I did meet Dorothy Fontana and Sulu at different cons long ago.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, January 25, 2020 - 02:47 pm: Edit

Today I earned the FITBIT ITALY BADGE for walking 736 miles.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, February 28, 2020 - 04:37 pm: Edit

I was supposed to have surgery monday (removing the excess skin from losing 150 pounds and repairing a hernia) but a cat scan on Wednesday showed something complicated so the surgery was cancelled. I will meet with the hernia surgeon monday to reschedule that (could be any time in March), and then have the skin removal later (late March or April).

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, March 03, 2020 - 05:08 am: Edit

I wish I had gone to surgery. Monday night I was involved in a major traffic accident. No one was hurt beyond seatbelt bruises but I fear my car is beyond repair. Badly shaken up, the dreams when I tried to sleep are the worst part. Well, that is what insurance is for.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, March 09, 2020 - 05:44 pm: Edit

Hernia repair surgery completed successfully. I feel fine, sore as heck around belly button, but nothing requires pain pills stronger than Tylenol. I suspect I will make it to work tomorrow or at worst Wednesday.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, April 06, 2020 - 01:40 pm: Edit

UPDATED 3:42, 2:27, 1:34, 1:24 PM
I am at my desk, as are Mike, Steven, and Leanna. Jean is working from home. I haven't heard from Samantha who was supposed to at least call in. UPDATE 1:24 Samantha called in and will be here Friday to do the newsletter.

I invented a new medal for "staying at your desk in the office during the COVID19 crisis" and awarded four of them.

Worked diligently on the huge pile of Easter chocolate that mysteriously appeared in the conference room.

I did a bunch of Lyrans for Paul Franz to use on FCOL, then discovered that I might have done most of them wrong. Sooner or later Paul will notice and I'll have to do them over. Sigh. So many tedious details. At least the Andros I did over the weekend don't have that particular error.

Did the cover for Coloring Book #2 and sent it to Jean. I discovered the incomplete files for two more coloring books so maybe we'll do one a week. Finished coloring book #2 but right now I'm waiting for Jean to approve the cover. UPDATE 1:15 JEAN approved the cover and final fixes. Starting now to spin up the final document.UPDATE 1:34 final version of coloring book #2 sent to Jean for upload.

I did the FC ship for the April 10 newsletter and gave it to Steven to check. Then I'll have to email both halves to Jean. This ship has a huge AHull. UPDATE 1:23 Made Petrick's fixes and put it in the EXTRAS file to generate a PDF. UPDATE 2:27 sent to Jean and Mike West.

I have an ACTA ship around here somewhere that I need to do for the newsletter Friday. I'll try to get it done today. UPDATE 2:27 sent to Jean and Tony.

I approved the first FRAX X-ship for Shapeways. It will release on May Day, Friday, 1 May!

I need to wrap up the rest of the "Starlist requests that the computer filed as SPAM after the Russians started sending 100 Starlist requests per day" and then do the two new ones that came in this week. UPDATE 3:42 All lost Starlist requests done. All new/recent Starlist requests done.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, April 30, 2020 - 06:18 pm: Edit

THURSDAY 30 APRIL

Meeting with Jean who comes to the office once a week.
Two walks with the dog.
Watched Al fix the things that the computer repair people didn't finish on my PC.
Sent Paul F three ships for FCOL.
Tried to pdf GURPS FEDS TWO but after I spent over an hour finding the bad code that stopped page 51 from printing I spent an hour not figuring out why page 113 (a page I made PDFs of several times before) would not print and gave up to go home.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, May 01, 2020 - 07:02 pm: Edit

FRIDAY 1 MAY

Checked on some Shapeways sprues and approved them. Gave one sculptor directions on where to take his project.
Helped Jean with Shapeways release.
Solve the problem with GURPS FEDS 2 and PDFed the rest of the book. Not stiched together yet.
Send Paul three ships for FCOL.
Worked on some fiction.
Sent the newsletter stuff to Samantha, who wasn't here today.
Fitbit walking, not enough, but some.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, May 02, 2020 - 02:49 pm: Edit

SATURDAY 2 MAY

GURPS FEDS REVISED: Started building the PDF. Got to page 51 and had to go back to the source files to regenerate a problem page.
Fixed and replaced page 51.
Continued adding segments to page 71.
Fixed and replace page 71.
Continued to page 113.
Nothing wrong, but I wanted to say THANKS to Al Beddow for creating actual GURPS combat vehicle data for the two armored units.
Complete book assembled. Jean/Leanna will have to add the covers and upload it next week.
I sent Paul F one ship just to keep some progress going.
I am going to go work on fiction for an hour.
Updated the Fed SIT and went home.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 04, 2020 - 10:41 am: Edit

SUNDAY 3 MAY

I sent Paul the Gorn BDL.
I worked on fiction.
I got some exercise.
I built the PDF for GURPS FEDS REVISION.
Dabbled on the Klingon SIT.
Posted a Shapeways assembly diagram by Will.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 04, 2020 - 10:42 am: Edit

MONDAY 4 MAY

The pain in my side from the lack of elective surgery is strong today. I got word at 6pm that my surgery is FIVE WEEKS AWAY.

I sent Paul the Andro Missionary and discussed with him the pacing of work on more ships. I have about 150 yet to be done so even at one a day we'll be done by late fall.

