Origins of a Gamer: My first MMO

Long before any of us heard the term MMO we'd been playing games.  Be that board games, console games, pickup basketball, etc. we were already gamers.  Most of you reading this blog entry will no doubt have played some of the very first MMORPG's to come down the pike.  I'm talking about Ultima Online and Everquest most notably.  But before those there was a thing called a MUD.  Again, some of you will have played those games, and this isn't about their history, but MY history as a gamer.

My first real taste of online gaming came around 1992.  I was 22 and living at home with my parents after throwing away a college scholarship (that's a topic for a whole other show as Jerry Springer might say), but I had a great job and literally zero bills.  There was a lot of disposable income in my pocket.

I had a little PC at home I used for LAN parties sometimes.   You know, those good ole days where about 8 to 10 of your closest friends would pack up EVERYTHING and  take it to someone's house, then UNPACK it all, set it up, order a lot of pizza, and play games until dawn?  Yup, that.

Well AOL (American Online as many of my Dell customers would call it) was my ONLY option for internet back then.   I did live in the deep sticks.  One night after a long day at work I was logging into AOL to get into some good ole chat room discussions, and I saw an ad on the main screen about this online game new to AOL.  It was called Gemstone.

Being a veteran of LAN parties I thought how cool it would be to play with people over the internet!  From the moment I loaded up the game and started playing, I was hooked.  I had played some text based games before on my old Texas Instruments TI-99 PC I had as a kid, but the "room" descriptions in Gemstone were what really caught me.  My screen may have been black and white, but the words painted such a vivid picture of where I was.  What I was seeing.  It left a strong impression.

Gemstone is still going.  You can take a look at it and play it here.  I will talk more about it tomorrow.

This is my second entry for Blaugust.

Tomorrow's entry - Origins of a Gamer: The High Cost of Gaming

Origins of a Gamer: How I Got Started

All this month I will be participating in Blaugust, which is a blogging initiative to do a blog entry every day for the entire month.  The vast majority of those doing Blaugust are gaming bloggers, and I seldom blog (but want to do more of it).  These guys and gals have accepted me into their community on Twitter and I'm grateful for the new friendships.  This will be my attempt early on at least to talk about my own gaming origins.

In trying to think of the where and how I became a gamer, originally I thought about Everquest.  In that game I was a guild leader on Quellious, a raid tank, a roleplayer.  it was really my first taste of bigtime gaming.  But as I thought about all the people and memories that made my time there such a great experience, I began to remember the things that got me started.

Sure I played a lot of board games as a kid.  For a long time I was an only child, and living out in the country... I mean the DEEP sticks, there were zero kids around me my age.  None.  On the weekends I would stay at my grandparents, while they also lived in the country at least their road was paved.  There were kids my age to play with.  Mostly we played sports together, against one another.  Football, basketball, softball.  Winter didn't even stop us from playing football outside.  My competitive spirit was born!

My grandmother was big into playing cards.  Canasta was the game of choice along with some Rook.  On Friday or Saturday evenings she would get together with her friends and play these games and I would watch them closely to learn.

As I look back on things, these games were like the first pen and paper D&D in my mind.  each player had their own style of play.  They interacted socially while playing.  Often times trying to provoke or coerce others into playing a certain way.

THIS was my first multiplayer gaming experience!

At around the age of 14 I was able to work my way into playing with them.  This doesn't sound very exciting for a teenage boy.  To be playing Canasta on a Saturday night with a bunch of bluehaired old women.  Maybe I was just wired differently because I absolutely loved it.  I was so excited when they let me sit in finally.

Tomorrow - Origins of a Gamer: My first MMO

Hangout Fest 2014 Recap

May of 2014 was a great month.  My wife Kellye and I went Hangout Music Fest in Gulf Shores, Alabama.  May is also Kellye's birthday.  Hangout was a lot of fun.  I'm no veteran of music festivals, but I've been to Coachella so that SHOULD make me an authority (or hipster douche, you decide).

