Life of Wade

Wade - Refocusing in 2012

2012-02-03T01:06:00.002-07:00

This was Posted on Face Book already, and some of you read it there - but - they don't 'link' anymore -so, I'll post it here for the 'non' face book type to read. :-P

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It has been a sort of tradition for me, that at the start of the year, I write about the things that I'd like to do in the future. This year I was just getting over a pretty horrible cold, that I'd had Since Christmas - and I really didn't feel like doing anything other than just 'getting better'. That was a Month ago, and the desire to put some words on a page is still there.

On the 5th of February, I have a 'half Birthday' meaning that I'll be half way through my year 40. I know most of us don't track 'half birthdays, but my Brother has his Birthday on that exact day, so it's pretty easy to remember... anyway - this seems like as good an event as any to get a 'new start' with. I wrote the following as sort of a 'personal' guide for the direction I want my life to go over the next several years.

It's kind of personal, but I've never been one to shy away from posting such things - so, Ill do the same with this. Feel free to read it, but be for-warned, it's pretty long and wordy and in the end, it's mostly just here to help me get my thoughts in a row. Every once and a while I'll be more likely to read this here, than in a forgotten folder on my computer some where.

It's not a polished document it was kind of written in 'chunks' and I'd go back and forth to sections of the document and fill them in... it's ruff form, really shows, but it will do the job that I need it too.

here it is:

Refocusing in 2012

I feel that if I will do a few things every day to help me focus my efforts, that I will quickly achieve some of the things that seem to have eluded me to this point in my life. I believe that the primary thing holding me back, is my ability to find joy and happiness in almost all things or situations that I find myself in. In general I just "enjoy Life".

Let me preface this by saying that I'm fully aware that my "satisfaction" in life, is a wonderful thing that I in no way am dismissing or making less of. I just feel that it needs to be stated, that my satisfaction with "where I am," is playing some roll in my inability to become anything other than what I am.

An overview of the things that I need to focus on that will get me moving on to new and hopefully wonderful things are:

A Routine that will direct my actions towards my goals.
I need to do things each day, each week, each month and each year that will focus my time and resources.

Clearly defined objectives.

There are four areas that I feel that I need to focus on, and if I do, my potential will increase. these areas are; Spiritual, Temporal, Emotional, Physical By improving in each of these areas, my ability to do more will increase. As an example, as I get my self in better physical shape, I will better be able to do more activities that improve my temporal state.

One might look at those four areas and think that I'm missing some, for instance, Social is something that at first glance might be thought of as something overlooked. there are several such things but I think that they can spread themselves well across the four area's. Social is one such aspect, Education is another, and I'm sure that there are other 'aspects' that obviously, deserve attention - however for the purpose of keeping it simple, and easy to follow, If those four Key Areas are improved upon, the potential to do more will increase.

But those are broad strokes - what specifically do I want to do?

I want to be healthy which requires me to change my eating and exercise habits.

I want to be wealthy which requires me to intelligently focus time and efforts on acquiring wealth.

I want to have a Wife and Participate in a Family of my own, this requires me to Socialize and I'll admit it, I'll need to stop being so selfish.

I want to be Spiritually just, which for me, and the way I was raised, will require regular Church Attendance and the adherence to certain principals that are ingrained in me as being 'right'.

And guess what, That's about it. like I said, I really like where I am at, I just want to start pushing myself towards some of the things that I don't feel that I'm one hundred percent 'there' yet on.

There may be other things that 'I want' but, I'm listing the things that I want 'more' of, or that I want to improve on, if some things are not on my 'list' it's most likely that I'm pretty happy with where I am in regards to that aspect right now.

So, I have my general 'direction' set - however, the 'clearly defined' part still needs done:

Healthy means that I will weigh between 175 and 185. That I choose to eat healthy foods every day - and that I exercise 5 times each week for at least 20 minutes each time. (that's a minimum, preferably I'm doing 5 hours of Exercise each week.)

Wealthy means that I have two moderately nice houses paid for, and an income of $15,000 each month after taxes that is generated through investments and business that does not require my daily attention to maintain.

I wish to be a Husband to my Wife, and be a part of my own Family. This one is fairly self explanatory, The fact that the person I wanted to marry chose another may have thrown me off for a few years... :-P but it's time to get over that.

in addition to that though, - I'm really not the person that I want to be yet, so, I have this insecurity about attracting the wife that I'd like to attract - I understand that 'getting there' is normally a journey enjoyed and survived by a married couple together and that over coming challenges helps to build the relationship and all that, but that still does little to conquer the insecurities I have. So, I'll be dealing with that - and I imagine, that I'll still want to be a ways along on my other goals before focusing terribly much on this goal. Sigh... it is what it is.

Spiritually just is pretty easy for me to define as well - it might not be so simple for others to define, however, it may be easier for others to achieve. I was raised as a Mormon, and, the beliefs of that Faith are ingrained in to who I am. The gospel preached, is the gospel that I personally believe to be true, there for - for me to 'feel' Spiritually 'just' I must obey. The nice thing about that is it's really not that difficult - it just seems like it is on the surface - the no Tea Coffee Alcohol or Tobacco, is pretty easy since I have spent my whole life mostly avoiding the stuff. Tithing is 10% of increase (income), but, honestly, I have to ask myself, if I'm not willing to give 10% of my income towards bettering society, am I really that committed to bettering the world that I live in? when it comes down to it the cost to benefit ratio is really a no brainer. The wonderful Family relationships that I have with my Brothers, my Sister, my Parents and even Extended Family are infinitely more valuable than the a ten percent donation. Oh and lest that be confusing, there is absolutely not a doubt in my mind that the Latter Day Saint Church, has played a HUGE role in building those Strong Family Ties.

Hmm, lets see, what more is there - Being True to my Wife - (what's referred to as the law of Chastity) this shouldn't be a problem... just have to figure out who it is that I'm being true to and then stay 'true'.

Regular Church Attendance, I was able to do that as a kid, I should be able to do that as an Adult.

Being Honest is second nature by now. Over all I'm really not too far off on this objective, I just really need to make sure I make it to Church each week instead of finding other things to be doing. Skipping Church is a bad habit that is pretty easy to fall into, but with a little effort it should also be easy to mend that one, and make sure I make it to Church each week.

But like I said, getting all of 'that' in order is kind of important to me, previous to getting Married - lets say I fell in love with some one in the Church, I'd expect that she would want her husband to be that guy that does all of those things I listed above. In my head, she ought to want to marry a guy that already DOES all of those things right?

or,

lets say I fall in love with a wonderful woman and she is NOT a member of the church, well, since this is an important part of my life, wouldn't it be better for her to know that is all part of the package? instead of being married for a couple of years and then springing the 'oh, and honey, I really want to get back to being a devout Mormon now'... I wonder how that would go over. heh, best to just 'be' that guy, and deal with it all as a relationship progresses I think. Others may agree or disagree on this point but bottom line is, it's me who's gotta live my life in the long run. and in my mind, 'being' that guy is pretty much something that has to happen previous to me feeling 'ready' to marry.

Hmm, I got a bit 'wordy' on the 'clearly defined' portion of my list here, but, it's all good - this was a needed exercise - I honestly needed to FORCE my mind to un-tangle the knot's a bit, and this document has REALLY helped.

ok, to continue: (I'm sure glad that I typed out the 'frame work' of this before I started typing, or I'd have never stayed on track.)

Daily reminders of what my focus is.
When I was much younger, I once made an audio cassette that had me talking to myself and reviewing what my goals were. I would start by telling myself to relax, and to focus on what I was saying - I would then state my goals and aspirations. I was amazed at how quickly many of the things that I had on that tape came about. It really almost seemed like magic.

To this day, I think that it was the fact that each day, I was reminded of what was important, and what I should be focusing my efforts on for the day that helped me so quickly achieve those aims.

Since then, I have done a similar thing by writing goals down on paper. That really seems to help focus my efforts, and allows for fast achievement of goals as well.

One thing I noticed about Writing things down though, is that even when I tape them next to my Bathroom Mirror, and hang them above my work place, Days, Weeks, and sometimes even months may go by before I actually 'focus' on them and re-read them.

I plan on doing a combination of the 'audio' reminder that I'll listen too just before bed, or / and just as I wake up - and reminders that I read each day.

Clear tasks broken down into daily actions that will eventually achieve my objectives.

To achieve Health in my life, I will limit the intake of foods into my body, to between 1200 and 1700 Calories each day until I hit 175 pounds (whic is the BMI for a fellow of my height.) and then I will consume the amount of calories that maintains that weight.

These Calories that I consume should be healthy foods, and mostly water as far as beverages go.

I will Exercise 5 Times Each Week, for at least 20 minutes each time. Preferably for an hour but, don't go beyond 2 hours, or I'm over balancing my focus. (it had to be Said.... once the enjoyment of Exercise kicks in, it's easy to focus more on that than the other aspects that I have set forth.)

To Achieve Wealth in my life, I will spend 55 Hours each week on producing income. The majority of that time will be spent on building the Family Business, Imperial Asphalt. On the side I would like to focus some time on some Online Training Ideas that I have, and explore the possibilities of You Tube, that medium as a source of income intrigues me to no end.

I will also track all of my financial transactions. I need to know where I am spending and receiving money so that I can better manage that flow, and make sure that it is directed in a 'gaining' direction instead of a 'losing' one.

I will get some 'specific' activities for each day set in here shortly - but it's nigh midnight, and I need to draw this to a close.

Spirituality - This should be easy to define, read daily from the good books, Pray each day for guidance and to give thanks, go to church each week, and serve others as called. Live the laws of God and enjoy the fruits of righteous living. Keep good things in your life, and avoid the bad.

Family - Specifically, get going on the above stuff, then, once you are solidly heading in the right direction, start actively seeking out that wonderful woman who I'll be attracted to, and who will be attracted to me, and with whom I share some common interests, I really want a good friend as my wife - I have been 'picky' for so long, that part of me isn't going to go away any time soon. :-P my life WITH a wife, really does need to be better than my life alone, and I like my life alone pretty much.

Well! The overall direction has been set, and a lot of specifics have been written down. The one thing that needs to be remembered is that above all it is the DOING of the tasks that will move me towards my objective.

By focusing on, and doing those few things, I believe that movement towards new adventures in my life are inevitable.

I have had a great 40 years, and I'm looking forward to great times ahead, it's up to me to make them happen. Thanks for reading.

Wade Hone.
February 2nd 2012

Some thoughts about turning 40 in a few short months

2011-05-25T09:21:00.002-06:00

Time flies doesn't it? Wow 40 years of my life lived. (almost) My cousin Brian always heralds a new year just 3 short months before I get there. It has been a fun ride so far, and I'm looking at enjoying several more years.

In order to do that, and perhaps with even more "zest" and "zeal" than I have had for the first 40 years of my life, I propose to dedicate the next 5 years following some "Dave Ramsey" advise.

He advises folks seeking financial freedom: "Live like no one else, Later you can live like no one else. "

With that advise ringing in my ears, here are a few guide lines I'm going to post, that I feel will help me get to where I'd like to be In 5 years.

Guide lines to live by till aug 5 2016

1. I don't spend money, I make money. Or, I only spend money on Needs, and Investments.

2. I eat to live, not live to eat.

3. I do something every day to stay in shape.

4. Live righteously.

To go along with that, I'm going to take advantage of the technology of the day. I have to admit, I am thrilled by you tube, and social networks. I remember WAY BACK in the early days of the internet, how exiting it was to think that I could post something on a web page, and any one that had access to the Internet could instantly read it! That kind of communication was and is revolutionary.

Today we have you tube, which fascinates me. I have stood on the side lines, and watched. I posted a few home videos to see how it worked, but I want to get more involved. So, over the next while, I'll be working on getting the following "Channels" going.

Wade's you tube channels:

Return and Report
Experience of the day

Level 20 - Gamers
Level 20 - Motivational Moments
Level 20 - Sales

Wish me luck, it's gonna be a fun ride.

Wade -out

McCall Idaho 2010 - Winter Festival

2011-04-09T04:55:00.001-06:00

McCall Idaho 2010 - Winter Festival, originally uploaded by Zachary Wolf.

Just going through some Flikr photo's and I saw this one of McCall Lake - taken during the winter festival there in McCall Idaho in January 2010. I liked this panoramic, and figured I'd share it.

A Fun Night Playing Toypocalypse.

2011-03-26T23:58:00.010-06:00

I just got done playing a role play game called 'Toypocalypse'. This was designed by a friend of mine, Trevor Cristensen. He put it together as an entry for a contest over at RPG Geek where you design a game in 24 hours.

Here is the Link that points to information about the game on RPG Geek: Toypocalypse And if you wana skip all that, this link takes you straight to the PDF file that you can save to your computer Topocalypse PDF Link

here is a little 'blurb' from the game book

"In Toypocalypse players play toys in a strange ominous setting where humans mysteriously disappeared a few years ago and the toys have become sentient. No one knows where the humans have gone, but everything has been left in place, and the toys have been left to pick up the pieces. The more powerful toys have created various governments to rule the towns but most are oppressive and tyrannical and the toys can no longer suffer the oppression of this hastily formed government. Danger lies around every corner, and exploration of this new world drives each toy to find his place in a world where they are alone. Toypocalypse is intended to feel very much like Toy Story meets Roanoke Colony meets Lord of the Flies."

We had a lot of fun coming up with our characters. I played a Blue 'Halo Action Figure', Melissa played Rainbow Bright's horse StarBright, Kelly was an odd toy that carried an extra head, and one of the most unique play experiences came from Dave playing a Rubik Cube! Trevor Ran the game for us, and we all had fun.

We Escaped from a pack of Rats, well... Star Bright drew them off us. We ended the session staring down a group of hostile Frisbees! Being that we are oppressed Slaves, mining stuffing from old couches in a warehouse, I'm sowing the seeds of sedition amongst the fellow slaves in hopes of encouraging an uprising.

All in all, we are having a good time. The Rules are Free to down load, The PDF that has the rules is just 17 pages long, the rules are simple to learn, the dice mechanic is fun and plays smoothly. If your looking for something different for your gamer group to change up the pace a bit, you really might want to check it out. Feel free to look at the other games in the contest too, and if your already a member of RPG GEEK (or want to sign up,) feel free to cast a vote for which one you think is the best.

Here is a link to the thread that talks about the contest: Contest Forum Post.

The contest won't last much longer I think it's over on Monday Mar. 28th 2011 - but the rules to the game should still be free to down load from the site. Feel free to snag the PDF.

Enjoy,

zWolf -out.

(I'm riposting the links again so you don't have to scroll back up heh):

Here is the Link that points to information about the game on RPG Geek: Toypocalypse And if you wana skip all that, this link takes you straight to the PDF file that you can save to your computer Topocalypse PDF Link

Getting Back in the weight loss Saddle Again!

2011-03-15T08:03:00.003-06:00

Having been inspired by my Cousin Brian - I'm gonna get back on the weight loss Saddle again. Here's my 'announcement post' heh.

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Ok Ok Ok, I give!

sheesh! I'm going to utilize the power of Face Book, once again, to help me with losing weight.

I see now the Value of Meeting regularly like they do in 'Weight Watchers' and 'Curves' and such things.

For me, 'reporting my weight' to Face Book - seems to be a great motivator... when I'm tellin the world (and Five Hundred Plus of my closest friends via Face Book,) how I'm doing on my goals, it seems to be enough to keep me out of 'great harvest'... (Best Bread in the Freaking Wolrd... well... Except that one place in Santa Fe Argentina....:-P )

So!

here is the 'Launch post'.

the Goal =

Lose 31 Pounds by the 5th of July

That will be 2 pounds a week for 16 weeks, and at the end - I will have crossed the 200 pound thresh hold! yay!

My Birthday is in August, and I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to turn 40 and be under 200 pounds - I don't think I have been under 200 since I was 20 ish! but I really think it's an attainable goal.

I'll track my Calories like I did before via - lose it, or some iPhone App. and I 'might' post the exercise I do as I do them a few times a week... not sure on that.

however, I'm going to try to keep the 'weight' updates to a 'weekly' post to Twitter and Face Book - which should cut down from the last time we did this when I was posting most every day...

So my last 'goal attempt' was quite a success, going from 330 pounds to 220 pounds in seven and a half months (1/1/10 to 8/25/10)

I ended up getting as low as 209.6 as of the Monday before Thanks Giving, I then proceeded to take a bit of a 'break for the holidays' and haven't gotten back 'real' serious about losing till now. I 'Have' stayed fairly regular at the Gym though - so that has helped.

My Current Weight is 230.6 Goal Weight is 199.something/anything.

Wish me luck!

:-)

Craters of the Moon Panoramic Shot - in the Snow

2011-03-04T21:41:00.005-07:00

I did a trip past Craters of the moon a few weeks ago (in Feb 2011) and figured it would be fun to shoot this overlook off the road at Craters of the Moon National Park where I'd shot earlier when there was no snow.

It was pretty windy, and snowy, and on the far side of the panoramic, I was shooting into the sun. I didn't know how that part would turn out, a Little tweaking to compensate for the shots into the sun and over all I like the pic. it was at least worth the little walk through thigh high snow, and braving the wind for a few minutes heh.

I don't know how if the image will be way compressed, for the blog post, so this blog's title link should take you to a shot that is compressed, but not toooo much.

and I think I have posted this before, but I thought I would re-post it for reference (its the same location.... just closer up.)

My 'Profile Greeting' from a Singles Website ->

2011-02-22T19:35:00.003-07:00

I figured THIS would be fun to add to my Blog - hah! so, I'm 39 now... um... still not married... and, well - ya, I haven't really done much about it over the past several years either... I mean, I have been in love with some AMAZING women, and the bar is SO high, how could anyone measure up to their standards anyway! (if any of you are reading this, YES, I'm talking about you! ...heh, and even though that sounds pretty funny, to say it like that, on the other hand, it really is true... go figure!! )

Anyway - I recently started thinking that it would be down right cool to have some one special to do things with - my buddies are fun to hang out with and all - but in spite of the fact that I'm single at 39, Guy's really just don't do it for me. :-P.

Sooo, I figured I'd check out these singles website things since 'I love technology' and all, it only figures that I should turn there to look for a date right?

Anyway, one thing they have you do, is make up like a 'profile' greeting thing - I figured I'd share mine on face book - kinda personal ya, but.. after I wrote it, I figured it would make a great blog post too hah!

so, with out Further introduction, this is how my singles website profile greeting thing reads:

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I'm a happy person. I love life. I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Family is very important to me, and I'm surprised to find my self at 39 without wife and children! woah! Surprised, may be the wrong word heh, as we pretty much 'are where we are due to the choices we made to get us here' ya know. Lets say that when comparing my present life, with out wife and children, to my projected plan when I was 14 to 19 and thinking about what my life would be like when I was in my 30's, I'd have always thought that whatever version of my life I envisioned, would have included a Wife and Children.

-for future edit - this need's a better transition here- ;-P

O.K. More about me, January 10th of 2010, after setting a 'regular' kind of New Years resolution to do something about my 'extra pounds' I stepped on a scale, and was... well, Surprised and that word actually DOES work pretty well here, that I had grown to the hefty weight of 330 pounds! wow! no WONDER those restaurant Booths were feeling a tad tight...

So, instead of a 'run of the mill' new years resolution, I set a focused goal to lose 110 pounds, by 1/1/11 (a year and a day)- I was dead serious about doing it. I watched what I ate, and increased my activity levels, and seven and one half months later, (8/25/10) I had met my goal. yay!

At 5'11'' and 220 pounds, that STILL puts me with a bit more to lose, BUT, I feel OH SO MUCH BETTER! more energy, more life, more love for myself, and every one around me. it wasn't the 'fat look' so much, as the health aspects that really motivated me to get in better shape...

It's been about 6 months since August and I have done pretty good about keeping that weight off - I workout fairly regularly, and I eat better (as in more healthy... not as in 'with a fork and knife instead of with my bare hands...')

I'm about to set another 'real serious' goal to lose another 25 pounds so I'm pretty exited about that. (Apparently Dad is right (as usual) and setting goals really does make a difference heh.)

In addition to improving my physical attributes, I'm also working on my spiritual well being as well. I'm working on getting my weekly church attendance back to 'every week' like it is supposed to be. Am I doing too many all night Saturday LAN parties perhaps? Naw, I know that's not it, most of the people that I hang out with on Saturday Nights, are able to make it to their meetings the next day... So, it's just about making getting to my my meetings each week a priority, I know, and I'm committed to making that happen! (do I feel another 'focused Goal' coming on perhaps? heh. :-P.)

As for why I joined this social networking web site; I'm looking mostly to get to develop healthy friendships. for a long time now I have taken myself out of the dating pool. I was engaged twice before when I was younger, but I never married. I have fallen in love a few times since then and after awhile, I just chose to not get into close relationships, eventually even preferring the 'even keel' of single hood to the emotional roller coaster ride that being in love seemed to be.

That said, - Families and the importance of them are so deeply rooted in my DNA it is pure folly on my part to separate myself from the blessings that come from being in love. I think that thought is the main force that motivated me in to signing up on this 'Singles' web site. I want to meet people that share my values and hopefully find friends, and perhaps eventually even an eternal companion that shares similar interests and desires as well. Though, truth be told, I'd kind of like to start with 'friends' at first then gradually move towards that 'magical madly in love' time... if your looking for a 'within three weeks we will just 'know' we were made for each other forever kind of relationship... I'll just say up front, that it's doubtful, that 'I' will be 'that' person. heh.

Some more tidbits about me = I've been told, (to the point that I'm starting to believe it myself,) that I am a good listener, and that people like to talk with me, and feel confident that if they confide in me, that they trust that I will accept them for who they are, (of which they are 100% correct.)

I also think that I have a good sense of humor, I'm loath to use sarcasm, as rare is the time that some one isn't at least 'somewhat' hurt by playful jabs. Besides, there are so many other ways to make a joke or be funny! :-P

As for the 'moonlit walks on the beach' list; I like Video Games, movies, Board Games, camping, Card Games, photography, and watching the Ocean off the Oregon coast (California Coast is awesome too,) oh, and I almost forgot to mention, I like Games. and ok ya ya, moonlit walks on the beach sound fun too.

I speak Spanish thanks to my mission to Argentina, but I should practice more since I think I'm quite rusty.

I look forward to getting to make some good friends here on this site!

oh ya, I think my 'profile' thing lists my profession as "Writer" when it should say 'wana be writer' though that sounds rude ;-P. Truth is I Sell Asphalt Maintenance Products for a living, and do a bit of Web Design / IT work (they are such complimentary professions, I just couldn't see why not to merge the two... "We will Seal Coat and Stripe your Parking lot, then Fix your Computer, and add A forum to your Web Site while you wait!" <--- has a handy ring to it doesn't it? :-P

That ends my greeting! I hope to get to know you better now that you know all about me! send me a message!

Wade.

1st Play test of Epic Table VTT / Jaws of the Six Serpents / Prose Descriptive Qualties rule set

2011-02-13T18:42:00.003-07:00

I just had a wonderful time playing a Game with Murgh GM'ing and playing along side of Nick (a Friend of Murgh's) and Jan van Leyden (from the forums here at ET).

