Burner Edumacation

The last post got me on a tangential line of thought that I figured I'd explore more fully.

Burners have educated me.  They've forced me to tackle some concepts that I knew were part of the game but were never part of /my/ game.

Now, I could have and maybe should have known all of this.  But EVE is so big that even after 12 years of this, I still only keep current with the content directly in front of me.

Here are some things I learned due to killing Burners:

• Differences between faction webs and meta webs includes web range.
• How to use a cap booster; had never used one in anger before
• Effects of signature radius and target speed on missiles
• Nuances of faction ammo vs t2, especially missiles but also hybrid and projectile. Larger dps on show info window doesn't always mean larger /actual/ dps.
• That there was a version of SAR that used nanite paste as fuel. Had no idea.
• Nuances of rigs, rigging, and impacts of rigs from the same family (especially the missile rigs)
• Differences between links and optimizing link set for a given fight
• That there were implants that directly affected missile dps. I don't use them, but now I know they're there.
• The "optimal range" field in target painters really means "max range for any effect"
• How to manage overheat
• The overheat skills matter
• If you logoffski during a fight, your link benefits go away immediately even though your ship is still on grid (matters sometimes)
• How a passive-shield Jaguar handles in a fight; I now understand why Sugar loves them.

(I'm sure I'll think of a few more once I post this, but I think that's it for now.)

Ships that I have fit to face burners that I probably would never have flown:

• Garmur
• Daredevil
• Jaguar
• Wolf
• Retribution

Pundits say that Burners really aren't like PVP at all.  And I guess that's true.  They're still predictable, dissectable encounters, and and ultimately you're still playing against a machine that won't ever hotdrop on you, and there won't ever be friends that arrive just in time to sway the fight.  Once you figure out the encounter, the opponent never improves his skills and the content quickly becomes an exercise of push-button, get loot.  I get that, of course.  

But some of these skills/knowledge are transferable, and that's not a bad thing at all.

Bug Hunting - Seeking the Seekers III

Last night I was finishing up an AE4 in the same system with the Jove Observation Post and decided to see if the CS were still home.  I was in the Golem, and I wanted to try the bigger ship against them.  I also wanted to salvage a few and see what kinds of crazy things they were made from.

Fight was pretty standard, I could still have used a web or two as the CS orbit at over 1km/s.  Against my volleys of cruise missiles, they were a little tougher to take down than a lvl4 NPC HAC (think: ~220k+ bounty).  They were hitting me for pretty good damage (100 to 200 per volley, each) but again, shields dropped at about the same rate as full pocket aggro in a good lvl4.  I didn't have to bastion and at no time was I in any great danger.  I did align to a gate in the event something surprising happened, but otherwise things went smoothly.

I ended up killing 3 CS.  They seemed to respawn after a short delay so I almost always had a full squad on me.  Got two more Antikythera Element.  Salvage yielded nothing exotic; all three had positive salvage results but all went into my existing pile of salvage mats from the AE4.

It's been fun to roam around and do things with content and not knowing with certainty what the result was going to be.  Putzing around in the system taunting the CS, in many ways, reminded me of my very earliest days in EVE when we still explored each moon, each belt, and each planet looking for untold fortunes.

50th Burner Offer

After a few weeks away from mission content, I started knocking a few heads together this weekend.  Yesterday I completed my 50th Burner mission offer, a Team Hawk effort.

I haven't posted stats the past couple months, mostly because the overall numbers/rates haven't changed dramatically ... and because I've been lazy. :)

Of those 50 Burner offers, I've completed 43 - the others were 5 declines and 2 outright failures early on.

I yield about 14.2k LP per burner.  For the completed Burners alone (not including the 174 vanilla lvl4's I've done to yield all those Burners), I've yielded something like 610k LP.  If I can yield 1200 isk/lp (and sometimes I don't, but often I do MUCH better), that's 732M isk from Burner LP.  Add another ~430M for Burner bounties (about 10M for reward plus bounty where I live), and I am net positive by a healthy amount, despite my initial losses in ships.

Now, this is spread over many months since burners were introduced.  But my point is this:  if you're looking at return-on-investment for buying up some faction ships and shiny modules, Burners do pay off.  If your reason for not doing Burners is based out of the idea that the costs are too high, check your math.

They aren't risk-free.  You'll likely lose some ships.  But you'll learn some things about ship fitting (I did) and combat mechanics like affects of sig radius and speed (I did).  But you'll make some isk, and probably have some fun too.

