A lot of things have happened tonight. I am disconnected. Let me just list them and then see where it takes me.

Posted a comment on the Lactose_Incompetent blog This represents the first time I have reached out to someone in the blogger community. I was surprised that I did this. However, it felt ok to do.

Remembered and blogged about the value of RPGs to me (focused on the Xeen series). As I wrote the post, for an tiny instant, I was transported back to that first game I played in the office in 1992. Now, when I start any new RPG, I just jump in and start playing without much preparation. If my character dies, I just replay and try to learn from the experience.

Back then, I remember D telling me that she just could not "get with" the game. I was trying to interest her in playing Xeen. However, after the 50th dice role to try to get the best party, she was just too bored with the process. I wonder if I ruined the RPG experience for her. D was probably a lot more spontaneous than I was back in 1993. I was still stuck in the survival mode. I refused to let my party die and then be resurrected. I think I lost endurance points and maybe all my gold. It was easier to just start the game over again with a new party. Since that was not efficient, I spent many hours trying to role (via the dice) a stronger party. I must have 1,000+ hours in the games (there were two - Clouds of Xeen and Darkside of Xeen).

Edward acted on my suggestion of a help forum for Bloggers This was a major surprise. There really are people out there. Sometimes, it does feel like I exist in a vacuum. I hope the Help Forum he set up will work. I was inspired by the Mac users helping each other to track down the thief that ripped off one of the Mac sellers on eBay. On the other hand, I remember the story of the guy who hacked into a couple of suspected Al-Qaida websites.He was trying to do the right thing. Apparently, the FBI was already monitoring the sites and the hacker may have disrupted the surveillance. Who knows what is appropriate anymore? All the rules are being re-written on a daily basis and none of us has a blueprint from which to work from.

Posted the info on the missing 92 nuclear weapons at sea - asked for help in finding more data and wanted to just talk about the article. I may have blown it with my first post. I have been trying to locate information to verify the information in the article of te missing 92 nukes at sea. I posted it thinking I was in the Current Events Forum. However, I was in the Help Forum. I decided to leave it there since I was asking for help. Not sure this is the kind of help that was envisioned. I do hope that someone can point me in the right direction.

Read Edward's last Post I wrote him an email sharing my last 10 year experience. Hmmm, that is definitely "out there" for me. I am not sure if I was coherent. May have rambled too much. What triggered my response...Edward ended his post saying that he believes that things happen for a reason and that offered some protection.

OH! That was it. I wanted to caution Edward that the reasons, in my experience, were of his own making. I am not sure I got to that point in the email I sent. I believe that life works and everything happens for our highest and best good. In my case, there was no protection because my highest and best good was to be knocked flat on my face and to spend the next 10 years trying to recover. I needed to spend the 10 years in order to see the fallacies in my life more clearly. Also, the 10 years gave me the time to develope some new skills and insights about life, etc. I am rapidly moving toward my path, but still, cannot see it clearly.

Talked to Ron about his family dynamics (he is a Cancer, Girlfriend is a Capricorn and Daughter is a Leo). I have noticed that when considering a group of people, I can often feel the energies better when I know all the sun signs. I have resisted getting more deeply involved in astrology. Why? I clearly have some affinity for the area. I do have top notch software and can probably produced some insightful reports. So why am I not moving in that direction? My plan to produce family charts never made it to my list of projects. Until this moment, I had forgotten about it. I know there is a lot of stuff to family (or any group) dynamics. A rhythm which can be felt and interpreted. I could test this out. I'll run a group chart of Ron's family to see if what I felt is reflected in an actual chart. That would be interesting. Will ask for the astrological data the next time I see him.