Fuzzy Porcupine Paws

Bonds

2010-04-23T00:07:00.001-04:00

“Welcome to basic training. Look to the soldiers at your left and right. From this moment on everyone in this room is family. Your battles are my battles. Your enemies are my enemies. Together we will stand shoulder to shoulder and annihilate our foes with righteous slaughter.” The first day of basic training with Drill Sergeant Heekin

By being a leader you form a permanent bond with the people that you mentor. Whether it is done consciously or not, the influence you exert on each and every follower’s life will echo into everything thing they do and everyone they meet. In my experience it is the single most significant exchange that can be undergone by a human being and not one to be taken lightly.

Every teacher I have studied from, be it the kind hearted April Monegan to the indomitable Drill Sergeant Heekin, helped shape who I was when they were a part of my life. Because their influences were part of how I saw the world, their lessons shaped who I am today and who I will become in the future.

Think about the people you have influenced during your life time. For good or ill, your family, friends, and co-workers have all been influenced by your presence in their lives. The world has changed by your everyday influence. Each person on the planet does this in ways both overt and subtle whether they realize it or not. Leadership comes into play when you make this constant influence and conscious and deliberate action.

Most of the time you will not be able to choose with whom you form this permanent bond. Life is random and unfair, and will thrust that responsibility onto your shoulders when you least expect it. Ultimately it is the follower’s choice if you meet their standards for leadership, and will most likely not have a flashing neon sign with them to notify you of this life changing decision. Being in authority position such as teacher or squad leader is a dead giveaway that eventually you will influence a person’s life to a profound degree that it will forever change them into something greater. Other times it will be the random act of kindness or cruelty that you commit without a second thought to the consequences. You will never know.

Consider this, that every interaction you have with another human being has the chance of profoundly influencing their life. The unexpected complement you give the lady who bags your groceries could be the one that gives her the small boost she needed to go out and get a better job, or it might set into motion a chain of disastrous unintended consequences. For someone like me who is prone to anxiety, trying to second guess every one of my actions and the potential consequences would only result in adding to my already impressive collection of grey hair. The best policy I have found is to not sweet the small stuff and do the best you can with what life throws at you.

Burden

2010-04-23T00:01:00.001-04:00

Your quintessential guide to becoming a dark lord and beyond.

“The rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.” - Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

I’ve thought a lot about how to format this manifesto. Outline, rigid structures, none of them have fit because life lessons do not adhere to such overbearing demands. Life blindsides and you and the scars left by the experience remind you to be more wary for the next ambush. There is no perfect format to life therefore there is no perfect format to this manifesto. It will meander, it will ramble, and it will definitely rant. You have been warned.

This Manifesto will be taking a blogging style approach. My philosophy is rooted in stories and experiences I have acquired during my brief lifetime. If this thread takes on any structure, it will likely mirror the chaotic myriad my creative education.

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I don’t bullshit people. Bullshitting is like waving a red flag to karma and taunting it to take its best shot. Karma is the all seeing bitch that doesn’t give you an inch of slack on your leash. I will not put one word of bullshit into this manifesto due to the absolute metaphysical certainty that it will come back to bite me in the ass. Hard. Everything written here is something I’ve taken to heart and try to employ in my everyday life. If it has proven useful in a combat zone, it is likely to be useful everywhere else.

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People naturally look to people in authority for advice and guidance. I can assume by reading this manifesto that you want to learn more about becoming a leader and dark lord. By making the decision to become a leader you accept the responsibility that one day people will look up to you and seek out your guidance when they are in need. It is by your strength of character that you will either stand tall in the face of adversity or be crushed under the awesome responsibility that people place in you.

“I never asked for this.” David Roth, my high school Marching Band Director.

When I joined the high school marching band in my freshman year I was a skittish and awkward teenager terrified by the thought of having to meet a new group of people. On my first day Mr. Roth dispelled those fears be welcoming me into the organization with open arms as though I had always been there. He accepted me for who and what I was no questions asked.

Like any kid who grew up without a present father, I sought out father figures. I grew to respect and revere Mr. Roth for his outstanding leadership ability. I wanted to return to the organization the great amount of confidence and pride I had learned as his student by aiming to become the Drum Major. It was an arduous process that took over a year of dedication and study; not a simple task for a fifteen year old boy.

The auditions for Drum Major ended up being rigged. One of the other students had used her rich parents to put pressure on the school put to place band director’s job in jeopardy. His maverick teaching style had earned him the ire of his supervisors and presented an opportunity for his enemies to exploit. Mr. Roth yielded to their demands and allowed his principles to be compromised.

Mr. Roth violated the core principle that he had preached to the entire band. Family. I left the marching band as a result. Many of the more dedicated students who looked up to our band director followed as the story of Mr. Roth’s err in judgment spread through ranks. He had said it himself; a hypocrite was not to be tolerated.

Later, after the dust had settled and most of the talented musicians had left Mr. Roth had asked me why I had left. I told him my honest opinion. That I had looked up to him as a second father and believed in him, as he had taken a risk and believed in me. I poured out all my emotions of how I went from a scared child to my first steps as a strong and confident man because of family he had let me be a part of. When I found out that he had violated the principles that he had preached to every last one of my fellow band mates I felt hurt and betrayed as I questioned just how far the lies had been delved over the last year.

“I never asked for this.” was his only response.

This is the first and most important lesson. If you continue reading this manifesto, know that you will be faced with a choice one day. By being a leader you are given the burden of inhuman expectations. People will look up to you and ask you to guide them in their hour of need. They will demand that you be what they believe you to be, and as a leader you must be that person. You will never ask for that burden for it will be thrust upon you when you least expect it. It is by best preparing yourself for that day that you will either stand tall as the leader your people will need you to be, or be crushed under the weight you own failure.

The Dark Lord of Denny's Manifesto

2010-04-22T23:54:00.002-04:00

During my trip out to St. Louis for Fear the Con, I was given an elected position. After the first night of the con a group of gamers set out to sojourn over to Denny's for a late night meal. Before heading out they needed to elect a Dark Lord of Denny's for this year's convention. I was was dressed in all black and a dead ringer for a duster rocking gunman, and thus unanimously elected to the office.

The idea of a Manifesto came to mind. A doctrine on leadership and how to excel at it. So far it has become a pet writing project that has me cranking out a word document on a daily basis again.

I'm curious to see where this idea goes.

Heading Out to DC

2010-03-01T21:31:00.003-05:00

Tonight I'm heading out to Washington DC to go see my sisters. I figure now would be as good a time as any to start up the blog again to due something interesting going on in my life that's not directly war related.

I'll be honest. Spending months writing posts with little to no feedback was discouraging. I spent a herculean amount of effort into writing nearly six month's worth of posts and the rewards did not seem to warrant the effort at the time. Today was one of the rare good days were nearly everything has gone right thus far, and I'm hoping my good fortune will spill into my blogging.

My train leaves in a few hours. It will be the first I have ever ridden on for the purpose raveling across multiple state lines and with any luck will not end up crashing down in flames as most of my travel seems to find the time to do.