Now quit declining those Burner offers and go crack some skulls.  :)

Bug Hunting - Seeking the Seekers II

Back with another post.

Upon my return from chores, the Sacri and I found CS pretty quickly back at the Jove Outpost.  There were 7 total of them, and I picked a fight.

The Sacri soaked damage like a champ.  I killed a total of 7 CS and the group began to respawn while I was fighting (it seemed to be a group of 2 and another group of 5).  Damage for the group seemed to be about like an easier grade level 4 pocket.  Damage dealing with the PVE fit was slow but steady.  I'd likely have done better with a web, but I grabbed what I had handy.

After the 7th CS died, I was getting a little bored and decided to see how the new AI worked.  So I warped to an Ice Anom pocket (and probably annoyed the ice miner locals).  Five of the 7 CS followed me, reasonably quickly, and we had another fight.  After killing the 8th CS, I warped to a gate and it took a little longer, but the CS followed.  Warped to a belt and they followed.  Warped back to the gate, they eventually followed.  Unlike our initial encounter, the bugs were now aggressive - I was apparently now on their KOS list.  :)

I killed a 9th CS and switched systems.

As I type, I'm orbiting my home station to see if they'll track me down.

For my trouble, I got zero bounties, but did loot 4x Antikythera Element (seemed pretty consistent every-other wreck for about 50% drop rate).  I didn't salvage, though next time I'll install a salvager.

For now I'll put the strange materials in my hanger and hope the mystery compound doesn't kill The Damsel or my posse of Exotic Dancers.

(minutes pass)...  Has now been almost 20 minutes, I guess the bugs got bored too.  Time to dock up and go put shoes on so I can get some Fajitas!

Bug Hunting - Seeking the Seekers

It's time to go bug hunting.  Each patch seems to be adding more layers to the Seeker/Drifter lore.  I'd kind of like to get in on the ground floor of such changes, and looking back at the past few weeks I'm a little disappointed with myself that I didn't tackle this sooner.

It's time to kill some Seekers.

And no, not that Seeker.  I'm talking about Circadian Seekers.

Like any good internet nerd, I first googled for fits of what other folks are using to hunt the bugs.  Google failed me - results were basically just a repeat of the in-game news and general griping about how CS didn't drop loot.

I did find this page that gave some stats, but have no idea if it's accurate or not.  If true, the damage from CS aren't that bad.  I was warned that CS have an 11km orbit and like to fly at about 1km/s.  So I either need something with good web range or something quick.  And I really had no idea how much damage the bugs would put out, so I really wasn't wanting to risk one of my front line ships just for dorking around.

So, it was time to fit a ship with the full intention of not coming home.  What to pick?

Round 1 - Caracal.  Why?  I wanted something Tech1 for cost, and I haven't flown this hull in ages.  I went with a passive tank, HAM setup.  Why?  I haven't flown HAMs in forever either.

I found a Jove Observation post with 4x CS present.  Approached my first target, applied web, and started the fight.  I killed one CS but then had to abort.  Damage wasn't high but the passive tank wasn't holding nearly well enough to stick around.  The dead CS appeared to instantly respawn, and I got no loot.

No webs, nos, or warp disruption, so I went to get my trusty Sacri before the CS disappeared.  It was only one jump away and I went as quick as I could.

Alas, when I returned, they were gone.  I warped around a bit, checked dscan, but couldn't locate them.  I had chores to do, so this chapter ends in a draw.

Things I learned:
1. Bugs can be killed.
2. Damage isn't horribad, apparently compared to the Drifter Doomsday.

Stop the Thief, Now With More Orthruses

Or is that Orthrusi?

Anyway, was running Stop the Thief tonight, lvl4, and noticed that there are now Mordus Headhunters ships where previously there were Merc Moas (or perhaps Caracals).  See screenshot.

Nice little discovery in the new patch.  Pretty cool to get some of the newer sleeker hulls in action.

The Merc Lieutenants were still in the Moa hulls, btw.

Feeding the Animals

This made me laugh out loud at the keyboard.  From a post over at MassivelyOP:

At EVE Fanfest 2015, CCP took the story one step further with a trailer ... showing Drifter battleships harvesting capsuleer corpses and using them to rebuild their own bodies. Now players have discovered that this is actually happening in-game; If you die in a system with Circadian Seekers or eject a corpse into space, the body will be picked up and taken for processing. 

