Still Alive

I'm still alive!

I've been working from home during the Coronavirus Quarantine and its left me with less slack time to blog as a result. I think I've found a way to slip in some extra writing though so we'll see if we can get back to posting about games I've been playing.

In the meantime, enjoy some rocks I painted.

Whatever Happened to Kirith Kodachi?

Last winter at work we had a Hackathon where we were given a day and a half of work time to build something, anything we wanted (preferably as an extension for one of our products) and then show it off the next day where a bunch of managers and product owners would score them. There were 17 presentations and my hackathon entry was one of them.

Various awards were given out, like Best Overall, Most Practical, etc and I was very proud to win the Why Haven't We Done It Yet award. I can't tell you what I did for reasons, but it was amazing cool, trust me.

Came with a Duck Trophy because reasons.

But the big thing is that the products owners and managers each got to award one week worth of team development effort to a hackathon idea they liked, and my project was awarded one of those development weeks. I was pleased as punch, I went around calling myself an award winning developer for months (jokingly).

Anyways, that promised week came around late last month and I've been hustling with my team working on making that hack sing (and its fucking working so nice, OMG, so proud) but that has taken all my free time and effort as I make this baby bloom. Coupled with end of school year activities, Canada day celebrations, and generally just trying to keep on top of everything and EVE time and blogging has suffered the most.

Hence the radio silence, but good news, the end is almost near and its time to get back on the space horse.

See you in space!

Busy Boy

I've been exceptionally busy at work and at home so blogging has suffered. I do know I have to do an audit of my industrial project this month, its coming later in May. Stay tuned.

As a bonus, I have a new Twilight Imperium 3rd ed battle report coming today.

Whatever Happened to Kirith Kodachi?

Ah man, I really meant to get back to blogging.

I'm still playing EVE, still building ships... but my normal blogging time during work hours has been squeezed out of the schedule entirely the past month.

Its all because of good news: at work in January I was put on a special 8 week project doing an interesting and exciting feature and the demands of this project are a little more intense due to the time limits and the amount of work that needs to be done. Its going well and my bosses are pleased and will soon be complete. Hopefully then I can pick up the blogging some.

In the meantime, next post coming hopefully soon will be about a board game I player last week...

Rebooting...

December was a rough month for me.

Nothing serious, just a constant stress machine of minor colds and flues, trying to get Christmas shopping done, trying to stay on budget, trying to keep wife from going insane, while still working and taking kids to their activities. On top of it all my son Wilmick7 was training for his jiu-jitsu green belt and as a Sensei at the dojo I was helping him at open mats and in class and at home as I want him to succeed even more so as I feel my reputation is on the line as well. All minor shit on their own, but combined together in a compressed few weeks it was exhausting.

The pressure was off for one glorious day on the 23rd as work was done, green belt earned, activities we done, presents bought and wrapped.

Then the 24th came and we traveled to my wife's parent's place for two nights, then my parent's place for one night, then back home exhausted and tired.

A few days of peace and quiet, right? Hell no, it was -30 outside so kids were stuck inside and coming down from Christmas high and while they are well behaved kids it was a challenge keeping our sanity. I'm a bit of an extrovert, I need my quiet alone time with a good video game and I did not get that. By the time New Year's Eve rolled around, I was on edge and ready to murder someone. And with work looming again in two days, I was not in a good place.

Fortunately, I finally did get some decent video gaming time and the stress eased off a bit.

Needless to say, EVE has been on the back burner. The back back burner. I'm a half introvert/half extrovert kind of guy; I like social interaction and visiting and playing with people... up to a point. Then I need quiet alone time. Logging into EVE requires my introvert batteries to be fully charged to handle the social interactions of fleets and operations.

Now with the holidays over I hope to get back into a normal routine (including eating right and exercise which are both important parts of mental health) and find my center again.

Expect blogging and EVE playing to resume this week.

Hope everyone had a good holiday!

