[Article] Campus Surprise 2 (or Hashem Acts In Mysterious Ways)

Three days ago I posted about an article I read on Aish.com called Campus Surprise, about the Anti-Israel/Anti-Semitic situation in many university campuses, including my alma mater, FIU. Lo and behold, G-d has a great sense of humor, and I see the following article in the weekly FIU newspaper, The Beacon:

Jewish students strive for culture on campus
When asked their opinion of Jewish life at FIU, feedback from Jewish students ranged from mixed to negative.
Those views may change soon, thanks to the efforts of various Jewish student outreach organizations such as Chabad, Hillel Second Generation and the Jewish Student Union. They plan to increase outreach efforts to Jewish students, attempting to provide more programs and activities for them.
Read more.

I am incredibly happy about everything I read here. When I was at FIU I hadn't converted yet, but Judaism was a growing part of my life, and I always found that the Jewish presence at the university was very inadequate; the groups were there, but you had to really search to find them, let alone learn about their activities. Now, however, I feel optimistic about the future of the Jewish presence at the university. With Chabad alone we are guaranteed a very visible and very obvious ambassador; I mean, getting kosher food in the cafeteria alone is a huge step, one that the university did not feel like doing before (I remember asking about it once and being told that there was no need since the Jews in FIU were mostly non-observant and those who wanted something kosher could eat from the health food kiosk, which just shows how utterly uninformed the administration was). Alongside Hillel, I think the Jewish student population at FIU will have a renaissance, especially if they take full advantage of the programs, like Shabbat Dinner on Campus or the upcoming High Holy Days services.

I don't know if/when I'll go back to FIU, but just knowing that when it happens I'll be able to have kosher meals, a place to go and meet other Jewish students, perhaps even study some Torah with them, and a Rabbi right on campus makes me happy.

Now all I need is a Rabbi and kosher meals at Gen Con and I'll be set 100%. :)

[HMP Open Call] Writer for Mythic Vistas Adventures

HIGHMOON MEDIA PRODUCTIONS SEEKING WRITERS FOR MYTHIC VISTAS ADVENTURES

HMP is looking for freelancers to write adventures for one of the following Green Ronin's Mythic Vistas settings:

• Eternal Rome
• Trojan War

We are initially looking for short, self-contained introductory adventures that can be expanded into series if sucessful. We want to see adventures that really capture the essence of each setting and make the most of each line's specific options.

We will make sure that all material strictly conforms with the OGL, d20 System License and Green Ronin's specifications of use for the Mythic Vistas material. New game content should be derived from the SRD and OGC of the Mythic Vistas setting being used, with OGC from other sources to be approved on a case-by-case basis.

Payment is on a royalty basis off the net profit of the product sold, after RPGNow.com's and Green Ronin's percentages are taken off, for the life of the product (2 years in most cases).

For more information, please email daniel@highmoonmedia.com.
You can visit our website at http://www.highmoonmedia.com and see our RPGNow.com Vendor Page for a list of our products.

Daniel M. Perez
Highmoon Media Productions
http://www.highmoonmedia.com/

Products available at: Digital Book Booth, DriveThruRPG.com, e23, RPGnow.com

[Article] Campus Surprise

From Aish.com: Campus Surprise

Sadly, at a growing number of university campuses, glib, ignorant and hostile anti-Israel (occasionally sliding into anti-Semitism) sentiment has become the lingua franca of an influential chattering class.

And it's not only in Middle Eastern Studies departments, but campus-wide. I remember dealing with this crap when I was at FIU, long before my conversion, and almost getting into a few scuffles over it. It was when the Intifada began, and the Muslim Student Association held a weeks-long campout near the Student Center showing pictures of dead and/or wounded Palestinians, including the very famous picture of the Israeli soldier "beating" an insurgent, a photo that has been proven (and was already proven at the time they showed it) to be a fabrication, as the supposed insurgent was actually an American Jewish student being defended by an Israeli soldier from a Palestinian mob. It angered me that these people were using the suffering of various legitimate victims to justify the acts of a bunch of terrorist bastards.

It always bothered me that, at the one place where I thought I could find refuge from the world, the world came to intrude so obviously. Then I realized that that was the whole point of college, to put the Real World right in your face and in a concentrated form to have you deal with it, and I became quite vocal in my classes and faculty, more than all the actual Jews I knew in the English department. Thank G-d I never encountered an Anti-Israeli/Anti-Semitic professor (not that there weren't, I just didn't have classes with them) or I don't know how my GPA would have suffered.

I don't know how things are today at FIU, but one hopes that pro-Israel and pro-Jewish groups have become vocal and visible as well. Hiding in the Hillel meeting room won't work anymore.

[HMP] Hellstone Deep Released Today!

Highmoon Media Productions and MonkeyGod Enterprises present Hellstone Deep.
Buy it from RPGNow.com today!

