Special thanks to WebNeighbor.net for their great service and assistance in getting the new site up.  So sit down, strap yourself in, and hold onto your hats — this is going to be a fun ride!

-G

The third Blog Banter of 2010 comes to us from ChainTrap of the Into the unknown with gun and camera EVE Blog. He asks us: “Eve University turns six years old on March 15th; six years spent helping the new pilots of New Eden gain experience and understanding in a supportive environment. Eve is clearly a complicated game, with a ton to learn, so much that you never stop learning. So, the question is; What do you wish that someone had taken the time to tell you when you were first starting out? Or what have you learned in the interim that you’d like to share with the wider Eve community?”

———-

Two weeks of waiting for a ship to be flown in has given me time to reflect on my life as a capsuleer.  It didn’t start out easy – there were the looming questions What was I going to do?  Where was I going to be?  Was I going to get involved in battles?  With those questions facing me, I guess I just needed three foundational seeds of knowledge to be able to grow in this universe known as New Eden.

The first seed of knowledge was simple:  Money makes the ‘verse go round.  As much as anyone would like to believe, and I know I tried to for a long time, you’ve got to work to make money.  Whether it be in the form of missioning, mining, trading, manufacturing, or pirating, you’ve got to make money.  You can’t buy a ship if you don’t have ISK in your wallet.

The second seed of knowledge is:  Get in with a good group of people.  Now I know that I started my own corporation and Tiph’arah is not the largest corp in the system we are based in; however, knowing that every single one of our members is loyal and ready to come to the aid of someone in trouble has given us the confidence to stand up for ourselves, not allow would-be pirates to grief us, and encourage us to stretch outside of our comfort zones at times and work on projects that we might not have done on our own.

The third seed of knowledge is one that I think I’ve found to be the hardest:  Your ship is not a one-of-a-kind.  Unlike the mythical Millennium Falcon, from the epic stories passed to us through the ages before New Eden, there is no single ship that can take on all ships.  Your ship may be beautiful.  She may seem so “alive” when you are in your pod and your very thought seems to change her course.  You might have the best supplementary crew, but all of this doesn’t mean that your ship is indestructible.  Now, I’m not saying to baby her, because she will get you out of bad spots more times that you can imagine.  Just remember, she’s a ship made of metals and alloys; circuitry and software.

“Mister Stormcrow, your ship has come in.” a voice said over the comm, “It’s waiting for you in hanger 1418.”

“Thank you, I’m on my way.”

———-

To hear more Banter:

1. CrazyKinux: The Three Pillars of Wisdom
2. The Elitist: Helping the new guy/gal
3. Hands Off, My Loots: Nothing Needed
4. Rantuket: Blog Banter 16
5. EVE Opportunist: Nooby Cluey
6. Into the Unknown With Gun and Camera: EVE University
7. Zero Kelvin: We’re the young ones!
8. I am Keith Neilson: Set Your Destination
9. Prano’s Journey: Just Like the Very First Time
10. A Merry Life and a Short One: No Seriously
11. Yarrbear Tales: Nublet 101
12. A Mule In EVE: If I only knew
13. The Planet Risk Show: Dared to be Bold
14. Diary of a Space Jockey: WTH did I get myself into?!
15. EVOGANDA: Why?
16. A Memoir From Space: 16th Blog Banter
17. Death’s Sweetest Kiss: Who What When Where Why How??
18. Freebooted: Beyond the Shortcuts
19. Learning to Fly: Noobing
20. Caldari Outcast: My First Blog Banter Post!
21. Roc’s Ramblings: Financial Survival
22. Diary of a Pod Pilot: Free Knowledge Inside
23. Nullsec Carebear: I could’ve been less of an idiot
24. Facepalm’s Ramblings: Something Smells Fishy
25. Kirith Darkblade: Do you wish to know more?
26. Autopilot Disabled: I’m still starting…
27. Finders & Keepers: Relax
28. Confounded Capsuleer: What have you got to loose?
29. Clan Oriana: Sixteen
30. Flashfresh: EVE Blog Banter #16
31. Rettic’s The Chronofile: You Make EVE
32. Diary of a Bored Spaceman: Past Imperfect
33. Chocolate Heaven: Known Unknowns
34. Victoria Aut Mors: Blog Banter #16
35. Where the frack is my ship: If I knew then what I know now…
36. The Lathspell of Mithrandir: Hindsight is 20/20
37. Adventures in Mission Running: Words of Wisdom Add comments

In the single room quarters I was offered, there was your typical furnishing – bed, sofa, table, and small refrigeration unit.  What surprised me was the view into the central atrium.  The lush park reminded me of home – the trees, shrubs, and lake made a spectacular site.  I took the communications pad and browsed through the station’s services – repair facilities, but no lab or factory.  The medical facilities had something I had never heard of.  Along with the typical cloning facilities, there was something called a “Pediatric Intensive Care Unit” or PICU.  Were there really children here? I wondered.  So, I followed the station directions and found what looked, at first, to be a normal medical center; however, nothing could prepare me for what I was about to experience.

