28 July 10

So, yesterday a little game came out, by the name of Starcraft II. I (along with the entire population of South Korea!) have been waiting for this game for a long time. The original game came out in 1998, and it was the first game I ever played online, over my parent's 32k dial-up connection no less! I spent many hours learning the ropes of the original, and it is one of the few games that I have periodically re-visited over the years. The new one is really impressing me so far with it's fidelity to the original, and I can't wait to play it to get more of the story! Might be challenging to pull myself away for a while...

Interestingly, I got my Sister's wedding invitation today (*sniff*). It is hard to believe that my little Sis is getting married! She is having a destination wedding in Las Vegas, which will be cool since I've never made a trip out there to visit, although Gwen, her Dad, and I did drive through it during our cross-country trip this spring. We're really looking forward to it!

Last but not least, here are some pictures of the Demonstration Day the local game store, Eagle & Empire, held last Sunday. Check them out!

26 July 10

Hey everyone! We've had a busy couple of weeks; were to begin..

Well, I went down to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana, and it was really hot down there with temperatures in the 100's! Of course, once I came back home temperatures in the DC area promptly became just as hot (Doh!). The base had a small museum, with a number of aircraft outside for display. You can find them below, although unfortunately they are not of the greatest quality since I took them with my iPhone.

This past weekend Gwen and I went out to the Udvar-Hazy Center, which is the annex to the National Air and Space museum out by Dulles. They had a lot of really neat exhibits there, including the B-29 Enola Gay and the Space Shuttle Enterprise. We were going to take some pictures, but the official site has a lot nicer shots that we could ever get! Afterwards, we went to see Toy Story 3, which is a really great movie by the way. I've heard people say that this is the best of the Toy Story movies, and while I don't know about all that (it is hard to top the innovation and memory of the first!), it is still quite good.

Yesterday, there was a "demo day" at Eagle & Empire, my local game store. The owner, Doug, had turned over the gaming space to hour-long demonstrations of various games. I myself was demo-ing Firestorm Armada and Axis & Allies War at Sea. The event was a lot of fun, and I think I managed to generate a bit of interest for my games, which is good! I took some shots, which I will try to get put up before too much longer.

So, in the works for the near future are a raft of updates for my Firestorm Armada site, which I launched last time. I'm working on a fair amount of background for my ships, as well as a new look for the whole thing. Hopefully those changes will be done in the next week or so, probably in early August. Keep your eyes peeled!

11 July 10

It is kind of funny to think about, but this is the first July 11th I've had in 4 years that wasn't a ship holiday. Since the San Francisco was SSN-711, we always took this day to do a ship's picnic and get-together. Oh well, I decided to update my website instead!

As those of you who follow my Facebook page already know, last weekend Gwen and I drove back to Indiana to visit my Mom, Dad, sister, and her fiancé, Chris. We bought a bunch of fireworks and had a great time! It was definitely worth the trip. This past week, even though it was a short week, was very busy. Still, I've managed to get a little modeling and a little gaming in. Friday was my usual 40k game. I played my IG against the Tyranids again, and although it was a bloody fight and I was sure I was going to lose due to a bout of poor dice rolling, I never the less managed to grind my opponent to a tie! Modeling wise, I've been working on some ships for a space combat game called Firestorm Armada, which I last talked about back in March. I have been playing a couple of video games. I finally finished the single-player campaign for Dawn of War II, which was really cool. I really hope that a future sequel/expansion does something similar for the Imperal Guard, as the makers of this game really captured the Space Marine feel. I've also been playing Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, which is the latest Zelda game for the DS. It is a pretty standard Zelda game, except you get to drive your own train! Nintendo couldn't have made a game that more specifically caters to my tastes if they tried.

Which brings me to my big announcement: My Firestorm Armada web site is now live! It is pretty bare-bones at the moment, but it does have some pictures of the ships I've gotten painted so far. Check it out below!