I’ve been home for 3 days now, and I’m settling back into my “routine.”  Although, I’ve added a morning workout to my routine, since I ate like a teenager for two weeks while on vacation!  In the summer, I don’t need to worry about making it home as soon as possible to be there shortly after the kids arrive from school, so going in to work a little later is no problem.

I’ve done the yardwork, and I’m about half way done catching up on the bills.  I also have to do the registrations for our two vehicles this week.  Going to the DMV is always a blast.  Or something.  Maybe I can pretend it’s a game.  A very boring, poorly designed, bad game.  Lord knows I’ve wasted a few hours with those in the past.

July is going to be a good month for gaming for me.  You can probably tell from reading this blog that I tend to do things in spurts, including gaming.  Fight Night Round 4 is currently out and getting good reviews, and the annual purchase of NCAA Football from EA will hit around July 14th.  I guess it’s good that I celebrate my birthday this month!  I’m also toying with the idea of getting Tiger Woods 2010 for the 360, even though I already have the Wii version.  Sometimes I just want to sit on my butt and game, you know?

I’m also getting into Strat-o-matic Baseball again.  I’m looking to score the player cards from 1987, but I’m not having much luck.  I have the 1999 and 2007 cards, so I might just doing a team replay using those.  My wife and kids are going to Texas in a couple of weeks, so I’m going to have some serious bachelor-life gaming time coming up…

Oh, and I have this new computer thingy and my home-studio (well, a keyboard and some software) to play with…  And some models to build…  I always bite off more than I can chew when I have free time!  And my wife laughs at me…  with good reason, I suppose.  I won’t even mention the crap I lugged to vacation that I didn’t get to! 

Well, our two week beach odyssey is almost over…  We have one more day at the beach, which is really a half-day or three-quarter-day because we have to pack up tomorrow night.  It’s been a blast, and I wouldn’t trade a second of it for anything.  That said, I am kind of a home-body, and I’m looking forward to getting back into my “normal” routine.

We’ve done a lot of the usual vacation fun stuff - walks on the beach, swimming, flying kites, mini-golf, ice cream, junk food, shopping, and so forth, but this time, we did do a couple of new things.  We visited Corolla, which is the northern most part of the Outer Banks, about 10 miles from the NC / VA border.  The decendents of the wild horses that were brought over by the Spanish explorers over 500 years ago still rome free there.  We took a 2+ hour “safari” tour.  Highway 12, which runs down just about the entire Outer Banks, actually turns into the beach in Corolla, and it’s a “beach road” all the way to VA.  What was cool is that there were several “roads” on the left that you could turn on to, and it was back in those areas where we saw most of the horses.  It was all sand, and a lot like off-roading it in video games.  There were a few houses back there (nice, big ones), and the horses went right up to them!  One of the coolest things we saw was a stallion rounding up his mares.  He felt they got too far away from him, so he lowered his head and herded them back together.  At the end of our trip, coming back, we saw several horses right there on the beach - no more than twenty or thirty feet from beach-goers parked near the shore!  We saw a whole “family” of horses, included a new-born that couldn’t have been more than a few days old.  Those animals were amazing and impressive.

After that, we returned to the place where we left for the safari, had some lunch, and then went across the street to the Currituck lighthouse.  We climbed to the top and got some pictures.  Looking at the banks from 100+ feet in the air was really cool, although I’m a little intimidated by heights like that.  Lighthouses are amazing structures.  This one is all brick, over 5 feet thick at the bottom to about 3 feet thick at the top.  Over 1,000,000 bricks were used in its construction!  It still runs at night, too.  I think all of the ones out the Outer Banks do.