SWAMPED

I'm sure regular readers of my blog are familiar with Mrs Kodachi's frequent non-life threatening (and sometimes even life threatening) health issues. Well, the past week has been a perfect storm of factors limiting my free time and thus blogging output:

1) Mrs Kodachi got the cold that went through the family and whereas everyone else needed a day to recover, she required a week.

2) Point 1 meant I was working two jobs, my regular job and then taking care of the kids to ballet exams, school, and other appointments/activitites.

3) Work was super busy with an important feature we were trying to wrap up that I was integral in working on.

4) And all of this while trying to get ready for the rushing locomotive and unstoppable force of Christmas less than two weeks away.

Stressed and lacking time have led me to be a little more reclusive than normal and less attentive than called for in the warzone. Thank goodness I hold a lot of shares in my corporation and got a big ISK dividend last week.

I'm hoping that with my wife on the mend and today being demo day and the end of the stories I was pushing the body on, I will have more time to partake in my hobbies.

Cheers!

Burned Out

At the end of June my wife had elective surgery to remove some organs that were causing more hardship than they were worth. It was a decision multiple years in the making and not made lightly, but the hope was that short term pain would be returned in long term gains.

In this instance, short term is 6-8 weeks recovery time from a successful operation (which it was).

I was perhaps a little naive about what that time period was going to be like. Being told she could not lift anything heavier than 10 lbs for about 2 months didn't prepare me for the absolute incapacitation she actually found herself in due to pain and discomfort. She can't be on her feet too long, can't sit up straight at a table, can't drive, etc.

As a result of this inconvenience at lot more responsibility has fallen on me (and a little bit to the 3 boys in our house) including all my jobs I was responsible for before the surgery, and a lot of jobs that were not in my area of concern like laundry, mopping, vacuuming, driving kids to dance classes, groceries, etc. Its not that I was incapable of doing them before (I am a modern man after all), its just that my wife as a stay at home mom had more time during the week while I was at work to deal with those jobs.

Anyway, I'm very busy both on weeknights and weekends. My downtime has shrunk and it was not very generous before. On the upside, my wife praises how I am working so hard and taking it in stride and not complaining.

On the downside, however, I am burnt out. Emotionally and mentally wiped almost every day.

Right now its hard to log into EVE and have to deal with other players, even if they are friends and allies and good people. Its hard to get the energy to do anything more complicated and demanding than Clash Royale.

I need a vacation.

Fortunately, I have one planned in a couple weeks where I take the family camping. Unfortunately, if my wife is still in pseudo traction it could be an exhausting trip.

All of this to say that I'm sorry the blog has been light on meaty topics this summer. Unavoidable circumstances have put me at a disadvantage for writing engaging posts. I'm hoping once my wife returns to some semblance of functional that I will as well.

Unenthused

Now that the first Blood Raiders Sotiyo structure has been destroyed on Tranquility I want to blather on a bit.

I think the big thing that took the wind out of my sails for writing about the meta-game of EVE this spring was a Fanfest that left me feeling underwhelmed. The biggest reveal from the event was the new PvE content starring the Blood Raiders and the Engineering Complex and while I think its cool and the right direction to take PvE content in the game, I was struck by how far from affecting me or my alliance it was. Not only in terms of being large alliance level competitive content, but also occurring in regions far from my space. I understand that if its successful that the concept can be adapted to other NPC groups and expanded to all area of space in some form, but for now its simply inaccessible content to my group in EVE.

I have some excitement for the news about Refineries and the new method of moon mining that was announced before Fanfest, but unlike the Blood Raiders raid it is content that is months away in the best case scenario.

To make matters worse, I was disappointed by the lack of involvement available to people not at the Fanfest for the roleplaying event with the Kyonoke plague. I wanted to do or see something, moving an alt to the system and sitting on the event grid, but alas it was not meant to be.

And on top of all that, a lot of the podcasts are gearing up for Alliance Tournament and I've got zero interest in that scene.

