Anniversary

Today officially marks our 18th Anniversary. Time really flies by as you get older.

China - less than 2 weeks to go

China – 2 weeks left

Well two weeks left in China and then I head back to the US. It has been a fast year. There are going to be things that I will miss and there are things that I am looking forward to back in the US. Shanghai is actually a very interesting place to live. My boss has a saying that all things are possible here in China, but not necessarily easy.

I suspect that my blogging over the next two weeks will be rather light, as I work on getting ready to leave. Once I get home, I should be back to my normal schedule of blogging. We are spending this week in Beijing and Xian, which will be our last trip we take inside of China. We waited until the last minute to travel to Beijing, but we wanted to make sure that we visited the numerous sites about Beijing, including The Great Wall, prior to coming home.

Overall, I think this has been a good experience for the family. I think the kids will really appreciate it as they get a bit older. I think any chance to do something a bit out of the ordinary is a good thing.

Paizocon

On a similar note, one of the things that I am missing this week is Paizocon. There were a couple of conventions that I really would have liked to have attended, and this was one of them. Gencon will probably be the only convention that I will be able to attend based on my schedule. Next year, I am hoping to attend this one, as well as a couple of other ones. One of the things that I do like is the number of postings on the Paizo boards about the various updates and such.

This brings me to a general comment on conventions. One of the things that I really enjoy about a good convention, besides meeting tons of folks that like gaming, is attending the seminars. I will be honest on this one, playing the games is fun and all, but I really like attending the seminars that give an inside look at what is coming down the pike. For some reason, and I maybe totally alone on this one, I really like hearing about all the new stuff, and in some cases being able to buy advance copies of gaming material before it hits the shelves.

The second thing I really like about conventions is wandering about the vendor booths and talking with the folks that actually are creating the material. I could spend hours just looking at the miniatures on display. The stuff on display is just stunning to look at. At my last Gencon, I stopped by the Green Ronin, and ended up talking with one of the folks there about the Dolphins for about 30 mins or so. It’s all good stuff.

As a final note, yes living here in China is cool, but I am looking forward to getting back to the states.

General Stuff

I have been fairly lazy with my blogging this week. My motivation has been lagging a bit with the other activities that have been occupying my time. I have three weeks left in China before returning to the US. My remaining time left will just fly by. Yesterday the packers came and now we are living out of suitcases until we leave. Most of my game stuff that I brought with me will be intransit for the next 2 months or so. Hopefully we will get it soon, along with the rest of the stuff.

I was also able to close on my new car when I get back to the States. I had sold my old one before going to China, so I need a new one when I arrive back. I am picking up the Toyota Venza, as it is a good mix between fun and utility. Yesterday I received confirmation that they had acquired the car I was looking for and it will be ready when I get back. I am actually really excited about this. While I do not consider myself a car buff by any stretch of the imagination, I do enjoy getting a new car. I have a tendancy to keep cars for ~8 years, so this does not happen that often. At the moment, I have a driver and a silver mini-van, so it will be fun to get behind the wheel again. I am convinced that in China, mini-vans only come in one color and that is silver. Although, there are a couple of blue and white ones, but for the most part, they are silver.

My son has been getting back interested in playing D&D again. With him, his interest comes and goes, but he has been back interested again. When I mentioned in passing Tomb of Horrors, he immediately wanted to play through. I did give him fair warning. He and his friend created 4 10th level C&C characters, and I am using the 3rd edition version that was published on the WotC website. We played for an hour or so this morning, and they have figured out the right entrance to in, after hitting the traps on the other ones. They know to look for traps, and they have found a couple, so we will see how it goes in the next session.

Work really interferes with fun

After a hectic week followed by a vacation in Hangzhou, I am ready to get back to blogging. I actually feel very guilty if I do not blog for a couple of days, and I meant to write some stuff up on Monday, but I just did not get there. Last week I was hosting a summit with all our regional partners, and it just chewed up any time I had.

Over the weekend my family went to Hangzhou which is a beautiful city located about 3 hours south of Shanghai. The city is centered around West Lake which is a good sized lake. Once it was the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, before the Mongols came and then the capital was relocated to Beijing. It is rumored that Marco Polo visited the city and called it the finest city in the world. Without a doubt, the area around West Lake is very stunning. Wikipedia has a good article on the city, and can be found here.

Now that I am back, I will start posting again on a regular basis.

Vacation

Blog entries will be a bit slow this upcoming week, as I will be on vacation in Australia. But, I will try to post a couple of entries while I am away.

General update and other stuff

Another light blog day for me. This week is a holiday week, and I am trying to spend time with the family, so my blog is not getting the attention that I would like to give it. Next week should be back to normal posting.

In other news, my Ruined Stockade adventure is completely completely mapped out, and it came in at 115 encounters. I have just started to add the text details, but I have a long way to go. My own personal technique for dungeon creation is as follows:

1) Draw out the maps in pencil
2) Write up short text on everything
3) Add the flavor text
4) Add the cross reference details, room links, and add the plot details
5) Write up the appendix with special monsters, magic items & NPC's
6) Write up the monster stat blocks as appropriate (I try to get away with as little as possible, but sometimes I can not)
7) Redraw the maps in pen
8) Finished - time to start on the next project.

I am going to take my son through to play test, and then I will use it later in the year with my old group, and I might take this beast to GenCon. This one is designed to be a mini-sandbox adventure with lots of different areas to explore along with 6 dungeon areas.

For this weekend's review, I am going to tackle Pathfinder #1 Burnt Offerings, and that should go up tomorrow. This will be the first in a six part series reviewing the first AP in the Pathfinder series.

Quote of the Day:

"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." (The Tower of the Elephant. Robert E. Howard)

Somewhere in there is a lesson on feedback.

Small Update Today

Today will be a small update. I finished Mechanicum, and in tomorrow's blog I will be commenting further on the Horus Heresy book series. Next up for me is Conan, and I am a bit embarrassed to say that I have not read any Conan material prior to this book. I read Solomon Kane last year, and it was excellent, and I am looking forward to digging back into Howard's material once again. For my readers that enjoyed Solomon Kane, I would highly recommend Matthias Thulmann: Witch Hunter by C.L. Werner. Thulmann feels very much like Kane transported into the Warhammer universe, and it was a very good read.

Tonight I want to put in some significant time into my mega-dungeon, so hopefully I will make some good progress.