End of Deployment Posts

2010-02-08T00:18:00.002-05:00

Ladies and Gentlemen thank you and goodnight.

At the moment I'm back in Ohio just finishing the archived posts from the second half of the deployment. I'm be honest, after Day 320 my responabilities as shift leader and the RIP period with our replacements monopolized my time and I was completely burned out on blogging. It was just one of many sacrifices I made to best serve my new squad in Iraq.

If I find the patience, I can go back and cover the last few weeks of the deployment. Know that I ordered a copy of Dragon Age: Origin and did something that actually made me happy.

Day 320: Preparation

2010-02-08T00:17:00.000-05:00

The last few days have been spent arranging all the logistics for the big DRMO turn in. As part of the preparation to leave Iraq out battalion is trying to slim down our property books (the unit codex of stuff) in order to simplifiy al already horrendous cluster fuck.

Look around your room. I don’t care what room you are in, just look around and take note of all the stuff down to the last pen. When one company hands off their property book their replacement, every last item must be documented and included down the last pen. It only makes sense that the commanders would want to turn in all the broken and access equipment.

The downside is that my soldiers and I have to go through all the storage containers, inventory everything, and prep it for transport. TO quote the Internet, “This is the suck.”

Day 319: Swamped

2010-02-08T00:15:00.000-05:00

Sweet merciful crap, where did all my free time go? Being in charge of the day shift is a new challenging experience, that while very rewarding, does monopolize all my free time. Perhaps stress is a factor or energy expenditure, because lately I’ve just wanted to collapse from exhaustion after I’m done with work.

I’m enjoying myself, I really am, but at the moment my duties are taking every ounce of energy I have to give.

Day 318: New Challenges

2010-02-08T00:13:00.000-05:00

With any new situation comes new challenges. McNaughten proves to be one of those challenges. Overall he seems to be emotionally kicked around and degraded so often he’s mostly shut down as a person. As a result he has overwhelming social anxiety that prevents him from making any real progress as a technician. Most people don’t look into it to that degree and see him as a burden to the squad.

I have to admit I see him as a burden and have been treating him accordingly. Grimes pointed out, at my request, that my biggest weakness is that I seem to lone wolf it all the time. Instead of seeking assistance with an issue I automatically assume all outside opinions will be fruitless and bang my head against the issue until solutions fall out. Instead I asked around to everyone in the shop and combined all the slivers of advice into something constructive.

My question was simple, “How I make McNaughton into an asset to the squad?” All the NCOs and lower enlisted I look to for guidance where clueless. Of all people CPT Mathews, the quiet mouse forever silent in the background, was able to give the best advice.

“Get a sheet of paper and make two columns. Have one column list his strengths, the other his weaknesses. Once you are done pick one weakness and make it a strength.”

Holy shit, a constructive solution. When I was done the number of weaknesses far outnumbered his strengths, and I picked out “Does not complete tasks to standard and on time.” as the primary issue to correct.

I think the other shift leads became frustrated and failed due to high expectations that were never met. McNaughton is a simple man and learning new behaviors will take time and patience. I’m going to focus my effort on changing one habit, and one habit alone and accept that it will take however long it takes for that change to occur.

Day 317: Trust

2010-02-08T00:11:00.001-05:00

I think back to the lessons I received on leadership and invariably my mind drifts back to days in the highschool marching band. Mr. Roth, despite my grudge against him, taught me a lot on the subject of the importance of trust in leadership.

As leader I have the most say in defining the working relationship with my subordinates. Historically the most effective leaders I’ve worked with use mutual trust and respect to build a bond and use close to 100% positive reinforcement to cement desired behavior. I’ve always had an authority problem and the last thing I want to do is become something I hate in order to achieve results. I find it more effective to treat people as human beings, use the words “please” and “thank you”, an never place my ego above the welfare of the soldier. As a leader it’s my job to extend the olive branch of mutual trust and respect.

By the way, I was made the NCOIC (Non Commissioned Officer In Charge) of the day shift. The idea is that running a commo shop during the busy shift during a RIP (Hell if I know what it stands for. Its handing off our mission to the incoming unit replacing us) should prepare me for being a team leader back in the rear. Honestly when being measured against veterans of multiple wars who’ve been in the service longer than I’ve been alive I can use all the help I can get.

Day 316: Sergeant Fraedrich

2010-02-08T00:07:00.000-05:00

Veteran’s day. Every year I hold the tradition that I call my grandfather and thank him for his service. For the years of his life he gave up fighting in WW2. I was looking forward to the day that I would be pinned for SGT. Today was supposed to be a happy day that I could call me grandfather and tell him that I’ve matched him for rank, and that now I’m the veteran seeing him eye to eye.

I would like to blog that today was the joyous occasion I could stand proud as a leader in the United States Army. For a total of twenty minutes it was. I won’t blog about what happened after my first twenty minutes of being a sergeant. Things tend to inadvertently explode over the internet, and right now I just want to finish out this deployment without another incident like tonight.

I have learned a bitter lesson. Leadership is neither good nor bad, black nor white. Leadership is reflection of self. A tool to forge bonds of influence with other human beings. Everyone who interacts with another human being uses leadership just how everyone who writes uses calligraphy. Actively using leadership is the acceptance that I change another human life and will see myself the eyes of those I influence. My worst and greatest features will be reflected back at my and I will be forced to see my faults in the most unsympathetic light possible.

Most of all its people, human beings, placing their trust in my hands and asking not to break them, and it is by my strength of character that I hold that trust sacred and not shatter their lives.

Day 315: Sinking In

2010-02-08T00:02:00.001-05:00

I’m still wrapping my head around the idea of being in a leadership position. I tried so hard in high school to obtain one only to have it crash down in flames. In band I tried for Drum Major just to have it robbed from me due to internal corruption. In the Radio Station I was fired for sticking to my guns and refusing to be one of the vanilla DJs. Student Director went well for a few weeks but I had to step down to take care of my sick greyhound. This time it’s happened. It’s really happening.

Day 314: Point of Contact

2010-02-07T23:59:00.001-05:00

SFC Kevin Lytton turns out to be my readiness NCO at the 174^th. After repeated effort I was finally able to make contact with him and gather information about the unit.

They were stood up early 2008 with a core of veteran soldiers handpicked by Brigadier General Smith. Many of the unit’s soldiers have 25-30 years of outstanding service with multiple deployments under their belt. That alone makes me feel like a small fish in a big pond as I will be a newly promoted E-5 with four years of service. I can expect a climate change from Aviation to Combat Arms going to a Air Defense unit with a motto “If it flies, it dies.” That alone is a feel good motto I can get behind. One of my major complaints of aviation support is that rarely do my efforts every directly affect real combat. The knowledge that my actions directly result in pain and suffering to the enemy makes me happy.

The biggest change was that talking with a human being from the unit cemented the fact that this is really happening. The promotion wasn’t a clerical error to a nonexistent unit. It’s with a real unit with real people. The last time I entertained the idea of holding a legitimate leadership position was in high school, only this time it won’t be crashing down in flames. At least not today.

