Feb Friday Quick Hits
◊ Any day now. I've mentioned that, haven't I?
◊ I've been off-line for quite some time. There's a few reasons for this. Part of it is getting used to being in a new place and forming a new routine. Part of it is trying to cram in some game time before the baby arrives and part of it is that I'm feeling out of sorts. The most difficult part of being out of sorts is that I need to get used to some of the loneliness which I'm going through. Contrary to what rational people might do when confronted with loneliness, I usually shut in further. I am getting better with the whole thing, so we'll see how the next couple of weeks go. Just to let people know...I am okay. I'm just opening up a little and admitting to some of the feelings I'm going through. No need to worry.
◊ The launch for Star Trek Online went better than expected in terms of game stability and availability. Good for them as I really thought they were going to bite it on launch day. That still does not forgive them in terms of game content and a host of other problems the game is going to have. Case in point, as I predicted, some one has already hit Rear Admiral which is the highest rank in the game. In addition to that, they accomplished this feat during the head start period before the official launch! That's about four days, folks. Even with all of the downtime, someone still played enough to get to the end of the game. And I don't believe this was a matter of simple power leveling, rather that there's just not that much content to pace the game more appropriately.
◊ One question that we get a lot lately? What are the names? I guess we'll all find out soon enough.
◊ I'm at Nina's enjoying a quick latte. It's as good as I remember, even though they don't do the latte art I find appealing. The taste is where it really counts and anything on top of that is gravy. Not literally, because that would be gross.
Star Trek Online Follow-up
I had the intention of taking a positive note about the game and that it did look like it was going to improve over time, that some (not all) of my fears had been addressed.
Of course that was all before this game started to treat the Head Start like another round of beta. First of all, we should set something straight. Many apologist will come forward and say something like "it's going to be this way for the first month" or something along those lines, somehow justifying that extensive downtime should be expected during launch. Their rallying cry will be "even WoW had a horrible launch". Thing is, WoW launched five years ago and in tech terms, that's a lifetime. Point two here is that Cryptic is not a newcomer to the MMO field. This is their third launch and should be well aware of the pitfalls of game development. Again, understanding that there will be issues in the first month is one thing. Multiple server maintenance windows (one lasting five hours) within the first couple days before the official launch is another.
It pretty much reinforces my earlier assessment that the game simply isn't ready. Not only that, Cryptic/Atari aren't ready as well. Surely someone at some point during one of their meetings must have said "this is a 40+ year old franchise that will likely have a lot of interest in the Trek community. My God, they even have conventions that have thousands upon thousands of people attend with frightening regularity. Maybe we should plan to accommodate the influx of people that will storm the server." Obviously, this conversation never happened and I'm guessing they will attempt to grow their way through the server troubles.
The problem is that we've become too accustomed to mediocrity and too patient with developers who put out a shoddy product. We now have Windows 7 because Vista was a disaster and Win 7 just feels like Vista SP2. In that same vein, it's sad to see that MMO games have the type of attitude that they should be able to fix everything on the fly with paying customers as their willing guinea pigs. STO has so many problems, I'm not sure where to start. They still need to deal with missing Klingon content, graphical issues, main game content, player progression issues that will vex possible expansions (how much higher can you go than Admiral?) and many more that I'd address but do not want to get all wound up (again) over a game. But they are not working on those issues now, they are addressing login and database issues. I cannot believe that it bodes well for STO that these particular problems which should have been nailed down during the open beta (or marketing beta) still need to be fixed.
My advice hasn't changed much, just that it has a broader audience now. Even fans, I think, will be disappointed about the state of the game so far. Wait to see how it shakes out and maybe it will improve. But, man...it's got a long way to go.
A Look at Star Trek Online
For those keeping track over the last few months, I've spent a few moments here or there talking about two upcoming games that really piqued my interest. One of them was Star Wars: The Old Republic, which I can safely put down and keep on the fringe of my radar as Bioware just announced that launch wouldn't happen until 2011. Contrary to what people might say, I think this is brilliant. Recently they had just started taking applications for the closed beta which to me means that there will be extensive testing before the game goes live. It's the smart money move for Bioware. The announcement that they are going to release next year is a sign that the developers and producers won't be rushed to market, opting for quality over a quick buck. Kudos.
