Well, the day was not a complete wash...

Darn it! Took the day off to see the VA man, found that I did not possess a complete copy of my medical records. I will have to get them from the Naval Records people, and that will take more time. Turning the house upside down and cussing a lot did not help.

Got the computer to the shop, at best it’ll cost me $150, but the motherboard is still under warranty (if that is the problem). Worst case scenario is about $250. I will probably get it back near the end of the month, God and my paycheck willing. I am in a good job but overtime is a thing of the past. I had to work two Saturdays a month and an hour extra each day, but I liked the extra pay (33% more!).

Just shot some corrections on the Dragonfly off to Mike. Smooth down the cockpit, add louvered intakes, the usual stuff. We are working with a very basic CAD drawing, so no more pulling of the hair when something does not come out just right. A couple keystrokes and whammo! there you are. I was even able to get into my painting program and modify the sketch to illustrate what I meant, and I have no drawing skill whatever. It probably shows; sorry, Mike.

The Captain (one of our proofreaders, Jeff) should be a very happy Kamper – he caught an egregious (love that word) error in the writeup and design of the Kuritan Nemera, an infantry support tank. In short, the design/writeup did not match the art by a long shot! Congratulations, Jeff! And thank you!

Please don’t ask how that got by me and Geoff. Now you know why we have proofreaders.

I went back in and massaged the design, tweaked the writeup to reflect the new warload and that was it. All fixed. Now the Nemera sports an XL engine, an HPPC, a single ten-tube MRM launcher, an anti-missile system and no less than eight Talos-4 short range missile racks! It is actually more imposing than before. Also much more expensive, but whaddaya gonna do?

As a side note to those of you who think 3/5 is just too dang slow? Top end equals nearly thirty five miles an hour, not bad considering the vehicle in question weighs sixty-five tons. Trouble is, a BattleMech of the same tonnage can make up to 50 + mph. One more reason why the ‘Mech rules the battlefield, but hey, if you are going up against anything else, it’s plenty fast. It’s tough to remember to think of these machines from an infantry (and not a Mechwarrior) viewpoint, but give it a try. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Seems we’ve caught the attention of some established BattleTech fans; the author of the blog GiantBattlingRobots weighed in with a few comments and a link. Since he goes by the nym ‘Trebuchet’ over at BattleTech.com, I sent him a copy of the writeup and art for the new Trenchbucket the Kuritans are fielding. He wants to ‘blog’ on it; I am somewhat of a noob regarding the ‘blog-o-sphere’, so I have no idea what he intends. Something good, I hope. Anything can happen; what I want to know is, “will there be balloons?” Balloons would be cool.

Anyway, if he intends to comment on it, you might want to skedaddle over there and take a look. He might trot out the actual writeup, or maybe just the art. No telling what the man has up his sleeve. But everything (even BattleMechs) goes well with balloons. Pretty, pretty balloons.

I also returned the Leopard sketch with suggestions; my apologies to Pea-man for the harangue on AD&D in modern culture. (Don’t ask). And finally, Geoff turned in some additional edits on the Periphery vehicles, meaning that they are close to being finished.

That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Steve