Simple America

I have hardly been home over the last few days and that is why I am behind in all things blogging.

Friday I worked late and finished compiling the comp hours I need so I may have two weeks vacation. I leave this coming Saturday for Alaska. There I board the Sapphire Princess for a trip down the coast to Vancouver, BC. We will stay in Vancouver for a week. I hear our plans include a train ride and drive over to Banff also. Dang, Fantasy Flier moved too soon. Looking forward to seeing my missus and all her siblings together for the first time since I met her. She is the youngest of six kiddos.

But back to last weekend. I drove to Clear Lake to pick up my daughter. I had an hour to kill so I visited the Half Price Book Store. Looking for buried treasure and I found a couple of gems. Finally, found a Photoshop 6 book. I own some Photoshop CS books, but there is differences, which have frustrated my learning this program a bit. So hopefully I can upgrade my skills and get more pics on the blog. I also found the Spycraft Roleplaying Game book. It was a good price and I get my royalty check this weekend, so a little celebrating is in order. Spycraft allows a game group to enter the world of James Bond, Aeon Flux, or Spykids. Player agents can save the world from various nefarious threats. It is a d20 system product, but it has some neat little nuances that make it work well for a world of espionage. I am particularly interested in its rules for conducting chases. I will probably savage this in a setting for the kids who seem interested in playing in some secret agent fun.

Then it was time to go pick up the girl. I arrived early and the parking lot was already quite filled. Inside there were several ques formed for the various dorms. The girls stood in a huge mass serenading the parents with camp songs. I waited in line, when my daughter ran up and hugged me from behind. She then told me I was in the wrong line and just as quick she ran back to the chaotic mass of girls. I joined the correct que and times are so different. When she was younger I would have to pay for things she bought during the week. Now she does not spend a penny. But she did earn the next rating for her sailing and earned some community service hours.

I wanted to go, but she wanted to be part of the ceremoney where they displayed their banner. The sailors do this every year and the galley walls are covered with the displays of sailors past. So I sat through the dancing, baton twirling, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Then the presented the new poster. The girls drew it as a treasure map and depicted the adventures of the particiapants. My duaghter drew the streams, which included a picture of the shoe she lost in the bay. Losing the shoe did not matter, as the plan was to toss them out when camp was done. These things were ready for retiring and unworthy of turning in to charity.

And then it was over. We went to my daughter’s dorm, gathered her bags and made for the parking lot. Everyone was in a big hurry. We had to duck cars on three occasions and it really ticked me off. The girl was really hyper. She yakked the whole way home about her two weeks. I enjoyed listening to the fun she had. Really need to look into the sailing lessons they have for fathers and daughters. Always had this dream of sailing to Australia.

The missus was happy to see her girl. We ate supper and then we packed for our morning departure. I needed to pick up my son from Ed’s but I was staying over Saturday night so we could get in some gaming. Plus the girl wanted to see Uncle Ed. To start the day off that Saturday morning we had to go to the Little Tadpole’s birthday. Ed’s and my partner, Preston had a birthday party for his son. The boy hit three and we ate hot dogs and cake in the lad’s honor. Also saw Preston’s baby daughter for the first time. So itty bitty and cute. Blue blue eyes on that girl. Daddy needs a new shotgun. lol

A lot of the local gaming group was present. The Brazos Knights are great bunch of guys. And I conversed with Kyle for the first time. Heard his name from game stories, and maybe I saw him at the last Christmas Party too. But this was the first time I chatted with him. He complimented my blog and I replied that I type too much sometimes. Then I got pulled away with saying  a proper thanks for the compliments. I felt kind of rude and do apologise if I came off that way.

After the party I went with Ed and his family to Wal-Mart in Bryan. Oh I did not mention my son was present too. He looked good despite being sun burned the day before from swimming.

We headed to Ed’s house after that. Ed and the kids watched Malcolm in the Middle DVDs for Season One. Sunday Preston would come over for our midyear planning meeting. I needed to run a few more numbers so I could write royalty checks for the first six month’s sales. Got that done just as Ed finished cooking some sausages. Good stuff that.

Then we played some more Evernight. We had all the essentials. Dice, character sheets,  and miniature figures at the ready. And it was a long night, and unfortunately so. This part of the adventure ran on a rail. Our characters were prisoners and the importance of the information was vital for later. But Satruday night literally put me to sleep. Damn I hate being tired. And none of this is Ed’s fault. There is just no way around it.

After that we stopped and Ed broke out a game for his PS2. The title was Gun and it is set in the American Wild West. You get to play a cowboy looking to solve a mystery and avenge the death of the man he called his father. I had to force myself to go to bed at three in the morning. The graphics were superb and the story was superior. I have to find this for Xbox.

In the morning I woke up at 8. Had a few more things to do before Preston was due at 9. He arrived with his baby, who was pretty good for the entire time the meeting ran. We got quite a bit done and I hope we can keep the schedule.

Preston has some neat ideas for convention support. We intend to make a package that includes a T-shirt for the game master, table tents, and toe-tags for people that play our games. The toe-tag is similar to what they use in a morgue to mark a corpse’s identity. This fits with horror gaming and appeals to most gamers sense of humor. (Hey we are geeks, haha). We plan on providing a death certificate to players that redeem several toe-tags. Yeah it is a little morbid, but done with a tongue placed firlmy in cheek.

Speaking of cons. We are going to try and get a presence at Con on the Cob in Colombus, OH. This will be in early November. Hope we can find a cheap flights as the company probably cannot afford to pay this, unless the market suddenly picks up.

After the meeting I hoped we could play more Evernight. The kids wanted to as well. Ed was tired from his trip to Lufkin on Thursday. So I played more Gun. I have made it pretty close to the end. Dang thing is addictive.

Left around 6:30 as I have to work Monday. Was nice to spend time with Ed and his family. Arrived around 8:45. We unpacked, while the missus cooked salmon. Tasted great. Just like home. hehe

I have taken some pictures but have not had time to download them to my computer. Hope to give some of you folks a better idea of what a roleplaying game is. I also took pictures of my dice. More than a few of you have asked me why dice are important to me. And I hope to give you folks a better idea of these things I mention.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 17th, 2006 at 2:02 pm and is filed under Gaming, Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.