Games

I think over the last few days, I’ve probably have had the most sleep I’ve had in months but still miserable rest if any. I keep having strange dreams that are, should I say a bit distorted? And each usually less pleasurable then the last… I’m always waking up, going back to sleep, or not able to keep sleeping w/o being bothered into getting up :

My most productive day in awhile actually. Got some work done on the website for Wiz, managed to drop into the Proving Grounds on the RvS side. Scope out some of the current regulars and check in on the NCOs. I also managed to duck in for a few rounds with Duke before dinner. It’s been a good while since I’ve played SWAT4, since I took the Drill Instructor position for a Raven Shield recruit. I have been focusing my own activities on RvS as well, after all — what good would I be as a DI if I wasn’t up to par myself?

It’s also quite nice to be able to play RvS at night again without lag. The only sad thing, I thin I miss my old “lag step”. I get an occasional spike of warpage in both game snow but that is probably because the aerial on my [new] wifi card is bent… As opposed to before, when I used to play RvS and lag-step to an extent that taking two steps forward felt like warping half of one backwards too. Now once the first-round lag is over, I wouldn’t even realize the server is in another country lol. Hooah for cable.

Tonight I was also on Element Leader duty in SWAT4 for the first time in a long time. I generally have a standing policy of “If no one else will, I will” when it comes to EL. I try to avoid it though, in favor of letting young Cpl/LCpls take command of the mission. That’s how my generation learned, practice !!! With how long it has been, I was actually presently surprised that I didn’t fumble any keys. Probably because I was concentrating more intently on a safe mission plan for my element, instead of what key to push. Planning about three quarters of it before hand also helped >_>. I still prefer taking EL of elements that are mostly compromised of [SAS] though, rather then a superposition of pubs and members. For one thing, it is much faster to plan things without having to go over details covered in our training regime.

I think I did fairly well for a rust bucket, I don’t consider a headache the size of Russia and much time spent coding instead to be a decent excuse for shotty work though. Not with how many hours of server time I’ve got lol. As long as I can keep my eyes on what I’m doing, I can generally handle room clearing in my sleep. But one thing that really threw me off though was our rear guard, a pub. Who had a great knack for taking up good spots for covering the rear. But almost no talent for actually securing the rear, often I’d end up crossing his/her Line of Fire (LoF) and that’s not good, but I suppose it was faster then having to teach the pub how to do a better job…

*sigh*

Tomorrow is my last day off and I’ve still got so much shit to get done :

Just got out of Chesters Live Op, I’ve done the map before, as EL in fact lol but I wound up EL on this one anyway.

The Mogadishu mile map is a large but quite dark indoors. The first time I played the map, we had been deployed on a Live Operation that the scenario was to rescue a pair of captured Danish army sergeants. Chesters op was a search and destroy for X-Rays, intel, and weapon caches.

All went well until the second entry, Red team had a strong base of fire from where they covered us. So when Chester and I cleared out of the first building, we formed up on the second, leaving Red team to keep their angles covered. Chester tried the door and alerted a tango, so I ordered a breach.

We blew the dang door open and entered, the X-Ray must’ve fallen back when he heard the commotion. Because on entry, I saw him on my 12, checked my corner (3), and fell into the bastard hard… I figured, hey maybe we can take a prisioner and get intel for the next Live Operation.

X-Ray in the corner pocket (9) tagged me, the X-Ray, and Chester, then fled outside and mowed down Fury before Big12 could gun him down :

Leaving just Big12 to carry on alone until finally being shot in the kisser slicing the pie into a hornets nest :-(. All in all, things went well until that one X-Ray. But the actually went better in the first trip we did a year or two ago. When we did rescue op, we took %50 casualties within the first 5 minutes, one from an ambush and another through the house to house clearing. But in the end, on that Live OP it was me and Lazko, critical on ammo and blood red up’n’down the health gauges but still completed the op. This trip wasn’t so fortunate… but it was still a Live Op lol.

Can’t clear them all I guess.

[project classified]
If I have to look at one more undocumented magic number tucked away… I think I am going to hunt down the original programmer(s) and force feed the code down their gullets one byte of code at a time….

I generally don’t pick on other peoples work but sometimes, it just royally pisses me the **** off. If I was the jackinape who wrote this shit, I think I’d burn it rather then run it. Is it to much to ask, that people leave code behind that will not antagonize the putz stuck maintaining it a few years later? Like, /actually/ appear like ya now wtf you were writing? lol.

I could have better spent my time working on my own projects….. And saved the headache of tracking stuff down.
[/project classified]

One thing I actually like about my work on Neo Ports Manager, other then that it is one of my projects which makes me the bastardo in charge of what gets committed. When I write something, I always assume someone will have to read it later… In NPMs case all code eventually hits a publically viewable subversion repository, with my name on the commits I might add! So it’s fairly obvious that I ain’t prone to submitting toxic waste.

Unlike a few people I’ve known…

Another day as good as gone…

Managed to get through work in one more or less antagonized piece. Had a few grapes on the way home but otherwise skipped lunch altogether. Joined TG#1 for some of Snipers training, managed to spend some time with Ghost, Jonsi, Nick, and Caern. Really, it’s the most gaming I’ve done all month :. One thing I am glad of though, in the rounds where I was the “last man standing”, I generally did good !