I read this and I exlaimed to myself:  THIS IS AWESOME! I HAVE GOT TO TRY THIS!  Like any good spaceship lunatic, I have a few corpses in the virtual freezer.  What better use for them than to feed the Jove?

And then I thought....  We had a stray cat once.  We fed him, so he stuck around.  We named him Frank.

What could possibly be the end result of feeding */this/* animal?  Only good things, I'm sure. :)

I read part of this article and explained this train of thought to Mrs. Durden, and we agreed that the classic rules from Gremlins ought to apply:

• Don't get him wet.
• Don't expose him to direct sunlight.
• Never, ever feed him after midnight.

This is just the beginning of the fun, I'm sure.

Holy Cow, it was the Jove all along!

Scylla has been deployed.  The plot from Caroline's Star appears to be moving again.  The exploded star's graphics are a bit different after being "stuck" for the past few weeks.  And now the mysterious cloaky structures are now uncloaked and described as being a "Jove Observatory" - at least the one I found this evening was.

I spent some time orbiting the structure to see if any visitors would show up (none did).

It also looks like it's crumbling or a little broken, or as I described it in chat:  A little bit like Sigourney Weaver's Alien jumped out of its chest.

Here's a shot of the show info window:

This youtube vid from the test server (not posted by me) shows the tower in all its glory:

EVE Vegas, Baby

October sounds so far away.

We talked about going to FanFest this year, but couldn't make it work with vacation schedules and money.  My backup plan for the past many months is to go to EVE Vegas.  A business trip in early December that had me routed through Vegas cemented the idea of going back to the area for a long weekend.

I've been watching for the EVE Vegas tickets to go up, and was actually talking to Mrs. Durden about it yesterday.  Lo and behold, there was a sneaky little dev blog released 2 days ago when I wasn't looking that announced tickets on sale.

Being slow on the uptake cost me a few bucks, as the early bird tix are all sold out already.  Grr.

But here's the reason for the post:  Eventbrite has officially notified me that WE ARE GOING TO EVE VEGAS.  (woot).

Now my compulsive planning disorder will make me figure out the hotel accommodations and the rest.

Quick Post

Quick post.  Will bounce around a bit:

1) Fanfest is over.  I'm looking forward to seeing Sugar's notes from the PVE session.  I'm not expecting anything major or we'd have heard about it by now, but is always nice to dig through the details.

2) My lowsec alt is shaping up fine.  I spent some time with him last night, moving things around and making sure I wasn't missing any major skills.  If I were around more, I'd be blizing around Molden Heath, though I really do need to pick an area of the map to settle in.  As it is, he's sitting on the floor in a lowsec schoolhouse with books scattered around him, training this, training that.  He's now CovOps capable and is humping on some scanning/probing skills.

3) The Season 2 of Diablo 3 (ouch, those numbers make my brain hurt) is ending April 5th.  This season was MUCH shorter than S1 and I'm kind of caught by surprise.  I'd been casually playing a co-op campaign with Mrs. Durden and now we need to speed through the last 15 or so levels before the season ends.  It's not that it's impossible - I could start a new character this afternoon and still make the lvl cap cutoff.  It's more of a priorities and gameplay allocation problem than any lvling mechanics of D3.  Simply: at our current pace, we won't make it, so there goes some dedicated game time away from EVE.  Drat.

CSM X Members and Scylla Patch Notes

Congrats to the members of CSMX, as reported by EN24 and TAGN.

• Manfred Sideous - Pandemic Legion
• Cagali Cagali - Brave Collective
• Sort Dragon - DARKNESS.
• Jayne Fillion - Sanctuary of Shadows
• Steve Ronuken - Fuzzwork Enterprises
• Chance Ravinne - WINGSPAN Delivery Services
• Gorga - Nulli Secunda
• corebloodbrothers - The Volition Cult
• Thoric Frosthammer - Get Off My Lawn
• Sugar Kyle - Snuffed Out
• Endie - Goonswarm Federation
• Mike Azaria - The Scope
• corbexx - No Holes Barred
• Sion Kumitomo - Goonswarm Federation

It looks like Manfred and Sugar (both bolded here for emphasis) secured enough votes to be the guaranteed travelers next year to Icelandic shindigs.

All four of my endorsements (Sugar Kyle, corbexx, Mike Azariah, and Jayne Fillion) made the cut, so I am reasonably happy!  Good luck to all of them.