Day 313: Data Mining

2010-02-07T23:56:00.000-05:00

Little to nothing in known about the 174^th so far. Time is limited as once a promotion is offered I have only seven days to accept. It’s unknown when the clock started to tick over at the 174^th ‘s end but I’m balancing out the risks against the rewards. On one hand if I refuse I go back to the 638^th. They are squared away and know how to take care of their soldiers, but they’ll be over strength with little to hope for advancement. I can look forward to another 4-5 years as an E-4 being bounced around to different schools and never promoted. With the 174^th I could walk into a social quagmire that might rip off my chevrons as soon as pin them.

Honestly, I’d rather roll the dice and take a chance then be stuck in stagnation the next five years.

I sent an email to 1SG Camacho asking who would I forward my acceptance to f I didn’t get into contact with anyone by 2300 that night. I was going to hold out a few more hours in an attempt to get into contact with people.

Not even five minutes later I get response from 1SG Camacho stating that he’ll take this as my acceptance and congratulations on joining the NCO Coprs.

I look at the email and blink for a minute fully expecting reality to stop kidding and revert back to something closer to acceptable. It ignores me because reality is a dick like that. I shrug to myself and accept that this is the closest to accidently accepting a promotion as it gets in the military. Who knows, one day I might get an officer’s commission by taking a vacation and getting on the wrong plane.

Day 312: May You Live in Interesting Times

2010-02-07T23:53:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning to the sound of someone gently tapping at my chamber door. In a half asleep daze I swung the door open to find SFC Maag looking like he drove to my CHU in the gator. He extends a hand to shake mine and speaks.

“Good Morning Fraedrich. I’ve come inform you that you’ve been offered the promotion to…” and the rest of it is coming too fast for my sleep addled mind to process the English language (my third language just after bad English and loud English.)

“Can I get back to you later?” I mumble. I have a bad habit of outright agreeing with people when I first wake up, and it took numerous counts of being suckered into walking the dog before I build a defense against it. As a policy I hold off on making any long term decisions until after I’ve been awake for a few minutes.

“Alright” SFC Maag chuckles. “Just don’t take too long.” I jump back into bed and try to get some sleep.

Later on that day I found out the promotion is with the 1-174th ADA BDE. In English that’s the 1-174th Air Defense Artillery Brigade. Nothing is known about them at this point. I don’t want to go blind into a until I know nothing about, but I fear that might be the case. Ever since I was at the recruiters office picking out MOSs from sheets of paper and units at random I’ve tried to make more informed decisions.

Your Moment of Zen

While working in the Command Cell the Lieutenant Colonel (The highest ranking officer in the battalion) comes up to me while working on a phone in Major Smith’s Office.

Hey Freadrich, what happened to Major Smith? You didn’t chop him into pieces and hide him under the floor boards?

No Sir. I did not hack up Major Smith with a rusty axe and hide the blooding bits of gore underneath the floor boards of his office.

I can hear his heart beating right now. Just like the Tall Tell Heart.

Day 311: Pass Times

2010-02-07T23:44:00.001-05:00

Boredom is the mind killer. It’s essential to find ways to keep myself sharp and occupied during the long hours of nothing to do. So far reading fiction has been an effective means of passing the time on my shift when there is nothing work related to accomplish. I’ve tried standard forms of published long form fiction, but when I’m staving off mind breaking boredom I find I develop plot ADD. I’m not going to sit around and read through 100 pages of buildup when I could go for short form highly creative works of fiction.

Take for example Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I’m sure many people attest that it’s a classical work of fiction that helped define a genre for generations to come. The prose is magnificent and characters so well defined I can practically rip them off the pages.

Nothing happens for the first eighty something pages and I stopped reading. It doesn’t matter if you are the greatest writer in the world. If nothing happens in your story I’m not going to waste my time reading it. I read books for the immersive story, and in order for a story to take my by the throat stuff has to happen in the plot. For fifty pages the accountant is sitting in his castle being scared and paranoid. He observes Dracula turning into a swarm of bats and stumbles through forbidden doorways, but the story is told through the perspective of a character that does little to nothing aside from sitting in room cringing in fear.

On the other hand fanfiction isn’t the fertile soil of entertainment. The publishing industry does a semi effective job at filtering out the unreadable crap that consists of 90% of the fiction out there on the internet. I’ve tried picking out the gems with limited success, but for the most part it’s a matter of an author having the talent and brass to do something dark and visceral in the first few paragraphs to nab my attention.

Day 310: Tech Spectrum

2010-02-07T23:43:00.000-05:00

A semi continuation from yesterday’s rant.

Technological advancement is a great way how to define a world in any form of storytelling. Personally I’d like the ability not just to move the technological advancement down a predetermined path, but control a spectrum of how and why the spectrum changes. Machines, magic, biology, etc, are all different tools that should be weaved together to advance a fantasy world. If magic exists than why not have it advance in a nature similar to how the real world advanced with machine? The light bulb overtook candles as a light source because it was better, faster, and cheaper. Well what if a bioluminescent plant became popular because it was cheaper and could be fed with easily attainable nutrients? A small change there would have long lasting ripples. Throw in Eberon’s use of magic to reproduce modern technology with binding a fire elemental to a boiler for steam power. Who would carry large quantities of coal when you can work more efficiently without carrying large quantities of heavy coal?

Technological innovations should spread based on geography, economy, and communications. I never liked how in civilization games that every tech advancement is magically transmitted to all corners of the world regardless of economy and infrastructure.

The sky is the limit with spectrum tech advancement. Personally I like randomness in a game of this nature. When the engine is designed so there is a mathematically “perfect” character, the minmaxer in me wants to sacrifice enjoyment of the game to achieve that height. With random based engine this is impossible and I spend my time strolling through the story line to have fun. Each play through is different as outside variables are what keep the world interesting.

Day 309: Economics

2010-02-07T23:14:00.000-05:00

Elder Scrolls 4 has seen a surge in popularity here in the S-6 shop. Most people have stopped their internet service and need some kind of pass time to kill the last month in country. Everyone has a gaming capable laptop, but the selection at the PX is severely lacking. Often in the case of Bioshock, and Dawn of War 2, most games have some form of DRM (Digital Rights Management) that prevent the buyer from playing the game without an internet connection. Most boxes don’t advertise this requirement and a soldier loses out on $60.

Oblivion on the other hand is $20 and does not require the user to go online to verify the purchase.

The versatile play style allows for a different story every time the player rolls up a new character. SGT McGraw accidently contracted Porphyria and is having a good time Vampire. He was offered to be cured of the dieses but thinks it makes the game much more fun. It’s a testament that great games allow the player to achieve their “Ideal Win.” That customized victory the player wishes to experience.

Personally I was to win through economic conquest. In the MMO Final Fantast XI my favorite part of the game was playing the various Action Houses (the in game Ebay) and using the market fluctuations to make mass amounts of money. In that particular game’s economy, real money trade had put a choke hold on character progress, diving the game in to extreme upped and lower classes. It took two months of research combined with another two months of careful investments, but I was able fight and class my way across the mile wide economic trench and make the leap to the higher economic class.

