Space .... and an appeal ...

Yep ! More internet spaceships. But a bit more later too about a friend.

I suspect it's showing that I've been enjoying my time back in Elite since restarting the character ... I've definitely been in the game a lot (albeit in short-ish doses befitting my current attention span) and that's in comparison to spending a few months away from it after completing the preparations for the April Fools post.

I suspect the Plan this time is better. And that's to eventually own every ship in the game, trying them all out, instead of ignoring most of them and just driving up to the big ones. Who knows, the keenness to play may evaporate at some point as I find something different. Like going back to the game that pushed me back to Elite ! That'd be Bounty Train.

So what did I do at the weekend ? Outside of watching the cricket that is ! Well done to England again today. Great win and hopefully I'll watch almost 5 days of great cricket starting from Friday (the almost is because I'll be working in the morning on Friday).

I'm organising my time in Elite a fair bit around the weekly community goals. This time around the community goals were first to bring lots of rare booze to a station in the Harma system and the second was to protect the people bringing in the booze. So a trading run and a combat run and an excuse to try out a little fighter or two :

That's the Imperial Eagle ship called Katherine Of Space and I'll come back later to why the little fighter has that name. (Ha ! First pic becomes the thumbnail for the post and that's the thumbnail this post needs !)

The first fighter was an Eagle ship called the Elizabeth Sparrow after one of the more memorable characters on the HeyChrissa discord chat server. A name from a little fighter definitely befitting a little fighter.

I enjoyed taking the two ships out for a spin, although I was learning a little about handling them in flight too. Elite works partly on Newtonian physics, so if you Go Very Fast in a particular direction, you stay going Very Fast in that direction until the thrusters compensate. One idea I have is to turn off what's called Flight Assist in game to let me quickly flip around to bring the guns to bear. Doesn't quite work like that .... Because you end up several km away (and out of gun range) and moving further away.

Need to learn better space combat tactics.

That's the Elizabeth, which joined the growing fleet at the weekend. I now have 10 of the 31 that players can buy and the in game cash is coming together to buy a lot of those remaining. The community goals help a lot with that ...

But that's gaming. Gaming's fake. It's not real life.

It can be good to effectively hide in the gaming though. When I'm in the game, I'm only thinking about the next trade stop, I'm in the second to second of staying alive in combat, finding the next target and trying not to bite off more than I can chew. Where I'll be exploring next.

I'm not thinking of the state of my outsides or all the other problems I have. The gaming is an escape.

Which brings me back to the Katherine Of Space ... Why that name ?

It started as a tribute to KatherineOfSky, who is one of those lovely gaming people. Perhaps a clutching at a straw for finding names. Maybe.

But it's gone on from there as I remember a Katherine that was and a Kate that is. Katherine was someone lovely who used to be in the same team as me, who had a small smile that I still remember. I mirror people and how they feel and when walking past Katherine on the way to grab a coffee, if a smile was seen from the Katherine then it made me feel so much better.

Katherine was lost to us due to breast cancer a few years ago and inspired my Pink Hat cricket tribute where I wore that Pink Hat for a season of cricket. I thought about attaching charity collecting to that but ... I'm just too frail to support that. But it did inspire lots of questions, which I answered with memories of someone lovely. Here's the pic of that Pink Hat.

The Kate that is is someone I met a few years ago with the Psoriasis group. The mob hasn't had a chance to meet up since but it would be good to see Kate again before it's too late.

This Kate is a single mom who has been fighting all the challenges. She's a single mom, she has fought the life changing condition of Psoriatic Arthritis which isn't just the signs you see on the outside, it viciously attacks the joints on the inside too and as it's an auto-immune disease, the treatment severely damages the immune system. And she has terminal cancer as well.

But we know our Kate will keep on fighting as long as she can.

Hopefully long enough to meet up with us Patchy People of the Psoriasis group again and also for ...

Time for an appeal ! A couple of the ladies of the Psoriasis group have put an appeal together to provide the funding for Kate and kids to have a chance to build some great memories together. HERE'S THE LINK !

I very rarely post links to charity pages but I think this one is worth it. Only met once but some people you meet ? You get an instant feeling that they're great people.

Memories are very precious. I still hang on to the great memories of my nan and the good memories of my granddad, both are no longer with us.

I'm still hoping for a miracle that would see the Kate-that-is stay with us for a good while longer.

And if I name any of those Internet Spaceships after anyone, one that is a pretty little fighter has to be named as tribute to the Kate-that-is.