The lineup was amazing and I was able to see a lot of great bands who were not very well known.  The big names are good, but the smaller acts are usually more hungry are playing for some of the largest crowds of their career.  Several Nashville based bands were there.  Funny how I never see them in Nashville.  Here were some of my favorites.

The first group we saw was about my favorite. Empires is a band out of Chicago and their song "How Good Does it Feel" is pretty much everything I love about music.

This one you may have heard, Black Lips.  They really rocked it hard and brought a lot of energy.

The Black Keys headlined the first day.  Maybe it's something about being outdoors with about 40,000 people on the beach or how far away from the stage we were, but their performance didn't really grab me.  This was one of the big bands I wanted to see.  Perhaps listening to them at a smaller venue would be better.

Day two was great!  Check out this Nashville band.  Diarrhea Planet.  They are about as unconventional as their name.  Six dudes.  Eight of them play guitar.  Seriously,  they have a drummer and the other 5 guys are playing guitar.  About 5 of them sing lead.  You just gotta see it.  The above clip is live.

Another highlight was yet another Nashville band, Moontaxi.  I saw them at the 2013 Hangout and enjoyed them.  This year, however, they did an entire set of Rage Against the Machine songs!  In the clip above, we are about 20 feet from the person filming this.  The set was awesome!  So full of energy and the crowd really got into it.

One of my wife's favorite bands is Fitz and the Tantrums, who we were lucky enough to see a small club a few years back.  They really stepped up their game for the festival crowd.  Here they are singing "Moneygrabber" with Daryl Hall.

Saturday night ended with The Killers, which I'd seen three times previously.  I'd debated going to see Pretty Lights instead since I was so familiar with The Killers.  Due to a gap in start times and a REDONKULOUS crowd we hit the beach for Killers.  Same vibe as Friday night with the Keys.  It just didn't hit me like I expected.  Really I think it was due to us being so far back from the stage.

Last year when I saw Kings of Leon (again more Nashville flavor), it was like watching magic happen.  I felt like I was part of an epic rock show.  The biggest difference was my proximity to the stage.  The Kings headline a lot of festivals in Europe, but seldom in the States, so this was a real treat.

Sunday.......well as ONLY my luck would have it, we didn't see a single band on Sunday.  I hardly ever wear contact lenses.  When I go to something like this where I'm going to be outside and really want to wear sunglasses, I wear them.  If I don't wear them, I just cannot see.  So Saturday night we get back to the room and my feet are hurting so bad I just wanted to lie down in a tub full of hot water.  I made the mistake of wearing my contacts in the tub.  For other people this may not be a problem.  For me, they stick to my eyeballs!  Not thinking, I tried to take them out immediately upon getting out of the tub.  The right lens stuck to my eye like a suction cup and made a loud POP when I got it off!  My eye got swollen, red, it watered, and hurt just to open it.  It was Wednesday before it got back to anything remotely resembling normal.  Ugh...

I had a great time though!  We'd like to make Hangout a yearly adventure.  The tickets are very affordable.  Maybe I'll see you there next year?

EDIT: My Spotify playlist for the bands I saw, and those I wanted to see. My Own Hangout 2014 Playlist.

Time to Get This Going for Keeps

Wow, it's been nearly two years since I last wrote on this.  When I started out with it, I had no real direction.  As you can see, my previous posts were on a lot of different topics.  After two years of reflection (that's a lot of reflection) I've decided I'm OK with keeping it all over the place.  

Mainly I want to blog about gaming, diabetes, and music.  Two of those are great loves of my life and the third will kill me.  Not to sound morbid but so far I've had a few life threatening issues with diabetes and I am certain the hits will keep on coming!  I'm OK with that to be honest.  It is part of what makes me who I am.  While it does not define me, it takes up a huge part of my day to day life.  

I'll work on linking other blogs, I have done a few that I used to read but will add more for sure.  

