Thursday, January 30, 2020

212


212

So made it down to 212 pounds so far on the diet of doom…  I haven’t been down to this weight in a very long time and am easily fitting into clothes I’ve not fit into for decades.  Cleaned out my closet last weekend and dug out a bunch of things I had buried in the back of the closet in the “maybe someday” pile.  Actually having to rotate out things I was wearing for the last several years as I cannot actually wear them anymore without looking silly…  Boxers for instance J  Need to be sure they are caught under the now tightened belt lest they fall victim to gravity…  But is nice wearing things I wore working at Illinois Power or Ciber up in Chicago and finding them actually loose these days.  WW seems to be working quite well for me, had one “real meal “yesterday with the non-diet approved burger and it was quite nice…  While eating it.  After, not so much as I am clearly no longer used to eating that sort of food.  The running and workouts are going well for me, finally fully recovered from my illness and back to my now normal times on the runs.  Planking, body weight workouts and the like for the other 2-3 days filling in.  Probably best to start switching over to actual weights at some point as my cardio workouts are going well.  Endurance and strength back at levels I’ve not seen since my Army days, so just waiting on my Iritis to finally clear off (Doctor says it is ALMOST there) so I can get back to wearing my contacts…  I had forgotten how annoying glasses were, especially during the winter.  And without sunglasses I count on wearing a hat to keep the sun out of my eyes…  Ah well J

Gaming wise, waiting on the new FFG stuff to hit tomorrow we are told… My X-Wing card packs and Republic (Clone) reinforcements.  Slowly getting those lads painted up, or at least the few I have.  500 point games are fine for now, but until I have a Tank I suspect the 800 point level is simply not going to be a thing for me.  General Kenobi and 2-3 Squads or CPT Rex and 3-4 Squads being the best choices.  I have the BARC speeder and it does…  Well it does.  Some games it is amazing and it kills many things.  I typically send it off as a guided missile to be my Jaeger (hunter) and deal with Sniper teams or flanking Scouts that my Clones would otherwise have difficulty dealing with.  Were I playing more competitively I suspect that skipping it and having more Clones would be a better choice.  And with the lads, it is somewhat counter intuitive to have them bunched up…  When I was in, it was drilled in to keep spread out to minimize the damage from Artillery or things like Grenades or the like…  To b fair I suppose the armor I wore was nowhere near what the Clones are wearing and as of now there is simply nothing “Artillery-Like” in the game to pose a realistic threat to forming up in a flying wedge and moving toward the Enemy…  With their ability to share Tokens and easily get the Surge Tokens (“Focus” equivalent from X-Wing) to be used either offensively or defensively to enhance their battlefield effectiveness…  Between this and the far better basic weapon they have a huge advantage over their eventual replacements in the basic Storm Troopers.  It reflects the Republic’s emphasis on better training and far better equipment over that of the Empire with the more…  Well, more is better with no regard to quality…  “Quantity has a Quality all its own” I suppose.  This translates across most of the games FFG does with the Imperial things being the ones with the overwhelming numbers on their side and the Rebel/Republic having the FAR better but usually hopelessly outnumber Units…  And I usually fall pretty well into one of those sides with my personality and preferred play style, so that works out well for me.

Other game stuff, Bolt Action is still here, test minis for the British Airborne (though I suppose they use the word “Airbourne” J) camouflage smocks…  Still not really getting that, but getting FAR closer with some of the GW “Contrast” paints. At this point though I have only a handful of the lads even assembled so a ways off from actually getting in games…  One Armored Car though so the lads will have minimal Armor support when they do hit the table…