The other game, of course, was Star Trek Online, which goes live on February 2nd. If that isn't considered an ominous segue, I'm not sure what is. Closed beta started late last year and for people who have pre-ordered through retailers were allowed access to the open beta currently wrappping up. In addition to those who pre-ordered, several gaming websites were offering open beta keys on a first come, first served basis. I understand this was likely done with the thought of load testing the servers, which I'm sure they got some useful information. Load testing, unfortunately wasn't their only issue.
I pre-ordered the game based on the past performance of Cryptic Studios, the game designers behind the MMOs City of Heroes/City of Villains. I enjoyed CoX (the name of the combined games) during the time that I played them, but eventually moved on to other games. For as fun as it was at times, they had issues sustaining my interest. The hope was that they had learned much during their time as a game studio which they could use in the production of a rich universe such as Star Trek.
Much like every MMO game out there, the first thing you do is character creation and STO is no different. However, they want each player to start with the Federation until at least level six where you can split off and start playing Klingons and the like. I messed around with the character creator and came up with an Andorian male with an engineering background.
Check me out!
Cryptic has always been known for their character tuning. You can twiddle with the controls to come up with something that you'd like if you were so driven to do so. While you can really spend a lot of time with the shape of the face, body and other parts, one thing that I've never quite liked about the character creator is after you get the body type to about what you want, everything else is a variation on a theme. Where I really notice this is with hairstyles and distinguishing marks. Sure, you can say that you can have up to millions of different creations and that's true when you figure in color and size. But you're going to be dealing with the same twenty or twenty five hairstyles. Still, it's much more than what other games give you, so still kudos to Cryptic. My complaint is more of one of the entire genre rather than to single someone out. Having said that though, there are some really creative people out there who came up with some very cool alien species.
That guy is crazy!
It's hard for me to describe the game adequately. There are essentially four parts of the game: space based battle and ground based battles, then choosing between Player vs. Environment (PvE) and Player vs. Player (PvP). Oh sure, there's the occasional diplomatic mission, the odd "investigate this and figure out that" mission and while those are fun, they don't happen very often when compared to combat missions. Space combat missions seem to be outnumbering the ground missions at least two to one, maybe more.
The good thing about the space combat missions taking up a large portion of the game is that it can be pretty fun. For me, it's the most fun part of STO. Even taking on NPCs is a rollicking little romp, especially when you get some slightly better parts to pimp out your ship and take on multiple ships. There's just something about watching the proton torpedoes you just launched slam into an enemy ship and turning it into a ball of fiery plasma in space. PvP against other players playing Klingons is also a lot of fun. Some people might complain about the fact there is no penalty for dying, but let's be realistic. It's more fun to not really care if you lose your ship knowing that you're back in the game relatively quickly, phasers blazing towards your enemies.
Just another day at the office
Space combat can be like EVE online in some ways but very simplified in comparison. You notice the similarity especially when other players are focusing fire and you're their target. You just won't last long as they burn through your shields and start hammering away at your hull. In EVE, you can sometimes warp out to escape losing your ship. No such relief here. You have to wait until the red alert drops and for that to happen, you need to be out of their firing range of ten kilometers...good luck with that. But, it is fun to rotating your shields to cover your weak side, loading up a torpedo salvo and maneuver to bring your weapons to bear. The fun is in the well paced FPS action of space battle.
Ground combat...it's okay. Nothing special really. In fact, I didn't even take any screen shots of it. It's rather dull fare for MMO games and in a lot of ways, rather pedestrian. It's not much to talk about really. You bring in your bridge officers, you shoot things and you try to get on your target's flank for better damage. The thing about the ground game is that it get's you itching to get back into your ship and to have some fun.
Not ground combat. Just chillin' on Risa.
