Saturday JULY 3rd 2021
FCOL: I sent them the RegalHawk and the cargo SkyHawk.
F&E-WB: I did all of Jean’s fixes to Planetary Operations. I reorganized Annex 760, moving the common abbreviations such as CW and DW into the first part, and adding other abbreviations I had found in various places. I made all of the BBS fixes except some that didn’t match the text that was there.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - 02:20 pm: Edit

Sunday JULY 4th 2021
I took the day off for a local celebration party and rested.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - 02:21 pm: Edit

Monday JULY 5th 2021
FCOL: I sent them the Fed commando frigate and the ship from the 10 July newsletter.
FC: I sent the newsletter ships for July and August to Mike West.
F&E-WB: I made all of the fixes to PO (so far).
Shapeways: I sent Jean some ship descriptions.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - 02:22 pm: Edit

Tuesday JULY 6th 2021
FCOL: I did not have time to send them anything.
F&E-PO: I made the last fixes, did the PDF for STAGE SIX, and sent it to Jean and the staff and the stratconners.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - 02:22 pm: Edit

Wednesday JULY 7th 2021
FCOL: I sent them two Fed ships for Tuesday and made a note to send two more when I could. I went back at the end of the day and sent them two Frax torpedo ships.
SFB MODULE R2 REVISION; I did the scenario art and gave it to Steve Petrick to check.
F&E-WB: This was my first post-StratCon day and I tried to avoid doing F&E things to give other games a chance, but I did have to cycle the F&E-Q&A things since the staff got busy doing them again. Thomas Mathews cleared 10, 11, and 18. Mike Curtis cleared 23, 24, 33, and 34. Ryan Opel cleared 19, 20, 21, and 22. I SENT Ryan 38, Mike 39, and Turtle 40. I set up blocks 41-45 just to have them ready, then decided to send Turtle 41 and Ryan 42 which leaves three in reserve. There seem to be about 50 blocks remaining.
NEWSLETTER: I did the Fed ship and the Gorn ship and sent them to Simone. I wrote the big news for the newsletter and sent the draft to Jean.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - 02:22 pm: Edit

Thursday JULY 8th 2021
FCOL: I sent them the Klingon F6E and F5S.
SFB R2: I finalized the scenario art and sent it to Steve Petrick with my best wishes.
F&E-WB: Turtle cleared Block 40 so I sent him Block 43. I set up blocks 44-45 I found some stuff that was clearly planetary ops and sent it to Ryan as Block 46. I went through the old stuff and pulled out anything that applied to the Stratcon Four (blocks 47-49) and did then the next oldest captain’s log which set up blocks 50-54. Jean gave me the first two pages of PO-21-VI she had marked up, and that gave me the opportunity to do a bunch of fixes to the first two pages of all four products in order to standardize the presentation.
Newsletter: I made Jean’s changes to BIG NEWS and sent it to Simone.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - 02:23 pm: Edit

Friday JULY 9th 2021
FCOL: I sent them the Romulan RKL and the LDR DWE.
F&E-WB: I read part of the F&E2KX rulebook and made some notes for updates. Warren Mathews cleared 41 and 43. I sent him 44 and 45.
Jean and Al came to the office to be taught the accounting system so they can cover for Leanna during her surgery (late August) and recovery.
Rangers: Al and I discussed the Rangers and I sent him a bunch of graphics.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - 02:23 pm: Edit

Saturday JULY 10th 2021
NEWSLETTER: Steve Petrick and I cleared the newsletter for release but were waiting for Jean to release it. I did the Andro Krait SQ for FC for a future newsletter (customer request).
FCOL: I sent them the LDR BC and BCH. I did the other four LDR ships just to clear the file, but won’t send those until next week.
F&E-WB: Warren/Turtle did Q&A Block 44; I sent him Block 47. I qued up Block 55. That left 59 pages in the file that started at 100 on the first of June. I did some more clean-up work on the file, deleting some stuff I noticed was just RTM.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - 02:23 pm: Edit

Sunday JULY 11th 2021
I stayed home to rest and to start the construction of Leanna’s new home office desk.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - 02:23 pm: Edit

Monday JULY 12th 2021
FCOL: I sent them two more LDRs. There are two left. I got the last Fed, one of the last Klingons, and two of the last FRAX ready to send so I have them on the bench.
F&E-WB: Jean did not have time to do more proofreading. Chuck asked when I’d have CO ready for the staff but there are too many non-F&E things that were not done during June for me to focus on that now. No Q&A blocks from the staff; no proofreading from Jean.
I lost the rest of the day to getting my car serviced and a doctor’s appointment.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - 02:24 pm: Edit