When inside, we like to play games.  I’ve mostly messed around with OOTP (version eight) on vacation, but we did pick up Tiger Woods for the Wii (and the new Wii motion sensor). We’ve played a few rounds with it, and I must say, I’m impressed with how it mimics a real-life golf swing.  I slice a lot in real life, and struggle with that in the game, too.  It was easy to pick up the mechanics, though.  The only thing I don’t like is having to “boost” my career guy up so that I can hit a drive more than 200 yards.  I wish I could start out with a more realistic skill set (for a potential PGA pro).  That said, I played several holes at Bethpage Black, and really enjoyed the round.  It will be fun “leveling up” my golfer while trying to make the tour.  Honestly, this is the most fun I’ve had with a Wii game in a while. 

Things should be back to “normal” next week.  Hopefully, I’ll be posting a couple of times a week, most likely starting after Independence Day.  I’ll need some time to get back into the swing of things at home and at work!  I also need to get back into the gym - I’ve eaten like a teenager for two weeks straight! 

Of all the times we’ve visited the Outer Banks (probably 15 or so), we’ve never spent more than one week.  That is, until now.  I have to say, moving from the condo to our house today was almost as taxing as actually driving down from Ohio in one day and settling in!  Regardless, we’re here, with more space, our own pool, at a much better location and a much better beachfront about 50 yards from our house!

Last week, after where I left off in the previous post, we did go into town (Nagshead) for a dinner at Outback.  I treated my parents to dinner to celebrate Mother’s Day / Father’s Day.  We also went shopping, got in a round of mini-golf, and had a couple of nice days at the beach just doing some water sports and playing around.  I have to mention more about the air conditioning situation.  We actually went a total of four days without A/C.  I was curious as to how the realty company was going to respond to my wife’s reasonably and well-phrased complaints.  And, I must say, they came through in spades!  The owners of the condo actually refunded us $500 (about 1/3 of the cost for the week), and the contractor who does the repairs for the realty company treated us to dinner at the Mad Crabber restaurant.  I thought that was more than fair, and we thanked them for their consideration and good customer service.  It was hot for 4 days, though…

With our refund, we decided that this week we’re going to the northern end of the Outer banks on a “safari” of sorts to try to see the wild horses that run up there.  We can reserve a jeep and a tour guide who will drive us around for a few hours to the known “hot spots” for these horses.  Also, we have plans to go to the lighthouse in Corrolla that day, too.  Other than that, though, we’re just going to enjoy our more luxurious accommodations here in the house, and spend more time “hobbying” around.  I have another model to build, lots to read, and some games to play!  I could get used to this…

Well, not literally, although I can see and hear the ocean from where I’m typing!  It’s been a great first week of vacation so far.  The only problem is that the air conditioning in our condo is broken, so it gets a little warm at times.  The realty company is dragging their feet in getting it fixed, too, which is kind of irritating.  I might have more to say on this later, but I don’t want to focus on the one negative out of the tons of fun we’re having in week one of our two week trip to the beach!

Almost every morning I get up around 5:00 - 5:30 and go for a walk on the beach (my mom and sometimes my dad join me).  I know to some of you it sounds crazy to get up at 5:00 when on vacation, but I don’t sleep well in a strange bed anyway, and there’s absolutlely no more peaceful, serene, and beautiful place than an ocean sunrise.  We usually walk for an hour or so, picking up seashells along the way.  It’s cool, compared to walking mid-day, and the beach is almost vacant as far as the eye can see at that hour.  I look forward to our walk every morning…

We’ve played in the ocean, taken a night walk to chase some ghost crabs, spent a day shopping on Ocracoke Island (you have to take a ferry to get there, which is a cool experience), and took a break during some rain to do some painting/pottery work at a local craft store.  We still have a bunch of things left on our itenerary, but it’s so nice to be able to stretch them out over two weeks and take a leisurely pace with things.  Save for one afternoon of rain, it’s been absolutely gorgeous so far.

I’ve also taken the time to put together a model (a small one), work on a puzzle, read parts of several books, play some computer games, play some cards, and watch a little television.  Best of all, we’ve just enjoyed each other’s company, and the fact that we can spend time together without all of the hustle and bustle of school, sports, etc.