------

There was a time when darkness reigned. In a war lost to history and myth, the dread God Chairos engaged on a campaign of destruction and conquest. His goal was to topple the existing pantheon of Gods, and to establish a dark new order in which he was supreme…a goal in which he was nearly successful. Only after a long and vicious campaign between Chairos' diabolic forces and the celestial armies of good were his evil plans torn asunder, and the God of Destruction himself forever undone.

But evil never dies. For Chairos' mightiest weapon in his dark campaign - the Chain of Scars - has been discovered. Draz Ghulan, a fiendish general with his mind set on revenge, has rekindled the flames of the ancient conflict with his burning hatred. In his possession lies the Chthonic Heart, the one item capable of reactivating the awesome power of the Chain of Scars. Unless Ghulan is stopped, Chairos' lost campaign of terror and annihilation will begin anew, and the awesome and untold powers of the Chthonic Heart shall be released unto the unsuspecting world.

To stop him, heroes will have to engage in a deadly race against Ghulan's own agents of evil, journeying through the stygian depths of the subterranean city of Il'drazza'kuul and to the horrific demi-plane known as The Sea of Endless Night. Ultimately, their quest will bring them to Hellstone Deep, an impenetrable fortress populated with Ghulan's Hellish minions. But within the Heart lie powers that even Ghulan cannot understand. Powers that, if released, could spell disaster for all. And darkness shall reign again...

Hellstone Deep is a d20 fantasy adventure for 18th- through 20th-level characters.

Written by: Steve Montano
Cover by: Jim Pavelec
Artwork by: Alan Dyson
106 pages, Fully Bookmarked

Buy it from RPGNow.com today!

REVIEWS:

• EN World Reviews
• Joe G. Kushner (4/5)
• Der Kluge (5/5)
• Cats Claw (4/5)
  

Daniel M. Perez
Highmoon Media Productions
http://www.highmoonmedia.com/

Products available at: Digital Book Booth, DriveThruRPG.com, e23, RPGnow.com

Gotta Give It To Benedictus!

Pope Benedict XVI may not be John Paul II, but he's certainly setting up this papacy to be the most interesting one in some time, and the richest one in terms of plot hooks for gamers. I mean, take a look at this, from MSNBC.com:

Pssst! Where the devil is the exorcist meeting?
Pope greets convention members, urges them to continue good work
Updated: 11:49 a.m. ET Sept. 14, 2005

VATICAN CITY - Orthodontists have national conventions, as do lawyers and computer salespeople. So why not exorcists?

At the end of his weekly general audience on Wednesday Pope Benedict greeted Italian exorcists who, he disclosed, are currently holding their national convention. The pope encouraged them to “carry on their important work in the service of the Church.”

Problem was that until the pope spoke few people outside the inner circle knew that a convention of Beelzebub-busters was going on, presumably in Rome.

Read more.

I mean, it's just too easy! I have to admit, I like my Catholics old-school, and they don't come more old school than Ratzinger.

Ravnica

I am not a Magic fan by any stretch of the imagination. I used to play back in the day, but (except for three games when I went to Puerto Rico a couple weeks ago) I haven't touched a Magic deck in 5 or 6 years unless it was to search for a Rebecca Guay card for my collection. I state this caveat to make clear I am not a Magic fan, afficionado, or even a casual interested party and that my statements from now on are not those of a crazed card flopper.

RAVNICA looks awesome!!!

The first I read about it stated that Ravnica was set in a world that had been overrun by one huge metropolis (Ravnica); a world where nature had been incorporated into the architectural landscape, pushed underground or erradicated; a world ruled by ten world-spanning guilds that had been locked in a strained peace for the last ten thousand years. The copy sounded like the world was either very interesting or very lame. I followed the link in the story back to Magic's website and I beheld the artwork for one of the basic lands, the Ravnica Forest:

I was hooked. The art for the basic lands alone told me tons about this world, and gave me a dozen ideas in a second, more than any recent RPG product has done. (Top to bottom: Plains, Mountain, Island, Swamp - click on each to see a larger version, it's worth it.)

The artwork is incredibly evocative, and truly captures something I've always wanted to see/do in a game, a fantasy megapolis of truly epic proportions. The more I read about the setting, especially about the ten guilds, the more I've gotten hooked on the setting (heck, I'm even enjoying the articles on the design of the set!). Though I don't see myself buying cases and cases, I might buy a deck or two and then steal all the flavor from the online card database for this and the next two sets in the block. This is a world where I would like to run a game, where I can see myself developing stuff to fit the setting; in short, the first time I wish WotC would do a cross-over and release a D&D setting of their Magic material.

I invite everyone to check out the various articles on Ravnica at www.MagicTheGathering.com (both the Archives and the Ravnica section), if only to see the awesome artwork and the ideas they can spawn.