EDIT:  If you want an overview of the FanFest keynote, check out the summary at massivelyop.net (which is the successor to Massively).

The Scylla patch notes are now available.  I've done a quick scan for Anomic content and found only one correction of a typeo (meh).  Otherwise I don't see much groundshaking changes in terms of PVE and agents.  That being said, there is some content being added to the "Opportunities" system, which is the new player experience experiment.  I suppose that this framework could be expanded in time to include more content for legacy players, perhaps in the same dynamic way as suggested in my last post.

One Wish

Fighting a case of really nice weather here after a pretty crummy February.  It's pretty hard for me to stay focused on the PC when the sun is out and the birds are chirping and it's finally warm enough to venture outside minus the parka.  What a difference a few days make - not awful long ago I was layered up in my Carhartt's plowing snow.

As I mentioned, I have given a little bit of thought to what I would change if I could fix one thing in PVE.  Fanfest is around the corner, so I'll publish this (no doubt will be way off the mark) and see what unfolds.

Here's my wish:  I'd gut the lvl4 system and chuck it in the bin.  Then I'd burn its corpse and dance on the ashes.

That's probably an odd thing to say for someone who's basically a mission runner full time.

I think the game DOES need an agent mission system.  I think it's vital, actually.

I do want a little more depth, and maybe agents that force you to move around a bit.  On the other hand, I do not want "quests" in the way that the SOE arc and the old COSMOS system sent you on.

My replacement system would be a dial-a-difficulty dynamic agent provider.

Example:  If I want to do Battleship Combat, I click on the agent, ask for work.  Agent sees that I have a tech2 equipped Golem active and generates two missions for me to choose from - Silence the Informant and Worlds Collide.  I choose one and run.  (Said another way: No real change to current lvl4 mechanics for those that like humping around in Golems and Tengus and saving the Damsel)

Example:  If I want to do Frigate Combat, I click on the agent, ask for work.  Agent sees that I'm in a Kestrel with low meta modules.  Agent generates a few starter missions with appropriate difficulty and payout.

Example:  I pimp out a tech1 cruiser, and decide I want a challenge.  I ask the agent for 'hard' work and it kicks me over to expert mode and tries to kick my ass.

Example:  If I want to run a courier mission, I fit a Bestower and click on the agent, ask for work.  Agent sees that I have the Bestower and offers a reasonably large-cargo courier.  I could, however, ask for Courier work in my Crow and get a smaller cargo haul of perhaps more hops.

At the core of this system would be a parametric encounter generator that would generate the enemy ships and triggers somewhat randomly.  I say 'somewhat' because the same encounter accepted as a Maller would by necessity be scaled down from the version I would accept in a Bhaal.  And likewise if I continue to run with the Maller, repeat visits to save the Damsel would result in a slightly different kill list, spawn points/distances, mix of target types and sizes, and perhaps a chance at a few named guys.

I don't claim that this would eliminate the grindy grind that missions are.  No way that's possible.  But by fostering a system where more ships are more viable in PVE, we can at least open the flood gates to new fits, new metas, rewarding risktakers doing expert mode missions, and the ability to fly a ship because it looks cool and not because "it's the best."

Flashbacks

As we get close to the CSMX election results announcement (and FanFest), I thought I'd put some text down about what kinds of things I'd like to see in the PVE-realm over the next many months.

When I got started, there were really 2 posts that I wanted to get written and published.

While sitting on the airport this week, I started thinking about what I'd change in PVE if I could just change ONE thing. This led in a few tangential ideas, which I'll hopefully be posting over the next few days.

But as a stepping stone, I wanted to rehash a couple ideas from these original posts.  Burners are very VERY similar to my Expert Missions proposal, but don't line up in a couple of important ways.

1. Manifesto
2. Expert Missions

I'd had these sentiments bottled up in my head for awhile, and I began this blog with full intent of working the ideas out into something presentable.  So I wrote, put them out there, and felt better.

And then a funny thing happened:  Burners.  At the point I started this blog to ramble about PVE, our friends at CCP were already well on their way to implement some frigate PVE, and a few short weeks after I set up shop here the content was being released.  Timing, as they say, is everything.

So queue up the flashback sequence....

Jump Fatigue IRL

Okay, I'm back from from a business trip that consumed most of my week so that I could attend 6 hours of meetings on Wednesday.