So with no new combat ships, modules, or any direct or indirect changes to faction warfare even whispered about, ennui set in. Not enough that I wanted to stop playing the game in either my PvP or industrial roles, but enough to lose interest in putting fingers to keyboard for the blog or listening to podcasts.

Fortunately, the feeling seems to be dissipating a bit. We'll see how it goes.

Slice of Life

I don't get to play EVE enough.

Its a factor in my longevity in game; I'm always leaving the game wanting more and having to wait for it. The fact of the matter is that my life is so filled up with responsibilities that squeezing any game time for any game is a constant struggle.

Its not all bad. As the boys get older some activities cross over into my interests and I can *try* to relax and accomplish something in my hobbies. Podcasting is a good example: I do it because I enjoy it and it helps with my public speaking and my son Wilmick likes to help because he's doing something with me. Last night Wilmick's twin, Terjoe, was home (we usually record when he's at dance class) and he wanted to join in. So we recorded an episode and Terjoe demonstrated why he's often considered the talkative one.

During the podcast we were touring the structures in Fliet and saw some war targets. There was interested parties in corp chat about going after them so when we were done recording I decided to show off for the boys so I jumped on comms and in an Omen and went after the two Kestrels and Thorax. It was mostly a successful hunt.

At this point Mrs Kodachi calls down that the boys still have homework to do so I closed the game and chased the twins up the stairs because I had to do dishes as well. However, when I get upstairs I find my youngest, Arjay the Destroyer, sad. "What's up, buddy?" Well it turns out he was disappointed he didn't get to talk during the recording and was feeling left out. I understand so I offer to record a separate clip with just him (at which point Terjoe yells "That's not fair!" and I respond "This is the definition of fairness!") and he's not sure, after all, he doesn't play EVE, what would he talk about?

That's why the second half of my latest podcast episode is the two of us talking about his favourite World of Tanks tanks. No apologies.

With everyone back to happy I was able to finish my chore of the dishes, put the kids to bed, and then crash on the couch to socialize with Mrs Kodachi, all the while thinking about my two little Kestrel kills and eager for more.

Holiday Break

I'm off work from today until January 3rd so there will be no blogging until then. In the meantime, hope you have happy holidays and keep warm and safe!

Except in game, where you should fly as reckless as possible.

Relevant Followup

I hope yesterday's post didn't come off as too mopey / fishing for compliments. It really was just a stream of consciousness post examining why I'm still here writing this thing. Nevertheless, I appreciate all of the kind words and encouragement I received in the comments, on twitter, and in corp chat. I wasn't looking for them but they really did make my day.

Tell you what. This is post 2968 and I'm coming up on ten years in EVE next September. Let's carry on as we have been until the 3000th post and 10 years in EVE (they should come up at the same time if I play my cards right) and re-examine my life then. ;)

For the record, my blog stats since May 2010 when Google started keeping track:

That's.... that's a lot of readers. What the hell are you are doing here?!

Relevant

Lately I've been pondering my future, more specifically, the future of my blog and podcast. I starting asking if my writing here is relevant anymore, or if I should move on.

From Flickr

Thinking about these things leads me back to the beginning, almost eleven years ago, when I started this blog with the question "Why?" and the simple answer, "because I can."

This blog was never meant to be relevant to a wide audience. It was just a place I could concentrate all my writings about my Warhammer 40K hobby and adventures for me and the few friends I had in that community. And actual running journal of "Look at this paint job", "look at this army list", and "read this battle report".

But something happened that magical year of 2007 when I played EVE extensively and the EVE blogging community exploded. I found that I had a lot of relevant insight to offer a wider audience and I became fairly relevant to the extended community. I joked once on a podcast that I was "Ripard Teg before Ripard was Ripard Teg" but for a good stretch of time it was not far off the mark. Such relevance and influence is intoxicating for someone like me that likes to be liked.