I discussed some shapeways stuff with a sculptor, but this led to a longer discussion with Jean. In the end, I asked two sculptors who have FRDs done to send them to Jean so she can run cost tests and see if these things are marketable at all.

I updated the color on the Klingon and Romulan SIT (changing provision and changed to standard colors so i can mark new provisional and changed blocks with the same colors). Did the 25 posts (70 line items) in the old March 2017 archive.

Reviewed the FC Vari playtest card and Gary Carney's report on it with Petrick and moved that project forward. I told Gary to go ahead and send him Omega Part II pack but that I would have to do the ship cards over in an editable format sooner or later for both packs.

I went and found an old F&E countersheet that I never finished and we never printed and permitted myself half an hour of playtime to see what it would take to finish it. Well, it's gonna take at least an entire day of work.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 05, 2020 - 02:22 pm: Edit

TUESDAY 5 MAY 2020

Gave Leanna the flash drive with GURPS FEDS REVISION. I just forgot to do that yesterday and she was very busy yesterday with orders.

Got word that I'm likely to have surgery on 1 June. However, the problem is that it's overnight stay surgery, and the surgical center's overnight stay beds are reserved for COVID19. 1 June is just the first day that the beds are not blocked. Any time in the next three weeks the local health board could seize those beds for another week or another month.

Using the B10 data from Chuck Strong, I completed that last bit of the Klingon SIT update for May 2020 and posted the file.

I prepared a new ACTA ship and a new FC scenario to be the Play Value Extras in Friday's newsletters and gave them to Petrick to review.

I did four Hydrans for FCOL and p rogrammed them to send to Paul o ne per day through Friday.

I approved the 7000 scale convoy sprue.

Did about 50 Romulan SIT line items.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 06, 2020 - 04:50 pm: Edit

STUFF DONE WEDNESDAY 6 MAY 2020

Talked with Samantha about newsletter and web fixes. Sent her newsletter stuff.

Did a lot of Romulan SIT fixes.

Sent Paul F a Hydran ship card for FCOL.

Made Petrick's fixes to a scenario for the newsletter and sent it to Jean.

Did Jean's GURPS thing for the newsletter and sent it to her.

Took a one mile walk that included passing by the place where my father used to run his business.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, May 07, 2020 - 06:13 pm: Edit

STUFF DONE THURSDAY 7 MAY 2020

Worked on Romulan SIT update.

Did the three attachments for tomorrow's newsletter.

Weekly meeting with Jean and Al. Administrative discussions on business in the age of COVID19. Al conducted the first test shot of Star Fleet Panzer in which a tank blew up an APC with one shot.

Sent a ship to Paul for FCOL.

Walked the dog over a mile.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, May 08, 2020 - 02:30 pm: Edit

STUFF DONE FRIDAY 9 MAY 2020

Worked on Romulan SIT update. Got staff reports on the first round of multi-step K-to-R conversions.

Sent the fourth Hydran ship to Paul for FCOL.

Checked in with Samantha on the newsletter.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, May 09, 2020 - 07:18 pm: Edit

STUFF DONE ON SATURDAY 9 MAY

I did some ISC ships for FCOL, sent one to Paul and qued the others to go one per day for a week.

I finished the SIT Update for the Romulans as much as I can and sent it to the staff.

I joined STEAM for all the good it did.

I set up the blank file for COLORING BOOK 3

I had to deal with some email from customers, vendors, my family, and the bariatric support club I help run.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 11, 2020 - 12:38 pm: Edit

STUFF DONE ON SUNDAY 10 MAY

Sent a second ISC ship to Paul for FCOL.

Worked on fiction.

Worked on SIT updates.

Cleaned up my desk.

Tried again to get STEAM to work. No luck.

Got the first section of the RYAN INDEX to open on the PC (it won't open on the Mac) but after those idiots upgraded the PC to W10 it cannot find the network or talk to the printers so I could not print a copy to review.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 11, 2020 - 02:24 pm: Edit

STUFF DONE ON MONDAY 11 MAY

Short day due to a delayed teeth cleaning appointment I really needed. On the way home I stopped at Jeans to take Wolf for a nice walk. Ended the day with 5200 steps.

Sent a third ISC ship to Paul for FCOL.

Tried again and failed again to get STEAM or PLANETBASE or CLIFF EMPIRE to work. Got lots of help from Steam and the publisher, none of which worked.

Leanna spent an hour trying to get the upgraded PC(w10) to talk to the network or the printers and finally gave up in disgust. She got a copy of the index thing to print on her printer [no, she didn't, after that faied we tried something else that also didn't work, then tried something else that did, sort of], which would in theory at least let me work on that one document but this is not a solution to anything. I spent the rest of the day reading the printed document. Finally realized something fundamental about the document that may mean it will never be published. It certainly has to almost be done over.

I got 132 Starlist requests from Russian hackers in the space of 20 minutes. Each had to be opened and viewed just in case it was real.

Approved McCammon's 7000 scale Fed and Klingon tugs/LTTs/pods

Did a bit of work on F&E SITs but I am waiting for Chuck's report when he gets back to home base.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 12, 2020 - 06:41 pm: Edit

STUFF DONE ON TUESDAY 12 MAY

Sent another ISC ship to Paul for FCOL.

Worked on some fiction.