The game was in the Jaws of the Six Serpents setting, which is Fantasy / Swords and Sorcery type of a setting, we used theProse Descriptive Qualities (PDQ) System Core Rules and Epic Table as the Frame work for the VTT.

I had a blast! Epic Table worked was fun to play in, and considering that we had players from all over the world in there, it did pretty good. (though one player had a hard time seeing all of the stuff all of the time... like chat, and some assets seemed to disappear on him.)

I was especially impressed that the game flowed as smoothly as it did in spite of us electing not to use a voice chat.

I imagine that several things combined to make that a success, including a Great GM for keeping us on track, and even managing 'splitting the party shenanigans that I just couldn't resist, the ease of use of the rules to create characters, the fact that the tools for sharing game assets mostly worked in Epic Table, and to a large part the fact that most of the players seemed to be 'veteran' RPG players, hence caught on quickly to what was going on.

we made characters and got used to using Epic Table for the first hour, then played for 2.5 hours and honestly for me the time literally flew by. ( a sign that I was enjoying myself for sure.)

here is a screen shot:

So, this being my 'first' real 'game time' experience with Epic Table, I have to say it was quite a success, I look forward to finishing this adventure up, as we left on quite the 'cliff hanger' .... literally, a knife is in flight towards an enemy bad guy - and we are surrounded by 12 angry farmers... It should be quite a fun brawl!

oh, I must say, other than really liking how Epic Table performed (other than the dropped info for one player...) I really enjoyed the ease with which the PDQ rules were learned and used in the game... they flowed quite nicely, and seemed to handle all the various actions that we wanted to toss at it... Combat looked like it was going to go smoothly.. though we have yet to see how the damage mechanic works - a Juggling performance was done, Flirting, negotiating, discussions with various locals etc. it all worked smoothly and the rules stayed 'out of the way' just like I like em to.

I know I should spend more time talking about Epic Table, but I just had to mention the rules and setting since it was my first time being exposed to them (for all of us I think.. including GM.)

one thing we all wanted was a way to 'emote' our actions as we used *character does this* to indicate an 'emote' ... that said, it really seems like I remember John showing us how to 'emote' as the character in a demo.. I just have forgotten how it works....

We used the character sheet to make our toons, I put a 'bio' tab in mine and fleshed out a bit of a story, with the 'stat's on a separate tab. we then cut and pasted our 'stats' to white cards, that we put on a table and pretty much used that to reference our skills from, it worked quite well. (for most of us... )

We had an overall map to look at which was fun, and various hand out's with easy to reference tables on them. Murgh, used Notes and Cards to paste info on how to create a character, and though I had recently purchased the PDF, I ended up not using it much as Murgh had the critical details available for us on the character creation. (though I think I'll enjoy getting to know the setting a bit better as I read the PDF between now and our next session.)

So, over all, it was a great success, and I really had a blast! I look forward to running a Dark Heresy game with some of my friends soon!!

zWolf -out

Me and my new red truck

2011-02-09T22:43:00.004-07:00

So, last Thursday or Friday night I did a late night Gym Run... getting there the car started fine, like it always does, however upon my attempted exit from the Gym, I had 'car start Failure' occur.

Justin, (I think,) an Employee at Apple, didn't want me getting frost bite at 3AM on my walk back from the Gym, so he gave me a ride home - which I thought was very kind! I only live 9 or 10 blocks away, but he's right, it was COLD! ( a good below zero night, I'm sure.)

Anyway the next day I attempted a restart, and the day after that. I talked to the Manager of the club, and he was very cool about me having my car parked there till I could impose on my Dad for help getting a Tow to a shop.

Long story short, several attempts to start the car, and two mechanics later, the verdict was in, the Engine was dead - no chance of revival.

so, my brother, father and I discussed options, and decided to go with buying a vehicle instead of investing more into the car, which was getting on in age...

I'm REALLY happy with the truck! It's perfect, for me - the 4 wheel drive makes me feel much better about a truck in the winter ice and snow, and I have always been a fan of Extended Cab's.

here are the pics:

and:

Thanks Dad for helping with trying to get the blue car revived, and the help with the Car Shopping, (something I normally vehemently hate doing,) you too Trent! thanks to both of you guys for the help!

Wade (now with upgraded wheels,) -out.

Playing World of WarCraft : not 'beginer' friendly... heh

2010-12-20T05:22:00.002-07:00

ok, sooo - I hesitate to post this, it is a 'news' article I did for the 'guild' that I'm in in World of WarCraft... there are some... many of you that might read this and not know What the H. I'm talking about - and that's ok... but, I did put it together, and I might as well pop it up here on the blog as a record - so, just 'skim on by' if World of WarCraft and the news of the guild doesn't interest you. heh - this post is mostly just for me - and of course the many others of you who DO play WoW might get a kick out of it. heh

here's the post - :

--- -- --- -- --- -- --- -- --- -- --- -- --- -- --- -- --- -- ---

December 19th the Crimson Empire did a guild run and downed the Boss of ShadowFang Keep.

That's one down off of a list of many.

This run didn't go with out a hiccup, however, as those in attendance can attest to, being slightly under level, and having the Main tank in 'learning' mode, (the tank was me,) made for a nice Challenge that felt like a true reward when the boss finally dropped his 'phat lewtz'.

/cheer

The Dungeon range in the dungeon finder was levels 16 - 26.

the Participants were as follows:

Healer / Off Tank = Rahkirn level 21 Tauren Paladin (Eric)

Tank / Tank in training = Duhaustme Level 21 Tauren Warrior (Wade)

DPS / Off Healer = Zikky Level 16 Goblin Shaman (Tom)

DPS / Dew Hero = EmoGoblin Level 21 Goblin Rogue (Andy)

DPS / Zen Master = Faliglio Level 18 Goblin Mage (Chris) [/size]

This 'image map' is included 'mostly' because I was using the guild pictures to learn a bit more about what Photo shop and Fireworks can do... it's... "training material" heh.

it 'should' link to the 'armory' which is the data base WoW has for people to see the characters and guild on the web.

Enjoy:

A photo Contest Entry by my Cousin and her Husband

2010-11-19T18:12:00.005-07:00

My cousin Emily and her husband Jim, entered a photo in to a contest that could use your vote.

it is found at:

http://www.reasonstoloveidaho.com/vote

Reasons to Love Idaho

on that page, you will see a picture in the center of the screen, and a row of 'thumbnail' photo's below it. if you click the thumbnail image to the right or left, you can scroll through the images much faster than waiting for the slide show to play through.

Their Photo is of a sprinkler line in the snow, it's cool looking, this is it:

it says:

Snow White by Jim, Meridian
41 people like this photo do You? Vote

once you find it in the thumb nails, then click on the photo so it is in the 'center' of the screen, then just click 'vote' and presto -

I don't think you have to register or anything, which is nice. (unless I registered last time I was there, but I don't think I did.)

Anyway, your support is appreciated! :-)

Wade -out.

Some pictures I may 'tweak' for Blaines book

2010-11-19T15:20:00.006-07:00

My brother Blaine is working on a childrens book and is looking for illustrations... I by no means claim any 'artistic' talent - but I have 'dabbled' at some drawings and I told him I'd scan em in and show him where I'm at - they still need colored (I dropped a few colors in one of them, since I had the image open in photo shop anyway..)

the scans weren't the 'best' usually, I just use the scanned image as a 'background' then trace over it in photo shop so I have something with clean lines etc....

... um... when I say 'usually' it means the 'one' time I did it before :-P

here's the first one - Anime Robo Girl :

here she is again with a pink neon effect from photo shop:

This is one I'm working on... maybe I could try to drop an alien in the back ground... coming out of the sea or something heh...

"Girl on a moon lit path near the sea" :

So that's them, they need some work - but - it at least lets you know the level I'm at heh - it's fun to play and learn.

Wade -out.

Blizzcon 2010 - intro

2010-10-23T04:34:00.011-06:00

So, It's 4:30 am, and the 'next day' of Blizzcon starts early... soo, I'm going to toss up some pics here, and promise more soon - these are just a few I grabbed from the hundreds that I took the first day at Blizzcon 2010.

Enjoy:

This is me, in front of one of the big screens that they used to 'Broadcast' the proceedings out to the huge crowd.

Honestly, this whole Deal is all about celebrating being 'Geek', one of the main speakers dwelt on this topic quite a bit, it was actually pretty cool what he had to say, so I'll try to find a link to that speech... or at least post the slide show part of it which I filmed from my seat... to tide you over, here is a pic from the opening slide:

The next few pics are of some of the costumes that people dressed up in when they went, some folks got pretty elaborate. Most of these are all 'Fans' I think only one is a paid 'booth babe' paid to help at one of the booths. Enjoy:

This Final shot is of the Contest Winner, the Costume is pretty awesome, I was 'lucky' enough to get her to point her blades at my throat for a photo op... yikes!

I'll try to get more posted tomorrow, and talk about how cool some of the games I have played are! (group PvP in Diablo III anyone? - it's awesome, just in case you wondered.)

zWolf -out.

(Wade.)

Weight Loss - Part Deux - (I think that means 2 in French or something...)

2010-10-18T11:05:00.008-06:00

On August 25 2010 I hit my goal to lose 110 pounds in a year. In stead of a year, lucky me, it just took 7 and a half months. The thing of it is, according to that silly 'BMI' thing losing 110 pounds only gets me from the obviously un-healthy obese (330 pounds) -see photo-

down to where I'm knocking at the door of overweight (220 pounds.)
-see a couple pics from today -

at 5'11 ish I now fit into what I call 'normal fat guy' mode, meaning that when I look around there are quite a few folks that have the extra pounds that I have... some might say that I'm just being patriotic at this weight... supporting the 'American way of life' as it were. :-P never the less, I still feel that it's not optimally healthy.

It is now October 18th 2010, in one week it will be 2 months since I hit the, lose 110 pounds, goal. I have 'maintained' my weight (thanks to Arizona Slim and not going totally crazy on Cheese Burgers and Pizza... except that one time... Ahem, I digress...)

It is time to re-commit myself to a new goal! I still have quite a ways to go to get to 185, which is what I weighed in High School - wouldn't that be a hoot to get back to that weight?? I don't think that is too 'extreme' or anything, as that silly 'BMI' thing says that 185 STILL puts me about 10 pounds over the 'average' weight for my height. The only thing 'Extreme' if you think about it, is the fact that I was just 18 pounds away from weighing TWICE what the BMI says the average dude of my height weighed. Sure that 'average' is from like 50 years ago, but still, yikes you know?

Here is a shot of me at that High School Weight:

This time around, I want to be a 'tich' less intrusive to my face book friends, so I shall eschew the daily updates of my weight tracking and exercise that I did last time. That said, I would still like to 'report' my progress. I find that by posting my weight to the 500+ face book friends, it helps to motivate me to do better. So, I will settle on reporting once a week.

Each Monday I will post via Twitter or FaceBook - what my weight is, and perhaps some thoughts on the goal from the week previous... for instance if I had a bad week, I may talk about things I can do better in the future, if I had a great week, I could mention some of the things that helped.

So! I have a plan! it's time to get back up on the horse and ride it to a healthier lifestyle! Thanks all for the encouraging comments and support in person, and on Face Book. I feel like that really helped in my quest to improve my life style.

Speaking of... can I just say that life minus that 110 pounds has been INCREDIBLY good! seriously, it is difficult to express the improvement of my energy level, and thus my desire to 'do' more in life. it is HUGE!

From little things like being able to actually 'run' back to the car to grab something I forgot, and feeling like participating in fun activities that I would have 'passed' on last year. To bigger things like being able to focus on getting more done at work, and Dating and romance. What a freaking change 110 pounds has made in my life.

Like I said, I recognize fully how much farther that I have to go - and that I'm not a 'paragon of strength and fitness' or anything. Nope, I'm just a pretty regular guy, but the big difference is that now, I can do 'regular' things where as before they just seemed beyond my grasp.

ok, enough gushing, it's time to go for a walk and burn some Calories!

My 'Mile Stone' goal will be to reach 205 pounds by Jan 1st 2011. (that was the old date that I was going to try to hit 220 by.)

Once I hit 205, I'll set a time for when I'd like to be at 185... I may also mark the occasion by doing a full head shave... or at least go WAY short all over.

Wade -out.

Playin Dragon Age ( Video Games ) on 'Easy' mode...

2010-10-10T08:52:00.014-06:00

The other Day, a friend of mine asked me how I liked
Dragon Age, which he knew I was playing from my Xbox automaticly posting updates to Face book, (how cool eh?) My reply back to him got kinda 'long' and ended up seeming more like a 'blog' than a face book post... So the reply is going 'both' as a reply to him, AND as a Blog post - since it's been a while since I wrote ANYTHING! heh.

The Question was from Jonathan Lofthouse: [I'm] So torn on [Dragon Age]. Do [you] love it or hate it?

Jon, I quite enjoyed Dragon Age, however... I did use a recently learned 'trick' to do so. When I first bought it, I played Dragon Age on the computer on 'normal' difficulty where there is quite a bit of 'pause and play' strategic combat... which is pretty well suited for a mouse and keyboard - I think I played it for 30 - 40 hours, and only got about a quarter to a third of the game completed. it was fun... but I really kinda wanted to see 'what happened' in the story but just didn't have any more time to invest what with all the other good games to play.

Sooo - this time around on the Xbox... which isn't as 'suited' for pause and play 'tactical' combat, I tried something that I'd read about in a gamer magazine... I played it on 'easy mode' (called 'casual' in the game.) This pretty much made it so I rarely had to 'pause' to control my parties actions and I could zoom through combat scenes to get to the pretty cool story that there was.

(I did the same thing with Mass Effect 2 Recently and really liked that as well.)

with both Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age, I got what I wanted out of them, which was to 'see how the story ended'. The time investment was much less than if I had played it on 'normal' AND I got all those wonderful Achievements :-P

So, that's a long answer - but if you are enjoying the story, but ify on the 'pause to play tactical combat' and the time commitment that requires to get through the game then pop it down a notch and cruise on through it... I think total time to get through Dragon Age +some DLC was 30 hours, and there were a few hours where the xbox just sat on while I had lunch or was other wise distracted.

You could try switching the mode to 'normal' for boss fights to get the feel for how it was designed to play out. That might be a 'happy medium' compromise. Over all, I was able to enjoy the story line. and I even died once or twice when I was just WAY lazy heh, so there was a 'hint' of a challenge even on Easy mode... ok, that's an exaggeration... but still - I had fun and that's what playin games is all about right?

Wade -out.

The opening pic in this Blog, was from the Penny Arcade Convention 09 in Seattle (PAX09) I had been talking to the Lead Designer of Dragon Age Origins, Mike Laidlaw while I was waiting in line to see the Dragon Age Demo... that Donnie Darko Bunny 'Frank' came up and I asked them to pose for a Pic. it's one of the better pictures I got from the con that year heh. I just figured I'd pop it up on this blog since the subject matter was related.

2010 Oregon Coast trip pics Family Vaca

2010-08-01T11:25:00.009-06:00

here are a couple of pics from the family vacation I went on, we stayed in a house near the sea, it was great! I totally did an EPIC fail on staying on my diet, but then again, I wasn't trying to succeed this trip either... I'll hop back on that horse and start riding today n tomorrow though, then see what damage was done to the goal in question heh.

ok, as for the pics, I don't have time to get them all posted up here all nice n such... sooo, I'm going to paste the link to where you can veiw them 'raw' Here's the link.

and here is a Flickr Link to a few ... my 'paid' account has expired, so I only uploaded 20... they are of a size you can print out though if ya want, and the slide show is a nice way to view them.

here is that link. or http://www.flickr.com/photos/wadehone/sets/72157624629808168/show/

and here are a few of the pics... most of these are of Lances Family - he asked me to take some pics of his family while we were here, I did, but they haven't yet seen the cleansing wash of photoshop... well other than automated stuff... soo, I'm guessing I have a bit of light to clean up - as the gold foil reflector was... um... much more effective than I anticipated, heh.

here's a sampling of what you'll find in the above links... I had a BLAST! it was great spending time with the Fam, playing StarCraft II with friends online, and with Ryan... reading on the Beach, Flying a Kite! taking pics, seeing many realitives I haven't seen for years at the reunion, and just relaxing - what a fun trip this has been!

the house was great too!

and now... the break down of the computer, and a 13 hour drive home.. sigh.

I'm outta here - (Below are a couple of pics as promised.)

Wade Hone.

How I lost 90 pounds over the past several months.

2010-07-14T16:19:00.008-06:00

One of my friends asked me to go into Detail as to how I lost 90 pounds this past several months. The response got kinda long, so I figured I'd post it on this blog... however, let me first say, in spite of losing 90 pounds (which certainly sounds like a lot of weight...) I'm still pretty over weight... (I'll post a pic at the end for proof heh.) Im 239 pounds at 5 foot 11, (10 and one half, for those that count half inches. :-P ) I'm just saying, I have a long ways to go before I'm at that 'healthy' stage.

I figured I'd post this anyway, because there are those who are genuinely curious as to how I lost the weight... there is more to the story, but this is a good enough overview for now.

This is what I wrote (plus a bit,):

As to my weight loss - you know... last January, I had the pretty standard thought process most folks have thinking;

"sigh, I really ought to do something about losing this extra weight..."
so I bought a scale...

for some reason my 'self concept' was one that had me pegged at 'kinda fat' and I was surprised when the 'booth seats' at restaurants started seeming 'tight' as they pushed in against my stomach... In the case of 'tasty treats' I got down right mad... I remember thinking to myself,

"Hey, what's this! here is a place that sells Burgers and French-fries and Milk Shakes, thus helping to form this corpulent body of mine, but when I achieve the inevitable result that comes of consuming their product, they don't provide seating to accommodate it! Humph!"

but for some reason in my mind, I didn't really realize how outta control I had gotten till I bought that new scale at Costco and stood on it for the first time...

I was 330 pounds! holy cow, at 5 foot 11, that's just Way not healthy and for some reason, the numbers staring me in the face, in their bright electric 'LED' blue goodness, made me realize how truly obese that I was, much more so than looking at myself in the mirror ever had.

That was January 10th 2010. My cutting back started immediately. And, I'll admit, I have cut hard... I started out just 'not eating much' I found the 'point' where I didn't get 'weak and shaky' ish and would eat the # of calories up to that point. I found that for me it was about 800 - 1350 ish calories.

For the first 3 months, I tracked everything I ate. (I used a iphone app called 'lose it' I'd also record my weight each day, and set the application up to auto post to Twitter and Face book when I weighed in or exercised.) After a month or two, I started trying to 'walk' more and do more active things.

After the 3 months I stopped 'tracking' everything I ate, but I still keep a tight rein on what I ate each day... and I still record my weight fairly regularly. (though I don't record my weight, or exercise every day now I do stand on the scale each morning to see where I am at.) Now I Can add up the calories in my head - I'd estimate I eat between 1100 - 1600 calories now - I also am not losing as fast, but I am still heading in the right direction.

I am exercising more now too... I swim, and go to an athletic club (for the past 3 weeks or so,) pretty regularly. Before that, I Was walking a good 3 - 6 miles a week (2 or 3 walks a week) and those things really helped me feel better. I added activity and exercise pretty slowly to the plan, I was so out of shape when I started, just 'not eating' like I had was taxing enough. As I started losing weight, I started feeling better, and as I started feeling better, I started moving around more and walking more.

I remember after I'd lost 10 or 15 pounds, I was pretty happy that I walked 10 blocks. then later, when I was down about 30 or 40 pounds, I remember measuring a bike path that I new was a mile long, I'd walked it the year before at extreme duress, and this time around, it was easy going. That was a fun realization. Now I can walk 3 miles in 45 mins... and a five mile stroll won't kill me, so that's very nice.

I guess the main thing, for me, is that I'm trying to do things that I think I can do for the rest of my life... on the food, I have heard, (and have no reason to doubt,) that 'counting calories' isn't the best way to diet... there are lists of good foods for you to combine to lose weight and receive the nutrients your body needs etc. but, for me, I really wanted something that I felt like I could just 'do' naturally for the rest of my life.

Not that I go crazy and eat 900 worth of Donut Calories or anything, but I have been known to partake of a krispy Kream more than once during this time - when I do though, I know that Donut just ate up a significant portion of my calories for the day, so by default I find myself eating more of things like green beans, and corn or oatmeal and meat (Cause it fills me up while not using up my calorie budget for the day.)

Those sugar Free chocolate pudding snacks (70 calories) mixed with a half cup of oatmeal (150 calories,) are a filling very tasty snack. I do things like get only the grilled chicken breast when I go to Wendy's or Arctic Circle - (it throws the cashiers for a loop most times, but they figure it out and eventually charge the 2.50 vs. the 4 bucks for the sandwich heh.) so, that's how I eat stuff I still like, but only as much as the calorie budget I set for myself allows... which is based on what I think my body tells me I need to eat in order to stay healthy. So far, I've stayed pretty illness free this whole time I've been losing weight.

I don't like to get to the point that I feel weak and shaky, and if I'm being more 'active' I can eat more calories, and still lose weight...

The most important key to my weight loss this year is that I have this huge mental commitment and emotional devotion to the task. For this year losing weight is 'THE' thing that I am doing. It is the FOCUS for me I am dedicated to getting to 220 pounds (that's down 110 pounds from the 330 I started at... I'm down 90 so far.) If I accomplish nothing else this year, at least I'm dedicated to accomplishing that thing... I rationalize that making it such a high priority is ok, because it will have such a huge effect on the rest of my life, that the benefits I gain over the next many years, will justify the high priority that this goal takes, in the list of goals. If that makes sense heh.

Having that commitment doesn't mean that I don't have slow points... especially recently... there have been 2 or 3 weeks at a time where I just hovered at the same weight fluctuating slightly.

After 2 or 3 weeks of 'plateuing', I get 'real serious' about it, and ramp up the exercise and get vicious about only eating what my body needs to stay healthy. (like I said, I have found that I can do ok at around 900 - 1400 ish) I don't know what the calorie amount would be for others... I Think that Weight Watchers is probably the best 'guide' for where someone should be at... but for me, I didn't want to be dependent on any 'program' I really want to develop a life style that I hope to be able to maintain ... for life.

After 90 pounds lost, I'm still quite over weight... but I'll try to toss up some before pics.. and I took a couple snap shots just today that I'll attach as a reference... and a reminder that I still have quite a ways to go to get healthy.

---

Some pics of me before the weight loss I dind't find any 'right' before I started losing, so I figure I was anywhere from 10 to 25 pounds heavier than I Was in these pics:

and here are some snaps I took today for this post... like I said, it does show the results of the lost weight, but also shows how much farther I have to go. :-)

thanks for reading.

Mah Table o' Gameing

2010-07-12T02:57:00.006-06:00

I spent some time working on putting the shelves on a game table, and putting together a couple of table tops that I can use on it... I took some pic's n thought I'd post em here.

Here is a shot of it with the White Table top on it... I'm planning to snag some Plexiglass to put on top and then you can draw on it like a white board.

