Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

It’s been almost a week since Mom’s surgery. All this time she has been in Intensive Care Unit where, if nothing else, she has dedicated nurse attention round the clock.

She has been delicate for the most part, though amazingly, she’s fighting to recover. Her pulse and pressure remain stable in general, fluctuating only when she has bouts of pain, which unfortunately are fairly often. At the moment she’s on the Fentanyl patch 50mg plus Demerol every 4 hours, and even that doesn’t take all the pain away. She describes it as her intestines turning and squeezing; the surgery wound, funny enough, is the least source of pain.

A day after surgery, her right-side neck lymph node swelled up slowly during the day, and it was very tender and painful to even the slightest touch. Her right arm and leg also swelled up around the same time. The arm could have been that the barrage of IV liquids infiltrated the arm, but even so it was huge (so swollen that her skin color was white). While the nasogastric tube is working like it’s never worked before, she still has occasional stomach discomfort; she’s getting Pepcid via IV for that. She’s still getting the Clinimix along with Intralipid, both for nutrient. The Dr. also ordered an antibiotic for the lymph node swelling, but I don’t know the name.

The Dr. spoke clearly with my sister: she doesn’t have that much time, a few months, and the cancer is far more aggressive than we thought; it could be moving to other parts of her system, though we don’t know for sure yet.

We have done some investigating and have some good and encouraging info about hospice, if the time comes for that. Right now she’s to remain in ICU and only when she’s stable enough will she be moved to a room. We don’t know when that will happen.

Mom’s a fighter, and I know she’ll continue to put on the good fight, with G-d’s help.

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

Aside from all the neat places I visited in Belgium, all the wonderful historic grounds I traipsed upon, all the yummy beer I drank, the scrumptious chocolates I ate, and the wonderful people I met, there was one event, one surprise event, that stands out as “The Coolest Thing I Saw in Belgium ™”.
Let the [...]



[[Click on the title to read the full story at The Gamer Traveler.]]

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

My brother Michael and his wife Diana (pictured above at the Arecibo Radio Observatory, Arecibo, PR) are getting married today in Ocala, Florida!

Yes, I wrote that right. Michael and Diana have actually been married for a few years now by civil law. Both were in the military at the time, and they decided to get married one day, during lunchtime, after which Diana returned to her job, and Michael reported to be shipped to Iraq the next day for the first of a couple of tours of duties. They have been through some tough times, especially for a young couple, and they have pulled through with flying colors. Today is their religious wedding, and while I cannot be there in body, I am there in soul, wishing them, with all my love, all the blessings in the world for a happy, strong and enduring marriage.

Michael and Diana, Yvette and I love you both and send you congratulations!

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

Over the last week, Mom’s condition has continued to decline. The fentanyl patch was increased to 75mg and this has caused her to be in a constant in-and-out of wakefulness; she’ll have a couple hours each day where she’s very awake, but other than that she’s sleepy or zoned out. It has managed most of her pain, however, so it is a help in that sense.

The X-rays taken revealed that the blockage in her intestine is total: there is just absolutely no movement in the digestive system and nothing, not even liquid, is getting through the blockage. Her only option at this point is surgery. The surgeon spoke to her and made it clear that any surgical procedure on Mom was far from routine and carried many risks. He will operate only because it is the one chance she has at any kind of healing from this condition, and he will only do so once he has taken all the preparatory steps needed and gathered all the materials he’ll need in case of an emergency. We’re looking at mid- to late next week for the operation if she doesn’t get any worse. It is her decision to go into surgery, and she is still, dazed as she might be at times, fully conscious of what’s going on, and what could happen.

My sister is now here from Orlando, and so is my wife and Mom-in-law till Monday (as of now), so I have had help at the hospital. As soon as we know when the surgery will be I’ll update.

Please continue to keep her in your prayers.

I’ll continue to update as I can. I sometimes send little updates during the day to my personal Twitter account at http://www.twitter.com/Highmoon (if you don’t have Twitter, you can just scan that URL for updates) and I’ll keep posting updates here as I can.

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

I’ve never asked anything like this, but there’s no reason not to right now.

I would like to ask any and everyone who reads this to say Psalm 20 for the healing of Wanda Iris Robles Ortiz, whether you are Jewish or Christian, or simply acknowledge the Psalms as holy writings. I even have a link to the psalm online for you to make it easy! For non-JudeoChristians, then I please ask you say a brief prayer for the healing of my mother, phrased however it is proper in your tradition. For my non-believer friends, a simple heartfelt wish for my mother’s healing will be as welcomed.