Man, it would be nice if…  well, I think I need to buy a lottery ticket!

Anyway, we’ve still got plans to see a play, eat at our favorite seafood restaurant, watch the wild horses run in Corrolla, climb the sand dunes, fly kites, and of course, shop some more!  Still a week and a half left!!

Well, a little bit…

With vacation coming up, I’ve decided to focus on baseball and soccer management sims.  I gave up on MLB:FOM for the 360, because the interface was too unwieldy, and because for whatever reason my first guy on the bench would never been on the lineup screen for me to use as a pinch-hitter or sub.  There were just too many imperfections and idiosyncracies, so I’ve decided to return to the old standby OOTP Baseball and revive my Pirates franchise.  Obviously, for soccer, it will be Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009.  I’ve been setting up a couple of franchise to toy with, and I’m also going to create one where I manage the USA men’s national team.

So, on the trip, I’m (obviously) taking my laptop.  I’m also taking the Wii, because even Mama and Papaw enjoy playing along.  I traded in a bunch of games this weekend and picked up Punch Out.  It was a classic back in the mid-80’s, and by all reports it’s been translated very well to the current generation of Nintendo’s console.  Plus, I get to introduce it to my son, who’s been having a blast working his way through the ranks of zany fighters and their crazy mannerisms!

All the kids’ sports are almost over.  Once I get back from vacation, I’ll have a lot more “me” time, and I can start fiddling around with more programming and my recording equipment on my new PC.    Oh yeah, I need to get cracking on that “great American novel” thing, too (which I hope to start while sitting on the beach!)  Also, I watched a DVD my daughter’s class put together (with help, obviously), and it was very well done.  It’s inspired us to try to make our own little movie while on vacation.  Honestly, she’s better with the cameras and editing software than I am, so it will mostly be her project, although I hope to do some kind of soundtrack.  I hope to have her webiste up by the end of summer, so that video will definitely make the cut.  Man, it’s going to be a fun summer!

If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that I’ve been working on teaching myself to program over the last year or so.  Coincidentally, I’ve also had some programming training opportunities from work.  I’m making a little progress.

Before my training class last month, one thing that I was struggling a bit with was functions (in Visual Basic).  I got the concept - create a function to perform a “common” routine that could be used multiple times in the program to reduce the size of the program.  However, the structure of actually passing data to the function and the result back from the function was a bit fuzzy to me.  I’ve been going through my programming books a second time, and today I decided to learn how to practically apply functions for a web page.

My page was very simple.  I wanted to enter two integers, click a button, and print the sum of those integers.  I wanted to create a function to do this, so I could have multiple places on the page where numbers could be added together.  Once I built the function, I successfully called it in two places to add the numbers successfully.

That was only part of my struggle, however.  In one of the exercises in my programming book, they wanted me to create a web page that would accept a user-entered number and factor it.  Factoring is best described with an example…  Factoring the number 5 equals 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1.  My function would need to include a loop and a conditional statement as well.  This logic baffled me for a bit, until I decided to add a label that printed the value of the function as the number was being factored inside the loop.  This allowed me to see what I was getting with each iteration of the loop so I could fix my logic error.  After a couple of tries, I got it!  The first time around with my book , and before my class, I could not get this to work right.  That must mean I’m making progress, albeit slowly!

Any veteran programmer is probably laughing at my inadequacies right now, but that’s okay, because I’m a beginner.  If you’re curious as to how I did it, here’s the code:

(This is the code that accepts the user input and passes the number to be factored to the function via the button click.)

