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May 17, 2000 |
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I came in to work today, only to find this waiting for me on my
desk. Great! Someone out there is a comedian. Just for the
record, I don't like the wilderness. I know… what am I doing in
Seattle? This is where the job happens to be. I barely even tolerate the
outdoors in general. It wasn't until I was about eighteen until I first
started developing an appreciation for the Florida beaches and sun. I may
be retired before I develop similar fondness for the Pacific Northwest and
the forests.
Sorry, I just don't see the point. There's no inherent beauty in a tree.
Why?! …just because it is natural? …so is a bowel movement, I
don't see you people taking pictures of that! Maybe it just
happens to be the mindset in this part of the country. Is it because it is
peaceful? Natural? So is death, do you celebrate that?
Maybe my mindset is that there's beauty in all things, maybe it is simply
in the way we approach looking at them. To me cityscapes are the ones that
are truly breathtaking. You see the representation of work and progress.
It is a celebration of the human spirit, a physical representation of the
strength of the human will. In a strange sense, it is a local microcosm of
humanity, representing both what we are and what we aspire to be. There's
little humanity factor when looking at a picture of a forest. I'm sorry;
I'm an engineer. I have a fondness for man-made things… buildings,
bridges, cars. You name it. I prefer the cities.
Except Seattle, life sucks here. There's no parking.
I had plans tonight to get together with some friends of mine. We're gamers. I'm not talking about computer gaming, I'm talking about role-playing games. In this case, we're playing Dungeons and Dragons. No, I'm not ashamed to admit that I still play. It is possibly the funnest, most rewarding game I've played. I started playing years ago, when I was still in high school, I must've been forteen then. And here I am nearly eighteen years later, still playing this game.
We wouldn't actually be playing tonight. The last time we got together, we had finished off our campaign and most of our characters had died. This time we would be starting a new one, so thus we would have to put together new characters. We often use the term, roll new characters, since typically we have to roll dice to put together some of the numbers for the characters.
I would be trying something new this time around, I would put together a dual-classed character. One that starts up in one profession and later switches to another. All in all this is a bit unconventional, but I figured that it is something I had not tried before. To start, I would be playing a cleric, which in and of itself is a bit of a stretch for me, once attaining mid-levels I would switch the character to a thief, which is a very typical frank character to play.
What else? Oh, I rolled up the character as a human female. This is also fairly unconventional, most players role play the same gender that they happen to be. I normally play them about 50% of the time. I think it adds a bit of tension to the party that is fun to play. This particular character happens to be 6'1" and 135 pounds. I'm not sure if all the numbers make sense, but that's what I rolled.
During the middle of the night, I took a break and called Pam. I just wanted to take a little break and also say hi. We spoke for a few minutes before I went back in.
By the end of the night we had worked out most of the issues. I still needed to iron out a few numbers and work on developing a background history for my character. Not that big a deal really, except that I'm not all that creative. Still, I would have to put that together fairly soon. [Sigh]
May 17, 2000