BattleTech….  Well, in cleaning some of the Basement of Doom™ I DID come across a large number of the ancient miniatures I had from the ancient times.  Some of them at least are just “point of pride” ones as we played the far more hard corps where if you lost the Mech on the field, you lost the miniature.  Could ransom it back or the like, but we were very much keeping with the “history” of the in game universe….  So, the ONLY reason I had some of those minis would have been captures that were never repatriated.  Like my eventual command Mech, the Banshee-3S.  The original Banshee was just bad.  Dropping the smaller engine in place dropped the maximum speed from 4/6 to 3/5 but freed up a LOT of space and weight for an actual Assault Mech’s weapon load out.  Went from a bad joke to an Assault class Mech that I would argue was actually better than any other out there including the (at the time) king of the hill in the Atlas.  So, it took some time, but I had mine go into the shop as it were and came out as a real Assault class Mech to lead out my Mercs.  I’ve stripped the lot and am repainting in the colors of the Skye Rangers.  So, dark red/crimson body and black on the arms.  Looking pretty good so far, at least a unified pattern to make them all look like part of the same force.  And keeping with my tradition of finding a strange, usually Scottish, sub faction to put my forces into J  Waiting on the Kickstarter to have the new things including the redesigned Clan Mechs which for me will go either Clan Wolf or Clan Wolf in Exile… Keeping with the theme, and the WiE forces are allied to the Skye forces, so planning ahead I am to keep ALL of my stuff in a nice, neat package…

Friday, January 17, 2020

Jan, after the point changes in X-Wing and "life stuff"


Well, been in “Diet Mode” for a while now…  Seems like it is working quite well this time.  My wife and I switched over to the “WW” (“Formerly ‘Weight Watchers’”) a few months ago now.  The system has been working amazingly well for me as I went from having plateaued at ~250 pounds to now hovering in the 220 range.  Previously I was working out very regularly and through the Fitbit app tracking my steps and caloric consumption.  Turns out that was not what I really needed.  For instance on days when I say, forgot to pack a lunch I’d just wander over to grab a few slices of pizza and think nothing of it really.  Tracking the calories of that led me to believe I was well within my set goals and running a caloric deficit.  Probably was, but not as much of one as I had thought.  Now, on the WW system I have 33 points for my day.  And a single slice of NY style pizza is 17.  And now, not having that for a “quick and easy lunch” I seem to be losing weight quickly.  Since I weighted 238 on entry to the Army, I have long since passed that mark.  Mind, not really a good goal, I was FAR from in shape when I joined.  For my first deployment I probably started at ~180 or so.  I went from 238 to 168 when I was in Basic.  NOT a recommended way to lose weight as that was during an abbreviated OSUT (One Station Unit Training) that got cut to just the vital things as Iraq invaded Kuwait just before I reported.  Was supposed to be 16 weeks with a break in the middle, weekends off, etc…  But got cut to just 9 weeks of fairly intense training.  In any case, I was in the best shape of my life when I reported to Ranger School weighing 205.  Not sure if it is realistic to shoot for that as a goal, but it is certainly within reach now.  Some of the side effects of the weight loss being that I am now back to wearing jeans the size I wore in high school…  Have shelved the much larger ones for now as they are just ludicrously baggy on me.  Odd things like the “normal” boxers I wore being far too large and so those have rotated out as well.  Wearing things that looked like sausage casings on me a few months ago and they are loose to the point of being baggy.  Neat I guess and a lot of the clothing I wore while working in Chicago not long after my time in the Army/Guard is fitting well enough.  Amusing I suppose that the stuff I carted around for decades on the off chance that “maybe I’ll wear it again” is now on the hanger in my closet. 

Running is a big part of my workout routine.  I am NOT a particularly good runner, which would be my brother the marathon runner (he actually competes in the real ones like Chicago, Boston, London, etc…).  I run because it is a good way to build my endurance and actually lose the weight.  Not because I am fast or enjoy it, it just works.  Not exactly going blazingly fast, I’m in the 12 minute mile range, so a slow jog…  But of course I was never all that fast, I ran 8 minute miles at my best.  Of course I could run 20 of them without ill effect, and nowhere near that now am I J  Still using body weight exercises and resistance bands to keep the “prison workout” going for the other 2-3 days/week so I stick to the 5-6 days/week getting in an actual workout.  Going fairly well, but seems to be approaching a plateau and I will have to adjust fairly soon I suspect.  But in the meantime, I am moving better than I have in decades, my endurance is quite high as is my strength and most of the health related issues I was starting to have are cleared up.