Protected Sub btnFactorIt_Click (ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnFactorIt.Click

(this is the number that the user enters on the webpage)
Dim NumToFactor As Integer = txtNumFactor.text

(this line sends the number to the function and prints the result on the page)lblFactorResult.Text = “When you factor ” & NumToFactor & “, you get ” & Factor(NumToFactor)

(Here is the function)
Function Factor (ByVal NumToFactor As Integer) As Integer

(Product is the result passed back to the web page; Looper is the counter in the loop)
Dim Product As Integer
Dim Looper As Integer

Product = NumToFactor

For Looper = 1 to NumToFactor
If NumToFactor - Looper >=2 Then (need to keep Looper > 0 or all answers =0)
Product = Product * (NumToFactor - Looper)
End If
Next

Return Product
End Function

Sorry for the poor formatting, but hopefully you get the idea.  Hey, it’s not much, but tonight, I’m a little proud of myself! 

We basically have almost a two week respite from kids’ sports or other activities, which will take us almost right up to our vacation.  I have a baseball practice on Sunday, and then two games on Friday the 12th, which is the night before we head to the beach.

After catching my breath, I’m hoping to finally get some “fun time” in this week.  I haven’t even hooked up my new recording equipment yet, or done any programming on the new rig.  The last day of school is tomorrow, so after tieing up some loose ends, we may get a week or so to relax.  We can’t rest too long, though, because we have to start packing for the big trip!  And, we have some major house cleaning to do (I hate coming home to a dirty house).

For now, I’m just taking it as it comes.  The games and everything else will be there when I’m ready.

For this to be a “gaming” blog, I sure don’t do much gaming from April through June.  I haven’t even touched a game in 3 weeks!  From my class, to setting up my new rig, to running the kids to their sports, to the school year finishing up, I barely have time to sneeze, let alone sit down and enjoy myself with a game.  I’m not complaining, though.  These years with my kids are precious, and I don’t want to miss a minute of it!

Anyway, for a supposed “day off,” I had a pretty busy day doing “manly” things.  I started off with an 8:30 AM baseball game with my son’s team.  We got home about 10:30, and I had to run a quick errand to return some library books and then pick up a quick snack, since we had to leave for my son’s soccer tournament game by noon.  The game was at 1:20 PM, and we finished up around 2:30.  Since we were out in Hilliard, we went to our favorite Italian place - Salvi’s Bistro - for a great “lupper” (the meal between lunch and supper, pretty much serving as both).  When I got home, I rented a “family movie” and got some snacks, although we didn’t have time to watch it tonight.

Here’s where it gets really “manly,” at least for me…  My car’s driver’s side headlight was out.  I bought a lightbulb, checked out the owner’s manual, and then proceeded to give myself 4 hours or so to get the job done.  You see, the Middle-aged Gamer is pretty handy with computer tools, A/V equipment, and the like, but not so handy when things with “Craftsman” labeled on them are involved. 

To change the lightbulb, the manual said I had to remove the air intake vent for the manifold (you get to the bulb from the engine side, and this vent is in the way).  The clip holding the vent in place came out easily enough, but I just couldn’t get the thing off.  It was connected to plastic hose that feeds air to the air filter, and I just didn’t want to force things and break it.  Plus, it really didn’t give me access to the light.  I also needed to take out the battery.  Most batteries I’ve worked on have screws in place to hold the connectors to the terminals.  Not my battery.  It uses nuts.  I have a small set of socket wrenches, which use English measurement.  Being a Toyota, these were metric.  I found one that fit for the negative connector, but I couldn’t remove the positive connector in the same manner!  I had to remove a nut on top of the bracket connecting the wires to the connector for the red terminal.  It took me about 20 minutes to figure that out.  After that, I was able to unplug the wires and remove the rubber cover that keeps out moisture.  Next was a spring-loaded clip that keeps the light in place.  It functioned almost like a mouse trap, and I had to have my daughter hold a flashlight in there so I could remove it and take out the old bulb.  Inserting the new bulb and reassembling the cover and the wires was pretty painless.  Excitedly, I tested it out, and had no lights!  Of course, it took me a minute to realize I hadn’t reconnected the battery!  Duh!  Like I said, I’m not real good at this stuff.  After connecting the battery and testing things out, suprisingly it worked!  Success!  Phew…  I’m sure I made that harder than it needed to be.