Eventually, I'll mount a projector above the table and connect it to my computer, and this surface will be great for showing the image up... might even watch a movie like that heh.

---

Here is a Shot of the Oposite side of the white table top, I glued a grid map that piazo makes to the back and this is how it looks:

And here's a Close up... I liked how it turned out, but I had to use 4 maps to make it heh... kinda pricey, I shoulda just done my own I suppose. But these are made out of a material that you can write on with Dry Erase / Wet Erase or even Permanent Markers like sharpies so... that's nice.

---

This is the green Felt piece set on the table, I like it in there as a solid base for the table, but it can easily be swapped out with another table top.

If I really did allot of miniature playing on it, I'd remove the shelves from the sides...

Still to come:

Two more Shelves (for a total of 4)
A post or box for a 15" monitor to sit on / in for the DM.
Drink / Dice / Snack Holders connected to the posts for the players.
A Table top built for XBox or Computer LAN parties - (holes for cords etc.)

The project has been fun, and I look forward to getting some fun gaming in on it.

Wade -out

LEXICON in Idaho Falls

2010-07-01T12:16:00.013-06:00

GAMEOPOLIS is a game store in Idaho Falls that I frequent. They are running a convention on July 24th called LEXICON. It's going to have several different 'pen and paper' games being run there - I was asked to run a Rogue Trader game.

If your interested, you can sign up to play in one of the game and get tickets at: 555 3rd St : Idaho Falls, ID : or Call:
(208) 529-8026 (I think the cost to participate is 5$.)

The game that I'll be running is called 'Rogue Trader' set in the Warhammer 40k Universe.

I have played a few times in games that Josh Wheeler ran and had a blast. I'm looking forward to the experience.

here's the little blurb about my game I'll be running;

Conquer the Stars in the Name of the Emperor

Your mandate is to go beyond the borders of the Imperium, to explore the unknown reaches of space, to seek out riches beyond measure, and to risk all to gain everlasting glory. You stand at the threshold of unlimited opportunity. Stake your claim. Rogue Trader ships are ancient relics equipped with priceless technology and function as one of a Rogue Trader dynasty's most important heirlooms. In the far reaches of unexplored space, they become micro-civilisations inhabited by an array of colourful individuals. Claim your place as one of the few brave enough to explore the unknown.

You can take on the role of a Rogue Trader, Whether you live the life of an outlaw privateer, or as a scion of an ancient noble line, as a Rogue Trader you have power and the tools to challenge all rivals for supreme control of the riches lurking in the uncharted reaches of space. You must survive the dangers of space, not only the threat of vacuum, cold, and deadly radiation, but the things that lurk in the dark void between stars that man was never meant to find.

You can take on the role of a Navigator, bearer of a special mutation that allows you to steer a spaceship through the raging tides of the warp. Only a few amongst uncounted trillions in the Imperium can boast of such power. Only the unique talents of a Navigator enable the ship to successfully utilise the warp to make jumps between points thousands of light-years apart. The Navigator must guide a path through both worlds, with the fate of thousands of souls resting upon your continued success.

You can take on the role of an Arch-militant, a veteran of hundreds of battles. You might be a bounty hunter, a soldier, or a bodyguard—no matter how you were trained, you are a relentless predator who knows few equals with your chosen tools of war. Whatever your cause, an Arch-militant provides the muscle and the battle-honed instincts necessary for survival beyond the Imperium’s borders, for the void eagerly devours the naive and the incautious.

You can take on the role of an Astropath, a human gifted with strong psychic abilities. Bound to the Emperor, you are capable of casting your thoughts across the interstellar void, able to send telepathic messages over unimaginable distances. Far more than a mere messenger, an Astropath can focus the power of his mind to blast a foe with telekinetic force or divine the future from the pattern of cards in the Emperor’s Deck. You are armoured against the dangers of the warp, and your presence is invaluable on a voyage light-years beyond the reach of any mundane communication channel.

You can take on the role of a Missionary, You are the spiritual leader for thousands of souls aboard the Rogue Trader’s ship. It is your voice that can silence a mutiny. Your faith is your strength, and you armour yourself with the blessings of the Emperor—shielded against fear, Your goal is to spread the Imperial Creed until all humanity is united under the Emperor.

The Lexicon adventure will have several characters available for you to play but we will do a quick character design workshop if you'd like to play a character that you made up yourself. For this 'one shot' adventure at LEXICON, you will be thrust into the middle of an adventure, with plenty of Bounty to be had, a ship to pilot, and a mystery to un-ravel the risk is high but the chance for reward is great. Competition abounds and not all competitors are 'friendly' be prepared to experience a space battle, and if you survive, a Landing on a mysterious world Long absent from modern charts. What shrouds this world and why? Stand ready to lay claim to this world and it's treasures in the name of the Emperor. Of course the increase of fame and fortune your Rogue Trader Dynasty will reap won't hurt either.

--- -- ---- -- ---- -- --- -- -- ---- --

Weekend fun times, and one Panoramic of CotM

2010-04-26T13:04:00.009-06:00

If your reading this on Face book, but the pics don't show up, and you want to see em, head to http://blog.wadehone.com

I took a pic of Craters of the moon last time I drove through there (I think it was last Tuesday,) it turned out kinda nice, (The one of the Sun Valley Mountains isn't really post worthy,)

So here it is:

This weekend, there was a Miniatures tournament I went to - here are some of the pics:

Kelly and Jason

Wade and Jay

Jason John and Trevor

And this is a WAY too close close up I used to test out changing / enhancing eye Colors in photo shop on... It was sloppy work, and way to bright, but, if I could choose, 'that' would be the color my eye's would be heh. (they are close - but not near as 'glowing' as these heh.

Have a good day!

Wade -out.

Tickets to PAX 2010 Purchaced, Hotel Reserved - Seatlle here I come!

2010-04-15T22:08:00.003-06:00

Well, the deed is done. Having attended PAX the last 2 years, my enthusiasm hasn't slowed in the least towards going again. Though this time I embark on the trip saddened to know that I'm missing out on the traditional Labor Day Camp out the whole big Fam does... I'll see if I can talk to the organizers of PAX and get them to stop planning over the Camp Out!

As the title states, I bought my advanced Tickets today, and got a hotel reserved. I have gone to PAX with Pat, (a good friend of mine,) and we have always had a blast. Thus we embark once again upon the Adventure.

"What," you may ask, "is this PAX that you speak of?"

I will answer by posting this 'pic' from their web site:

And this Video from U-tube:

here is the link in-case the port to Face book screws up the Video Link... which it usually does. -

Anyway, I'm pretty stoked to go - Lot's of fun games, and it's pretty incredible to see that there so many other people out there that like games and such things like I do.

Wade -out.

This blog has moved

2010-03-10T11:11:00.001-07:00

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How lucky can one guy be?

2010-02-18T01:51:00.002-07:00

Several years ago, I had the privilege, along with 999 other gamers, to test out Blizzards 'Battle.net' as one of 1000 Beta testers... what an Awesomely fun experience that was... it was in conjunction with the release of 'Diablo' and I had a freaking blast!

Now, along time past, and I get the chance to Beta Test the new StarCraft II and the Battle.net 'revised' they are going to release with it. Oh what fun!

how lucky can one guy be?

here is the message I just read... I'm about to click play for the first time, but figured I'd make a post just before this momentous occasion. :-P

The quote:

"Welcome to the StarCraft II Beta Test!
You are among the first in the world to try out the next generation of Battle.net and participate in the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty beta test. Your feedback is an important part of this beta. Please let us know what you think by pressing the “Feedback” button within Battle.net to send us any comments, feedback, or suggestions on StarCraft II or the new Battle.net service."

and now... I press Play. :-P

McCall Idaho - Winterfest 2010 pictures

2010-02-16T18:24:00.002-07:00

I had the opportunity to spend the weekend with my Brother n Sister and their respective families, I had a blast and had fun takin snap shot's and some short videos of the kids and the event. I posted them to Flickr, and will embed the slide show here on my blog... anyone catching this on Face Book will have to follow this link to Flickr it'self, as for some reason, the embedded HTML slide show doesn't work on face book.

Thanks n Enjoy - it sure was fun!!

Here is the direct link for the facebookers:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wadehone/sets/72157623317351257/show/with/4360782680/

Some Christmas 2009 Photos and Vids

2010-01-17T13:39:00.002-07:00

if your reading this on face book... you can go to:
Wade's Blog
to see the photo slides on the blog - or head to flickr from the link below.

I just got done uploading to youtube another video of Lance and Blaine performing a song that lance had written and I was going to send out an e-mail to family that might be interested in watching it, when I got to thinking about some of the other videos I had and how they might like to see them...

I figured that a blog post with all the stuff gathered up in one place, and an e-mail with a link to the blog would be a better way to go. so... here ya go, these are some links to YouTube Videos, and the Flicker Slide show that has our Christmas pictures on it for 2009.

Here are the pictures:

Christmas at the Hones 2009

Next are the Videos on You Tube... I added the links first in case the embedded video doesn't work for you - you can just click the links then.

Enjoy --

Here is Lance and Blaine doing a song that Lance wrote a while back called "Good Advice" :

Good advice, from Christmas 2009"

and here is Kamber playing a Medley that she prepared for Grandma Eva:

Kaber Bishop - Christmas Medley 2009

Last but not least, is another Guitar piece that Lance and Blaine did for the Christmas program that we have on Christmas Eve: "Christmas at Home"

Christmas at Home - 2009

Campout Aug 1 2009, - 'best of' pics.

2009-08-17T19:10:00.026-06:00

I changed my Blog format, to this layout, so I can display pictures a bit larger... .

I think I posted a link to the slide show of these pictures in a former post... but there are like 140 pictures, many of them of various weeds I thought looked 'interesting' at the moment... and with a digital camera, there's no need to be frugal snap snap snapping away.

These 25, are some of the better shots that I liked. There are a few more in the bunch that were pretty good and they'll be up on Flickr still, but I figured I'd distill the bunch down to a 'consumable' size heh. Feel free to click these to make them bigger.

----- the pictures -----

interesting close up... from far away.

2009-08-14T09:39:00.001-06:00

DSC_1341, originally uploaded by Zachary Wolf.

I just thought this was a cool shot, of a thistle from up in the mountains. The thing is, I didn't take my 'normal' lens that does a much better job of shots like this, so all I had was my 55-200.

I was surprised that it turned out as good as it did, seeing as how I took it from about 6 feet away heh. The background is all blurred out, but what ever bush / light patch that was behind it did a nice job of highlighting the flower I thought.

anyway, I just wanted to post this one up here, there is one or two more shots I thought turned out pretty nice from that trip... oh, in addition to the 70 billion I took of my nephew and niece who are adorable.

here's a link to the slide show - I know I need to 'cull' through a bunch of the boring 'bushes' and such, that were interesting at the time, but lose some of their appeal when placed in a slide show with several similar shots heh.

anyway, this is the link to the flickr set:

Sceens from my 'commute' - heh.

2009-08-12T22:47:00.005-06:00

I like a lot of things about my "job" I work for a family owned Business, and sell asphalt maintenance products. heh, I know it seems quite a ways off from the Tech Industry which I have a natural affinity for, but I get to work with Family - talk to them most every day, and it's fun to feel like your building something that is a benefit to some people that you love.

In addition to those things, I get to take some amazing drives through some great country. I headed out to McCammon Idaho earlier this week, to measure up a drive way for an estimate. (here's the drive way heh,)

You find little roads like these:

Patriotism is alive and strong in South Eastern Idaho.

The Farm Sceens are great:

Here is a Panoramic shot from right off the road I was on: (click on it to get the larger effect.)

Anyway, the great views as I drive along sure make the time fly, and really make that part of the job enjoyable and stress free, gotta love that. heh, no Virus Confrence calls at 2 AM is kind of nice for a change of pace. :-P

WAde -out.

Getting to know each other:

2009-07-30T23:48:00.002-06:00

Since my Blog auto posts to Face Book Notes, I figured I'd do this 'Face Book' activity here... (I may not be able to do the 'tagging' thing, so just consider yourself invited to share if you so desire, leave a comment here (or tag me if you can,) and I'll go read yours.

thanks,

(original post is found on the 'life of Wade' Blog: ( http://life.wadehone.com )

---- Here is the activity ---

keep in mind that when posting to the internet, your giving your demographics away for free folks! I'm not discouraging this, but we certainly do give Face Book an awe full lot of good marketing data don't we? just something to think on.

----- ------
Getting to know each other!

If you've been tagged or you are reading this, you have the honor of copying all these goofy questions, writing your own response, and tagging 25 other victims. You have to tag me so really you just need 24 more people. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you - but not in a creepy stalker kind of way.

To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your title as "Getting to know each other!", tag 25 people including me (tagging is done in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.

---- Start ----

What time did you get up this morning? slightly before 8 am.

How do you like your steak? medium rare.

What was the last film you saw at the cinema? That Dillinger Flick with Johny Depp - 'public enemy' I think was the name.

What is your favorite TV show? Star Trek Next Gen. FTW.

If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? heh, there aren't many places 'forbidden' to me and those that may be, aren't places in my 'top ten'. I pretty much am living where I would like it to be (Idaho - closer to Family.) At some point in life, I'd like to have a place in Salmon ID where I can go to chill - write - and be by the river. That said... I certainly wouldn't mind a return trip to Seattle, or LA, - and an out of country adventure would definitely be considered... (I was going to list places I'd consider, but the list really started to get to long to put down here.)

What did you have for breakfast? One Swallow of Mnt. Dew (cleanses that 'I just woke up taste'.) a good swig of Cran-Raspberry juice, and a couple of Chips Ahoy soft batch oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

What is your favorite cuisine? I like a lot of different foods, but I think the standard steak and potatoes is probably my personal favorite.

What foods do you dislike? I hate to say it... but there aren't a whole bunch of 'green things' that I'm jumping up and down at the thought of eating...

Favorite Place to Eat? hmm, that's a tough one, probably Apple Bees (I ate there just today, and am reminded of what good Raspberry Kiwi lemonade they have.) Red Robin is a fun place to eat too.

Favorite dressing? Italian.

What kind of vehicle do you drive? regular car. (Chevy Cavalier. I know it's crazy, but I have wanted one of those since 1995 when I went on a test drive in one. Last year, after I lost my Saturn to a Wreck - this Blue Chevy Cavalier was for sale just a few short blocks from my house... I hate car shopping, so that was a no-brain-er. It gets the job done. )

What are your favorite clothes? 100% Cotton (really thick, like they used to make them in the 80's,) long sleeve button up shirt and Docker Pants, or Levi's Jeans.

Where would you visit if you had the chance? Australia or New Zeland.

Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? I see a glass that has something already in it and a lot of potential for more!!

Where would you want to retire? Salmon Idaho - near the river. (and by retire I mean 'write'.)

Favorite time of day? Late late at night - and when there are no interruptions. That my friend is called 'Game Time.'

Where were you born? Mesa Arizona

What is your favorite sport to watch? Basket Ball all the time, Foot Ball if it's with family or friends and they are really into it.

Who do you think will not tag you back? Don’t know

Person you expect to tag you back first? Don’t know

Who are you most curious about their responses to this? I'd be interested to see the answers of ANYONE that would care to take the time to fill it out.

Bird watcher? Um... I saw some birds one time... does that count? I did take a pic of a black Bird with a bright yellow chest... am I closer now?

Are you a morning person or a night person? Night

Do you have any pets? no

Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? Looking forward to watching Blizcon, and going to the Penny Arcade Convention in Seattle (PAX) in Sept.

What did you want to be when you were little? A missionary, a Veterinarian, A buyer and Seller of Businesses, The owner of a high tech school, a Traveler of the World, a Writer, a reader, a RiverGuider, a Computer Programer... there's more - but I'll just stop here. The main thing I wanted though was to enjoy what ever it was that I was doing... and In that, I have succeeded.

What is your best childhood memory? I loved Camping with my Family. I loved my summers as a River Guide too.

Are you a cat or dog person? I'd much rather have a Dog than a Cat... we did have a decent Cat when I Was growing up... but I think those are Rare... and mostly roam the wilds in Africa...

Are you married? Nope.

Always wear your seat belt? Yes

Been in a car accident? Yes

Any pet peeves? I just can't understand why some people choose to look at life and the stuff that happens in it through such negative filters... some flatter themselves thinking they are 'realists' or some such nonsense. I can't think of anything that we as individuals have more control over, than the reactions that we choose. Though influenced by our cultural upbringing, this is one thing that we actually have total control over. So many people waste the opportunity to react positively to their journey's through life spending their time focusing on the 'bad' or 'negative' things when they could choose to focus on the good positive stuff that is there too.

Also irritating are the many folks that feel in their hearts that they are Christians and profess to follow the Teachings of Christ, yet seem to have forgotten one of the most important teaching - that of loving one's neighbor as oneself... of course, I can't say that I'm supper hooty good at doing that myself - but be that as it may, It's still a pet pevee of mine... (wasn't anything in the rules that said I couldn't be 'peeved' at myself now was there.)

Favorite Pizza Toppings? Pepperoni and Olives - n sometimes Bacon... every thing tastes better with Bacon.

Favorite Flower? Hmmmm, a Dasi or a Rose... and there is some Blue weed that sometimes grows wild - it looks darn cool in a mountain meadow... I don't know if I've seen it myself,(I think I have,) or if the memory is from a picture somewhere... stranger things have happened.

Favorite ice cream? Tillamook - Chocolate... ohhhh so good.

Favorite fast food restaurant? Arctic Circle... maybe Carls Jr's... but there's not one near anymore so... fooy on them anyway.

From whom did you get your last email? um... (checks real fast,)this was the last one I got when I started this: from: war@warhammeronline.com re: Warhammer Online Newsletter - July 2009 Issue‏ and this was from 'right now'... from: notification+o=i1vere@facebookmail.com re: "Dutch Van Dyme Friday July 31--Last Chance in C'bus!" sent you a message on Facebook..

Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Fry's Electronics.

Do anything spontaneous lately? Hah! the better question for me would be, 'did you do anything that WASN'T spontaneous lately.'

Like your job? Aye - that I do.

Broccoli? It's growing on me... which is pretty big, considering how much I thought I'd hate it...

What was your favorite vacation? Oregon Coast, no plans, a Beach House, with a view, good books, good eats, an Internet connection some Video Games and Family all over the place. I also like going to Video Game / Electronics Conventions and consider them 'working/vacations'.

Last person you went out to dinner with? Mark Baker - Works with me, we had lunch at Apple Bees.

What are you listening to right now? Metallica's latest offering to the music pool... right before that it was John Williams Symphony music... I have a broad musical pallet.

What is your favorite color? Blue - it's fun, but the color of my Current car, is my EXACT Favorite color of blue... it's the same Color that I painted my first Pine Wood Derby Car that my Dad helped me with... well ok, that 'I' helped him with heh.

How many tattoos do you have? 5 ... ok, I'm totally kidding but I do know this... to add to my 'pet peeves' list is the stereo typing that goes on regarding people 'with tattoos' I met a long haired heavy metal loving rocker when I was 16, his name was Dave - my first impression of him was SO OFF, I learned then about not judging a book by it's cover... I think that holds true even if the 'cover' has been placed there with needles.

How many are you tagging for this quiz? 0 - but anyone that want's to do this is more than welcome, and I'd love to read what you wrote.

What time did you finish this quiz? Thurs at 1:06 am (less than an hour from when I got tagged, I'll add.)

Coffee Drinker? Nope, but I did have a Mountain Dew around 5 today heh, and I loves me the Bull that is Red too - but my Kidneys have been begging me to 'stop' lovin' it quite so much, so these day's it's a rare treat not oft' imbibed.

---- end ----

FAthers Day Slide shows

2009-06-25T10:04:00.002-06:00

here are a ton of pictures that I took on Fathers day 2009.

It looks like a few videos got uploaded on accident (Actually I didn't know that Flickr let you do video...) anyway, those may 'delay' the picture part of the slide show, they are cute, but if you have a slow internet connection you can just hit 'next' on the slide show to skip them.

Also remember to hit the button on the bottom right corner that looks like four arrows going away from each other to get the full screen effect.

oh... I was kinda playing with the camera a bit, so you'll see a bunch of shots of the same thing... that said, I DID leave quite a few behind on my computer instead of uploading them.

The Camp out was fun, (I just went up one afternoon, but every one seemed to have had fun.) the Dinner was delicious, and it was sure great to get to see the family.

here is the slide show.

Slide shows of some photo ops the past few months

2009-06-12T08:59:00.004-06:00

I have been getting behind on posting photos as I take them. I decided to start at least with what was on the memory card in the camera. I'll try to catch up on the rest soon, but for now, take a gander at these fun pics:

(you can click the four out facing arrows in the bottom right of the slide show to go full screen, they look much better that way:)

Easter Dinner 2009 at Karen and Dennis Hones house:

Memorial Day Picnic at the River Bottoms near Dennis and Karen Hones house:

Visiting Trent at the Hospital: (he's doing pretty good and should be back home today.)

Visiting with Blaine, Lisa, Brandon, Brittany, B.J., and Bryson at Wendys:

A pic of my Nephew eatin a cookie --->

2009-06-10T23:34:00.002-06:00

I just uploaded a Gazillion (ok a couple hundred then,) pictures of some family get together, and various photos.

I'll work on getting them posted to Flickr soon, but I did pop one into photo shop and fixed it up. (took a guy from out behind the cookie, and cropped it a bit for better composition plus the standard tweaks. (though I Was happy that I had to tweak less than usual- perhaps that means I'm learning my camera better... I hope.)

anyway here's Ryan preparing to eat a cookie!

Top Score - (well ok a personal best anyway :- p )

2009-04-15T08:28:00.003-06:00

I'm getting a later start than I wanted to Sun Valley, but I wanted to drop in my 'top score' (well 212 of... a bunch) for the game Demigod.

It's a fun little game, that if you have ever played WarCraft III - DOTA then you'll be familiar with. the WC3 DOTA mod was a fun little modification to WarCraft 3 that let you play as only the Hero character. the troops were generated automatically and advanced towards the enemy base with the AI controlling them. You assisted as you could advancing in level and aquiring new powers and equipment as you helped to defend or attack.

in this game they use that same idea, but they have started from scratch (no Blizzard Elements to be seen heh,) It's pretty fun. and I Was surprised to see that after the 4 games that I had played I was ranked 212 th. That's note worthy and I doubt that I'll get a higher ranking, sooo, I figured I'd post a screen shot heh.

oh what fun eh?

ok, I'm headed off to Sun Valley now, wish me luck!

Wade -out.

Virtual Game Tables – the beginning

2009-04-14T10:22:00.003-06:00

I really don't think that most anyone will be interested in this post except gamers who might have wondered about playing via virtual tables, so… you've been warned this ones probably boring… well more so than the rest heh, feel free to skip it.

It all began a few short weeks ago when I thought to myself;

"Wouldn't it be great if I could play a role playing game with some of my friends that live far away?"

So I sent out an e-mail to 8 of my friends that I thought might be interested in such an endeavor... guess what? They were!

So, I set a date for playing about 4 weeks out, and got serious about determining what kind of game that the majority would like to play, when they'd like to do it, and what tools that we would need to do it with.

