Old Friends

My mom loves the Super Bowl. Well, she loves the commercials. This year one of them reminded her of me.

When I was a kid I had a beagle named Sarge. Like me, Sarge loved his friends. He would come home with a pack of his buddies from around the neighborhood (I use the word neighborhood loosely, since we lived on several acres). They were a rag-tag bunch of strays and locals, all playing and causing mischief. I loved those guys. One day Sarge had collected a new addition, a young doberman puppy, still bandaged on her ears, tail and feet from where she'd been trimmed at the vet. Her tag said her name was Bailey.

For the next few months Bailey became a part of Sarge's family, but after Sarge died, the pack broke up and I stopped seeing them.

Tools for GMs (Gamemasters, not General Managers)

S ome people have asked me about how I run games, how I adapt modules to my player characters and what tools I use to make games smoother and more enjoyable . A few years ago I ran a 4th edition campaign adapting the DnD v3.5 module Red Hand of Doom. I took a lot of pictures and put together a primer/game log showing how I adapted the module's maps to tabletop and use a few of the numerous tools available to GMs these days.

[My review of Red Hand is coming soon, but in short, it is one of the best modules of the v3.5 era and is one of my all time favorites.]

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't played through Red Hand of Doom, these pics may spoil some of the fun. You've been warned.

How I use a few of the tools available for GMs.

How I adapted the maps for tabletop.

Example of how I used the Skill Challenge mechanic in Red Hand.

Many of the tools I use are available through Paizo, my favorite portal to all things tabletop.

Huge thanks must go to my players, including Will Gustwiller, owner of Eclipse Chocolate in San Diego. Will's creative builds powered much of this game. Huge thanks also to Bernard de la Cruz, Doug Easterly, Asa Keef, Adam Mulford and Jason Cliche for two years of fun.

Playlist for Geeks

Over the years, I've made a small collection of covers and originals featuring songs about classic geek loves. Time to share. Many of these can be found on iTunes, or for free on their respective websites. The first two have hilarious YouTube videos (included below), with links to their sites from there.

If you have any other geek songs I should know about, leave them in the comments below.

Geek Playlist

The Ballad of Barry Allen

Ring Capacity

Star Wars that I Used to Know

Batman, Maybe

Through the Fire and Flames

In the Garage

Still Alive

Superman (It's not Easy)

It's the End of the 'Verse as We Know It

Do you Wanna Date my Avatar

The Soundtrack to Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

An Act of Love

Me and Grandma
AKA: G.G. (Great Grandma)

I've been in Kentucky this past week, helping my family settle into taking care of my grandmother who has recently been put on hospice care. She is doing as well as can be expected; she's in good spirits, has an appetite, is comfortable and is still able to tell us she loves us and understand when we say the same. Several times during this week she's commented about the wonderful family my mom and dad raised. Every time she says that, we remind her that it started with her.

My grandmother divorced my grandfather shortly after WWII--a stoic act of independence in those days. She remarried some years later, but never seemed to need someone simply to fulfill her life. She married because she loved. She has always been my example of how strong, devoted, independent and caring women can be. Even sick and in my parent's house, she insists on paying her own way. It's how she's always been. She takes personal responsibility for everything she does and expects others to do the same. She instilled that in my mother, and my mother (and father) instilled that in us. We were shown nothing but love and respect, with the expectation that we take responsibility for our lives and not force others to do our work or pay for our mistakes.

Eclipse Phase

Back in 2007 my wife and I were on a walk around our neighborhood in North Park, San Diego, when we saw that a new coffee shop had opened a block from our house. It was the Free WiFi sign that first caught my attention. I remember peeking through the window and seeing the hand-made wood tables and flowing wall designs. Megan and I were both going back to school for new careers and I'd just made a decision to write my first novel. A cafe next to the house would be a perfect place to escape the distractions of our apartment (I own a lot of toys). What sealed the deal was that Eclipse wasn't just a cafe, it was a chocolate shop.

Long Winter's Nap

I started working on my first novel around 2007, about the same time I went back to school for my nursing degree. The accelerated bachelors program I chose was packed into a meer 14 months (not counting the prereqs I had to go through since my first degree was from 1993). Back then I had one writing day a week, and after 4-6 days of studying and clinicals, I couldn't wait for Friday. There were great writing days and terrible writing days, but one way or the other I needed to get my butt in that chair; of course, I was writing at Eclipse Chocolat, so being surrounded by the best caffeine and chocolate in town didn't hurt.

World Fantasy: Finale

The other night, my wife and I watched "Field of Dreams" for the first time in a decade. I'm not a sports fan so I'm always amazed at how much movies like "The Natural," "Field of Dreams" and "Remember the Titans" get to me. I have no personal memory of being on a baseball diamond, feeling a ball connect with a bat or smelling the dirt and grass after a dramatic base-stealing, so what was it about this movie that made me cry; no offense to Costner fans, but he's not that great an actor. What I realized was that the movie wasn't triggering memories of stolen bases and crowds and team sports, it was triggering memories of my life as a writer and, specifically, my experiences at World Fantasy.

"I am pitching to 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson."

Ray Kinsella, by all accounts a grounded, sane and responsible family man, follows a bizarre and illogical compulsion and is rewarded by meeting one of his childhood heroes. He sits in the stands that he built and watches a historical Dream Team play in a field that he created. Not only that, he becomes friends with these men, getting to know them in a way he never conceived possible.

For the last 6+ years I've been following a similarly illogical compulsion and have been rewarded by walking among a Who's Who of the creative community. Just like Ray's nostalgic recollection of his father's baseball stories, the names on the spines of my father's library have come to life--I've gotten to meet them, shake some of their hands, share my admiration and, most significantly, gotten to spend time with them. Unlike Ray, though, I've also gotten to spend time with my own heroes, both newly met and from my own childhood.