Andrew Phillips Weblog

So I went over to Fayetteville today for the Obama rally. It wasn't a horrible drive down to the Stadium, just a little cold and early. I got into line around 9:50, I was a little worried since the line in front of me was quite long but we were assured by the Obama staff that there would be no problem getting in from where we were. At about 11:30 the line started moving and we were on our way in.

Obviously with that area I was quite a minority in the line (and inside crowd), which was quite enjoyable. I was referred to as "Superman" by all the folks who were joking in line around me. That would be because of my Obama as superman t-shirt, I don't have a picture of it on me but I've attached what it looks like. They got a kick out of it and I had many pictures taken of me. There were all sorts of folks from all walks of life, which is what really makes America great. I knew some were teachers at universities and some where iron workers, there was also a group of women that I can only assume worked at a power plant or with coal with "clean coal" slogans on shirts and hats. It made me remember being back home in NY a bit, and that just made me smile.

Once I was able to get through security and inside the Arena it was time to find a seat. I moved through the crowd to try and get a front on few. I assumed the floor area was being reserved for VIP & selected folks they pulled out of the lines so I figured I'd try and get a seat as close as I could. As I walked around to what was directly across from the stage I struck up a conversation with one of the security/usher woman. I asked about finding a single seat and she suggested there should be one down there or on the floor. "The floor? That's accessible?" She confirmed and pointed at the stairs to take. I rushed down and snuggled into a place in the crowd about 4 people back from the barrier and 12-15 people back from the stage.

Since it was about 12:30 when I got to the floor I had an hour and a half from the start of the rally, my feet and back were ready to lay down but guess the desire to be there made the pain worth it. At about 1pm they started playing music fairly loud to get the crowd pumped up. Everything from old R&B to U2's beautiful day was played which had the crowd jumping.

At about 1:15 a group of singers and a preacher made it to the stage, they sang the Star Spangled Banner & The Pledge of Allegiance after the preacher did a nice non-denominational prayer. They did a great job and the crowd was very loud and cheering. Then they brought out the two opening folks. The first was a woman in charge of veteran affairs and spoke about her service and being patriotic but not agreeing with the war (which is good to hear from military & ex-military folks). The other was a wife of a Fayetteville soldier who is currently deployed. She mentioned the tax cuts and her family would pay $1750 less under Obama and would be given $0 from McCain. That drew a lot of boo's as it should.

Then the man came out. Wow. I obviously never saw Kenedy but from what I've heard my Mom and family members talking (as well as others) about how charismatic and a strong calm speaker he was, Obama was just the same. He came out and the crowd started screaming and he just stood there and waved. Honestly throughout his talks a few tears welled up, I was that impressed with not only his ability to speak but the content. It was so true and emotional.

A few things he talked about where very important and worth sharing. He spoke a bit about the Powell endorsement, the way he said it was so perfect. "I'm not only happy to have the endorsement, I'm humbled by it." He spoke about his economic policy, exactly why he wants to reduce taxes for the middle class and the poor. I don't understand how people can be against not raising taxes for people who make less then 250k and raising them for those who do. I'm sorry, but I'm currently effected by this but I know my company is and I'm ok with that. I understand it might mean I won't get a raise, but that's ok. I'd much rather not get a raise and help someone who's raising a family barley making it or working two jobs. He also had a nice little talk about how he's being referred to as a Socialist. "Giving Tax breaks to the poor and middle class is Socialist? How about giving tax breaks to the top 5%? How about giving on average 700k tax breaks to fortune 500 CEO's?" It was very well said and with a lot of class.