Occasionally, you will have a longer "episode", which is a chain of missions strung together. On the few missions I've been on where there has been a longer episode, they have been the most balanced part of the game and can be pretty enjoyable. There's a sense of purpose here which often links up space combat missions with the ground missions. Along the way, it will tell a story and fleshes out the game, making it a bit richer by giving you a bit of background and occasional foreshadowing. The problem is that there's no impact of these missions to anything else in the game besides getting some skill points and maybe some loot, or progressing the overall story arc. Still, of all of the game experience so far, the longer episodes have the best Trek feel.
Gearing up for serious ass kicking
But there are problems here. First of all, I know this is only beta. I've been in a number of beta tests before, so I am well aware that there are bound to be issues. I know the game is not quite ready and there are things to be worked out, but...I really don't think they're ready. There are a number of reasons that actually had me reconsidering my pre-order and definitely has me considering how or if I will actually subscribe.
The training, while fun and mostly informative, leaves a lot to be desired and is geared towards people new to MMOs in general. There are a lot more things which are missing from the training such as ship devices, what consoles on ships actually do, a lack of information on your bridge officers, etc. When you make a game that has a bit of complexity to it, you have to try to explain part of that complexity and how it fits into the game. Right now, it feels like they are only showing new players how to move, how to shoot and then cutting them loose and letting them twist in the wind. Normally, complexity would build with the character, but with STO, knowing how to equip your bridge officers and your ship seem integral from the beginning.
The parts which will drive some players crazy is the haphazard way that inventory and device slots are used and utilized. Even if you understand that out of the gate, many veteran players will wonder exactly what certain bonuses do. I could spend my time trying to figure out what deflector shield bonuses do for me, but should I have to investigate that so early in the game? Where can I find that information easily if that's the case? It's a lot to outfit in a short amount of time and it just doesn't seem like your character and crew grow organically. There are a number of things you need to know very early in the game and it's just not covered.
Super-spacious, completely useless bridge shot. You don't want to know how long it took me to actually sit and pose for this.
Although the game as a whole seems lacking some content, the Klingon content is severely lacking. I know it's supposed to be the PvP part of the game, but they should at least offer to level the field a bit so there's more of a battle when going up against the Federation. Federation players have had at least six levels to replace their starting consoles which can make a big difference in combat. The Klingons? Clunky ships that regularly get owned by the "good guys" because the starter Klingon ships are underpowered and fight at a disadvantage. Plus, the Federation starts with more balanced Miranda vessel rather than the Bird of Prey, which is a very stripped down escort ship. Weapon punch is focused forward which can be good for alpha strikes, but have big disadvantages in longer combat.
Successful Klingon players will be those who are in a Fleet and who have worked out communication channels and voice chat (which isn't actually a part of the game, mysteriously enough). Pick-up Klingon "fleets" are going to be regularly owned by virtue of the other side sticking together and ganging up on ships who foolishly take on superior numbers. Expect to see numerous changes in the Klingon side of the game shortly after launch.
Whoops! That's my starship and part of my away team. One of the puzzling issues with STO.
Beyond the gameplay issues, I'm really questioning the motives behind the game and their various sell tactics. First of all, the first thing that irritates me is the number of playable character slots which is right now set at three (two until you get to level six where it unlocks a third slot). The game has two factions, three career paths and two specialization routes on each career path. That seems to be up to twelve differing characters, not to mention several different races with different starting stats and abilities. Some people like playing just one character, but a number of people like trying out the game, playing more characters, testing new paths. To have a game that is theoretically on one server and limit how many characters they get? Idiotic at best. When you do not have server shards to experiment with different classes, limiting the number of characters unless you pay for extra slots is needlessly stupid. This point alone has made me reconsider not only my subscription, but the purchase of the game itself.
The second fishy business move they have is the offering of lifetime subscriptions and special one year rates. I would normally have no problem with this as some companies do this well. Turbine with LOTRO does this well and has the content to back it up. STO...I feel like content is already missing. What's the promise for the future? Will there be future content updates? If there are only going to be 80 hours of playtime to get through the end game (as I've heard rumored), why would you ever want to get a lifetime subscription? The silence about this is troublesome for me.
