5 Things on a Friday: Race4Chase Time

Happy Friday, folks!  Hope everybody’s set to have a great weekend.

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1. Obama Shrugs Off Global Slavery To Protect Trade Deal (HuffPost Politics)

The Obama administration outraged human rights advocates on Monday by removing Malaysia from its list of the world's worst human trafficking offenders -- a move that the activists said damages U.S. credibility -- simply to boost the president's trade agenda…

Hundreds of Democrats and a handful of Republicans had previously urged the State Department to maintain Malaysia's ranking as a "Tier 3" human trafficking violator. For years, the Malaysian government has largely turned a blind eye to sex slavery involving men, women and children. Forced labor is rampant in several sectors of the country's economy, particularly the electronics industry. In April, mass graves holding more than 130 human trafficking victims were discovered near the country's northern border with Thailand. That same month, the U.S. ambassador to Malaysia said the government needed to take human trafficking prosecution more seriously.

West Point Has Had a Good Week

#USMA is #11 on @Forbes America's Top Colleges List. @NavalAcademy is #27, while @AF_Academy is #38. #GoArmy http://t.co/H39TbHIgWq

— U.S Military Academy (@WestPoint_USMA) July 29, 2015

D&D: Astral Madness & Mutant-Zombie Ghouls

I'm going through an editing process right now for a new adventure I hope to publish here in the next couple of weeks called "The Fall of Cahokiantep".  To quote the introduction:

The purpose of this adventure is twofold.  It introduces the city of Cahokiantep as an adventure location, and it provides a bridge from a traditional swords-and-horses style roleplaying campaign to plane-hopping fantasy with elements inspired by science fiction.

"The Fall of Cahokiantep" is intended as the first part of a trilogy, but as of this writing all I have for the next part is a high concept.  I've no clue at all how the thing is going to end.

I couldn't find my shirt last night...

...when we started grilling.  Sally, of course, took this as an opportunity to start taking pictures.

Despite spending an entire day out on Long Island Sound, I still need to work on my tan.

Race Report: Swim Across the Sound 2015

St. Vincent's Hospital held their annual Swim Across the Sound yesterday, and I participated for the first time.  My friends George, Ben, and I swim together frequently at the Woodruff Family YMCA in Orange, CT, and George has been trying to get me into marathon swimming for a while now.  He's a veteran; he's crossed the English Channel, done the Sound solo, and has many other impressive marathon swim finishes.  I agreed, but not until the last minute, unfortunately, because our family's schedule has been pretty damned busy of late.  Our girls are in triathlon camp (they have their first race next weekend), Sally's their coach, she's also woring to get a little PLYOGA practice off the ground, and there's always my work in Manhattan.  Anyway, George named our team "Y Me?" because we're all YMCA swimmers, and in fact, the Woodruff Family YMCA sent two full teams to compete in this year's race.  That is pretty awesome.

5 Things on a Friday: Science Loves Dad-Bods

Hey!  It’s Friday!!!  

How was your week?

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1. Lockheed Martin Announces Sikorsky Purchase And Strategic Review Of Services Portfolio (Forbes)

Acquisition of Sikorsky for an after-tax price less than its current annual sales will improve Lockheed’s market positioning — already viewed as the best among first-tier defense contractors — in several ways.  First, it will boost annual revenues over $7 billion by acquiring rotorcraft franchises central to U.S. military operations.  Second, it will reduce company reliance on the tri-service F-35 fighter program, which had been projected to grow to over a quarter of corporate revenue as production ramped up.  Third, it will accelerate the company’s efforts to derive a greater share of income from foreign sources, since Sikorsky last year generated nearly half of its revenues overseas (Lockheed was at about 20%).  Finally, it will provide the combined enterprise with a multi-decade stream of sustainment revenues as it supports thousands of Black Hawks and other Sikorsky helicopters in use around the world.

D&D: Expanding Mordecai’s Monster

“The Mystery of Mordecai’s Monster” is finally out from ENWorld’s EN5ider magazine.  That’s awesome, of course, and I’m super-pleased with the way that the adventure came out.  In its final form, “Mordecai’s Monster” is a svelte done-in-one (or maybe two) adventure that GMs can run for their groups without an over-long commitment to the storyline.  I like that.  Writing it that way was a serious challenge for me, and I’ve got to give a lot of credit to En5ider’s editor James Haeck for helping smooth out some of the rough edges.

Swim Across the Sound

I'm signed up for a team for St. Vincent’s SWIM Across the Sound Marathon Swim.  It's an annual charity swimming race that supports cancer prevention, education and assistance programs.

St. Vincent's Swim Across the Sound.

If you didn't know, my entire family was killed by cancer.  Both my grandmothers, my grandfather, my mother, and Sally​'s father all died as a result of cancer, and my father got cancer but survived, though it was one of the critical elements in his later descent.  If you can help support this charity, I think it is a worthy cause.  For me, it's a uniquely personal cause.

Click here to support our team!

Saturday News & Notes: 49 Days to Football

Army's season kicks off the Friday before Memorial Day Weekend.

I don't know what the rest of football nation is doing, but it ought to be fun to see how Coach Monken's squad starts coming together after a full year in the system.  Here's hoping!

50 days until kickoff! #ArmyWestPoint #WestPoint #USMA #USArmy

A photo posted by Army West Point Athletics (@goarmywestpoint) on Jul 16, 2015 at 4:07pm PDT

5 Things on a Friday: Texas Enters the Union at Last

Thank God it's Friday.  I don't know about you, but this has been a really long week for me.

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1. The Commodore PET Has Been Reincarnated As A Phone (TechCrunch)

The guys who bought the Commodore name are releasing an Android smartphone for about $300. The price includes some bog standard specs but, most important, includes two emulators so you can play classic 1980s games right on your screen.

D&D: 8 Spelljammer Story Ideas

When I call these Spelljammer ideas, I don’t mean that they are literally tied to the Spelljammer game setting.  I mean that they are fantasy / sci fi ideas for D&D that might involve some kind of planar travel in space or on the Astral Sea.  As it happens, I’ve been struggling to come up with ideas for a campaign like this, so I thought maybe laying some down would help jog something loose.  

And anyway, I’m way too tired to do any real writing this morning.

D&D: 13 Things I’d like to see from 5e (Part 2)

Part 1 of this article was wildly popular, with 100% of respondents saying that they wanted to see a revisitation of the Spelljammer universe.  I confess that I was expectingPlanescape to be the big winner, but the old adage really is true.  “There’s always enough fantasy but never enough good sci fi.”

For what it’s worth, I think the odds of new Spelljammer content approach zero, which is why I went back to the guys at En5ider and pitched them a new sci fi / fantasy adventure based loosely on last week’s feedback.  We’ll see how that goes, but privately I’m not overly optimistic.  I also think there’s room for homebrewing on the blog, but right now that’s just a set of ideas sitting in my notebook.  I haven’t even started putting together the Wanderhaven Campaign Guide, and here we are talking about a new would-be setting.  Honestly, it makes me tired just thinking about it.  

This post is the second half of our list, “13 Things I’d Like to See from 5e”.  Hopefully the feedback from this half will be as interesting as it was for the first half.  Regardless, thanks for coming by!

5 Things on a Friday: Russia Spies Danger in Selfie Nation

Happy Friday, folks.  Hope everybody’s primed to have an awesome weekend.

Let’s get to it!

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