There was another wonderful life story into how Obama will change America point he made. He was with the Virginia Governor in southern Virginia campaigning and he wanted a snack. Obama then actually mentioned a place in Fayetteville that he couldn't remember the full name of and people were shouting it out, it was very cute and he had this "wait, you're getting me sidetracked thinking of what snack I'm going to have today." They went into this pie shop (since they both realized they love pie) and sat down for pie. The waitresses came over and asked for a picture since the owner was a Republican and they knew it would give them something to jab at him with. The owner then walked out with the pie's and Obama asked him "So I hear you're a staunch republican." The owner replied in the affirmative so Obama asked him "So how's business?" the guy said "not so good" to which very wittily Obama replied "If you keep hitting your head against a wall and it starts to hurt, do you stop? you might avoid having a headache and vote democratic this time". (I actually have a video of that I'll throw on youtube and give a link out).

Another point he made was about the attacks on him. His statement shows a lot of inner strength. "I'm ok with getting attacked for the next 3 weeks, we just can't take another 4 years of this party in the white house." Overall it was a very moving speech he gave, I feel like I want to go volunteer a bit especially since the Raleigh campaign HQ is 3 blocks from my house. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.

If you want to see the pictures you can go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/andrewphillips/ObamaRallyFayettevilleNC

So last weekend was the beer festival, what a good time! I wish there were more hours so that we could try more beers without rushing through! I started going through the list and realized I haven't seen a good application for reviewing / making lists of beers to have. I wonder if there is a place for a little application for that with a mix to the iphone.

Thoughts? Any Ideas?

So I've been playing quite a bit of 4th edition lately, and even though I haven't read the books front to back yet (I will eventually) I'd say I finally can make a judgment on the system as a whole. I'd have to say overall I really like it. The three action system (Minor, Move, Standard) a round works well and makes people feel like they've got more to do, even as a fighter.

The system is fairly fast, understanding the basics of the rules doesn't take very long and it starts to speed up (at least at low levels) especially with the help of cards. Yes, I'm using cards. Why? Well first of all it makes life a lot easier. I barely have to look at my character sheet in combat now and I like the idea of flipping them over when used then marking on the paper (and then having to replace it more often).

Combats last longer. On Friday night playing with some good friends we had a combat go over an hour and a half and it was a close fight till the end. That is with people acting fairly quickly. With 3rd edition you're lucky if a combat goes longer then 2 rounds. I absolutely love it.

So two days down at my new job and I'm loving it already. Why?

- I'm not in new employee training hell week
- I'm actually being productive and appreciated
- I have sunlight
- I have a nice little non-traditional cube
- I got a new machine that I had setup in a few hours since I had just done a full haul of a machine on my break (which was like practice)
- I'm rested from a week off
- I had sushi today, I haven't had sushi at lunch in a while... and its great!


So yeah, if it sounds like I'm gloating I am a bit. I've got an awesome boss and its nice to get out of the huge company ruts.

So I admit it, I was standing in the Columbus convention center at Origins trying to figure out where to go and saw a little candy / nut store and kept on looking. Sitting down with some friends someone mentioned the PB&J sandwiches they sold which didn't seem too impressive till he starting talking about it. My next few hours of gaming I continued to think about them and the next afternoon I shot down there to try one out. I really don't know how to say it other then it was the best PB&J sandwich I've ever had in my life, other then the next one I had of course.

Why? I don't know. The bread was a nice thick piece that was very meaty, it was cut thick enough that it looked like it was going to overpower the sandwich. The jelly was a nice flavor, usually this is the main thing you taste in a PB&J sandwich, not this time. And the peanut butter, God. I know its been a few months now but I can still taste it.

There is a funny story that goes along with this.... So there I was... no shit. I'm leaving the conference, its pouring rain so I decided to leave a little early to be sure I didn't get stuck in traffic. I rush through to security and head in with my gaming bag and suitcase. Now I bring a larger suitcase to Origins since I always come home with a bunch of goodies. This time I got the new Witch Hunter trinkets, a few games from Lonney Labs, a few other books...etc. So I bring a larger suitcase (and shipped a box to be honest with my ren garb) so I don't have to deal with a bunch of small bags.