Sept. 11

It was a Tuesday, and I had class later that day. I was up already at around 8:30 am, and as was normal at that time, I went to the living room, and turned on the TV, going to the kitchen to start breakfast. Something in the newscast, however, was different; there was none of the usual high-impact, sensasionalist music used by Channel 7 News, instead there was a cable newscaster voice, from Fox News or CNN, I can't remember. They were talking about something in New York. I went from the kitchen to the living room and sat on the couch, watching the images that would forvere be burnt in my mind. "A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center."

I'd never gone to NYC at that point, so I had no idea what the size, the scale of the Twin Towers was. When they said a plane, I thought a small jet, at best. Even the replay showing the plane hitting the tower didn't really convey to me the scale of it all. Then they mentioned what kind of plane it was, an American Airlines passenger plane, and the horror dawned on me. It was about 8:50 am at this point, and I went to the room to wake up my girlfriend (now my wife).

"A plane crashed on the World Trade Center," I said to her, three times before she registered it all. I left her getting up and went back to the living room. It was just after 9:00 am at that moment, and I saw, live on TV, the second plane hit the South Tower. At first I thought that it had been an accident, like pretty much the rest of America, but after seeing the second plane aim and go straight for the tower, the world as I knew it, as we all knew it, ended. I heard a gasp to my side, and turned just in time to hold my girlfriend, whose knees had just given.

For the next hour we sat transfixed, unmoving, watching history unfold in front of us: 9:45 am, a third plane crashes into the Pentagon; 10:05 am, the South Tower, the second tower hit, collapses, and with it us into the floor, crying; 10:10 am, a fourth plane crashes into a field in Pennsylvania.

We left the house shortly after this, my wife dropping me at the university for my class. Along the way we heard that the North Tower had also collapsed; we cried in the car, and we were not alone. The atmosphere in my classroom was one of utter confusion; we shared what info each of us had, and when the news came from the university president that classes were dimissed for the day, I took the bus home, and went back to the TV, where I remained for the rest of the day.

I will never forget that day, that horrible, fateful day, September 11, 2001. Four years later, though I just spent the day like it was just another day, this memory still plays in my head, and I feel a knot in my chest when I think about it. Nothing I can say really makes a difference, so I won't even try.

May G-d bless and keep all those who perished on that fateful day. Four years later, I still cry for them.

No True20 Setting Submission

I just got an email from the writer that was working on what was to be our setting submission to Green Ronin's True20 Setting Search. The writer feels really strong that what he has right now is not strong enough for the submission, mainly due to need for more word count to further explore new concepts of this setting. I am okay with his decision as I believe it's better to pass than submit an incomplete setting.

So right now Highmoon Media is without an entry for a possible True20 license, and there's just not enough time for me to write up Bardic Lore as a possible setting, especially because I am not 100% sure how exactly I will end up handling the True20 engine along with the additions I want to make. I also decided long ago to keep Project Shirah as d20 Modern rather than convert it to True20.

I'm not bothered by this, I have to say. The True20 license you'd win through the setting search would only be for support of that setting, and I am more interested in publishing world-neutral supplements for the game engine. I may yet start dual-statting all our original products with True20 mechanics and let word of mouth take care of spreading that knowledge (along with a vague reference to the system). We'll see.

The OGC Wiki Debacle

Two weeks ago, Mike Mearls made a post to his livejournal suggesting the implementation of an OGC Wiki containing "every scrap of open gaming content [he] can find." Since then, he has added only a second quick comment to say he's "reading comments, thinking, planning, and putting together some ideas." In the meantime, a lot of people have been having nothing short of a conniption over the idea of such an OGC Wiki being implemented. Discussion has been going on at EN World and at RPG.net, though the thread at EN World has been closed due to flare-ups. Some publishers have warned/threatened to severely limit their OGC declarations if such a project were to get off the ground, and one (Ronin Arts) has already done so.

So what do I think about this whole bru-ha-ha? I think it's not worth even half the attention people have been giving it. The project, at least the idea of the project, is a good one; I would LOVE a place where I can go and check out what OGC is out there for X or Y application before I sit down to write and possibly end up wasting my time reinventing the wheel. Almost everyone, especially publishers, I think can agree with this. However, much like with communism, what looks good on paper does not necessarily translate well to reality, and I think this OGC Wiki will prove to be a good idea that never really works well. Oh, a lot of people will try, especially now that Mike Mearls has put his name (it remains to see if he'll put his weight behind it, too, in the form of his own OGC) behind such a project, but I don't think it will work out in the end.