X-Wing dropped their points adjustment and a few rules changes/clarifications.  Overall I am quite thrilled with this all.  The biggest change they have made at this time is that Hyperspace (HS) is now a heavily curated format with every Faction going down to a handful of Ship types being legal.  4 for newer ones and 5 for the older ones.  And even if the Ship is HS legal there is NO guarantee that any individual Pilot or Upgrade will be.  For instance Wedge Antiles in his X-Wing was dropped from HS while most of the rest are legal.  Neat I suppose and it should have the effect of preventing stagnation where the obvious best lists become the norm and pretty much all one would see on the table.  Now I am building weird new lists with things like the M-3 Interceptor since it has dropped in points enough to actually be useful.  I am hoping I suppose as I have yet to actually fly one in a game of 2nd edition X-Wing at this point.  My dual Firespray lists have all gone down in points fairly drastically.  The lists overall, Boba Fett is almost unchanged…  His titles all dropped a bit so the way I fly him he HAS decreased in point cost overall…  So, interesting times overall.  My old standard Republic lists are as I said previously no longer HS legal, and having watched the YouTube record of my game that Gold Squadron streamed from Gen Con (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezh61SB5aEw&feature=youtu.be).  The game changed a bit since then and I suspect the list I flew would not do so well.  But in any case these are things I can fly fairly well.  Trying to get more events scheduled at Titan in Champaign “soon” but of course with the Semester beginning next week it is a difficult time to get away from work for many of us working at the University at least…

Legion I am actually getting back to painting, experimenting with some of the GW “contrast” paints.  The Martian Camo patter I am doing the bulk of my Rebels in looks pretty good with GW’s Fleshtearer Red as a base, and with the bonus of that being one of the ancient 40K armies I still have in the Basement of Doom  The Clones are where I am focusing mostly at this point, and they are base coated at least and starting to get some details on at this point.  Playing at a fairly severe disadvantage I think with the Republic army for now with the Imperials I suspect being the major powerhouse force and the CIS Droids looking pretty good overall, at least from a power ranking perspective.  Neither army interests me particularly, though I suspect I could do well with either.  Same for the Rebels at this point for me, they have the “feel” of 40K Imperial Guard or whatever they are called these days…  I have not touched that system since the change to 6th edition and they are on 8th going on 9th I hear… 

Spending time in the basement, I have dug up some of my ancient Flames of War minis while searching for other stuff…  I remember how insanely OP my US Airborne force seemed on the table back in first edition with that system…  I was pretty much only building things for Units I actually served with, so 82nd it was.  The Artillery rules were just silly good for Americans IIRC…  I remember being able to take down the (at the time) king of the hill armies that were almost exclusively German Tiger based forces with my tine group of 82nd troops and Artillery…  Probably why I stopped playing as much, the winning strategies were just not overly interesting to me.  Set up, know that your troopers via their rules were not going to break and run from the mere presence of a Tiger and let the Artillery just pound them out of existence.  I think I have the more recent rule books and will have to look into that game again at some point…  “Tanks” got me back buying a few actual 15mm armored vehicles and so I have US, Brit and even a small German force…  I REALLY like the German Puma, that fits my play style fairly well and it is actually fairly good…  Dies when caught, but…

For 28mm I have my British Airborne that I have started assembling finally.  And with the new paints making camouflage patterns like their WWII smocks fairly easy, I might even get them painted up sooner rather than later…  Will see how things go I suppose…  Dug up my ancient Battletech things as there is a group here looking to revive that and I snagged some on the Kickstarter...