SIT UPDATES: Still waiting for staff report on Roms. I set up the file for the Kzinti update.

DIE CUT COUNTERS: Reviewed source 3 and sent for more info. Send an email to source 1. Tried to track down the lost contact information for Source 2.

COLORING BOOK 3: I did the first of the 32 pieces of art.

RYAN INDEX: Consulted with Jean and Steve P. Gave Ryan a directive on how to proceed.

PC FIXES: The local expert reviewed the games and said my PC didn't have the power to run them. Asked local PC repair bunch for quote on upgrades but buying a new one is probably cheaper. Managed to reset the time zone for the clock.

SHAPEWAYS: Approved a bunch of ships, posted two design studies for commentary.

GURPS FEDS REVISED: confirmed that Leanna got the corrected cover to Jean.

Expanded my neighborhood walk route from 3/4 mile to a full mile.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 13, 2020 - 06:24 pm: Edit

STUFF DONE WEDNESDAY 13 MAY 2020

FEDCOM ON LINE: Sent Paul the last of the ISC ships I did. I'll do another batch tomorrow.

ADMIN: Sent some old FYEOs to Petrick. Cleaned 200 old posts out of outbox. (I use it to keep track of who owes me an answer and then forget to delete them.)

FICTION: did another battle scene.

DIE CUT COUNTERS: Without the PC I could not make progress with two of the sources but I did track down the records of the third source.

COLORING BOOK 3: Now halfway finished, Kzintis and Lyrans done.

RYAN INDEX: Reviewed one page of the latest version and sent corrections.

ePACK LYRANS: Queried staff on picking a new Lyran ship; They picked the CAL, whatever that is.

COMPUTER FIXES: They got Photoshop installed (I haven't tested it yet) and are quoting on building me a steam machine.

SHAPEWAYS: Approved four Lyrans and discussed the distribution of ships in the 7000 collections. Sent Chris N the new Orion Strike Cruiser no one has seen. He did an Orion Tug. He and Petrick debated the need for an Orion LTT.

When I got home I did my one mile neighborhood walk route.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, May 14, 2020 - 06:18 pm: Edit

STUFF DONE THURSDAY 14 MAY

Regular weekly staff meeting took up some of the productive time but if you don't plan you fail.

FCOL: did four D6 variants, sent one to Paul, programmed the others to send one per day.

ADMIN: Cleaned up outbox and inbox some more, cleaned up some FYEO files.

F&E SIT UPDATES: Did another 30 or so line items.

COLORING BOOK 3: Did the fighter page.

RYAN INDEX: Reviews two pages he sent. Jean scanned the corrections and emailed them.

LYRAN E PACK: Petrick got me the SSD of the CAL.

SHAPEWAYS: Reviewed a new Hydran ship and approved it.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, May 15, 2020 - 06:19 pm: Edit

STUFF DONE FRIDAY 15 MAY

FCOL: Sent Paul another Klingon ship

ADMIN: Continued to delete or file in box, out box, FYEO files.

F&E SIT UPDATES: got the Rom report but had to ask for more info. Did some line items on Kzintis but need the staff to do their thing so I don't have to keep moving old items to the bottom.

FICTION: Worked on some.

DIE CUT COUNTER: more research.

COLORING BOOK 3, Ryan Index: No progress.

LYRAN EPACK: Got DNW ssd from Petrick.

PC UPGRADE: Discussed with the vendor.

SHAPEWAYS: discussed FRDs with Zamboni.

TALON: Sent them a note to say we're still thinking about them but blocked by the virus from actually playing their game.

Did the grocery run. When I got home I did my one mile neighborhood walk route.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, May 16, 2020 - 12:06 am: Edit

My surgery is finally scheduled for 3 June. I might be confident that this date would hold if it had not been canceled out from under me three previous times. It will be awkward because Leanna won’t be there when I wake up; COVID19 protocol will not allow her in the hospital. The surgery is both the simplest and hardest I have ever had, being the shallowest and most extensive ever. The single U-shaped incision will be around three feet long. In the end I will have a flat stomach for the first time since 1971. So, 18 days to go. Then 3d6 days of recovery, then a week of slowly getting back to work, then four weeks to CL54.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, May 16, 2020 - 07:28 pm: Edit

STUFF DONE SATURDAY 16 MAY

FCOL: Sent Paul another Klingon D6 variant. He sent a note that I need to redo a ship which I will do on Monday when the current series runs out.

ADMIN: got the paperwork on my new STEAM PC but it crashed my email system and I had to spend over an hour getting it restored. Whenever that kind of crash happens it un-deletes everything deleted since that kind of crash hapened the last time, meaning 20,000 deleted emails returned and had to be deleted. I did clean 100 old messages out of the OUT box (down to 1700). Read today's FYEO first time in six months and forward five older ones to Petrick, filing them unread.

SHAPEWAYS: Figured out the Orion 7000s. Various discussions with sculptors about various projects.

F&E SIT CADENCE: did a report from Howard B from 2017, but all of it had been done three years ago. I did Turtle's line item endorsements which reduced the clutter somewhat.

I tried to do more but the pain got so bad I had to go home and take meds for it.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 18, 2020 - 11:54 am: Edit

STUFF DONE SUNDAY 17 MAY

Not much. The pain was bad and I cleaned up my desk, took a nap, and went home.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 18, 2020 - 07:28 pm: Edit

STUFF DONE MONDAY 18 MAY

I sent a corrected Fed DDF to Paul for FCOL.

