A Short Sunday Annoyance

I have been wrestling with a household issue that is both annoying, frustrating, and vexing: fire alarms.

About 2 years ago, our long running fire alarm in the hallway at the top of the stairs started going off for no good reason. I cleaned it off, reset it, and a couple of days later it would go off again. I sighed, went down to Lowe's, and discovered that they didn't carry any of the battery operated fire alarms anymore. They had wired fire alarms and fire alarms with a sealed battery in them that were supposedly good for 10 years, and that was it. So I picked up one of the 10-year alarms and installed it.

A few months later THAT alarm started going off at random times, so I grumbled and got a replacement. Finally, we had some peace and that alarm behaved as it should: only going off when I actually tested it with smoke.

So, that was how things stayed until about 3 months ago, when that alarm started going on the fritz. I reset it, cleaned and dusted around it, and it stopped the random behavior. 

Until a couple of days ago.

This time around, I decided that I was done with these First Alert fire alarms misbehaving so I went to Home Depot to see if they had other brands.

Sure enough, they had the Kidde brand instead of First Alert*, and whaddya know, there were AA battery operated fire alarms available in addition to the 10 year sealed models. And they were a LOT cheaper, so I picked one up and just installed it about 1/2 hour ago.

I don't know if enshittification has hit something so basic --yet so critical-- as fire alarms, but if they start asking for subscriptions for these things I think I know the answer.

*Back when we first moved into our house Home Depot had First Alert, then they switched to Firex, and in 2009 Kidde bought Firex out and the brand name changed to Kidde. Go figure. Lowes wasn't in our area at the time, so I have no idea what they carried back then.

EtA: Corrected spelling and grammar.

#Blaugust2026

A Vacation from My Vacation

Last evening was the first time I'd been on WoW in several days.

Oh, stop being dramatic.
From Titanic.

It's not that I was tired of WoW or anything, I just didn't log in. There was no pressing need to get on, and I was doing other things, so that was that.

It's always good to gain some perspective by stepping back from what you're immersed in to look around a bit. That's the important part of taking a vacation --not the actual going and doing part-- but rather the self-evaluation made when you step away from your work for a while. I don't think it an accident that the "Great Resignation" came about after the Covid-19 Pandemic. People had plenty of time to think about their lives and the direction they wanted to go, and... They weren't happy with where they were headed. I can't say I blame them one bit, because I know I did.

Given my age, I suppose it's no surprise I've begun reading up on retirement and what it is like for people. I've often quipped that I'll never actually be able to retire, as multiple economic downturns have pretty much sealed the deal for me on that part, but still I wonder if I could make it work. And how other people make retirement work for them as well.

For me, one thing is certain: I'm not one for traveling. My experiences traveling, beginning in my childhood, have never been what I'd call enjoyable. If a family vacation was "not miserable" then that was about as good as it was going to get. Even as an adult I found the few family vacations we took to be not very enjoyable because for certain people in the family a vacation meant "GOGOGO" and "DODODO", when all I wanted was to park myself somewhere and just close my eyes and relax. And as you can imagine, I did not win those familial battles, so I gamely had to deal with it. 

It's kind of ironic that I play games and read books that frequently involve traveling from one place to another, because I'm just done with dealing with all that in real life. Perhaps its because it's more an idealized way of travel without having to do it yourself, particularly given the prices of everything surrounding travel, but it could also be having to witness how cringey some travelers are. You know the old joke about how if you're speaking to someone in another country and they don't understand you, the solution is to speak it LOUDER? Yeah, I've seen that in action. That and a ton of other faux pas that give a credence to the stereotypical Ugly American abroad. And for me, that's just in my own freaking country. 

But right now, stepping back from WoW for several days was what I needed and I didn't even know I needed it. I felt refreshed when I logged in last evening, and I ran a couple of dungeons with people who I didn't know but had an enjoyable time with. I realize that is pretty much the luck of the draw, but falling into a group with a tank/healer combo who were from the same guild and were happy with my output (as in: not pushy into how to maximize my DPS) was pretty much chef's kiss. 

It was low stress and enjoyable, and that's all I could have asked for.

EtA: Fixed a typo.

#Blaugust2026

Gen Con 2026 - Emptying the Backpack

When I mentioned in the previous video that there were things to unpack, I wasn't kidding.

I typically bring the backpack I use for work when I go to Gen Con.* It prevents me from going crazy and buying all sorts of stuff at Gen Con because it had all better fit in that backpack. I realize I could just carry around an extra bag, but come on. Have you SEEN the crowds at Gen Con? We're talking about ~74,000 attendees over four days, and the place was already crowded enough without me lugging around an extra bag. I also held some things for my son, so my parts of my backpack were already spoken for.

That means I didn't end up buying board games at Gen Con, but that's okay. If I wanted to buy a board game, I'd rather support my local game store.

Funny thing, that...

My Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS) held an "RPG Celebration Sale" on July 18th, where all RPGs and both Reaper and WizKids Minis were 20% off. Oh, and if you spent enough ($50) they had a bunch of goodie bags full of freebies to give away. 

So...

Yeah, I indulged there, knowing full well that it was coming out of my Gen Con budget. Therefore, I'm counting what I purchased there as part of my Gen Con haul. My blog, my rules.

...and that's it.

Yes, I bought a RuneQuest splatbook that fills in the gaps of some of the RuneQuest mythology, and what's ostensibly the Pendragon Gamemaster Screen but with several extras...

Yeah, just a few.

The map actually won awards at Gen Con last year, so I was happy to have that included in the bundle, but there was also a Gamemaster Gazetteer and some Gamemaster Resources tucked away in separate booklets.

(Hmm... I ought to do an RPG From the Past on Pendragon in general.)

Both of these items were printed by Chaosium, who were well represented at Gen Con, but I thought it better to purchase these at my local store so not only would Chaosium get paid but so would my local store.

***

Now, about Gen Con itself...

I gave serious consideration to picking up another Traveller book, and my oldest espied me perusing the volumes there in the Exhibit Hall and teased me a bit about that. However, in the end I decided to not purchase my typical annual Traveller book because I had other things in mind.

One item was a pure impulse buy:

Published by Goodman Games.

Yes, it doesn't look like much --more like a notebook that someone had doctored with stickers-- but I was quite surprised to find this at Goodman Games' booth because I hadn't heard anything about it. You see, several years ago I'd purchased this book from my FLGS:

I'm always up for a book of short pieces from experienced game designers and game masters to help me understand the process behind adventure design, and this proved to not only be a great read but full of great tips as well. So when I saw its sequel at Gen Con, I immediately snapped it up. The listing of authors on the back of the new volume didn't exactly hurt, either:

Even my wife, who looked over my purchases when I got back home, recognized some of the names: Luke Gygax (one of Gary's sons), Steve Jackson ("THE Steve Jackson??" she asked), and Sean K. Reynolds. I knew a lot more of the authors than she did, and that alone made it worthwhile to pick up.

