'Granola Geekdom' (at it's finest?)

o/

One thing that's been kinda interesting here of late at the FLGS is that we're being studied. Taylor, who is a friend of Screech (and by this point, the rest of us) is taking an anthropology class at ETSU and is doing an ethnology-anthropological (or something like that) study on sub cultures. In doing so, she decided on the local warhammer geek culture (her fiance plays 40k which is what spawned the idea).  As such she hangs around, making observations and scribbling notes, interviewing us on our thoughts on the subject and what not. Its all kinda neat really.

Anyways, when doing interviews the weekend before last, as I was going to retrieve some orks (whose trukk had just been blown up by their own looted wagon) that were on a nearby table to where she was interviewing Neverness (periodically I'd pass by & heckle him, and he was all too happy to reciprocate during my interview). I heard my name mentioned and inquired about what they were talking about. He said they were discussing how 'granola' I was. lol, what? Later when I was being interviewed, she asked about the geek lifestyle and its stereotypes and I connected the dots.

The stereotype as we all know is that we're all socially awkward virgins, who shun women (thru our social ineptitude), and daylight and live in our mom's basement, etc. On her first visit Screech and I even went into the 'there's a girl in the game shop, panic!!!' type of theatrics which she found both amusing and alarming.  Basically though, we were discussing the varied lifestyles of our group and how we all still connect via 40k.

The 'granola' label has kinda amused me these past two weeks and so I thought I'd do a recap of this past weekend to see if it really fits. Here goes:

Friday Night:

Something I worked up on my break at work.

We met up at Neverness' place to make our new characters for his next Dark Heresy campaign. This is the first time we've gotten together to play DH since late last spring, and are looking forward to it. This will be an Adeptus Arbitrator campaign, and for 'inspriation' I brought donuts. No proper arbitrator can execute (key word there) Imperial justice without some good donuts!

Donuts, the anti-granola? lol!

Saturday morning:

Checking up on my afk corp mates...

After staying up too late at Neverness', I managed to sleep in till 9am, which is pretty late for me. I've taken it as a sign of progressing into middle age that I can rarely, if ever sleep in anymore. Sleeping in till noon or later is a thing of the past. Most saturday mornings I wake up at about 7:30. ...sigh...

After getting up, I then puttered around the house while playing eve online (semi-afk as usual). I  made adjustments to my pack, filled it up, etc. ate lunch, and then went out to 'play in the woods' for a while.

Saturday Afternoon:

I'm going on a 3-day backpacking trip on the Appalachian trail the end of this month. I haven't gone backpacking in close to a decade, so I've been prepping for that. We're not going to be pushing real hard or anything in an attempt to go too far (a common mistake made by novice backpackers). My Mom and her BF are going as well. He and his buddies have hiked from the AT's starting point in GA to where we're starting our trip on (where the AT crosses I-40). Mom's BF and his hiking friends were pushing too hard earlier this year and he hurt his leg in the process, and had to bail at that point by hobbling out to the road for an evac. This trip will be for him to make up the distance from where his friends had continued on without him.

My hike covered about three miles. The first half mile was rather steep and that trail was chosen for just that purpose. After climbing up to the ridge top, I went about 2 miles heading out about a mile (according to the trail markers) before turning around and heading back.  I then hiked back down again via another, not quite as steep trail. All told I was out there for about 2 hours, with a 28lb pack (basically everything I'll have on my trip, minus my food supply). It was a good microcosm of the trip, and there were no breaking clips or anything as happened on my first test run a month or so ago.

The 'granola' part of my weekend, lol.

Saturday night:

I came home, unloaded, showered, loaded up my toys, and met up with Murl, RTVoril and Kushial for dinner (celebrating RTVoril's birthday a little early), and then onto the FLGS where my dice said 'fuck you buddy'. There I spent a game vs. Kushial rolling a statistically impossible number of 1s and 2s all game. The only silver lining to that was in turns 2-4 the Doom of Malan'tai only killed 4 chaos cultists. I also acquired some Tau from RTVoril, plus he donated some more to the cause in starting up an army for my GF for her birthday (which is also a bit early, but I'll be backpacking when that rolls around, so now is as good a time as any).

This pic was from last week's defeat vs. Bob's Dark Angels, where at least the dice were cooperating with me...

Sunday:

More eve online in the morning (I don't watch TV, so eve has replaced that), and after lunch i went to my grandparents' house for the afternoon. I did paint a bit more on Elector Stoutfart, but not enough to warrant anymore photos at this point.

So there you have it, my weekend recap. I suppose that does qualify me as a 'Granola Geek' (despite the donuts). This evening, my GF is coming over and we're going on a dinner picnic followed (or possibly preceded) by either a short hike, or a short canoe trip out on one of the local lakes. We've yet to decide, but it'll be fun regardless I'm sure.