Thematic Exposition - In The Pink

This post has two parents ... Or sources of inspiration for it.

The first is Mr Carmi Levy's Thematic Photographic series, the latest is In The Pink. Here's mine ! I've only really got one Pink themed picture and people who have been here for a while will know what it is.

But ... there's another inspiration, Twitter has taken me to numerous people, one of whom is the wonderful Nika Harper aka Nikasaur. Here's a link to her Youtube channel where she posts Wordplay challenges. I thought - I can do one of those ! My problem is a lack of creative inspiration. I'm very definitely an engineer type who Does Things. Sometimes I do them in an unorthodox fashion but it's usually in response to a task. Thinking up the task is another thing entirely.

However - I thought I could tell the story of the Pink Hat. Hopefully it fits the theme of Exposition !

There it is - the infamous Pink Hat. And the Smiling Person beneath just happens to be ... me ! On to the story :

There was a boy who was not quite a boy any more. Years had taken their toll. Friends had moved on. Situations had evolved. People and their teams came and went. But the boy could always remember being young through sheer joy of Running. That's running very fast. And he could run, fast enough that the wind whistled through his ears.

The boy's usual excuse for running very fast was that a cricket match just happened to be breaking out at the same time.

However, the boy knew that his time when he could run very fast was coming to a close. The years were drawing on. Injuries were comparing notes and conspiring to make him slow. But the boy thought he could give something back.

But how ? He could run very fast but not for very long. He knew that typically, giving something back through running meant running a long way, which wasn't his strength. Cricket was his game, because cricket rewarded that warp speed running but also allowed a chance to recover.

And then he thought of the Pink Hat. Wherever he could, he would wear gear with a Pink theme. And that took some finding ! Eventually, he found the Pink Hat of legend. But why Pink ? Because of the Rose.

The Rose joined the boy's team quite late. She was part of another group who were added to the boy's team. She was perfect. She was tall but not stretched. She had an easy elegance and an understated beauty. She had a little smile that positively glowed. She was a genuinely nice, lovely person. And it was all taken from her by the ravages of breast cancer. Although the boy didn't let anyone see, he was devastated inside. How could someone so amazing be lost so young ?

And so he chose to wear Pink, not so much for raising funds. He didn't feel comfortable asking people for money. But definitely for awareness. Whenever anyone would mention the Pink Hat during or after a game, the boy would tell them about the Rose.

Sometimes there were tears. Sometimes the boy was combative in defending his Pink Hat. But everyone who saw it knew the reason for it. And so the boy achieved his objective of making people aware of that cruel illness and they took away a memory of that impossibly perfect Rose.

And it inspired the boy too. Whereas he would have acceded to the whims of a body which was struggling to run quicker than the wind, he continued to play. He only played 8 games that year but helped his teams to many wins, all in honour of the Rose.

The boy hasn't played much since that last year. But the boy, who struggles to show how sad he can be, was glad for a chance to show his feelings through the Pink Hat. And he's remembering now, the lady with the little smile framed by blonde hair typically drawn back in office friendly tails.

And that's what he'd like you to do. To remember. Remembering everybody who is lost is too much. However. Remember those close. We have all lost people like that. Remember them at their best. As I remember the Rose. As I remember my grandfather who was lost to prostate cancer. As I remember my nan.

Remember.

The End !

(back to blog mode)

Gosh writing that has awoken some feels. I can feel a tear or two choking up inside. But I can also remember that wonderful face of The Rose as she caught my Grin and answered with that little smile of her own. I think it made her feel welcome in the team her group had been parachuted into. They felt rather isolated at first having been mashed into one of the most integrated and tight knit teams around. I hope my Grins made things easier for them.

Remembering

(Quick note - I started this post talking about Olympics but ... read on - something else took over and I've saved the Olympics one for another day)

With my own cricket, I think I may have jinxed out the rest of the season after buying another helmet on Tuesday.

One thing I wanted to talk about actually, which I may leave for another post (nah - tears won) so I can do her justice - I've found the strange sensation of tears coming during games ... I'm quite an emotional chap but keep the emotions behind walls that are tough to break down. Yet, on a couple of occasions, I've felt a tear coming down my face during a game.

It's for a lady called Katherine (aka The Rose), who we lost to breast cancer in Spring. I didn't actually know her that well but I'm still remembering that smile that answered the big grin that usually accompanied me doing the Meerkat thing as people walked past my desk.

