Tactical Gaming

Alright, I know I posted about joining Hidden Snipers Clan earlier. However, as they are a new group and so getting started is a bit slow, I’ve decided to join Tactical Gaming (more specifically Tactical Warfare). They seem to be pretty good and dedicated to the bringing together of the community for fun and games. So, I’ve decided to go with Tactical Warfare for a while and get feel for clan and organized gaming before going back to Hidden Snipers full time to help bring that clan into the gaming community. I think that I’ll be posting some After Action (Practice) Reports here, similar to what they have on the forums, but focused on me instead. This way, I can see what I need to improve on and see how much I improve over time.

The Road Not Taken

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.”

Excerpt from “The Road Not Taken” a poem by Robert Frost. From the book “You Come Too”, 1916.

If only I were so strong…

to take the road not taken.

Twilight, just because

My stand on twilight:

Good series minus the last book (it was plain stupid in my opinion). Kinda nice how the “universe” was developed fairly well. Unfortunately, it had to be a teen girl novel series… for those who have read Forgotten Realms, you know how epic stories with a properly developed “universe” can get.

Twilight – good beginning. When I read it (and I got it a first edition just a couple days after it came out *be jealous all you die hard Twilight fans*) it seemed to have potential. As I said, a wider range of development on other characters and events in the world, such as the vampire’s governing council and who controls the werewolves or other creatures.

New Moon – um, this brought my opinion of Stephanie Meyer down a lot. It ended up being just some random romance story which was touching and all but… not so great (I’ve read better and yes, I do read romance).

Eclipse – Brought back some potential. The whole vampire army thing and possible introductions to other creatures or a more in depth look at the structure of both the vampire and werewolf society as a whole, but of course, love comes first.

Breaking Dawn – no… all I have to say about it.

Modern Warfare 2 Clan

Name: Hidden Snipers
Modern Warfare 2 Steam (also forum) PC Clan
New and Recruiting
I am a Mod for the clan so let me know and I’ll add you.

Clan Site:

http://hiddensnipersclan.webs.com/

Apply Here:

http://hiddensnipersclan.webs.com/applicationforms.htm

Applications are: open

The Blind Side

This is a new movie that has just came out recently. It reminded me of Invincible, in fact it was pretty much the same thing just a shift of focus. Instead of the main character being the coach, it was a player. The player is a black guy and he gets thrown onto a football team. The movie has some points about racism and good parenting (especially on the mom’s part). Although, once again, its a Christian focused film just like Invincible, the Christian aspects aren’t as prominent, they are more veiled and only mentioned at times.Overall, it was a pretty good movie that I would recommend people to watch in good quality (as in in Theater or HDTV, not downloaded or regular small TV).

*for spoilers go to the imdb link.

Is it enough?

I have recently met a man whom I have been compelled to help. I do not know his name (if I ever did, I forgot it *is not good with names*) He is the father of three, two boys and a little girl. He’s about 50yrs old. He loves motorcycles, especially Harley-Davidsons. However, because of recent (relatively) events, his life has changed dramatically, so much so that I’m not sure he knows what to do with his life any more. I met him while helping at a play at Parkview school. He helped me move some stuff around and we started chatting a little.

Three years ago, around this time of year, he collapsed in his home because his spleen ruptured (Asplenia for you medical people). For 18 day, he was unconscious in the hospital. (Here the chronological order of events get murky) Then, they found that he also had necrosis of the nerves beginning in his fingers and toes. Necrosis is the premature death of cells and living tissue. With nerves dying, this meant that his ability to feel would gradually deteriorate. Eventually he was released from the hospital, but having been there meant he wasn’t at his job. His family had been able to get by with his earnings before as he was a worker for an airline (not a pilot, but something else) *didn’t ask because I didn’t want him to be reminded of what he lost again, he’s fragile enough as it is* Because of the necrosis, the company had to hire someone else and could not keep him.