A bit later I wandered by the MIT Press booth, and I pretty much geeked out a bit. Yes, I am a real geek if I get excited about a university press being represented at a con such as Gen Con, and unlike last year they brought enough books that they still had products to sell on Sunday. And being the history nerd that I am, I bought two books about the history of Role Playing Games:

Both of these books are THICK, each at least an inch thick, and I've listened to Jon's podcasts off and on over the course of the past year so I knew what I was getting when I bought these: well researched and well written. I mean, MIT wouldn't have published them if that wasn't the case.

I did pick up a short and sweet game about cat cuddles for my youngest --no, she's not going to play it with Mooch-- and I stopped by Many Worlds Tavern because I saw something that spoke to me: coffee. I remembered that Many Worlds sells coffee and tea, and while the only ground or whole bean coffee they had left on Sunday afternoon was decaf, I picked up some loose leaf black tea to drink when I'm not in a coffee mood:

Morning Mists Breakfast Black Tea

It'll go well with a present my oldest gave me at Gen Con which she'd gotten from a local coffee shop in Milwaukee:

From Stone Creek Coffee. I've discovered that
Milwaukee has quite a few good coffee shops.

Oh, I guess I ought to mention a few freebies I got as part of attending Gen Con:

The little die in the pouch came from Many Worlds Tavern for purchasing the tea, the poster of the Daggerheart expansion that came out was being just handed out at the end of the con, and I figured "why not" and picked it up. That last one, the Knights of the Dinner Table comic, came from Kenzer and Co., and for me was a blast from the past. I have several KotD comics around (somewhere) that I'd picked up a couple of decades ago, so seeing a freebie just being handed out like that made me happy. I got to see an old friend again.

***

So, that's it. Not all that much, but enough for me. The books alone will keep me busy when I'm not working on radio or writing or gaming.

The crowds aside, I'm looking forward to next year's Gen Con!

*Minus my laptop, of course.

#Blaugust2026

On The Road Again, 2026 Version

By the time you read this, I'll already be on the road up to Indianapolis for Gen Con 2026.

This year, I didn't quite trust my almost 30 year old Honda Accord to make the trip* so I decided to get a rental this time around.

Why a rental? Because my wife is working today, and she kind of needs her car for work. (She doesn't like driving my old Accord, so why make it hard on her?) At least I got a "free upgrade" to a Camry hybrid, so gas won't be much of a factor for the trip.

Still, I'll be here for the day:

From the Indianapolis Star's coverage of Gen Con.

I'll likely provide a report on Tuesday or Wednesday, although work might get in the way of that.

Happy gaming!

*The car has reached the point where I think I'm no longer going to do any major repairs and just keep it running as long as it can before it dies. I could be talked out of that, given how expensive even used cars are right now, but that's my current state. I've also been told numerous times by people that if I were selling the car it would go really quickly as it's in overall great shape for a Fifth Gen Accord, and even for a 4-cylinder car it is really peppy and fun to drive. 

#Blaugust2026

Upon Request

Atheren commented on my last post about wanting more guinea pig pics (in so many words). Ask and ye shall receive...

Bleu and Brie are back at home.
Have I mentioned that their original owner
was a French teacher?

They're back up in Milwaukee just in time for pretty nasty air conditions due to wildfires in Minnesota, Manitoba (Canada), and Ontario (Canada). My oldest reports that they can't even see down the street due to the smoke, and her eyes hurt when she went to a store right across the street.

"I thought it couldn't get worse," she
reported this morning. "I have been proven wrong."

Oh, and if that isn't enough, my youngest now has a cat. Say hello to Mooch.

I'm allergic to cats, so I don't think Mooch will be visiting any time soon. Still, I can probably handle her in short doses as long as I take some Benadryl. But I have been told she's very affectionate...

Field Day 2026, or 'Why Was Red Awake after 3:30 AM?'

As I mentioned the other day, I participated in ARRL Field Day 2026.

This is the official logo. You can find it on all
sorts of merch in Ham Radio circles. From the ARRL.

As seen in the official name, Field Day is put on by the ARRL, the largest ham radio organization in the US.* The basic idea is to get hams out and away from their local shacks and out into a park or some other place, set up shop, and make contacts. A side effect of this activity is that hams can promote amateur radio by being available to the public during these times** and allow the public to see amateur radio in action.

To answer one of the most basic questions about Field Day, yes, it's a contest. And yes, some people take this more seriously than others. Think of it as how different people participate in raiding in MMOs: some people are very casual about it, some are a bit more serious, and some are really hardcore. 

I didn't realize just how hardcore people could be about Field Day until I attended a forum at the Dayton Hamvention about Running a First Class Field Day Operation. Our club president and I were really interested in what the presentation focused on, and boy were we surprised. We kind of expected the presentation to cover a wide range of Field Day approaches, but the presenter went with what he knew, and it was a truly hardcore operation that consistently places well in the rankings. 

Needless to say, my club's Field Day participation is a lot more casual than that. (Thank goodness.)

We had a sign-up sheet that was passed around on the club's email, and given that Field Day landed the same day that both Free RPG Day and Cincinnati's Pride Parade were held --and that our youngest was coming up from Louisville for dinner-- I chose part of the late shift: 8 PM to 2 AM.

Well, things changed, because of course they did. My youngest wasn't able to make it up, so I had more free time than I expected in the late afternoon and early evening. Still, I rolled into the Red Cross building around 7:30 or so to eat some of the food that people had brought.*** To forestall your next question about why the Red Cross building if we're supposed to be doing "Field Day", the Red Cross building counts as a remote location for Field Day purposes. It does have its advantages, given that we weren't sweating out in the heat and humidity like some of the other Field Day participants, but there are times when it feels like we're violating the spirit of Field Day.

I ate, chatted with some of the club members, and we groused about the weather. There were a few counties in Kentucky that got hit really hard by storms, and a few counties were declared disaster areas. There was also talk about one of the dams south of Louisville being in danger of failure, but thankfully that didn't come to pass. The ARRL had put out a bulletin that one of the frequencies in the 40 Meter band was off limits due to it being in use for earthquake rescue communications in Venezuela, which also had a sobering effect on us. 

While I was supposed to go on at 8 PM, the radio I was supposed to use was in use by another club member, and I was fine with waiting until they were done for the day. So it was close to 9 PM when I got started, and we waited for a digital bulletin to be transmitted by the ARRL over the three different amateur radio digital modes. 