I worked on several projects (Ryan Index, die cut counters, F&E SITs, fiction)

I got the outbox down to 1600 and the inbox down to 900. I read the last two FYEOs and sent them and five older ones to Steve Petrick.

I ordered my new megaPCsteam machine.

I approved a shapeways Orion HBR.

I went to the gym and worked out for the first time in four months. (I was sick during Jan and Feb, had surgery in April and they closed due to COVID.) Everything hurts but I feel good.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - 02:07 pm: Edit

STUFF DONE TUESDAY 19 MAY 6pm:

ADMIN: Got the inbox down to 850 and the outbox down to 1550.

COLORING BOOK 3: did the Hydran ships and fighters.

DIE CUT COUNTERS: Sent emails asking for info.

F&E SIT UPDATE: I did a bunch of Kzinti line items. Neither Chuck nor I have much stomach for the Romulan Chaos that has erupted. Maybe later.
Leanna reports that sheet RS is permanently out of stock and that F&E REINFORCEMENTS is no longer part of the product line.

FC EPACK CARDS: Nothing today.

FCOL: Sent Paul the KzintI FH and did preliminary work on the other Kzinti ships never sent to him.

FICTION: worked on a story.

FYEO: Read today's. Sent that and five older ones to SPP. Filed the older ones unread.

PERSONAL: Went to Gym.

RYAN INDEX: Read pages 1-6, updated my own index, gave to Petrick to read and pass along to Jean.

SHAPEWAYS: Approved Mongolamater Mauler.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, May 21, 2020 - 12:01 pm: Edit

WHUT GUT DUN Wednesday 20 May 2020

FCOL: I did some Kzinti ships and sent one to Paul

ADMIN: I got the outbox down to 1500 and the inbox down to 800. I read FYEO for today and sent Petrick 15 old ones which I filed unread. The pain was bad in the mornng but more manageable later.

FICTION: Wrote a bit more of the story I am working on.

COLORING BOOK 3: finished it so Jean can review it Thursday at the staff meeting. This consumed most of my day.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, May 21, 2020 - 03:07 pm: Edit

WHA HAPPUNED? 21 may 2020

STAFF MEETING: Decided to update and reprint SFB Module J then SFB module R2. Discussed formatting for empire MSSBs involved in those products but not done yet. COLORING BOOK THREE cleared for final changes and upload next week. Discussion of "Star Fleet Panzers" (Jean hates the name) which is basically a GURPS skirmish system.

FCOL: I sent another Kzinti to Paul.

MONGOOSE TRAVELLER: Jean gave me the Fed species pages. I read them and gave them to Petrick, spotting only one error.

ADMIN: Outbasket down to 1450, in basket down to 750. Read FYEO for today, send five from March to Petrick, filed them unread.

GYM: intense workout left me tired, sore, happy.

At 11pm I noted that I had 9,500 steps for the day so I walked the length of the house a few times to push it over 10,000 before bedtime.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, May 22, 2020 - 01:28 pm: Edit

WHAT I GOT DONE TODAY, 22 May 2020

FCOL: I sent Paul another Kzinti ship card and I started doing some LDR cards for the next batch.

GURPS KLINGONS REV: Jean emailed me the change lists but the format blew up and she will have to try again later.

ADMIN: Got outbox down to 1400, inbox down to 700, read FYEO for today, sent 15 from March to the file and to Petrick.

F&E SIT: thirty minutes got within striking distance of finishing theKzinti SIT.

COLORING BOOK THREE: All fixes made, PDF generated the sent to Leanna and Jean.

MY NEW STEAM COMPUTER: I checked and the processor and video card have not yet arrived so I won't get this before Monday or more likely Tuesday.

EXERCISE: intense gym workout, 8563 steps.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, May 23, 2020 - 06:41 pm: Edit

MY DAY: 23 May (Saturday) 2020
SVC Work:
FCOL I sent an ISC ship to Paul and changed the phasers on four LDR ships to move them toward being ready for the next round of uploads. I went back when I had a minute and changed LYRAN to LDR in all 8 titles.
ADMIN: I got the OUTBOX down to 1350. Found another lost conversation and moved it to the FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED file. Found a note to update the spelling of Vanacek in the Gazetteer and did so. I found an old update to the ship name list and implemented the three new names. Dealt with an online discount store that wanted to buy our products. (We don't sell to online stores; only brick-and-mortar stores.) I got the INBOX down to 650.
FYEO: Read today's file (about the Russians canceling both of their cruiser construction programs) and sent it to Petrick. I filed five March 2020 issues unread after sending them to Petrick. I filed 10 old issues from Oct 2019 unread.
FICTION: I wrote another scene of the story I am working on.
F&ESIT: Made the last corrections to the Kzintis. Posted a new Kzinti SIT.
EXERCISE: Gym for 50 minutes doing the front row of nine machines, 30 pause-reps and weight 3.
DIE CUT COUNTERS: Asked Critical Hit Games for information on their source for counters. Asked Superior Pod for information on our conversation about doing half-inch counters. (They haven't made them but I designed a die that will work on their equipment.)
LYRAN EPACK #2: I did the squadron version of the combined CAL. This will become the Lyran version in LEP2 and the LDR version in DER2. I put it on Petrick's desk.
RYAN'S INDEX: I sent him the ship name index for B and C and set up D, E, and F to email next week before my surgery on 3 June.
MEETING WITH LEANNA: she ordered that I put art for Petrick's Tholian MSSB on the top of my priority list.
GURPS KLINGONS REV: Jean sent me a readable copy of the change list.
SHAPEWAYS: I Posted Will McC's Orion OK6. I posted Zamboni's FRD. I posted Zamboni's tournament ships.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, May 24, 2020 - 06:00 pm: Edit

