We're supposed to be leaving in 5 min to go to Brown County for a day. We're joining two couples, Dave and Dene, and Mike and Jill.

I'm brining Pit, Smarty Party, Wizard, and a deck of cards. We'll see if I can rope them into playing something.

Molly went to a sleep-over for Taylor's b-day last night, and Maddie went to a sleep over at Alyssa's (they were also going to the Bernadette festival...). Court and I had dinner at McCormick & Schmick's (a nice seafood restaurant at the Hyatt) with Leroy and Kristie.

Court and I plan to hit a geocache at the Brown County state park tomorrow morning.

Kelley has invited the fathers (me and John) to her house tomorrow at 4pm or so for a cookout on her deck.

================EVE================

Mined crokite from about 10p to 2a last night/this morning. Must strike while the iron is hot!

I'm learning the lingo, and some of the conventions better too...like if rats show up in the asteroid belt I'm mining, I go to the "local" chat channel (which is broadcast to everyone in the solar system (of which there are 5000 in the game, so there are maybe 30 people in this solar system at any one time) and announce that the rats are there. That way, the people who like to kill rats can go do that, and keep things more clear for me to mine! Symbiosis at it's best!

I'm also getting better at setting "instas". When you warp to an object, it puts you 15km in front of it. So to warp right to an object, you have to go 15km beyond it in the same direction, then set a bookmark. Takes a bit of practice to get right.

I thought I'd try my hand at setting up a "bank" to loan in-game money to players, but it turns out there are already 5 banks, so I'm not as excited about it. I still think there may be room for uncollatorized micro-loans. If real-life fraud rates are any indication, 80-90% of the people should still pay back. If we add something like co-signing, it should help...

Gotta run - my ride is here (10 min late)...