1759 Gravitational.

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I remember my friends kind of shooting off all over the place, then coming back, over and over, until they got established someplace as adults. Strangely the ones who didn’t complain about the town left it the most easily and the ones who did always seemed to keep coming back with their tails tucked. The ones with the best outlooks on life seemed to go the farthest away and be the happiest too. I guess if you have a positive disposition you can cope with change better. In my case I just knew it didn’t matter where I was in the world, I’d be equally miserable anyplace, so why go somewhere and spend money for the privilege.

I don’t like densely populated areas in general. I like some people, but also enough space that I don’t hear them doing shit all the time. A little distance and, ideally, a good tall fence, would be the best. Maybe a tower so I can look down and despise people from on high… Like the internet, but in real life.

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My aunt and uncle feel the same way. He bought land on a hill, built a house, then bought the land above and below his house. His rule of population density is simple: if I get arrested because the neighbors saw me stand on the back deck and pee off of it, then I need to move.

Dust In The Wind

… says the guy stuck in Kansas.

Hee hee hee!
Yeah, I don’t know what strange feeling, could have motivated Jackie to write that. ;)

It must be a feeling like:
I close my eyes, only for a moment
And the moment’s gone.

To heck with towers. I want an underground lair.
…
I also want to live somewhere I can see stars at night. So of course I’m right in the center of one of the largest cities in the country.

The 2009 Star Trek opening sequence with Kirk and the car was shot here in Bakersfield. You know how that scene had him driving into a giant hole? That wasn’t CGI. That’s just how normal people perceive Bakersfield. We watched him here slide into the Taco Bell at Rosedale and Allen.

Now I’m just imagining that Bakersfield is like a giant antlion trap. People don’t drive anywhere, they just stop climbing and slide down to where they want to go.

One place is the same as another to me. Always has been. Sure, some have things like scenery (Not Western Kansas. About half way through the state on the Eastern portion they stop the cut and paste of the same field, three cows and exactly three cows no more no less, and assorted wheat products in place of actual things and stuff… And this zone of barrenness extends south into Mexico about fifteen miles and North halfway into the state of North Dakota, then west part way into Colorado. About to Lamar near the start of the Rocky Mountain foothills) and some have culture (or what passes for it).

That being said, people are people. Places are places. And no matter where you go, there you are.

I’m looking to move to be closer to my girlfriend… but that’s not the only reason. My home has changed a lot around me. Friends moved away, favorite childhood places gone… and the place where my family used to vacation every year has become overcrowded and expensive. On top of all that, my family’s looking for a new home that’s not as expensive on the upkeep.

The sad truth is that even when you stay in one place, change still happens. I’m looking to start making some changes of my own. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll change things for the better, but if nothing else, at least I’ll be in charge of the changes in my life.

Here’s the deal. I was born into and grew up in Mansfield, Connecticut. No, you’ve never heard of it. You have heard of Storrs, where the University of Connecticut (UConn) has its main campus; well, that’s most of the northern half of the town. Storrs doesn’t really exist as a political entity.

I moved out of town almost forty years ago (yeah, I’m really friggin’ old). I now live in a community that had 39 active farms when I bought my first house here, although it’s Suburbia, today. It’s twenty miles and thirty-five minutes from Mansfield, but a scary number of my old school chums live a stone’s throw away. They sell motorcycles or run heavy equipment or fix HVAC equipment or sell insurance in larger towns, but they gravitated here, to this sleepy neutron star of a town.

But I was the first…

No, actually, I haven’t heard of Storrs. As a California native, I’m not the least bit familiar with the locations of UConn campuses, oddly enough. And you’ve probably never heard of most of the towns that have UC (University of California) campuses in them, for similar reasons. (There are a lot of them, admittedly.)

“…every obscure game ever printed.”

Tunnels and Trolls? Chivalry and Sorcery? Bunnies and Burrows? Jedi? Rolemaster and/or Spacemaster? Space Patrol, Toon, and Starfaring? Lords of Creation, Powers & Perils, and Dragonquest? Certainly The Fantasy Trip.

There’s just so many obscure games to choose from!

Yeah, I really doubt -every- obscure game. There were a -lot- of them. I personally did not play most of them, have friends who ran two separate gaming stores, and I worked at a third, have run across so many games I only heard of the one time, only to never be seen again.

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