Part of the reason I want to keep this going is because I've made a lot of friends on Twitter who are in the game bloggers and diabetes related bloggers.  These are the people I interact with on a daily basis and I'd like to share more of myself with those communities.  So thanks for the inspiration.

Beagles & Holes

Growing up, I was far from an animal lover.  My dad got me a Saint Bernard when I was around five years old.  The dog was just a puppy, but it did not take long for the dog to outgrow and outweigh me.  She just wanted to play when she would put her paws on my shoulders, drive me to the ground, and not let me up.  Only so much screaming my mother could take before dad gave the dog away.  Or just ask my sister.  She will tell you.  Part of it was we had a dog that bit me.  I cannot blame the dog.  He thought I was hurting my sister while we were playing in the yard.  Part of it was I was just plain mean and most likely had it coming for a multitude of other reasons.

There are things that happen in life that give you a certain perspective.  Those that really know me, know my first wife and I lost a child.  It was a defining moment in my life.  It was a crossroads.  It was many things.  I could have let it break me or pick myself up and carry on.  Still I grieve, I do not deny that.  It will always be a part of who I am.  A part of me that is missing.

During the time shortly after losing Carly, Suzanne and I decided to get a dog.  Honestly I had my reservations.  My recollections of having a dog were not that rosy.  But we were both hurting after our loss.  One Sunday we went out to breakfast and decided we were going to the flea market and looking for a dog.  Not just any dog.  A beagle.  It was decided.

While at the flea market, I put off really getting a look at the dogs as long as I could.  I mean they had sugar gliders! How crazy was that!  I thought those were a myth.  Like a snipe.  Or a shikepoke.  Finally I started making the rounds to the dogs.  Sure enough, there were beagles.  It was late in the day and it was Sunday so the flea market was going to pack up soon that evening.  Suzanne and I must have picked up every beagle left.  Eventually we settled on one.  A female.  Dixie was to be her name.

Fast forward a bit.  Suzanne decided to pack up and leave.  She said every time she looked at me, she could only think about the daughter we had lost.  I could not dispel that image from her mind.  After all, I had similar  images in my own mind when I looked at her.  I understood in a way.  It was clear that Dixie would go with her.  At the time I was OK with this.  Dixie had chewed up about everything in the house that was not nailed down, and a few things that were.  I told myself I wouldn't care if the dog left too.  Good riddance!

About two months went by and I realized I was alone at home.  I was not used to that.  My life was missing something again.  While at work on my lunch hour I scoured the online classifieds and found a man who had several beagle pups for sale.  The ad was a few days old already, so I called him immediately.  He told me that only one pup remained and a lady had already called the day before me to claim him.  That lady had not come to pick him up, however, and if I would come get him that day he was mine.

I left work right on time that evening and drove as fast as I could to Hermitage to see this dog.  Upon my arrival, an older gentleman and his son met me in the driveway.  They were very friendly folks and seemed to be feeling me out as to what sort of dog owner I might be.  There were two pens nearby.  One on the right had two adult dogs in it.  One on the left had a single puppy.  The man opened the door on the pen and a small, black, furry butterball came rolling out onto the ground.  You could tell he was not accustomed to being out.  He looked cautious while sniffing at everything he came across.  Kneeling down in the grass about twenty feet from him, I called out.  This little fella came running at me as if he were shot out of a cannon.  Jumping and licking me all over, I knew it was a match.  A male.  Rocco was to be his name.

About a year later my grandmother passed away.  In so many ways we had been best friends.  I lived with her for a while helping to take care of her.  Being her only grandchild, she spoiled me.  A part of me was gone.

Rocco had been a great companion.  My roommate.  My partner.  My best friend.  Having another dog would be just double the fun!  Right?  Right!

