Well, it’s been a busy summer so far.  Lots of work.  And sleep.  And caffeine.  This week was the launch of Age of Conan.  I heard BestBuy.com oversold the collector’s edition, and indeed, mine wasn’t shipping, so I ran to the store and grabbed the last copy off the shelf.  Then I tried to cancel my order, and I couldn’t.  And they shipped me the collector’s edition anyways.  Arrgh.  Unfortunately, I already opened the one I bought at the store, so I’m just going to have to return the online one.  I guess I’ll have to eat some shipping costs, but, meh, big deal.

My laptop is finally in California for repairs.  Back in December (yes, December) I slipped and fell on some ice while carrying my laptop, which broke part of the screen.  The laptop was even in my bag at the time!  Anyways, I called HP and they never sent me the return box, and because I use my laptop constantly and most of the screen still worked, I held off on sending it back until this summer.  My accidental damage coverage on the laptop expires in July, as I’ve had the laptop for three years now.

I’m also putting together a new home server this week.  It’s powered by an Athlon 64 X2 6000+ with 2GB of RAM and I’ll be testing Windows Server 2008 on it.  Previously the 6000+ was the CPU in my desktop, but it’s now going to be an Athlon 64 X2 6400+.

This week is also the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which I’ll probably go see.  I never really saw any Indiana Jones movies until about two weeks ago (I’ve seen the Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Last Crusade so far) but they were enjoyable, and I’m sure the new one is at least worth seeing, even if it’s not super-ultra-amazing.

That’s it for now.  I definitely will have some updates later this week, and before too long a new RayAngel.com will indeed be up.

My good buddy Patrick recently published a book called Managing Online Forums.  Like the cool dude he is, he recently hooked me up with a copy.  I’m currently working my way through it, and it’s quite informative.  I’ll have a full report back soon, but I just wanted to alert you folks about his book, since I have failed to do so thus far, which is kinda lame of me.  You can find the book at Amazon, and probably at your local book retailer.  There’s a few of ‘em on the shelf down at my local Barnes & Noble

So today… happened.  Ray and I attempted to sleep around midnight.  Maybe it was the pizza, maybe it was the caffeine, or maybe it’s the fact that neither of us usually go to sleep until close to when the sun comes up, whatever it was, I know I really didn’t sleep.  I don’t think Ray did either.  I went downstairs to grab a drink around 2, and he was still up, so yeah.  Bottom line: we got like an hour of sleep, and then at 2:50 the alarms went off, and Kyle called to ensure we didn’t ignore the alarms.

At 3 AM we headed outside and I got the car ready as Ray grabbed a smoke.  It was definitely foggy and pretty cold.  It took a second to get the car all de-frosted and then we hit the road.  For this trip we borrowed my dad’s GPS unit, and decided that between it and Ray’s iPhone we wouldn’t need any maps.  We also had my iPod to supply tunes for this lengthy journey.  I occasionally updated my Twitter from the road, but for the most part, I’m pretty lazy.

The drive up wasn’t too bad.  It took a little over 3 hours to travel the 199 miles to Grand Rapids Michigan.  It was basically dark the whole time, and incredibly foggy.  The fog was worse in Michigan.  It was patchy in the sense that some times there was fog, while other times there was lots of fog.  There was also quite a bit of road construction to contend with.  These conditions definitely kept me wide awake.

We got to Grand Rapids around 6:20, parked, and headed in.  They had trouble scanning my registration.  After messing around for a sec the Microsoft guy was like, “I don’t know what’s wrong… all these computers are running Windows Vista.”  I was definitely amused to hear a Microsoft guy crack a joke about Vista.  Maybe they do have a sense of humor after all.

Ray wasn’t registered for the event, but luckily he was the first walk-in.  He’s lucky as it looked like they were turning others away later.  Around 8 AM our track, for IT pros, started.  It was presented by Kevin Remde.  I’m not gonna lie… I’ve never heard of him before, but I was quite impressed by his presentation.  He seemed extremely knowledgeable and excited about what he was talking about.  I was fully expecting to have to sit through a boring 4-hours of marketing hype, but I can honestly say that I both learned a lot about the new features in Windows Server 2008 and had an enjoyable time.

The presentation ended around noon, and we got our software goodies which included a full version of Windows Vista Ultimate w/SP 1, Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (32-bit and 64-bit) for testing only, SQL Server 2008 CTP 5.0, and Visual Studio 2008 Standard.  There was some other stuff too, like a trial for Microsoft Forefront, and System Center, along with a Windows Mobile 6 Developer Resource Kit.

After paying the $9 for parking, we were back on the road.  Along the way, we stopped in Plainwell, Michigan for lunch where we found a Wendy’s that served Pepsi products!  I’ve never before encountered such a beast.  It was… exciting.

After bending over at the pumps, we were back on the road.  And so were the Amish, thanks to the GPS, which decided we should drive through Shipshewana.  It was a bit of a slow drive, but we eventually made it back to Ray’s.  I dropped Ray off and continued home, making it back around 6:40 PM.

