Welcome Dan

By Dan Knudsen (Agnin) on Monday, November 16, 2015 - 10:29 pm: Edit

Thank you, I am very much looking forward to this.

By John Coleman (Aligato) on Wednesday, December 30, 2015 - 03:45 pm: Edit

Get well soon Jean......
Our prayers are with you
John and Family

By John D Berg (Kerg) on Sunday, January 10, 2016 - 12:40 pm: Edit

Kerg #4 just entered the world on the 9th.
Jonathan Jackson Berg, 5 pounds, 11 ounces.
All are doing fine.

By John Burton Steele Sr. (Johnbsteele) on Sunday, January 10, 2016 - 01:07 pm: Edit

Congratulations!

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Monday, January 11, 2016 - 10:42 am: Edit

Congratulations John.

By John D Berg (Kerg) on Sunday, January 24, 2016 - 11:19 am: Edit

Due Date 2/8/2016

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Sunday, January 24, 2016 - 12:02 pm: Edit

Vienna Virginia (my house) got 23 inches of snow. It will be days before I can free my car. Us old folks need more rest these days!

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Sunday, January 24, 2016 - 04:29 pm: Edit

The plus side to a garage kept car is the dig out is easier. The down side is that I have 40' of clear pavement before I hit the unpaved street that has enough snow on it that I can barely walk through it- no chance in heck I'd make it more than a few car lengths before I got stuck, and the only reason I'd make it that far is the gravity assist.

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Monday, January 25, 2016 - 01:31 pm: Edit

How much snow Howard?

I have no garage - so I parked my car at the edge of the driveway / sidewalk. Less to shovel, but boy is it deep at the driveway / road. The snow plow "plowed" it high there. I'm on my rest break.

Whew!!

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Monday, January 25, 2016 - 05:01 pm: Edit

Vienna Virginia I am in Norfolk..

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Monday, January 25, 2016 - 05:55 pm: Edit

About 2'. It has since compacted down to 18"

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Monday, January 25, 2016 - 11:48 pm: Edit

Hi Howard,

I have met God! He was a kind elderly man driving a Town of Vienna large tractor with a snow plow attachment on the front. He nodded at me, and I nodded back with the understanding about what he was about to do. It only took four pushes of the snow plow to clear my driveway of most of the piled up snow. The snow was heavy due to some melting. I was ready to take my final break of the day. After he was done we both waived farewell, then he departed.

How about that!

By John Coleman (Aligato) on Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - 08:23 am: Edit

LOL, God comes to my driveway on a regular basis, I sold my soul to him years ago.

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - 11:01 am: Edit

The plow finally showed up a bit before 9AM, did half the job and drove off. 15-20 minutes of work for us to clear the foot of the driveway (at least he didn't put up a wall!), then he came back to finish the job. I was cringing figuring this was going to be another on of those plow me in events.

Several of us we working on a neighbor's driveway when he came back- had it half done. He dropped the blade and did most of the rest.

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Wednesday, January 27, 2016 - 11:28 am: Edit

Ah, such energy, to help neighbors!

Speaking of snow, after yesterday's 50+ degrees, the snow on the ground is half melted. Only 1 foot to go. I bet it is most heavy if one wanted to shovel it.

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Wednesday, January 27, 2016 - 12:21 pm: Edit

Yes, I rather expect it will be rather heavy. Some folks have "fast twitch" muscle fibers- they can outlift me and outrun me with ease. Some folks have more "slow twitch" ones. With care, I can clear far more snow (or leaves or whatever) than they can simply because I can keep at it for several hours. Every time I've moved this has paid off as much of the stuff to relocate is lots of moderate or light items. Far cheaper to hire movers to relocate the furniture while I deal with the remaining 80% of the mass.

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Thursday, January 28, 2016 - 11:31 am: Edit

Moving is stressful for me. I am a pack rat. There is so much junk to go thru and discard. It is finding those things that you do not want to discard that is so time consuming. There are a surprising number of items that hold sentimental value. I do not want to move again.

Now that I'm retired, I am reading all those books that I purchased years ago for this purpose. There are so many, it will take years to read them all. Once I get started reading I enjoy it. I keeping adding new interesting books to the stockpile.

There are so many distractions to keep one from reading. One of them is napping. The latest is 2 feet of snow. Gaming is another - Galactic Conquest for example. Being a news junkie does not help either. Work however is no longer a distraction.

Boy oh boy, the commute yesterday was bad for working people. Many a lane of road ended due to piles of snow forcing traffic to merge. This morning the snow melt turned to ice. A low temperature of 15 degrees will do that. The alternative, having no plowed roads is still worse.

It was refreshing to drink regular milk. It tastes so much better than skim milk. That was before the storm hit Washington DC. The choice was that or no milk at all.

I am one of the "slow twitch" people, but I have no endurance. I shoveled for 10 minutes and rested for 50 minutes. I take small scoops instead of loading up the shovel with as much snow as it can hold. The local weatherman says there may be another big storm (or two) in February. SMILE

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Thursday, January 28, 2016 - 04:42 pm: Edit

John enjoy this time in life i still have at least 10 more years to work..

By John D Berg (Kerg) on Friday, January 29, 2016 - 01:08 pm: Edit

And I expect great orders this turn from you snow bound dudes

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Saturday, January 30, 2016 - 05:32 pm: Edit

LOL

I bought Milk, Bread, Eggs, and Beer before the BIG Snow Storm!

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Saturday, January 30, 2016 - 11:42 pm: Edit

The 2"er the middle of the week? :-)

I have a Strategic Book Reserve. It should keep me entertained for some time when I retire.

I shall not comment on my stuff stockpile (I do have one so called be room that is just for my game collection) other than to note that when I moved in '08 I filled a 8x8x16 shipping container and still had several car loads worth of stuff. Odds are that I'm now well into my 2nd container since I bought some nicer furniture to replace the IKEA stuff.

By John Burton Steele Sr. (Johnbsteele) on Monday, February 01, 2016 - 06:54 pm: Edit

I just got my terminal duty assignment orders to my home town unit. 3 more years and I get my active duty retirement (26 years). My job after I retire is toing to be gaming. Galactic Conquest, Star Citizen, and D&D will drive my wife to kill me!

By Lanny Smith (Lance1967) on Wednesday, February 03, 2016 - 11:41 am: Edit

Good morning!

I played SFB back in the early to mid 80's and was surprised to learn that the game was still around recently. I also ran across the board for Galactic Conquest and was immediately interested.

I have contacted John Berg about joining U5 and am currently waiting on him to reply. In the meantime, I was wondering what materials I need to purchase to be able to figure out what I need to know. I have the Basic Captain's Edition, the Master Rules, Galactic Conquest rules, and the Tournament rules (also trying to learn SFBOL). I am finding some information gaps that I need to fill, such as Size Class, what is considered a War Cruiser, etc. that don't appeared to be covered in the above rules. I ran across a post the other day that mentioned Module G3, is that a good next step?

Thanks and I am looking forward to joining the game,

Lanny

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Wednesday, February 03, 2016 - 01:11 pm: Edit

G3 and G3A are almost a requirement to have if you don't have all the other R sections.