I also have some nit-picky complaints as well. A lot of the forum comments that I see from other beta testers is how much like it is like Cryptic's other game, Champions Online. Hell, I see a lot of similarity to City of Heroes as well. Not just similarity, but functionality that seems almost cut and paste from their other games. Not that this is necessarily bad, but c'mon guys, you've got a whole Star Trek Universe to work with here. You can at least dress it up a bit and make it feel a bit more Trek-ish.
Thank God I can get a latte in space!
I have a few friends who are interested in this game and I thought I'd at least try to provide a balanced look at it. I started playing the beta will the eyes of a fan of the franchise, the mind of an experienced player and good wishes that Cryptic would do well. But the more I play it, the more I think that early adopters are going to have a bumpy ride until the patches come out. And they will, fast and furious in at least the first month. So, should you get it?
Trek fans are going to go one way or the other; they're going to hate the game for not being more like the show or they're going to love it just because it's Trek. MMO game fans might be conflicted from an incomplete game rushed to market to cash in on...something. I mean it's months after the movie, why rush the game out before it's ready? I'm on the fence about this game. There's some potential here. As I said before, the space combat almost makes up for the lack of other compelling content in the game. Is that enough? For me, it's enough for a pre-order and a month of trying it out. I might...might try a longer subscription, but no promises.
For casual gamers though...it's really a bit of a conundrum. The open beta feels as though it was framed as a game just for the fans. It's like the Enterprise-B that still has bugs to work out on it's maiden cruise. The promise is there and who knows what it will look on launch day. Head start begins tomorrow for those who have pre-ordered, so I may add a coda to this later. My best advice right now is that if you are a big Trek fan, get it. You'll appreciate the little touches in the game and will likely overlook some of the headaches with the launch. If you are a MMO gaming fan, I'd wait until the bugs shake out, see how the title matures over the next month or three.
What's cool about STO:
- Customizable ships and uniforms for you creative types (at least for the Federation).
- Fun space based action.
- Engaging episodes linked together (pun not intended).
- Nice effects in space battles.
What's not good about STO:
- Buggy. Infuriating when you defeat an enemy and can't move when your bridge officer pops in to say something, graphical glitches, instance transfers are not smooth, etc.
- Less than engrossing ground battles.
- Questionable business tactics (silence on pricing for extra slots, the slot limitation at all, the C-store "extras", motivation behind special pricing).
- Instanced areas that take massive out of Massively Multiplayer.
And, just because I can, here's some final screenshots to leave you with.
A rough battle, but I survived!
Close up of my starter ship.
A nice view of my ship approaching a planet.
My second command, a Constitution class cruiser. Saaaweet!
Setting course for Risa! Not as exciting as you would think, though.
We Are At Term
Yup. Any day now. Last week Thursday, if the birth had started, it wouldn't have been stopped but still would have been considered early. Now, we are officially in the "wheelhouse of birth", to coin a phrase.
The Enterprise Curse
I've been writing a bit about Star Trek Online (post coming soon, honest) and recently I had a post about if Scotty were an IT guy today. I think it's fair to say that Star Trek itself has been on my mind lately. I like the fact that the venerable franchise seems to be in resurgence with a successful movie out last year. Thinking back on the movie though gives me a headache as there are so many logical fallacies in the movie (red matter, time travel, Romulans who wait in vengeance for twenty years, the Federation who never seems to investigate a destroyed ship, etc.), it finally dawned on me that the Enterprise wasn't really that good for the command crew.
Take Kirk. Legendary captain who is torn out of time by the "ribbon" and never seen again except by Picard...who convinces him to go on one more adventure where he dies. Must have been out of practice. Bye bye, Kirk.
The latest movie has Spock sucked into a singularity (yeah, right) and into another time line. Again, we have to assume that Spock never returns to his original time line and is gone for good. Just as a side note, how interesting would it have been if they had gone back to the Mirror universe instead? A brutal and vicious Kirk paired with the cold, calculating evil Spock. I digress.