One of the main problems such a project faces is the vagaries of the OGL. Sure, for products that give out 100% of the text as OGC this is no problem, but these aren't the products that are the main target of an OGC Wiki (IMO). It's products like Mearls' own Iron Heroes that are the ones with a big bullseye painted on them because of their convoluted and obfuscated OGC declarations. And you know what, I'd be the first in line to see the result after they are put through the grinder of an OGC Wiki. But for that to happen, the people involved in the project would need to be incredibly cognizant of the labyrinthine ways of these OGC declaration so that OGC can be pulled clean and without any PI attached that would compromise its usability, and (please pardon my skepticism) I don't think even Mike Mearls can do that for his own authored Iron Heroes, let alone for other Malhavoc products, or the rest of "crippled" OGC products in the market.

This OGC Wiki issue will have two end results that I can think of: one, OGC is pulled from products with convoluted OGC declarations, this OGC is still contaminated with PI and steps, including legal ones, are taken to shut down the wiki; or two, project participants give up trying to figure out the arcane formulas that these OGC declarations amount to, and simply start filling up the wiki with OGC from products with easy OGC declarations (can't get much easier than "100% of all text" or "all text in chapters X, Y, Z"), which then forces these publishers to restrict their OGC using the very arcane and convoluted formulas used by the indecipherable products, leading to a market where it becomes a bitch, at best, to get OGC from a product, and an eventual defeat of the whole concept of Open Gaming in the first place. Either one is possible, quite possibly both.

I think, however, that taking any action right now in the possibility that such a project would actually take off the ground is an alarmist knee-jerk reaction. I understand, sympathize and empathize with the desire to protect one's work, but all that's being done is punish people now for a threat that may or may not become true, one that I feel will fail even if it takes off the ground.

Please understand, I LOVE the ideals of the OGL and I am all for giving the most amount of information as OGC (my own products, for example, are pretty much all OGC--both crunch and fluff--except for a few terms here and there that I claim as PI) and I think that most other publishers fall into this camp. In essence we would be punished for our willingness to exalt the ideals of Open Gaming, but we really can't bitch because the possibility of someone doing exactly what the proponents of an OGC Wiki are saying they'll do is quite clearly implied in the OGL; we all knew it, and we all decided to use the OGL anyway. We may not like it (I certainly don't), but tough cookies, we signed off on it. What this means is that it's time for us publishers to be a little bit more selective of what we give out as OGC from now on, without getting into convoluted OGC declarations. Personally, I'll be looking at my future products with a sharper eye towards deciding what I declare as OGC and what not, though I cannot claim that I know exactly what I'll do yet.

The second thing I've learned from this issue is that it is time to start adding more than just crunch to products. This has been my belief from the start, and has shaped what I release and how I release it. There have been many times when I have wondered if I should switch to a more generic model where I just put out a barrage of short collections of crunchy stuff as it comes to mind, but I always end up deciding against it and sticking to my original concept for HMP, publishing rules along with story that ties it to a greater picture. Sure, I've opened up my story as well as my rules, as have many others, but perhaps that needs to change. We'll see.

This is not the first time that an OGC Wiki idea comes up, and even with Mike Mearls behind it, I don't think it will happen. Sure, some people will set sites up (some already have), and get started, but it will fizzle down and die in little time (if I am wrong, you have permission to come here and tell me how wrong I was). People need to take a step back and just see what happens before making any decisions. Perhaps it is, indeed, time to reevaluate the business model and make provisions for the future, but it is not the time for knee-jerk reactions. What OGC's out there is already out there and there's nothing we can do about it except trust people to be nice enough to not mess with our income (though I also think it is time people stop basing their businesses on the goodwill of people; if people are nice to you fine, but if they aren't and are playing legally, then tough - I don't like it any more than the next person, but it is a reality) while we evaluate the general situation and make plans for future products.

So, to summarize...
OGC Wiki - a lot of hot air that won't amount to anything in the long run. Good idea, but will remain that, an idea.
Overgenerous OGC Declarations - open for abuse by the very same license that allows their existence, and will slowly disappear.
Convoluted OGC Declarations - the reason why this new round of the OGC wiki idea has come up, a bane to the industry, would love to see them disappear (I just don't understand what is so difficult about the phrase "you must clearly indicate which portions of the work that you are distributing are Open Game Content" in point 8 of the OGL, unless you are playing around with the letter of the license and not the spirit, in which case I am just as guilty of placing my trust on the goodwill of people).
My actions - none at the moment, except watch closely what develops so I can make an informed decision, most likely will restrict somewhat my OGC in future products so as to protect my IP.

DaVinci Labs Competition - Winner

I just sent this post to the three contestants in our DaVinci Labs Writing Competition.

Hello, everyone. First of all, my apologies for having waited all week to contact you. I got back from Puerto Rico on Sunday to an apt. without power since Katrina passed by Miami on Thursday. I got back to my house on Wed night and have just finally finished arriving after a hectic two-week period. But enough of my life-story.

In the interest of fairness, what I did with the entries I received was remove all traces of names from the files, print them out, and read them without knowing which was from whom. In judging, I was looking for a combination of good game design, inventiveness when given an illustration to stat-up, imagination for story elements, and the potential to become a co-designer for the whole line based on these elements (not to mention good spelling, grammar, etc.).

