Health and Fitness – One month in

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It’s been one month since I first posted about making some changes, and things have been going well. I’m going for a two kilometer walk each weekday at lunch, and for the last two weeks I’ve added in a one kilometer morning walk to the coffee shop. My wife has started working from home, so instead of doing the drive thru on the way to dropping her off at work, we walk over to get our coffee and tea.

The focus of this plan isn’t specifically weight loss, but it’s easy to measure and is hopefully a beneficial side effect. My scale went weird for a few days, according to it, I dropped almost six pounds over night and then suddenly gained it back a few days later. I’m sure that didn’t actually happen but I’ve left those numbers in for now. I’ve dropped a little, about five pounds. I’ve gone from being around 255 lbs to being a little under 248 lbs.

What is really interesting is the Percent Body Fat numbers which dropped significantly on September 20th and seems to be staying low.

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Health and Fitness Adjustments – Getting Started

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About ten years ago I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. It came with the fairly common companions of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and obesity. I’m still on medication for all of those and haven’t had much success in dealing with them, although I haven’t gained weight in that time, I’ve stayed fairly consistently in the 255 lb range, occasionally get up near 270 and occasionally getting down as low as 240. Here is what my weight looked like since Jan 2012.

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STA Mission Report 12 – A Forest Apart pt 2

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Adventure Source: A Forest Apart – Published Adventure

Meetup Link: https://www.meetup.com/Star-Trek-Gaming/events/272008003/

Game Date: August 8 2020

Session Post: No Session Post

Teaser: On the frontier of Federation space, the Player Characters encounter a vessel of unknown origin: a forested geodesic dome. The damaged craft appears to be well over 1,000 years old and foreign to the Milky Way Galaxy. It does not respond to hails and no intelligent life readings are detected.

Active Characters:

  • Cmd. O’Nnyah (Raven) (Away Team)
  • Cmd. Xedrik (Trevor) (Away Team)
  • Lt. Cmd. Sivath (Garrett)
  • Lt. Cmd. Reittan Andreas (Jon) (Away Team)
  • Lt Cmd. Taemin Rahn (Garrett) (Away Team)
  • Lt. Asha (Jaime) (Away Team)
  • Lt. Kirkuurzhaav th’Zoarhi (Trevor)
  • Lt. Cmd. Sivath (Garrett)
  • Lt. Oqwadel (Raven)
  • Chief Petty Officer Winston Emmet (Kelly) (Away Team)
  • Chief Petty Officer Dallas Brenner (Jon)

Important NPCs:

  • Captain T’Kor – The Interface
  • Ckcclwlttc – A member of the insectiod race, the Jahan !Xu

Notable Information: The Forest ship comes from a planet where millennium ago two astronauts crash landed. One astronaut died but the other merged with the newly sentient trees to become the First Tree.

As the sun of their home system started to die, the trees build the Forest ship and sent a colony of trees out into the stars to find they promised land, the astronaut’s home, Albali Prime.

Albali Prime has reverted to medieval level of civilization and are a very peaceful people. It seems that at some point in their past they were much more advanced but suffered some sort of catastrophe and nearly destroyed themselves.

The Trees land on Albali Prime and are accepted by the inhabitants, thanks to the story telling preparation from Lt. Asha and the work of the rest of the Kimura Away Team.

The Jahan !xu are cured of their addiction to the Tree’s sap, and their neurodegenerative disease, and a new home is found for them in a nearby asteroid belt.

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STA Mission Report 11 – A Forest Apart pt 1

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Adventure Source: A Forest Apart – Published Adventure

Meetup Link: https://www.meetup.com/Star-Trek-Gaming/events/271356987/

Game Date: July 12 2020

Session Post: No Session Post

Teaser: On the frontier of Federation space, the Player Characters encounter a vessel of unknown origin: a forested geodesic dome. The damaged craft appears to be well over 1,000 years old and foreign to the Milky Way Galaxy. It does not respond to hails and no intelligent life readings are detected.