The doors were hand written with sand carved letters ‘P I C U’.  The halls, stark and cold.  The air was cold as it filled my nostrils.  I walked aimlessly through the hallways.  I found myself at the end of Corridor ‘F’, I showed my ID, and the doors opened toward me.  The tension could be cut with a knife and the silence was broken only by the sound of machines chirping busily away.  I walked around a room full of glass wall partitions.  Inside each area was a bed occupied by a small boy or girl.  As I walked in disbelief, a man approached me.  “Are you a family member of one of our patients?” he asked.

“No, sir.  May I ask — Who are all these children?”

“All of these children are fighting one ailment or another.”  He proceeded to tell me about the two children with fluid in their lungs, one little boy who was badly burned during a pirate attack on a civilian transport ship, and others with different illnesses.  As the individual rooms circled the perimeter of PICU-F, my eyes stopped at one particular area.

I looked through the glass and gazed upon a beautiful brunette.  Her body was swelled, as if she were pregnant.  Her legs were covered with a fuzzy pink blanket  laying in a bed surrounded by cloth flowers of all sorts.  She was hooked up to all sorts of machines and as I looked through the glass, her chocolate brown eyes opened.  I was moved.

“What is her story, Doctor?” I asked.

“This little girl is Kenna.” the doctor began, “She came in a few weeks ago.  Her parents noticed that her stomach was hard and she was pale.  They brought her in and our bio scanners noticed a mass on her kidneys.  We ran a 360 laser scan on her and found that the mass was weighing on a lung and started wrapping itself around her heart.”

“Doc, you make it sound like this mass is a living thing.”

His face turned very serious.  “It is, in a way.  This Malignant Neoplasm is a group of diseased cells which show properties of uncontrolled growth.  In Kenna’s case, it has grown to approximately one third her normal size.  The fact that it is sitting on her lung makes it difficult for her to breathe and if the MN continues to grow around her heart it could choke her to death.”

I could feel a knot form in my throat, “How does this happen? What’s the cure?”

“The type of MN that Kenna has is very rare and little is known about it’s cause.  What we do know is that it is found in children and about 50 percent of the cases are found in children under two years old.  We do not know of a cure yet, but radiation therapy and anti-neoplasm chemicals are two ways of battling it.”

“Doc, I don’t know what to say.  I can’t believe these kinds of diseases exist.”

He put a hand on my shoulder, “There have been some diseases that we haven’t been able to escape.  Modern medicine hasn’t found a cure for this.  If you would like I can show you a different part of the PICU.”

“If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to stay here… Where am I, anyway?” I looked up at the number on Kenna’s glass wall.

“Area 51, young man.” the doctor answered.  And he turned and walked away.

—-

The preceding chronicle was based on real life events.  To read the real story, click here or go to www.hopeforbabymckenna.org

Anyway, here’s our desk:

and her control center:

and my control center:

The laptop on the right is for work – I have to support this habit somehow.  And yes, I play EVE on a laptop. 8~)  For those of you who think I am a fool, let me give you the stats.

Pentium Dual Core T4400 (2.2GHz/800Mhz FSB/1MB cache)
4GB DDR2 RAM
500GB SATA Hard Drive
512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD4330 Video Card
17.3” HD+ WLED Screen

It’s a REALLY nice laptop and portable.  I can take EVE with me where ever I go…

1. Chocolate Heaven: EVESPACE
2. Life in Low Sec: OOC: What’s In Your EVESpace?
3. Rettic’s Log: Lots of Bloggers are posting their workspace
4. The Travels of Black Claw: What’s in your EveSpace?
5. K162Space: Blake’s EVE Machine
6. A Mule in EVE: Manasi’s rig
7. Wench with a Wrench: The Trinity Rig
8. Zen and the Art of Internet Spaceship Maintenance: Inside my Pod
9. Tales of a Low Sec Pirate: My EveSpace
10. I am Keith Neilson: My EVE Space
11. Sweet Little Bad Girl: Evespaces
12. Finders & Keepers: Eve And the Apple
13. Escape Velocity: My evespace
14. My Loot, Your Tears: What’s Your EVESpace like?
15. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah: My workspace
16. Cogito Ergo Yarr: My EVE-Space? No. Just Space.
17. Yarrbear Tales: Evespace
18. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility: Weekly Highlights
19. EVEOGANDA: EveSpace: Home Away From Home
20. Learning to Fly: My Battlestation
21. A Ghost Blog: My EVE Space
22. @StMistaken‘s 2 and 1 monitor set-up
23. @webspaceships‘ simple yet elegant space
24. Nukes Thoughts: My Domain
25. CK’s lair: The BatCave
26. more?