Here's what the transmission looked like
on PSK31 mode.

I was planning on using the digital mode called FT8 to participate in field day, because I still am reluctant to talk on voice. Sure, I participate in our club's weekly net, but those are people I know so I'm comfortable with talking there.**** Besides, FT8 is a mode that is quite similar to the chat communications I've had for work (Microsoft Teams, IBM's Sametime, etc.) so there's that added comfort factor.

Anyway, I got to work, attempting to make contacts over then next several hours. 

This was my station in the radio room. The radio
is an Icom IC-7300 Mk1 (there's a Mk2 out now)
which is fed into a PC with dual screens.

The bottom portion of the left monitor shows the band activity for digital modes, and as you can tell the bands were busy as hell. Normally at that time of night the bands would be mostly empty (a sea of blue), but everybody and their grandmother was working the bands for Field Day. 

I spent a lot of the evening chasing contacts, and constantly moving my send frequency around into clear areas to avoid the crowds. I was quite aware that night time isn't the best time for operating on the 20 Meter band, but I was determined to make as many contacts as I could without interfering with my late night companion, a club member who was operating voice on 80 and 40 Meters. 

My fellow club member working the bands was scheduled to work the entire night and leave sometime around 8 or 9 AM, so until the club president came in around 5 AM there was a stretch of 3 hours where he'd be the only person in the radio room attempting to make contacts. He kind of preferred it that way, because he had a schtick where he would create what's known as a pile-up attempting to make contact with him during the overnight hours, and he relished the attention. During breaks, he regaled me with stories about Field Day and other assorted things that would pop into his head, so I think he was happy to have someone else there to share in the zaniness of Field Day.

Over those hours I spent there, I became familiar with the come-and-go nature of FT8 on a busy night. I also learned one truism about amateur radio: just because you can hear them doesn't mean they can hear you. There were plenty of stations out on the West Coast I attempted to make contact with, but I was simply not being heard by them. I got lucky with a few, making a contact in Western Washington state and one of the central locations in California, but a lot of my other attempts out west went nowhere. My greatest success came from stations closer to me, such as Illinois, West Virginia, Michigan, and other states.

However, there was one experience that I was really excited about. About 11:30 PM or so, in the middle of a bunch of European stations starting to come online I received a station from the Cook Islands. The signal was really poor and down in the weeds, but I mentioned it to my companion. 

A light turned on in his eyes, and he said "Do you know where that is?"

Being familiar with the history of exploration, I said, "I sure do; it's way out in the Pacific."

"Go for it!"

"Yeah, but it's not part of Field Day."

"Doesn't matter. GO FOR IT!"

I shrugged and gave it the ol' college try and sent out a reply.

About 3 minutes later when I was talking to my companion all of a sudden a response popped up on my screen. 

"HOLY SHIT! HE GOT IT!" I'm pretty sure I raised my voice a few octaves.

My companion gave me a huge thumbs up as he was working a contact at the time, and he was grinning from ear to ear.

Here's where the Cook Islands are versus
where I was located at. And I ought to remind
you that 20 Meters wasn't really doing so well
for me at that time of night for contacts in California,
Oregon, and Washington. Propagation can be weird at times.

Around 1:30 AM or so I heard a door open way down the hall.

"Hey," I asked my companion, "does security walk the floor at night?"

He took off his headset and I repeated the question. "No, why do you ask?" he replied.

"I just heard a door open."

"Well, let's find out." He got up and began heading down the hall.

Right about then I got a brief case of the heebie-jeebies. 

"Hello?" he called out. "Anybody there?"

"Hey!" came a response.

"Oh," my companion said as he returned to the radio room. "It's just [another club member]."

Our newcomer had apparently been making a circuit of all the local clubs today after having helped set up our club's operation, and he was dropping by before heading to bed. We had a brief chat, although my companion kept dragging it out to the point where I butted in and said "Let the man go to bed!"

Our fellow club member yawned and laughed and hit the road for home.

I looked up and it was around 2 AM. "Damn," I said. "Just one more contact."

That "one more contact" took about 20 minutes, but I finally got it done and then headed home myself, pulling into the driveway around 3 AM.  Because I'm me and I can be a bit idiosyncratic, it took me about 1/2 hour to get ready for bed and then I lay down, only to find myself wide awake until finally konking out sometime close to 4 AM. 

A long night for certain, but it was also a fun one.

***

So... What did I learn?

That there's always something new to learn, which is kind of the point of amateur radio.

That a lot of fun can be had if you step outside your comfort zone. Which is why I was doing this in the first place.

That a fellow club member makes really damn good desserts. (I was surprised my blood sugar didn't go through the roof.)

That another club member makes really good Skyline Chili Dip.

That a blind club member who operated on CW (Morse Code) was an absolute monster on the bands, getting the second highest number of contacts.

That there were kids operating on Field Day. My companion spoke with a few of them while he was operating on the 80 Meter band, it was great to see some youngsters 9 and 10 years old participating in the hobby.

Yeah, I had fun. But boy was I happy to get to sleep, and even a day later on Monday I needed some strong coffee to wake myself up.

Using this mug, of course...

As you can see, it's sitting behind me right now.

*For reference, and it was news to me during the weekend, Winter Field Day is not put on by the ARRL but a different organization entirely, the Winter Field Day Association (WFDA). That explains why some digital modes are allowed in ARRL Field Day but not on Winter Field Day. 

**Yes, a non-ham can operate an amateur radio station under the supervision of a licensed amateur operator. The ham, known as the "control operator", is ultimately responsible for the non-ham's activity. Over the winter there was a Boy Scout Amateur Radio event at one of the local meet-ups on the east side of town, and the scouts lined up to talk to hams on a couple of different frequencies (including our club's 2 meter repeater frequency). 

***I'd brought gluten-free cookies. The brand of dough is Sweet Loren's, and while the "gluten free" moniker does nothing for me as Type 2 diabetes doesn't care about gluten, only about carbs, holy crap are they good. I usually get the dough on sale, because it is a bit pricey, but if you can find them at your local grocery store, GET THEM.

****I should write a post about so-called "mic shyness" as well as other quirks about the amateur radio hobby sometime.

State of The Redbeard, Summer Edition 2026

I spent this weekend at ARRL Field Day 2026, which is put on by the American Radio Relay League, the largest Amateur Radio organization in the US. I'll post more about it later this week, but the TL;DR is that it's a contest/activity that's intended to get hams and clubs out into the field and away from their home locations to try to make as many contacts as they can. Just like guilds in MMOs, some clubs are far more hardcore about this than others, but I'm grateful my club is NOT one of those.