I don’t need to know you did it, so don’t tell me. But let me thank you beforehand.

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

How many of these have I done by now?

By now you know that I returned to Miami last Friday only to learn that Mom went back into the hospital on Saturday. I flew in to Puerto Rico again yesterday early in the morning after she got really bad on Monday night; I just didn’t want to run any chances of being away if/when needed.

I found her yesterday tired, very tired, and weak. Fairly stable, though, especially considering the scare she gave everyone the night before. She’s on an IV nutrient since she cannot digest anything, and on a fentanyl patch to control the pain. Her hemoglobin has been stable, thank G-d, so there doesn’t seem to be any major bleed in the body. Yesterday she had a series of X-rays done with a barium contrast, of her stomach and a series of her small intestine. She has one more X-ray today at the 24 hour mark from the start of the study, and every single doctor is waiting for these results to have a better picture of what exactly is going on in her GI tract.

I’ll continue to update as I can. I sometimes send little updates during the day to my personal Twitter account at http://www.twitter.com/Highmoon (if you don’t have Twitter, you can just scan that URL for updates) and I’ll keep posting updates here as I can.

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

Well, not quite. To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the seminal mecha series MS Gundam, an 18-meter/59 feet-tall statue of the iconic RX-78-2 Gundam is being raised at Tokyo’s Odaiba island, specifically in Shiokaze Park. You can see more pictures of the Gundam on this post by The Mainichi Daily Post and some taken at [...]



[[Click on the title to read the full story at The Gamer Traveler.]]

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

I fly out to Puerto Rico again Tuesday morning at 6 AM.

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

I had intended to write a more thorough post on the state of the company back in March, but things have continued to transpire which have both kept me from doing that and made anything I was going to write at the moment very much invalid at this point.

As we near the end of June, and thus the first half of 2009, Highmoon Games remains in, essentially, hiatus from publishing. It has not been a good year (so far) for Highmoon Games, partly due to slumping sales and partly due to personal issues dominating my time. We were able to publish Jeremy Puckett’s Ronin: Oriental Adventures in Tokugawa Japan in its d20-compatible format but that has been it on the game supplement front. We do have other projects caught in various stages of production, including other versions of Ronin (True20 and Savage Worlds have been explored), a couple more issues of Heroic Moments, Issue 5 of Targum Magazine, a FATE/Spirit of the Century-compatible mini-setting, and True20 Ancients: Rome (this last one is done and in layout). There is also a secret project being done in conjunction with another gaming company that has not been announced yet.

On the podcast side of things, The Digital Front remains on hiatus since the beginning of the year, and as much as I want to cover certain events happening in the field of tabletop e-distribution, it has not been possible to do so. The Gamer Traveler, however, has been going very well; since turning into a blog as well as a podcast, I have been able to ramp up the number of stories published significantly, mainly because I don’t have to wait for a chance to record an episode to get them out. Episodes of the podcast have been released, but now they form an audio companion rather than the sole medium for my travel & gaming niche.

So what does the second half of 2009 hold in store? Frankly, I don’t know. The personal issue that has kept things on hold so far continues to be a major factor, so effectively Highmoon Games is to remain on hiatus until further notice. As I am able to work on some projects and bring them to fruition I’ll release them, but take those, if/when they happen, as happy surprises, not something to be expected. I am, however, not closing the company nor declaring any of the podfading any of the podcasts; I very much want to return to this endeavor once life returns to normalcy, whenever that is.

To all our customers, colleagues, supporters and friends, thank you so much for caring and inquiring and sending many well wishes.

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

Upon returning from Puerto Rico, I eagerly picked up a package that had been waiting for me at the Post Office. The folks at Geeky Clean, makers of gamer- and geek-inspired soaps, sent me some sample bars for me to try out and review, and frankly, I could not wait to get to it.

I met the Geeky Clean crew on Twitter when they began following my @GamerTraveler profile. When I saw the name of the account/company, I had to go check it out. I immediately loved the idea, in no small part thanks to those pretty 20-sided dice floating in the middle of the multicolored bars of glycerin (though they do have other varieties with different things stuck inside). I immediately started a back-and-forth via Twitter and no later than an hour or two later, we had exchanged emails as we discussed ways to help them promote their product. These upcoming reviews are one of those ways.

