SteveJamieson.com

June 9, 2007

My Mom having flown to St. Louis earlier in the week, we hop in my car and started drive to PA. We make it all the way to the Eastern edge of Ohio before stopping for the night. We arrive in West Grove the following afternoon.

June 12, 2007

I drive up to Lancaster to have lunch with Paula at the Papaya Grill—a pan asian restaurant in the Park City mall. Over lunch we have a nice discussion of copyright law, amongst other topics.

Afterwards I head over to the F&M campus and check out all changes to the campus. Lots of stuff has changed, and yet it still felt familiar. I buy a nice new F&M window sticker for the car in the new bookstore.

June 13-16, 2007

I attend the American Theological Library Association conference at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Philadelphia along with 3 of my coworkers. On Saturday, one of my coworkers takes a fall on the campus of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and breaks her leg in 5–6 places. Ouch!

June 19, 2007

I visit my friend Beth, who introduces me to Guitar Hero. Once again, Beth gets me hooked on something. (Beth has previously turned me on to anime, Dance Dance Revolution, and Fluxx.)

June 20, 2007

I start my day by driving down to Baltimore, MD to visit my friend from college Wendy. Wendy and I take her daughter Laura to the National Zoo via the DC Metro. Wendy’s husband Jeff had to work that day, so I get to play substitute dad, helping to push Laura’s stroller and pointing out animals.

Wendy, Laura, Me

After spending the afternoon with Wendy and Laura, I drive up the road a little bit to have dinner with my Internet friend Liesel and her family. After dinner, I introduce Liesel and her sister Abigail to Setters of Catan. I narrowly beat Liesel by one point, and manage to get her hooked on the game. (Now I’m getting people hooked on stuff!) In return, Liesel introduces me to P.D.Q. Bach.

Liesel; Abigail (l) & Liesel (r)

June 22, 2007

My Dad and I set out for St. Louis.

Just a few seconds after walking in the door of my apartment after church this morning, my phone rang. The caller was an obviously distraught Elvenyukiryu—my good friend from high school. She had just learned that an 18-year-old friend of hers from work had earlier in the morning murdered the parents of the 14-year-old girl he was secretly dating, and then fled with the girl, either having kidnapped her or taking her willingly. (Follow the story as it breaks: html | rss.)

For some reason yet to be determined, this young man took a seriously wrong turn in life that culminated in the death of two people, the possible kidnapping of a minor, orphaned children, and friends left in a world that doesn’t make sense anymore—shattered lives all around. What possesses an otherwise normal and well-adjusted person to commit murder?

And yet, what depths of sin exist within all our souls? Is not the evil necessary to commit murder present within us all in one form or another? Is it not only by the grace of God that such evil is restrained?

I can’t believe it. I haven’t played Battletech since some time in high school… Until today! My multi-year hiatus finally came to a close with my epic battle with BT newbie James McGarry.

My knowledge of the rules was a little hazy, but after a little skimming of the official rule book, most of the basic rules came back to me. Even so, there were a few occasions where I felt that something special was supposed to happen but I didn’t remember what exactly, so I had to further consult the rule-book.

The battle scenario that I selected involved both James and I deploying two mechs each—one lightly armed and one moderately armed. The end-game condition was destroying either one of your opponents mechs.

The initial placement had James’ light mech in relative close proximity to both my light and medium mechs. This gave me an early advantage as I was able to immediately bring to bear the firepower of both of my mechs upon his light (and thus easier to destroy) mech. However, James used some wooded terrain to thwart many of my attacks. Meanwhile, James’ medium mech closed in on the skirmish and used its long-range firepower to deal heavy blows to my medium mech in addition to the damage my mech was receiving from engaging his light mech. With my medium mech drawing James’ fire, I had my light mech seek safety in depth 1 water. As the battle raged on, I continued to focus my attacks on James’ light mech, he continued to focus his attacks on my medium mech, and we gradually whittled each other down. He eventually destroyed most of my medium mech’s armor and came within two points of destroying its right leg. I destroyed both of his light mech’s arms, one of its legs, and one of its side torsos. Finally, after James’ medium mech failed a death-from-above attack against my medium mech, my light mech delivered the death blow to the center torso of his crippled light mech.

Elvenyukiryu (formerly known as Kyrie Asini) has requested that I participate in a meme in which I’m supposed to list and explain 5 reasons why I’m a dork. Here’s my go at it…

1. I’m a librarian. All librarians are dorks. ‘Nuff said.

2. I’m a Mac user who is firmly convinced that the Mac OS is far superior to any other OS in existence.

3. I have a blog. Hosted on a server that I rent. Running a blog engine that I installed myself. With a layout and design of my own creation.

4. My undergrad major was chemistry and my minor was physics.

5. I feel free to sing and dance around my apartment in a similar manner to this. However, I’m not so much of a dork that I would film myself doing so and then post it on the internet.

First up, Shakespeare in the Park. Saint Louis has an excellent Shakespeare festival every year in Forrest Park. This year featured a performance of _The Tempest_. While perhaps not Shakespeare’s finest work, the performance was rather good. Many of the actors had a really good time with their parts, and the set was awesome. I also thoroughly enjoyed the hilarious antics of Juggling Jeff—one of the pre-show entertainment acts. The overall experience was so good, I went twice! The first time was with some co-workers one day after work. The other was with my Dad when he visited during Father’s Day weekend.

Second, cool summer movies. ‘Nuff said.

Third, June is the month of conferences. Things got off to an early start in May when I went to the IUG (Innovative Users Group) conference in San Francisco. The conference was good, and I was also happy to have the chance to meet up with one of my first college friends, Kimberly. Earlier this month, I went to the annual MOBIUS (Missouri Bibliographic Information User System) conference in Lake Ozark, MO. Spanning only two days, it was rather short and uneventful. Although, I did get to enjoy the Japanese garden at the Lodge of the Four Seasons where the conference was held and where I stayed. After that, I got to hold down the fort… er… library while several of my coworkers went to the ATLA (American Theological Library Association) conference. Finally, just last weekend I went up with some coworkers to the ALA (American Library Association) conference in Chicago for a day to see the vendor exhibits. The really fun part was getting to spend Friday evening with John & Ellise. We had an excellent dinner at the Red Star Tavern, enjoyed some of the Swedish Days festival in downtown Geneva, and then watched Shaun of the Dead.

Next on the schedule, I’ll be spending a good part of July editing an article for publication in Presbyterion, the seminary’s journal.