Active Characters:

  • Captain T’Kor (Terry) (Away Team)
  • Cmd. O’Nnyah (Raven) (Away Team)
  • Cmd. Xedrik (Trevor) (Away Team)
  • Lt. Cmd. Sivath (Garrett)
  • Lt. Cmd. Reittan Andreas (Jon) (Away Team)
  • Lt Cmd. Taemin Rahn (Garrett) (Away Team)
  • Lt. Kirkuurzhaav th’Zoarhi (Trevor)
  • Lt. Cmd. Sivath (Garrett)
  • Lt. Oqwadel (Raven)
  • Chief Petty Officer Winston Emmet (Kelly) (Away Team)
  • Chief Petty Officer Dallas Brenner (Jon)
  • Ensign Wolfgang Ratzel (Terry)

Important NPCs:

  • Ckcclwlttc – A member of the insectiod race, the Jahan !Xu

Notable Information: The domed ship is made of organic material. The tress on the ship are dying because they are losing sap from holes made by wood-poring creatures. These creatures small sentient insectiods call the Jahan !Xu which exist in hyper-accelerated time, making them invisible. They suffer from a neurodegenerative disease that has nearly wiped out their species. Only the sap of the ancient trees, to which they are addicted, slows the progress.

Dr. O’Nnyah and the crew of the Kimura, working with one of the Jahan !Xu have developed a treatment for the addiction but need additional test subjects to develop a full on cure. An away team has beamed over to the ship to try and establish communication with the ship and with the other Jahan !Xu.

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STA Mission Report 10 – Orbital Decay Part 2

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Adventure Source: GURPS TransHuman Space – Orbital Decay (heavily modified)

Meetup Link: https://www.meetup.com/Star-Trek-Gaming/events/270733854/

Game Date: Jun 14 2020

Session Post: No Session Post

Teaser: Ninety minutes into their mission to investigate a malfunctioning Romulan Space Station in the Shackleton Expanse, the Kimura detects a small cloaked vessel about to ram them. Some fancy maneuvering by the helmsman causes the small ship to miss the Kimura, but it then slams into the space station.

A few minutes later, as the crew of the Kimura is recovering from the drastic maneuvering, the Security Chief receives a call from near the Med Lab. “Send help! It’s alive and …”. The communication is cut off.

Is the Away Team still alive? What has happened in the Med Lab?

Active Characters:

  • Cmd. O’Nnyah (Raven) (Away Team)
  • Ensign Wolfgang Ratzel (Terry) (Away Team)
  • Lt. Kirkuurzhaav th’Zoarhi (Trevor)
  • Lt. Cmd. Sivath (Garrett)
  • Lt. Cmd. Reittan Andreas (Jon)
  • Captain T’Kor (Terry)
  • Lt. Oqwadel (Raven)
  • Chief Petty Officer Dallas Brenner (Jon) (Away Team)
  • Cmd. Xedrik (Trevor) (Away Team)
  • Lt Cmd. Taemin Rahn (Garrett) (Away Team)

Important NPCs:

  • None

Notable Information: The supposedly dead Romulan that had been retrieved from space turns out to be much livelier than expected.

Two additional infected Romulans are retrieved after being blown out into space from the collision of the small ship with the station.

The away team survived the collision, being in an adjacent section of the station. The pressure doors successfully close and seal off the damaged area.

The Away Team discovers that there were three different weaponized viruses being developed on the station and somehow all three got loose and infected the crew.

The collision knocked the station into a decaying orbit which would cause it to plunge into the atmosphere in several hours and likely burn up. There was a chance that some portions might survive reentry and infect the planet so the crew assisted the process by exploding the fusion reactor and using the tractor beam to ensure all large pieces would have a reentry path that would guarantee burn up.

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STA Mission Report 09 – Orbital Decay Part 1

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Adventure Source: GURPS TransHuman Space – Orbital Decay (heavily modified)

Meetup Link: https://www.meetup.com/Star-Trek-Gaming/events/270489788/

Game Date: May 17 2020

Session Post: No Session Post

Teaser: While conducting a stellar and planetary survey mission to a remote part of the Shackleton Expanse near Sigma Librae and the Romulan Star Empire and encrypted signal is picked up emanating from a near by solar system. Sensors sporadically pick up what seems to be a space station orbiting a Class-M planet. The station seems to be blinking in and out of existence and the signal is not repeated.