Tuesday JULY 13th 2021
Newsletter: Simone released the July newsletter.
STAFF MEETING: This set Jean’s priorities as Planetary Ops. My priorities are to be (1) Planetary Ops (Jean’s report moving it from 6.0 to 7.0), then (2) ACTASF revisions due to that little problem with the Web Breaker, and then (3) Combined Ops move from 4.5 to 5.0.
FCOL: I sent them the last two LDRs and a Kzinti ship they were not sure if they had or not. I exported the last three Klingon ships to JPG for later transmission. They asked me for the andro energy modules which were ready anyway so I JPGed them for later transmission.
FC: Mike West asked for a ship to be put into FC so I put it in the BLUE FILE of small projects I might find time for soon.
F&E-WB: No Q&A blocks from the staff; no proofreading from Jean.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 22, 2021 - 02:44 pm: Edit

Wednesday JULY 14th 2021
FCOL: I sent them the Klingon D7Z and F5J. I resized more ships for future days. I sent them the Andro Energy Modules for Thursday since I won’t be in the office that day. I determined that there were only sixteen published ships not sent to FCOL yet.
F&E-WB: No Q&A blocks from the staff; no proofreading from Jean. I made the "look and feel" changes to pages 1-2 for CO, AO, and SO.
ACTASFB2: It took very few minutes to fix the web breaker problem. We just have to figure out how to get them uploaded.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 22, 2021 - 02:45 pm: Edit

Thursday JULY 15th 2021
Leanna had a medical thing that took me out of the office all day.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 22, 2021 - 02:45 pm: Edit

Friday JULY 16th 2021
FCOL: I sent them two Frax Submarines. When they said they had both of them I sent them the Fed NCT as a backup. Paul Franz noted that I had sent him a Fed NAC which is listed as being part of Fed Pack #5 which was never released. I can find no record of such a pack but it sounds like something I could do next month or later (depending on how much time I am out of the office for Leanna’s surgery). Chris asked about the Neo-Tholians and I made a note to update the graphics, sending them the NDN as a sample (which they approved) and as the second ship of that day.
F&E-WB: Thomas Matthews cleared blocks 45 and 47. I sent him 48 and 49. Ryan cleared blocks 38 and 42 and 46. I sent Ryan 50, 51, and 52. I still have 50-54 unsent in my outbox, set up 55-60, and have maybe 35 more not processed.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 22, 2021 - 02:46 pm: Edit

Saturday JULY 17th 2021
FCOL: I sent them the Klingon E4D and F5G. I finalized four skiffs to send them Sunday. I finalized five Neo-Tholians to send them later. I finalized the last two Frax. At this point the only thing left is the various Smash skiffs.
F&E-WB: No staffer did any Q&A blocks today but I spun up blocks 61, 62, and 63 just because I could. I wrote most of a page of Captain’s Log (an article on the StratCon Four). I made Jean’s fixes to PO-300.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 22, 2021 - 02:46 pm: Edit

Sunday JULY 18th 2021
FCOL: I sent them four skiffs before leaving Saturday.
I finished assembling Leanna’s new home desk.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 22, 2021 - 02:46 pm: Edit

Monday JULY 19th 2021
We got a nice card from Buddy and June Knight (veterans of the Navy and SFU) who had visited the office last week.
FCOL: I sent them four revised Neo-Tholians and one new one.
F&E-WB: No Q&A blocks from the staff; no proofreading from Jean. I added product notations to another page of the index (new one not uploaded yet). I made Jean’s fixes to PO pages 11-17, all she has given me to date. I made the fixes to CO-500 and sent it to the staff. I did all of the 300 and 400 reports from the BBS for CO-2021.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 22, 2021 - 02:47 pm: Edit

Tuesday JULY 20th 2021
Tuesday Staff Meeting: We scheduled the release of PO-2021 for the first week of August.
FCOL: I sent them the last two FRAX ships. I spun up the three Smasher skiffs for them for tomorrow. They asked me to send them the CL39 early years ships and I copied all ten of them into the FCOL-to-do file. I did the first step for all ten and then exported the first five into jpgs.
F&E-WB: Thomas "Turtle" Mathews did block 48. I sent him 53. Jean brought me pages 18-36 and the check-changes for 2-17. I made the fixes; and she approved. I made the changes to 18-22 and she checked those.
Rangers: Steve Petrick and I reviewed Al Beddow’s new Ranger Handbook and gave him some things to fix. The Rangers were never what they could have been since Steve Petrick and I were never sure what to do with them, and Jean knew what to do but didn’t have time. Al plans to make the program actually work.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 22, 2021 - 02:48 pm: Edit

Wednesday JULY 21st 2021
FCOL: I sent them the three Smasher skiffs. I got all ten EY ships ready to send in the future. I sent them two of the ten EY ships.
F&E-WB: Jean brought me the rest of PO proofread. I fixed some pages but have more to do. Jean’s proofreading is a moving target. As soon as I learn one thing she wants she suddenly invents another massive global change she wants done.
Quarterly Reprint Committee Meeting: Steve Petrick is about to finish R2 rulebook revision, then will do R1 MSSB, then R6 SSD book.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, July 23, 2021 - 04:36 pm: Edit

