Picked up Federation Commander

I’ve been realizing that if I want to find people to play boardgames with, I need to be looking at somewhat less heavyweight games than the stuff I played in college with friends who had also been playing for years. I just picked up a copy of Federation Commander which is a lighter weight take on Star Fleet Battles. Hoping this will make it possible to setup some gaming and perhaps work up to the more complex Star Trek themed games (and others). I’ve got a broader library, but many of the games I loved years ago are now far out of print. We’ll see what the new year brings…hoping to find time and an opponent or two…

I have the Klingon Border version on order but from a slower source (this one was available with Amazon Prime so quick). I think that the Klingon/Federation match up is a little less complex and expect that will make for a better introductory scenario once it arrives.

TomTom Start GPS Appears to be no longer supported…

Looks as if our ‘new’ GPS (a TomTom Start Classic) has reached ‘end of life’ for its lifetime updates. I tried downloading new maps and the app kept restarting with ‘critical update required’. Every time it restarted it gave me the same message (and showed updates available but not accessible in the window behind). I finally found a notice that this model is no longer supported and a suggestion that I look at newer models.

I’m unsurprised by the slightly screwy definition of ‘lifetime’ that TomTom uses but not happy. Lifetime to them is defined as ‘until we decide to drop support’ so the lifetime could end at any time.

I’m seriously considering looking at cell phone mounts and options to use my phone directly as a GPS. The newer TomTom GPS devices cost around $150.00 and use phone data for traffic information so I’m not at all sure that they’re a good match for our needs going forward.

Looking to Play Some Board Games Soon

I played board wargames and role playing games (AD&D and many others) during high school and college. Once I graduated, life
became too complicated and distances to friends who played became too far to keep up.Since then, many of the games I enjoyed have gone away though I still have copies of quite a few. Some including Star Fleet Battles and StarFire are still out there (and the RPG world seems to continue to flourish).

I’ve actually updatedmy Star Fleet Battles (tactical) and Federation and Empire (strategic) sets recently. I’m also getting the core game set for Federation Commander as a simplified introduction to the game system. I am realizing that however much I enjoyed the full sized games, introducing friends who haven’t played them to the rules sets would be a bit much. The faster playing, less complex federation commander seems like a good starter as do the introductory rules from ADB. 

I also have quite a few games where components have been spread around the house as I’ve looked at getting them out to use in the past and never gotten to playing. I’ll be looking at doing things over the next year or so if I can find opponents, time and opportunity. Gaming online seems like the ideal solution for some of these games as the play times can be long but the copyright issues loom large for anything that I don’t create from scratch myself. We’ll see what happens on that front.

Various Games RPGs and Other Stuff…

 

Most of the Boardgames and SFB

A Wonderful XMas Now Completed…

…and we slide down into the cold, dark part of the year…

Alyssa is home (and has been since before XMas and will be until the New Year rolls in). Her boyfriend Jonathan visited over XMas and he’s delightful.

We spent XMas eve at my sister’s house with most of the rest of my siblings and their families (Mark is in Colorado but texted in 🙂 ). Seems as if everyone is doing pretty well to very well. I’m delighted that things are looking good as we begin 2017.

The Christmas decorations have officially been taken down and the tree is on the porch, waiting to be hauled into the woods for its final disposition. This has never been my favorite part of the year as the joy and excitement of Christmas ebbs and there is only New Years before we hit the cold and dark months of January and February. Spring seems far away and it is time to huddle together and do things that don’t involve the outdoors (no skiers here really).

I am looking forward to moving some of my technical sandbox projects forward. I’m putting together the database definitions for the file management tool I’ve had in the works for some time now. I’ve got the VR system up and running in the basement and now need to hit the OpenGL books to start writing code. I have the office in some semblance of order and the Intuos tablet ready to practice some drawing. Plenty to do (aside from work which is plenty busy).

I’ll be off work until next Tuesday as KMC has the whole week between XMas and New Years off this year. Lys is home so I don’t know how much technical stuff will get done (but then I’d rather spend family time while I can). She’ll be heading back to Great Lakes and hold pending C school on the second.

Christmas Decorations Mostly Up

As of this weekend we’ve got the lights up on the house and yard. The Christmas tree is in the corner of the living-room. Lorna has decorated the house with all the various bits of Christmas cheer.

Mickey in a BubbleI still have a few lights to finish up on the lower front of the house. One string failed to light this year (led lights too) and we came up short on the far end of the house last year but just let it go. This year we picked up a couple more reels of lights to fix that.

Spent a chunk of the weekend replacing the in-law apartment water 20161204-img_20161204_193726heater. It has been leaking quite a bit for a couple of weeks now. Not a huge problem as it is in the furnace room in the garage and the water runs into the garage floor drain but it clearly couldn’t go on that way forever.

Found that quite a few gallons of water had leaked out into the space between the tank and the insulation in the old heater. I wound up cutting 20161204-img_20161204_194231a hole in the side with the angle grinder to let that water out before lifting it over the gas line to get it out. Glad to have that done now but it put off those last strings of lights a little.

Looking forward to having Alyssa back home for Christmas time. Lorna went out to Great Lakes fo a visit but I haven’t had a chance. Lys has grown so much since she joined the navy…I’m very proud of my girl.