Hayes-Compatible

Finally. Link is to the right.

I have memories of reading the Dungeon Master’s Guide cover to cover up north one summer around fourth or fifth grade, no small feat for me at the time. Small print on a mass of pages, a few big words and many foreign concepts. I remember thinking it was fascinating, and it fueled many hours of imagination playing with Lego sets.

It seems cheesy to say but I really think AD&D (coupled with my BBS hobby at the time) really motivated me to learn all kinds of skills and technology at a really young age. I learned the ins and outs of WordStar writing campaigns to send my friends on. I created character sheets, cheat sheets, reference pages, and all kinds of other forms using early versions of Excel and WordPerfect. I had a database of characters stored in Ability. I created simple scripts in Telix to help make it possible to run a game in a multi-node BBS chat room.

I really don’t have much more to say that has not been more eloquently said already.

My favorite is the “Kiddy ride” at about the 1:25 mark.

I can’t believe how awesome this is.

(tip: asmodeus)

Forward this to all geeks you know, there is good stuff in those stores. (via BoingBoing)

NCRG -> NIUE (CRJ)

I forgot to set the clock so this was our first night flight. Flying at night with nothing to look at is boring, we have decided. Landing with 3 miles visibility at an airport with no ILS is not, though.

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NTAA -> NCRG (737)

I’m sick of my computer crashing, it sucks because it is probably my ram.

Uneventful except for the landing, had to do a go-around.

Update: Guns describes it much better:

You need to add a little more detail on how terrified the passengers were. Imagine this….

You get on board a 737 for a short hop across the South Pacific from Tahiti to the Cook Islands. With the exception of a raging thunderstorm spanning 500 miles, it’s a fairly calm flight. On approach you start to get the feeling that things just aren’t right. Out the right windows you can see the island out there to the right but the plane isn’t decending. While you are totally unaware, the pilot and co-pilot are scrambling to try and learn why there is no glidescope appearing in the cockpit. Through the dissipating thunderstorm the airport becomes visible and the pilot realizes, we are on a very, very high approach. The average commercial pilot may casually set up for a go around., but this is no average flight crew. Kill the autopilot, full flaps, full speedbrake, DIVE! -4000 fpm on final. Once stabilized about 100 feet off the runway the engines go to full throttle?!? Oh no, autothrottle is still on and set to 170 knots. Abort, abort, go around.

Well that could have been it, except we arent climbing. In fact we are struggling to even stay in the air. DONT SINK, DONT SINK. After clearing the tree tops at the far end of the runway we are in big trouble. We’re now over the water and this thing feels like a sinking ship. Full throttle, 135 knots? A glance at the altimeter shows 75 feet!?! Big problem. Wait, the speedbrakes are still on full.

After that it was just like any other airline flight. I hope they at least got a bag of pretzels. I think Orbit Airlines may be getting a few phone calls.

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NTTO -> NTAA in a 747. Totally uneventful flight, kind of like they should be, I guess. Kinda came close to the ground during the approach. Learned quite a bit about the GPS unit during the flight, to stay amused.

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We won the championship! It totally ruled. I managed an assist on the game winning goal. We were down 2-0 in the first period but came back and made it 4-3 late in the 3rd.