All three entries were good, and this is not just lip service. It was hard deciding on a winner, because if I had my way, I would merge all three of you into a new creature that would justly earn me the moniker of "Mad Genius" and be done with it. Seeing as how that was not an option, I had to make a choice:

Congratulations to Joshua Hoade, winner of the DaVinci Labs competition and new co-designer for the whole line.

John and Chris, thanks a million for having taken part in this open call. Though you didn't win, here is something that hopefully will make you feel better: I will be using parts of your entries when editing the final version of the first DaVinci Labs release, because I liked some of your ideas a lot and I think they should see the light of day. You will both get Additional Design credit on the PDF, and get a free copy of the first two DaVinci Labs releases.If you have any questions, please feel free to email me. I hope that you will become members of the HMP-News mailing list, so you can keep informed of future open calls we may have.

Thanks again to all who replied to the DaVinci Labs open call, and expect the first release in this line very soon.

Congratulations to Joshua Hoade, and welcome to Highmoon Media Productions (wow, we now actually have a staff!).

Plans For The Weekend

My wife went to North Carolina (specifically, to Marion, about 1/2 hour from Asheville) to visit her best friend, who just recently moved there. Myself, I had planned to drive up to Orlando to visit my sister and see my baby nephew, Kevin, but with gas prices as they are in both Miami and Orlando ($2.89-$3.10/gallon) and the short supply on top of that, it looks like I'll be spending my Labor Day Weekend home. So I've decided to make the most of it and make a list of things to do in the next three days:

• Notify the winner of the DaVinci Labs contest, as well as write comments to the runner-ups.
• Write a blog entry on this whole OGC Wiki debacle that's been floating around.
• Visit Dragon's Lair Games, my local gaming store, and just geek out for a few hours (quite looking forward to this, actually).
• Send out to Green Ronin the edited MPM adventure I have, and bug them about sending the graphical elements for Testament and Medieval Player's Manual.
• Start writing one of two new Bardic Lore releases, probably the one on the Giant's Causeway, along with the rules for Mythic Poetry, a new type of Bardic magic.
• Try to figure out how to do a "horde" for d20 that's not cheesy and can be used as a type of cohort (if anyone knows OGC rules that partake of the spirit of the "mob" template from DMG II, let me know).
• Finish updating my blog entries from Puerto Rico and post an index.
• Sleep

I'm sure I won't do it all, but at least this way I can see the list and have an idea of what I need to do, and what I'm still slacking on.

Gotta go now, Shabbat is about to start.

Last 5 Days of Summer Sale at Digital Book Booth

Just wanted to let you all know, we are now in the last 5 days of the 10% Off Summer Sale at the Digital Book Booth. Sale ends Sept. 5, so pass by today and get any of our Bardic Lore or Liber Sodalitas releases for 10% regular price!

http://www.dbookbooth.com/manufacturer.php?manu_id=11

Back Home

Yay, home sweet home. My wife and I are now back at our apartment in Miami Beach after a 6-day "vacation" at my mother-in-law's. Power actually was restored yesterday evening, but it was still so hot here in the apt. that we decided to stay over one more night, and now, finally, we are home. Now, to sleep in our own bed. :-)

Back To The Grind

Well, it's back to "normal" here in Miami. My flight arrived early, and my bag was the third out at baggage claim, so I was out the airport quite fast. Then, to face the aftereffects of the hurricane. My wife had been staying with her mom away from the beach, and she discovered, when she went by our apartment on Miami Beach yesterday afternoon, that the place had been without power since Thursday night. We were told that our power was expected to be restored by Tuesday the earliest, Friday the latest, meaning we are stuck at my mother-in-law's house for now.

There was no major damage, though, and things are pretty much back to normal. There's still a lot of cleaning to do all around the city, but except for 40% of the county being without power, all the major kinks have been ironed out. My prayers go to those in Louisiana who are facing a Cat. 5 Katrina, not the Cat. 1 Miami saw. People need to understand that a hurricane is a hurricane, period.

I still need to finish uploading the entries from PR, as well as some photos I took. I'll probably post a hyperlinked index once I've finished all that. It will be slow, as I'm without power at home, and only have internet access at work, but I'll get to it.

PR Day 8: Going Back Home (To An Apt. Without Power)

At the airport now. I really didn’t do anything major today, which is perfectly fine by me. I woke up at 9:30 am, had a very leisurely breakfast with my Mom, then went with her to drop my sister at her job in Plaza Las Americas. On the way back we went to pick up some “pan sobao” (a local sweet bread) to take back to Miami, but they had just put it in the oven and it would be another hour before it was ready, so no bread to take back. I went back to the house, and just prepared my stuff so we could go, drop the car and get to the airport with plenty of time so as to avoid a repeat of the overbooking problem I faced coming here. Mom and I just walked around the airport, bought some “dulces tipicos” (local-made all-natural fruit candies) and ate a quick snack. I just left my Mom at the other side of the gate and now I await the boarding call.

