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Monday, January 18, 2010

This week at ADB, Inc., 10-16 January 2010

Steve Cole reports:

We are all still missing Jean. I keep thinking that she's up there by the front door and trying to call her on the intercom. Since Channel A also squawks in Leanna's office, Leanna is always telling me "Jean went home, so send her an Email."

The weather this week has been cold (30s) in the mornings and halfway decent (60s) in the afternoons.

Most of my week focused on F&E 2010. I processed more of the BBS archives, wrote the new tug rule and the Required Kill rule, and got all eighteen of the core changes into working topics. (The eighteen core changes include:
1-Required Kill which is a new rule,
2-3-4 are new rules which are hotly debated,
5 is the removal of CEDS,
6-7-9-13-14-18 are just moving expansion rules everybody already uses into the core rulebook,
8 is a mauler rule that has been kicked around for weeks,
10-11-12-17 were proposed new rules that were rejected,
15 is allied repair, and
16 is a question nobody can answer.)
The staff meeting on Thursday officially set the release date for 22 February.

I also worked on PD Federation, keeping a promise to Jean that I would. I edited the four Tellarite pages, edited the two Brecon pages, updated all of the planet lists, edited the phaser page, added all of the missing planet names, reviewed the Fralli profile, I reviewed the Mynieni and Deian files, reviewed and annotated the minor colonies file and sent it to Jean, and mailed Jean a fat envelope full of new and revised pages. I literally ran out of things to do until Jean or somebody else does more. (Previously, when Jean sent this PD stuff, I just said "Yeah, fine, whatever" and didn't read much of it. Later, I would chance to see something and blow a fit, causing entire pages to be re-written. After Jean smacked me in a head a few times (literally), she impressed upon me the need to actually read every word of these files within a day or two of her sending them. Not wanting any more dents in my cranium, I comply.) Remember that Jean did not like me naming a planet I: Carumba? Well, she didn't like I: Claudius either.

I sent more FC ship cards to FCOL: Hydran DWH, Lyran CL, WYN AuxC. I did a ton of paperwork to shut down a pirate website with scans of some of our products; our lawyer is now talking to the ISP. I had several nice chats with Richard Smith about improving our artistic presentation. I spoke frequently with Tyler Robbins and Tony Thomas about FRD minis. I did a few pages of Communique #50. The Best Lunch of the Week goes to Blue Front Cafe for a pound of delicious BBQ brisket.

Customer Request Wednesday went well: (1) I finally remembered to put that F&E Compendium (Stock #5718) on the shopping cart. (2) I did another insignia page for Jean, but Eric left before he got it uploaded. (3) I did an Orion cartel map and sent it to Eric. (4) I made some improvements to the update list suggested by Shawn Hantke. (5) Scott Johnson wanted some stuff done on the sublight page so I sent it to Eric.

This week, the contractors finished the drywall and texturing in the new addition to our house. Next week is supposed to see the doors, trim, paint, and cabinets done.

Steven Petrick had a busy week, working on C3A, the Omega Errata, and the Juggernaut SSD expansion. He got me to focus on CL#41 for a whole hour and do some stuff.

Leanna and Mike got a bunch of mail orders shipped and worked on refilling the inventory.

Eric got some work done on the website, got another video finished, sent the Hailing Frequencies newsletter, and uploaded no end of files including Communique #49.

Eric and Jean showed me how our Facebook page works. It's very strange because there are people there I have never heard of who appear to be true veteran fans. Jean wants to filter all of my interactions with Facebook since the guys there would not understand my "Klingon" way of doing things.