Things changed. Ripard Teg came around and raised the bar of what being relevant and influential as a blogger means, Rixx Javix changed what being a creative blogger means, and more organized aggregate sites like EveNews24.com and theMitanni.com and CrossingZebras.com came along and raised the bar on providing information and content.

And things changed quite radically for me personally. Twins born in 2008 and another child in 2010 eating up a lot of free time at home. My job became more demanding with less free time to research and write.

Yet I persist in writing. Sometimes I try to be funny, sometimes I try to be topical, sometimes I try and be helpful, and sometimes I try to be analytical. The question is, am I relevant anymore and do I care? Is the effort of trying to keep producing a blog worth reading worth the reward I get from doing so? Somedays after writing a rewarding post like the one last week about CCP's War on Logi I feel the answer is yes. Other days the answer is no.

This does not mean my enthusiasm for EVE or the community has diminished. But I wonder if now, after 2900+ posts, if its time to move on.

Limits

**NOTICE**: Non EVE Related Post, regular EVE and gaming posts to resume tomorrow.

I found my limits this past 5 months.

For the past couple years I was scrum master / team lead / senior developer of my team at work which I enjoyed and am good at. But changes in personnel over the past year have seen a few senior developers leave the team and suddenly at the beginning of this year I found myself having to take on a large architectural role for my team and in development overall.

At first this was not a big commitment but over time the increased responsibilities began to wear on me, not only externally dealing with the big picture broad strokes of architecture, but increased development lead internally on the team. Coupled with my current duties of scrum master (really, I prefer Scrumlord) I found my development time decreasing, my free time evaporating, and my stress levels and interruptions increasing. Add on to that the constant pressure of family and home and all the related responsibilities therein implied.

I started to hit my limits on how many balls I could keep in the air, and as a result some balls started to drop and my patience and reserves along with them.

It has been years since I felt that level of constant stress and frustration, not since the twins were newborn and sleep was at a premium, and even then it was mostly exhaustion. This time was real pure stress over a sustained period of time that I have never experienced. Spikes of stress in school were more intense but short lived, a couple of days at most. This was weeks upon weeks of unending things to do and people to help or take care of.

When I finally blew up at my boss while I was trying to fix a broken build and he wanted to ask an unrelated question, I knew I had hit my limits. I had warned my boss previously that I was getting close to that point earlier so we both knew that the yelling was the culmination of the issue. Something had to give.

Last week I talked it over with my boss and I decided reluctantly to turn over scrum master to a co-worker on the team and I will focus on my newer architectural duties, the hope being that with fewer things to distract day to day I can achieve a better balance. So far this sprint I have felt much better and less stressed, we'll see if it keeps up.

What all this means for you, dear reader, is that I hope that I can find some free down time to be able to blog more regularly, and for my corp mates to see me back leading fleets again as the past couple weeks have seen me rather absent.

Insane Week

Mrs Kodachi is on the slow road of recovery from her week long stay in the hospital after her emergency appendectomy. Last week, the first week she was home, my mother in law stayed with us so I was able to resume a mostly normal routine and catch up at work.

Unfortunately, this week we are back on our own and its falling to me to take kids to school, pick them up, take them to dance and swim classes, do laundry, do dishes, and try to fit in most of a work day.

Something had to give, and it's been blogging. And by extension, the Blog Banter for This month.

Hopefully Kodachi-the-better will be improved enough soon for my sanity to return. Please be patient, good reader.

Update

Mrs Kodachi is slowly recovering from her sudden appendix removal and should be home from the hospital in the next couple days. Hopefully means my routine will return to normal starting next week and blogging can resume as normal. Thanks for your well wishes and patience. :)

10 Years, 2728 Posts, and No Clue...

So, ten years ago today I started this blog at ninveah.blogspot.com. Still using Blogger, but got my own domain now.

I was running a Warhammer 40K community forum and found myself often searching for things I had posted, thoughts on various topics or old battle reports. I decided to start a blog to consolidate my more substantial postings and eventually when I started playing EVE a year later it became the natural place to record my thoughts about that game. Eventually I stopped doing miniature wargaming and this blog became 99% EVE related. Hence why you're probably here.