It’s been ten years since I first left my Mom on the other side of the gate when I took that one-way flight to Miami, and it really hasn’t gotten any easier. I always have a smile, I always tell her not to cry, I always tell her that it’s only for a short while, but inside it is always hard. Truth is I never know when I will see her again, and that is an uncertainty with which I live every day of my life. It was part and parcel of my choice to leave Puerto Rico and move to the U.S.

Thing is it’s not just my Mom; she’s just the most obvious representation of it all. I find it hard to leave the island behind. It’s the whole package of the land, the people, the culture, the memories. Even with all the changes for what I consider the worse (reggaeton squarely at the top of the list), the place is still my homeland, and there’s a big chunk of me deeply rooted there, one that I just can’t rip out. I know that a big part of this feeling is due to the distance; if I lived here permanently I would probably be just as nonchalant about it all as my friends are, but seeing as I live in Miami, my roots are quite stretched, and that tension, that pull means that I am always consciously aware of who I am, where I came from, and what I left behind in pursuit of a better life.

I don’t regret having gone to Miami, and in all honestly, I don’t know that I could return to live in the island permanently. I’ve changed too much, become too accustomed to a different way of life, that it would be a culture shock, to say the least. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t visit, and that every time I visit, there is actual pain in my heart as I board the plane back, as I must do right now.

It is quite possible that within the next ten years my whole immediately family (meaning my Mom, my sister and nephew) will have moved to Florida, either to Miami or Orlando, and that within the next thirty years my extended family (my grandparents, aunts and uncles) will have either passed away or be quite old, leaving me little, if any, reason to go back to the island. I don’t think, however, that even then I’ll lose my desire and longing to visit, to recharge my Puertorican batteries. It’s in the blood, and there’s little you can do about that.

So I say farewell to Puerto Rico once more, nursing the small wound where my heart tears every time I leave, in a way happy that that wound is still there, for it means my love for my Borinquen is still strong after all these years away. Now, to fly to Miami, back to my soulmate and love of my life, my wife.

PR Day 7: Shabbat

Today I slept in until almost 11:00 am, a luxury I can rarely afford. Being that it was Shabbat and I was homebound, I made the most of it. I had a good breakfast-lunch, and spent the rest of the day just talking with my Mom and playing with my nephew, which I really hadn't had a chance to do. It was good to be home and just relax. After my nephew went to spend the night with his father, my Mom and I just talked for about 4 hours about everything. Funny, since I actually talk to my Mom on the phone quite often, but it's not the same. Today we had a chance to really catch up on everything we had on our minds and talk about the future ahead.

Shabbat ended at around 7:30 pm, and then we had dinner, I took a shower, and we sat down to watch some old home movie my Mom had recently come into from her brother, most of it being movies shot during her trip to Europe in 1970. It's so weird seeing my Mom as a 16-year old in those movies! My late grandmother and late uncle (who died now in July and had had the movies and pictures of the trip to Europe all his life) were also there, and there even was a little surprise in the form of a quick 10-second shot of my Father when he and Mom first got married back in 1972. I'm gonna look into getting that video transfered to DVD.

At around 10:00 pm I took off to my friend's Braulio's store to hang out with my friends for the last time this time around. We basically just took up space at the store, playing Street Fighter and Soul Calibur up until almost 1:00 am. I bid them farewell and till the next one, as I always do. Braulio and Josue are like family to me, and it is just as hard to say goodbye as it would be to a dear cousin. I hope things go well for Braulio's store; we've all wanted to open up a gaming store in our lives, and Braulio actually managed it, so now we all live vicariously through him in that sense, and we all pitch in however we can to see that Gaming Emporium thrives.

I decided to head home, but I took a detour to see where my sister works as a waitress. The placed, called El Meson, is nice, secure and well-frequented, so at least I can breathe easily that she's in a safe place overnight. On a whim I decided then to head over to Old San Juan, at least to see it at night, but when I got there, I found out that have now closed access to what we call "el casco," the historic colonial area that is the heart of Old San Juan to all except residents. If you wish to go up there, you need to park at the foot of the island and walk up, and I wasn't about to do that alone and without a plan, so I turned around and came back via the very long, scenic way of Condado then Isla Verde (if you don't know P.R. then this means nothing to you--suffice to say it was a very long-winded, traffic-heavy trek I could have shortened considerably by taking the expressway).

Now I'm home and getting ready to sleep. In the morning I'll see if I have time to do anything, and if not, I'll just stay here, pack and spend the time with my Mom.