I had seen something about D20Pro from when I was hanging out at the wizards forums whining about the late release of their vapor ware virtual table, so I started by looking at their software. I was quite impressed! I'm not sure if I heard about Fantasy Grounds there, or if it was because it's true what they say about, "Google is your friend."

Either via Google, or from hearing about it on the D20Pro site, I quickly came across the fantasy grounds website. From there, I heard about battlegrounds. On battlegrounds, I saw the ad for the FUMCon that was coming up in a week at a community site called "the four ugly monsters". So I spent the week bouncing around posting on message boards and getting to know the available tools. I looked at D20Pro, Fantasy Grounds, Battlegrounds, RPTools, and one or two more before FUMCon weekend (Easter 2009) started up.

The comparative web site that Heruca has put together over at Battlegrounds was most helpful at this stage! (Here's the link: http://www.battlegroundsgames.com/links.html )

Between my research, a personal demo given by Valarian while I was at FUMCon, and the video demos at Fantasy Ground web site, I decided to drop my cash on Fantasy Grounds II virtual table and I bought 7 light licenses, and 1 GM license. RPtools and Battlegrounds RPG were in the running but I decided on FG II, because:

Though RPTools is free, and that's a HUGE draw, Fantasy Grounds II seemed more user friendly than RPtools, and ease of use will is very important to my 'new to role playing' friends.
I loved the map system of Heruca's, Battlegrounds software, especially how he handles line of sight, but the Character Sheet usage seemed more robust in Fantasy Grounds II.
D20pro looked like it had good map tools, and I think that it's character sheet management was adequate, (they partner up with hero builder to do it I think,) but - the community support at Fantasy Grounds, and the content that has been developed for it seemed quite a bit stronger.
From talking to various users of VTT's it seemed that for my needs that Fantasy Grounds would fit the bill the best.
The Video Tutorials were AWESOME, and really went a long way; along with the personal demo that Valarian put on for me at FUMCon in helping me to decide that FG II would be the software of choice.
Lastly though the current licensing of FG II isn't what I would prefer, (Battlegrounds has it nailed in that department.) there were promises of 'floating license subscriptions' in the works that will hopefully provide a solution for new users that may want to play in my games.

Those are the main points that I went through when deciding what to get. I'm really looking forward to getting Battlegrounds for miniature war gaming on a VTT, and I have had doubts about FG being better than the other available products. They all seem to have something to offer. But the volume of users using Fantasy Grounds II goes a long way too.

One other Table that I looked at by following an add link from fouruglymonsters.com was iTabletop. It provides a game table with video support. When I visited they were running a deal where you could buy a GM license and 10 user licenses for a life time subscription - all upgrades and future products developed from the base code included for a killer deal.

I didn't do as much 'looking around' at iTabletop, and it seems like it is very weak on a lot of the basic tools that other VTT's offer, but it was a pretty easy buy just for the online video meeting capabilities that it afforded whether I use it for my gamer group, or just business meetings remains to be seen, but I was thrilled to get such a package for such a price. Thanks for the Add FUM!

Concerns I have are that my group wants to play DnD 4th ed, but the resources available to me to run games in that system are not as polished as other systems. There will be allot of work using parsers and such to get content from the material I own into the Fantasy Grounds Software, but I have a few weeks to prep. So, I hope that it all works out.

This was a long Blog, but I wanted to get down in writing exactly how I started my journey down the Virtual Table Top road. I will conclude by saying that FUMCon was HUGE in increasing my excitement for the tool... to see so many active users having fun and doing games was thrilling. I wish there was a way to have that kind of user interaction and participation every week. Heh.

Since then I have had visions of starting a part time company that does something that generates income from this burgeoning industry. Heh who knows, maybe someday I'll look back with fondness on the days I started dabbling in the world of virtual table top gaming.

zWolf -out.

By:

Wade Hone.

US BANK - New Online Banking Security... Grrrr....

2009-03-15T06:29:00.003-06:00

Ok, folks, US Bank is extremely Frustrating... I guarantee I'll start looking around for something new.

The people are great! that's why I'm still there - but their Policies are a big fat bag of putrescence.

Frustration numero uno is the fact that they charge 2 bucks if you use an ATM machine that is not their own... I'm not talking about the buck fifty that is charged at the machine, oh no, I speak of an ADDITIONAL charge that US Bank makes to my account because it's computer had to talk to a computer that wasn't owned by US Bank... what a rip off eh?

So, I already have a bad taste in my mouth over it all.

(here's a little something to break up the monotony of this 'Rant Post' note -this is not a 'real' error:

ok, so anyway - the 'new' thing that they are doing is making you answer 3 to 5 questions like;

'who was your favorite grade school teacher?'
'what was your Mothers Grandfathers first pet's second offspring's name and sex?'

you know... standard stuff like that.

Anyway, I have a handy little 'non secure' trick I use for all those 'secret question' lazy security measures that some mom n pop web sites like to use, (mostly it's only used for password retrieval.) I know this isn't perhaps the 'best way' to stay secure online, so I'm not recommending it to be used in general practice. What I do, is I have a phrase that I use to answer all of those questions. It is the same phrase no matter what the question is. Pretty handy isn't it? Anyway it keeps me from having to remember a Ba-jillion diffrent answers to all the silly questions.

Well US Bank, unable to provide normal security for it's users, wants to use the equivalent of "lets play 20 questions" BEFORE you can get to the place where you enter your password in!

They want me to fill out at least 3 questions that they can ask me each time I want to log into their online banking system to check my balance. I think to myself;

"ok, fine, a pain, but what ever."

I attempt to do my little a fore mentioned 'trick' of entering in my same answer to the various questions they present to me, but it's having none of that!

"Answers can not be identical" it spews back in my face.

Well, it's late, I'm irritable anyway, so I go to there Customer service and write them this little rant. Which is the purpose of this post, I wanted to share it with you - but Alas, it's late, and when it's late, I Ramble, sooo, my intro, has ended up longer than the actual Rant!

I'm sure your bored, and I should stick another picture in here, but - I'm not going to do it - lets just power through this together and we can move on with our days ok?

I'll post the Rant below, you can enjoy, and we can all go back about our lives... I'll keep anyone that's interested filled in on the situation here in this thread. :-P

The Rant to their Customer service team... apparently I'll get a response back whiten 24 hours! yay!

---- My e-mail to their cust. service dept. -----

I would like to opt out of your additional security to enter online banking. three security questions is too much hassle, please notify me if I can opt out, or if I need to shop for an online banking provider that can provide a secure online banking experience that is also convenient. (they are out there, heck you used to even be one of them, last week.)

My primary irritation is that your using three security questions, and the fact that the answers can not be the same for all questions. I know it's not 'as' secure as three different answers but C'mon! one secure question would already be enough of an inconvenience, (but tolerable,) but THREE...??... And why in the heck would I want to provide my BANK with all of that personal information about me anyway?

To prevent sharing my personal information with your online databases, it means I'd have to 'make up' the info (in order to keep it secret from you,) and then Remember my lies! (I assume your Data Base gets hacked regularly now that I know you can't provide 'normal' security, 'normally' web sites use the 'secret question' for password retrieval - not as a password to get to the part where you put in your password!!)

At LEAST let me pick one response that works for all three questions! if your un-able to hire an IT department that can keep up with security, and has to rely on the end user doing the brunt of the security for you with this smoke signal method for authentication... oh bother, I'm just ranting now.

anyway, please let me know if I can opt out. (I'm betting not.)

color me frustrated and shopping for a new online-bank, thank you very much!

Wade -out.

--- End of Rant - I admit I made a few small edits on this read through, but that was the gist of it. ---

To sleep I go, I'm sure a few hours of shut eye will cure my ill temperament.

Wade -out.

Facebook | Wade Hone

2009-03-06T14:49:00.001-07:00

Well this is interesting... I saw a little button in my internet explorer browser that is called 'live writer' apperantly it allows you to blog by clicking that little button... I clicked it, entered my credentials, and now I'm typing away like a mad man.

I guess we will just consider this a little test of their system, see how it works, and if it's something that I think I'll use regularly.

ok, that's enough blathering on, I'll post now.

Wade -Out.

Facebook | Wade Hone

Review of Star Ocean: the Last Hope

2009-02-28T11:39:00.003-07:00

Here is a Review of a game that I'm in the middle of playing I posted on GameSpot, enjoy:

Star Ocean: The Last Hope

So, I'm giving this game a 9.5 but to qualify that, I need to say it's 9.5 as long as you are a fan of the Japanese Role Playing Game Genre' if your not, if your a main stream FPS or regular RPG playing gamer then the score would have to be 7.5 ish - something worth checking out ya know? But don't sell your pet pug so you can afford it or anything.

First things first, lets all sit back and have a good laugh at the choice of the our Hero's name... "Edge Maverick" I can see it now...

cut away to - the writer in charge of naming the Star Ocean Hero:

"we need something Edgy - a real Maverick for our space opera... wait a minute... I think I have something! ..."

fade back in.

ok, I have a good 20 hours worth of play time invested in this game, and I really do enjoy it. you have to be prepared for the Long long traditional Enix cut scenes, (which are stunning and brilliant of course,) that are generously sprinkled through out the game. By the time that your done with the 3 disks of content, You'll have seen a good full length Movies worth of cut scenes. Feel free to pop some corn, because there will be plenty of time to just sit back and eat it as the story develops.

The videos are done with excellent voice work and amazing visuals. As for the actual quality of the story, I'm only half way through so, take what I say with a grain of salt, but ... perhaps I'm jaded, but there are some very 'cringe worthy' elements to the story, our Hero (Edge Maveric - yup... seriously, they named him that...) is such a whiny baby sometimes you just want to reach into your computer monitor and Slap the guy and say :

"Edge! Stop being such a wus! Man up a little bit! Mavrick's don't cry!"

I'm hoping that at some point the kid will just embrace the fact that he's the main star of a Square Enix game and stop apologizing and acting all surprised that he's the heroic type... I imagine it's supposed to be endearing, but honestly, it starts to get annoying.

The voice acting is great, and if this game was translated from anything, you certainly can't tell! There is one character Lymle in the game that talks like a baby all the time, (The BradyGames Strategy guide says she is 15, but she looks and talks like a 6 year old, kay?) and - ok, I'll admit it - I kinda just wish she'd shut her yapper and keep casting spells. in other words, she's slightly irritating.

Graphics are incredible, they really shine, the environments are diverse and amazing. The maps are really fun to travel through and discover.

The music is spot on, it's high quality and really sets the mood like in game music is supposed to do. you hear certain themes a lot, but so far, (20 hours in,) it hasn't driven me crazy yet!

Combat, now here is a thing that really makes a guy nervous, I mean many people got 'into' this kind of game from playing Final Fantasy 7 (or something similar to it with turn based play.) Anytime one of these traditionally 'Turn Based' games wants to toss in 'real time' elements, I get real skiddish. If I want some 'real time' combat, I'll play Oblivion - or forget that, toss in the Gears of War. If I'm sitting down to play a JRPG, then I'm hoping for some old school strategy making turn based game time. That said, I am happy to say they somehow got this right!

It starts with the camera controls and controller set up, praise be that they included lots of options on how you want to handle these elements. It didn't take long before I had every thing inverted, and locked up just the way I liked it... not having these features would have honestly prevented me from enjoying the game, so - I'm supper happy that they took the time to make the options to set it up the way I want it.

Camera angles and controller configuration, check.

Switching between characters is smooth, and the fighting style between characters is diverse, the AI can be set up and tweaked before and during battle. If you heavily use the "y" button which pauses the action and allows you to simply and effectively set up strategies, you can see the elements of the old school 'turn based' aspects come through. That said, even the most jaded "real time combat hating" gamers will find themselves actually enjoying the thrill of this real time combat.

... ok, that's not true... but still, for the rest of us, rest easy, it's actually fun!

The 'pause the action' menus are used far less than expected... It's just a good thing that they are there for boss fights! There is some slight agitation (frustration seems too harsh an adjective,) that occurs, with the fact that when your in the middle of an action, lets say coming out of a special attack, that you have to wait for the action to complete before your able to use items or queue up another action from the pause menu. The flow seems choppy when the action is stopped so that you can say, eat some health restoring berries, only to find that you keyed the button a few milliseconds to quickly, thus requiring a restart for the action to finish then a re-pause to eat the darn berries.

(I take a tangent here... but I'm leaving it in.)

Speaking of 'darn' our hero seems awfully fond of the word 'Damn'. You'll get to hear him say Damn, Dammit, and even the, try not to bust a gut laughing out loud, "DAMN THEM ALL TO HELL!" the line is delivered with the full force of passion that only the president of your high School Drama club could muster. Maverick was so emotional about the whole affair though... I was just glad that the monitor was one way, and he couldn't see me snickering... (if only that could have been the case in high school...)

Ok ok, I continue to raz on some of the over dramatics of the story and actors in the game, with the whines of the heroes who don't seem to want to BE heroes yet, and the ever blooming romances that cause flash backs to the star wars prequel shows, "but, I love you Padme..." the annoying 15 year old spell caster who talks like she is 6. <-- that chick needs to wake-y wake-y up-y and stop with the cute-sy woot-sy BS. No wonder Lymle didn't have any friends on her planet except for her sick grandfather who probably just tolerated her so she'd keep bringing him his morning meals... so ya, I poke a bit of fun at the game, but heck, maybe you need all that crap in there to make it a good story, because over all, I feel invested in characters. I actually care about them and am looking forward to 'what happens next'. And isn't that what developing a story arc is all about?

in Conclusion, when taken as a full experience, this is a wonderful game. Looking at the production quality, the art, the depth of the item creation, the collection quests, the stories, the rich NPC filled locations - three DvD's full of content, makes you wonder how on earth you pay the same for a game like this and those crappy 'game based on movie' games.

This game is a winner - by Wade Hone. (Zachary Wolf.)

Frosty January Day in Idaho

2009-01-27T02:01:00.003-07:00

Here are some winter photos after a frost in Wapello Idaho

I woke up and saw that the fog from the night before had frozen and made everything white. It was a great day for pictures in south Eastern Idaho, so I snagged my camera, a Tripod and took an extra battery.

That said, (and this is why I'll never take wedding photos,) - after all was said and done, I didn't take the time to check it, and my camera was taking low res shots the whole morning! Oh well, it's great for computers, but terrible for printing.

Enjoy, I had fun taking them, it was a beautiful day.

Here is a photo stream slide show from my Flickr page (after you Click the first picture to start the slide show, you can make it full screen by clicking the button that looks like four arrows pointing out, in the bottom right corner, Enjoy:

And just in case that doesn't work right, here are a few of my favorites:

Thanks for dropping by.

Wade -out.

Blizzcon 2008 - and California Friends

2009-01-19T10:06:00.000-07:00

The tickets for Blizzcon sold out within 15 minutes of their website getting fixed this year, I was lucky enough to have a friend who snagged me a ticket while the snagging was good. (thanks Tom.)

Blizzcon is basically a convention for Video game enthusiasts - specifically games made by Blizzard. (world of warcraft / Starcraft / Diablo)

I had a blast, and Blizzcon was only part of the reason. I got to spend time with some great friends that I hadn't seen for a long time.

Here are some photographs to highlight the trip:

Since so much of our first day was spent waiting in line, here are a couple of pictures to really get the feel of it:

They dubbled the line back on itself several times in the Parking lot - it was amazing, but there weren't people hopping lines and crowding. Even though there were no dividers to keep the lines separate.

At least there were some cool costumes to look at:

Here's a couple that came as Cows - Er Tauren's:

And then a Priest and Warlock Couple: (I removed three people from background of this photo - and if your looking close you can tell - but over all, it turned out pretty good I think!)

Some folks put a touch more effort into their costumes than others did, though, if I ever "cos-Played" (which I won't,) this is more along the lines of how I'd roll:

This was my favorite Costume that I saw - the guy she was with must have been a saint - so many people stopping them to take her picture! :

( I tried to erase the back ground here, I didn't chop off too much... part of the robe I think got lost in the transition.. woops heh.

Anyway I really though this one was the best on there, I guess the girl on the turtle won 1st place... I think it was because of the huge turtle - which was cool, but this looked like a much better costume in my opinion anyway.

Ok, Next we have a guy holding a sign up for his guild to meet him at... This was a great Idea if your trying to meet a group. I mostly pasted this because I ran into an almost exact photo, on the MTV coverage of the event. it was like 'proof' that a 'real' photographer thought something that 'I' thought was an interesting shot 'WAS' an interesting shot too." anyway - here it is:

Once we got inside we got to see lots of cool stuff, like:

Big Screen TV's where they broad cast the main events / announcements etc. There were moer than 10 of these monster monitors, it was great that no matter where you sat, you could see what was going on:

Here is Sarah Louise Kerrigan from StarCraft - (she's in the process of turning into the queen of Blades in this poster:

And here is a cool Statue that they had of the afore mentioned 'Queen of Blades" (with my noggin in the shot as proof that I was there I guess...)

Here are a couple of the rows of computers that they had set up where we could demo the upcoming games - (A real highlight of the Convention.)

Me (Wade), Andy, and Tom playing a little World of WarCraft - Wrath of the Lich King, before it was released.

Here is a Screen shot taken with my Digital Camera of World of WarCraft:
(that poor toon only lasted for the 15 mins that I was able to play, however, I was pretty proud of him for beating down a Rogue who challenged me to a duel right as I logged in.

Here is a Screen of Diablo III: (I'm really looking forward to this game, I think it's going to rock!

And Finaly the last 'Screen Shot' that I took a picture of, for shortly after snapping this one, I was informed that we weren't supposed to be taking pictures of it! woops - who knew! :

Here is a pick of me, getting ready to play - I set the camera on the monitor in front of me and snapped this pic of me and my Blizzcon Badge. Don't I look happy!??!

I also got into a WoW Mini's Turney so I could buy some of the figures before they were officially released. that was fun, here's how the game looks:

and now for the booth babes... C'mon they make interesting pictures don't cha think? :-P

Here is the costume that won the over all prize, she is on the back of a big turtle, and I think it was the turtle that put her over the top.

Here was a group that dressed up, on the left is a Defias Bandit (or pirate maybe,) a Draenei, and I think that guy is a Night Elf...

The Night Elf on the left was really into her role, the one on the right... not so much. I don't blame them, there were allot of people that were takeing pics, and I mean you can only pose so long before you want to get in line and play one of the games too right?

I guess just in case no one interesting decided to dress up, Blizzard hired a few professionals: These two were paid for sure. (I asked, though I stopped just shy of asking how much :-P.)

This was another group of hired models... I Was trying to come up with some funny comment about what the girls do when they aren't trying out for 'Americas Next Top Model..." but nothing ever really solidified.. so, create your own caption, I guess:

I was on the phone with my Brother right before I took this picture so I guess I'll dedicate this shot to Blaine, this ones for you Bro! (sorry it's so blurry, it was dark and I had nothing to brace the camera on.) :

and the Coolest Booth Babe of all award, has to go to Felicia Day! yay, she was both at PAX and Blizzcon and so was I - (I guess she really knows her fans heh.) This time she had the whole cast of 'The Guild' with her signing autographs and such. I bought the DvD and really should have had them sign my copy, but the line was really long. I got one of the 'guards' to take a pic, and she smiled at the camera real nice, even though I was cutting, but - Alas, I didn't have it set very good so Flash is all washed out, and with out Flash is all blurry, we'll go with the 'blur' and have to ask forgiveness for the fuzziness.

Blizzcon was great, but some of the best times were spent after the convention hanging out at Tom's house, where I was staying for the duration. Here is a picture of when we met Marcel, he was attending a Microsoft Convention across the street and was wishing that he could be with us the whole time it was going on... it was just such a pain to get tickets, maybe next time we can all make it!

Here is a pic of Tom, Marcel, Andy, and Me Wade - I really hate these pictures that prove that I really am as Fat as the Scales say I am... but I digress....

Here we are getting preped to play a little Rock Band - Andy, Tom, Wade, Marcel and Cammie. (note that it appears as if Andy is practicing his big solo finish...)

Here is Cammie, and Pearl - Pearl and Tom were such Great Hosts! Thanks so much for letting me stay at your place, not only did I save on Hotel bills, but I had a blast the whole time I was there too! you guys are Awesome!!

This is what I got back home to, I took this picture as I got out of my car, before even going inside - A yard full of SNOW! it was like Idaho was just mocking me, saying "hope you had fun in the sun, Becuase now it's G'onna Get Cold!" It's what I get for living in Idaho - (I jest, I love the state, and it's great being close to family.... but it is terribly Cold in the winters! That's no Joke!)

and I'll end this Blog entry with one of my favorite shots of the trip, Andy on the Rock Band Guitar - He's an Animal!

Wade -out.

First Atempts at some Green Screen photography

2008-11-18T01:39:00.000-07:00

So... I know I have a bunch of Updates to do, (Blizzcon, and the California Trip for one,) but, I have been working on getting set up with a little desk top studio for taking pics... I have a ways to go, but figured I'd post my 'first' attempt then look at how I improve... I already see that I need to eliminate a 'green reflection' and decrease my aperture to get a better depth of field... (you can click on it for a larger shot,) but anyway - here's the first stab:

I'll get to cracking on some 'better' quality Blog updates here soon.

Wade -out.

Tagged - 6 Quirky Things...

2008-10-16T11:25:00.000-06:00

I have been tagged. I'm supposed to list six quirks about myself and then tag six people, leaving a message on their blog to let them know. So here it goes. (I'll probably just tag a couple.)

1. I don't sleep much, never have. Even now, my 'perfect amount' ends up being 6 hours for 6 days then 8 hours 1 day a week. it's nice because:

2. I love the night. I like staying up late, I like being up in the night, I like driving around town at night, and I really hate it when I have to go to bed. since I only need 6 hours sleep at night, I'm able to stay up fairly late and still be up by 7:30.

3. Personally I don't think this is 'quirky', and as the years go by I'm betting that less and less people will consider it so, however, since several of my social groups DO consider this 'quirky' I'll List it: I like to play Video games. yup, I'm 37 and still spend a goodly amount of time each week playing video games.

4. Here's something we can all agree on that's 'quirky' I'm not married yet! Whoa! a 37 year old mormon male that's not married!!! Yes I DO like girls, Guess I figure that with two engagements if you consider being engaged half way to being married, and then considering that two halves equal a whole, and so... um... ya, the logic was falling apart even for me on that one. anyway, not married, and not really doing much about getting that way, I figure that I ought to 'want' it first right? perhaps then the engagement thing will stick better. :-P

5. I was both the Soccer Club, and Computer Club President in High School... I like to think that indicated a 'well rounded' character - I'd say I drifted towards the 'computer club' side of things quite a bit since then, heh.

6. I used to Kayak and Repel down cliffs... looking at me now, (nigh on to 300 pounds,) T'would be hard to imagine me as the river guiding rock climbing, soccer playin kid that I was.

I'm done, and if your reading this consider yourself tagged. (there I did it the lazy way.)

Wade -out.

