Life, the Universe, and Everything

It seems like I just can’t get away from traveling for the job anymore.  On the whole, its not a bad thing, but there are certainly moments.  I suppose the worst part is planning the social aspect of things.  It is very difficult to plan activities when I can’t be sure if I’ll be home or not at any given point.  Of course, even when I know I’ll be home, the time I have to get things done at home is very limited.

I suppose its appropriate that I’m finishing writing this entry while on an airplane.  I apologize for any typos I may miss correcting – there is a fair bit of turbulence right now due to all the storms in the area.  I did start writing this a week ago while in Albuquerque, NM, but I guess distractions got the better of me.  Ah well, better late then never.

Its always interesting to see people’s reactions to delayed flights.  Its always frustrating, of course, but different people handle that frustration in different ways.  Some people are impatient and blame the airline for things beyond their control.  Some people just kick back and relax and make the best of it.  Generally delays only really bother me if I have a particularly long drive on the other end of the flight.  In this case, I’ve still got another 30 minute drive once we land, but thats not too horrible – especially compared to some of the other trips I’ve had in the past.

Airline travel has changed some, but it really is more the same than it is different.  There is still the same hurry up and wait aspect.  Endless lines, and everything else.  Security lines do seem to be moving faster for the most part, but sometimes security gets a little odd and inconsistent with the things that are allowed through.  A cheap screwdriver is allowed one place since the body of the tool is under 7 inches, but is not allowed at another airport because the whole thing is over 7 inches.  It might be interesting to see the research that said that a 6″ tool is “safe”, but a 7″ tool is a dangerous weapon.  I know there has to be a line somewhere, but without a consistent line, travel becomes more difficult than it needs to be.

Happy travels everyone!

Travel makes for good movie watching time and Blockbuster online makes it relatively easy to catch up on some of the more recent movies that I’ve been wanting to see.  I watched “Miss Potter” earlier this week while waiting at the airport for my flight.

This movie plays out a portion of the life of Miss Beatrix Potter.  If you havn’t heard of Miss Potter, well, I feel sorry for you.  Its time to climb out from under that rock you’ve been hiding under and do some reading, seriously.  Beatrix Potter is the best selling children’s author of all time, literally bringing her animal friends to life on the pages.

The movie describes how Miss Potter got her start with the illustrations and her storytelling, and a bit about her hunt for a publisher for her books.  Without giving away too much, it tells the story of her finding love, loss, and finding love again.

Overall:  I give ‘Miss Potter’ a must see rating.  Even if you don’t typically like romance movies, I think you’ll enjoy this one.

Tesla Motors has been getting a lot of buzz lately, and its no wonder why. True to the name, Tesla is bringing the all electric car back to market. Electric cars have been done from time to time, but nothing that I know of comes close to the technology that Tesla has developed.

Racing truely is the heart of the automotive industry, and Tesla is demonstrating their understanding of this principle with their inagural product, the Tesla Roadster. This sports car shows its ties to Lotus its design, and its performance will keep even the pickiest driver coming back for more. The latest performance tests demonstrate just how remarkable this all-electric vehicle really is. With a 0 to 60 time of just 3.4 seconds, its sure to glue you to the seat, and with no noisy combustion engine to disturb the neighbors.

In the past, range has been a limiting factor for the electric vehicles – another problem well solved by Tesla. With a range of nearly 250 miles on a single charge, only the longer road trips become a challenge. The normal charging cycle provides plenty of power to keep things rolling for the typical commute. To ensure safety, Tesla has designed the full charging system to protect the user from any possible shock. Charging current only flows through the cables when both the car and the charging station agrees that everything is connected correctly. For driver on the go, a mobile charging system is also available. To top it off, there is also a solar array available that will offset the electrical costs associated with charging the car for about 50 miles of range per day.

All in all, I would *love* to get my hands on one of the Tesla Roadsters. While the ninety thousand dollar price tag is a bit steep, it really is not bad at all for all the car you are getting. Alas, ninety grand is more than I can afford at this time, but perhaps in a couple years the price will come down as production ramps up. I wouldn’t be able to get one any time soon anyway, since the entire 2008 prodution run is already sold out. Ahh well.. It doesn’t stop me from dreaming.

Despite loving technology of all sorts, I have been hesitant to join the whole social networking game. I have even been skeptical of the blogging concept. When the social networking websites started showing up all those years ago, I had really just written them off as a passing fad, like so many other things have been.  Obviously that hasn’t been the case.  Social networking sites like digg.com and del.icio.us are quite popular, along with several others.  Far be it from me to counter the masses anymore.  I’ve started playing with digg and del.icio.us now, and I have an account on technorati to keep track of the blog’s statistics.  I can see the attraction to the social networking concept, even though I’m sure I have yet to see the full benefit.  If you haven’t joined any of these sites, I can actually encourage it now.  If you’re already a member, please feel free to add me to your network.

Rather than spending an excess of time on a bunch of posts about my Eve Online activities over the past year, I think I’ll just make this post a quick summary, and consider this the ‘starting’ point for further posts about my in game activities.

My first six months in eve were spent with the Venus Brotherhood. Overall, this corporation was a good place to learn my way around the game. I spent that time building up skills, primarily on the manufacturing and research side of the game, building ships at minimal profit for the corporation and various other similar activities. As time went on, I got delusions of greatness and decided to start a sister corporation to launch a POS tower in high security space for Venus Brotherhood. As I was raising funds for this process, several things happened that made it evident that I didn’t want to maintain too tight of ties to Venus Brotherhood. Even though I still consider many Venus pilots to still be friends, the lack of leadership while at war was very disappointing, and with the launch of the POS tower, it was time to take my own path in the universe.

In February of this year, I launched VNRI (Venus Research Initiative) and spent approximately 600 million isk to launch the POS tower. After getting a bit of business very early from Venus Brotherhood members and some brief advertising through some of the trade channels, I found out that a friend of a coworker had started an alliance, Empire Research, whose purpose is to provide POS based research slots to alliance members. After a quick vote, I joined the alliance and converted the labs to be available to alliance members. This simplified the process of handling operations and increased tower income tremendously.

Well… That covers most of it. Since joining Empire Research, I have made a sizable amount of money from the POS. Business was very good for the first 3 months or so until the alliance had war declared against it by another alliance, ‘The Privateers’. While the direct damage from this war declaration was minimal, it did cause several customers to leave the alliance. The past two months have shown pretty heavy losses as a result. So far, business seems to be picking up significantly for September, and if losses are posted again, they will be much smaller.

Now that I’m up to date, it will be much easier to provide updates that will perhaps not be quite so long. Well… they might still end up on the long side, but they won’t cover as much ground anyway.