The place I was visiting is approximately a 9 hr drive from my home.  It's located in a reasonably large metro area, but happens to be in a part of the country that is surrounded by large airport hubs, and is overshadowed by them, i.e. there are very few flights servicing the exact airport I needed to get to/from.  The corporate policy I deal with ties my hands on travel, resulting in wasted time and energy for the sake of appearances.

To be clear - as a mid-level manager in my organization, I have almost free reign over programmatic issues.  I can make million dollar decisions with a phone call, and my daily responsibilities include making decisions that can take human life (in a very dramatic fashion) if there is ever a failure of our product.

Yet on the administrative side I am hamstrung by one-size-fits-all policies that (for example) include a large bias towards NOT driving for routine travel.  The corporate goons can't and won't ever understand my programmatics, and therefore don't even try to intrude (thank God).  But they will argue with me about $50 decisions to take Airline X vs. Airline Y (even though with bag fees it's cheaper to fly Airline X).  Or they'll tell me by edict that I can't possibly drive 9 hours and that it "looks better" if I simply conform and spend 12+ hours in the airport to reach the same destination.  I can't, (again by edict) fly into Las Vegas (because of "appearances") even though I can get a direct flight there and drive (total door to door time of 6 hours), vs. being forced to take a connection and THEN drive from a less provocative airport (total door to door time of 12 hours).

So, on Tuesday, we spent about 12 hours getting to our destination instead of driving for 9.  On paper it looked a lot better - I should have been onsite by 2 in the afternoon.  But, first flight was delayed 20 minutes, meaning we missed our connection after a mad scramble from gate C24 to gate A1-G, through tunnels, up escalators, down escalators, and even a friggin' train.  We missed our connection by 5 minutes.  Instead of waiting for another 8 hours for the next flight (or hahaha, taking another flight that sent me to Dallas and THEN back to my destination), I grabbed a rental and drove the final ~120 miles to the endpoint.  The additional rental car cost was $177 to add the 1-way route, and I fully expect to get reamed on Monday over it.

Yesterday, likewise, included every dumb thing an airport can do to you and I spent a tad over 12 hours fighting airports, mechanical delays, missed connections, TSA shenanigans (complete with squad cars and a men-in-black suburban surrounding our embrair commuter plane just before we pushed back).

Bonus points was the redneck 3 rows away from me with incredible body odor (dude, you may be wearing full camo so we can't SEE you, but we sure as hell can SMELL you).

This is a rant, I know. I really started typing to try to explain why the posts here have been quiet.  The meetings themselves were productive, and I got to spend quality time (i.e. schmooze, hobnob, brown nose, pick your verb) with one of our offsite bigwigs that sends us $$.  Had I to do over, I would still attend the meeting.

And I really love my job.  I do.  Apart from some arcane admin policies, we're not that bad.  We have a great local team and the things we do have lasting impacts.  We do cool things on a cool product with very little adult supervision.  It is by far the best job I've had in a 15 year career, and it's a job that I hope to retire from in another 15-20.

But dammit, I'm about to go to my doctor and complain about an "inner ear condition" so that I can get a note that lets me drive instead of fly.

So yes, this ... this is what Jump Fatigue looks like in real life.  More posts to follow, I've had plenty of down time lately to ponder topics to write about.

Hooray for Daylight Savings

It's Daylight Savings clock changing day here in the U.S.  No idea if it's a worldwide clock changing day or not, but I got up, walked to my cell phone and realized I'd lost an hour.  Such a silly tradition.

A few things:
- There are a few days left to vote for CSMX if you somehow haven't.  Most of you have probably already run to the polls and done your thing.  If not, this link will take you there.

- I'm reading the Sov dev blogs again.  I'm not a Sov guy, so I'm keeping my opinions to myself.  It's going to be interesting to watch, at least from a game-philosophy-standpoint how things shake down.

- Mrs. Durden humored me and played a pretty good game of X-Wing miniatures (tabletop) on Friday night.  It's not her thing, but she'll play me once a week or so just to get me to shut up.  At the moment I'm testing a tournament list (squad roster) and trying to practice my maneuvering before I go to the local game store for nerd fun.  I'm proud to say that my wife kicks my ass most of the time; my win ratio is less than 50% at the moment.

The weather finally broke, so I've got stuff to do outside.  Enjoy your 23 hour day!

Fluency

I read a fair bit, but I don't have an extensive library.  Said another way:  I tend to reread my favorite series every few years, and that scratches my "reading" itch and I don't have more time to pick up new series.  I've talked before about a couple of other scifi series that I've read.