Booth Babes and Costumes of PAX 2008

2008-09-12T08:40:00.000-06:00

I missed my camera the first two days and missed some great shots, it seemed like people came more on the third day to enjoy pax, and some of the convention favorites (Privateer Press) were sadly absent when I went to take pictures.

that said here are the few that I did get:

Here is Violet, I'm not sure what game she was representing... but count me in! it looked Fantastic! ;-P

Here is Pat with Violet... I'm not sure what he did, but it looks like the sentence was death.

Here is Storm Trooper guy:

Here is me, paying proper respect to the Empire... :

Here is a candid shot of 'Darth Vader' letting his hair down.. er.. Helmet off, at least. Even Darth has to take time out to replinish those vital fluids...

Ok, this wasn't really a 'costume' per say, but still - Privateer press really went all out this year. My friend pat is the guy NOT on the pedestal.

Here is some uniformed guy showing off for his Girl Friend, hes next to a statue that was in the Fallout 3 area.

I think I saw this guy in Splinter Cell... correct me if I'm wrong.

Probably the only time that I could say "Hey princess, can I take your picture?" and not get slapped... yes, I really said that.

Here are a couple of Bandaged Babes from 'Alone in the Dark' (I think.)

Here are the same two 'zombie girls' as before... only this time with a new victim.

Here is another Army dude looking Bad-A.

Here is an Alien from Sins of a Solar Empire... you can tell she is an Alien due to her EyE's.

Ok, so when Pat rode to PAX with me, he probably didn't know I was going to make him stand in all the pictures heh. Here is Pat and the 'SotSE' girl.

Here is a random person that I thought looked cool...

There were of course, the 'obligatory' smattering of scantily clad babes at the booths...

Of course, much like pokemon... I had to 'catch them all' Pat obligingly stood next to some for me.

and another...

I know it's hard work, but somebody had to do it! Thanks for taking one for the team Pat.

Magic man!

Here's a creepy big headed alien dude... and some blue alien guy saying hello. (I kid, I kid! heheh)

Here's our blue friend, and as you can see, in this shot the girl is smiling... had I waited just a few seconds, I could have got the shot of her asking for a restraining order... apparently some Aliens are 'Extra Friendly'...

Here is some fan that dressed up like Jerry Holikins, I was shocked by the authenticity of the replication...

hehe ok ok, actualy crept up on Jerry Holkins, one of the founders of PAX and writer extraordinaire of the Penny Arcade, and had Pat take the stealth shot. I would have liked to say a few words to him and thank him for putting the whole show together, but, he was deep in conversation with people already... so I let the opportunity pass.

This Shot is of the PAX Enforcers getting down to a Rock Band Concert:

So this last one I include with a bit of a story to go with it... I had been asking folks that were dressed up if I could take their pictures for some time now, and as I walked up behind this girl, I saw bright red hair and figured she would make a good picture too... well, as I got close to her, I realized that perhaps she wasn't 'dressed up' as anyone at all, I quickly did a rework of my approach and asked instead, motioning with my arms to what looked like a group of her friends, "could I get a picture of you guys, there's a great background I want to get a shot of with people in it." Good cover eh? anyway, here's the picture:

And that's the Booth Babe / Costume Tour of PAX 2008, like I said, I missed a ton of good pictures from the first two days... I'll try to do better next time.

Wade -out.

Review of the WoW miniatures Preview at PAX.

2008-09-03T11:20:00.000-06:00

Hey all,

I got the chance to play test the mini's game at PAX. I figured I'd post my thoughts and toss up some pics.

My first impression of the game is that it is AWESOME! I'm really excited about rolling it out for my friends to play. I play Warmachine and Hordes (Circle of Orboros,) but many of my friends in my play circle don't want to get into mini's to the toon of hundreds of dollars spent, and all that time putting models to gether and painting them. After Playing the World of WarCraft Miniatures Game, I'm really stoked about the possibility of getting some of my 'lesser hard core' friends into finally throwing down on some miniature warfare!

I may have had a lucky shake, in that the fellow running the demo game that I played in was Justin Gary lead designer / brand - Product manager for the WoW Miniatures Game. His enthusiasm for the game was contagious, it seemed that he was really enjoying showing us the demo... with four of us standing around rapid firing machine gun like questions about everything we saw; "what are these numbers on the side for?" - "What does that marking around that hex mean? Is it rough Terrain? How do we move into it?" - "What is the VP spot on the map for?" All of which he would have gotten to, if we'd have let him just do his presentation heh, he was a good sport and answered our questions patiently, jumping back into the planned demo whenever possible.

I really liked the approach taken with movement, by simplifying movement, you don't have to break out a measuring tape for each model, and basing 'turns' on a clock mechanic, you alleviate about a billion things that discourage me when playing other mini's games. For one, there's no debate over whether something is 'in range' or not... no 'slips' of the measuring tape that seem to give your opponent an extra half an inch on every move. heh. Perhaps you've never had that experience, but trust me; it's nice not to have to even worry about it! By doing movement based on a grid map, and basing powers and attacks on a clock mechanic, many of the rules are simplified without removing the 'tactical' portions of a miniatures game.

----------------------| A couple of the Miniatures |---------------------

Here is a picture of the play area and you can see the figure scale... as compared to a 288 pound man...

Plastic pre painted: Well, I can tell you, there just isn't anything cooler than an army of metal figures painstakingly painted with tender loving care all spread out on a battle field, and that's just how it is.

That said, there are plenty of draw backs which pre painted plastic fig's fix. I'll just list em here: (ya sure, I'm doing this as sort of a personal exercise attempting to complete my conversion to the medium... but stick with me for a sec.)

Here goes:

Price: Plastics are just less expensive. That's a given.

Time: And this one is HUGE! Seriously, if I can get a fig put together and painted in less than 2.5 hours, I'm doing pretty dang good. That’s allot of time I coulda been playing.

Transportability: sure Metal is stronger - but I'll be honest, I don't feel like I have to be as protective about my plastic figs as I don metal ones. No special army transport case for plastic... unless a cardboard box is special...

ok, those are the best arguments - so, I guess I have to place those against the fact that I really like the feel of Metal figures, and the look of Painted metal Figs. and put that up against the above arguments, as well as consider the fact that these plastic minis look FANTASTIC! I counted 6 individual colors on one model alone while I was at the preview game. That's great! The sculpts were fantastic! So, at least if they can't be metal painted figs, they do still look just about as good as a person could get.
I suppose if someone was real ambitious, they could paint over the pre-paint... call it a sort of a primer coat. But, honestly I don't think that people will need to do that, the figs looked great!

Some other features that I really liked were the universal removable game bases. Very cool. When I have these on a shelf, they can look like a great collectible. When I want to play, snap on a game base, and I have some great info. For use in my games! It’s like they took the thing that wasn't fun with Hero Clicks (that all the models had that clunky base on them,) and the thing that wasn't so cool with DnD minis. (That all the models don't have anything that helps use them in a game on them,) and came up with a solution that works for collectors and players alike. I love that idea! I just hope that the bases or figs don't were out so that it’s difficult to get the figure to stay attached to the base... we shall see.

Well, I'd like to write a bit more about my experience, but I'm all out of time. I had a Blast, and really appreciated Justin taking time to run me through a game!

I'm really looking forward to Bliz Con where I'll be able to play in a turny it sounds like, where I can keep the models that I play with.

oh.. Dang, I didn't mention the 'powers' cards - What a cool concept! By making powers on cards that you can mix and match, it really ups the re-playability of the game! Seriously, using cards that can change to 'enhance' the powers of your min is such a cool idea! I loved it absolutely and can't wait to learn all the 'powers' and put together an unstoppable force!

Thanks again!

zWolf -out.

(Wade Hone.)

A Brief Re-cap of the weekends activities...

2008-08-18T13:38:00.000-06:00

I'll see if I can't post some about last weekend, here is a 'short list':

Drinking a mana potion: I didn't know that such foulness would be legal to sell... and I thought cough medicine was bad!!! it did indeed keep me awake though... (went to Sleep at 7:30 am got up at 11:30 for a wedding.)

Fable II

My friend Tom's wife was out for the evening, so he logged in and we played Fable II pub games... getting our characters for Fable II deep in debt... the game isn't even out yet and already I've put my toon in the poor house!

We then played some Soul Calibur IV - and I, having been trained (more like 'schooled',) by the masters, Ryan, and Brandon Hone, (my cousins, ages 6 and 8...) - was able to hold my own pretty good. (Keep in mind I've played the game for several hours and this was Tom's first time with it... he was still able to beat me down far more often than I'd have liked... but, I don't think he got any 'perfects' off at least. :-P

We then loaded up Civilization - that is one fun and addictive game! it's what I played most this weekend (even more than Warhammer online! can you believe!)

Civilization Revolutions for the Xbox 360 (I have 700 of 1000 achievement points so far! that's pretty many for those of you unfamiliar in the art of collecting achievement points on the Xbox 360.)

We played this until late... but at least it wasn't 7 something in the morning... I save that for weekends. heh.

It was great though, we played against the computer, and honestly... I don't remember if we won or lost... I think we lost actually - but that is what is so cool about it, even while losing the game, it's still fun just trying to hang in there for another round.

Anyway, it was all good fun. If Marcel's xBox hadn't have had the red ring of death happen on it recently, we would have played Rock Band with him I'm sure.

Warhammer Online

I did get in the Beta test, and it's awesome! They are doing the PvP exactly like I had hoped they would... which is to say 'GOOD!' and enjoyable. Pat from Boise, is in this test also, so when he's off work, we'll be able to play. It comes out 'for real' on September 19th, so, I'm kind of holding off playing too much since all the progress that my character makes will get erased when the game goes live.

one 'less trivial' thing that I did was go to Don and Carol's Wedding on Saturday. (it was great! I even skipped sleeping in on a Saturday to go to it!!! -I'm so proud of me. :-P )

Also I spent some time visiting with the folks. I spent a couple of hours at their home, I was going to take a nap, but enjoyed visiting with them so much I skipped it.

On Saturday Nights I have been playing an RPG Game @ Gamopolis it's Warhammer Fantasy it's a Pen and paper adventure where you roll multi sided dice (like 20 sides...)

-is it geeky? ya.

is it fun? - you bet!!

I have a blast spending time with the guys at the game shop. eating snacks, laughing at the antics our characters pull off, and pretty much pulling off a rather cool inter active story while we are at it.

On Sunday - woops, I slept in a bit - but then,... There was more Civilization goodness!

and there you have my 'mostly frivolous' list of things I did this weekend - It was awesome! I am recharged and ready to sell a million bucks worth of work this week!

yes, mr. Covey, the saw, has indeed been sharpened!

Wade -out.

a very lazy Sealion....

2008-08-18T12:42:00.000-06:00

I just had to post about one of the funniest things I saw while vacationing in Oregon a couple of weeks ago...

there was this Sea lion trying to sleep on the Newport Docks. the problem was that he was laying on the dock in such a way that his head extended out past the edge of the dock. As the Sea Lion drifted off to sleep, his neck muscles would start to relax and his head would slowly lower towards the ocean waters...

Soon his entire head would be below the surface of the sea... you could see little bubles coming up out of the watter near his head. it wouldn't take long before the big guy would jerk his head out of the watter, eyes wide, stareing around as if trying to catch one of his buddies playing a joke on him... then slowly his eyes would close and the process would repeat it'self.

I watched this for 5 minutes, laughing the whole time.

I finaly wandered off and took some pictures of the dock and Brian and Kamber and their kids. it wasn't until just today that I noticed that I had a picture of 'sparky' the lion seal with his head fully submerged... blissfully un-aware that soon he'd be in haling sea watter in stead of oxygen.

here's a closer look at the pic:

Sweet! I made it to Kambers Blog!

2008-08-18T12:05:00.001-06:00

a momentous occasion has occurred! I have my own link on Kamber's Blog! yahoo!!! I took a screen shot of the event to mark it's occurrence.

Hopefully this will motivate me to put up some quality posts eh?

heh, anyway thanks Kamber!

here's the screen shot:

Here is a little instant message chat I had with a friend of mine... it relates to this post so I'm going to paste it in here - keep in mind that I'm 'adding' this too what you saw above...

[13:07] tcorcoran977: HALE!
[13:24] wadehone: and to you sir! Hail!
[13:25] wadehone: I updated my blog - o.
[13:25] tcorcoran977: which blog
[13:25] wadehone: http://life.wadehone.com
[13:26] tcorcoran977: wow
[13:26] tcorcoran977: you're really excited that your sister has acknowledged your existance
[13:26] tcorcoran977: lol
[13:27] wadehone: hehe.
[13:27] wadehone: yes, yes quite.
[13:28] wadehone: well... it's more to 'shame her' for not linking to me for the past two years... I havn't said anything to her about it... (one shouldn't 'ask' to be linked right? it's not the 'cool' thing to do.) but I have languished... non linked for years whilst barely known friends get links on her blog... it's been quite traumatic....
[13:28] wadehone: I can now go about my life, a whole person.
[13:28] tcorcoran977: yeah I agree
[13:28] tcorcoran977: I can see how that would be damaging
[13:28] wadehone: hehe.
[13:29] tcorcoran977: she actually put zwolf on there eh
[13:29] wadehone: well... I will admit, my blogs about all night LAN parties don't really fit in with the ' how my potty training session is going for sara' posts that the rest of them make....
[13:30] tcorcoran977: hahaha
[13:30] tcorcoran977: and you're at the bottom of the list
[13:30] tcorcoran977: I see it's alphabetical
[13:31] tcorcoran977: but both listed under Wade or zWolf will put it at the bottom
[13:31] wadehone: :-P ya, I just got on... I'll work my way through the quilifiers and try to get at the top of the list.
[13:31] tcorcoran977: hahaha
[13:31] wadehone: lol, I'm going to post this chat on the blog... I think it's funny.
[13:32] tcorcoran977: lol

All in fun, sis, all in fun. :-P

Family Vacation in Oregon!

2008-08-11T22:05:00.000-06:00

What a Fun time I had in Oregon this past week! I got to see lots of Family and I got to totally relax, I mean seriously, you know your totally relaxed when you forget to kick it because your too busy chillin!

I'm going to throw up some pics something I have been a bit lax in doing in former Blogs. I think a bit of AV help will be a welcome relief.

Ok, there were tons of activities going on while I was there, 3 Golf games I could have gotten in on, a Trip to Astoria, where I could have had the pleasure of seeing the one and only Randilicious (can't believe I missed out on that one! sheesh! There was a Tour of the Tillamook Cheese factory... a Sea Fishing Excursion, a Crabbing session off the pier - seriously there was no shortage of fun things to do.. but guess what, those things are the list of some of the things that I DIDN'T do!

For my vacation I chose to chill by the beach, read books (by the beach, or at the very least with the ocean peaking at me from a window,) watch Olympics while squinting in to the setting sun, play a bit of X-box 360 (once again, lovely beach setting in the back ground... can't forget that,) Eat wonderful meals with Family (Steak Fry anyone?) I ate at a wonderful coastal restaurant called Georgies a couple of times as well. (the Salmon prepared in a black Berry Glaze is to die for,) and I really enjoyed playing Settlers of Catan in the evening with the fam.

The Kids were fun to hang around... I'll admit it - My Nephews can Kick my Can in some of the video games... that would be more understandable if it weren't for the small fact that my oldest nephews are 8 and 6... and they both got perfect Scores at Soul Calibur IV against me... It's so humbling to admit that... oh man. But I'll fess up and try to be a graceful loser - so, Ryan and Brandon to both of you I offer a salute, and a hearty congratulations on your win - I'm looking for a rematch soon!

hmm, I promised some pics, let me get those in here: (It's getting late n I wana sleep some before tomorrows big day back at work so I'll do descriptions later on these.)

The Memory Game thingy.

2008-07-18T12:33:00.000-06:00

I filled out one of those 'questions about you' e-mails, that you send around to your friends and then anytime I got one (if I remembered,) I'd just send that list that I'd done instead of what ever other random list was circulating at the time... it was/is a great time saver.

here is something similar, in blog format... I'll play for a bit, but I'm mostly posting it because I don't think that I'll have to 'do' many memory things as this isn't a 'heavily read' blog. (heck my sis won't even list it on her 'blog links section and she has like 20 other peoples!!! :-P ) - I probably swear to much or something...

but I digress - here's the instructions:

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty fun to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments...(probably.)

My musings on life - for today, 6-19-08

2008-06-20T00:16:00.001-06:00

Hmm, I’d like something fortuitous or awe inspiring to write about, but alas nothing comes to mind. The life which I have chosen to live these days is one that is fairly low stress… unless it is self imposed stress like pushing to meet a goal for work, or worrying about whether to order pizza hut delivered, or go to that Mongolian bar-b-q down the road, of course the thought that ‘neither’ would be the best answer and that I really ought to spend some time using the ‘wii fit’ instead of cramming food in my face will flit by on the outer edges of my conscious mind, but that ‘flitter’ is more often than not, quickly dismissed.

Were I to write regarding the things that are on my mind – they might actually be interesting to some… They’d involve stories regarding 2 girls who are past loves turned into present friends, 1 girl who should have been a past love but will forever remain friend, and 1 specific girl who is a present tentative friend and what all that might bring – as well as the general thoughts on love and the open road of the future – the age old debate as to whether to join the chase of possibly increased happiness via forming family ties or continue on in definite happiness of solitude and not trying for the bonus to happiness that dating may bring because the odd’s are great that there’d be allot of sadness along with any happiness gained. Thus would run my musings of the moment.

That said, it’s easy to move on and think about the fact that I’d like to get serious about some ‘next steps’ in my entrepreneurial plan… the ‘help build the family business’ part is moving along nicely – so it’s time to really start looking at what I’d like to be doing in 3 years from now. How do I want my relationship with the family company to be then, what would I be looking for from them in the way of support in regards to any new venture that I decide to undertake etc. etc. etc.

When I look back on the road I’m taking to get to where ever it is that I’m going to, I’ll be able to look back on this long windy road, and see many places that short cuts would have been possible. Right now, I think that I’d look at all the twist and turns, and recall the enjoyment that I have had so far, getting to where I am, and going to where I’m going, that I wouldn’t want to take any of those short cuts for fear of missing out on memories made along the way. I hope to hold that same view when I look back in 20 years.

Well, My thoughts are in a rambling mode right now, and I’m a tad drowsy which would account for it. I’m going to call it a night and post this up. Perhaps I can be more regular in my postings on my blog from here on out.

Wade Hone 6-19-2008

Say – lets see what I was doing the 2nd year of my mission way back in 92 on this date shall we? (it sounds like fun to me, and it is my blog – so there.)

- hmmm first thing I pulled out was a sappy “please don’t let it be over” letter to an X-Fiancé… It obviously never got sent heh.

Ok, here we go.: I mentioned that I’d eaten a potato boiled in sugar water for a long time (dulce de papa) and that it tasted horrid. I talked about the great day that we’d had (7 discussions, and nobody missed their appointments with us – that’s was definitely a rare day!) and mentioned a ‘language goof’ that I had. Apparently I had told some one that natural Honey had less prophylactics in it (les that what I know not.. ) but what I had meant to say was that it had less preservatives… oh the things that we say when we are learning another language eh?

I mentioned the feelings of excitement I felt, for the work. How much that I loved seeing the progress of the families that we were teaching. I talked of how blessed that I felt for the privilege of being there. And about a girl ‘Maria Noel’ that was in a car accident and walked away not badly hurt. She took this as a blessing of protection and was looking forward to her baptism.

And then I closed with the phrase: “I LOVE MY MISSION!” WH. (which I certainly did.)

Anyway that was a great day to just randomly pick up! And now, this blog entry is WAY too long –but I’m gonna post it anyway – I haven’t done any for a long time, so I guess it’s ok that this one’s so long.

It’s after midnight now, so I’m off to bed for sure!

G’night.

Wade -Out.

How social networking sites might bennifit large coorporations like AT&T Wireless

2008-05-19T11:27:00.001-06:00

First, let me state that this is the 'end part' of a rant that turned into an intetesting discussion.

I took some time writing it, and it sort of falls in the veign of a blog, so I thought I would post it here.

I just wanted to warn you of the format - I may eddit it into an article at some point, but for now, here it is Raw: (the best part is at the end...)

Wade -out.

---

(Start Palmetto)

Maybe there aren't any.

(edit Any = bennifits to social networks like face book, in the work place. end edit -WH)

"...the very author of the article by merit of her position alone, should be able to come up with arguments in favor of the things she was attacking."

Maybe there aren't any, especially if a professional tech writer can't find any. I'm still waiting on someone to post some suggested workplace uses for these tools, preferably intranet based on a closed network. Maybe I've missed them; I'd be happy to reread any posts you suggest.
Posted: 05/18/2008 @ 05:03 PM (PDT)

Palmetto 14

-----

(start Wade)

How dare you try to lift this post above my petty name calling and low brow antics! ;-P

Ok, ok, you win, if you insist, I will attempt to climb up to your level and treat this subject with some respect and dignity. heh.

sarcasm aside, kudos to you for keeping it professional and the opposite to me for starting the thread with such a flammable title anyway - your right, I should have been more on topic if I disagreed instead of flaming Toni's professional role - can I take one more little jab though then call it quits on that topic? read the intro sentence... she's been avoiding the new tech of the social websites... happy to trudge along with blogs being her only inlet to the 'high tech world of the tubes of those darned intranets...' <--- Bah! there I go again... degenerating the discussion into petty and childish insults... ok ok ok.

here:

http://www.virtualworldsmanagement.com/research/index.html

that's a link to a page that will have some business reasons for corporations to look into this virtual world thingy that's hanging on the horizon.

Second life has some reasons as to why virtual worlds are currently valuable to employers and corporations - but... honestly most of there info is more about the potential than a real benefit.

As far as a hard faced 'real' benefit - I think that it is yet to be fully developed. But, I think that the benifit to virtual world in the work place going to be seen most prominantly in the training aspect. The beniffit will come from the results of something developed like what linden labs (second life,) and www.3dbuzz.com have done.

I attended a 'virtual' classroom in second life, where I watched a Harvard law professors class broadcast into a replica of a Harvard law school setting.

The experience was very moving... I a 'not so wealthy' man in Idaho was receiving the same lecture that 'uber wealthy/uber smart' kids were getting at an Ivy League school in Boston. I could have just watched the video on you-tube sure, but they were using the virtual environment to tie together many aspects of the class so that the experience became more robust. Bulletin boards in the virtual worlds that pointed to class forums - and web pages that had additional information etc. Also, there was the 'interaction' between other students in the area - I was rubbing shoulders with people and making contacts - read networking just like people do in real life on a golf course, with ivy league kids... now I didn't personally forge any life long friendships and spring board the next revolutionary web 3.0 idea or anything, but - it was VERY easy to see how that kind of thing really could happen.

Ok, now, juxtapose that over the www.3dbuzz.com website, and education system that they offer. Instructional videos that can take you from a neophyte 'kid with a dream' to some one that can actually put together 3d graphics presentations and contribute to popular applications via computer generated content.

The community that develops around the 'classroom' atmosphere is phenomenal - now the example of 3DBuzz.com has some holes in it, largely that it's not really a full blown 'virtual world' or anything yet. But, it is boardering on a social networking site, and it's just so easy to see where going 'virtual world' may actually be the case for the 3dbuzz.com site, or sites like it in the future.