Anyway, I wasn't playing MMOs much this weekend --only a couple of hours playing WoW this afternoon-- so I got the opportunity to take a step back and consider what I want to do with my MMO playing.

Well, the first thing I did was to admit that I haven't really been playing LOTRO much at all since the great 64-bit server migration. My oldest, who also had been playing LOTRO far more than me, hadn't been playing much either. We haven't set up a new Kinship house --and in my case I haven't even bothered with setting up a new personal house-- and all I've done the past few months was to login and wander around Bree for a few minutes at a time. 

This theme also follows what I've been doing in ESO, where I'm so out of practice that when I do go out and about and fight any sort of enemy I almost end up dying. That's kind of embarrassing, given that I really used to love ESO's and GW2's limited ability bars, but that's the reality of me not effectively playing either game over the past 6+ years. 

I'm the plain looking Dunmer to the side.
All sorts hang out around a bank vault, I guess.

That leads me to SWTOR, where I bowed to reality here and decided to cancel my in-game subscription. I've gone from logging in once a week and doing stuff in the Vanilla SWTOR zones to logging in more like once a quarter. I can trace my decline in interest with SWTOR directly to the change that impacted companions' pathing, but I also think that the success of Classic WoW lead to the realization I liked the pre-expansion Vanilla version of SWTOR more than its current iteration. If the dev team were to come out with a "SWTOR Classic" with a pre-Rise of the Hutt Cartel version of the game available to play, I'd be all for it. I still love the Vanilla storylines, and I'll miss them a lot,* but paying a subscription to a game I'm not playing is pretty silly.

Some of the other games I've played in the past, such as Neverwinter and Age of Conan, I've uninstalled from my PC. I'd login, look at my toon for a moment, and just logout. The former I couldn't get into after a certain level (I think it was mid-20s) and the latter is still a buggy mess that requires grouping up to finish the main storyline, and I honestly don't know anybody who plays it anymore. That the talent tree for AoC is so obnoxiously huge --it makes Rift's talent tree look really basic by comparison-- I have absolutely no idea what my options really are. If you've ever heard about analysis paralysis, I met that head-on in AoC.

Speaking of Rift, there's so few players --especially in the low level zones-- that you really can't do much. You can quest in a zone to an extent, but the grouping that is expected to happen in fighting Rifts or whatnot in the open world simply doesn't happen. You need a critical mass of players to do that, and that's just not happening anymore. I haven't tried their automated LFD tool, but given my experiences with automated tools in other MMOs I'm very reluctant to try it and group up for their equivalent of a dungeon.

Like most days when I poke my nose in Rift,
nary a person in sight.

I do login to Star Trek Online a bit, but like LOTRO, I just wander around and maybe take a trip from Earth to Vulcan. If I were subscribing to STO, it would have also been on the block for unsubscribing.

And now let's circle back to the elephant in the room, the various forms of WoW.

At this point in time, WoW is the only MMO I'm actively subscribed to. Well, kind of: I buy 60 days' worth of WoW at a time, which forces me to review whether I'm enjoying myself every couple of months. And so far, that has been the case.

Among the versions of WoW I've played, the Classic Anniversary servers are what I've played the most. I still poke my nose into the Retail and Era servers, but I've not touched the 2019 WoW Classic progression servers since 2023 or so. About the only thing I did do there was to occasionally login so I knew what my toons originally looked like when I recreated them on the Anniversary servers. 

***

So, that begs the question: what have I been doing?

The most obvious answer is that I've been doing non-gamer things: amateur radio, gardening, repairs around the house and cars. And eventually I'll get back to making more outdoor furniture since the weather has finally heated up.

But what about gamer stuff?

Oh, single player games: Civ IV, Stardew Valley, Stellaris, Age of Empires.

There's a few other games scattered in there, but I've stayed away from long games that require a lot of attention, such as any of the isometric RPGs (Baldur's Gate 1/2/3, Icewind Dale, Divinity Original Sin 1/2, Disco Elysium, etc.). I simply don't have the time to devote to those games, and I realized that when I came to the conclusion that my BG3 playthrough was long enough in the past that I can't even remember what I was trying to do at the time. Maybe I'll get a chance to play these longer form games another time --I'm looking at you, Planescape: Torment-- but that's not about to happen right now.

Yeah, buddy. I'm done with trying to figure it
out, so you'll just have to wait and I'll recreate you later.

That's the biggest drawback to video games made over the past 10-15 years or so: the hours to completion has become so large that you'd have to devote a significant amount of your free time to playing them, and that in the end works against my enjoyment of the game. While I no longer have kids around the house, that doesn't mean I'm swimming in spare time. And these 100+ hour video games demand enough of your spare time that it becomes increasingly difficult to justify devoting that much time to a single endeavor. If I read a book about an hour a night, for books not named Don Quixote** that'd take me about 40-50 hours to complete. So, somewhere between 1-2 months. But a game such as BG3 or The Witcher 3, with their playtimes of well over 100 hours each***, can take me a lot longer than that. I think that when I played the original Baldur's Gate back in 1999 it took me somewhere around 4 months, and that didn't include the expansion.**** 

There are other games I do want to play, such as Dispatch and Stray Gods, but I suspect that I'll get so invested in the story that when difficult choices come along (and from what I understand, you're given a very short period of time to make a choice in these Telltale-type games) I'll likely freeze and simply stop playing. The old line from the Rush song Freewill "If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice" looms large over me whenever I play one of these games. Maybe its my acknowledgement that there are no objectively good or bad solution in these games that causes me to freeze like that, but I do feel bad for all participants in a video game when push comes to shove and I have to let someone down.

I believe this is one of the "easier" choices
in Dispatch. I mean, you could be a selfish jerk
with the left option or have an overinflated ego
in the mid, or just propel the story forward on the right.
Screencap from Dispatch.

***

Does that mean my MMO playing days are winding down?

Not really. Just like everything else, it evolves around here. I expect that as Fall heads toward Winter my MMO playing will go up a bit as I'll be doing less and less outside. Still, you never quite know around here. Who knows what Microsoft might be up to this Fall? More cost cutting? Same thing goes for all of the other game companies, as the "good times" in the post-pandemic world come to an end.

I guess we'll see.

*You know, I still never finished the Agent's storyline. I got mid-way through Chapter 2 and... Just stopped. That's when the pathing issues kicked in, and I couldn't stand it.

**Unabridged version. The abridged version is significantly shorter.

***And I'm here to tell you I do NOT operate at the same speed as the "average" player; I spend way too much time enjoying everything and contemplating my choices before I move forward. What, you thought that I only did that in MMOs? 