I walked through security and as usual, my backpack is getting looked at hard. Funny thing about gamers backpacks... a bunch of hardcover books and then dice on top, if its not a gaming convention they're always wondering what the fuck that is. So I'm waiting on the other end and they ask to search my bag, I agree since it was less of a question as a statement. It flashes through my mind at that point. Shit, I have a pair of scissors for cutting up certificates. Oh well, they're small and cheap for a reason. Nope. They pull our the scissors and my peanut butter jar. Which one is a possible weapon of mass distruction? Of course the peanut butter. They say I can bring the scissors on the plane since they're small enough. This is the same TSA that a few months earlier was removing toenail clippers from carry on luggage. Peanut butter though? That could be a bomb, its considered a jell. So I donated the peanut butter since shipping it to myself would have cost $20 at the terminal.

So why do I mention all this now? I've finally caved and ordered some from the Krema Nut Company, and I can't stop thinking about it.

A few weeks before I resigned from McClatchy I decided to pickup a mac mini. Why? Well there were three major reasons...

First I had a need for a new machine at home, I'm a big fan of what apple has put out but I didn't want to spend a bunch of money. Why not spend a bunch of money? Well, obviously the economy is down, but I also have a decent desktop that does everything I need but I also have cane tickets I've got drafting for a few months so I wanted to remove the pain there.

I needed a single place to store all my media files, I've got a shitton of music files that I've collected/ripped over the past 10 years or so. Its been spread across a few machines and its honestly the biggest pain to manage. iTunes for better or worse works really well for what I need, a single place to play/manage music that can easily be shared. I've gotten everything on the mini now and I can listen to it streamed on my desktop or using the speakers attached to the mini that I control with my iPhone.

I needed a new way to host content. Yes, this webpage is hosted on my mac mini. Why, why the fuck would you do that? Well for two reasons. First, I used to use 1&1 till they fucked me. I won't go into details but basically my box (that I've had with them for 4 years) was moved to a different colo without notifying me and they screwed the pooch. It was down a little over 2 weeks including replacing the motherboard since it stopped working when they moved it. I wanted to also remove the $49 (or more if I moved somewhere else) from my monthly expenses and honestly the reasons I used to want a colo box have been removed. I don't want to manage mail anymore so I let google do that since it reads everything anyway, and I also have little need for large files to be hosted.

I also wanted a machine hooked up to my new tv. Its nice watching a downloaded (remind me to block the RIAA from this site) tv show not on my PC. With the DCMI cable adaptor it works seamlessly. I can also browse the web on my couch without pulling out a laptop with a few button clicks.

So those are the major reasons why, I've been spending a few hours a week getting it setup the way I want and I'll eventually post all the software I have (mostly open source) installed to get it working, but I still call it a work in progress.

So after a year+ of not blogging at all and changing my computer setup I've decided to bring back the blogging. So a year? What a recap...

My job has changed since the last post. The funny thing is that the last post I had on my old blog (which wasn't imported since I didn't really care) was about starting at McClatchy Interactive. I had a great time there, we were working on an amazing product I was very proud of, but due to a lot of internal issues it didn't feel like the right place for me anymore and I made the jump to work with some really interesting people. I'm currently in my 'week off' which is how I've gotten around to getting this all setup.

I've been playing D&D quite a bit. Last year will be referred to as the year of the conventions for me. I went to probably a few too many but I had a blast doing it and I won't ever forget it. I went from Atlanta to Columbus and a few places in between. I've found the one convention I do want to keep going back to which is Origins, what a blast! I've found a new group of people to play with over the past year and I've gotten to play with them regularly, its been a blast and now I'm much more selective of when/where I play.

I also found a new RPG I love called Witch Hunter. I've played quite a bit, and I've been working on a few outlines for writing modules. Hopefully I'll have the courage to get those submitted for feedback, I don't expect much since I haven't been the best writer in the past, but its surely something I want to work on.

Homebrewing has taken a back seat to everything I've been up to this past year, sadly. I've got plans to revive my homebrewing and hopefully in the next few weeks I'll have my first batch in a year started and going. My love of beer hasn't changed though, I love trying new stuff and I'll be at the Durham Beer Festival coming up October 4th. I've got the keg fridge all set up for it.