MY DAY 24 MAY (SUNDAY) 2020
SVC Work
FCOL: Sent Paul the last of the Kzinti ships I had done and spun up four LDR ships for this next week.
ADMIN: Outbox down to 1300. Inbox down to 600.
FYEO: Read today's FYEO and sent it to Petrick. Sent Petrick five March issues and filed them unread. Filed ten 2019 issues unread.
FICTION: Wrote another scene.
F&E SIT: Fixed the Kzinti HDWs. I will fix the HDWXs later.
EXERCISE: No gym today (I needed a break) but I got a lot of steps.
DIE CUT COUNTERS: Sent more emails.
LYRAN EPACK: Reviewed Petrick report on CAL.
GURPS KLINGONS REV: Reviewed first items.
SHAPEWAYS: Evaluated and approved another ship.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 25, 2020 - 06:53 pm: Edit

MY DAY: 25 May (Monday) 2020 MEMORIAL DAY
SVC WORK
FCOL: Resized four LDR cards for Paul. Sent one to Paul. Qued the others for the next three days. Opened up the last two Lyran ships and four North Polar ships and stripped the extraneous stuff (first step toward getting them ready).
ADMIN: Got the inbox down to 550. Got the outbox down to 1250.
FYEO: Read today's file and sent it to Petrick. Filed 16-20-25-30 Sept 2019 unread. Sent Petrick 1-5 Feb 2020 and filed them to read during recover.
FICTION: Worked on my Zombie novel today. Just felt in that mood.
F&E SIT: Finished entering Chuck Strong's lost HDW/HDWX report into the Kzinti SIT.
EXERCISE: Intense work out at the gym plus lots of walking. I added it up and I'm exercising two hours a day.
DIE CUT COUNTERS: Sent an email to Print Ninja about what they do. Sent an email to GameCrafter about what they do.
LYRAN EPACK: Made the fixes to the Lyran CAL squadron sheet.
GURPS KLINGONS REVISION: I made the fixes to page 1.
SHAPEWAYS: Reviewed and approved latest Hydran Monitor. Reviewed and approved Orion Strike Cruiser. Reviewed and approved Nasipak tournament 7000 sprue. Reviewed and approved Will's last revision to the OK6.
THOLIAN MSSB: I took the first look at how to change the existing Neo-Tholian art to match the new Shapeways designs. It won’t be as easy as I hoped.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 26, 2020 - 11:18 am: Edit

Week ending Sunday night: 56,489 steps

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 26, 2020 - 06:57 pm: Edit

MY DAY: 26 May (Tuesday) 2020
SVC WORK
FCOL: I sent Paul another LDR ship. Threw out one of the two Lyrans (not ready for publication) but got the other Lyran and the four North Polar ships ready to export tomorrow.
ADMIN: I got the inbox down to 500 and I got the outbox down to 1200. By dumb luck I got the clue I needed to solve a mysterious series of emails I have been getting for months. I talked with the company sending the emails and suggested that in future their email should include the name of their company and a working contact number or email address. The parts have not come in yet for my new Steam computer.
FYEO: Filed 1-30 Nov 2019. Read 26 May and sent it to Petrick.
FICTION: worked on my zombie novel some.
F&E SIT: Posted the correct Kzinti SIT update.
EXERCISE: It was "leg day" at the gym, doing various machines that stressed my leg muscles, plus that awful "crunches" machine that I hate so much.
DIE CUT COUNTERS: Heard from Print Ninja that they cannot do counters for us.
LYRAN EPACK: Final fixes on CAL.
GURPS KLINGONS REVISION: Re-linked the art to page 1 which allowed me to print it.
SHAPEWAYS: Reviewed the Orion Tug and sent changes to the Orion LTT.


New Neo Tholian art

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 27, 2020 - 11:40 am: Edit

MY DAY: 27 MAY

Going to be a useless wasted day. I have surgery scheduled a week from today so today I have to spend most of the day at the hospital taking the same tests I have taken three times (previous cancelled surgery dates) and answering the same questions I have answered three previous times (nothing has changed except my level of exasperation).

Dam n near nothing is going to get done today because the medical industry cannot comprehend "We did this last month. Nothing changed. Can I leave?"

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 27, 2020 - 04:06 pm: Edit

PLEASE READ

Well, back from the hospital in less time than I thought. I even got a COVID19 test! That's the good news.

The bad news is I am quarantined from now to surgery. No gym, no restaurants, no visitors.

After an argument, they agreed I could go to my office as long as I stayed in my room and had no contact with anyone. So the staff meetings on Thursday and next Tuesday are cancelled.