The idea that I had to put forth four months of effort just have the funds to play the game as the developers intended was bullshit. I handed off all my investments, contacts, and finance logs to a friend and logged out of the game for the last time. Still, to this day I had more fun playing the economy in FFXI than any other game since. No other game can play it quite right for that experience. Wow has only one centralized Auction House, and EVE requires the massive time sink of transporting goods from point A to point B. For most MMOs playing the market just isn’t fun.

Oblivion provides a good base line for an Economic Conquest game. For those who don’t know, imagine a stereotypical middle ages setting with magic. Keep an open mind as I’m hitting the dues ex machina button to write off all the software limitations the following ideas would bring. And Disregard the PC stamp on my character’s forehead. Life is more fun with competition, and I want the NPCs to have all the potential abilities of the PC and vice versa.

For one I want the ability to take over guilds and perform all the tasks an NPC can. Why should I pay an NPC to make and repair my armor when I can do it on my own? I should be able to learn and perform all the tasks an NPC can so long as I can persuade them to teach me. I should be able to teach NPCs the skills I have acquired, and restructure organizations as I see fit. Instead of a fictional fighter’s guild that exists solely as flavor for the PC, I want an efficient and effective for profit organization centered on the common interest of martial skill.

But that is only one example from the overall big picture. The end goal is to restructure the entire economy of the Oblivion game, not just one small business. I would start from the bottom up. Agriculture, water, ore, construction material, the basic goods from which every civilization requires. These would be the markets I would first corner before expanding to services. Often times in adventuring games I end up with a surplus of funds from careful investments, and very little to spend it on. The idea is to have my hands in every cookie jar when it comes to logistics of keeping settlements alive. A person selling a luxury item is more likely to be outs for barons looking to make a quick buck, than the slow and effective mass yield over time investments. Overall in the event that disputes or rivalry break out, the faction that can effectively feed its population is more likely to prevail.

From there I can utilize the wealth and contacts I’ve assembled in basic needs fields to gain influence and ownership with service based. The idea is to take all these basic needs goods and sell a better quality of product faster and cheaper than all other competition. By the basis of free market, my business will be the one to prevail. If competition wants to escalate the affair past civilized marketing, well, that’s why I became a crack shot with a crossbow long before I took up economics. Let’s face it, dead people make no money in Oblivion.

Think about it, target influential people within the mages guild, provide them with the means to succeed and the logistics to better support their organization, and ensure that they change policy and standards to best shape the area into a lucrative economy.

Think of it like anti-socialism. Instead of enforcing policy from the top down with fines and incarceration I would offer people better employment and education. A choice they can make of their own free will. I like to appeal to people’s senses of greed, ego, and idealism. Heavy handed socialism negates the fact that there will always be resistance by individualism who prefer to make their fortune rather than have it forced to them. I’d like to offer people a better standard of living, and more importantly, the choice to take or refuse it.

The monkey wrench in the whole scheme is dealing with the heretical nobility ruling most of the Oblivion game. In my humble opinion, it breeds weak leadership that is ultimately attached and unaware of the plight to their subjects. As I’m a fan of the Discworld novels, I find that “Assassination as a legitimate form of accession.” works wonders here. Remember I mentioned the adventuring part of the game? I would start off with working for the Dark Brotherhood , a fraternal organization of assassination. Good old boy networks and special interests groups are inevitable in any form of government so I’d take measures to implant my personal network. The Dark Brotherhood would up their training regiment to cultivate leadership and political prowess as well as martial ability. A dead politician cannot create any progress, so a trained assassin would be more likely to stay alive. Change makes many enemies when working against a long established system, and it helps to have a leaders who know how to keep themselves alive.

Graduates of this system, by merit of not dying, would have the option of choosing what branch they wish to progress. Whether they wish to continue the route of killer for hire, or retire their cloaks for official would be up to them. Regardless, you have leaders that can cooperate, communicate, and trust each other due to a shared past and ideology. When a tyrant noble refuses to play ball despite the fact that the food, water, and goods all come thru my trade guild, it would be time to replace him with one of my brethren from the dark brotherhood. The old guard would be replaced in short order, and the decision making for local affairs will be set at the lowest level. Most Mayors (the lowest level of local policy, I call them Mayor’s for lack of a better term) will be highly encouraged to be approachable by the public they effect. I want to make it so that if a commoner wishes to express their opinion to the Mayor, they may speak with him face to face, as well as the Mayor can express his opinion right back. I cannot tolerate policy makers sitting in their ivory towers, policy makers should know the people they influence on a personal level.

A completely armed populace is the most civilized. There are no fist fights or shouting matches in my unit in Iraq because everyone is armed with assault rifles with the willingness and ability to use them to lethal effect. To emphasis this point, the sigil of a Mayor, the symbol of his office, is a Sword of Damocles. Each of them should remember that they achieved office because their predecessor was weak and corrupt enough to allow his murder. And that should they oppress rather than Sheppard their subjects, they will find themselves in a small pine box as well.

Admittedly setting up an regency/monarchy would just put me back where I started. Sure I would have all the wealth and power of the previous system but no overall progress would be made. The trick would be to share power among the economic bodies of the each region to a decentralized oligarchy, or regional council. The idea would be to have a decentralized system that would transfer decision making power to the groups with the greatest influence over the economy. While still possible, political corruption is harder to gain full control in a system with ample checks and balances. While my brethren of the Dark Brotherhood would still hold a influence as the ruling body, individual choice must be respected and maintained.

Day 308: Fresh Out

2010-02-07T23:13:00.000-05:00

That’s it. I’m at my wits end today. I can’t find any more small facets of life in Iraq to blog about today. Life here has gotten so mundane and repetitive I just can’t think of anything new to include.

Day 307: Bored Out of My Mind

2010-02-07T23:09:00.000-05:00

The end of this deployment is fast approaching and if the haajis don’t get to then the boredom will. Nothing has been going on last week. Nothing this week. Nothing the next week.

It wasn’t until now that I really understood the latter half of war novels. I read Fallen Angels in high school and couldn’t wrap my head around why near the end it seemed like nothing was happening in the novel. Lots of stuff would go on in the first section of the novel because at that point, the deployment was new and interesting. After the six month point life drags by as a snail’s pace with nothing new. It’s the same old crap repeating itself like Ground Hog’s Day. At Least Bill Murry had a reset button so he could go out and have fun with no long term consequences. Here I just have a paycheck every two weeks with nothing interesting or different.

Day 306: Detachment

2010-02-07T23:01:00.000-05:00

Two full entries in Nano. Right now it’s hard enough to scrape together enough plot for one night’s worth of words, but with practice I’m hoping 1.75k will be a simple matter. My main issue is that consistency seems to have been thrown out the window in the name of getting words on the page. Character dialogue, narration, and mood seem to shift with every paragraph. I’m not saying this primarily bad thing, but it’s been a frequent occurrence more so than any other work.

