24 April 07

I would have posted an update yesterday but events sort of spiraled out of control, as they are want to do. I had to help Chad, whom I mentioned last time, get his car over to the VW dealership to get worked on. His Getta was overheating, and its battery would not hold a charge. This meant that we had to make the trip in short "hops," where he drove with me following until his car overheated, at which point he would pull off to let it cool. And since he had no juice, once it did cool off I had to jumpstart him to get back on the road again. We repeated this process 4 times getting him over to the dealership last night! By the time I was finished helping Chad, there simply wasn't time to get this article put together. The good news is, his car should be back tomorrow.

I got word today that I may not be leaving until later next week for my ride (if I leave at all!). This would be great if true, as it would allow me to spend a little more time with Gwen. Either way, for my next update I will try to get some pictures from the Sub Ball posted this weekend. That may or may not be the last update I post for a month or two!

22 April 07

The house also has a new visitor, another SanFran JO named Chad. He just got back from a 6 month ride on the Boise, so even though he reported to the boat a long time before I did, I am just now meeting him. He was nice enough to ride around with me yesterday when I went shopping for clothes for my ride. He also showed me a neat local comics/game store called Comics Keep. While I was there, I got introduced to a couple of guys who play BFG on Fridays, which means I don't have to go all the way to the Battle Bunker to find a game anymore! However, I have been going to the Battle Bunker just about every Friday for two months, which means I've made several friends out there. Thus, I am thinking that I will probably split my time between the two places, going to one place one Friday, then the other the next.

Today's update is about a small model I picked up at Sakuracon a few weeks back. I think it came out pretty well, so please take a look and let me know what you think via email. I would still like to get an update posted to my BFG page sometime either tomorrow or Tuesday, before Gwen gets here and things start to get really busy! There is an article I've been tossing around for a while, as well as adding a few new links. This week might very well be my last chance to update the site for a while, so I'd better take advantage!

15 April 07

I will be getting the chance to see her in a couple of weeks though, since I am flying her out here to Washington for the 107th Submarine Ball. It is being held a week from this Friday in downtown Seattle. This will kind of be my last huzzah for a while, since I am due to head out on a ride (finally!) the Monday afterwards. The intention right now appears to be to have me ride a boat out of Groton, so I will actually have to do a bit of flying myself in the not too distant future! Oh well, this might give me the chance to catch up with a few friends who are stationed out there.

I had to get a new printer this weekend, as my old Wal-Mart Special one finally bit the dust last week. The one I picked up is a HP model that has a lot of nifty features, including a small LCD screen that I can use to print pictures directly off a memory card!  Hopefully, this one will be able to last me a while. On the gaming side of things, I've been playing a lot of Baten Kaitos Origins still, and I have also recently started the GBA version of Final Fantasy VI. Last Friday, I also picked up a huge order of BFG stuff that I ordered through the Seattle Battle Bunker, so I've got that to chew on now as well! Unfortunately, I'm not sure if I will be able to make much progress on any of that stuff over the next two weeks, as I am going to be going in early and staying late at work to try and get ready for this upcoming ride.

08 April 07

I don't have a huge update for you today, as I'm still trying to absorb my experiences at SakuraCon yesterday. I had a great time, getting there early (around 7:30 in the morning) to beat the lines for registration. I watched some interesting anime, played a few rounds in the LAN gaming room, and picked up some neat stuff in the dealer room. I bought a Patlabor figure, a Red Vs. Blue DVD, and a couple of T-shirts. I also stopped by the Penny Arcade booth and talked with Tycho and Gabe for a while. I decided to pick up a couple of books from their booth too, so that I could get them signed. I was surprised to see that their booth wasn't swamped, considering how popular their strip is. Overall, I had a really great day there, and it definitely has me primed for PAX this fall! After I got back to Bremerton, I hit up the Vigil Mass at the local church. It was a pretty ceremony, although it was a long service (as Vigils tend to be!).

Later this week (time permitting), I'm hoping to post a couple of updates. I'm working on doing an article on the transport case I'm building for my BFG and Epic stuff, so hopefully that will be up soon. Also, I've been working on a couple of games lately, so I'd like to do some impressions/reviews on them in the near future. For now though, I'm going to get a few small side projects done that I've been putting off. For example, my room could use a good cleaning! And then there is that persistent difficulty I've been having with my laundry, of the piling-up variety...

05 April 07

On a side note, the weather here in Seattle has been quite balmy the last few days. This is a welcome change to the cold and wet weather we've been having recently, but it has created problems on the boat. The ship's AC is out of commission for a week or two for repair work, and it is getting stuffy on board her. Hopefully that gets fixed soon, but I'm not holding my breath!

02 April 07

Other than that, I have been having a pretty good time as of late. Last week I participated in a course known as JO1, which offered further training in ship control and navigation. It got out at about 1400 every day, leaving me a little time to get caught up on a few projects that have been on the back burner. For example, I've started work on a custom transportation system for my BFG and Epic miniatures, on which I hope to have an article posted soon.  This project has been made necessary by the fact that I have out-grown my current case. I'm planning on using that case exclusively for my Imperial Navy fleet as it is my largest, and this custom case will hold my other fleets and Epic minis. Another project I've started in earnest is getting caught up on  my Anime and video game backlog. I had a surprisingly good shopping trip to the mall a couple weeks ago; I managed to find the last few volumes for a series I've been collecting as well as several volumes of a new series for less than I could have gotten them anywhere else, including Half.com. The series I finished collecting is called Kiddy Grade, and I've posted a review below. Believe it or not, this is the first anime review I've done in over a year! It is hard to believe that it has been so long. I'm going to try to get another update in before the end of the week too, so stay tuned.