Two down...who's next? Ah yes, my favorite. The third in command of the Enterprise, Montgomery Scott. Gets to the point where he was going into retirement and his ship runs into a Dyson Sphere. He sets up some sort of transporter loop and is able to save himself until he can get rescued by Geordi LaForge and the Enterprise-D. After that he shuffles off (get it?) to never be heard from again.
Who's left? Bones lived to be a doddering old man, so there's that. Sulu got his own ship eventually and didn't disappear. There's surprisingly little to be said though of Chekov, Uhura or nurse Chapel. More tragedy perhaps? Given time, I'm sure the writers will certainly do some time travel thingy and mess things up with at least one of them dying. A noble death, of course, but still dead. Could be worse though. They could end up drumming for Spinal Tap.
Late Night Goodness
My late night recommendation and on my viewing, I had to stifle a potentially loud laugh so I wouldn't wake my wife. I've been a fan of the series "How It Should Have Ended" but this latest one about the Wizard of Oz was pretty funny. Enjoy!
Quick Update
I'm working on the Star Trek Online piece I promised. Should be up tomorrow or Monday at the latest. Busy until then. Till then...TTFN.
Absense Makes the Blog Go Dimmer
Or something like that anyway.
Yes, I've been away for awhile. Yes, I know that I pretty much broke my resolution to blog nearly every day. That doesn't change anything. I've had friends ask or text to make sure that I was okay and I assured everything was fine.
Fact is the little break from the blog was entirely selfish on my part. You see it was a matter of timing.
Yesterday, Melanie and I crossed the thirty seven week mark of the pregnancy. At this point, if labor starts, they do not stop it and baby is on the way. Coupled with that information and the fact that it's usual for first children to be born early, the timing of this got me thinking. And my thinking made me selfish. But I got it out of my system and I'm ready now.
The last couple of weeks, I thought that I would try to cram in as much of the little fun things I like to do on my own. That included some reading, playing hockey and a fair amount of video games that I had not played for awhile. Now why do this and not blog? Good question, but I knew the blog would always be here and it's honestly a little easier on my time.
No big mystery really. Just taking advantage of a bit of time before our baby is born and the time I do things completely changes. To be perfectly frank, I'm nervous as hell about fatherhood as I know somewhere I am going to screw up...but I constantly strive to improve on this, to make things better. I hope that's enough.
Anyway, I'm not going to dwell on that too much. Mystery, such as it is, solved. Over the next few days, I'll post some more thoughts on my impending fatherhood, I've got a Star Trek Online review that I want to post up for the benefit of my friends and some other thoughts about tidbits over the past week or so.
Thursday Quick Hits
I know, no post yesterday. I have a reason for it, just not a good one. I spent a good chunk of yesterday playing Bioshock for the first time. Really nice game, intriguing story. One complaint I have is the number of weapons you get. I have a hard time just thinking about how a single person carries all of this stuff without pulling a wagon behind you. Now trying out Mass Effect to see what the hubbub is about and to get a little preview on how Star Wars: The Old Republic is going to run.
Speaking of, Steam had an outrageous Holiday sale which absolutely forced me to pick up a bunch of games for a fraction of the cost. Seriously, I got a number of titles I was looking at for some time for essentially the cost of a single game.
Tuesdays seem to be my favorite net days. It means a rash of good comics that I look up including Sluggy Freelance, Darths and Droids and Wondermark. Thursdays are close too, but not as good as Tuesdays. Wondermark updates on Tuesday/Friday.
We're officially into the eighth month. I'll post up some profile pictures soon. We're excited, nervous, anxious...a rash of emotions. Plus, we've got so much baby stuff now from other people. Still in need of a thing or two, but looking good otherwise. The essentials are pretty much there with the exception of diapers. Getting closer on names as well.