If I had to name any culprit, it’s probably the fact that I don’t have a structured outline to follow. Back in August when I was consistently writing every day I would hammer out a cohesive plot, characterization, and mood before I even wrote the first paragraph. Overall I think it gave a greater depth of detail and greatly improved the overall quality, but it killed the fun I had penning up new stories. For me half the fun is people watching my characters grow and evolve with the story. It’s a lot like DMing (Derived from the term Dungeon Master, which is term for the Game Master in Dungeons and Dragons) tabletop with my friends. As the story writer I provide the setting and the plot hooks for the characters, and in exchange the characters interact with that setting and each other to forge the story.

What’s fun for me is keeping the pre planned plot (as a few notes help speed the creative process) to “who, where, why.” Who are the characters in the scene, where are they, and why are they there. Beyond that I make it up as I go along. I never know exactly what will happen next, and that is what keeps me writing.

Day 305: Skies so Blue

2010-02-07T23:00:00.000-05:00

I’m out at the airfield scouting out the location of the birds (aircraft) for first flight that afternoon. The pilots and crew are nowhere to be found, and I have a sneaking suspicious they could have been in the truck that left the airfield just as I was arriving. I didn’t mind too much though. It gave me time to pop in my ipod, flip open my notebook, and jot down some plot points for the night’s Nano entry.

I can’t help but admire the sky line. Back in July it was 130 degrees and brown from sunrise to sunset. For those like me who have been surrounded by greenery their whole life, being surrounded by nothing but brown and saturated in desert heat not only sucks, its suckage cranked up to 11 (and 11 is louder than 10.) I would have never believed that a day would come in the desert when I would see blue skies, white clouds, and feel a gentle wind that wasn’t like sand paper being force fed into my eye sockets.

Your Moment of Zen:

When riding on a gator in the desert, it’s always fun to sing “Imagin-aaaaaaa-tion laaaaaand.”

Day 304: NaNoWriMo Begins

2010-02-07T22:56:00.001-05:00

I have never before attempted to write anything so grand as to last 50,000 words. Well, perhaps the collaborative fiction over at cold reach will have had 50K combined words by now, but as it was not written for the NaNo it does not count. The goal is to write a 50K word novel with the confines of November. Normally this would be a difficult task for any new writer, and I have the curve balls of being deployed and consistent blogging to contend with.

I figured I should catch up on my blog before throwing any consistent effort towards writing a novel of any caliber as I should make good on my original project of blogging through this deployment before adding any additional expectations.

And expectations are the killer. Trying to handle consistent blogging, work, upcoming promotion, an incoming unit, and whatever else life has to throw at me. It seems like a daunting task I don’t have the capacity for. I think the trick is to worry about it one component at a time.

Instead of worrying over four blog posts in one night, I should instead focus on one individual post at a time and keep all the future components out of my mind until they occur. I find the trick “If X worries you, then don’t.” If worrying about 30 days of writing gets to me, than I won’t conceive of the 29 days ahead and think only of the task at hand. I typically write by the seat of my pants anyway so this shouldn’t be much of a change.

Day 303: Menos Grand

2010-02-07T22:52:00.000-05:00

I can’t sleep so that means I lie here in bed, lingering just above consciousness and blog.

Normally I’d just sleep it off but I slept in late for my off day and it’s thrown off my sleep schedule.

Some problems cannot be tackled in a precise and efficient manner. Take for example one of my favorite scenes from the popular Bleach manga. When faced against a colossal hallow (evil ghost of unusually large proportions) Ichigo (the protagonist) can’t think of an efficient conventional method to reaching the creature’s bone mask (weak point) and slice it in half for a killing blow. This is due to the mask being roughly 40 meters (about 100 feet) up in the air and slightly higher than anime physics (which are integers more awesome than normal physics) will allow Ichigo to jump.

His solution is to keep chopping off the bottom portions and thus make the hallow shorter, slowly and methodically bringing the bone mask into striking distance. While the other characters of the show think this strategy is nothing short of insane, I find it perfectly logical and effective, short of the main character dying in the process.

Day 302: Accepted

2010-02-07T22:48:00.001-05:00

I accepted the E-5 Position with the 174^th. Not much is known about them aside from they are based just south of Columbus with branches all over the surrounding area. Where I’ll be in that hodge podge is currently unknown, but an SGT position isn’t something to be wasted. Most people in the guard take 8-10 years to reach SGT and with this promotion I will have attained it in four. Several scraps on information have been floating around, such as the 174^th^th would be it. I can’ confirm anything since I have yet to hear back from them, but my acceptance has been sent and documented. is a fast tracking unit with the best social networking in the state. If there is any unit where I could ascend through the ranks quickly, it is rumored the 174

There is a seven day window for accepting promotions. I found out on day 300, but the unit could have had a delay on their end and its unknown when the seven day counter started ticking down. So I accepted, going in mostly blind, but so long as the promotion goes through I think I’ll do well.

Day 301: Leadership Styles

2010-02-07T22:43:00.002-05:00

I received a small amount of information on the 174^th. They have a readiness NCO which I’ve been trying to get into contact with, but no dice. I sent a list of questions on the unit to get a feel for the command environment. Mostly it was the structure, mission, and climate of the unit with some specifics as to what I would be performing as a Sergeant. Personally I hope he sends back a few questions to see if I’ll fit into the commo section.

Do you play World of Warcraft?

Yes, since the open beta on November 19^th 2004.

Do you play Dungeons & Dragons?

Yes, since the fall of 2004 among several other tabletop RPGs.

Do you play any miniatures games?

ALL HAIL THE EMPORER OF MANKIND! Err, I have two armies in Warhammer 40K ready to be assembled and painted. Space Marines and Orks.

What does /b/ mean to you?

It can mean many things. From “sauce plz” to “tits or gtfo” to “My roflcopter goes swa swa swa” but ultimately cannot be confined to the follies of the English language despite the foolish attempts of man.

Long cat is?

Looooooooooooooooooong.

I think you will fit in nicely.

Day 300: File Missing

2010-02-07T22:30:00.004-05:00

Going through the archived files I find that this entry was missing.

Take the time to peruse this site to spend the time you would have reading this blog entry.

This file for this post might be buried some where on a thumb drive, in the mean time I'll continue posting.

Day 299: Headphones

2010-02-07T21:53:00.000-05:00

As my arrival back in the states draws ever closer I find I’m making an ever growing mental list of the things back home I want to enjoy. My latest item is wearing headphones at all hours of the day. Regardless if I’m listening to music or not, I have them in my ears at all times. Back in the rear I listen to 80+ podcasts so more often than not I’m trying to educate myself on a various subjects while my eyes are otherwise occupied.

Mostly I was them to help hear myself talk. I don’t know whether it’s due to small ear canals or my hearing is just fucked, but being able to hear myself talk keeps my stuttering down to a minimum. They keep the various back ground noises muted to manageable levels and when people see me wearing them they assume they need to speak over the music.