In the games, the tear would follow me explaining why I've been wearing the Pink Hat for as much of this summer as possible. In the last game, it was me telling one of the umpires (borrowed from the other team) what the Pink Hat was about. And good lad - he wore it. I'd switched to the helmet and had to hand over the hat because it was slipping down my trousers and protecting the back of my right knee.

In a sense, it's not just Remembering Katherine, it's remembering everyone else that we've lost whether that be due to illness, accident or in service. (I've seen what losing friends in service can do to people - help the survivors where you can, part of them died with those they lost)

I'm glad I had the idea to don the Pink Hat this summer. I'm also ... relieved that I didn't make a big thing out of collecting as :

The wetness has caused more than half the games to be cancelled
My own fitness stood up but my body rebelled with injuries
I'd have felt very uncomfortable pressurising people to contribute when they cannot afford to live for themselves
(Money's tight these days)

But I am very glad that I decided to don the Pink Hat for tribute. I hope it's raised awareness. Or at least that enough people know about Pink + Sport = Awareness to realise why I've been wearing it.

Despite how hard we try to, we cannot remember everyone we've lost over the years. I have a stunning memory (mostly for pictures, i.e. beautiful smiles) but cannot remember everyone I've lost.

So I started with just one. I remember Katherine.

And I'll close with that cos I can feel those tears coming again.

PS Just cos I didn't collect doesn't mean others won't appreciate it - click here if you'd like to make a contribution.

That hurt more than it should have done ...

4th game of the season tonight, despite the weather predictions :

That's one from Facebook that just had to get Yoinked :-)

Today's been the first dry day for a little while and despite a certain doomsayer (I know too much) saying : "It's sunny now but come 5pm ? Apocalypse Rain", we got the game on tonight.

We didn't do too well tonight. We batted first and lost wickets steadily. An early comedy moment involved our star batsman (not me) getting the strike stolen from him for several overs and when he finally got to face, his first ball ended up being hit on to a roof. 6 runs !

We scratched out 90 painful runs eventually. I didn't help, I think I only managed to get a couple due to not actually being on strike much when I was there, before falling lbw to a very straight one I tried to do too much with. That's the story of my batting at the moment - trying to do too much with the ball, not keeping it simple.

Defending 90 runs in the field is very tough in our cricket. It's feasible but only if you get early wickets backed up by good fielding.

I did earn another £5 for the Pink Hat bounty fund :-) As well as getting the Comedy moment for the game. (We'll ignore someone's bowling as that gets the Tortured Soul award)

Bowler comes in, batsman hits it around the corner. Straight ... at ... me ...

Cue the world going into slow motion as I'm peering through the gathering gloom, struggling to pick up the ball against the background. (I need new glasses as I've lost all confidence in my depth perception.) The ball hits my hands and I push it upwards. As I'm falling backwards, I grab the ball as it comes back down.

He's OUT !

Yep - comedy moment right there, at least I pushed the drop catch straight up so it was still in reach for the second attempt. Just one problem - I landed on the weakened right shoulder again and it's hurting a lot more than it should have done. Think I have real damage there and I'll have to break a habit and actually get it checked out.

There's another game tomorrow which I'm down to play in. I'll turn out if they need me, plus I'll be at the ground anyway because I have the team kit in my car.

Given up on me dinner (Chinese is very good for after cricket but there's a lot of it). Shower time after another Transvision Vamp track.

That catch earns another £5 for the Pink Hat bounty, which I'll add to a contribution to Thumper's next walk. Here's a link to her training blog. Thumper's next walk is going to be in San Francisco on 7-8 July (donations link) and I'll add my normal £5 contribution for things like this to anything more that comes from Pink Hat bounty before the 7th and 8th.

PS Not forgetting the Race For Life - click ! donate ! save lives !

Eve of the season ... again

I have a feeling that saying will rapidly gain legendary Deja Vu status :

It's the eve of the cricket season (for me at least). Oh, it was also the eve of the season on Wednesday last week too but that game was rained off. I suspect the three games this week haven't got much chance of happening too, due to all the rain that drought hit Britain is seeing at the moment.

(I had half an intention to head into Bristol centre to not buy anything again which I cancelled due to : huge threat of rain & not knowing if Globe Sports would be open - I'll go in on Friday pm if things work out)

But hey, if all things went well, I'd have three games of cricket this week to follow the cancelled game last week. I suspect the only one which has a chance of happening is the one tomorrow where we'd play on an artificial pitch. ("interesting" pitch, in a "wear a helmet or die" kind of way)

How am I set up for it ?