More snow. I still dig it, but I'm anxious for Spring to arrive so our dog can experience actual green grass. She likes to eat anything that gets close to her mouth so outside, it's a lot of dead leaves and other tree and plant detritus. I'm guessing she'll go bonkers.
Something Fishy on the Horizon
As a rule, we try to buy organic when we can. In fact, I wrote about this once and how difficult it was to adjust to conventional grocery stores that do not really carry much for organics. We've definitely had to make some adjustments, sacrificing what we had to but going organic when we could.
Recently though, we were looking at the brands of milk we were buying. I drink a lot of milk. Between a latte or two, a glass of milk for dinner and maybe one before I go to bed, I burn through milk pretty quickly. Problem is that most of the organic milk around here comes mostly in half gallon cartons. That's fine, but we end up paying for two or three of them at a time and at a premium as well. Back in Maryland, we at least had some choices and the prices, while still more than conventional milk, were more competitive overall. It seems strange to me that in the heart of dairy land, it's difficult to find organic milk in the grocery store.
Last week, we had a bit of a dilemma. We were shopping at one of the bigger groceries around here and I needed milk, but I really would have liked a gallon of the stuff rather than the half gallon cartons. We bought a gallon of Horizon Organic milk. Something tugged at my memories about that there was something wrong with Horizon. I couldn't place it though and didn't really think about it much except when I poured a glass of milk. Finally this morning, I decided to poke around a bit on the ol' Internet and see if I could prod my memory and settle this once and for all. A simple search for Horizon Organic though turned up a number of articles, both pro and con. At some point, it was difficult to sort who was telling the truth and who was lying as it seemed that every site had some sort of agenda. Something didn't quite pass the sniff test for me and I was starting to regret my purchase of their milk.
I decided that maybe I should look into all of the brands that I buy. To that end, I looked up Stonyfield Organic. First thing to jump out at me was the lack of disparate articles turned up in the search. There was no great protest to Stonyfield, no calling for a boycott or questioning their commitment to organic dairy. It raised some more warning flags for me with Horizon.
The search on Stonyfield did lead me to an interesting article from BusinessWeek back in 2006 called The Organic Myth. Set aside the belligerent tone towards organics that seems rife in the article, there's some good information available on the challenges that organic producers face. The most valuable information I got from the article was a reference to the Cornucopia Institute. On their website, they have an ongoing dairy brand report card which is continually updated and listed every organic brand I had purchased recently.
What I found out is that there are some very good options for local organic milk, yogurt, cheese and the like. I also found out that for the most part, we bought our organic dairy well. But not recently. Horizon scored a zero in their survey, not just for not responding to their inquiries. The BusinessWeek article revealed some serious problems in terms of the ethical treatment of their dairy herd. One big issue is their huge dairy farm in the a part of Idaho known for it's constant drought. Many people equate organic to not only be free from antibiotics, pesticides and other non-natural additives, but also sustainable land management. Raising milking herds on a desert is not a sustainable practice. Add into this that they are owned by conventional food giant, Dean Foods and the organic claims seem to be following more the letter of the law rather than the spirit intended.
It's not easy buying organics. You have to do your research. You have to find some time to get to know the people who are doing the farm work. You have to be comfortable spending twice as much as you could probably buy at a conventional grocery. But because of that, we know more of what we're putting into our bodies and hopefully that will make us happier and healthier in the long run. I feel better prepared now going into the grocery as far as dairy is concerned and I can make a better informed choice. Which means that Horizon is out. If given the choice between Horizon and "conventional" dairy, I'll save my money and buy conventional. Horizon doesn't meet my standards and I feel no obligation to support them.
Starla’s Favorite Spot
That's one of the heating ducts at her feet and her head under the dishwasher. She's really comfortable there for some reason.
Saturday Night’s Alright For Not Freezing
Corny title, I know.
Saturday was supposed to be a busy day. We knew that. Seeing that we live outside of the Cities, we try to squeeze as much into one day as physically possible and that takes a bit of effort and planning. We need to account for time and what we can do with reasonable limits and plan for the dog as well.