****I was loaned the copy of BG1 that I played, so I returned it when I was finished. The guy who loaned it to me kept pestering me to finish it, but I was like "Dude, I have a newborn at home, I'm working 50 hours a week, and I'm wiped. I'm moving as fast as I can."

Pass the Coffee

By the time you read this, I will be on the road up to Dayton, OH. 

Okay, my destination is really a small town east of Dayton, Xenia*, but you get the point.

What's up in Xenia? The 2026 Dayton Hamvention.

The official logo of the 2026 Hamvention.
From hamvention.org.

Why is it named the Dayton Hamvention if it's held in Xenia? Because the Hamvention began in Dayton in 1952, and it remained in the immediate Dayton area until it moved to Xenia following the closure of it's previous home, Hara Arena, in 2016. More importantly, the name "Dayton Hamvention" has been a trademark of the convention since 1953 or so, and the Hamvention itself is run by the Dayton Amateur Radio Association.

I volunteered to help set up and man the flea market booth that my club reserved, but I fully intend to take advantage of my time up there this weekend to explore everything that's going on.

Before you ask, no, you don't have to have an amateur radio license to attend, but it certainly does help. I mean, there's a ton of electronics and whatnot that aren't explicitly for hams, which is how I initially was attracted to the convention back in the 90s, but there's also a metric ton of other equipment and vendors that are expressly there to cater to hams. 

I'll probably take some photos of the place and provide a trip report, because that's what I do. I'll still sleep back at home, because it's a lot cheaper to drive back and forth than get a hotel (even given the current gas prices), but in the meantime I'd better pay attention to where we're headed.

See you in a few days!

*Xenia is most famous for the F5 tornado that destroyed the town in the Supercell of 1974, known colloquially as The Day of the Tornadoes. Here's a longer special report on the 50th anniversary of tornado. That was the same Supercell in which I witnessed a tornado that crossed the Ohio River and hit Sayler Park, the westernmost neighborhood of Cincinnati. As I've said before, if you've ever seen a tornado live, you never forget it.

What Is The Goal, Anyway?

Bhagpuss commented on yesterday's post about walkthroughs and solved games that "following guides are just more fun", to which I snarkily replied that "are you really playing the game, though?"

That little exchange kept rolling around in my head all night, and I decided to delve deeper into it, because I don't think I was right to simply dismiss Bhagpuss' point.*

In my response, I likened following a walkthrough or merely utilizing the optimized meta to playing connect-the-dots or watching a movie or television series, but upon reflection I don't believe it's just that.

A game is active entertainment. No matter anything else, if you're playing a game of any sort, you're choosing to engage with it. While we can also choose to engage in more passive forms of entertainment, such as watching television, you still have to interact with the game. AI hasn't progressed to the point where it plays the game for you**, so that mere act of physical interaction raises it above the level of watching reruns of MASH.***

However, the operative word isn't 'active' per se, it's 'entertainment'.

Yes, I went there. From the movie Gladiator (via Tenor).

I forgot to ask that basic question: "Are you having fun?" Or maybe a better one is "What is your goal?"

While the former question is the one most people ask, maybe your goal isn't to have fun at all. Let me explain.

***

Walkthroughs are very common in teaching. They provide students with a process to understand a concept with known starting and ending points, and if you get stuck during homework or a test you can fall back to that walkthrough as a guide to help you work through your issues. For example, my Advanced Lab 1 and 2 classes in Physics at UD relied heavily upon you as a student to study and reproduce journal articles, then write up the results as a formal 10-20 page lab report.**** My third lab experiment was provided to me by the professor showing me the lab equipment and the basic design, handing me the requisite journal article, and then said "Now, go and reproduce The Photoelectric Effect."

While some lab experiments are more simplistic than others, they are all walkthroughs. However, I would argue that "entertainment" isn't the typical reason why people utilize them. Yes, there are those who find it fun --and I'm one of them-- but the primary reason why they exist is for instruction and understanding.

Likewise, walkthroughs are found in various other sporting and hobbies. They provide a basis for understanding, a learn-by-doing methodology, and a foundation to build upon. I'm thinking of the karate-do kata that the kids (and my wife) used to perform for their karate class, and you get the idea.

I recognize this kata from their classes.

From the standpoint of games, for some people walkthroughs are the best way to learn to play the game. They provide you with the understanding of the logic behind the game, where the pain points are, and how to solve the problems presented. 

***

So, assuming that the answer to "What is your goal?" is to have fun or be entertained, then we can proceed to "Are you having fun?"

That answer is completely on you. If by "having fun" you go do your own thing, then go do it. If to have fun you follow a walkthrough or the meta, then do that too. 

However, that doesn't mean that people won't judge you because of what you do. People are people, and I've found over the years that the people who love to say "I won't judge you" often are judging you, just not out loud. And yes, I'm guilty of that too. I'm not going to deny that.

If people react negatively to you for not following what they perceive is the "correct" way of playing, don't be surprised. But it also needs to be said that you don't have to yield to their pressure. If they want you to play a specific way and if it's a requirement for your participation with them, then you have to decide whether it's more important to play your way or play with those other people. If others can't respect you for the way you want to play a game, I think there's your answer.

So for me, "having fun" means doing my own thing, trying to puzzle out answers on my own, and not utilizing walkthroughs or a published "best method". To those who use those because they've got other things to do, such as raiding, then that's fine. You do you. 

*Yes, I realize it's my blog and I can do what I want with it, but I try to avoid being an asshole.

**It could be argued that botting software for MMOs is rapidly approaching this tipping point.

***Even then, it must be said there are greater and lesser degrees of engagement while watching television or a movie. If you're in a movie theater watching a movie, the crowd can be more engaged than if you're watching alone at home. The same thing goes for the shared experience of watching a sporting event in a bar or a stadium; you may not be playing the sport itself, but you're engaged with the shared experience of watching and cheering on the participating teams.

****I've told this story before, but I'll mention it again. The night before all of our Advanced Lab 1 lab reports were due, I was working on one of my last lab reports when I somehow nuked the floppy disk my lab reports were on. I had to scramble and rewrite 4 lab reports, a total of 80 pages worth, over the course of 8 hours. I somehow managed to finish it in time, my memories of that caffeine and terror fueled night are pretty hazy.

This'll Be Your Big Chance To Get Away From It All

Outside of checking out a few cities in Retail (as seen in the previous post), I took the past several days off from playing WoW.

I'd like to say that I had projects that had priority over any video game playing, but that wasn't the case. I simply didn't feel like logging in and playing on my Alliance toons. I did check the bank alts a couple of times to make sure I wasn't losing anything via in-game mail*, but beyond that, I didn't do much.

This is but one page of my "junk" mail.