My day wasn’t done yet, though.  My kids wanted to wash my car, for some reason.  I really think they wanted to squirt each other with the hose, but I can’t prove that.  While they were doing that I decided to mow the jungle - er, lawn.  In between mowing the front and the back, I got out the extension ladder to see what was stopping up the gutter, and retrieved a plastic ball my kids had lost up there a few weeks back.

After coming in for some dessert, I sit hear listening to the Cavs fail after turning off the Indians in the midst of one of their many failures, while anticipating listening to the Crew fail later tonight in Seattle.  All in all, save the car repair, this is pretty much what a lot of my days are like this time of year.  In the spring especially, I turn into the Middle-aged don’t-have-time-to Gamer.

A couple of months ago, Bill Harris - of the always excellent Dubious Quality - linked to a set of internet posts from a recording industry insider dubbed “Mixerman.”  Mixerman gave an in-the-studio account of a major label band recording songs with a world famous producer.  Well, he almost gave the whole account.  And, of course, the names were changed to protect the guilty. 

Being a musician myself, who has played in a band and done a little recording, I found the account very enlightening and entertaining.  This is a world that I was tangently part of, but never really in, and thankfully so!  It’s as ridiculous, crazy, and messed up as I thought it was, according to Mixerman.  And, it’s funny.  I’ve known many musicians, and the members of this unnamed band fit the stereotypes to a tee! 

So, Mixerman left me and thousands of other readers with a cliffhanger of sorts, and decided to publish the rest of the story in a book (naturally).  Needless to say, I preordered it from Amazon, and I’m already in the middle of reading it a second time (third time, counting the blog)!  It’s that good . If you’ve ever been in the music world in any capacity, you’ll enjoy Mixerman’s world.  Note - it’s rock and roll.  Expect some issues with language, some drug use, and other non-child-friendly topics.  Now, if I could just figure out who the band and the producer are…  (FYI - the recordings took place in 2002 and 2003.  It’s a little outdated, but yet so current.)

It’s May, which means it’s annual bonus time!  I was pleasantly surprised with my raise/bonus, so I decided to splurge a little more than usual this year.  I’m currently typing this update on my brand new AMD Quad Core 6 GB bundle, and viewing what I type on my new 23″ widescreen monitor!  If you want to see what I purchased exactly, click here.

Why, you may ask?  Didn’t the Middle-Aged Gamer just get a new laptop with last year’s bonus?  Well, that’s true.  However, as I’ve been progressing along with Visual Studio 2008, I’ve found that although my laptop is capable, I’m really feeling scrunched when working with the solution explorer, code, properties, and so on, so I wanted more screen real estate.  And, with my daughter really getting into making movies, stop animation, and all kinds of photography projects, I thought getting a new desktop with more horsepower, storage space, and screen space would be good for her work.  So I splurged, and I’m not regretting it one bit!

I’m still in the process of getting it set up.  I’ve created user accounts for me and the kids, established some parentals controls, and done some customizing.  I have a bunch of files left to transfer (mostly my daughter’s pictures and videos), and plenty of software programs (mostly my son’s games) left to install.  I’ve got the big stuff done, though - Office 2007 and Visual Studio/SQL Server.  I have my printer reconfigured for my network, and I had Outlook getting my email, although it just crapped out for reasons unknown (it’s still working on my laptop…  Hmm…). 

We are the midst of a soccer tournament for my son, and two softball games for my daughter over the weekend, so I haven’t had a ton of time to get things up to my standards.  However, we have Monday off, so hopefully I can complete the aforementioned tasks.

And, install the home studio recording equipment I bought!  It may not be too sophisticated, but it should be plenty for me to lay down some tracks!  I got this and this at Best buy as well… 

We have bought a new desktop PC every 5 years on the nose.  This is by far the best one I’ve bought yet.  Between my programming, my daughter’s forthcoming website with all of her work, and my recording equipment, this could be the funnest and most productive 5 years we’ve had with a computer!