I will try to get some work done on the SITs, the Tholian MSSB, and the Lyran ePacks, but not much else.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, June 01, 2020 - 05:33 pm: Edit

WHAT I HAVE BEEN DOING

MY DAY: 28 May (Thursday) 2020
SVC WORK
FCOL: I sent Paul the last ship I had on file. I finalized the other five ships in the pipeline and programmed them to send one per day through 2 June. As I am having surgery on 3 June those will be the last until July 1st.
FYEO: I read today's file and sent it to Petrick. Sent Petrick all of the Jan 2020 files and put them in my stack to read during recovery.
ADMIN: I got the in-basket down to 450 and the outbox down to 1150. I circulated a memo to some staffers about how to present the two new Orion ships in the various game systems.
FICTION: Worked on a zombie novel.
F&E SIT: Worked on the Romulan mess.
EXERCISE: Banned from the Gym (by pre-surgery hospital rules) I got what walking I could get.
DIE CUT COUNTERS: Tried to understand Game Crafter's system.
LYRAN EPACK
GURPS KLINGONS REVISION:
SHAPEWAYS: I wrote a metric asteroid ton of ship descriptions for Jean.
THOLIAN MSSB: Zamboni sent me some very useful things to do the Neo-Tholian art properly.
==============
MY DAY: 29 May (Friday) 2020
SVC WORK
FCOL: I sent Paul the last batch of ships and said I wouldn't send more until 1 July. In the meantime, Paul was recruiting volunteers to process the other 100 ships I sent already.
ADMIN: I got the in box down to 400 and the outbox down to 1100.
FYEO: I filed the last of the old FYEOs for later reading, read today's copy, and forwarded that to Petrick.
FICTION: worked on a story.
F&E SIT: New Romulan SIT completed and posted. May still be some loose line items laying about.
EXERCISE: Walked when I could, not gym due to pre-surgery quarantine.
DIE CUT COUNTERS: Research.
GURPS KLINGONS REVISION:
SHAPEWAYS: Final staff coordination.
==============
MY DAY: 30 May (Saturday) 2020
SVC WORK
ADMIN: I took the day off to do things I needed to do before the surgery and recovery.
SHAPEWAYS: Approved a plan for the last of the Hydran 7000s on 1 July.
==============
MY DAY: 31 May (Sunday) 2020
SVC WORK
ADMIN: I took the day off to do things I needed to do before the surgery and recovery.
==============
MY DAY: 1 June (Monday) 2020
I tried to do things that would not wait until I got back from surgical recovery. I sent the newsletter stuff to Samantha. I sent Paul Franz some background art he wanted. I wrote some Shapeways descriptions for Jean. I watched the road crew pave the street in front of my office. (Reminds me of working for my grandfather the paving engineer when I was ten years old.) I checked the last of the mounted maps and made a note to order more of them. I read the FYEOs for 30 May, 31 May, and 1 June. I did the Romulan SIT update. Steve Petrick sent me the long-missing Romulan KF5GR for a newsletter Freebie.
==============

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, June 03, 2020 - 04:08 pm: Edit

The Doctors called and SVC has survived the surgery and is resting, presumable comfortably.

Now we just have to await the removal of the drains.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, June 05, 2020 - 05:08 am: Edit

Thanks for all the warm thoughts.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, June 05, 2020 - 04:51 pm: Edit

Recovery is moving along. I took one of the low dose pain pills and tbe soreness went away. We changed the dressings and the bleeding had stopped.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, June 07, 2020 - 01:13 am: Edit

If anyone who is 100 pounds over weight wants to talk to me about this option it may be best to do so offline. Such conversations involve a lot of personal information And maybe some crying. It’s not just about losing weight and feeling better, it’s about becoming a totally different person.

Bariatric surgery is not a magic pill or a silver bullet. It’s not enough, but only part of a plan that includes totally changing your relationship with food, spending an hour or more exercising every single day, Spending at least an hour a week in group therapy, and becoming someone who helps others instead of wallowing in self loathing.

It is a profound change, Moreso than anything you can imagine. It’s a bigger change than Agreeing to spending your life without electricity. It’s a bigger change than getting married. It is a bigger change than spending your entire life supporting one political party then waking up one morning to realize You were entirely wrong and working your ass off to elect the other party. It will mean losing some friends, making new friends, and rebuilding some relationships. Leanna cried for hours the night I was told in group therapy that I owed her an apology, realized I did, and made that apology.

And it is expensive. Medicare will pay for it. At least half of the health insurance policies in the USA will not. Figure on $25,000. Figure on eight very extremely painful and uncomfortable weeks of recovery. Count on messing up your hydration once and spending three days begging God to let you die.

And fifty percent of patients do not change their nutrition plan and start exercising. They think despite all the warnings that the surgery is a free pass and they can go back to eating cake and ice cream on the sofa while their body shrinks hour by hour. These people gain back all of the weight and more. These people become depressed and some of them emotionally disabled or suicidal.

Talk with me off line if you want more.

I did it, survived it, embraced it, and it was all worth it.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, June 15, 2020 - 12:18 am: Edit

READ THIS, IT MIGHT SAVE A LIFE

Some surgeries involve blood drains and you walk around for a week with these things extending out of your body. You have to empty them a few times a day and record how much blood you lost.

A drain consists of a small plastic ball commonly called a "grenade" because it looks sort of like one, two feet of plastic tube, and a white plastic thing (inside your body) which has holes so the blood over an area three inches long can get into the system.