My wife and I have already been using the Health bar and we’ll go through all three in order to offer both a male and female perspective on the soaps. So far we both quite like them.

In the meantime, go and check out GeekyClean.com and marvel at the selection of geek soaps they offer, then follow them on Twitter @GeekyClean for new product announcements and surprise sales on their merchandise.

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

Got a call this morning from my aunt: Mom went back into the hospital today.

Lord give me strength.

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

I return to Miami today and leave Mom fairly stable, but at least out of the hospital. She was discharged last Sunday, and by Wednesday morning we were back at the ER because she had not properly digested the food she ate on Tuesday and her stomach was destroyed. On Wednesday morning I was afraid she would be hospitalized again, but thank G-d she wasn’t. Then this morning there was another scare, but eventually she got better on her own and not only did she eat some crackers, we were able to take her to the beach, nearby.

I’m dead beat, and tired to the bone. Even now I am awake as I get ready to fly out to Miami, having just finished packing my suitcase. I know I’m gonna crash once I sit in the plane. I return worried but thankful for the few victories we had: hemoglobin stable and even increasing a bit after discharge; digestive system settling down and starting to work with Mom, not against her; not in the hospital.

Here’s hoping that my next trip is under far better circumstances.

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

A couple of weeks back, Michael Erb made a post on his blog entitled “I’m a little worried about Origins…” where he talks about some of the changes at Origins Game Fair over the last couple of years, and how that makes him worried about the future of the con. I replied in the comments the following:

Completely unfounded prophecy coming up:
Origins as we know it will cease to exist in the next 5 years. GAMA will drop it as it seeks to save itself. The game play part of it will continue–Origins is THE play event of the big con season for many–but it will morph into something else, while everything else that makes it one of the big shows will evaporate. In essence, it will become a very big local con.

My prediction was picked up by Fred Hicks and mentioned in the latest episode (Season 2, Episode 1) of That’s How We Roll podcast (at the 40-ish minute mark). Fred and Chris Hanrahan go on to talk about the future of Origins, going back to my line about it becoming “a very big local con” as they wrap up. I’d like to expand a bit on my “prophecy,” if I may.

Caveat #1: I have not been to Origins, so my impression of it is based solely on anecdotal data gleaned from a bunch of people over the years in person, on the internet and on podcasts.

Caveat #2: Speculation and punditry follow. Bring your own salt.

First of all, me saying that Origins will become a very big local con is not a negative remark. When I say “local con” I think of socialization, of a level of camaraderie and community usually exemplified by small groups, and especially of a show where play is THE thing; not sales, not hawking, not unveiling the latest doo-dah, Play. Local cons tend to feature these qualities because they serve small-ish geographic areas, so if there’s a dealer’s room, it’s usually a few local stores (maybe a local publisher as well?), with the rest being ruled by games, games, games. I know this is the case in my local con down in Miami, The Summoning: it’s all about games, of as many types as possible, with a couple of vendor tables at most. I know this is a model repeated in many geographic areas across the world because I constantly see/hear reports from these cons online. So this is what I conjure with the term “local con.”

Based on what I know of Origins, it already fulfills this function and displays these qualities. Over and over I read/hear how Origins is the place to go play (in contrast to Gen Con, the other big show) and socialize. Fred and Chris sing Origins’s praises in this respect in the very same episode, as a point of example. So Origins is already the “local con” (in terms of vibe) of the big summer shows. I don’t believe that will change.

That said, I do think that in the coming years, Origins as we know it now, the “other” big con, will change. Michael’s post summarizes well the various events of the last few years that already show that Origins is in a state of metamorphosis from what it used to be, say, a decade ago. I don’t see that trend changing. In many ways, that change will be fueled by whatever GAMA decides to do with Origins.

At this moment in time, I feel GAMA is struggling to find ways to remain relevant in the Hobby Gaming Industry. They run GTS, the sole industry trade show, but one which continues to see declining numbers in attendees and vendors exhibiting (I am honestly not qualified to speculate on the reasons, but to my untrained eyes it seems the show needs to decide which segment of the industry it really wants to cater to, or do a much better job of offering value and worth to all segments equally) and they run Origins, and I can’t help but hear Sesame Street’s “One of these things is not like the other things” song when I see those two shows listed under their banner. I’m just not gonna be surprised at all if I read that GAMA sells Origins away to concentrate solely on being the Hooby Gaming Industry Trade organization they profess to be.

