Normally I wouldn’t make a news post solely based on a few new photo’s uploaded to the gallery, but these are significant, and deserve your attention. First off, it turns out that my wife Jenn had a few pictures saved from Hardfought LAN #7 back in 2006. I had lost all of mine from my camera (along with a shitload of other pics) back in November of 2008 when my external drive crashed while I was in Iraq during my second deployment. So when she mentioned last night that she had a few, I was all for posting them up on the site. There’s only about 15 or so pictures, but what the hell, it’s better than nothing. I can’t friggin’ believe it’s been three and a half years since the last HF LAN party. Ugh…

Next up – all the pics I took during my platoon’s training deployment on the big island in Hawaii back in 2007 were found. I thought I had lost these for sure about a year ago, but they all turned up a few days ago. I scanned the best of the lot and posted them in the ‘Army Pictures’ section of the gallery. There’s some good stuff there so check it out.

That’s all I got for now. Hope ya’ll had a nice new year’s and that your year has gotten off to a good start so far… unless you’re a Green Bay Packers fan, holy shit did you see them play against the Cardinals tonight? Wow… lol. Talk about close. OK folks see ya for now.

Figured I’d do this post now while I’m able, because I will be out partying with Jenn and friends tonight ;-) Have a happy new year gang. This year was a crazy one, I don’t even know where to begin on listing all the shit that’s happened globally over the course of 2009 – but I’ll be glad to see it go. I’m all ready for 2010 ;-) So have fun tonight, and if you do decide to go out, make sure ya got a plan… designated drivers, a place to crash, etc.

Hardfought stuff – guess what? I completely forgot to post back in October about HF’s ninth birthday. What – the – fuck!? I can’t friggin’ believe I did that. I had just finished mid-terms, so maybe that’s why. I dunno. Anyways, happy belated ninth birthday Hardfought! I definitely wont forget our 10th anniversary next October. Also, I have plans to ‘finish’ the website finally while I am still on break in January. There’s quite a few scripts to update including the board itself, and I still need to finish fixing the look n’ feel after getting away from using OnePress. Bleh.

Alright… have a good one everybody. See ya next year ;-)

Yeah, let’s post some news! Heh, so what is there to tell? Not a whole lot HF-wise… game servers are still down, and I still need to finish the website look n’ feel after the OnePress debacle. That’s about it. On a personal note though, things have been going well. I’m back in college and making A’s, Jenn loves her new job, we made a new addition to the family six weeks ago in the form of a very intelligent and trouble-making German Shepherd pup named ‘Koa’, and Jenn and I are celebrating our 3rd year wedding anniversary today. I actually get to be here for this one ;-)

Anyways. Hope that all of you have been doing well also, and that ya have fun during the upcoming holidays. I will be learning how to snowboard, heh ;-) Until next time…

Heh, I am making this post from my new iPhone 3GS from Cape Cod, which amazingly has full 3G service. Just wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy July 4th weekend. Remember the sacrifices our founding fathers made to make this country the best damn country in the world.

Have fun gang, we’ll see ya back online after the weekend.

Yeah. Right now the site looks like ASS. When I did the Hardfought site overhaul, I used a portal script called OnePress to merge WordPress and the phpBB3 forums together. Worked pretty well, but just recently OnePress announced that they are seriously considering dropping support for phpBB3 – their latest update does not include support for the latest update to phpBB3 with the latest update to WordPress, both of which have important security and function upgrades. Luckily, another WP/phpBB3 portal called WP-United (which is what I use with mine and my wife’s personal website) has been revitalized and is alive and kicking with full support of both of the latest updates to WordPress and phpBB3. I just finished removing the OnePress content, updated phpBB3 and WordPress (as well as the photo gallery for the msgboard) and have just finished installing WP-United. It works, but as you can see there’s a shit ton of work to do… again.

The forums and everything associated with it still function fine, just please bear with the look n’ feel until I can make the necessary updates. Enjoy.

Over the years, Hardfought has always been about our gaming community and the servers and LAN parties we’ve hosted, but sometimes it also serves as my own personal blog. Today’s post is one of those times. At midnight tonight HST (about 2½ hours from this posting), I will officially be through with my active duty military career. Six and a half years in the United States Army as an Infantry Soldier… hard to imagine doing anything else right now. To be honest though, 28 months between two deployments to Iraq is enough. My first trip there back in 2004-2005 was rough, and we saw a fair amount of action, but the level of stupid shit was tolerable, and the men I served with were like family. Same is true for the men I served with on my last go-around that I just recently returned from, but the difference was a lot less action (which is good of course, but can also be bad if your entire function revolves around just that) and a LOT more bullshit from higher. I swear to God I could write volumes about all of the completely insane and outrageous ideas and orders put forth from higher. It’s truly amazing anything was ever accomplished… seriously folks, NCO’s and Soldiers make it happen. Always have, always will.

Looking back though, there were plenty of good times to go along with the bad. And it’s the men you serve with that make it the most enjoyable – it’s why so many of us keep signing back up. Yeah, there’s a lot of shit you have to suffer through sometimes, but knowing that your buddies are right there with ya going through the same shit makes it bearable. It’s true what they say – the friends you make while serving are like no other, and they’ll always be a part of your life, like family. I personally wouldn’t change a single thing about my time and experiences in the Army. I wouldn’t be the man I am today without having served… my take on things is different than it was 6-7 years ago, and I know I have learned a lot more than I had ever bargained for. And I wouldn’t have met Jennifer either, and for that I am truly thankful.

Sooo… time to be a civilian again. For those of ya not in the know, I’ll be flying from Hawai’i to Los Angeles this Friday. Gonna link up with some family I have in the area, pick up my wife’s car (it just made it to Long Beach today) and start my cross-country drive from Cali to Vermont, making a few stops along the way to see family. Should hit Vermont sometime in the end of June (Jenn will already be in VT a couple weeks before me). I’ll chill for a bit, then I start school in August – first time back to college in almost twenty years. Heh. That should be interesting to say the least, but I am really excited about it. Jenn already has a great job lined up working in one of the top physical therapy clinics in the state. We have our two acres of land, but we’re holding off on the new home build until we start bringing in a bit more cash… collectively we’re taking a pretty big pay cut with me going to school full-time, but it’s more than worth it.

I can’t resist, I gotta throw in something HF-related – yes, if it’s at all possible, I will see about bringing back up a game server in that area. Think TF2 and CoD: MW2.

That’s all for now gang. I’ll be offline for a bit starting tomorrow, but I’ll pop in when I can. Here’s to closing one chapter of my life, but also to starting a new and exciting one. See ya folks.

Hiya gang. Just a heads up about Hardfought’s participation with the Folding@Home project. Jenn and I both have upped our work unit output considerably since we started using the GPU client as well as running the normal CPU in conjunction with it. Nad has joined the team as well as a couple others… our ranking has climbed about 60 points over the last couple weeks and continues to rise. You can see our team stats to the bottom right of the news posts – we could break back into the top 1000 if we could garner some more participation.

Soooo… for those of ya that have never folded with us before, or have but stopped for whatever reason, join our team and start folding with us. Our team number is 46304 and it’s simple to join. It’s for a great cause, helping scientists figure out all of the different ways various proteins ‘fold’ so that we can better understand how they interact with other proteins, help find cures for all sorts of diseases. So join up! Put those idle hours your computer sits and does nothing to some good use.

Other news – I have 30 days from this post until I am officially done with active duty in the Army. Muhahah ;-) Almost all the pics I took while in Iraq my second time around have been posted in the gallery, so have a look if you’re interested. Also, go see the new Star Trek movie… it fuckin’ rocks. Cya.