That’s a whole other issue onto itself. I think fast compared to most people. I know this because I speak at the rate of a sugar saturated squirrel with little heed to any potential listener. I think fast, I talk fast. Is it so hard to fathom that in order to transmit a large quantity of data in an efficient manner, it must be done in a short time frame? In my experience this is too much to ask of people.

To this date the only times I have been able to speak clearly is with extreme repetition or beer. A good real life comparison would be James Earl Jones. On his own the man has a bad speech impediment (which is mentioned in nearly every interview the man gives) but put a script in front of him and he’s fine. He can sit down and recite the lines until they are down with perfect delivery. I had a similar situation in Drama Club where I could get into character and not have an issue. My character didn’t have a speech impediment and with a little practice it would not be an issue the moment I got into costume.

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I’m currently watching the series .hack\\ROOTS with mixed feelings. The plot is eeking along at the speed of smell, but like its predecessor .hack\\SIGN the sound track is by far one of the best I’ve ever heard for a television series. At least with SIGN the series had Sora, the stab happy PKer with more attack power than sanity.

298: Fiction Production

2010-02-07T21:41:00.000-05:00

Writing isn’t hard. I’m pretty sure a shit flinging monkey can learn to scrap together a good tale and put it to paper. It takes very little talent or skill to start out and the rest is just practice.

The hard part, the defining trait among successful authors is the dedication to continue writing regardless of whatever excuse comes to mind. It doesn’t matter what life uses to blind side you (and for those too young or sheltered to think life won’t blind side you just start randomly talking to some strangers. After about 10 people you’ll find a few people you hit it off with and something will occur in your life make it blind side you.) at the end of the day words need to go on paper to make the story happen.

It’s taken a hellacious amount of effort but I’ve gotten back into the habit of keeping up with my blog. Perhaps I’ll make some sort of bonus content for the later third of September, but for the moment it’s the only gap in this blogging experiment. I typically don’t make it over to Q-pod to post as the facilities are prohibitively slow and bothersome so the posts have been resting on my computer since I got back from leave. I remember how it took me hours and hours to post the 47 additions to FPP while I was on leave, at the moment I have 80+ days of content I would need to throw up on the site in one go. If google wasn’t the one hosting blog spot I’d be certain the site would explode once I overloaded it with content.

The main reason I’m trying to get back into the habit of writing large amounts of content on a consistent basis is because the NaNoWriMo is fast approaching and I’ll consider it one of the last major challenges of Iraq. The S-6 shop has been reasonably quiet as of late with no major crisis, making most of my shift little more that glorified web surfing interspersed with tech support. Several people in the shop pace around bored to tears because they are not proficient at keeping themselves occupied.

Read a war novel focused on the lives of the soldiers. It doesn’t matter as they all say the same thing so pick one at random, and if you do not like random things (shame on you) I recommend Fallen Angels. Life in a combat zone is experienced as short periods (or three months in the case of when I first arrived in Balad) of extreme stress separated my long periods of soul crushing boredom.

Everyone has their quirks they show when lethargy starts chewing at the back of their skull. SSG Patterson has constructed a city block’s worth of structure in wood. SFC Maag will find inconsequential busy work projects he will occasionally drag other people (who would be otherwise gainfully employed) into. SGT McGraw will pace about the shop and surf the internet, Grimes will hold conversation for hours at a time. CPT Matthews has developed iron tight strategies for every flash game on the shared drive. Tyler will search shopping websites for the latest deals in electronic gadgetry. Ben will stare off into space, his thoughts privy to himself and the abyss.

The only individuals who never seem to get bored are myself and Weiss. I would presume that it’s due to the both of us having the attention span (oh look, a shiny!) and have a seething hatred for boredom. If you look on either of our room’s respective sides you will be greeted by a nigh inexhaustible horde of games, books, trinkets, toys, music, and movies. Given that my attention tends to constantly shift, I find it critical to have a wide and varied stock of entertainment to keep the boredom at bay.

At the end of the day it builds up a mindset to constantly keep myself occupied so that I will never be bored for more than a few seconds, which is about the time it takes me to find something to do. I would be willing to venture that the other inhabitants of the S-6 have not built such habits, and their day drags on like nails on a chalk board.

Day 297: Kinda Creepy

2010-02-07T21:37:00.000-05:00

I’m sitting at SFC Maag’s desk trouble shooting a connectivity issue. It’s a NIPR computer with the line ran through a nearby phone which fits the profile for a recent issue that has been popping up. Many computers connected to a voip phone inexplicably go off the network for no better reason than “because I feel like it.” The typical solution is to circumvent the phone and plug the cat5 cable directly into the PC and then reboot the system.

It proved unsuccessful and I notices the RJ-45 (the clear plastic connector on the end of the cable) is nearly about to collapse at the molecular level and become vapor. As I’m replacing the connector (a task that takes me several minutes. There are a few in the shop who can speed cap the ends of cables and I am not one of them. I prefer to be methodical and take my time. I believe in only doing a job once.) SSG Patterson (who is bored out of his mind) comes rolling up in one of the office chairs with his face six inches away from the cable I’m working on starring at it like its grown a set of tits and was lit on fire.

Me: Can I help you?

SSG P: Nah

Me: Is there something you need?

SSG P: Nah

He keeps starring at my cable

Me: Then stop starring. It’s kinda creepy.

SSG P: What? No its not.

Me: Yes it is. When you are typing at a computer I don’t come up and stare at your keyboard like I could set it on fire with me mind. And if you were to ask what I was doing I wouldn’t reply “What are you talking about? What I’m doing is perfectly normal. People stare at each other’s work all the time. Nothing to see here.” and keep staring at you. I’d stop fucking starring!

Day 296: Soulstorm Complete

2010-02-07T21:25:00.001-05:00

Dawn of War has to be my all time favorite RTS (Real Time Strategy game.) Last night I finally completed a full campaign to conquer the Kauriva system with the Eldar faction. I never played through the tutorial missions for the faction so I was figuring out the basic strategies as I went along. The major downside to the elder is that in order to increase the squad cap, and thus overcome the crippling short manned army, I need to capture and hold strategic points. The capturing point is no problem as I can blitz into an area and boot off the indigenous faction holding the point long enough to capture it, but the Eldar lack the manpower to post stationary guards to fend off the inevitable counter attack.

Late in the game (3/4ths in) I find out that the webway gates (which I had previously believed only served to slightly increase my squad and vehicle cap) could be upgraded to stealth nearby structures.

In theory I could stealth my entire base, making its defense as easy as singling out the invading stealth detecting units and shooting them in the head. If the enemy has no units to see past the shroud, then all my cloaked buildings go invisible, and thus untargetable. At this point my fixed defenses pick them off one by one. This means I can leave one or squads of snipers (who are always cloaked) at the cloaked base and free up the rest of my army for precision offensive strikes.