The plastic ball (a bit bigger than an egg and about that shape) holds a suction. You remove the little stopper, empty the ball into a special measured cup, squeeze the ball flat, and the reinsert the stopper. Because the ball wants to expand to a ball shape, it will spend a few hours sucking blood out of places where it doesn't need to be just sloshing around loose.

Things can go wrong (and the nurse usually explains all this to you during discharge when you may be too doped up to understand it).

If you don't get the stopper in or it leaks, it doesn't hold suction and the blood stays inside and goes rancid after about a week. That almost killed me a couple of years ago.

The tube will eventually work its way out and once the white plastic thing with holes is outside of the skin, you're not holding suction and the same result happens and in a week or so you die. This happened to be about 4am Sunday but as I didn't understand the interior white piece I thought it was the same problem was before and had them replace the ball. Tomorrow morning I will have to go have minor surgery to re-insert a new drain.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, June 15, 2020 - 03:20 pm: Edit

There is a care management system that Medicare pays for. Your primary doctor signs you up for it. A nurse calls every month to update your file (all of your doctors can see it) and you can always call that nurse if you have a question or think you need to update something.

Also, my surgeon's office has a system where a nurse is on call 24/7. You call the office and talk to her. If they are closed, the answering service gets the nurse on duty on the phone for you. The nurse is mostly at home doing her own thing but she gets paid to take phone calls. It's part of her job. A very nice nurse named Staci held my hand by phone through a difficult weekend and had me come in today where she pulled the plug, so to speak.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, June 22, 2020 - 03:03 pm: Edit

THURSDAY: staff meeting, went well.

FRIDAY: Samantha resigned to focus on her school work. I got a little work done.

SATURDAY: I went to Leanna's Red Hat meeting and gave a brief history lesson on TEXAS WOMEN DURING THE CIVIL WAR.

SUNDAY: Leanna and I took a "just for the two of us" day and it was splendid.

MONDAY: America's funniest home accidents aren't funny. What was a minor fall put me into a wheel chair for the day (torn muscles in my calves) and I stayed home to rest.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - 08:29 am: Edit

I hit 990 miles on my Fitbit. I have been walking about 2.5 miles a day for months, including a one mile walk in the late evening. I cut way back during surgical recovery for two weeks and usually take Sunday off.

Yesterday my personal trainer cleared me to go back to work on the leg machines. He also started me on doing chin ups, the first time I had done that since 1975. They were girl chin ups with my feet on the floor and lifting about 2/3 of my weight, but for the first ones in 45 years I will take the 25 I did.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, August 02, 2020 - 07:43 pm: Edit

STARLIST is getting 1500 Russian spams per HOUR and this is overwhelming my email system, crashing the entire computer. Worse, restarting email sends it into a recovery loop where it undeletes every email I ever deleted over the last ten years and it takes literally 45 minutes to let it undelete them and then manually redelete them. I don't frankly know what to do other than have Simone disable the STARLIST system.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, August 03, 2020 - 02:19 am: Edit

I do not know what I did to piss off Russia.

Months ago I started getting five or ten Russian advertisements per day. Then five per hour. Then 100 per day. They were all from different addresses and all had different ads.

Three days ago I started getting 500 per hour. They were all from the same address and just contained random gibberish, not any ads or links.

Jean reported on Saturday at 8pm that she was getting flooded with email.

I went home Saturday night at 7pm with the email files clear and came in today Sunday at 3pm with way over 20,000 of these things, all identical, just the same junk over and over. I had set a filter so those were in the trash, but the trash bin locked down holding 32,000 total emails since I deleted the entire trash on Friday. At this point my email program and computer crashed. I restarted the computer (no problem) and then restarted the email (big problem, the crash/restart meant it went into a rebuild cycle and UNdeleted everything I had deleted for years. So I emptied the trash of 32,000 emails and then deleted all of the just UNdeleted emails, meantime it started getting 500-600 emails every time it cycled (20 minutes). (It did that same thing crash/restart/undelete/delete Friday and again Saturday. It takes 45 minutes for it to undelete everything and then redelete it, 45 minutes during which nothing can be done on the computer on any program.) I had to go through the crash/restart/undelete/delete thing twice today and so I just turned email off.

I then went to the server through the PC and could not delete the spams as fast as they were coming in. It showed 50 per screen and was filling and jumping to a new screen about once a minute. I would try to select some to delete and it would jump to the next page faster than I could delete what was on the previous page. I had dozens of pages of spam at 50 per page and was getting about a page a minute. Eventually the server maxed out and started bouncing emails. I could then delete 50 at a time but they filled up in less than a minute.

I called Jean who told me Simone already fixed it. I asked when and Jean said "this morning" but I told her rather emphatically that I was still getting a spam a second RIGHT THEN at 7pm, 10 hours after the problem was "fixed". Jean said "let me call Simone" so I went for my evening walk and got a phone call 20 minutes later (when I was four blocks from home and it started to rain, the day getting better and better) to say that starlist was shut down and we would deal with things in the morning.

Well, I check the Starlist page hours ago and it was not shut down. I just checked it again and it is still up.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, August 04, 2020 - 10:32 am: Edit

Over 50,929 steps last week (Sunday-Saturday) with 2874 calories burned per day. I have turned into an exercise fiend, getting two hours per day five days a week and an hour a day on the weekend.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 05, 2020 - 07:19 pm: Edit

Trying to keep progress going on small projects before the Great Dragon of CL54 arrives on Monday.

