Coop and I couldn't come up with much more than some really bad "knock-knock" jokes - which, in my defense, he started.

Eh. Whaddya expect. We were both tired and didn't get to finish our donuts or cookies before getting toned out.

Besides, it was the third MVC in about as many hours.

And did I mention it was really hot?

Endurance

All my life I fought this fight
The fight that no man can ever win
Every day it just gets harder to live
This dream I'm believing in.

- The Promise, Bruce Springsteen

There Be Dragons Here

It's that time of year again; time for Dragonflight, the best gaming convention in the Pacific Northwest. A lot of you know I've been a regular guest up there and have run a number of games each time around. This year, I'm going as a "perennial guest of honor," but won't actually be running anything at all. It's going to be a "sign books, shake hands, tell ankhs-and-tubers-stories, and game myself silly" weekend.

My friend and fellow SJ Games slave, Devin Ganger, has several GURPS games lined up, including at least one Cliffhangers adventure and one SWAT adventure, so I'm all over those. Will probably stay up way too late with Scott and Jason Hill, and Chris Kemnow, and play some of Jason's awesome games until I laugh myself into a stupor and finally conk out at daybreak. (Only to get up a few hours later and start the day again!)

Anyway, point is, I'm headed to Dragonflight in a couple weeks. It's over the weekend of August 13-15, so I thought I'd best post now and send out a global invite to come track me down at the con if you're in (or will be in) the Seattle area around that time. Hope to see some of you there.