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Larcol

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  1. I have a couple characters out there for lotro. I go back to it so often in between other games that I lament the fact I didn't get the lifetime member sub for 199 when it came out...
  2. There I was...sitting in my cube in Columbia, SC, doing IT work type stuff when the dispatcher for the pool next to ours comes running up the row almost shouting 'We need to nuke those ****ers!' While this was not exactly an unheard of event I wasn't especially concerned at the time. Shortly thereafter my cnn/msnbc feeds started going nutty. At this point only the first tower had been hit, and knowing that particular airspace is the busiest in the world, I was surprised, but not all panicky. With the number of planes flying around there everyday I thought it was only a matter of time that some sort of mechanical problem brought one down in a way where it couldn't be avoided. Then a short time later I heard about the 2nd plane. Hmmm, this would be one hell of a coincidence, especially with it being the next building over. The company I was working for at the time rolled a TV into one of the training rooms and let us know we could bounce in and out of the room to keep up to date, but to try to avoid clogging up the data lines keeping work from being done. It was about this time that I called my mother. No, I wasn't all fearful for me, or needed to connect with my mommy....I needed to make sure she was aware of what was going on since she worked at the time on the 39th floor of a high rise building in the Loop in Chicago. Needless to say, when she answered her office line that morning, she was a little shocked to hear instead of 'Hi, mom. What's up?' she heard, 'What the hell are you still doing in the ****ing office!' Evidently the direction from on high in her company was to stay in place until decisions could be made. We'll just ignore the fact that the decisions were phoned in by people who had already fled the Loop....3 hours later....She eventually did listen to me and got out of Dodge as soon as possible. My dad, was a different story, but in this case the City of Chicago made sure he was alright. You see, my dad worked for the Brinks armored car company. He had been sitting in the back of the truck going from place to place, dropping stuff off, picking other stuff up...you know, normal day. He heard about the towers in one bank, heard more info in another bank...then the call from dispatch happened. For only the 2nd time in my living memory (and the first involved a heavy amount of crazy flooding in the subway system) the City of Chicago declared that the Loop will be closing, everyone gtfo. That morning they declared that every business within the Loop will be closed at noon that day since the FAA was still trying to get all the planes grounded. Dispatch had called my dad's truck and told them to skip all stops and go straight to the fed reserve and a couple other bank stops. The last stop had only the branch VP and head teller there to sign the paperwork and close the vault behind him. It was also only the 2nd time in my dad's 35 years with Brinks that he did not complete count out procedures when the truck made it back to the garage (the first involved a broken arm in 3 places due to a fall at Comiskey a few years earlier [long story, maybe some other time]). The truck was quick wrapped with basically sticky police tape so they could tell if someone messed with the doors and such and they were quickly hustled out of the garage and out of the Loop by the local precinct. I learned after the fact of people who didn't make it through that day. Others we didn't know were fine for a few hours later. One of my company's VPs was in a meeting 2 blocks from the Pentagon who ended up helping with triage work outside the building. A PM I worked closely with at work was actually sitting on the tarmac about to take off from Atlanta when the FAA grounding order came in. Valaris knew people personally who didn't make it out of the towers. My life would be completely different right now if I hadn't made a decision a few years earlier....A long, long time ago, in what seems like a life far, far away, I was a West Point cadet. If I had finished at the Point, I would have been a 1st Lt when the towers were hit, and I would have been in either the 101st or 82nd as a military intel specialist. Which means assuming I wasn't dead or maimed, I probably would be a lt col or almost there at least, after 5-6 tours in Iraq/Afghanistan, and probably would not be typing this right now for many reasons. 9/11 is a defining moment for our generation. It'll rank up there with the Challenger explosion (which I watched happen on tv with my entire 2nd grade (I think it was 2nd anyway) class as part of a special assembly, or Armstrong on the moon, of JFK/MLK getting shot for our parents, or V-J/V-E days for our grandparents...We should let it guide us, but at the same time, we should remember that there is more to our mindset, more to our national character than just one event.
  3. Very well written Odin. I'm sure it will be quite helpful to anyone joining the game.
  4. If you're ever in Chicago, you've got to stop by Portillo's...best Italian beef I've ever had...my team has standing orders to bring me back a couple whenever they take a trip to Chicago.
  5. I figured it was especially fitting for an introduction post...
  6. Hello all, I've been running with some of you on the Alpha Alpha server for ArcheAge for a few days now and I must say I'm pleasantly surprised at the reception we've had since joining you all. I must also say how impressed I was by the interaction in the community meeting I stumbled into last night. The fact that more than one or two people were talking was a definitely departure from the last community meeting I was a part of. I'm a long time gamer, starting off with the Vic 20 in stand alone, and the text based MUDs of the mid 90s. After some time in EQ and UO, I bounced from MMO to MMO hitting just about every game that actually had a commercial release. Recently, I've been involved with WoW for the 7th or 8th time, LoTRO, ESO, and a few others. I have long been a heavily involved crafter for a long time and it's one of the big pulls for me with ArcheAge. I'm not sure which of the professions i'll be focusing on, but I will definitely be involved. If there's anything in particular you could use a focus on, let me know. I'm also big with paperwork and compliance. I don't know if you have any kind of documentation or audit section within the community, but if after you get to know me you can use a hand, I can help out there. I'm usually very good at making online appointments, raids, meetings, etc. However, I am a Team Lead for IBM, with 24/7/365 on call, so if the servers go down, the phone starts ringing and I got to go. I hope we get to know each other well over the next several weeks and we both decide this is a good fix for us.
  7. Welcome to the community Larcol! =)

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