Life, the Universe, and Everything

Space is getting closer to being accessible! Well.. at least if you have some money to spend it is. Regardless of how much money you have (or don’t have) though, It is still exciting to see cutting edge technology being developed.

Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic are teaming up to unveil the new WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft design on Monday.  SpaceShipTwo will connect to the center of WhiteKnightTwo and get lifted to 50,000ft.   Once at altitude, SpaceShipTwo is dropped for the remainder of its space flight up to 360,000ft.

Virgin Galactic is now accepting bookings for the first flights.  For a mere $200,000, you get a 2.5 hour flight on SpaceShipTwo, as well as 3 days of training.  Training includes a variety of simulations intended to ensure a safe flight and help to make the most of the Zero-G time during the flight.  Unfortunately there is a minimum deposit of $20,000 required to book the flight as well.

This one is definately on my to do list though.  Hopefully as the technology progresses, the price will come down.

I came across an incredible video the other day. I love the attention to detail in this office war – and the use of typical office items to provide the ‘special effects’. Take a look at the video embedded after the break.
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Ok – I have a thing for the tower defense type web games.  Onslaught is just one of several that I spend a bit of time playing here and there.   I recently came across another great tower defense style game – Gemcraft.

In GemCraft, you place gems on towers to shoot the baddies that are trying to get to your base.   Each type of gem has a different effect on the baddies that it hits, from slowing them down reducing armor and everything in between.  There are eight different gem types in all, and effects can be combined to provide multipurpose gems.  Multicolor gems are not as powerful as the “pure” gems, but there is always a purpose for them.

In addition to pure tower defenses with the gems, you can also throw the gems as bombs on the baddies.  This is a great way to clear out groups of baddies that have managed to slip through your defensive ranks.

Your score on each level is used to provide a rank in the game.  As you advance through the ranks, you get skill points that allow you to upgrade and enhance your defensive abilities.  These upgrades are essential to maximize your score on all levels and survive at all on the later levels.

I have finished all of the levels in the game and I’m currently at level 81, with a score of 240 million.  Played this game?  Post a comment with your thoughts and scores.

Well, its been a few months now, and my little city is still growing slowly and steadily.  The city is currently large enough to have multiple components that need to be built up together.  Due to my neglect, The city is currently in need of industry and transportation.   Of course people help too, but the others are needed more at this time.

Do you have a minicity?  Feel free to link to it in a comment.

Well… It seems that I’ve really dropped the ball again.   I promise myself I’m going to do more writing, and then I get too busy with other stuff and let the writing drop off again.   Since its been several months since I last wrote anything, I suppose now is as good a time as any to get back to it though.

I’m finding many things to fill time.   Generally there isn’t much challenge to filling time I suppose.  I end up with far too many things to fill my time with.   Until the last couple months, my big filler has been sailing.   Lately I’ve been too busy with other activities to even make it out sailing, and I’ve really been missing the water too.

There truely is nothing like sailing.   It can be a lot of hard work, but the work is immediately rewarded as well.  It is also very relaxing to get away from all the noise of life, even if it is only just for a relatively short period of time.  I’ve been doing a lot of sailboat racing, in addition to just getting out on the water and cruising around.

I have also been doing a lot of thinking about my personal priorities and goals lately.   I have finally started to get busy on the remodeling work that needs to be done to my house.   It will certainly not be a quick process, but at least its finally in motion.   I suppose it really just required finding some real motivation to start working on the project.  My motivation is kids.   No – I’m not having any kids right now – nor am I getting married any time soon.   I have always had a desire to have kids though, and that longing has not dimished with time.  I am currently working through the process of becomming a foster parent, which is where I’m finding my motivation to get my house put together.

I’ve got a lot of work to do on the house before I’m ready to get too deep into the process of becomming a foster parent, but with a bit of effort, I may be close in about a year.

While it would be silly to promise regular updates through the process of updating my house and everything, given my history at consistently writing, I will make an effort to post regular updates.

Till next time…

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