Active Characters:

  • Cmd. O’Nnyah (Raven) (Away Team)
  • Ensign Wolfgang Ratzel (Terry) (Away Team)
  • Lt. Kirkuurzhaav th’Zoarhi (Trevor)
  • Lt. Cmd. Sivath (Garrett)
  • Lt. Cmd. Reittan Andreas (Jon)
  • Captain T’Kor (Terry)
  • Lt. Oqwadel (Raven)
  • Chief Petty Officer Dallas Brenner (Jon) (Away Team)
  • Cmd. Xedrik (Trevor) (Away Team)
  • Lt Cmd. Taemin Rahn (Garrett) (Away Team)

Important NPCs

  • Cmd. Natalie Sigmund, Star Fleet Intelligence (off screen, message only)

Notable Information: A short burst message from Cmd. Natalie Sigmund was sent, requesting the Kimura make a course alteration to a nearby “system of interest”.

Scans of the system show a class M planet with life forms up to the primate level, but no civilizations. An object briefly appears every fifteen minutes for a few seconds at a time, this is determined to be an old Romulan Space Station that is cloaked except the central core gets exposed when an encoded message is sent every 15 minutes.

A Romulan body in a EVA suit is recovered, a Romulan. It is infected with a virus very similar to the one that caused the plague in the B’el’th paH star system several months previous. That was when the crew of the Kimura first met Natalie Sigmund. An unknown second virus is also detected in the Romulan’s body. The corpse is left in the EVA suit in a stasis field and moved to Med Lab 2.

The crew figures they may have as little as two hours before a Romulan Warbird could show up, so an away team is sent to the Space Station.

The Station seems to be unoccupied except for several diseased rats, and a diseased primate which attacks the crew when caught between two groups of crew members. The Away team finds the Operations Centre and downloads the encrypted Communications logs.

At the same time, about 90 minutes since the Away Team left, Lt. Zhaav, who had been continually scanning for cloaked vessels, picks up a cloaked small craft, about twice the size of a Runabout, about to ram the Kimura.

Some fancy last second maneuvering by Zhaav causes the small ship to miss the Kimura, but it then slams into the space station.

A few minutes later, as the crew of the Kimura is recovering from the drastic maneuvering, the Security Chief receives a call from near the Med Lab. “Send help! It’s alive and …”. The communication cuts out.

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STA Mission Report 08 – The Wandering Child

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Adventure Source: Prime Adventures 1 (adapted)

Meetup Link: https://www.meetup.com/Star-Trek-Gaming/events/269714311/

Game Date: April 19 2020

Session Post: https://www.ob1knorrb.com/sta-episode-7-the-wandering-child/

Teaser: An automated distress call from a cargo ship called “The Wandering Child” is picked up near where the Borg Cube recently entered a transwarp corridor. No further communication is received from the ship.

An initial scan shows that “The Wandering Child” appears to be operating normally, moving at a slow but steady pace from the direction of Klingon space towards an Andorian colony in the Shackleton Expanse.

Active Characters:

  • Cmd O’Nnyah (Raven)
  • Lt. Cmd. Taemin Rahn (Garrett)
  • Lt. Cmd. Reittan Andreas (Jon)
  • Ensign Wolfgang Ratzel (Terry)
  • Lt. Cmd. Rowan Tonelli (Jaime)
  • Cmd. Xedrik (Trevor)

Important NPCs:

  • Siren Bugs

Notable Information: Opening a transwarp conduit in the areas of electromagnetic storms in the Shackleton Expanse can cause rifts to other dimensions.

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STA Mission Report 07 – Great Balls of Borg

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Adventure Source: Homebrew by Brent

Meetup Link: https://www.meetup.com/Star-Trek-Gaming/events/266187461/

Game Date: March 8 2020

Session Post: https://www.ob1knorrb.com/sta-episode-6-big-balls-of-borg/

Teaser: A Borg Sphere has been detected in the Shackleton Expanse. However, it seems to be inactive. The Kimura is sent to investigate. Why are the Borg inactive? What are they waiting for? Will they stay that way?