I can envision a community like 3dbuzz, that provided the same level of instruction for K-12 education - I mean wouldn't that be cool if that anyone with a connection to the internet could have access to a K-12 public school education without even having to get on the buss and go to school to get it. (sure that could sound horrible to some, but there are many cases where that would be absolutely wonderful - shut ins, developmentally challenged, lets say an adult that couldn't yet read perhapsl.

I see such a wonderful exiting future for all of this 'virtual community' out there, that I get a bit frustrated by people that turn their noses up at it and 'poo pah' any possibility of there being a success in that field.

Then to have the 'poo pah' person turn out to be someone that 6 years ago wouldn't have even been able to call themselves a 'Blog Manager' or what ever that fancy schmancy title was that Toni has attached to her name plate is, with out the advancement of a technology so similar to the tech that she's 'poo pah'ing'... well it's just frustrating is all.

If we wana get the debate score card out and mark points down, I'll just go ahead and concede the battle to you, but I do hope at least that you can understand a bit where my initial vitriol came from.

Thank you,

Wade Hone -out.

----
(start Wade)

This topic of ‘the benefits or lack thereof, of online social networks in the workplace,’ is similar to the one that we (you and I palmetto,) are discussing elsewhere, but I'd like to get in on this one too...

I'm starting to understand that you, (and I'm guessing Toni falls into this category as well,) honestly don't see any specific advantages to social sites "like Facebook" in the work place.

It's just hard to fathom is all... but lets take that at face value, and imagine ourselves in an IT department of a major corporation... I'm going to choose a Wireless Telephone Corp. for the hypothetical, because it's not much of a stretch for me... ( I managed the So Cal. IT Sustainment Dept. for AT&T Wireless from 2000-2004 until their purchase by Cingular,)

ok, so, in that situation, lets say you have 12 Managers, spread out across the nation, each manager, manages 8 to 15 technicians that maintains the desktop infrastructure for the company.

One of the goals of upper management is to implement nation wide policy and have it implemented the same in each area across the country. This may sound like a given, but if it does, that would reflect a lack of knowledge of how much technicians like to take proposals from management and um... make them better, shall we say.

That said, upper management isn't absolutely stupid, so they would like to be using the best technique available, the only thing is they don't want each department picking and choosing which of the various methods and policies they will follow. does the scenario make sense?

ok, we have e-mail as a tool, we have forums and message boards, (which I can see you have a hard time associating with as part of a social site, but let me assure you the forums and message boards are a large part of each social network,) but here is where a social site really can help.

Lets take Face Book - personally I'd tweak quite a bit, before using it as a corporate tool, but lets just take it and imagine that there's no budget to create a proprietary social network site for our company.

First - there is a biography part, I'd have each person have all their vital training info. and expertise’s put in their Bios. in a method that it could be easily searched.... problems with printers, bobby over in New Jersey has just completed an HP training course and will probably have some good insights to offer - Jeff in LA can see that from on bobby's profile page (or do a search / perhaps have a group that’s set up for printer experts where bobby is a member / but anyway, Jeff does a search for and finding that info out about bobby, - Jeff then posts a query on bobby's page – bobby is notified on his cell phone that he has a message, and can reply thus saving Jeff allot of time.)

ok, lets say I'm the national manager, of the Retail team, all of my techs use their cell phones or the web as they are leaving a retail kiosk with info on when they will be at the next location - a few words, and presto, if I have an issue come up, I can instantly see on my tech's page, where they are and what they are working on thus making it easier to decide which tech to divert to the other location.

This could easily work for the sales dept. or product placement dept. or many other departments.

That's two tools, and I haven’t even started on how it can solve the initial scenario of having a central location to discuss policy, and establishing the 'best practice' in an insanely more effective method than existed back in 2004 when I left AT&T Wireless. In today's world of High Tech, I'd have the social site be a central hub of passing the policy info back and forth, a central information processing point where everyone could go to - submit their ideas for how it (and by it, I mean a policy or technique used in our dept.) might be done better, but yet still have access to the current best practice that is being used across the nation. There would be info. On how to submit the idea, and an easy to use process for the managers to make the call on what the current ‘best practice’ would be, thus allowing for a recommendation to be made to upper management, approval, and deployment of the best practice so much more efficient. In 2004, this process would take 3 weeks to infinity – with a social networking site, properly executed, the process could conceivably be completed in a day – a HUGE benefit when deploying a virus solution during a virus attack and you want every one across the nation to be following the same exact process on all the desktops.

The thing is, there are so many other benefits, but I have killed a good 30 mins of my day responding to the post - time I don't really have. We will call it a lunch break.

There IS some benefit to sharing a bit of personal information about life on a social network too - we do it at the water cooler, and that is nice for the team that is all at the same local office, but in this instance, we have a national team, the more that these techs get to know each other, the better that they will work together is the hope. It works in Real life, and from what I have seen so far, it helps in the virtual lives that we are all developing as well. For this hypothetical, I could easily see some one posting that they have an interest in Halo, or Counter Strike on their Bio page.. another tech, 5 states away, sees that info, they get on the same server, play as a team, frag some bad guys together, chat about work and Whamo! I a connection and friendship has been established that will be a benefit to the company for years to come, and perhaps a relationship that will be of benefit to the two employees for life. All because of a work based and encourage social networking site like face book.

yes, even you, your here aren’t you? on TechRepublic’s Social Network... talking with peers and industry experts about ideas, learning, sharing, teaching... that's what it is all about.

I see so many values to exploring the technology, it's frustrating seeing some one that is IN the industry writing for an online periodical called 'Tech-fill-in-the-blank-becuase-anything-following-the-word-tech-makes-one-think-the-site-at-least-promotes-technology,' state clearly that they can't see any uses for social networking sites in the workplace.

It boggles the mind.

I would expect to read this kind of article in print, on old fashioned news paper. The kind that has been around for hundreds of years.. that way I can scan the article, smile knowingly at this ‘ancient worker bee’ that just 'doesn't get it' and move on.

When I see some one that is supposedly a part of the 'TechRepublic' with such an archaic attitude, it incenses the mind, actual anger bubbles up as an emotion - "how dare someone within the industry not have the foresight or imagination to see the advances that social networking sites are bringing and will continue to bring to the world!" I think to myself (then post those thoughts on this blog...)

I say it ‘boggles the mind’, but that’s not entirely true, I do see how it’s possible - I see it in Toni's original article, and in your post as well. She states at the start that she has 'avoided' them, and similar to Toni’s comment you your self,) state that you have no experience with social sites at all.

So, honestly, the best way to see how Sites like Facebook, can unite employees, is to just sign up on Facebook, look at the tools that are available there, and then put yourself in the role of a consultant trying to help a corporation find uses for their social network tool that they spent millions implementing.

I think that even the most backwards technophobes could come up with an idea or two on how to help the company 'unite their employees via social networking sites.'

Thank you,

Wade Hone.

Desending further into Geekdome and loving it.

2008-05-01T01:38:00.000-06:00

As wtitten in my gamers blog:

---

So, I purchaced some minitures not long ago... ok, 6 months ago or so. They are called 'hordes' I liked them becuase they had wolfs and druids, that seemed to fit my style so I bought that army. you can play against warmachine minitures, and that's what I've done mostly. here's a link::

Hordes - Privateer press games.

Anyway, I really havn't played much, but did get in a game to night. it was game one for me in a 5 week campaign. I had a blast, but lost in a magnificent blunder of a move... I wanted to try out a spell... which I did, however, it landed me in the midst of a bunch of baddies, and my honorable opponant didst capitalize on the error of my ways.

I'd say the most significant part of the evening came when I saw the doom massing on the horizon and I asked: I know this is lame, but can I conceed if I see doom approaching, so that I can take advantage of the bonding rule? (which states that any warbeast left on the table gets to role for a permanent bond / advantage for the rest of the campaign.) Several people proclaimed their consent that indeed, it was definitly lame... so I added, "but is it legal." I got a few laughs at that... at least untill I actualy did it. :-P but hey! ya gotta try for those advanteges eh?

---

ok, after that I got to sit in a single run through a role play session - there were 6 of us playing pre-made characters for a Warhamer 40k dark herey adventure. We had a blast, but, I must admit, I did the most damage to a fellow teamate when I failed a willpower check and went temporarily insane, attacking anything in site. I happend to critticle on my attack, and really dished out the dammage on that - lucky me, I didn't finnish him off, and he was the guy that saved the day in the end getting a grenade to go off and chase away the big bad evil fellow that was about to start helping me chomp on my pals.

- well the night was fun, and I figured I might as well start using this gamers blog to start bloging about gaming.

-as far as World of warcraft goes, I'm plannig on bailing out of that until the expansion comes up. I'll keep doing the karazhan raids once a week with the guild till my subscription runs out - but I'm looking forward to being free of the WoW Addiction for a while - though I must admit I sure had fun, and with all that epic pvp gear - I really feel like I got a good taste of the 'end game'. that's a change.

on the horizon = GTA4 (I succomed to the pressure of the game industry claiming that this was the best video game... pretty much 'ever'. till now I havn't played one of the GTA's as I'm not a big fan of the 'dark hero' theme they set up... I couldn't get into the 'your a gansta against the law' motif of the previous games. This one promises to be a tad better - enough to make the 'escaping from the organized crime syndicate from eastern europe character' apealing to play.

Also - more Hordes, and Dark Heresy (warhammer 40k rpg) goodness - yay, and the big one will be 'Age of Conan' wich comes out at the end of the month. I'm all pre-ordered and ready to roll!

zWolf -Øut.

Snow: a negative influance:?

2008-05-01T01:30:00.000-06:00

Ok... seriously, I'm a pretty upbeat guy most of the time. I like to look at situations and choose to see the good in them in stead of the bad. I mea hey, I gotta live in this world, and I might as well see it as a good and wonderfull place to be instead of looking for doom and gloom. thats what I think at least.

However, Tonight I choose to see a bit of doom and gloom. IT is now officialy May... and guess what I drove home in tonight?

yes - a FREAKING SNOW STORM.

Seriously folks, this is getting OLD! I am about Fed up with the bad weather, the cold days, the wet mornings that we can't get a crew out working in - and just mostly the Freaking SNOW!

I am quite seriously considering how to get out of this forsaken SNOWY land eventualy. I mean I love working with my Brother and Parents in the company business, so I'm not serious about that short term at least, but on the flip side... I really don't know how many 'years' I'll honestly stick out this crap.

ok, I just wanted to vent a bit. I think that having lived in Cerritos California, where the majority of the days in the year rang in at around 72 degrees, and fair sky's may have tainted my expectations on weather just a tad. but the damage has been done, I know realize that there are indeed places where snow from September to May just isn't really an option - which makes living in one of those places, a HUGE option in my book.

---

Accountability and Personal Success Defined

2008-02-13T13:44:00.000-07:00

2-13-08 This is a re-write of my original ramblings from 11-05-06 -Accountability and Responsibility and More:- which I have left intact on this blog but swapped out on the Entrepreneur blog.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Accountability. The dictionary definition reads:

“the state of being accountable, liable, or answerable.”

The dictionary listed a second definition when the word is applied to educators:

“a policy of holding schools and teachers accountable for students' academic progress by linking such progress with funding for salaries, maintenance, etc. “

I appreciate the second definition of the word, as I think it helps to explain a larger concept of accountability. The concept being that being accountable means that there is a cost to failing.

In many situations there is a social cost. If a father fails in his responsibility to his children to raise and protect them, by abandoning his responsibility, then in society he is looked down upon. One of the ‘costs’ of his failure is his standing in society. Of course there are many other costs associated with this particular failure as well, and unfortunately children often are the ones to suffer because of it.

This social paycheck is quite powerful. Most people are motivated by the respect and admiration that they gain as they increase their financial holdings or position in work or even political position in government. The motivation that a person draws from increasing his status in society varies from person to person.

Most every one, if they stop to think about it for a moment, can think of someone else, or some social group where they would like to be respected and though highly of. This may, (and should,) include a spouse and other family members. For most people even old acquaintances, and to varying degrees even perfect strangers can elicit at least some desire to be respected and thought highly of by them.

There are of course many other ‘paychecks’ that can be used to motivate a person to be accountable. One motivator is of course an actual paycheck that you bring home from your job. That money helps to motivate employees to fulfill their duties at work.

Another paychecks or reward that can be used as motivator is ‘Self Accountability’. I’d like to define that as the reward (or cost,) of meeting (or failing,) the requirements of success that each individual sets for themselves. Every person’s standard for measuring what success means to them is different from every other person. Like a finger print, that ‘Success Standard’ helps to define who we are, and yet like a finger print, every persons definition will vary to at least some degree.

The social groups that a person belongs to will all have an impact on the definition of success for that person. If some one works at a job, belongs to a golf club, attends a church, and has an extended family that likes to stay close, then all of those social groups will impact the personal definition of success for that person. If they also participate in the community, in the PTA, or on a city counsel for example, those social groups will also play a part in how success is defined for that individual. The priority that the person puts on each of those influences will also play a part. For example – when there is a church meeting, a PTA meeting, a work responsibility and a daughters beauty pageant that all fall on the same night, where a person spends their time that evening will tend to define the priority that person places on each of those groups.

The main point is that every persons definition of success is different from every other persons, and there are thousands of influences on that definition.

This definition of success still exists even if it isn’t written down, or even consciously defined. All of those motivators from self, and the outside influence of the various social groups that people belong to all mix together to form a personal definition of success. On some level, a personal measurement is made against how they are succeeding or failing when compared against their internal definition of success.

I once read, though I can’t remember who wrote it, that;

“Every day a man should know whether he has won or lost.”

I completely agree with that.

The point that I am trying to make is the same point that the Greek’s and those that continue their discussions, have been chit chatting about for Eons.

“Temet Nosce!” And no less important, “Sui Juis”

(“Know Thyself” and “One’s Own Master”)

That personal definition of success is already a part of every person – those that can do a bit of introspection and dig it out to look at it, can then start to revise it to have a conscious impact on that definition of success. Instead of blindly letting some sub conscious ambiguously defined definition of success impact you on a continuing basis, a person that has taken the time to clearly define what success means to them, has a much better chance to actually attain it that some one that has not consciously clarified that definition.

Once you have that definition of personal success, you can begin to allocate your time accordingly. With conscious thought put into the definition you may see that things that seemed so important at work, that took so much time up, don’t really fit in to your true definition of success.

Something that happens if introspection doesn’t happen and success isn’t consciously defined for a person, is that it becomes easier for other peoples wills and desires to influence you.

To explain, lets take for example a man that has a job that has started requiring him to work late most every night and most weekends. If he hasn’t clearly defined all of the other areas that he wants to find success in, like family, church, local government (city council for example,) then it becomes easier for him to let the demands of the workplace take priority and soon, there is just not enough time for him to succeed in those other areas of his life that have importance. Some of those areas, like family, may be way up on the priority list when compared to his job, but they may suffer, if a conscious effort hasn’t been made to define the priorities.

Now, this same situation could occur and may even fall right in line with the plans of that person, but there is a difference when it is a planned sacrifice verses being led by another’s will. A person may actually plan to spend a few years really working hard to save up money for their family so that they may have a better life. Sacrifices on extracurricular activities might be made in order to achieve some goal or another. Personally I know of many families that have made sacrifices while a husband or wife finishes school in the hopes that those sacrifices will pay off in the long run and that the education will benefit them. The difference lies in the fact that they are all following a course of action that will help them to succeed at a very clearly defined goal.

Once that goal has been defined, there are many things that can be done to help to measure accountability. There is a book by Frank Bettcher that is very helpful to anyone in the sales industry. He defines several things that he did to help track his activities in sales that he says ‘raised himself from failure to success.’ I have several ideas on measuring accountability that I will save for another article.

For now, let me conclude with the sage advice I received from my father. He said;

“Write down your goals.”

He actually said a lot more on that subject, but that is the short and the sweet of it. I have found when I followed that advice, 9 times out of 10 I’ll achieve the goal I wrote down. If I just ‘think up’ a goal and let it float around in my brain, not captured by pen or paper, those odds really go down.

So, bottom line is this, if you will;

First:

Think about all the areas in your life that you would like to succeed in. (introspection)

Second:

Prioritize those areas and clarify your personal definition of success.

Third:

Prioritize and write down the goals for each of those areas.

Here is what you will get:

You will have a much easier time achieving those goals because they are written down and you can focus on making choices that will help you succeed.

You will receive the hard to measure value of having a measuring stick to let you know whether you have won or whether you have lost each day. With that measure in place, you can start making choices about where to spend your time and efforts that will eventually turn each day into a win!

Best of all you will understand what it feels like succeeding at being accountable to yourself. When you are measuring up to your own definition of success that accounts for all of the variable in your life properly prioritized in order of importance and when you are succeeding at the goals set in each of those areas, the feeling is incredible!

By,

Wade L. Hone

My Million Dollar Idea ( part 1 )

2008-02-13T04:22:00.000-07:00

I’m pretty exited about the upcoming year – a lot of that excitement comes from the success of last year. I was in charge of sales for the company for that year, and we broke the record for sales in a year by Imperial Asphalt including breaking a million dollars in sales… to bad it snowed and shut us down before we could complete all the work that was sold! Oh well, next year for sure we will break that million dollar mark I’m sure. Overall though it felt really good to take over sales, and have this be the best selling year in the history of the company.

With that success behind me and a great year coming up, I start looking at ‘what’s the next step’ in the plan of becoming a true Entrepreneur. With Imperial asphalt as a ‘base’ that provides a source of income for other money generating projects, it’s time to start really defining what those projects should be.

I have been working on a few online businesses, one of them is Intagoal, which has an ambiguously defined purpose of providing online education. Also in the mix is Level20.com which is where I have had some sort of a game themed idea for a company twirling around in my mind. In addition to it being managed in a revolutionary ‘manage by project’ style – I really want it to be something that I am passionate about.

Tonight as I drove to meet a gamer friend of mine for a late night burrito at rolbertos, I had what I believe was an epiphany of clarity… now, I’m not sure that those two words really go together, but I like how they sound, so I’ll leave them there for now. Basically a clear picture of a method of generating income off of my passion for gaming formed in my mind.

I’m not going to go into the details of what exactly the idea is, I honestly don’t believe that the ‘what’ of the idea is really relevant to the success of that Idea, it’s the fact that it is something that I can really get passionate about. THAT! Is the key.

Honestly the idea is fairly mundane, the fact that I am exited about making it a reality is what is unique. I feel like there are several pieces of a big puzzle that are already positioned in a way to make the whole puzzle come together quickly and with great odds of succeeding on the first stab.

I’ll definitely be writing more about what the details of the idea are. I just know it has been a long time since I did an update in here, and I felt like this was a significant enough event that it merited being noted in this blog.

I’ll admit, this is the ‘slow’ part of the plan, but I’m really enjoying it – part of what is key to my vision of success, is getting ‘there’ in a vehicle that I will enjoy the ride in, and so far, this family owned business venture of Imperial Asphalt, very much is fitting the picture. It is a pleasure to have planning and goal setting meetings with my father, mother and Brother Trent, all sitting around the dinner table. We plan a bit, then tell a story for a while. Meetings that could be finished in an hour, can sometimes drag on for three. That may seem very anti productive, and I’ll admit, it is, but honestly, that is EXCATLY part of the pay check that I want… to enjoy what I do – and folks, I’m getting paid well in that department. At the same time, the paychecks on the financial end of the scale really haven’t been too shabby, and they are shaping up to be much better in the future. So, as far as how things are progressing – I’d have to give a ‘so far so good’ response to that query.

Wade Hone –out.

Kayak Practice - Video Editing Practice

2007-11-13T22:39:00.000-07:00

So,

I had the opportunity to 'think' for awhile as I drove back from Boise after some 'how to get more business from the federal government' classes that the SBA put on for free. I was thinking along the lines of getting more work, and using technology to do it, and this idea for putting together a blog on 'how to' subject regarding Asphalt Maintenance evolved in to a Video Blog where I interviewed professionals in the industry and posted those interviews for free on our web site.

Thus getting more traffic, and hopefully more business - perhaps even opening um new product lines.

So, I decided that instead of just 'thinking about' this idea (As is often the case with me,) I'd follow Guy Kawasaki's advice and actually 'do' something about it. I got a video capture device, plugged it into my computer and looked for some material to capture and process.

Here is one of the first pieces that I put together... it's actualy jsut the last part of a longer video that was made for DvD (a Kayak Trip to hagerman.) that turned out to be about 15 minutes and maybe someday I'll post it.. but this is a small 4 min. clip at the end.

it's a fun clip of Lance surfing a small rapid in Grovland. Kambers filming and other than the first 'total miss' of lances run through the rapid. (she was to zoomed in and missed his ride,) she did a great job. The proof is in her many good videos she has posted over on her blog - check em out (link on the right.)

This post is actually a 'test' as well - testing posting to a blog heh. This 'first didy' is just a link to You Tube where I posted the clip.

lets see how it works:

Nostalgic Game memories:

2007-10-12T10:53:00.000-06:00

In a forum I frequent the 'what were your top three games of all time?' question was asked.

Tokek (a good friend of mine that some of you may remember from once upon a time a long while ago as a member of the AoA that played with us in UO n EQ ... or maybe just EQ has been a profesional Game tester for EA mind you, only posted two games and then.. well actually I'll just paste in the forum conversation here:

--start --

# by Sarpedon on Tue Sep 11, 2007 03:06 PM PDT

This might sound like a gay myspace bulletin, but if you guys had to pick your three all time favorite games, what would they be? Mine would be Symphony of the Night, Vagrant story, and Final Fantasy Tactics.

# by Tokek on Tue Sep 11, 2007 03:59 PM PDT

Monkey Island series, Mafia

Can't think of a 3rd

# by zWolf on Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:22 PM PDT Edit

/Flame on

Ok Mr. "I'm a Game tester but can't think of 3 games that I like..." Grarrrrghhhaggggurggleee! (thats the sound of me choking on Bile...)

I actually have tons more to say on that, but ... I'm just too speechless to verbalize my displeasure.

/Flame off

In spite of that, your still one of my best all time friends.

zWolf -out.

# by zWolf on Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:23 PM PDT Edit

I'm going with Diablo II, and.... hmm nothing else really comes to mind...

- Z.

# by Attech on Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:27 PM PDT

Games?

Hmm...none really come to mind...

# by zWolf on Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:35 PM PDT Edit

HAHAHA - oh the Mirth!

ok ok ok, but seriously, heh, ahem - like if I had to pick 3 games to play while I was stranded on a Deserted Island... that had a computer, but no internet, they would be: (no internet because probably my all time Favorite would have been Star Wars Galaxies Pre NGE. Then other MMORPG's - and what kind of a survival story would it be if the deserted island had Internet anyway! -I know powers a stretch... but maybe I'm a wiz at making Electric Generators and computers out of coconuts or something... anyway, here's the list:)

Diablo 2

WarCraft III

and Oblivion.

WC III and Oblivion both have map editors soooo - I'd never 'truly' get board you know?

