Shore Leave

I'm a member of Toastmasters. Every now and again I give a Harpoon-related speech. This speech on Sonar Plotting I gave two weeks ago, winning our club's Spring contest (without the PowerPoint presentation, used a whiteboard). Tuesday I'll give it again at the next level competition (with PowerPoint). Thought you might all be interested. Yes, I realize the content is very simplified, the audience may have no interest in such a topic so I make a real attempt to keep it light and relateable. Feel free to comment as usual! 20150226 Speech - Sonar Plotting.doc Sonar Plotting.ppt

Perhaps of interest: http://harveyblackauthor.org/tag/blue-steel-missile/

Reading the Wikipedia entry, probably a great Hayao Miyazaki film (his last animé before retiring) about a semi-fictional biography of Jiro Horikoshi, the Mitsubishi A6M Seke/Zero designer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Rises

The folks that run NAVCON have announced their 2014 dates, October 3, 4, 5! Here is their web site: http://www.navcongames.com Here is the previous HG post: http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?/topic/22045-navcon-2013/ I would love to make this a gathering of us naval war gamers. Digital and Paper Harpooning to be had for sure. Who is interested? What would make you interested if you aren't already? If there is a fair bit of interest we'll start brainstorming how to make this possible and what extra activities to arrange. Maybe a trip to my homeland of Minnesota or an excursion down to Chicago? Thank you for your consideration.

The Best Handgun Ever Stopped Attackers Cold The 1911 .. its must have.

A comic about Soviet submarine service from the 1970s. Humor Northern Submarine Fleet

Here is a photo of the first pontoon boat my grandpa made. He always said the pontoons were missile canisters from Ft. Snelling here in MN and given the looks of the pontoons...

Airing right now on PBS: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052151/?ref_=nv_sr_1 I make it a point to never miss it whenit's on.

My best season Greetings for all the Old Pooners community, and also the new Commanders??? community!!!

Just a thought... Command is very similar to Harpoon and it has the same level of quality--excellent information, realism, gameplay, etc. I think it is going to be a very important part of the naval simulation world for some time to come. Maybe it would make sense to "adopt" Command and make Harpgamer a clearinghouse for information about it, too, including forums for discussing it, and a repository for files, scenarios, etc. I'm not sure how hard it would be to add a new set of sub-forms forums for Command to the site, but this seems to me like a natural direction for Harpgamer to take. Any thoughts on this? Mark

And in the context of the Tom Clancy death. For me is particularly important, great part of my formation from my very early years came from "Popular Mechanics/Mecánica Popular edición Caribe", perhaps my father was one of 50 Spaniards or so purchasing the magazine those years; http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/weapons/tom-clancys-legacy-the-military-entertainment-complex-15995880?click=pm_news

With much regre I head of the death of Tom Clancy tonight. Reading The Hunt for Red October was one of the things that got me into Harpooon to begin with. RIP Tom, Buddha

Is anyone going to NAVCON this year? http://www.navcongames.com/ We're going to try to organize a meet there in 2014. The organizers and H4 Paper game master were easy to contact and have patiently answered my questions while giving me crap for being excited about a convention over a year away. If you aren't going this year, reserve your early October 2014 to come and enjoy watching or participating in some paper Harpoon as well as meet some of the faces behind forum posts.

Navy Yard Shootings: Are We Seeking the Right Answers? (Defense Media Network)

HarpGamer was founded early in 2005 by four of us Harpooners on $4/month hosting using commercial forum software. The hosting and software costs were split between the four of us equally. Labor costs for backups have been shouldered by my company and in the last few years in part by those of us still contributing financially. The number of financial contributors has decreased to two since 2005. Our current service costs are US $265 per year and we expect that to increase as our forum continues to grow and require more processing power and more sophisticated backup schemes. That number does not include reasonable renumeration for the labor to execute backups and si…

HarpGamer is saddened to learn of the passing of long time Harpoon community member Saul H. Jacobs, age 76. His bio below, cross posted from Dr. Who's Harpoon Pages, from January 2003, will give newer folks some idea of the depth of this community and the excellent contribution of members like him: RIP Saul.

Cold war, spooks, Sci-Fi and Lovecraftiana in a little instant classic, including the hypothetical nuclear-powered B-39 Peacemaker, in service 1955?-1985?, launcher of XK-Pluto: http://www.merkle.com/pluto/pluto.html http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm

A book review for Larry's new novel "Shattered Trident", released today. Fresh Meat: Shattered Trident by Larry Bond, a review by Kate Lincoln

Just wonderin for the super-long-term dreaming of branching out.

Thought I'd set up this thread for one reason - episode 3 of the current run is set on a Soviet submarine (I don't know the type ATM) in 1983.