Well - A few weeks ago, a depression "inspired" post led to me abandoning the Pink Hat Project that I'd been talking about. And for good reasons too. I have a lot of my old speed and agility back but I don't know how long that's going to last. I have worsening RSI in my wrists that will affect fielding. I can't bowl any more. My leg, while 90% healed is not perfect yet. So I didn't want to lump so much pressure on me that I'd play no matter what (I would) and turn light damage into heavy damage by playing through injuries.

How am I doing really ?
Legs - duff hamstring but full power available. I don't talk about the infected leg thing from last year any more because while it hasn't completely healed yet, there's good tough skin there now and I think it could withstand me diving around.
Back - yeah, this will be what slows me down. However ! It also likes me to be moving around, such that running around a cricket field will actually keep it limber.
Shoulder - is knackered. Can't bowl any more. But that's not likely to be a huge problem if I keep to the infield, stay behind the stumps and Not Get Angry (If I make a mistake, I get very angry with myself and forget to keep throws to safe limits)
Hip - yeah, this still feels slightly torn but is another one I'll happily live with.

That's the thing about cricket - players will very often play with minor injuries. Sometimes they play on through fairly major injuries. Like players who are due for a hernia op on a Friday but play through the game Tuesday to Thursday. We'll play with broken fingers. I think I played through half a season with a cracked tibia.

Feeling quite good about this season actually. Because my old team didn't do pre season practice, I'd usually go into games with no clue as to how I'd get on in games. The new team had two limited sessions (not many people took advantage of them) where I learned :

To wear a helmet when standing up to the stumps as a wicket keeper (duh!)*
That my batting seems to have gone aggressive this year :-)
That I can keep standing up to the stumps to medium pacers :-)
Can't bowl (confirmation)

*(the cut has nearly completely healed now and the 'tache's days are numbered)

Hopefully we'll get a game on this week but I suspect the rain has already beaten them. I'll be shopping later in the week as I still want a couple of things :

Perhaps some wicket keeping gloves (the New Team gloves are maybe too big)
To feel out some inner gloves (never worn them, need to know + or -)
Seeing what facemask/grills are like
Grabbing some pink rubbers
(whoever raised an eyebrow there is a deviant - lol, perfectly innocent explanation)
And perhaps, perhaps ... a new bat.

Pink Hat Project is still a go by the way. But not in a Pay Per Game. That's just rewarding mediocrity, which I abhor. I'm also not too comfortable with collecting money off people, which is another Big Thing about why I've not gone ahead with setting up a Justgiving.com page. What I will do is set a bounty on the exceptional stuff :

25 runs = £2 donation
50 runs = £10 donation
Stumpings and run outs = £5 donation
Catches = £1 donation
(those may go up)

That might collect a decent amount from me. Anyone want to join me ? Send an email or leave a comment and I may well set up that Justgiving page anyway. The chosen charity will be the same one that the girls at work choose for a cake sale that's due this month.

Nets tonight

And even before they start, it feels like I've been beaten up again ...

I'm going to defer Pink Hat Project (or change what I'd do for it). And I'm very disappointed about that as it means I can't assure myself that I'd be able to throw myself into every game possible this year. Taking stock of the issues at the moment :

Leg - the infection that kept me out of cricket last year improved quite a bit. It's not been icky since about December. I think the infection is completely gone now but the leg is not yet healed and still flares up when I wear the wrong thing.

If I did launch Pink Hat Project as a season long thing, I couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't have to pull out mid season due to the leg becoming infected again.

General frailty - I carry a bunch of old injuries that like to remind me and slow me down. At the moment, it's the hip injury but I'm also getting flashes of pain from my upper body and lower back that I cannot relieve through stretching out. I have a finger that's decided it wants to tell me it's at broken+3weeks.

It sounds like general depression inspired whinging (I am in a depressive cycle right now) but I just don't have the confidence that I won't break down a few games into the season. Hence keeping in reserve the option to take a fortnight or so away from cricket if I need to. And I probably will need to at some point.

But ... I will still wear the Pink Hat at every opportunity in honour of a fallen colleague who passed away not 3 weeks ago now. I just won't do it as a massive thing that would put so much pressure on me I'd permanently break something through pushing myself to play when I'm already injured.