During this time I met a wonderful woman, Kellye, who I would eventually marry and is currently my wife.  She went with me to pick out a new dog.  Another beagle.  I needed Kellye's stamp of approval.  Rocco stayed at home while we answered an ad from the Sunday paper for beagles for sale.  This man was an older fellow.  He bred beagles, but had not had a batch of puppies for sale in some time.  There were a few pens set up in his barn with several adult dogs, and one that was teeming with pups.  We handled about three, passing them back and forth between Kellye and myself.  Only one really appeared curious about us and seemed to have a special gleam in her eye.  She licked us all over and wanted to play.  She just felt like the right choice.  A female.  Gracie was to be her name.

Kellye's father passed away recently.  About two months ago.  Due to many reasons, it was bittersweet for her.  A part of her was gone.

A co-worker of Kellye's had a stray dog wander up onto their deck one evening while they were outside eating dinner.  It was just a puppy.  Without a tag or collar, but appeared to be clean and well taken care of. They called us to see if we were interested in taking the dog before taking it to the pound.  They thought of us first because it was a beagle.

We wound up taking the dog.  It was only three months old (so the vet told us).  This pup had spots all over her.  What to name it?  Lying on the bed that Saturday afternoon, with Gracie and Rocco around us, we played with this little bundle of energy.  I thought about all her spots...they looked like dots, but spot was not what I wanted to name the dog.  She was a female.  Dot was to be her name.

Three life events.  Three events that each left us a sense of loss and something missing.  Three beagles to fill those three holes.  They have done a remarkable job at doing just that.

Rocco is now six.

Gracie is now five.

Dot has some catching up to do.  She is about five months.

I love animals.  Probably because that mean little kid finally grew up.

Springtime Blues!

Man, I really should get into doing this.  Would be like therapy for me maybe.

So the lead guitarist leaves my favorite band.  Editors is the name.   I just have not been the same inside since.  For a group of four people who I have not met but stood within 6" of on the front row, they really touched something in me with their sound.  I am almost going through a grieving process really.  Uncertainty of what they will become.  How that sound that resonated with me might change.  How that spell might be broken.  It is tough.

Outside of that, I have been really emotional.  Partly I think it is due to not controlling my blood sugar as well as I should be at times.  It does make me prone to mood swings.  Craziness at work, bills, being a homeowner.  Just name it.  I'd rather just blame diabetes and be done with it.  It causes most of my other problems anyway.

But hey, its springtime right?  It's a time when people get sad after winter is over.  They expect things to get better after the cold weather breaks, but it doesn't.  Life just keeps on sucking for them.

I will make a real effort to keep posting.  I need it.  You do not realize it, but you need it too.

In honor of my favorite band, Editors, here is one of their best songs.  Racing Rats.  This video is live in San Francisco, February 2010 at The Warfield.  You will see the balding fellow in the striped shirt in the front row.  Well that's me.  It was indeed a magical evening.  One I will never forget.

Enjoy.

Diabetes Technology - New Overpriced Gadget.. a Rant

Being an insulin dependent type 1 diabetic I am one of those who certainly hope for a cure one day.  Personally I think the drug companies make too much money off of us to really WANT to find a cure.  I use an insulin pump, which is great technology and I absolutely love it.  It is made by Medtronic, and I would recommend it to anyone considering going on the pump.  Also I have the continuous glucose monitor (CGM), which I have yet to start using but will soon.

Now Medtronic has a new device which is called mySentry that will speak wirelessly to your CGM and monitor your glucose levels while you sleep, during the day, and conveniently displays it on a small tabletop device.

For $3000.

That's right.  $3000.

Who is this made for?  Certainly not me.  I can't afford it.  The majority of families with children who are type 1 cannot afford that.  There are financing options you can do to get your payment down to as low as $50 with no interest.

With all the wireless technology available, I cannot fathom why this device would cost anywhere near $3000.  More along the lines of a high end cell phone, certainly less than the pump itself would cost.  I hope someone "gets it" because I don't.

I plan on going through my doctor to see exactly how much of this I can get insurance to cover if any.  I won't lie, I want one of these, so I am curious to see how much of that $3000 would come out of my pocket.