So, those are my 'Stranded on a deserted Island' (with Electricity of course...) Pics.

As for the games that had the most impact on me:

Diablo BattleNet Beta Test - the original... I actually spent 54 hours straight, no sleep, pizza to eat playing that game one time during the beta... It was awesome.

Star Flight - an old space exploration game that was just Awesome with a very cool plot line and character development and .. a whole TON of stuff...

StarFlight on Wiki

And I'm going to have to go with an old text adventure game named 'Wishbringer' ... I remember playing to a dead end - and laying down to sleep at like 3 am... and just as I was drifting off... a possible solution to the dead end came to me! I jumped out of bed to try my theory, and it worked! I finished the game, and when I went to sleep, I don't think I'd ever been more satisfied. (...I was young.)

Wishbringer on Wiki

I could go on n on with various 3 categories... we haven't even scratched the FPS's, RPG's, Adventure, Puzzle, - '

Fun Question Steve er.. I mean Sarpedon thx for the march down Memory lane.

I think I'll stick With SWG as my all time favorite though. ya... that's a good one.

zWolf -out.

--- End Thread ---

So ya, it was kind of fun to think about what games were the best.

What were yours?

-zWolf / Wade out.

Wade Returns to Blogging - Blame Facebook.com

2007-09-07T11:55:00.000-06:00

ok, so it's true - I have not blogged for a long long time. Well, I recently signed up for Facebook - the social networking software developed by students at Harvard, and I'm very impressed. I like it much better than anything that I have seen so far.

It happens to have a feature that will allow me to 'import' anything that I blog here. Sooo - once I set that up, I felt inspired / obligated to begin Blogging again.

Have no fear, the lack of 'text' in this document over the past recent months is not an indication of 'nothing' happening. Quite a bit has happened. I'll try to get summaries of major events in here - but above that, I'll try to stay caught up on 'what's happening' in the here and now.

With that as an Intro - I'm off to get back to work. I'll do a more 'info filled' Blog later.

Wade -out.

Online Education and Second Life

2006-12-17T18:19:00.000-07:00

So, this is very interesting and right up my ally. Apparently there is a large community of Educators that are involved with providing content for the virtual world called Second Life.

Second life is: " Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents." The difference of this 'virtual world' and say World of Warcraft, or Everquest, is that though users could build game content, the content itself is not included. Rather just the tools to create are provided.

This allows people like educators to put together classes, and schools even in this virtual world.

here is a little 'intro video' for a course that a Harvard Law Professor put on last semester in Second Life: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/cyberone/ (or try: Video Link for the video)

This is something that I have just started looking over the past couple of Days, however, I am very exited about the possibilities. For now, and from what I have seen so far, I'm not sure that this will be 'THE' big Virtual Learning environment, but what ever it evolves into, I am totally convinced that it will definitely play a large part in forming the landscape of Virtual Learning Environments for the future.

Wade / Zak Vacano <-- My online Avatar's name. -out.

Summary of events for the past while:

2006-12-07T09:29:00.000-07:00

I made a post on a gaming forum to a group that I've known and played with for several years... it was a decent summary of some of the things I've been doing the past few weeks sooo, I figured I'd post here:

Posted by zWolf on the EZCO guild forums 12-07-06:

Good News n Not as good News

So, Good news. Imperial Asphalt (my Dad's company that I'm managing sales for,) just won it's biggest contract ever. The 'not so good' news is that we could have put another 20K in and still won it. But se la vi, the 167K will keep the doors open during the winter. Boise is 4 hours away, but it's a bit better climate so you can work all year around, winter is normally a time we close up shop due to weather around southern ID where the main business is based.

Oh well, the extra 20K sure would have been nice, but we knew we were going in cheap. When it's the difference of having work or not having work then you bid to win ya know? We ran the #'s and we'll still make decent $$, just not plasma TV buying 'extra' $$'s.

Imperial Asphalt will be doing quite a bit of winter work in our State capital again this year, this will make 7 out of 8 years that we've won the contract, so it's no new thing for us. Just that this is the first year I'll have been directly involved from the beginning.

Heh, I guess this isn't really 'game related' but over the years - a guy feels like he can share stuff he's exited about in hear ya know.

Wade -out.

Thank you,

zWolf

zWolf@level20.com
http://www.wadehone.com

------------
posted by Aztlan 12-07-06:

cool zwolf! congrats bro! how's everything else going?

-Az

-------------
posted by zWolf 12-07-06:

hmm Every thing else is going pretty good - recent events include:

Moving a brother from one home to another in the same town (same Day)

Moving a brother from one town to another (different cities different days,)

Moving the rest of my crap from Boise to my new place. (the boxes are still stacked in the dinning area though...)

Conference trip to run a booth at the Idaho Highway District convention in northern Idaho, I didn't see any Skin heads - but was sick most of the time I was there. heh, my voice was gone most of the whole time which really sucked cause I was supposed to be talking to all the road managers.

Thanks Giving goodness - at the parents house- mmm mmmm Mashed Potatoes n Gravy! -added- Also that evening a movie with my Dad, Brothers and good friend Danny - it was something with Denzel Washington and someone that I thought was Hally Berry (but someone said I was wrong... n I havn't been to IMDB yet to find the truth.) -end-

2 Baby Blessings - (My brothers are very prolific....)

A Brazillian Dinner @ Rodillio Grill and a Symphony Excursion with a good friend (who happens to be an X-GF.)

Trip to Boise to Bid that job we won.

heh over all that's allot of Travel time. You can see by my X-player Icon I've taken pretty much 0 time to play anything.

Oh lets see I was able to write a multi page manifesto on some internet deployed and distributed employment model... but I was high on a 'RockStar' Tripple Shot - so I'm not sure how coherent it is....

hmmm then several other odd's n ends 0 hey this is a pretty good little summary... I think I'll pop it up on my blogg - heh.

I've been reading about WoW and the latest updates though... I may not be able to hold out till mid January on getting back in... it sounds pretty cool.

z -out.

-----

Over all, it's been a fun past few weeks. I got to see lots n lots of Family, I have the coolest Nephews and Nieces in the world! I sure miss my Sister n her Family though, living in London just gets to be too far away once every one's close together where we can have regular family get-togethers ... in those times the absence is really missed. but at least she keeps up a great Blog! and I get to see sweet pic's of my Niece Samantha. that's very cool.

I'm definitly looking forward to the next couple of months too, I'm jst getting over a long ole cold, and I can feel the energy of being healthy surging through me just waiting to invest in accomplishing my goals.

I'll be reviewing a priority list with Dennis later today to go over where to focus my sales at this winter. Guess you could say we were going over our strat-ee-ger-y for the next few years.

My thoughts on Nancy Grace from CNN

2006-12-06T10:31:00.000-07:00

I wrote this to CNN a while ago, then ran across it in my old documents. I saw her on TV again (not sure why she's still on CNN and not some late night low budget cable TV channel but oh well...)

I just thought I would post this here in my blog.

Letter to CNN:

I just wanted to comment that I normally just change the channel when Nancy Grace comes on due to how emotional and bias that she seems to get once she decides to take a side on an issue. I just thought that was part of the theme of her show, a sort of ‘shock em to entertain em’ shtick. Personally when I look for news stories I look for reporting, not soap boxing. Then I saw a clip of her claiming that her show sought to present just the facts. I don’t recall the particular quote, but it made me feel that she was attempting to argue that her show was one that didn’t show bias.

I just had to write in at that point. It’s one thing to run an entertainment show that uses the news as it’s source material, The daily news on the comedy channel, and many other shows like it, are quite successful at entertaining. However, It made me wonder how stupid she thinks that her viewers are if she thinks she’s shooting straight news and not mostly entertainment. If she’s trying to do news, she needs to practice not raising her voice so much and practice not getting so emotional about issues, as well as learning how to look at both sides of an issue and not joining one. If she’s going to continue with the entertainment shtick, then she shouldn’t try to persuade her viewers that she’s doing the news. For myself, I’ll just continue to change the channel when I see her yelling questions at her normally respectable guests. For others that may be insulted by her trying to fool them into thinking that they are getting real news, she may want to tone down her claims of reporting the news.

by,

Wade Hone.

---------------

Level 20 -- The New Work Force Frontier

2006-11-18T06:53:00.000-07:00

As I drove back from Idaho Falls, I had a series of thoughts that kept running through my mind. It was Friday night about 12:30 when I started writing, and 6:48 in the morning when I finnished... that's a long ole time to hack away at a keyboard.

I had eaten a great dinner earlier with Trent, (my brother,) and Millisa (my sister in law,) it was great to see them and their kids are just plain awesome, man, I'm most likely biased... but I think that I have the best nieces and nephews in the wole wide world!

Anyway, after dinner I helped get Trent started on transfering his files over from his old computer to his fancy dual procesor new one. What a cool rig he has!

I left their house, and visited with danny while he worked at albertsons... while there I did down a big ole Tripple Shot of the energy Rock Star... so part of my 'all night' writing spree can be blamed on the caffiene rush from that I suppose.

but on to the meat of this post.... the Ephistle that I wrote down and posted on my Entrepreneurial blog.

I will post it now for your amusement.... it's always fun to me to come back after a late night typing experiance and read what I wrote. Often the results are hilariously terrible.

However, on this endeavoure, I have attempted some similitude of profesionalism... after a good 8 hours sleep, we shall see how that holds up.

I fear that towards the end of the document, I inserted several 'rambling' lines of text (as I'm currently doing here,) that I will have to edit down to a more consice / readable format at a later date.

(grr I ran spell check, and it said that nothing was spelled wrong... which I'm sure is a down right lie, since I know that it was 'I' that hit the key's to make the preceeding text appear on the screen... oh well, you'll have to suffer through it.. trying to de-sy-fer my phonetic renderings of the English language mixed in with my attempts at conformity to the modicom of speach most comon to my native country.)

Wade -out

(here's the long level 20 post in it's entirety)

-----------------

Level 20:
What it is = The new Work Force Frontier.

What that means :
This is a company dedicated to utilizing the technology of today’s world to bring teams of people together who:

...desire to get rewarded directly for the efforts that they put into their work.
...desire to have ownership privileges of projects that they build.
...are looking for a way to increase their income and their quality of life.
...can see that the new frontier is the internet, and who want to be a part of the development of communities and marketing strategies based on that technology.
...are comfortable working remotely.
...can work well as a member of a team that most often will be separated by large distances, teams whose primary means of connecting with each other will be through the internet.
...can work well as a member of a team that will most likely contain teammates that are culturally diverse, i.e. if you are an engineer on a team you need to be able to get along well with the marketing people, and marketing folks, have got to be able to communicate with and get along well with the engineers of the team, (and everyone has to love the accountants… because they need love too and… well… they help us all get paid.)
...can use, or are willing and eager to learn how to use, modern internet communication tools to coordinate efforts with the teams that they work with, (most often, access to broad-band internet will be a requirement.)
...work well under a management structure that will most closely resemble managed projects. (i.e. project coordinators that plot out a projects development that is based on the completion of objectives or milestones by team members.)
...can make realistic estimates on when work objectives can be completed, and then consistently deliver high quality results by those deadlines.
...are exited by the opportunity of the great potential returns on time investments, and who are willing to forgo the security of a regular paycheck in return for receiving their reward that is directly based on how well that the project they helped to produce or market does in the market place.

Based upon the principle that the people that build a thing should get to reap the rewards of their creation, Level 20 seeks to provide the infrastructure necessary that will alow professionals, to designate how much time that they can allocate to a project, then become part of a team that develops and markets internet driven products and applications to the masses, and reap the rewards for doing that.

If that definition fits you at all, then by all means read on. (even if you found nothing in common with the preceding list feel free to read it as well.)

Here’s the preview… keep in mind it's a ruff draft:

Here are a few definitions to keep in mind while reading this document :

Green = Good – on target with budget and schedule (the norm.)

Yellow = Caution – possible delay is sighted or an overage on the budget becomes a possibility.

Red = Criticle Failure Eminent -In eminent danger of missing the deadline, or not meeting the expected quality requirements. Also red means that additional funding is required and will need to be allocated to this objective. (this will of coarse decrease the expected returns for everyone.) Red also means that failure in this area may require for the project to be placed on hold.

Placed on hold = all work towards the project is halted while feasibility and profitability are
re-evaluated. This would be executed to allow the architect and project coordinators to re design the project plan.

Inactive project = a project that has been placed on hold, and then has been added to an
inactive project list by the Supervising Architect. Personnel can then have their time freed up so that they are eligible to be re assigned to other more feasible projects.

In the event that a project goes to the inactive project list and later is placed back on active status, a provision * in project design document will explain how rewards will be determined for teams or agents who’s work from the inactive project that is used on the now active project will be awarded.

Level 20 Architects build a basic project idea, and a brief outline of a
suggested reward program, and select a supervising Architect for the
project.

Project Coordinators are selected by the supervising Architect to run a particular
project or a portion of a project.

Project Coordinators work with the Supervising Architect to put together a project
design document with time lines that estimate what positions / roles will
be needed to complete the project and how many hours will be needed by
each roll to complete the project on time.

Project Coordinators will plan a budget for the project.

Project Coordinators will work with the supervising Architect to refine the reward
structure that will be offered to the team that works on the project.

The reward – will most often be
based upon the direct result of the team members.

In other words, the Project Coordinators break down the project into
milestones, and objectives that need to be completed.

Then the PC (Project Coordinator) assigns a priority to each objective:

Critical – the most vital parts of the project. These are the objectives that
would be the hardest to replace teammates on or would severely cripple
the project were they not completed with high quality and on time.

Normal – most objectives will have this status.
These objectives are definitely important to the over all
success, but have some flexibility on time lines or would be fairly easy
to replace team members if the objective remained in a yellow status for
very long.

Non Critical – These are the areas that would be easy to replace team
members on if they went to a yellow status or are very flexible as to
when they could be completed during a project.

The PC assign a value to each of the objectives.

The value assigned will be based on the objectives priority and based on the
time estimates and budget that was determined in conjunction with the
Supervising Architect.

The value assigned will be designated as a percentage of the return of what
ever profits that the project generates.

The team or agent that completes that objective is awarded the predetermined
value of that objective.

Bonuses will be awarded based on exceeding expectation.

Penalties will be subtracted from the assigned value and will be based on failed
deadlines, or expectations not being met.

A penalty that was assessed to a team or agent will go directly into the
bonus pool which is shared by those that exceeded expectation.

i.e. an agent completes an objective several weeks in advance of the
deadline – based on the priority of the objective, the value of the
objective, and the degree of exceeding the expectation a point value **
will be assigned to the team or agent. (1-6)

i.e. a team is late on completing an objective and the end result doesn’t quite meet the expectation. – based on the priority of the objective, it’s value and the severity of the failed expectation a negative point value will be assigned to the team or agent. (negative 1 – negative 6)

Any penalties that were assessed to an agent or team will be added to the bonus pool for each objective that a negative point assessment was given.

The bonus pool is calculated as a percentage of the profits. The starting
size of the bonus is defined in the design document.

To determine what amount of the bonus reward goes to which teams or
agents, the point totals of each team are added up. The total amount of
points that were awarded is considered to be equal to100 percent of the
bonus pool. From there it is easy to figure up what percentage of the
bonus pool every point is worth. Each team or agent then converts their
point total into the percentage that those points represent, and then
pool is divided up amongst the teams and agents based on those
calculations.

If the resulting project is sold outright, then the profits of that sale are
awarded as follows:

The gross value of the Sale of project result minus the expenses and minus a percentage of the profits (not to exceed 10%) that will be reinvested into the growth of level 20.

If the project result generates a continuing revenue then the profits of that continuing revenue are awarded as follows:

The gross Quarterly value of the revenue, minus the expenses that were used
to complete the project (as a general rule the expenses should be paid off within 5 years, but the exact details of repaying expenses will be defined in each design document,) minus the costs involved in maintaining the project minus 10% of the profits which will be used to reinvest in the marketing and growth of the project itself and minus a percentage of the profits (not to exceed 10%) that will be reinvested into the growth of level 20. The proceeds
will be awarded on a quarterly basis to the project teams and agents that participated in the projects creation.

If the continuing revenue project is sold, then the profits of that sale
are awarded the same way as previously defined.

The Project Team is put together by the Project Coordinators. This is done by
selecting members / agents that have indicated that they have available time commitments to allocate to the various roles that will be needed to complete the project. This is done by reviewing and interviewing members / agents of Level 20 and going over
the design document with each agent or team lead. (Team leads determine how rewards will be distributed amongst his team…This enables contractors who reward their employees in a more traditional manor to participate. However the Team Lead does need to be a registered Level 20 agent designated as a team lead.)

During the interview process, the projected budgets, and time lines need to be
discussed and agreed upon between the project coordinator and the agent or team lead. This part is very crucial. This is where Agents and Teams commit to meeting deadlines, and where expectations are explained and defined as well as the penalties and rewards for exceeding or failing to meet expectations are discussed and reviewed. This interview meeting needs to go over the same things that the kick off meeting goes over, except the focus should be more on the specific objective instead of the overall project.

The Supervising Architect should be consulted with on any major revisions to
the design document or timelines.

If the needed personnel resources haven’t been met then the Project Coordinator would be responsible for utilizing the Level 20 resources to recruit new Level 20 agents to fulfill any roles that are not filled by existingagents.

Once the whole project team has been selected and everyone has been assigned to all of the objectives and agreed to the deadlines and rewards andpenalties, then a kick off meeting is held.

In the kick off meeting, introductions are made so that the team gets to know who all is involved.

The overall project is reviewed and the desired end result is explained and reviewed.

The definition of success for this project should be defined in this meeting.

The expected rewards should be reviewed including what the expected sale amount and expected profit margin will be. Or it is going to be an ongoing revenue project then the expected quarterly income amounts should be reviewed.

each project objective is reviewed.

The entire time line for the overall project is reviewed.

Clear expectations are set, and agreed upon for each objective. This should be done in front of the whole team.

The reward system for the project is reviewed.

A clear understanding of when an objective will be put in a yellow or red status needs to be understood by each person for their objective.

All of the communication tools need to be explained, and previous to the kick off meeting a check list needs to be completed that shows all that all of the team members have access to all of the communication tools that will be used and that they have access to the tools that will be used to trackthe status of the project.

Reporting needs to be explained:

Exactly who needs to do exactly what
reports?

Where, When, and How each report should be submitted.

Clarify that reporting accurately and on time will be reflected in the overall
rating of whether or not a team or agent met the expectation for the
objective.

Any potential issues need to be noted for review later. Each team lead and agent that is responsible for an objective should have the opportunity to list any areas that need to have special attention paid to them.

The next group project review meeting should be scheduled.

Objective review meetings should be scheduled.

After the kick off meeting the PC will play the roll of monitor making sure that
all the tasks stay on task, and moving any objective to yellow or red status.

If an objective moves to yellow or red then the PC needs to determine whether to
bring in new team members to complete that objective or exactly what needs to be done to get the objective back to green status.

The PC will also work with the Supervising Architect to determine if a project needs to go on hold to be reviewed or re-designed.

Objective Owners can be Solo Agents or Team leaders who are responsible for delivering an objective but rely on others to help them accomplish this.

Teams can be made up of a group of Level 20 Agents (called an ‘in house’ team,)
or the team could consist of a group that the Team leader is in charge of, and who are not members of Level 20. (called an ‘outsourced’ team.)

If the team is made up of Level 20 Agents, then the rewards for that team should be defined in the design document.

If the team is made up of non Level 20 Agents, then the rewards for that team are determined by the Team Leader, and only the Team Leader or thecompany he represents will receive the rewards from Level 20.

If a Level 20 agent is working in an outsourced team the agent’s reward for that objective, will not be defined in the design document. The agent CAN still work on other in hose teams or operate as a Solo agent as long as the agent can meet the time commitment requirements.

Objective Owners are responsible to make sure that the objective stays in the green status.

Objective Owners are responsible for accurately and promptly reporting status via the reporting tools. Also regular communication between objective owners and team members is encouraged via the communication tools provided by Level 20.

* Inactive status - When a project goes from inactive back to active, the whole process is started new. A new design document will be created for the re activated project. All the roles are filled just like they would be if it was a new project. Many or all of the roles may be filled by new agents. The original teams would still need to be rewarded for any work from the old project that was used in the new reactivate project. The new design document would include the provision from the old project design document that lists how the reward will be distributed to the old project members for work that is used in the new project. What ever gets used from the
old project should be listed in the new design document. The distribution of the reward to old project members should be defined in the new document as well.

** Point Value – the more Critical a task the better the opportunity to earn a bonus of course the opposite is true in that if expectations of time lines are failed, the penalties are worse.

A Critical task at normal value would get either 5 or 6 points. (positive or negative)

A Normal task at normal value would get either 3 or 4 points. (positive or negative)

A Non Critical task at normal value would get either 1 or 2 points. (positive or negative)

In the Design Documnet the objectives will be defined as High Value - Normal Value - Less Value - objectives. Depending on the value of the task, a point can be added (high value), no change - (normal Value) or Subtracted (Less Value.)

-to be continued and refined- by Wade Hone – Saturday November 18, 2006 6:59 am. --

cleaning up the ole' web page

2006-11-12T00:35:00.000-07:00

I just cleaned out the ole web page, and I'm gonig to dump some of the stuff from there, over to here.

heh, it was sort of like a 'log' of what I was doing... but it was getting long, so I moved a bunch of these links over to side bar areas, and heading topics etc... anyway, I'll just dump it here incase I missed anything I can come back and snag it from here later:

Photo Album of this past labor day weekend Family Camp out (2006):
Here

A Flyer that I'm working on for Imperial Asphalt:
Here

A small review on what's going on in the Game world.
Here

My
Mission Statement has been updated for 2006 .

My world on the web.

2006-11-11T20:43:00.000-07:00

My world on the web.

So, I have this idea. It has sort of drifted around in my head for a long time. I, like most humans in the world, have this desire to leave my mark on the world. Most folks can achieve this via their children. What greater impact can a person have on humanity, than adding to humanity?

Since I have no children, and at the moment, haven’t fulfilled the self imposed requirements to allow my self to be involved in the procreation of such, I look to other methods to leave my mark. For the curious, my self imposed requirements include readying myself to commit to a successful marriage, and then committing to afore mentioned marriage. Until that time, I’ll continue to enjoy my life here on this earth as a single, non reproducing male. It is not nearly as bad an existence as those that are in relationships fear, to that I attest whole heartedly.

That aside, I still wish to leave something of myself behind in this world. From my study of great men, I have come to believe that the events that men are involved in play largely into whether or not a person is considered great. In other words, it is my belief that it is not so much ‘the man’ as it is timing and the event that took place that makes one great. I believe that in many cases had the person that ended up getting the credit for something not existed, that some one else would have easily filled his place and ended up being that ‘great’ man that history remembers. I think that all of us can think of men and women that we know personally, that if placed in a critical situation that would impact the world, would most likely rise to the occasion and perform heroically. The only thing lacking for the rest of the world, and history, to recognize the same noble qualities that you can see in them is an event in which they can participate that has the adequate attention attached to it.

