Things To Do, Star Wars To Talk About

We spent the day at the Renaissance Festival yesterday. Unfortunately, got a nasty headache halfway through the day. Once I got home, I popped two aspirin and took a two hour nap and luckily got rid of it.

So, now it’s Sunday morning and I have a slew of things to do today: Catalog some comics, clean the fish tank, get a haircut, wash the car, do some grocery shopping, bake some cookies for Cari, help Cari with some paperwork, work on this site, and get back to working on the Nexus project. I sit here, though, typing away with my full cup of coffee next to me – the one that says “to boldly go” in Latin. So, since I’m procrastinating a little, let’s talk about something I like…

With Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens coming up later this year, Marvel started releasing new comics and the LucasFilm Story Group has just announced 20 new novels. The comics, so far, take place after A New Hope, and the novels will bridge the gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. All of these are considered canon and, in essence, are to be abided by as if they were one of the movies.

As a pretty knowledgeable Star Wars fan, I feel I understand a lot of the intricacies of the movies, but never spent time with the Expanded Universe (now know as Legends). Mostly this was because all of that media wasn’t really endorsed by Lucas as canon, which always made me feel like it would be a waste of time getting to know these stories. And, I’m lazy when it come to reading. So, now that there is a properly defined [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_canon_media canon], I feel it’s important for me to stay on top of these side-stories and have dived into the comics. It’s hard to tell if an element from the comics will feed into a movie, etc.

I’ve picked up Star Wars, Darth Vader, and Princes Leia so far, and have enjoyed them. It’s still to early to say how I really feel about these stories. Hopefully after about ten issues each, I’ll have a better idea. I think I’ll also stay on top of the novels, albeit in audiobook form. I’m more likely to digest them that way, as I can’t put enough quiet time to read on paper.

Firewall Update

A couple of days ago I implemented a new firewall that seems to be working out quite well. By “new”, I mean “new to me”. It’s actually an old WatchGuard Firebox X700 that I cracked open and upgraded some of the hardware, then wiped the factory OS and replaced it with pfSense. So far, I couldn’t be happier. It allows me some expandability and gives me some great tools I’ve always wanted on the network.

As for this site, I’m going to be investigating new blogging plug-ins, as the default Journal system just isn’t cutting it for me. I mean, it works, but it’s lacking a lot of features.

The Beginning… Again

This is it. I’ve finally gotten around to putting this site online again after it being dark for three years. There’s an offline archive of old blog entries, pictures, and custom data I’m going to try to get back up here over time. I don’t want the rebuild of the site to be work, so it’s going back together slowly.

Until then, I’ll be blogging here whenever it occurs to me to do so. You can follow me on Twitter as well. Either way, feel free to contact me with suggestions for the site.