30. November 2009 by Samldanach.

Where is Lucca? Yup, I heard you asking that. Lucca is a small-ish city in Tuscany, very near to Pisa and Florence. As a tourist attraction, its most redeeming feature is the old walled city in the middle of town. This is where we spent the day.

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30. November 2009 by Samldanach.

Again with the bright and early. And adventures with setting wake up calls. Le sigh. (That is my signature phrase this week. You like?)

Today, we used the cruise’s tour bus to get us to the city and back (1 ½ hours each way, which they tell us would be 350 euros by taxi!). But, we are doing Rome “on our own.” Which means that Sonya, as the one who has been here before, gets to play tour guide.

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30. November 2009 by Samldanach.

Ah, nothing quite like getting up early while on vacation. At least, if there is anything like it, I don’t like it.

We headed out to see Pompeii. We got to see a tiny slice of Naples along the way. I noticed when we were in Scotland that it looked remarkably like the Appalachian Mountains. And, clearly, that must be why the Scots were so happy to settle there. Naples looks remarkably like New Jersey. Perhaps that’s why so many Italians settled there?

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30. November 2009 by Samldanach.

We woke up early enough this morning to watch the ship come into port, which was totally worth it. Malta is beautiful and impressive. I’ve never seen anything like it. The area has very little real estate, so they compensated by building up. But, unlike the skyscrapers you see in most cities that follow that path, Valletta (the main city on Malta) has multiple levels of buildings, with many areas carved out of the rocky hillsides. It is incredibly dense, which made it a fantastic city for walking around and exploring.

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30. November 2009 by Samldanach.

We woke up bright an early, at about 6:00. We promptly went back to sleep.

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30. November 2009 by Samldanach.

The trip to begin the cruise was pretty uneventful. We got packed much faster than we expected, so sat around the house trying to work out what we’d forgotten. Sonya’s dad was nice enough to come take us to the airport and pick up the dog for the week at the same time. Dulles security was painfully slow (they only had security lanes open), but nothing unusual.

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20. November 2009 by Samldanach.

My wife said I needed a post with that title.  Now, I just need to find something to write that lives up to that level of awesome.

Um, nope.  Nothing comes to mind.

I will put a note here, though.  When I started NaBlogWriMo, I totally forgot that I’m going to be out of the country for the rest of the month.  Le sigh.  I am taking my puter with me, and will be attempting to continue to write up posts.  As I am currently behind, I aim to write three posts a day.  One for that day, one to catch up, and one about what we did on vacation that day.  Look for a crazy onslaught around the 29th, when I’m hooked up to the intertubes again.

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20. November 2009 by Samldanach.

Anybody else remember that show?  I loved it.  I think it only went 6 episodes, though.

There are a number of mysteries of science that bother me.  These are areas that just, for whatever reason, reveal cracks in the framework of my understanding.  Some of them, I am sure, can be explained well enough by those with much greater understanding than me.  Some of them, I think, cannot.

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20. November 2009 by Samldanach.

This is a concept that was birthed from the “Life after People” show on The History Channel.   Essentially, as our metropolises decayed, skyscrapers would become vibrant micro-ecologies.  As windows shattered and fell out, dirt and seeds would find their way in, creating gardens 15 stories up.  Birds would be the obvious inhabitants, but insects and rats would also dominate, living off plastics, woods, and insulation.  As the joists and beams deteriorated , the whole structure would become too unsound for any large animal, and would require significant climbing ability to negotiate.  The apex predator of this new ecological niche?  Cats.

In my post-apoc setting, Manhattan Island was abandoned, and all the bridges blown.  As water levels rose, the edges of the island became submerged under up to 6 feet of water, with skyscrapers towering above these channels.  Skyscrapers ruled by cats.  And, over the years, the cats had…changed.

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19. November 2009 by Samldanach.

With Stats must go Skills.

I’m a little torn on Skills.  On the one hand, I’d kind of like to do “define your own” skills, like Unknown Armies.  On the other, since I am introducing Aspects, that would severely blur the line between Aspects and Skills.  Probably not a good thing.

So, here’s some rough thoughts on how to do Skills.

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