The horror continues for those attempting to salvage their lives following the major flooding of the downtown Cedar Rapids area. My good friends, Dave and Heather Atwater, have been working their collective butts off trying to do just that. While me and my kids are here in Iowa City, safe and sound, several of my friends have been trudging through the muck. It’s difficult to fathom the monetary damage done by the latest bout of flooding. Even though I can drive through downtown Cedar Rapids along I-380 and barely make out what has been damaged, my com padre’s in the surrounding downtown area tell a different story. My only hope is that Dave (aka Agent Danuuc), Heather, Jenny and Bob can come through all of this OK. I may be asking a lot, but it sure would be nice for people who certainly don’t deserve this kind of hassle.

It must have been a freak of nature or a massive aligning of the planets that allowed my University of Iowa Spring Break to coincide with my kids school break. But nevertheless, it did happen and my kids and I were allowed a weeks worth of chilling around my parents house for seven days.

As usual, it was a fairly relaxed week in Van Horne. This was a particularly different Spring Break, as we were getting accustomed to the new life my Mom and step-father, Larry, are getting used to themselves following Mom’s release from the University of Iowa Hospitals.

Haley did what she does best: bake. Not only did she mix together a wonderful pan of brownies, but she slapped together a batch of chocolate chip cookies that barely made it through the night without being entirely consumed. I spent a considerable amount of time in front of my PowerBook G4 laptop; programming a Java-based peer-2-peer Chord network simulator. What? Yeah. I’m a geek. Ask me about it later.

The week ended with the kids and I hooking up with the gaming friends (including Brian and Danuuc) of mine at Gamerz in Cedar Rapids. As has been typical since last October, the night was spent fragging our beloved friends in an all-out competition of Battlefield 2. I’m not sure why we like this particular game so much. Perhaps, it’s the right mix of pace and patience. It’s not the ‘twitch’ game that Unreal Tournament is, and not as mind-numbing as multi-player Quake 3 can be.

Jared held his own, switching teams more often than I switch subjects in the middle of a sentence. Well, that’s an overstatement. As the night wore to a close, both Jared and Haley teamed up with me against a more experienced three-person team. We did just fine as far as I am concerned. Apparently, my daughter is a veteran of Gears of War, so her ‘Medic’ persona worked well with my ‘Support’ and Jared’s ‘Sniper’ perfection.

Now if I can only get a job that pays well enough to fortify a basement full of gaming PC consoles.

We can only hope.

I had been looking forward to Dave’s Bachelor Party for over a month when it was announced that we would be spending the night at GAMERZ in Cedar Rapids, instead of the typical night at a strip-club. I, for one, was quite enthusiastic about spending an evening playing multi-player games with a group of fellow geeks. Come on! What could be more fun than a room full of 30 and 40-year-olds screaming at each other,”Who shot me?”, “No, OVER THERE!”, “Turn LEFT!”, “NO! Your OTHER left!”

I haven’t had that much fun since… I don’t know when. No. Wait. Perhaps Abe’s last Halloween Party when Angie performed… hmmmm ….back to the story. Ahem. Most of the night was spent playing Battlefield 2. Fortunately, most the wedding party hadn’t played in quite some time, so the playing field was rather even. The first few hours were spent killing ourselves in numerous (yet hilarious) fashions. Agent Butters walked out the door of a perfectly good helicopter, while I accidentally ejected myself from the cockpit of a MIG-29. The words “Pull ripcord” flashed across the screen as I frantically bashed every button on the keyboard yelling, “Which one?!”. As I plummeted to my digital death, I watched as my jet sailed beautifully into the 3D rendered skies. I’m sure the view from there was spectacular.

I was playing as Corporal in China’s Army, equipped with an anti-tank weapon. Which, I must add, is a nice piece of artillery. When I “re-spawned” back at the base, I noticed that one of the cargo helicopters was tilted on its side; held up at an angle by the twin blades mounted on the top. “Who can’t fly a cargo chopper?”, I yelled over my shoulder. “Oh, you saw that.”, yelled Ryan from behind me. “I think that’s Brian’s fault”, he continued. “Don’t blame me!”, screamed Butters. “I told you I didn’t know what I was doing. Now, hustle your Asian ass over here and shoot somebody!”

The evening continued with couple of games of HALO and some UnReal Tournament 2004. UnReal Tournament is a ‘twitch’ game as far as I am concerned. It’s really pretty to watch, but the game-play is so fast, there isn’t any time for any coordinated gaming. It’s just a free-for-all as everyone jumps and shoots everything in sight.

Somebody mentioned that we should get together and play again as a group. For an evening of fun at an incredibly low price. I can’t argue with that. It was cheaper than a strip-club or going to a bar. I’ve seen bar-tabs four times that much with only half the fun we had at GAMERZ. Sign me up. I want to fragg Danuuc a few more times with a sniper-rifle.

Oddly enough, I am posting this for my own good. Apparently, I am the only person who reads my blog.

WHEN: 6pm (be there 10 minutes prior to start).
DRESS: Casual.
WHERE: St. Pius X Church, 4949 Council Street NE, Cedar Rapids, IA

FOOD: Dinner to follow rehearsal at the Marriott (down the block, across the street)
WHERE: 1200 Collins Road NE (in the ‘Cedar Rapids Room’)

Just got back from Tipton, where Comics In Action performed a private show for the Cedar County Stoplight Players at the Cedar Valley Golf Course. Agent Rutabega gave a press conference as Abraham Lincoln (sorry about the ‘cardigan’ and ‘shawl’ reference – too obscure). Agent Butters and Agent Spoon successfully prevented a hurried Agent Danuuc from getting through security at the airport during a game of ‘Cards’. One my favorites was watching Agent Danuuc shop for a minivan to shuttle his team of trained circus goats.

As usual, the audience was fantastic. I hope that we can perform for them again. Actually, this was the second time we’ve performed for them. The first was a couple of years ago, where Agent Satyrboy (Abe Peterka), Scott D, Agent Danuuc and myself piled into Abe’s car and got lost. We did, however, get there just in time to perform. Who knew that Tipton was so far away from Cedar Rapids. I mean, it’s what… a couple of inches away on the map?

Somehow, Todd got his car stuck in the mud on a B-Grade road just a few miles from the golf course. I don’t know how those guys got his car un-stuck. You should have seen the mud they tracked into the building when they finally arrived. As luck would have it, Todd just had the car painted. I hope he can get it washed to a point that Tracy won’t notice.