I think Caern was a little surprised by the speed of my pistol whippin’ backhand hehe. A tango popped the door behind me in an area I was being cautious about clearing, snapped around and plugged ~5 .40 Caliber rounds into the threat and slammed the door shut in an eye blink >_>. I’m proud to say though that in the end, Nick, Caern, and Me managed to complete the mission without casualties hehe.

I was quite delighted to have a few time to join a few old friends in my “office” on XFire. Hmm, them were some good days (y). But sadly, I didn’t have much time to spend with my friends… As the Chief FH decided it was time to monopolize my time on a project. Why bother though? By my experience and mathematical capabilities, I estimate the supplies stored int he car will be just as shitty and disorganized within 3 years or less the way things are.

Honestly, I’ll never understand it… She creates her own problems and wants the rest of us to deal with it, then applies it recursively… FFS at least be consistent in a purposeful manor. Wait, wtf am I saying? This is my mother we’re talking about lol.

Had triple helpings of dinner… About the only real meal I’ve had all day +S. What can I say? I’m like a camel: living on flumes but still workin’ like a dog. Shit, I need a vacation!!!

But this isn’t the kind of business where you get a vacation, without having to work your ass off along the way; let along a vacation alone.

Spent 90% of the day working on trying to make The [SAS] Kill House Redux map a reality. I’m a couple months ahead of schedule so far, most of Level 1A is complete and who knows what will become of Level 1B… hehe.

I think the hardest thing probably has been the lighting, it has to be reasonably realistic. But at the same time, it really would help to not need a flash light just to see the weapon in your hands >_>. When you ain’t got one to choose from design wise, ya never realize how useful windows really are !!!

Level 1A is pretty simple, spawn point, ~30m long hallway ending in a T-Junction. And a number of small to large rooms; exploring center doors, corner doors, threat points, multiple entries, etc. In a very basic manor, just perfect for basic training work. Level 2A, is meant to be more of a “simulation” environment then a clean room.

Decorating the spawn point, since most of Level 1A is meant to be unfurnished was kind of fun. The desks are kind of personalized to my tastes hehe. I also put a sign up which I feel fits quite well in several meanings of it, only I know them all ^_^.

Just for the heck of it, I’m considering putting in a secret room… Hey, why not have an office or something hehehe.

I’m looking forward to Level 2A and the challenge involved but joining my teammates in training on it will be sweeter still.

Just finished my notes, I figure I can make the encrypted file available to the other NCOs to save me time reiterating it vocally. It’s mostly an outline of what ground I’ll have to be covering as a drill instructor.

My planned format is much like that my greatest teachers used for me, Rand, Wiz, and Relish.

I know my work on Tuesdays now (formally Mondays job) is almost a total washout when it comes to computer time. I kind of would like to get at least 3 or 4 days of the week going for training an hour or 2 per if possible. Time issues will tell the tail I guess. One thing I like about most of my work, I’m usually home some time in the local afternoon which generally works well.

I really prefer Zulu time but I kinda like my time zone. It balances out to an interesting inter-mix of times when syncing with other countries, I usually get to see people in several very different time zones during my online time lol.

The smaller portions of my training phase need to be taken day by day more so. I like what I have so far, a fairly ironed out wave of it but still a lot of breathing room to swing with whatever I end up. One thing I need to do is get this TeX file setup for printing so I don’t crash from all the alt+tabing lol.

I always felt [SAS]_Cpl_Spidey01 had the best ring to it in my time thus far, although I admit SSM/RSM/WO1 has enabled me to do a lot more then I otherwise would’ve been able to… but it’s the Corporals that fill many of my favorite tasks in [SAS].

Good to have my butt back on the virtual training grounds doing training!

Ahhh… A busy, stressful, but reasonably productive day I guess…

TG#3 problem should be el’fixo.

The RSM finally posted the reply to my volunteering to the be our new Recruits drill instructor.

Tonight I need to take some time out and finish prep work. It’s been a good while since I’ve focused on this sort of thing, having never filled the position in the past. I’m a wee bit apprehensive but looking forward to it a lot.

Back in my day, we didn’t have such an arrangement and by the time we did: I was a bit to highly placed to get a chance :. Oh well, it’s about time I guess lol. I’m lucky though, I’ve got a good recruit to work with so the biggest problem will probably be not boring him to death during training >_>.

As an NCO and SNCO on the team I have usually planned out my training sessions in advance, complete with a lesson plan. One thing I kinda liked about being an RSM/SSM is the chance to do more ‘off topic’ trainings, covering advanced stuff and things that we don’t train as frequently on.

For Drill Instructor, I want to continue to apply the level of expertise but not in quite the same way. I figure, for this since it’s more of a one to one / two to one approach… And I’m very much used to training in groups, I think I’ll try and follow the format that thought my generation the techniques of the trade.

I’m used to doing trainings in a more structured class. I usually would line it up so I could have 2 or 3 recruits around and bring in a few promising candidates when I could. Walk us through it, refine it, and where possible a lot some time for practicing it without the instructors interventions. Most times I’d be dealing with 3 to 7 people and if ever a stroke up luck, someone to back me up lol.

Me, well I was trained quite a bit differently hehe 😉