A lot has changed in ten years. In 2005 I was childless, working as a database developer, and an avid 40K player (including Battlefleet Gothic and Epic 40K). Now I have three crazy kids, am a scrummaster for a team that develops in C#, Cassandra, Solr, and a host of other techs, and barely enough time to play anything once a week.

But I'm still blogging.

Sugar Kyle posted recently that someone told her that it must take a big ego to be a blogger. I disagree, it simply takes a willingness to write and share with others. I have no illusion that there are much better EVE players, FCs, industrialists than me out there. Hell, there are at least 5 bloggers I can name off the top of my head that are far better than me (I miss you, Roboblogger!) including the aforementioned Low Sec Lifestyle. I like writing, ruminating, sharing, and getting feedback. And this blog has helped me make connections and conversations that I would not have been able to without it.

Another handy thing about a long running blog is it acts like an amateur historian or time capsule. I can go to any month in the last ten years and see what was happening in my gaming life at that time, and for EVE posts remind myself of the way things used to be. Very handy when young turks start blogging or writing for EVE news sites and I can point out the same topics and discussions from before they even heard of the game.

Anyway, I wanted to mark the date. Ten years. Wow. According to Google's stats I've had 1,027,293 since May 2010 when they started keeping track.

Google Analytics Site Report For Ovtober

I don't blog for the page hits, but Google Analytics likes to send an email every month telling me how unpopular my blog is anyways. I thought I would share this time.

 4500 visitors in a month? Not too shabby. Over a hundred a day if I do my math right?

 Shout out to my American friends and neighbours! That's right, neighboUrs!

 Where are all you unique visitors coming from?! Well, welcome to the blog anyways!

I don't know what's funnier, that I got two visits because of warhammer minis I have not touched in 6 years except to sell them, or another hit was "a person throwing another..." under a bus. That's right, come here for the best technique on taking someone by the scruff of the neck and throwing them under a bus.

 I wonder if they want me to sign up for Adwords?

 Huge shoutout to my favourite CSM Sugar Kyle for the blog referrals. And Ripard, I still miss your blog and I know I'm not alone.

That's right! Get out!

End Of year Review - 2013 Edition

I realize we are only half way through December but reality is I won't have a lot of free time over the coming weeks and blogging itself will dry up entirely after this week until the new year.

So, what happened this past year?

- I joined Aideron Robotics

- Created a little app for making shopping lists easier in EVE

- Started trying my hand at FCing

- Finished my Old Times fiction

- Started my Capital Building venture with Orcas

- and reached 324 killmails this year as of this writing, far outstripping my previous experiences.

Also of note: reached 2500 posts on the blog and 98 episodes of the podcast.

Coming up in 2014, I plan to have a special event to celebrate my milestones and continue my work on becoming a passable Fleet Commander in the Gallente Militia.

All in all a good year.

Post # 2500

Well, we hit another posting milestone, my two thousand five hundredth published post on this blog. Hard to conceptualize but when you realize I've been blogging almost every week day for 8.75 years, its only 285 posts per year, give or take. For the record, I hit the 2000th post in August of 2011 so I did another 500 posts in 2 years and 2 months.

I know my quality has taken a dip over the past couple years as my real life commitments at home and work increase. Still, I try to get a few thought provoking or debate inducing posts out per month and I still enjoy writing even if I don;t have the same time and energy for it.

Last time I hit a big round number milestone I celebrated with BMTHOKK2... stay tuned...

Dear Other Bloggers...

If you do not have full articles posted in your feeds, or at least more than a paragraph, odds are I won't read your post. I'll jump over it in my feeder to go to someone else's post with the full text.

News sites are trying to drive traffic for advertising purposes. A blogger isn't. Therefore there is no good reason to force people to your site for content, especially since it means you are losing readers in the process.

Carry on.