Add to this that webway gates allow sizable armies to be teleported to any other gate on the map regardless of distance. My main strategy was to blitz across the map, grabbing every capturable point on the map, build a listening post which would in turn allow me to build any other structure nearby, including a webway gate. This allowed for a network of cloaked forward bases all linked to a gate way network. The last quarter of the game was a cake walk now that I could rapidly deploy a small strike team to anywhere on the map and bounce to another gateway point to catch them unaware for another ambush.

I’m not sure what faction I’ll play next, but so far it’s been many hours of fun.

Day 295: Noticing A Pattern

2010-02-07T21:23:00.000-05:00

I open an email from 1SG (First Sergeant) Camacho reminding me that tomorrow that I turn in my Tough Box (a large heavy duty plastic trunk) to be shipped home. The Tough Boxes are to be turned to the other side of post, but there aren’t enough NTVs (Non-Tactical Vehicle. Military owned Pick up trucks in this case) available to ship over an entire battalion’s worth of people. The solution is to barrow a LMTV (Light Military Tactical Vehicle. Think an elongated Semi with no discernible purpose. The Army bought a bunch of these a few years back only to find that the electrical systems were complete crap and stopped new shipments in favor for the Hemmet.) to help transport the odd man out.

I happen to be the odd man out for my rotation to the east side tomorrow. Now I never pass up an opportunity like this, so I half jokingly send an email back to the 1SG.

“What? Ride shot gun? I volunteer to drive the LMTV to the east side. With my driving expertise, as made famous by Fort Sill, what could possibly go wrong?”

I get a reply stating to bring my military drivers license and ACH (Kevlar/helmet/brain bucket) and I’m cleared to drive.

Sweet. I’ve omitted the fact that I haven’t touched an LMTV since my 63B Mechanic training, and have no clue how to start, drive, or maneuver in that behemoth.

I’ve never let such trivialities get in the way of some fun. I’m always willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of adventure, and I’m always willing to risk the lives of my friends for the very same cause.

Day 294: Job Dissatisfaction.

2010-02-07T21:14:00.000-05:00

There are some aspects of my job that I enjoy to a great degree. This includes, but is not limited to, computers, trouble shooting, network logistics, and the challenge there of.

The downside is that technology only pertains to 20% of my job and the other 80% involves people. People in and of themselves don’t bother me, but my success in interacting with “customers” (my predecessors of the 244^th insisted on addressing the soldiers they supported as customers.) is based solely on how well I can lie to them.

I pride myself on being an honest person. If I say I will perform X, then damnit, it will be done regardless of any obstacle. I want people to trust what I have to say based on the exceptional track record of honesty and reliability. When dealing with 90% of my customer base, they don’t want the truth (which in most cases involves simple problems that could have been solved by a reboot and yes I think you are stupid for bothering me with it) and would prefer some form of techno bable that puts their mind at ease. My goal with these people is to make them think, “Wow that went over my head. I shouldn’t feel bad because this problem was way out of my league. Calling the S-6 was the only solution to the problem.”

I can’t wait to get back to the states where 90% of my social interaction will be civilians whom I can speak my mind without the words “pull rank” entering the conversation.

Day 293: The Dragon’s Lair

2010-02-07T21:10:00.000-05:00

For the most part my shift has been relatively calm and low stress. It’s a much welcome contrast compared to my 120 hour work week when I first arrived.

Unfortunately today was not the case.

I spent most of my shift working on issues in the TOC (Tactical Operations Center) to find that despite six months in country and over 2000 hours keeping this network up and running, SIPR (Secure Internet Routing Protocol) printers still continue to kick my ass. Two hours of bashing my head against the issue and no solution in sight.

I find it funny that I don’t throw in the towel on jobs anymore. It’s always one of my shift leads that tell me to stop after two hours of effort. It says something that it’s always other people who tell me to quit because they got tired of watching me work.

A short period after the printer has been given up on, one of their radios decides to up and die. It’s a new model of Harris J radio that just arrived a few days ago. For some reason the batteries, which should last for a month, are only lasting 20 something hours. The morning shift has been swapping them out and replacing the batteries (which are horrifically expensive for a radio that cost more than I make on a year of deployment) on a daily basis, but for some reason they didn’t do it today. Now second shift has a dead radio and has no clue what to do with it.

Their solution is to call the S-6 and I’m the unlucky bastard who picked up the phone.

I will be the first to admit that I’m not a radio person, much to the chagrin of my father (WB9LBI) who by now has merged with his HAM radio. I can fill and operate most versions of the Harris Radio, but I have yet to encounter an actual Harris J that works. I saw one in the shop months ago, and our radio people could not get the damn thing to work. In the shop at that time was, SPC Grimes, SSG Patterson, and me.

They knew just as much as I did about the radio, which was nothing, but I took the frag grenade for the team and headed back out to the TOC.

The entire affair was an exercise and how much an officer, who knows nothing about radios, computers, or commo, can spend dressing down soldiers in a feeble attempt to cover their own ignorance and inadequacies. One of the first things I saw was SSG Foreman being sheepish, compliant, and on edge.

This immediately pointed out two things about the situation. First SSG Foreman is, by a fair margin, the most head strong and confident woman in the battalion, and that acting contrary to her nature spoke volumes about the situation. Second, that if playing dumb and compliant was the strategy of choice for this diplomatic nightmare then it was good enough for me.

I spend the next two hours lying to this officer’s face and the only reason the situation was kosher was because any hint of the truth would put him on the defensive and make the entire situation my fault. This was a man who only believes what he wanted to hear.

In the end the radio continually failed due to power issues, and despite bringing in the 25U (Radio Guy) from brigade, no solutions were found that night. Four hours of my life I’d lost to the TOC and nothing to show for it.

Day 292: Honesty Policy

2010-02-07T21:01:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I can’t sleep. The glitch hits me for a few days and regardless of how much I try, sleep will just evade me. Currently I’m running on 3 days without any shut eye. SSG Patterson has it worse than me though. I doubt that man has had a single night of good sleep in any of the three wars he’s fought in.

Grimes always tells me, at every available opportunity, how people do not wish to hear the truth. That given the choice, a person will always choose the easy to swallow lie over the hard truth. Six months in country conducting customer service has given me little ground to stand on to argue the contrary.

It’s just my experience that people who establish a working relationship on lies tend to fall apart at the first sign of trouble. I’m an honest person, or at least I like to think myself one. Combine that with idea I don’t consider something a law until it can be used for prediction with 100% accuracy, and I do not fit into Grimes’ preview, I can’t take what should be a solid pillar of human behavior and apply it toward all of my human interaction.

The most meaningful relationships to me are the ones with my sister and close friends which have historically been build on honesty and communication.

Then again I could be accustomed to lying to everyone I meet, becoming great at deception, and exploiting people’s weaknesses for my own benefit. All it would take is the violation and abandonment of my principles.

Day 291: Pop Pop Pop

2010-02-07T20:54:00.001-05:00

It’s just after close of business at the S-6. I usually hang around the office for awhile after hours to chat on AIM and surf the web. SSG Patterson, SGT McGraw, and SPC Grimes were on the front porch smocking when we all heard a loud POP similar to weapons fire. Its occurring at odd intervals and something is off about it so they immediately unsling their rifles and head out to investigate.