And thinking about it, I think a bounty will be in order if I do pass certain goals this season :
Score a 50 (never got one, should have done),
Get runouts or stumpings (wonderful if they happen, opportunities are rare)
Get 10 catches over the season (this is likely)
Or even less likely - get wickets (depends if I can/do bowl)

So instead of doing it on just turning up and being mediocre, having a bounty on doing something that's worth a reward. I like that better. I'm only expecting I have 1, maybe 2 (3 at absolute max) seasons left in me before I can no longer command a place in a team on merit and I've already lost one of the reasons for being in a team due to the bowling. Batting I'd be able to do at age 50 but if I don't have the speed in the field then that's the point where I can't justify being in a team.

Still - it seems like I'm writing off my chances and disappointing myself before even trying to see what I have available. I'll see how it goes at the practice tonight.

At the end of the day it's motivation. I need to appear strong for other people to give me the impulse to feel strong myself. Perhaps I need a cheerleader to tell me I can achieve stuff even when the depression makes me believe that I can't ? (Please let it be a cheerleader with intelligence!)

Pink Hat Project

This one feels as if it's getting more alive now.

The Pink Hat Project was an idea that first came up a couple of months ago now while chatting with one of my dearest friends over online chat. We had a colleague who touched our team a little while ago ... She was one of the mainstays of a small team that got absorbed into our larger team and always answered my big popup meerkat grin with a little smile of her own.

But ... she's also been touched by breast cancer over the last couple of years and although we've seen her occasionally feeling well enough to be able to come in, she's really struggled. So remembering her (aka The Rose) is part of my inspiration to be the focus for a charity effort instead of just the contributor.

Thumper is also an inspiration for this, the original Pink Hat Project idea was spawned after me thinking "Why can't I do that too ?"

There's a simple answer to that : In a year or two, I won't be able to. Although I don't look much older than when I was at uni, at 37 I can feel the advancing years catching up to me. I'd still be able to bat and impersonate a fielder but if I can't Run Real Fast, I don't think there'd be a point in continuing the cricket. I have to be in the team on merit or not at all. Hopefully losing weight will give me another few seasons, at least long enough to make it worth buying the gear I'm intending to pick up.

But ... most sporty charity stuff involves running a half marathon or something like that. I'm not built for that. I don't have any significant run-for-miles endurance but have very good recuperation powers. I'm built for short fast sprints and lots of them. Cricket is the perfect game for me. And cricket over a season is a marathon because it's a very easy game to get injured in and someone like me will be carrying injuries over several games, plus you do more running in the field than you'd expect.

So my sponsorship idea revolves around cricket. And that can get really complicated as (if the shoulder behaves) I can do everything on the cricket field :

Cash for runs as a batsman (I'll expect lots*)
Stumpings if I'm needed as a wicket keeper (these are rare)
Catches held (more as keeper)
Run outs caused (lolworthy if I'm batting!)
Wickets (unlikely to happen unless I can bowl more than just doosras)

* While I've held my catches and won games with my bowling, (6 wickets in a game once, 4 wickets several times) I've never scored a 50 with the bat. That's something I Want to do, it's unfinished business. I've also turned games with my fielding, keeping the runs down, getting key run outs or holding important catches. But while I've anchored sides to wins, I've never had that massive innings of my own.

Other performance sponsorship options are things like Cash per Game played. And I intend to play as much as my body lets me this summer. And then play anyway if I'm feeling slow. Oh, another reason for thinking about doing this is to give me some solid motivations to continue playing.

So there we have it :

Pink Hat Project = Sleepypete trying to get as much cricket in as possible, wearing as much pink gear as I can acquire. That's been a struggle :

Pink cap - acquired, although I'm uncomfortable about wearing England badged gear on the field. I haven't earned that right.
Pink floppy hat - only idea I have here is to get a red one and leave it outside to get sunbleached.
Pink keeping gloves - these exist ... but I'd need to know I'd be keeping wicket.
Pink bat grip - I can get one of these at Globe Sports and will do so when I know which bat I'll use this summer.
Pink helmet - think I'd be able to get a pink cover for mine ... more investigation needed.

That's the limit for pink stuff though. We play with red balls and in the evenings when the light starts becoming a factor, so pink outfit + red ball = tricky to see -> unhappy opposition.

As for the fund raising bit, I'll be looking at Justgiving.com. I've seen other people posting up links to Justgiving and a colleague did a similar sponsored cricket thing a couple of seasons ago, I think using Justgiving.

That's it for now - Pink Hat Project feels like it's getting closer to reality the more I show people the picture of the Pink Hat I got last Friday :-)