This sort of break is a necessary part of any endeavor, and because I have no external pressure to complete anything in-game** I can take as many breaks as I need. This was something I sorely missed in 2021, and I fully intend to take advantage of my lack of commitment right now.

So. 

What have I been doing?

Thinking about this...

No, this is not my house. From a
reviewer at The Home Depot's website.

Yes, it's creeping toward gardening season, and I've already obtained some seeds for this year. And this year, I'm actually going to put in a couple of raised beds in the backyard so I can plant a vegetable garden in the yard, the first one since the mini-Reds were little. (Here's to hoping the deer won't be that hungry...)

Outside of that, I've just been taking a mental break. Goofing around, doing this and that, and catching up on some of my writing.

By the time this posts I might be back into WoW, but whether or not isn't that great of a concern. What's important is that I enjoy what I'm doing.

*If you're like me and have far too much accumulated junk for a bank alt or two, you just move stuff around via in-game mail. In WoW at least, you have 30 days before the mail (and attachments) returns to the sender, and then 30 days it can sit in the sender's inbox before it's automatically removed. So, if you keep up with juggling in-game mail, you can move a ton of stuff around.

**Relatively speaking, of course. My friends group would want me to get to Outland and level faster --it's not quite so overt right now but it's one of those generally understood things-- but I'm being my contrarian self right now and am actively resisting that.

"I'm a WHAT now?"

One of the more interesting things about my struggle to figure out why this blog has not been indexed by Google Search lately has been that I've discovered that the term "parallel context" is now being used by Large Language Model training.

The term "Parallel Context Windows" appears to have been first utilized in 2022 in a paper published here, which is alternately amusing and vexing. It wouldn't shock me if a lot of the bot traffic here has been attracted to PC simply because of the name's utilization in AI development.

This is the search result using incognito mode
(to remove any trained tendencies from my
account) on January 17, 2026.

Yeah, I mean, "parallel context" as a naming convention isn't exactly unusual, but the annoying part is that it just HAD to show up in AI-related activity. 

That being said, I did update the "About Parallel Context" to reference that this blog predates the usage of the term with LLMs and AI by over a decade*, so hopefully nobody comes knocking on my door with some weird cease and desist by my usage of the term on this blog. If someone does, I might need to get in touch with Rick Beato to find out what lawyer he uses to fight off YouTube strikes from the big music conglomerates.

As for whether this little discovery has an impact on PC's search engine indexing, it probably doesn't. Just a hunch here, but given that Google has started slowly indexing some of my blog posts over the past week or two I don't believe it actually has an impact.

As of January 17, 2026.

The indexing listing above shows that I'm actually getting some pages indexed. And that's despite Google Search still hasn't acknowledged the sitemap.xml that Microsoft Bing approved back in September 2025.

As of January 17, 2026.

So, you've got me as to what changed.

I did try to see if I could "fix" the issues with the "Alternate page with proper canonical tag" error by removing the mobile device option for the blog,

The main error listings as of January 17, 2026.

And the detailed results of the "alternate page"
error, on January 17, 2026.

which as you see all have the mobile designation of "m=1" present. After several days, however, the resubmission still returned an error, so the issue isn't with that.**

But there are posts being indexed, so... Again, go figure.

If nothing else, I either need to 'git gud' with understanding the details about Google Search results or hire a "Search Whisperer" to understand the arcane details of the search process.

Cardwyn: You need someone to help you understand the Arcane?

Me: I said arcane details, not the Arcane.

Cardwyn: Oh. Because my rates are low, and you could use the help.

Me: ...

I ought to not let this stuff bug me so much as it does, since I've got enough things I'm working on the past several months, but the lack of understanding the why of it does get under my skin. And now, knowing that the blog's name has been utilized in a field that has nothing to do with the subject of this blog is like a mosquito bite that you can't help but scratch because it itches so damn bad but you know you shouldn't scratch it at all. 

Oh well.

*For any people doing research on "Parallel Context Windows" and happened to stumble on this post, This blog Parallel Context has been around since September 2009 and is still being actively updated with posts as of January 17, 2026. So yeah, PC has been around a lot longer than the current LLM and AI research.

**I did switch it back this morning, likely after Shintar posted a comment this morning about potential changes but before I saw her comment myself. So, Shintar and others who use mobile devices to read the blog can read it much better.

EtA: I cleaned up some formatting.

The State of the Redbeard in 2026

Truth be told, I’ve not felt much like writing the past few weeks.

I guess that’s to be expected, since I wrote more posts for the past year (187) than I have at any other year during the blog’s existence while at the same time working on personal writing projects. And that doesn’t even count the writing and reports I put together for work.

While I understand the allure of using tools such as Chat GPT and others to compose for you, I really dislike the lack of control that those tools encourage. While I’ve seen those tools likened to using a car’s automatic transmission or other time saving tools, none of those other tools replace the human as the center of the creative process quite like the so-called generative AI tools do. It could be argued that you have full control over the editing process, but I’ve found from watching people at work that once the AI tools get their hooks in, you begin to simply accept their suggestions more and more without a critical eye. 

That’s the long version of saying that I’m going to keep writing the way I always have been –with me composing at the keyboard— without any reliance upon generative AI in the creative process.

***

As I’ve approached 2026 with some weariness on the writing front, I’ve also come to a bit of a crossroads with my gaming. Perhaps its more of a recognition that my physical skills never were as good as I wished they could be,* and that the reality of retirement being a little over a decade away has lent a bit of weight to my end-of-year musings. 

It’s now four years on after I cheated Death,** and I have found it more of a struggle to maintain my numbers than before. Oh, I still make my numbers well enough, and my doctors are happy with how I’m doing, but I’ve come to recognize over the past 3-4 months that it’s not quite so easy as before to maintain my weight and blood pressure while eating the same amount of food. There are two obvious answers here, to exercise more and to eat less, but I have enough foresight to recognize that there’s only so much I can do before things start to decline again. As one of the Diabetes team members told me, what I’ve got are progressive diseases, and you can only hold them off for so long. Not exactly the most positive assessment of my situation, but probably the most realistic.***

Still, the knowledge that my time is finite has changed what I want out of gaming. I was never one to chase highs from defeating bosses or in PvP, although I’ll freely acknowledge the rush in doing so, but I’ve pulled back from that in general. I get more out of playing with people, enjoying their company, than I get from competing with people. I am less tolerant of drama when it detracts from my long term enjoyment of a game, although there have been times when I’ve thought long and hard about stirring up some crap when I thought some asshat truly deserved it in Gen Chat in an MMO. 