And leave me behind to watch the shop. I didn’t ask for the short end of the stick, rather I maneuvered out from behind the help desk to find that they were all gone, presumably to find the source of the presumed weapon’s fire. I’m phenomenally pissed at this point because I have to lock up the shop before I can heard out and join the fray. This in only compounded by the fact that all locks have large amount of sand packed in them after 30 seconds out of the packaging, and the locks on the shop are no exception. It takes several minutes before the locks agree to work and I head out of aviation village.

I take off my reflective PT belt, as wearing something that makes me stand out like a roman candle at night is near the bottom of my list of favorite things to happen, just above a weapon jam and running out of ammo.

I scout the immediate area near Catfish Air and find no traces of combat. No smell of gun smoke, no other soldiers at the ready, nothing out of the norm. I slink into the shadows and stalk back to the shop, grabbing the spare ammo and keeping my rifle in hand in the event a haaji is still at large and he wants me comsec lucky charms.

My squadmates return several minutes later (still wearing their PT belts) and relay the information that it was merely one of the haaji buses (think of a 1960s micro bus with curtains) back firing. That explained the off sound and the irregular intervals (One of the fundamental of marksmanship is steady breathing. Thus any army training marksmen will usually have steady rhythmic shots and the trigger squeeze comes in the natural pause after exhaling.)

Day 290: Story Designs

2010-02-07T20:52:00.000-05:00

The NaNoWriMo is approaching and I’m woefully ill prepared for such an event. Life happened, as it tends to do, and the schedule I formed was thrown out the window for more pressing matters. Right now I should first establish what will the story setting will be.

I have three options:

Raven and Omega. This is based off the TOM story line and follows a small child as she explores the realm of nightmares. I spent the better part of a month trying to world build Omega and ended up wanting to jab sticks into my eyes.

Barahona vs Hell. I had the idea for this story right before leave. What if Barahona (the most blood thirsty, uncompromising, and brilliant tactician of the Marines I’ve had the pleasure of meeting) died and went to Hell. Instead of sitting back and taking the “punishment he deserves” he sees the things he did to serve his country as the morally correct thing to do and fights back.

The Mice of the S-6. The idea was that what if the mass amounts of uranium dust in Iraq changed the mice that hitchhiked on American vessels who had little to no resistance to it. The mice became smarter with each passing generation and became an intelligent tool wielding race contributing to the war effort. I lost steam for this idea once SFC Maag started setting mouse traps in the shop and killed them left and right.

Day 289: Grrrrrrrr

2010-02-07T20:50:00.000-05:00

I’ve been playing Dawn of War the last few days and I’ve hit a brick wall. At first I was steam rolling through factions. Beating back the Necrons and Space Marines in short order, with some difficulty with the Orks. The first two were relatively easy as their small well equipped armies could be met head on with my small and well equipped army. The Orks on the other hand just kept flooding the map with cheap units that were about as easy to purge as scrapping fungus from a shower wall. The only effective tactic I had was build up a bulwark in the center of the map to hold off the ever present waves of enemy units while I sent a kill team around the map to systematically clear units and capture points.

It took two hours of constantly slogging through trenched enemy terrain but I finally drained their logistics to fuel their war effort and sent a team in to punch through their front lines.

Now I’m facing the Tau and it seems I’m up for several rounds of the same, slow, methodical tactics. It seems that unless I build up defenses, rapid develop my tech trees, and spread out all over the map to capture the resources, then the Tau will build a massive mechanized army that will never die.

*Sigh* It’s going to be a long night.

Day 288: Farseer

2010-02-07T20:48:00.000-05:00

Farseer’s are the leaders of Eldar military units, and the faction commander in Dawn of War. I like the philosophy of manipulating events one at a time to produce a favorable outcome. The idea that time is only a sequence of interwoven events that produce other interwoven events, and that proper a manipulation of these events creates the best possible outcome.

I’m a far sighted person by nature. Grimes brought to light that most people only think and plan a few moments into the future with little knowledge of what will occur weeks or months ahead of time. I like to keep my mind on the possible events, because often I will be dealing with people stronger, smarter, and more charismatic than I. If events are left as they are than I willingly allow a situation to pass without exploiting the potential time I could take to prepare.

Let’s say there is an event I foresee as likely to happen when I arrive home from Iraq. I have two months, using time and patience and well honed weapons, to arrange the likely circumstances of that event to work in my favor? If I think someone will come to blows with me I’ll simply arrange it so they will be unable or unwilling to strike in that situation, allowing me time to improvise and talk down the hostilities.

Dealing with a charismatic figure? Find out what drives him and consequently creates his fatal flaw to exploit. People often have at least one characteristic they take great pride in and do not want to admit something can be twisted as a weakness. Take for example a person who believes being on control of every situation is what gives them the assertiveness to succeed. This type will be acutely aware of everyone’s perception of him because he needs to perceive being in charge. I can predict with 95% accuracy that person will fall into that behavior regardless of the circumstances, so I’ll arrange it so that by being the control freak the loss the social face that allows them to be in control.

Day 287: Eldar

2010-02-07T20:46:00.001-05:00

I picked up Dawn of War: Soul Storm again. This time I’m playing through as the Eldar. For those not into Warhammer 40K, think of space elves with high powered elite units. They are a completely different play style to what I am used to with the Tau, Space Marines, and Necrons. Instead of defense and fire power the Eldar take highly specialized units and focus on the precision application of those units.

This is antithetical to my normal play style, which is take a highly versatile force with good defense and punch a hole through their front lines while flanking with a second unit. Throw in air support and I drive straight into the enemy forces and blitz them before they have a chance to mount a sizable counter attack.

I can’t do that with the Eldar. The downside to specialized elite units is that I can’t field many of them. Instead of spreading across the map and making short tactical jumps to monopolize the map resources, I have to spread myself paper thin and gamble on how the enemy will deploy his forces to counter attack. The fun is in the challenge, making the sweet victory of stomping the enemy with Wraithlords (bipedal tanks I call “ROFL Stompers”) well worth the effort.

Day 286: Pathos

2010-02-07T20:43:00.000-05:00

Grimes and I were having a discussion on personality types, primarily how to deal with the Control Freak. This type, by definition, will strive to keep full awareness of the entire game board and will be unable to focus their attention to any one spot for a length of time if it threatens to infringe on their preferred level of control. The strategy against them is through attrition and subversion. By their nature they will not pay attention to small details, especially the kind they don’t have reason to look for.

While on the subject I asked what my fatal flaw would be, as I like to be prepared in the event it is used against me, and grimes responded “You fight it alone.”

Typically I don’t ask for help unless all other options have been exhausted and my patience has run out for the evening. I don’t see this as a potential weakness, which only increases the likely hood it can be used against me. To me asking for help is a sign of weakness, and cheapens whatever goal I was trying to achieve on my own power. Perhaps I’ll figure out how to better use people to further my goals, but that won’t be today.