If I’m not reproducing, and don’t exactly think the lottery of exceptional events will match up with my particular set of strengths, (strengths of which I’m not sure of entirely myself even,) then I must find another way to leave my mark on the world. I have noted that writers often have the ability to effect the world, long after they are gone their stories, or educational documents can be used by mankind to uplift, inspire or teach. In today’s world we even have the ability to write something and then instantly make it available to most of the world via the internet. I still get shivers just thinking about the power that gives the average man.

The plan then, is to use the internet as a place for me to leave a mark on the world. I’m not saying that it has to be an important mark, or even that many people need to know about it, it’s just that I like many others feel the need to have something that is around after I have passed on, and I think that creating web pages can help me to feel that I have achieved that goal.

I have a few Blogs that act as journals, and my wadehone.com page will act as my ‘home base’ that sort of tie’s together the other projects that I work on.
Level20.com I’m not completely sure what that will finally become, but for now, it is sort of the ‘entrepreneurial’ side of my internet projects… I often use it for gaming projects though; I hope that I might be able to somehow have my gaming habits actually bear some financial fruit. If that happens it will probably be though level20.com

Intagoal.com that is an online educational program that I am working on with my brother Blaine. I have high hopes, the furthest out there dream is that it could someday be an online educational tool where anyone with internet access could get up to a high school education and diploma (at no cost to them)… that would be a dream come true for sure.

Semerial.com this is what I had in mind when I began this document. Semerial.com is inspired somewhat by the book, ‘the never ending story’ where it encourages people to imagine, and create imaginative works so that they can fill the ‘nothing’ that was seeking to destroy all previously imagined works.

What I hope for that to become is a tool for writers where you can develop plots, characters and stories that form worlds, and that via this web site those worlds can be linked. I imagine it to be a place where authors will have a dedicated area, where they can write characters, and store them in a sort of file, do the same with plot’s and places, then put them together into stories. The author should have complete control over what the general public can see, and should be able to authorize helpers to see works in progress.

I hope that through these ways I can leave a part of me with the world. Reading has enriched my life, if I can provide a place that helps to facilitate more creations that enrich the lives of others, then I will feel that my time here on earth hasn’t all been in vain.

Wade Hone.

Accountability and Responsibility and More:

2006-11-05T04:10:00.000-07:00

Accountability and Responsibility: Wade Hone 11-05-2006

This is a very long post, it started out as a response to a comment from Aztlan in the preceding blog post from Nov 3, 06. It turned into a long essay and I figured it might as well go in this blog as it’s own post. I will figure out how to ‘trim out’ some of the body of this post so that I can keep a couple of main paragraphs here on the main page, but hide most of it behind a link that you can click to read it all unabridged, till then your stuck with the whole 7 page non edited enchilada.

--- enjoy ---

The whole idea behind being held accountable is so closely tied to being responsible for something that it is hard to really distinguish between the two. Some people seek more and more responsibilities in life; they enjoy being held accountable for the results of something that they were responsible for. Often when things go well, there is great glory involved for those that were responsible for making it happen.

Some would prefer not to have the normal acclaim and the glory that being the responsible person can often bring about. At least some might like to receive the reward of successfully completing a responsibility in a different way than today’s western society rewards those who succeed. Public honors and such just might not be what that individual really wants. It may be different in eastern, or other societies I really don’t know.

If a person falls into the category, where they are not motivated by the glory they might achieve from taking on a responsibility and making it work, then that person would need to be motivated by something else. Fear of failure would be one thing that motivates. Fear of failure, is a powerful motivator, though perhaps, it’s not one of the most desirable. That fear might make one seek instead to avoid responsibility altogether so that they never face even the opportunity to fail.

I certainly hope that fear of failure isn’t the main motivating factor in my life. Since I’m not really motivated by the glory and recognition of success, one would have to start to wonder at least, if fear played at least some part in the motivation behind my desire to avoid responsibility. If fear of failure was the main motivation, it’s not doing that good of a job motivating; as I don’t really fear ‘failure’ or at least, I don’t fear others thinking that I have failed according to their view of what is successful.

I imagine that my definition of success is not one that would readily be accepted ‘in the main’. That being the case, how could I look to the approval of others for my motivation? I just could not do it. That is all.

Thus we come back to the point of this article, Self Accountability. I’m in the process of setting up a monitoring structure that is based on my own definition of what success is. Feed back from that structure is what I’ll use to judge my successes. The status report I mentioned in the original post.

Something written will do much better than my gut feeling at keeping me up to date on where I am really at in my quest to achieve success. It is very important that a person knows whether he has won for the day. If the current social support network that surrounds a person does not have exactly the same idea of what success should be, then a person should not look to that social network to monitor their progress. Instead they should look to themselves to know weather or not they have won for the day. I once read, though I can’t remember who wrote it, that;

“Every day a man should know whether he has won or lost.”

I completely agree with that.

It is interesting that Aztlan brought up something that when compared to a conversation I recently had with my father, illustrates this point very clearly. Dennis, (my father,) and I were driving along and I got to talking about games and my gaming habits. You see, I like to game, and I like to game allot. I was explaining how many of the successes that I have had in this life related directly to the relationships that I had developed through my association with other gamers. I spoke of how one fellow who went by the name of ‘Slick’ had sent me some training materials and encouraged me to follow my desire at the time to get into Information Technology as a career. His interest and mentorship, directly influenced my actions which landed me a job on a project doing Y2K remediation for AT&T Wireless. That path eventually led to me managing a branch for that contractor company, then, by mutual decision to a nice corporate career type of job with AT&T Wireless.

While working and traveling I actually utilized my online gaming friends as a sort of permanent social network that provided some emotional stability that frequent projects and moves would have made difficult to develop using traditional methods. In one case, no, at least two cases, skilled people that I hired came from that very group of online gamers. Their skill and expertise were a benefit to me and the companies that received their services. I mention all of this, (though I don’t think I went in to quite so much detail in the conversation with my father,) to illustrate the benefits that my gaming habits had brought to my life. I didn’t even begin to touch on the technical skill acquired through having to tweak a computer system to get it to run the game, and play said game on line with other people. At the time, back in the long lost days of Dos, console prompts, 640 k chunks of memory to work with, batch files, Winsock, and processor speeds measured in megahertz instead of gigahertz, you really had to learn some stuff if you wanted to play, and learn even more if you wanted to play with friends online.

Heh, I sound like the old timer that ‘walked up hill in 6 feet of snow just to go to school… both ways!’ but the truth is that today it’s the exact same situation, if you want to connect with others and play with the latest toy’s you still have to learn how to use technology. Ok, so I made my arguments about how beneficial and what a strong motivator my desire to play games on line has been over time.
As a parent even though your kids grow older, and in my case I’m 35, well into middle adulthood, (at least according purely to statistics,) you still concern yourself with your children’s well being.

A strong dedication to gaming and computers is not something that can really be fully understood by anyone who doesn’t share that same passion. To Dennis, (and lets be honest, many people would agree with him,) all that time could be spent in better pursuits. While I’m sure that he is right, can’t that same argument be made about almost anything that we do in life?

I really don’t think that most of us have attained that level of, as maslow says ‘Self Actualization’ where our pursuits in life are geared towards the betterment of society all of the time. So for the dedicated golfer, fisherman, football watching Couch Coach, the same thing might be said. Computer gaming is new, and has yet to really find it’s true niche in society as a whole as of yet. Or at least not with the older gamers yet. So, it is totally understandable that a father would be concerned and have an opinion on what time spent on the computer could better be used for. That being the case, Dennis, In a playful tone so as not to offend, said something like:

“Well wade, you can rationalize all you want to, but the truth is you’re actually addicted.”

Here is where the point to all this reminiscing leads. However first, let me add that the short conversation that I was having with my dad, didn’t really have all of the above arguments in it, and I’m glad, because had they contained them all, Dennis may not have made that comment about addiction, (though he would argue that he would have, I’m sure,) and had he not made such a comment, I would not have all of this material to Blog about.

Ok, and now to the point of it all; I tried to explain to my Dad that in the gaming community, I was really a light weight. I don’t think that he was buying into any of that, so that’s where Aztlan’s comments really come in handy. You see for all of my time spent and the perceived dedication to the craft of gaming, I’m really not ‘that’ dedicated. Well to gaming in whole I am, but to the level that true respect in the gaming community is gained, no way.

Light weight is the best I could be considered. While I doubt that any of my close online gamer friends would argue against the fact that zWolf (my online alias,) loves to play games, or even that he spends a lot of time playing. It really takes a special effort to make your mark in a game. As for the gaming group that Aztlan and I are a part of, we go back for years and years… I think when I started planning to play, and then playing Ultima Online with Aztlan I was 25 or 26, and he was probably only 16. I’m 35 now so I’m sure that several years have passed, and that he too has increased in age.

I have participated in the leadership of the group several times, and been happy as a member. Some times, as I think all of the members have done at one time or another, participation has waned somewhat when life’s adventures take up the time that was previously dedicated to gaming.

Here is the thing, and I know that I am not alone in this. I’m sure that every one belongs to a few if not several different social groups. If one of those social groups borders or is fanatical about something, then in the social groups that are not as passionate about that thing, conflict often arises.

Let us take my case as an example. I am heavily involved in one social group, consisting of friends family neighbors and most of the people that I would meet on the street near my home. In this social group the general perception of success would be things like Marrying well, Home / Property ownership, A decent vehicle would be nice, with an SUV or Pickup being a nice indication of success in at least in that arena.
Other things that social group would consider being a success, would be financial wealth of course. How good your children were. Pretty much success is defined in my social network of which I write in the same way that most anyone who watches T.V., reads the news or generally participates in this civilization has come to define it.

Though added to the mix would be quite a big dash of religious adherence. Since even if someone reached the panicles of all other points of success, but had failed in his religious duty, true success, in the eye’s of this society which I belong to, would definitely not have been achieved.

Since I typed it, I’ll leave it in, but after typing the whole paragraph I realized, this is just an area that I’m hyper sensitive too heh, thus the additional remarks regarding marriage:

In the society in which I belong to marrying well would mean finding some one who was of the same faith, who had a good work ethic, had an attitude of helpfulness to their neighbors, was pleasant in bearing and to the eye, having money wouldn’t hurt, but isn’t really as important as being in love, but… they would probably need to be a Republican, Conservative Independent or at least a democrat who seemed to be conservative and didn’t really talk about that shameful character flaw much.

Ok, now contrast this to the online gaming community, where respect is gained when can play a game exceptionally well, how much time you dedicated to playing that game, how fast your computer processor is, what graphics card you were using, what phat lewts you had in game, how much you helped your online guild, the amount that you participated with the out of game community irc chat’s, forum board participation, and your technical skills which are valued for helping others in the community get their rig’s running, and online, as well has helping with advice on what to get for your machine or what not to.

There are many things that add to the definition of success, the point is they are very different things than marriage, house owner ship, what kind of car that you drive, or how cute / nice your girlfriend / wife is. One thing holds true though, those that are perceived as the most successful are those that on a regular basis, can spend their time online with the other members of the community associating or playing the game. It’s not like the person that spends the most time is the most successful though, there are many additional factors and nuances that help to raise or lower your position in the perceived but never discussed higher arch of gamers.

Over all success is measured by your dedication to the games that your community is playing at the time. if the group is between games, then your success as a member is measured by your participation in the community through chat rooms, forum boards, helping out, sharing jokes, tech info, goodies ill gotten or obtained through legal means etc.

The key here is that while in social network #1, for some one to tell you that they feel that you are addicted to a game, it would be considered a negative statement to your character.

The opposite is true of Social Network #2.

I absolutely love to play games where I can tell that many of the players that I associate are “addicted” to the game. The term addicted definitely has positive over tones though perhaps it is used in a playfully derogatory manner amongst friends; it’s unspoken that by me saying you’re ‘addicted to the game,’ that I’m giving you props. It is most definitely a compliment.

So, and here is where it all ties together, in order for an individual to attain success, that person must first define success for themselves.

If I based my measure of success on getting, doing, or achieving the things that I thought would win me respect in the eyes of the various social networks that I associate with.

If I belonged to several of these social networks and based my perception of my own personal success on what I perceived the members of that social network judged success to be, then it could become very messy, trying to attain success in the various groups, especially if the objectives of those groups varied. Even if at the end of the day I did have the respect and honor and glory from the various groups, have I really succeeded? I imagine that the only way that answer could be yes would be that if my own personal definition of success was to please the various social networks that I was a part of.

Reading back over that last sentence seems almost obvious that one wouldn’t define personal success based on pleasing some one else. At first glance that sounds like a rather frivolous and shallow goal. A long time ago, I gave that very topic quite a bit of consideration. I really thought about it, and really took a good honest look at how much of my time, and whether or not any of my life’s goals were there in hopes of getting approval from others in the social networks that I belonged to.

That is an interesting exercise to say the least. How many things do you do each day to get others to like you, to respect you or to love you?

The question that follows that one then is; Is it wrong to do things do each day to get others to like you, to respect you or to love you?

I’m going to have to say no, personally I came to the conclusion that no it’s not wrong. I also decided that to think that is not wrong didn’t make me an all together shallow person either. What it DID do for me is be very careful who I selected to be in that group of people from whom I seek approval, love, and respect. It also made me very aware of how much freedom that I have in choosing how to succeed.

If I choose carefully who’s approval, love and understanding that I seek, and work hard at not seeking the approval and understanding of every one, then first of all I spend allot less time trying to convince people that ‘my way’ is the right way. Lets be honest, in most cases, it really doesn’t matter does it? Is there really any reason to spend pages and pages of text on an internet chat forum dedicated to fans of the play station or Nintendo gaming console, that the X-box is a better rig? Why am trying to convince some total stranger named “THUNDARCAT386” of that anyway? Do I really need him to agree with me? Do I even want his approval, love or respect? If so, why? Just some natural need that is in all humankind to seek social acceptance? Heh, I can better dedicate that time and energy in seeking those things from the short list of people that I really do care about.

I have become quite good at deciding if I am doing something to please some one else, to get their approval, or if my actions are actually more in line with what I really want, and what will help me to achieve the success that I have defined personally for me. The truth is because of how I was raised, and how I developed my own perceptions of right and wrong etc. often times the action that will garner the respect of some one in the social network that who I want to approve of me, are right in line with the things that will help me achieve my own success.

The freedom to pick and choose, to do, or not do something purely to seek approval from members of one social network group or the other, have some side affects. Which include not always doing the thing that would gain you the most respect of that person.

In the gaming community that I belong to, the side effect is that I don’t put in quite as much time as a person would on the particular game that we are playing. Or I’ll go great guns full bore ahead, spending as much time as the most dedicated “addicted” player of our group for a few weeks, then quickly just drift away, or adopt a style of play that is not as helpful to the group over all.

Lucky for me, there are plenty of areas that I can continue to shine in, to garner the respect of my gaming community. The relationships stay strong, and every one is just happy when I come back for another gaming session with the group. I’m known more for my diversity in gaming, and ability to develop good friendships quickly with the other members of the group and both of those things come in handy to the group, which garner the respect, approval, and love that I’d like to have there.

In the other group, the family, friends, and neighbors group, the side effect of my choices to selectively pick when I do things for approval purposes that are not really my own desires at the time, are that I might not attend church as regularly as I ought, though my faith is still strong, or I may miss more social get-togethers than perhaps one might were he trying to maintain the highest approval rating in his peer group.

The net effect of this approach is very very good though. You see, what ends up happening is that when I DO something it is for the right reasons, it is because I really want to do it. If I’m in a game socializing with my guild, I’m in it because I really want to be there, not just because the game designer has fashioned a devious program that forces a social system on the players if they want to be super successful in the game, all because they know that those social structures keep members coming back to pay another months subscription fee’s long after a solo player would have gotten bored and moved on to something else.

Anyway this is a lot of writing just to make the point which the Greek’s and those that continue their discussions, have been chit chatting about for Eons.

“Temet Nosce!” And no less important, “Sui Juis”

(“Know Thyself” and “One’s Own Master”)

--

Ok all that being said, I have a whole different thread that I’d like to write about sometime has to do with justifying this almost ‘selfish’ sounding approach to living life with the ‘selfless’ approach that is taught in the holy words written by profits.

For a jumping off point for the next round of writing, I’ll just say that to truly find happiness and attain success of an eternal nature; every person should develop his relationship with God to the point that that through prayer a partnership can be forged. It is my belief that there are many things that we think are so very important that when we let God in as a partner we find that they really are not really that important after all.

With a partnership formed and a clear understanding of what God’s will is, you can pay attention to those few things that really are important and attain eternal happiness. I guess the thing to keep in mind is that even if you don’t pay attention, and you really don’t take care of those few things that are really important, God is still there, arms out stretched, and beckoning for you. So develop that personal relationship with him, and know that even though you sure may not feel worthy of any help, he will still help you in your pursuits. ( I wrote ‘you’ but obviously I’m writing to myself here.. in my blog.)

Alma 29:4 in the book of Mormon has a great principle to teach:

“…for I know that he granteth unto men according to their desire, whether it be unto death or unto life; yea, I know that he allotteth unto men, yea, decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according to their wills, whether they by unto salvation or unto destruction.”

Wade -out.

The List of Three...

2006-11-04T03:18:00.000-07:00

You have probably received an e-mail at least once in your

life from a friend that had a list of questions that are supposed to help you learn things about each other... I get those fairly regular, and I don't really mind em, but often times I don't have the time to fill out new ones. I saved this list from about 3 years ago, and it work's fairly good, to just cut it, n paste it into what ever questionnaire comes along heh. I'll put it here to help with the intro part of this blog, and (mostly,) for a place to store the list so I can get to it with my cutting tools eh. I've left it mostly as it originally stood 3 years ago, with some minor add-ons (in parenthesis,) to update it for the 'today me'.

Here it is:

----

THREE
NAMES YOU GO BY, ASIDE FROM YOUR GIVEN NAME:
1. zWolf
2. Wesgar
3. MORPHEUSMMCXCIX

THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. I like ‘who I am’ in general, and that’s a plus.
2. I learn Fast
3. I can ‘read’ others… very helpful in life.

THREE THINGS YOU HATE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. um….
2. Hmmm…..
3. oh! I Hate that I’m a Cocky Bastaige! (j/k)

THREE THINGS YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND:
1. Why they can’t synch the Stop lights so you only have to stop at one, then get GREEN the rest of your trip.
2. Why there are 8 hot dogs in a pack, but only 6 buns come in a bag… Freakin STUPID! ( I ate the last two just covered with cheese this morning… that Cured me from hot dog’s for awhile.
3. Why that in 3 Months I’m going to have to spend another 500$ to get the best Graphics card out there, oh, and I ‘why I do that’ has always mystified me too.

THREE THINGS THAT ANNOY YOU:
1. When smart people, convince themselves that they aren’t as smart as they really are, and decide that ‘computer stuff’ is hard, when in fact they could easily master the concept that they are struggling with… that bugs me.
2. this Purple color that I am writing in… why oh why did I cut the questions from ‘harugirlie’ The name should have given me my first clue! (not that the color it ‘self is bad… just that 'I' am going to be ‘posting’ in it… that’s all.) -for those of you that can't see the purple font because this has been reposted somewhere - trust me it was annoying!
3. When I’m dog tired but still can’t get to sleep… (like right now.)

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:
1. That Chick that climbs out of the well in ‘The Ring’ – pure fear right there brother! Pure fear!
2. The slight possibility that I may not make enough $$’s being ‘self employeed’ and that I may indeed end up working for some one else again in my life.
3.That I might get tied up in the little un-important things in this life like money and power, and miss the big picture all together… that would suck.

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
1. some sort of a dose of the internet, a game, an e-mail, browse the web, post on a forum, anything! I just gotta connect with it once a day and make sure that the miracle is still a reality and not dream.
2. Water.
3. Food. (I know the last two were boring but they help to put #1 in a better context.) (get it?)

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS OR ARTISTS:
1. Evanescence
2. linkin park
3. Blues traveler

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITES SONGS @ THE MOMENT:
1. Jesse Cook - Tempest (Spanish Guitar.)
2. Evanescence – My Immortal (still…)
3. Europe (the Final countdown!!! Gotta love em for that!)

THREE PEOPLE YOU SPEND THE MOST TIME WITH:
1. Myself – sounds lonely eh, but it’s not, I’m good company.
2. Marcel T.
2b. three years later (2006) I just moved back to the area where I grew up so, I'm actually spending allot of time with my Dad and Mom, if you can believe heh, we work together now. It's great.
2c. another year passes (2007) later = Eric Baird he lives close, shares the passion for gaming that I do, and likes to take 'eating' breaks around the same time I do -3am burritos anyone?
3. Dan D.
3b. Three years later (2006) = Online friends, and Danny playing WoW.
3c. another year passes (2007) = my brother Trent, my Father and Mother - we work together so we see allot of each other during the week, and frequently have a Sunday dinner together on weekends.

THREE THINGS YOU CAN'T DO:
1. Touch my toung to the tip of my nose.
2. Spell perfectly (yet.)
3. Speak in Cantonese (yet)

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:
1. Web Design (maybe someday I’ll even get good.)
2. Video Games.
3. Digital Photography.

THREE THINGS YOU WANT REALLY BAD RIGHT NOW:
1. To be able to sleep.
2. Friday to be over. -- is a weird one... hmm, I'll replace it with 'a new video card' -see above question about 'not understanding...' I'm still afflicted.
3. To get my Severance Check from work and get to moving on with life.
-3b Three years later (2006), um... to get moving on with life? hehe, at least the first parts of #3 is done...
-3c (2007) Keep following the plan, with a successful year behind me at imperial asphalt, the ole 'five year plan' to make a bunch of money and start my own IT related bus. definitely looks to be on track.

THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING:
1. Asphalt Maintenance, no.. seriously, I really am! (--- Wrote that in 2003, and now, it's a reality.)
2. Web Design.
3. One thing I’m NOT considering, is EVER working for some one other than myself again in my life. (straight commission sales baby! yah! or business owner/self employed.)

THREE PLACES YOU WOULD GO ON VACATION:
1. Southern Mexico
2. Oregon Coast
3. New Zealand - I want to Trophy Hunt the Orcs that appear to roam freely about the country side.

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
1. Clarify and achieve my vision of ‘life’, or at the very least feel good about the effort that I made at trying to get there.
2. It would be nice to say ‘Mary the woman of my dreams, but since she got hitched to some one else nearly 2 years (make that 5 years,) ago, I’m a gonna say that isn’t happening anytime soon.
3. Get some sleep! Which is what I’d best do now, lest the death part be snagging me before my time!
-----

G'night.

Wade.

Life of Wade - intro:

2006-11-02T02:36:00.000-07:00

so, I have various Blogs posted around the web, and I wanted a place to sort of 'group' every thing together... the sort of 'un-abridged' look. the only thing, is I hesitate to make a sort of :

'a day in the life of ______'

page, as most often they can be tedious. I'll do what I can to 'not' let that happen here. Though, if you read another of my Blog's then you may see some repeats of post that appear there.

So, thus having declared this a 'catch all' I shall start in earnest to post here... tomorrow :- P

Wade Hone.