I do have various observations about P.R. from the little trip to San Juan I took, but I'm tired now and I'll write them in later. I'll probably end up doing a revision, along with some pictures I've taken, so I can add all the thoughts I've left unsaid so far.

Hurricane Katrina Update

Though I am in Puerto Rico, my wife had to go through Hurrican Katrina last night. She's doing fine, as is her Mother, and her house. They only lost power temporarily and there was no damage beyond a broken shed door in the back of the house and a lot of leaves littering the floor. I am still scheduled to fly back on Sunday, when I'll let you know how things are going.

PR Day 3: In Which I Do Mostly Work

Today I woke up pretty early, since I wanted to make the most of the day over at Josue’s house. My aunt, however, showed up as I was getting out of the shower and we spent about an hour going through some more photos she brought from her house, including some of me as a little kid (which are always fun) and some with my Dad.

About 10:30 am I got to Josue’s and we got to work (after a quick game of Samurai Shodown). Josue is not only my friend, he is also the official graphic designer for Highmoon Media Productions when he's not busy with his own company, San Juan Media. It was him who designed and made our logo, and who’s been helping out with the new website and graphics for the various HMP lines. Today we needed to finish setting up the php coding for the new website and make sure all is working fine, as well as go over the designs for the product line covers. In between video game breaks and people calling/dropping by, we actually managed to finish all we had set out to do, as well as get started on the coloring of some new pieces of artwork for the new DaVinci Labs line, since Josue just refuses to let me publish black and white mecha artwork by itself. I’m very excited about this new step, as it will create a unified look for HMP as well as for each of the lines that will help me build the various brands and grow the business.

In the afternoon, Josue’s cousin showed up to show my friend the same toy he should be receiving by week’s end, a Lyra pocket jukebox. With a new tech toy around, his focus comepletely shifted, so I took my leave, as I had planned to be home early to have dinner with my Mom and hopefully hang out with my sister. My Mom made a killer meal of white rice and red beans (with recaito, which is our own unique blend of seasonings), which has baffled everyone that knows my Mom, as she has a tendency to slightlyovercook things (I still eat them all the same). My sister, however, sold me out and took off to Heaven-knows-where, which annoyed the crap out of me. I ended up playing around on the computer after everyone went to sleep, and here I am.

No observations about Puerto Rico today, I’m afraid, as I was holed up in a house all day. I can tell you this, though: I really wonder how it is that houses here in the island don’t come with central A/C standard. The heat is absolutely unbearable! Today it was broken only by a sudden thunderstorm around midday that must have dumped like 6 inches of rain in about 2 hours. While it was raining the air cooled and there was a great breeze that was replaced by an overbearingly hot humidity two seconds after the rain stopped. That’s Puerto Rico for you.

Speaking of storms, there seems to be an area of bad weather over the Bahamas which is expected to head over to Miami in the coming days. My wife is aware of it, but they haven’t said much about it, so we’ll keep an eye on it.

Tomorrow I am going to the local Temple of Consumerism, Plaza Las Americas, the single largest shopping mall in all of the Caribbean, eye of a storm of millions of dollars in spending, and a place that makes you wonder if people in Puerto Rico actually work at all.

PR Day 2: In Which I Mostly Visit With Family And Regress Into Older Stages Of Geekdom

Day started late; I asked my Mom to wake me up when she left for work and she didn't. I got out of bed at 10:30 am, and only because I opened my eyes and thought, "Man, this night seems to go on forever!" I got dressed and went to see my grandparents.

They are one of the driving reasons why I wanted to come visit this time around. Let's face it, with both of them in their early 70's, every day is truly a gift from G-d, as they are apt to point out to me. My grandmother had some health problems earlier this year due to a fall she suffered last year, and while she recovered it was very slow, even for someone her age. It was a wake-up call that I need to enjoy them while I have them here. So today was set aside to spend the day with them. I got there around midday and just hung out with them and my uncle, talking about everything and anything, just putting them up to date in my life, and getting up to date in theirs. The weather was hot with sporadic and sudden rains, but since they have a very lush backyard, the temperature was actually nice. At around one, I went down to the cemetery by their house to visit my Father.

Whoever said that time heals wounds did not tell the whole story. As I stood at the foot of my Father's grave I lost it, big time, like I didn't loose it at his funeral or burial. It must have been a sight: a lone Jew standing in a sea of mottled-white crosses crying like a little child. The truth is I miss him terribly; I've spent the last 13 years of my life, the most turbulent, confusing, strange, amazing and important years of my life without my Father physically around, and it has taken a toll on me, one I rarely let see, but one that is there nonetheless. But it was good to visit his grave; though I know he's beyond physical locations, that is the nexus of his connection to this world. In Judaism we believe that praying at the tomb of a tzaddik (a righteous person) is beneficial since there is a stronger connection between earth and heaven. Though he wasn't Jewish, it was my Father who started me on the road that would eventually lead me to Judaism, the one who taught me to go beyond blind faith into an actual relationship with G-d, the one who taught me to use my mind in the pursuit of knowing G-d as best as I could. My Father was my tzaddik.