I’ve also become more and more interested in the types of connections that people make within video games. Perhaps that’s been piqued by my own experiences, making firm friendships within MMOs and the blogging community,**** but it could also be due to my fascination with how the RP community operates in Retail WoW (and to a lesser extent LOTRO and FFXIV). 

Yes, yes, I know: that fascination can fuel an unhealthy relationship with… players… in Goldshire’s Lion’s Pride Inn on Moon Guard-US. And I have to admit that I’m still stunned whenever I poke my nose in there by the sheer number of people getting their freak on.***** It’s slightly more normal when you go into Stormwind, but even then let’s just say that there’s always something there when I run through to the bank or the Auction House that makes me go ‘WTF?’

Yeah, this certainly did.

And run into a light pole, too.

*CLANK!!*

I’m not about to deny people their fun, because I’ve lived the Satanic Panic and am extremely wary of people claiming moral authority and informing me what I can and can’t do, but I do wonder about the connections we make in games, and where some of these more extreme personal expressions fit into the gaming spectrum. 

Definitely puts a crimp into me working the AH.

For all the people who brush those weighty concepts off, saying “Nah, Bro, it’s all just joking around,” I think they sell themselves short. From the benefit of having watched the internet rise into its current form over the past 35+ years, I don’t think we can brush off the connections we make as “not being important”. In the end, these connections are all we have that stand a chance at outliving us, because most of us will never paint a Mona Lisa or construct the Notre Dame. And in the case of video games, a company could decide to pull the plug on a live service game tomorrow, and what would you be left with then? Memories of the game and the connections we made. 

***

Yeah, I’ve been pondering some deep issues this past month or more, and I don’t have a clear resolution to them. I watch some of my in-game friends chase raiding in TBC Classic, and while I wish them well, I’m not following in their path. I’ve no desire to deal with drama, the need to push yourself hard to keep up, and following the gear treadmill to validate my playing a game. It’s not a matter of the old accusatory line “If I can’t keep up, I’m taking my ball and going home” that I know my decision could easily be interpreted, but for me it’s more of a “If I can’t keep up, I need to find a different way to have fun and remain valued.” 

*There, I said it. I'm not as good as I ever thought I was; if I were, I'd have a bit more success under my belt than I have. I recognize that external success with dexterity-heavy systems such as video games and sports such as soccer or basketball is highly dependent upon who you play with in addition to innate skill, but I now have enough hard-earned knowledge to admit I was never as good as I hoped. And Father Time hasn't exactly done me any favors over the past decade and a half, either.

**Or rather, my doctors cheated Death. 

***As I cynically used to put it, “We begin to die as soon as we’re born.” I’ve seen that quote attributed to various people, from The Bhudda to Bret Harte, so I have no idea who first said it, and I’m not inclined to spend a few hours or more chasing that down.

****Given what I know of my readership, if you’re reading this and this post gets the average number of pageviews there’s a greater than 70% chance you and I already are acquainted in the community. Now watch this post blow up and make a liar out of me. 

*****Sure, there could be mere bystanders, like me, but I doubt we’re even close to a quarter of the people in there at any given time. And if you are a bystander and are in there for more than a minute or two, you’re likely propositioned at least once. I know I have, and in my most recent encounter I wasn’t in there for more than a handful of seconds to turn in a quest and sell some stuff. Yes, despite appearances, there’s still a quest giver inside the Inn.

A Little Something to Do, Part 2

(Here's a link for Part 1.)

In early September, I went hunting on the American Radio Relay League's website for amateur radio classes. The ARRL is the largest US amateur radio umbrella organization. They advocate for amateur radio to the FCC (and Congress), they encourage amateur radio contests and classwork, and they have their own series of publications for and about amateur radio. (Like my study book from Part 1.) The ARRL does have their detractors, and holy crap are those people vocal about it, but the ARRL is also the best voice that amateur radio has in the US.

Maybe it's because my mind works the same way as the webmasters who designed the ARRL's website, I quickly found a free (!) class available beginning in September and lasting through October. I quickly emailed the contact person, who confirmed that yes, they still have openings and I could just show up at the bright early time of 9 AM on Saturday morning at the Red Cross building here in Cincinnati. 

If you ever wondered whether ham radio
and MMO hobbies are similar... Yes, they are.
From imgflip and SP3POW.

The night before that first class I tossed and turned in bed, finally getting to sleep after 1 AM.  It had been at least 24 years since I last had an in-person class*, and I wasn't sure what to expect. Would I be the oldest person there? Would there be a crowd? What sort of people would the students be? The instructors? Would I have issues even getting inside the building?

The answer to that last question, thankfully, was no. There were two people monitoring the front door and I didn't get harangued any more than necessary, once I explained I was there for the ham radio class. I followed their directions to the correct room, and I discovered that much to my surprise I was one of the youngest people in the class.

From memeguy.

There were seven people in the class (myself included), and three instructors. I soon learned that the instructors viewed the class as something closer to providing guidance while we learned the material for the entry level license, the Technician Class. They admitted that we really didn't need them to learn the material, as the ARRL books were fine for learning the material, but they were there to provide some hands-on learning about amateur radio as well as answer questions. I could see that despite the class being free that some people would drop the class after realizing that they could just study by themselves and take the test --and to be fair, one did**-- but once I got over the initial disconnect between my expectations and the reality I warmed up to the class.

Part of it was seeing the equipment up close and personal, which to a gearhead like me I found fascinating, but I think another part of it was that the instructors were uniformly upbeat about our chances of passing the exam. As long as you study, take practice tests online, and keep up with it, they said numerous times, you'll pass.

***

While the ARRL had its own practice test website, and I did take those practice tests while I studied, I spent a lot more time on hamstudy.org:

This place became my friend.
This is as of November 8, 2025.

I could take tests and study by being quizzed on all of the exam questions to my heart's content. That's one nice thing about the Amateur Radio license exams in the US: all of the questions are taken from pools of 400 (Technician), 450 (General), and 622 (Amateur Extra) questions for each license class, respectively. Since those are already known, you could theoretically study for the test by simply memorizing the questions. Of course, that doesn't really teach you anything other than how to pass the exam, but it could be done.

When I started taking the practice tests for the Technician exam, I realized I had my work cut out for me. I had to get 74% of the questions correct on the exam, so that meant 26 out of 35 for the Tech license, and I wasn't even hitting that. For somebody who'd prided himself on being at least somewhat savvy with radio and electrical circuitry over the years, that was tough to accept. If I were serious about this, I realized I was going to have to buckle down and really study.

That's mint tea, no caffeine. I wanted to
sleep when I was done studying for the night,
you know.

I not only studied at night, when I'd typically get on WoW Classic and play for a bit, but also whenever I had a break at work. And for the astute among you, you likely notice that there were not only Technician Class license books as part of my study regimen above, but also General Class books. Because I can't simply do one thing at a time, I suppose.