Active Characters:

  • Cmd. O’Nnyah (Raven)
  • Ensign Wolfgang Ratzel (Terry) (Away Team)
  • Lt. Cmd. Rowan Tonelli (Jaime) (Away Team)
  • Lt. Cmd. Tu’Pari (Nick) (Away Team)
  • Lt. Asha (Jaime)
  • Lt. Kirkuurzhaav th’Zoarhi (Trevor)
  • Lt. Cmd. Sivath (Garrett)
  • Captain T’Kor (Terry)
  • Lt. Oqwadel (Raven) (Away Team)
  • Cmd. Xedrik (Trevor) (Away Team)
  • Lt Cmd. Taemin Rahn (Garrett) (Away Team)

Important NPCs:

  • None

Notable Information: The defense system on the planet, which wiped out all life forms on Borg cube is similar in technology to what was found on Orgun III. A Romulan Warbird was also hit by the defense system and drifted out of the system. It was not one of the Romulan ships encountered and it’s fate remains unknown. A Romulan Tug was captured by the crew of the Kimura.

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STA Mission Report 06 – Convoy SE-119

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Adventure Source: Living Campaign Adventure 04

Meetup Link: https://www.meetup.com/Star-Trek-Gaming/events/266187417/

Game Date: February 9 2020

Session Post: https://www.ob1knorrb.com/sta-episode-5-convoy-se-119/

Teaser: The Kimura must escort a convoy of merchant vessels carrying supplies from Narendra Station to a small research outpost deep within the Shackleton Expanse. Because the exploration of the Expanse is a joint concern between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, the Kimura is supported by a Klingon cruiser, the K’Vort-class bird-of-prey I.K.S. Mupwl’ (Hammer), under the command of Captain Akul.

Active Characters:

  • Cmd. O’Nnyah (Raven)
  • Ensign Wolfgang Ratzel (Terry)
  • Lt. Kirkuurzhaav th’Zoarhi (Trevor)
  • Lt. Cmd. Rowan Tonelli (Jaime)
  • Lt. Cmd. Sivath (Garrett)
  • Lt. Cmd. Reittan Andreas (Jon)
  • Lt. Cmd. Tu’Pari (Nick)

Important NPCs:

  • Captain Akul – Commander of I.K.S. Mupwl’
  • Cmd. Natalie Sigmund, Star Fleet Intelligence (off screen, message only)

Notable Information: The electromagnetic eddies in the region are actually components of a much larger insterstellar cloud spanning part of this sector of the Shackleton Expanse. In addition, an analysis of eddy drift patterns suggests that some of the eddies are not naturally occurring.

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STA Mission Report 05 – Fading Suns

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Adventure Source: Living Campaign Adventure 03

Meetup Link: https://www.meetup.com/Star-Trek-Gaming/events/266187381/

Game Date: January 19 2020

Session Post: https://www.ob1knorrb.com/sta-episode-4-fading-sun/

Teaser: The Kimura is delivering scientific equipment to Epsilon 19, a scientific research station in the Osarin system, deep in the Shackleton Expanse. The star of the Osarin system is collapsing at an unusual rate and is mysteriously emitting triolic waves of increasing strength. Epsilon 19 was constructed to monitor the star and determine the reason for its rapid decay, as well as find the source of the triolic radiation.

Active Characters:

  • Captain T’Kor (Terry)
  • Lt. Asha (Jaime)
  • Lt. Oqwadel (Raven)
  • Chief Petty Officer Dallas Brenner (Jon)
  • Cmd. Xedrik (Trevor)
  • Lt Cmd. Taemin Rahn (Garrett)

Important NPCs:

  • Commander Erich Johansson – Commander of Epsilon 19
  • Lenana Mosa – Head Scientist on Epsilon 19
  • Captain Paja Tajenko – Orion trader captain

Notable Information: The Osarin system is inhabited by cosmozoan life-forms that live on the sun’s surface, consuming vast quantities of energy from it, emitting triolic waves as part of the process. They are spawning and the young are heading out into deep space, probably in search of stars of their own.

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