For the most part, Saturday went fine with a couple of small hitches. Melanie's breakfast/brunch thingy with her girlfriends ran a bit later than we expected, but was thoroughly enjoyed--so I hear. I didn't go. It was a girlfriend-thing after all. Because of the impending arrival, each guest was invited to bring something for the baby. Melanie's girlfriends brought a lot of it. All of the baby stuff essentially filled what room remained in our car. Between the gifts and my hockey bag, there was no room for much else. That was okay because we hadn't planned on shopping and there was no need to have too much extra room.
After the brunch and visiting some friends, I got to finally do something I've wanted to do since I was about eight years old. We went to Chuck E. Cheese. It was not for me but for my nephew's fifth birthday. I gotta say, that place does appeal to that age group really well. And although there were a couple of games there which looked fun to play, I didn't want to be the almost forty year old guy who's hogging a game and making a bunch of kids wait. It was fun to watch regardless.
After the trip to Chuck E. Cheese, it was time to drive up to New Hope for my hockey game. It was a good game and fortune saw to it that we won. A celebratory post-game drink and food was in order and after that, it was time to hit the road for home.
And that's when things started to get weird.
January 2nd was a pretty cold day, even by our standards. The high that day for the Cities was a whopping one degree above zero where the lows settled in at about -24°F. Earlier that day, Melanie had remarked that we should check the tire pressure along the way seeing that all of our tires seemed a bit low. Of course, we didn't actually follow through on this and fate waved her magic "gotcha" wand and made us pay for that little bit of foreshadowing. At around 11pm that night, our driver's side rear tire went flat while we were on I-35w north.
Fortunately the tire didn't blow out, but the fact it went flat was something we were kicking ourselves over because it seemed to be preventable. We took a few minutes and made sure the hazards were blinking and that we were far enough off the road to do some work. We needed to move many bags and items of baby stuff around just to get to the donut of a spare tire, the jack and tools.
At this point of tire changing, it's pretty much a one man job. I told Melanie to sit in the car and keep warm...plus keep buckled up just in case. It took a bit to find where the jack needed to sit under the frame of the car, but once I found it, I proceeded to change the tire.
For those of you who have never done this, changing a tire on the interstate can be pretty harrowing. At 11pm, traffic was light, but there were still a number of cars on the road. Most of them are courteous enough to move over to the other lane to give you some room. Of those that didn't move over...that was uncomfortable. Having cars zip past at 70+ MPH a few feet away was unnerving enough that I didn't really mind or think about the cold which at that time of night was hovering at around -19°F. It kept me alert, watching the incoming cars and hoping that none of them were being stupid. Twenty minutes later, I had the spare on, loaded up the car again to make our way to the exit and a gas station which lie just ahead.
We gassed up and sidled up to the air machine to top off all of the tires and re-inflate the spare which was extremely low. Problem was that the air machine at the station was recently "fixed". And by fixed, I mean neutered. The station attendant had said that earlier that day, the air machine didn't work at all. And now, it barely worked. Pumping up the tires from 20 PSI to just 28 PSI took nearly eight minutes per tire. After topping off the remaining good tires and getting the spare from 14 PSI to just under 30 PSI, we hobbled off to home, driving on the interstate at 55 MPH. We accepted the fact that getting home at 1 AM was a given.
Finally off the interstate and just fifteen miles from home, we came across another car, hazards on and a guy checking under the hood. We pulled over to see what we could do as this wasn't a heavily traveled road, it was after 1 AM and the temperature was still dropping. Their car had just died without any indication of what was wrong and they were stuck. They had asked for a ride. We unfortunately didn't have any room with my hockey bag and the baby gifts taking up all of our room. We offered to see if we could get someone to help them out and drove to the nearest open place which was a bar about a mile away.
Melanie went inside to see if something could be done while I tried my best to rearrange some of the space to allow for people to fit into the car. The bar was no help as the young, drunk people who frequented the place actually were going to be driving home in the opposite direction. After switching some stuff around, I was able to get room for one person, two if they sat on the lap of the first. We drove back to the stranded car to see if this would help. We managed to get one woman and a young child into the car and drove them back home. Along the way, we got word there was someone going to get the other two people and their car.