Out of job and nearing Christmas, he was at a loss for what to do until a friend came to him. This friend had heard of his plight and spread the word out to his church. Together the all raised approx 3,000 dollars (may be wrong, this is what I believe I heard) for his family to use temporarily. Eventually, this money ran out and his family had to depend on the church for nourishment. Along with this, his friend later died from the one of the conditions this man had (either ruptured spleen or necrosis, I believe it to be from a ruptured spleen but possibly necrosis of a different kind)

As of now the necrosis has spread through his hands and feet. Also, some of the muscle along the bottom of his hand has also died. Thankfully, the necrosis he has does not leave residue behind that would be toxic for him. However, because this is indeed a form of necrosis, it is thus far incurable. Treatment of necrosis involves treating the underlying cause, but there is no definite underlying cause for his necrosis, it simply started (I assume) after or during his stay at the hospital. Because of this, he is a dying man with a limited number of time to live (even then he is considered disabled).

He has now become unable to do things such as count money (I know because I had to count his play tickets for him). He’s been only driving his (homeschooled) daughter (4th grade, very cute and a great little girl) around for his wife and working on his Harley during his free time (pretty much always). Recently he’s said that he had finished his Harley and only needs to add gas I talk to him as much as possible, but is this enough? What else can I do? I’ve thought about going to his church on Sundays, maybe asking if he wanted help on his Harley (but that’s done now, more or less) and I don’t know what else I can do for him.

(unfinished, will be edited and finished later, but I wanted to post what I have first. It may not make complete sense because its unfinished, I tend to have fractured thinking while writing which accounts for the multiple unfinished paragraphs)

//edits have been made and will continue to be made until I get the proper (more or less definitely true) past.

Failed Attempt

Ok, so I had one leap of faith total thus far and that was the attempt at blogging my leaps of faith. Maybe it’ll succeed eventually, but it doesn’t seem to be working as of now so once again, I have to think of a topic/subject for this blog… or it will probably get forgotten and lost in my collection of favorites (and consequently deleted). Any ideas?

Need A Topic

So, random stuff isn’t exactly working out… I need to have a focus for this blog or it isn’t going to last. I’m going to think of something to write about in the next week or so (hopefully)

//edit: *points up* Tagline changed to “Leaps of Faith” I’ll just post about random things I did that I didn’t feel like doing but believed that God wanted me to do and how it always turns out well… (unless of course it turns out bad, in which case I’ll examine what I did wrong and maybe edit it in the future when I find out that it was in fact good)

JPL & then T3

Today I went to the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) where they talked all about robotics and how so much progress was being made. They had lots of great stuff there. Information, models, diagrams, and control rooms for robots. The tour included information on Spirit and Opportunity and their future successor. We got to see the next robot’s pieces in the assembly room. It wasn’t assembled yet and was in a clean room under grayish plastic covers so the details weren’t very clear, but it was big. Much bigger than the original two rovers. Its also powered by a mini nuclear reactor like battery instead of solar. While there, we also saw the control room of space operations, very cool. Interesting thing was that it seemed to be designed(a little bit for looks instead of for use because there were posters, positioning of equipment, huge electronic boards with redundant information, etc. all for viewers and not the workers. Instead all that room could have been used for better purposes. All in all, the trip was worth it for me because I understood most of it, but my brother didn’t like it since it didn’t make much sense to him. All he understood was that humans can launch rockets with robots in them up to Mars and beyond.
Of course, then after I went home, I just had to watch Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Now I don’t trust machines anymore again. Especially with all they said about the machines running themselves and just send some reports back to Earth every now and then. Anyways, Terminator (just the trilogy, not the fourth. I hate the fourth, I can’t even bear to watch it all the way through. I fall asleep every time) is still amazing.

Modern Warfare 2

Being a computer geek (only a little more than the average person mind you, there are lots of people who know far more than me. I’m just familiar with a computer and get around easier than most) I got Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 two days ago. Wednesday night at around 18:45 to be exact. Amazing game. It does not run on full quality on my computer (Asus F8 laptop with 3g ram, 2.1gHz cpu, GeForce 9500 video card), however, just on the lowest setting, the graphics are amazing. Infinity Ward did a great job on this. I’ve only played the campaign a little (2~3 missions). On multiplayer though, I’m about a third of the way through completing the ranks. (add me on steam if you want: endqwerty)
/edit: 50% through Multiplayer