I don't much like disposable pulp fiction.  I like deeper stuff, with a little more character development.  I like near-future scifi stuff, in that awkward phase of (assumed) human development where we're still bound to the solar system and warp drives and such haven't been invented yet.  I like having a culture that's somewhat familiar, and having time, distance, and technology a limiting factor in the storytelling (compared to say, Mr. Data or Mr. Worf saving the day once again by shooting a tachyon beam out of the main deflector, ugh.).

Anyway, I picked up Fluency by Jennifer Foehner Wells on Amazon last week.  It's a quick read - I think I did it in 3 sessions.  At face value it checks a lot of my boxes - near future, our solar system, and not a straight-to-paperback format.

It's a scifi tale set basically in present day, based in and around a derelict alien ship that's been found in our asteroid belt.  The Americans find the ship in the 1960s and base their entire NASA program around the goal of sending a secret mission to investigate the thing.  There's references to the UFO that crashed at Roswell, which brings a little bit of X-Files vibe to the start of the book.

I enjoy the writing style; each character has his own vocabulary and way of thinking.  As the point of view shifts between the two main players, we get a good deal of character development.  Some of the other crew seems a little more cardboard and less fleshed out, but less so than some of the pulp sci-fi that's out there.

Much of the story is groundwork and background as the mystery surrounds the ship unfolds.  There will no doubt be another book (or five) to follow.

It's an aggressive story, in terms of the amount of story that there is to cover, written in a no-nonsense fast paced manner.  Some bits felt a little rushed and I wished that some parts would have been developed a little more.  It could have been easily double the length, and I'd have read every bit of it.

So, if you need a good distraction as Winter continues to taunt us, I think it's worth the time and effort to track down a copy.

Ominous

There's a pretty good dev blog (yay for charts and graphs!) that's been available for a few days but somehow slipped past me.  It's worth a read.

The dev blog ends on an ominous note:

We are really enjoying watching all the creative ways you have come up with to interact with the new NPC AI and we look forward to seeing how you tackle the next phase!

I see folks complaining that Drifters are a waste because they drop no loot.  This quote seems to confirm my quiet assumption that CCP is dabbling here, poking and prodding ... and they aren't done yet.  Thanks to the quicker release cycle, hopefully we can see some improved PVE options in the near future.

Mentally, I've tried to map Drifters into current PVE features (Drifter Burners Missions? Drifter Incursions?) and came away with a pain in my frontal lobe not unlike a brain freeze.  Ow. Ow. Ow.  I decided that as much as I love doing work for my SOE agent, I hope it's something new entirely.

Monday Madness

Things have been slow here, so let's do a random ramble post of all the minor topics I can think of:

• Things in general for me in EVE have been slow.  Unlike years past, this doesn't mean that I'm off playing some other game; I just haven't been that active at all on the PC lately.  I'm still logging in nightly to check evemail and market movements and chat a bit with the crew.  But I've rarely undocked over the past 10d and need to correct that.
• The lowsec alt I mentioned is now training happily on my 2nd account.  I'll be checking into lowsec in another week or two.  More to come on this topic.
• If you haven't read this post over at the Nosy Gamer, you should.  Jammers and fireworks.  Hahaha.
• If you're a fan of Star Wars and you're not watching Star Wars Rebels on XD, you're missing out!  It's an animated series that takes place 5 years before the first Death Star was destroyed.  It's the prequel that makes me love the original trilogy all over again (compared to the drek that Lucas coughed up for episodes I-IIII).  For a kid's show, it's really really good.  I'm hooked.
• We're having a very cold late winter here.  There are a handful of things that I should have done in February that I will now be doing in March.  I'm concerned that we could also have another late (or wet) spring like last year, which will make life difficult for me. I always struggle in the Spring to get chores around our 10 acres done and train up for the spring bike and triathlon series.  On the plus side, the cold weather has allowed us to spend more evenings at the gym on the spin bike.  I'm hopeful that last season's back pain has been banished, and I feel like I've regained the stamina I lost by taking so much time off last year.  So, it could all work out, but I'm still nervous.
• I mentioned in passing recently that I hoped to hit EVE Vegas this year.  I flew in/out of Vegas last fall for work, and was itching to stay longer for personal time (wasn't in the cards that particular trip).  I was thinking about doing FanFest this year but couldn't justify the costs compared to other things we intend to do.  However, EVE Vegas seems workable right now.

Guess that's it for now.  Happy Monday!