Do I see Origins going away completely from the big summer con schedule? Not at all, not even if sold off by GAMA or if more and more vendors stop buying booth space. Origins has claimed its stake in the summer con lineup by being the play-first choice for a lot of dual-big-show attendees, as well as for many others that choose to only attend Origins and not Gen Con. If anything, I see this feature gaining strength in the coming years, becoming the main draw of the show. In essence, a very big local con.

Hope that explains my “completely unfounded prophecy” better.

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

My friends and I got to play the next episode of our Primetime Adventures game, Star Wars: The Sith Triumvirate. I will be writing a complete episode report in the next few days, but I wanted to put out this one tip for all Primetime Adventures players out there independent of the write-up (I know those go long and not everyone reads them).

When playing an episode where a player character(s) has a Screen Presence of 3, sit the player(s) immediately to the right of the Producer. Since game play in PTA goes clockwise from the Producer, when the last round of play comes about, this will leave the character(s) with the main spotlight to have their scene last, thus giving them the chance to end their spotlight episode with a bang!

We learned this the hard way. The character with SP 3 was sitting first to the left of the Producer. When he framed his scene, it turned out to be the climatic scene for that character, and in effect ended the episode, even though we went to the next scene and fought with it for almost 20 minutes before we truly realized the episode had already (organically) ended and we were, honestly, just messing things up. If this player had been sitting to my right, that scene could have properly closed the episode with the proper bang.

Consider it for your next PTA game.

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

There are cities that have, at one point or another, been the destination par excellance when it comes to gaming. For years Lake Geneva, Wisconsin was such a place, what with it being the birthplace of D&D, TSR and Gen Con (a worthy pedigree by anyone’s reckoning), but these days, the nexus of gaming has [...]



[[Click on the title to read the full story at The Gamer Traveler.]]

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

I’ve been here for a week now and things have been very much up and down, though looking to stabilize now. My wife joined me down here last week, which was heaven-sent as she’s my pillar of strength and she was able to lend me her support during a couple of rough spots during the weekend. Mom continues in the hospital and she’s still loosing blood through G-d-knows-where; she’s been transfused a total of 6 pints of blood since Thursday, May 28th and she may have one more put in tomorrow. For the most part she’s managing her pain in the legs and back, though a few times she’s been surprised by how bad the pain can get if she doesn’t take her medicines on time. Honestly, we’re at a loss at the moment as to what to do next, though of immediate concern is getting her digestive tract working properly on its own and trying to slow down the internal bleed (99% sure it’s in the small intestine). Thankfully, overall she’s been strong and willfull, so that helps immensely (plus I know me being here helps). If she’s stable enough I have plans to take a night off to hang out with my friends and roleplay a bit (the Star Wars: The Sith Triumvirate Primetime Adventures game) this coming Wednesday. I’ll continue to update as we move along.

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

Mom’s situation has gotten delicate so I am flying today (in about 2 hours, actually) back to PR.

As always, I enter a low-online-access zone. I will try to do updates as I can (check my @Highmoon account on Twitter, as I can text messages from my phone there).

I will thank you ahead of time for all the good wishes and prayers. G-d knows we need them.

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

Ok, it’s meme time! This thingie popped up on two of my friend’s blog over the weekend, so by the laws of the Internet I had to feature it as well.

visited 10 states (4.44%)
Create your own visited map of The World

visited 8 states (16%)
Create your own visited map of The United States
Very obvious first [...]



[[Click on the title to read the full story at The Gamer Traveler.]]

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

You probably know him as the designer of the card game Gloom, or perhaps even more so as the creator of Eberron, the pulp-fantasy setting for D&D. At this point in time, however, you should know Keith Baker first and foremost as a gamer traveler, and one who, on his current tour, could very well [...]



[[Click on the title to read the full story at The Gamer Traveler.]]

Originally published at Highmoon's Ponderings. You can comment here or there.

The turning gyres of the seven heavens beckon me, and I heed their sweet call. This cloud island has grown too small, too restricted, too grounded.

It is time. I pack my bags, find my way onto a ship with my friends, childhood dreams becoming reckless reality.

We grew bored with the ground, so we took to the skies.

Little did we know what was in store for us…

Coming soon, the voyages of the skyship

www.CanonPuncture.com/Swashbucklers

Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies
www.7skies.net