I went back and just spent time at my grandparents, enjoying their company. I even played some video games with my uncle for a while. Then, at around 6:00 pm I left to meet up with Josue at Braulio's store, which I got to see today. He's got a great location with excellent space, but he needs to take full advantage of it (comments on the store will come later on). Since the idea was just to hang out with my friends, I sat down and played a couple of games of Magic: The Gathering, a game I haven't played--I kid you not--for about 6 or 7 years now. Of course I lost each and every game, but I did get to spend some time with my friend. Later on I joined the Halo crowd, but I just can't get into that game, nor can I learn how to operate the control properly; I always end up shooting at a wall, off in a corner somewhere, while everyone just comes to take potshots at defenseless old me. So we switched to Street Fighter, and while I, again, lost almost every match, that one I actually enjoy playing; Street Fighter (along with Samurai Shodown II) is my favorite video game ever.

I called it a day "early" (10:00 pm) and headed back home to my Mom's, stopping at the supermarket to get some actual food I can eat. My Mom was already sleeping by the time I got to the house, so here I am, typing away, having dinner very late at night. I'm tired, and tomorrow I want to get an early start (I'm going to get together with Josue in his capacity as Graphic Designer for Highmoon Media Productions), so I'm going to skip the observations about Puerto Rico for today so I can get some sleep.

I will leave you with this, though. With gas prices so high, it seems Puerto Rico is turning into Italy, so many vespas did I see on the roads today, zipping by in between moving traffic, assuming their little size means they have immunity to the laws of the road. Would it be fair for me to then become more like a Roman driver, and assume they are just moving targets for which I get points?

PR Day 1: Don't They Just Shut Up?!

Well, the flight was fine and uneventful, and upon landing, it only took an hour to get the rental car. They gave me a Hyundai Brio (this model is sold in the US as the 4-door Accent, though here it's a 2-door) the size of a matchbox; if you've seen The Incredibles, I look like Mr. Incredible did inside his tiny car. But hey, at least I can move around on my own.

When I got to my Mom's house, my aunt (Mom's sis) and cousin were here, so at least I got to see them. They had brought an album full of old photos, and it was weird to see pics of my Mom when she was 12 and looked like a nerd (the 60's were just bad all over the place). They also had in there pictures of myself when I was a little kid, maybe 3 or 4, that I had never seen, including one with my late grandmother, so that was cool. They're making me some copies.

Around 9:30 pm, my Mom and nephew got ready to sleep, so I went out to meet my friend Josue at his house. From there, we went to see my other friend's Braulio gaming store, Gaming Emporium, though we caught him just as he was closing up shop. I'll pass by tomorrow and geek out in the evening. Josue and I went back to his house and watched anime and played Street Fighter until 1:00 am, and now here I am.

Early thoughts: Puerto Rico is the same, but not really. Roads I knew by heart are gone, entirely, replaced by a multitude of branching streets that seem to go nowhere near where the road used to before. There is a lot of construction going on, especially where roads are concerned, and while that isn't strange per se (construction people need to eat), it seems (at least at night) like the roadway situation may--just may--be on its way to improving. That is, if they actually finish the various new highways and traffic-relief overpasses (below) they have been constructing for at least 2 years now.

It is still hot as hell here, and not hot like Miami, where it's humid but that's it, but humid that sticks to you like a leech. There is so much greenery in the island that the humidity doesn't actually dissipate, it just hangs there like a curtain that you have to pass through with every step.

The coquis are just as loud as ever, and I'm afraid that it has finally happened: I have lived long enough out of the island that I can't actually just tune the coquis out as I used to. They are everywhere, the little crooners, with their incessant "ko-kee, ko-kee, ko-kee!" Seriously, don't they ever shut up? As I'm typing this, I can barely hear them in the background, so I think it's starting to take effect, that inherent ability of any Puertorican to be able to subsume the coquis into background noise. I can fully understand my wife now, though; every time she comes, she has the hardest time with the coquis, because she just can't not hear them.

It's great to see my Mom and nephew (I even saw my sister for about ten minutes before she darted off to work), my aunt and cousin, and tomorrow my grandparents, aunt and uncle. I miss them all. Same thing with my friends. I am looking forward to spending the week just visiting and catching up. It's become painfully obvious during the summer that you never know when you'll see someone last, and while I am certainly not harboring any morbid thoughts or wishes (G-d forbid), it IS a reality of life we cannot escape, and we should use it as an incentive to truly appreciate what's important in life: G-d, family and friends.

Tomorrow (or rather, in a couple of hours) is a new day, and I am quite excited to go out and see Puerto Rico, my Puerto Rico.

I still miss my wife.