As far as “going”, still kind of in job hunt mode, got a few more interviews but with so many of them recently at least obviously being “Team Lead” positions rather than actual “Management” positions I am less interested.  I have seen and been the “Team Lead” several times in the past and as it always deteriorates to doing multiple people’s jobs for the one person’s salary not something I am overly interested in doing again.  On the other hand the transition from IT worker to IT manager seems to be a fairly rare one, at least rarely successful one.  I see a lot of organizations here who have promoted the good IT person to put them in charge and usually it does not work out so well as the skill sets are very different and that one is good at one does not necessarily follow that one would be good at the other.  In any case, busy, have a steady job and so not desperate.  Makes the interview process a LOT more relaxed for me at least.  That and the sheer number of interviews I have had over the last year or two, by now it is all a known thing and I am perhaps a bit too relaxed about it.  Maybe, I think that the level of confidence I have is a good thing, I HAVE seen just about everything at this point in my own little world, and overall I think have been fairly successful dealing with it.  No rush, as it is said “The Dude Abides”…  When it is time to go, I’ll go…  

Friday, January 10, 2020

January 2020 points changes and a bit more I suppose...


So, the X-Wing points have dropped and overall I am fairly happy with the changes.  Ironically the list I flew against Tony just before the Stream actually dropped by 5 points in total (Boba/Emon) with the Firespray’s Title cards dropping as well as Emon himself.  Neat?  The essentially unlimited Bombs I can drop with that list will be something REALLY good against a number of lists, and Fett himself is still really solid.  The Nantex scourge is tempered a bit as the passing off the Tractor token now costs more, as do a number of what were overly efficient things in their Swarm builds.  My Republic builds are mostly OK with only Obi-Wan really going up in points, but the R-2 Astromechs all went up so things will be a bit tighter if I were flying the 7B with Regen…  I wasn’t, so…  The CLT builds are more interesting for me at least and that was where I went for the most part…

That DOES bring me to the one thing I am not thrilled about.  Hyperspace is now radically different than it was.  On the one hand, I am glad it changed…  But especially the smaller Factions are just gutted when they lose half of their effective components.  Good thing I suppose HS is a format that will be very limited in terms of actual events.  Though, saying that the first round of Store Championships are supposed to be HS, not sure if I am interested in playing that at this point honestly.  Eh, will see I suppose how things actually work out.  Just not really overly interested at this point in seeing if I can build something with scraps and make it work well enough…  Especially knowing damn well that it will NOT be the best build possible.

Not much fully known, but FFG just had a fairly massive round of layoffs so not entirely sure how this will affect OP and of course the games I actually DO play…  Hopefully things will continue as they have and X-Wing/Legion at least do seem to be fairly popular…  Of course, that doesn’t mean anything if the cash is not flowing well for the company, and of course being FAR on the outside I have no real clue what the real situation is up there.  In any case I do hope things work out for those laid off…  Have gone through a bit of that in the ancient times, and frankly that is one of the major reasons I wound up working here at the University…  Not like we’re going to be bought and have the new company bring in its own IT staff…  THAT happened to me when I worked at Illinois Power…  Mind, this was the mid to late 90’s, so IT work was REALLY easy to find and the folks I knew there all either retired or simply moved on to other companies.  I went to Chicago and worked up there for over a year before burning out hard on that.  I worked my “real” job and did independent side work, but enough that I was actually working 2 full time jobs.  Made a LOT of money, but…  As I said, I am hoping things work out for the folks being laid off up there.

Job search?  Eh, still half-heartedly applying here and there.  Had an excellent interview with a local company, but that was a few weeks ago and having heard nothing I am taking it as a “no” I suppose.  NOT annoyed, it was a great interview and frankly the first time that my VERY heavy tech background (the “I do the stuff”) was not seen as a negative or viewed with suspicion…  Management and “line” IT workers do not usually share much in terms of personalities or skill sets it seems…  And while I made the transition, I know not many have or could.  Though having said that, I am finding that my “I do things” skills are mostly atrophied at this point with my MCSE dating back to the NT 4.0 days and almost all of my Infrastructure work being 10+ years ago now.  So, yes I HAVE done these things but it would likely take me a bit of time to actually relearn how to do them again…  And in any case, more or less committed to staying here at UIUC until I can really “retire” at 55…  No hurry, no worries I suppose, and getting some really good practice in these interviews.