Thursday JULY 22nd 2021
FCOL: I sent them two more EY ships. I thought I was about done with FCOL when they told me they want me to do 70+ MY ships from Sup2. I thought that would be a problem but it turns out I did that in 2009 and just have to resize them and resend them. I sent the first two just as a test and got 10 more ready for the future.
Jean continued being trained to take over Leanna’s job during her recovery or longer.
F&E-WB: I made Jean’s fixes to PO-500-600-700-800-900. Thomas cleared block 45. I sent him priority block 64. I sent Ryan Priority block 65. Those and blocks 66-67 are planetary Ops questions.
Thursday Marketing Meeting: It was decided to split R1-MSSB into three products: R1-MSSB proper (the real empires, R1-MSSB-Supplement 1 (Paravians, Carnivons, Borak, Nicozians, Peladine), and R1-MSSB-Supplement 2 (simulators). The two supplements won’t be done this year.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, July 24, 2021 - 04:26 pm: Edit

Friday July 23rd 2021
FCOL: I sent them the last six Early Years ships and two more Middle Years ships (3-4). I wanted to do more but I was short on time.
F&E-WB: I did Jean’s re-check fixes to PO-500 and also did the few BBS items on that chapter. Turtle cleared priority block 64 but said he would be busy until the 29th. I sent him 54 to do then. He had earlier cleared 49 and 53 so I sent him 57-58. Ryan did Priority Block 65 so I sent him priority blocks 66-67. Ryan cleared regular blocks 50-51-52 so I sent him regular blocks 55-56. I spun up 68-69-71-72-73-74 just to keep ahead. I thought about just spinning up all the remaining blocks but I just didn’t have time. CLEAR (52), SENT TO STAFF (8), READY (14), PENDING (25). I went through the Q&A file pulling into blocks 95-99 things I knew were not connected to the Stracon Four. Those will be done last.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, July 24, 2021 - 04:26 pm: Edit

Saturday July 24th 2021
Al and I moved the last of the firewood from his house to my neighbor’s house.
FCOL: They sent me a list of ships they already have for MY/B2. I sent them 5 and 6. They asked me to send 9 and 10, so I sent them and 12. I got 13-22 ready to send later.
F&E-WB: No blocks from staff. I set up block 75 with all of the CO stuff I could find that wasn’t in a block. I did all of the staff Q&A roundup stuff I could find for all of PO. Jean threatened to boil the entire F&E staff in sweet & sour sauce.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, July 26, 2021 - 04:37 pm: Edit

Sunday JULY 25th 2021
I spent the day resting.
FCOL: Before leaving Saturday I sent them 7 and 8.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, July 26, 2021 - 04:37 pm: Edit

Monday JULY 26th 2021
FCOL: I sent them MY/B2 11, 13, and 14. I have 15-20 ready to go. When Jean didn’t bring me any PO stuff to do, I took a few minutes to get MY/B2 21-24 ready for later.
F&E-WB: Ryan cleared priority blocks 66 and 67, which should be everything for PO. I sent him Priority Block 75, which was all stuff from CO. Ryan cleared blocks 55 and 56. I sent him 68, 69, and 70. I set up Block 76 just so I’d have ten ready blocks. At this point: 35-36-37, 39, 54, 57-58, 68-70, and 75, are in the hands of the staff; 59-63, 71-74, and 76 are ready to send; 77-93 are still in bulk form; 94-99 are all stuff from Basic Set that is just in the way of the StratCon Four project and I didn’t want to slow down the staff. I pulled out an entire block of basic set combat questions (block 93) just to get them out of the way. I noticed a whole block of scenario questions not part of StratCon Four and made them block 92. I went back to the well and pulled out priority block 77 of StratCon Four stuff, mostly AO and SO.
PO: Nothing done today.
CO: I did everything on the BBS for this product. I am due to deliver it to Jean on 4 August for demonic proofreading and release in the first week or September. I did get really upset at the constant attempts to make RIGCEs into something that resolves damage points. DO NOT try that again.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, August 02, 2021 - 03:15 pm: Edit

Tuesday JULY 27th 2021
FCOL: I sent them MY/B2 ships 15-16-17. I got MY/B2 ships 25-28 ready for the future.
Shapeways: I approved two Carnivon ships and sent Jean six ship descriptions, two of which I had to create out of thin air.
F&E-WB: No Q&A blocks from the staff today. Jean turned in her final proofreading for PO (five total typos!); I made all of the fixes in two minutes. I set up block 91 (retreat questions) and block 90 (carrier groups) and block 89 (conversion and construction of ships) to get them out of the way of questions about the StratCon Four. I finished adding product subscripts to the F&E Index.
Tuesday Staff Meeting: We set the schedule for PO-21 release during the first week of August.