When I started down this amateur radio classwork, I'd set a lofty goal for myself: to not only get the Tech license, but the General too. While the Tech licenses primarily focus on VHF and UHF frequencies, when most people think of "ham radio" (myself inclued) they think of people operating on the shortwave bands. Those bands, known as High Frequency (HF) in radio nomenclature, are between 3 Mhz and 30 MHz. The Tech license gets you access to the entire 10 Meter band (28.0 MHz to 29.7 MHz in the US), but if you want to talk to people using speech on the rest of the HF amateur radio bands you need a General Class license. Given my longtime interest in shortwave radio, it made sense that I'd want to do that. And, of course, my own arrogance led me to believe that I could do that easily.

Uh, nope. 

That practice result above was pretty much normal for me. This was but one of the times when I discovered I not only didn't remember a lot of things --the mathematics, in particular-- there were a lot of items I never had to deal with as a shortwave listener that I would encounter as a ham radio operator, such as concepts behind transmitters.

About the only good thing I did when I started taking the class was to NOT tell anyone that I wanted to pass both the Tech and General classes; I was putting enough pressure on myself as it was without being an asshole and waving a flag around yelling "LOOK AT ME!!! I'M AWESOME!!!!" I've had enough humble pie served to me over the years that I wasn't going to do that at all. 

By mid-October, I was passing practice tests for the Technician Class exams with regularity, so I shifted my focus to the General Class test. I had about 2-3 weeks before the license exam of November 1st, so it was very much crunch time. 

The stress I was putting myself under was
kind of like this. From Real Genius and makeagif.

At that point, I stopped trying to understand all of the material and focused instead on simply passing the test.

The last week before the exam, I admitted to the instructors that I was aiming to pass both Technician and General class licenses. The instructors were very encouraging, saying that I knew the material, so I just had to relax and take the exams. They also mentioned another little thing: when I take the Tech exam and pass (the exam costs $15 per attempt), I get a free attempt at the next higher license exam. So theoretically, I would only have to pay $15 to take both exams if I passed both on the first try.

Then one of the instructors dropped the bomb.

"You should take the Extra Class exam too."

"I haven't even looked at those questions yet," I admitted, while my mind was screaming "FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!" at me.

"Yes, but it's free, and it gives you an understanding of what it'd take to pass that exam."

I couldn't really say "no" to a free attempt, but I didn't want that to distract me from my immediate goals. Still, that "could I do it?" lingered in the back of my head all week.

***

Exam day dawned bright and sunny. The exam itself was at 9 AM, but I was already up at 5:30 AM. Yeah, I'm one of those people who don't sleep well the night before an exam, no matter what it is.

From Facebook.

I was supposed to arrive by 8:45, because the exam coordinators wanted to get started right at 9, but when I did I discovered that the instructors were already there, rooting us on. One of the class members had taken her exam earlier so she didn't need to show up, but she came to cheer us on as well. Those small things meant a lot, because I was really nervous. I should be fine, I told myself, as long as I don't get the exactly wrong question for each part of the exam. In each section, there's one question that gave me trouble, but what were the odds that I'd get them all in one randomly selected exam?

You can guess what happened.

When I started, I looked over the exam and immediately thought, "Holy shit." It was a nightmare come to life.

It had that smile on its face, too.
From theprchiro via Cheezburger.

I took a few deep breaths and calmed myself down. "It's only $15," I thought to myself. "I can take it again if I flunk."

Then I started slowly, working on the questions I knew. I answered all of those questions, then started working on all of the ones that I hadn't seen very much or I had trouble with. After that, I was down to a couple of questions that I just guessed at, and then spent another 5-10 minutes just making sure I didn't do anything stupid like selecting the answers in the wrong row***. I then had to wait another 5 minutes for my turn getting my test graded.

I passed.

That was a huge weight off of my shoulders. I took a deep breath and inquired about taking the General test. In short order I was back at my seat with a new set of questions to work on, and this time I relaxed a bit. The hard part was over, and now it was time to just go for it.

For some reason I found these questions easier, even though I knew I was going to get more wrong than the Technician exam. I'm not sure why, but my suspicion is that the pressure I was putting myself under was gone, so I found it easier to not dither and simply select answers. I finished, turned in my exam, and soon learned I passed the General exam as well.

"Do you want to try for the Extra?" one of the volunteer exam coordinators asked.

"Sure, let's do this!" I replied with an enthusiasm I didn't feel.

I sat down with the highest level exam, looked at the first question, and I knew the answer. "Hey," I thought. "I can do this."

Then I got to the second question.

"Uh.... Nope."

Yeah, this. From 9GAG.

Oh, that last exam was brutal. Positively brutal. I knew almost by the 3rd or 4th question that I wasn't going to pass this exam. Hell, I wasn't even going to get 50%. Of the 50 questions on the Extra exam, I answered about 15-20 for certain, and took a stab at 3-6 more, then I just selected "A" for all the rest. There was no penalty for just guessing, so why not?

"So," another of the exam coordinators asked as I turned in my sheet, "how'd you think you did?"

"You know how you're in college and you're in a seminar, listening to professors talk about their research and you have absolutely no fucking idea what they're talking about? It was like that."

They all laughed.

Yes, this Mr. Bean skit was going through
my head while I was taking the Extra exam.
From Pinterest (and Mr. Bean, obviously).

It turns out that while I did fail, I got 20 questions correct. They told me I did a great job for going in blind on that Extra exam, and now I had something to shoot for.

Once I filled out some forms, I went out into the waiting area where everybody else was hanging around to see how I did. "Passed the General, and bombed the Extra," I replied.

I got congratulations from the rest of the students and the instructors, and once I'd signed a few extra documents we all left the building.

I'd like to say that my journey was just beginning, but the reality is that it's kind of on hold right now due to the government shutdown. The FCC won't process the paperwork until the government reopens --meaning I can't transmit on my own equipment until my license appears in the FCC database-- so I've got time to relax a bit and try to figure out what starter radio to purchase before I dive in. Still, four of us in the class have gotten to know each other fairly well, and we even met last Saturday for lunch. The club that sponsored the class and the exam was very welcoming, and I think I'm going to join that club and see how things go. 

So now you know what I've been up to for the past couple of months.

*System Admin class for HP-UX. While I knew UNIX since I coded on Silicon Graphics workstations back in the 90s, the sysadmin side of things was new to me, so I was sent off to a couple weeks' worth of classwork.

**Two dropped, but one of them had to drop because work kept them from attending regularly. The other simply stopped coming.

***Yes, I've done that before.