Overall I logged 491 miles of driving today in three states on just over an hour of sleep.  I’m going to crash immediately after posing this as well, because I’m pretty tired.  However, thanks to Jolt Gum, I was pretty wired and really not that tired when I got home.

I’m pretty happy with how everything went, Heroes Happen Here ended up being more fun than what I was expecting.

If you’re curious, here’s roughly what our route looked like.

At 3:00 AM tomorrow morning Ray and I are going to be heading up to Grand Rapids, Michigan to attend Microsoft’s Heroes Happen Here launch event for Windows 2008 Server, and Visual Studio.  I’ll be updating via Twitter along the way most likely.  And right now I’m just hoping I can manage to grab an hour or two of sleep before the drive since I’m not really that tired right now…

In just a few minutes I will be hitting the road for… Indiana!  With gas prices at record highs, I think the timing is right for a driving intensive trip

It’s been a busy year so far, but with one semester down I feel like I can breathe a little easier.  It’s time to get back in the summer groove of working… and not having to worry about homework, or some test I haven’t studied for, or some paper I should’ve started a few weeks ago. 

What’s in store for this summer?  Well I’m hoping to take a few trips.  First of all, I’m hoping to go to Sault Ste. Marie at some random point this summer with Ray and get a few publicity shots for Red River Resistance, and of course I’ll be heading out to Indiana in June for his… wedding.  Who ever figured Ray would get married?  Then I’d like to visit some friends out in Chicago, and southern Ohio to top it off.  With gas prices at bargain blowout prices this summer, I don’t think I could have picked a better year to do some traveling!

My main goal for this summer is to finish Red River Resistance.  It’s not as far along as I had hoped it would be, but in all honesty, this spring has been, in a word: insane.  There’s been a lot of things going on that I didn’t expect, so I haven’t been very focused on the book, but with schedules becoming more relaxed, and things settling down, it will be easier to get in the groove of writing again.

I’ve also been working on some music things.  First of all, you can check out the Cult of Cheese MySpace Profile to take a listen.  I just re-did, “Lilacs” the other day.  It’s not perfect, but it’s about as done as it’s ever going to be at this point.  Kyle and I have been kicking around a fair amount of ideas as well, so hopefully this summer we can get a few things accomplished.

I also occasionally get the urge to write random bits of psuedo-poetry, which you can, if you so choose, view at my DeviantArt profile.

Starting this weekend work begins in earnest on a new RayAngel.com, and a new LiquidVolt.com.  As you can already see, I’ve replaced this blog’s themes.  I’m pretty happy with it - it perhaps just needs a few more tweaks.  Your thoughts?

Anyways, there’s a lot going on this summer, so check back often!

Grades were finally posted last night and for my first semester at BGSU… I made Dean’s List!  I’m pretty okay with that.

I didn’t think this would happen… I haven’t been playing MMOs for quite a while.  This year, for instance, I’ve only done one 25-man raid in World of Warcraft, and it was Gruul.  I was bored.  I haven’t even logged in for months.  My PvP leveling project sort of fell apart in February, and both of my level 70s have been quietly gathering dust.  I figured it was the end of MMOs for me.

I certainly didn’t expect to take an interest in Age of Conan.  While it sounded interesting enough, it also seemed… a bit far out.  I’d heard a lot of reports of bugs, and in general, I’d been trying to talk Ray out of buying it, as he seemed quite intent to get it.

Somehow I have a copy on pre-order now.

I’ve been enjoying the FilePlanet beta for it, and it’s actually quite fun.  While I can’t imagine I’ll ever play it as much as I did World of Warcraft back in the day, I am looking forward to some fun with new and old friends in Age of Conan as quite a few former WoWers have also pre-ordered the game.

I’ve been a bit busy lately, and now it’s exam week.  Hopefully once this week is wrapped up I’ll be back at work on RayAngel.com and this site, which is good, because I can’t stand this WP theme!

The Ray book finally has a formal title. Introducing,  Red River Resistance: The Story of Raymond Angel.

Work on the book is still progressing.  I have updated the announcement at RayAngel.com, and pretty soon (I mean it!) there will be an actual website up; not just a few pages.  I mostly wanted to get the title and some other details nailed down before I really got to work on the website.

The book’s title is derived from a resistance movement based in Indian County called the Red River Resistance Movement.  The movement was formed in response to Canadian occupation of Albion, Indiana.  Canada, of course, was occupying Albion as a result of a failed U.S. invasion of Canada in 2003.  The 2003 invasion started with the Battle of Sault Ste. Marie.  The American plan for that battle was to cross the International Bridge into Canada.  As they moved across the bridge, it was blown up.  The American forces, mostly from Indian County, suffered heavy casualties and were forced to invade Canada by way of a river crossing.  This event became known as the “red river crossing” as the St. Marys River ran red with the blood of Indian County.  The Red River Resistance Movement chose its name to honor that river crossing and the lives of the men who fought in Sault Ste. Marie.