10.14.06

Aren’t There Bears Outside?

Posted in General at 2:39 pm by Soabirw

Did our “Developer’s Retreat” last night. For some reason my company is really into group bonding and such. So since we have a fresh new development team, they figured we would speed up this bonding by going camping. Not sure why they thought a bunch of computer geeks would love the thought of roughing it in nature without any technology.

Now, I’m an Eagle Scout and all that, so I’ve done all sorts of hiking, camping, etc. Even to the extreme of sleeping in an igloo I made myself. But all that was neary 8 years ago and I’ve turned into quite the sissy since then. The first thing that I found very odd was we had to go buy our firewood at the local grocery store. Then we drove up a highway to our camp ground, which had fully paved roads, street lights, etc. I wonder if southern Utah is like this too. I remember camping being a lot more rough then this. I imagine it is because there are just too many people up here. Most of these camp grounds you have to reserve 2 or 3 months in advance. Sometimes a full year in advance.

The gang threw around some questionable items while I sat in the shade, growing tired by just watching them. They tried throwing things at me once or twice, probably because they hate me, and it usually ended up smashed into my face. Despite my flailing limbs attempting some sort of monkey style defense. Then they decided to up the stakes and throw them over a river and even back and forth from the bridge. That’s when we took heavy losses to the raging river.

The rest of the afternoon was spent talking about our favorite Sci-Fi shows and strumming the guitar to Tenacious D. Once it got a little closer to dinner time we prepared our “hobo dinners”. You basically wrap raw things, like meat, hash browns, carrots, onions, etc in tin-foil, as you would a Christmas present. Then you throw it in the hot coals for 20 or so minutes. While we waited we taught the n00bs how to play poker with my 180 lb poker set.

That was a really fun part of the trip and I hope to do more poker with this group. Unfortunately we didn’t get to play much, by the time we were done eating the son was going down and it started to get cold very fast. By 8:00 p.m. we were ready to call it a night. Luckily, because it was so very cold, we just went home to sleep in our warm, comfy beds instead of miserable sleeping bags and tents.

All in all, it was pretty enjoyable and I wouldn’t mind spending another afternoon with this Nature. Although, I fully support the Uber Industrial Complex and it’s goal to eliminate as much nature as possible, all in the name of progress.

P.S. I also have a picture of a mountain.

Face Shooting

Posted in Gaming at 4:54 pm by Soabirw

Even though I was exhausted after my camping excursion, I wanted to try out some new games. Been very busy the last year or so and haven’t been able game like I used to. So I tried out Company of Heroes for while. That game is pretty amazing. I only got through the first mission, which was the beaches of Normandy. Follows the Battlefield series concept of flags, in a way. When you take over a capture point, you have control of that area and will get more resources. So you are constantly having a back and forth for these capture points.

Speaking of Battlefield, we also got the Battlefield 2142 demo. The three of us hoped on the same server (made God damn easy with their new Buddy List) and before we knew it, it was 3:00 a.m. Was still pretty pumped from the game, so I had to force myself to go to bed. You can do the usual flag maps, but they also introduced a new game type where each group has a massive Titan ship. You take over missle silos to take down the sheilds, then you can board it to do more damage. The first person to blow up the enemy ship wins.

So far my favorite thing about the game is vehicles. There is a good variety and they all have their strenghts and weaknesses. Unlike Battlefield 2, where it was more of an “armor is armor” and some things had a lot of it and others you could destroy with rocks. They also have more incentive to have other ride in your vehicles with you. Most of the really powerful and handy weapons aren’t accessible to the drivers. In Battlefied 2, nobody would wait for anybody else. We would always joke that they thought APC meant Armored Personal Carrier instead of Armored Personel Carrier. We are very clever, we know. But we can’t count the times one man has taken off in a vehicle that holds 6+ as his team mates run after him screaming, waving their hands, and even firing their weapons.