Today I finished STAR FLEET MARINES COUNTER-STRIKE. Star Fleet Marines Counter-Attack was finished last week.

I got the ISC armored vehicles done for STAR FLEET (PANZERS) [Jean won't approve that name]

I made a bit of progress on GURPS KLINGONS REVENGE (I mean REVISED) and on LDR SHIP CARD PACK #2. Lyran Ship Card Pack #2 was finished last week.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, August 11, 2020 - 11:45 am: Edit

MONDAY
I was supposed to start CL54 and (barely) did.
Mostly I worked on a contract thing and on the two play value extras for the newsletter which Jean had delayed to Wednesday.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, August 11, 2020 - 11:48 am: Edit

TUESDAY
Before lunch I made the fixes to the two play value extras and sent them to Simone for upload.

I also fired up the spreadsheet for CL54 which shows we are 21% finished, not a bad start. Most of that is the 15-page fiction story Gary Carney wrote (Return of the Darwin). We plan to finish CL54 in four weeks but there is a remote chance it could be faster and a slight chance it could take longer. As always, this will be a hard copy release only; the PDF version won't happen for three or four years.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, August 11, 2020 - 11:58 pm: Edit

Two years ago I could not walk 100 yards without sitting down. Tonight I walked 1.5 miles (and 2 miles each of the three previous nights) without stopping, resting, sitting down, without pain, and without being exhausted. Most people can get healthier than they are if they just start, keep at it, and build on their workout routine as they can. (A personal trainer and a gym membership help.) Eventually, fitness actually becomes fun.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 12, 2020 - 06:07 pm: Edit

Wednesday: I got a few bits and pieces done on CL54. This included the FIRST finished page (the why article).

As part of the CL54 process, I had to review (and spend time revising) the Shapeways schedule so I knew what to announce in Captain's Log. (I want all of the metal ships copied to Shapeways by year's end, with the first tanks and people by the first quarter of next year.)

I have a business document on my desk that I need to get off of my desk.

I talked with the new die cutter company. Now I have to go talk to the local printer about what to send the die cutter, then get quotes from the die cutter.

Once again, I just never got to the promise to work on art for the Tholian MSSB.

And I totally spaced doing the last paragraph of HAILING FREQUENCIES today so that didn't come out on time. Tomorrow, sigh, tomorrow.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, August 15, 2020 - 04:16 pm: Edit

I had been promising Petrick (every day) that I would work on this Tholian MSSB art. Today finally I kept the promise, doing the 37 main era R1 generic illustrations. Took about two hours. These things are tedious and pushing the edge of what the computer can do, but I got through the two hours with only three meltdowns.

I need to do something on CL54, anything, really, that puts points on the board. But it's 3pm Saturday and I really want to go home and lay down. My back hurts from hunching over the keyboard.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 10, 2020 - 10:45 am: Edit

These photos show the foxes from next door eating birdseed on my patio.





Sorry for quality, cell phone through a French door into a dark night.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, November 14, 2020 - 03:02 pm: Edit

MY COVID VACATION: I avoided talking about this because it didn't really matter and I didn't want to be seen as seeking sympathy. Anyway, I am just back to work after two weeks of COVID lockdown.

Four weeks ago I got sick, some kind of cold or something, wasn't COVID but we didn't know that until later. I missed about a week of Productive work although I did some updates and indexes and stuff.

Then we had the ice storm. Such things terrify Jean but we get them all the time and everyone else just drives carefully and goes to work anyway. But this time, looking at retirement in some form sometime in the near term I didn't want to spend six months in a wheelchair so I stayed home.

Then Leanna got sick. We had her tested and she came up positive for a mild form of COVID19. That sent both of us to lockdown for two weeks even though I tested negative.

Anyway, I'm back, with a metric asteroid ton of serious production work and non-revenue updates to do, enough to see me through the Spring of next year. I got some work done on the home computer but not much.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, December 07, 2020 - 05:42 pm: Edit

THIS IS NOT NEWS: As I have said a few times since January, I plan to retire sometime in 2021 (which will involve selling the company to someone with the resources to do things I could never do). All of the possible buyers say that when I retire whoever buys the company (if you want to submit a bid email me) they want me work part time doing game design only and avoid the stress of running the company. I love being a game designer. Being a game publisher is a lot of stress I could do without. I am 69.5 years old and it's 4.5 years past time for me to enjoy life including trips to Israel, Egypt, and Machu Pichu.

We also expect to replace Leanna with a new employee in the next few months.

Steve Petrick plans to stay for the foreseeable future so there will be a solid transition.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, December 12, 2020 - 01:30 am: Edit

Every day for the last two weeks I have completed a run/jog of 1/2 mile (800M). Every day of the last month I have completed a brisk 3/4 mile (or 1 mile) walk. I now know all of my neighbors within 8 city blocks and feed a Milk Bone TM to all of their dogs once a day (which keeps the dogs quiet instead of upsetting the entire neighborhood as my health walk riles up every dog I pass).

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Wednesday, December 23, 2020 - 11:01 pm: Edit

That's awesome. Thanks for telling the story.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, December 24, 2020 - 01:09 am: Edit

I have told it many times. I'm surprised someone had not heard it.