The drive home had the effect of putting things in perspective for us. After the flat tire, we were feeling like we were put out. How cruel the world was to curse us with a flat tire on a cold night, we thought. We realized that we had it pretty good after all when running into a car of four people on a lightly traveled road in the dead of night without being able to run the engine to keep warm and responsible for the welfare of a three year old. Much like the flat tire itself, we stopped not out of charity, but it was what we had to do. There was no question in it, no debate about it.
Saturday night really took it out on me the next day. I was tired to begin with after playing hard at my hockey game, to add on changing a tire and fitting two people in the car as we took them home really chipped away at my rest and recovery time. Yesterday was nearly a total loss as I was not myself. I was listless and it took a toll on Melanie who was being amazing and understanding.
If you believe in karma, and I feel like it has some merits in it, maybe we got that flat because then we would have been in the right time and place to help someone else out. If so, then I'm glad it happened as it did. The only negative effects seem to be a bit tired the next day and sore muscles today--that's a fair trade-off.
Late Post
So you remember how I wrote yesterday about how blogging was going to work and there should be something nearly every day? This is a quick post to compensate for the fact that I didn't write something today and am trying to at least keep momentum going. The intent was there and even the story, but it was the story that was the cause of the problem for me writing today.
Am I not making sense? Probably not. Let's just say that Saturday night made me tired and there's a story in it. Because I was wiped out for today, blogging took a back seat. But that means that definitely there's something to go on about tomorrow.
See you then!
Resolved…
So...2010. New year. Nice round numbers. Couple of things I'm going to try and accomplish over the next 364 days. It will take dedication and determination, but it should be great.
- Blog nearly every day. I will make exceptions for holidays (see yesterday), impending births, emergencies, vacations and the like, but other than that, you should see a post. If you don't, assume the above or look for where I mention that I was otherwise engaged. Plus, with the WP app on my iPhone, I should be able to at least throw up a note.
- Write a book. It may not be good, but it will get written. And revised. And shopped around.
- Write at least a short story a month. Again, don' expect perfection, but it's just to get it going, get it on paper and stretch those writing muscles. If I like it, expect to see a page on the website with my writing and I'll post it up for your reading pleasure.
- More Twitter updates.
- Read more.
- Everything else will be baby or dog related.
Having said that, I will welcome all inquires to above list. In fact, just asking me "hey, how's that story coming" in the comments will be further motivation to get off my ass and work.
There's a couple of things that I left off the list, like touching up my German and relearning guitar, but I like to stay a bit realistic.
Hoping everyone has a wonderful 2010. I know this is a big year for me and I'm really looking forward to it.
Cool Stuff
- Boing Boing
- Flight of the Conchords Completely UnOfficial Fan Site
- Groklaw
- ibiblio
- Postsecret
- Project Gutenberg
- Save the Internet!
- Think Lynsen
- Thomas Dolby
- Whatever
Frequently Visited
Friends
- Kat McGerik
- Laurie McGinley
- Scott McGerik’s Weblog
- Think Lynsen
- TJ’s Blog on a Log with a Frog
- Witty and Smart
Fun Stuff
Hockey
Webcomics
Writing
Twitteriffic
- All 14 people at the party are crammed into the 4x10ft kitchen. w00t!
- @bily__ thank you. Nothing wrong, just kinda lazy. :-)
- Back tweeting again. Drinking beer @hopwhore's house right now. More updates as they merit.
- @bily__ NP. Took awhile to get the invite. I don't use it much though, but maybe in the future.
- Dropped a cracker and let the automatic crumb sweeper take care of it. Nice. http://twitpic.com/wswmx
Now Reading
Planned books:
None
Current books:
-
The Last Colony by John Scalzi
Recent books:
- House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
- Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics By Its Most Brilliant Teacher by Richard P. Feynman
- The Universe and the Teacup: The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty by K. C. Cole
