The Moorings

"Mister Cox," she said.

It always starts like that. Dog died, prostate cancer, no more copies of Steely Dan's Greatest Hits at the store, it's always "Mister Cox" when Mister Cox has bad news coming.

And it's not some heartless numbers game I've got on the phone. I'm trying to book a trip through The Moorings to The Bahamas. The Moorings is the big name in charter boating. You call them up when you want to rent (okay, charter) a boat in some beautiful place you're going to be flying to.

Bahamas, Virgin Islands, Tahiti, Greece, Baja, France, Croatia - they're everywhere, and their signature two-swipe "M" logo adorns practically every third boat in sighting distance in any place that's got enough water to get your toes wet.

And they're not all that exclusive - it's not like you need to know the Vanderbilts to get in; you just need a little cash...and, if you're like me, a guy who wants to be his own captain...a sailing resume.

Which is what Samantha and I are talking about right now. My sailing resume. "Yes sir," she'd said a little earlier. "We have sailing experts that go over your resume and..."

And. And they pick it apart. Hey, I understand, we're talking about me being in charge of several hundreds of thousands of dollars of boat here. Yeah, there's insurance, but there's nobody to cling to if it goes wrong. I'm asking for a lot, so I'd better have a lot to give. I think about what I can say for myself. These past one-and-a-half years have racing, chartering, teaching, a little bit of everything. But is it enough?

Enough. When the rubber meets the road. When what you've worked for meets the critical eye. When all your fancy ideas either make the cut, or they don't. The rewards for getting this right? I drown out a bit in the sweet imagined sounds of the surf. I'm going in March, hoping to see those blue waters and feel the anchor dig into sweet sands, under my command. No charter captain at $100 a day, just me and my crew.

"Drop the hook!" I hear myself say. Captain's call. My call. Rum for everyone. A steak dinner, straight from the ship's stern grill. Then, snorkel right up to the beach, dragging my waterproof bag full of beer...

"Mister Cox..." Back to reality. Oops, there goes gravity.

Ah, when the critical eye starts squinting, getting nitpicky...I strain to wonder at all the reasons there's going to be a problem. My mind thinks up all kinds of scenarios. We need to see your logbook. Were you really captain on that catamaran? You sailed ALL these boats? You've done almost 70 sails in a year in a half? We're just not sure you're all that good at anchoring out... Think fast, what's the name of those things that the dinghy sits on? Time's up...

"Mister Cox," she says with finality. The Queen of Doom has it in for me. I just know it. Here it comes, the end of my dream of sailing in The Bahamas...

"You are cleared by The Moorings to captain any of our boats. Any boat, any size, from any Moorings base anywhere in the world."

There's a moment, a heartbreak beat, as The Psychedelic Furs might say. And it feels like love. In my minds eye, I can hear the surf again. Clear and alive, breaking on a tiny little sandy spit somewhere.

And in that somewhere, right under that single palm tree, I'm there. Drinking a beer. Watching my boat bobbing in the waves at sunset, knowing there's no captain but me. Me, in control of my own adventure.

Captain Charles Cox is going to the Bahamas. He's cleared to sail there. He's cleared to sail anywhere.

Awesome. Let's go sailing.

Related Tags: sailing, cruising, bahamas, bareboat, charles cox, chartering

The Day of Caring, Digital Promise, and Microsoft

Some information on what I've been up to:

From http://seattle.gov/tech/brainstorm/#dp:

Annually, area volunteers and non-profits work with United Way to donate a full day to a worthy social cause on the "Day of Caring." This year on September 15, 17 volunteers from Microsoft and ITT Technical Institute’s Everett Campus teamed up with Digital Promise to visit computer learning centers in low income housing in Seattle and Eastside communities. The computer centers serve as gateways to the Internet and technology resources for underserved communities.

The volunteer effort accomplished a great deal. In addition to setting up three brand-new centers with 18 computers, the team performed maintenance and upgrades at four other centers. In all, 30 computers in seven centers were installed or upgraded during the day. The contribution wasn’t just in labor, however. The team brought in more than $5,000 in Microsoft software and equipment donated by the Washington State Housing Finance Commission. "We were very pleased with both the commitment of the volunteers and the welcome that we received at the centers," said Dawn Wood, Digital Promise president and Microsoft employee.

The project was a valuable experience for the techies, too. "Microsoft encourages its staff to give back to the community," noted Microsoft’s Charles Cox, who led the assembly of the Microsoft and ITT Technical Institute team. "We were delighted to participate actively in this project," stated Shelly Lisoskie, dean of Everett’s ITT Technical Institute. "Our students are encouraged to share their talents in their communities and this was a perfect opportunity for that to happen."

For more information on this project, contact Dawn Wood @ dawn.wood@microsoft.com.


Related Tags: volunteering, seattle, digital promise, charles cox, itt, microsoft, donations, non-profit, day of caring, united way

Why Defcon (The Game) Matters

It's normally a pretty safe bet to say the Xbox gang has got their radar up about the latest games. But when I got approached unawares one bright Thursday afternoon about Introversion's latest offering, it was like Lil' Jon had suddenly taken over my gaming circuits.

Brendan: "You picked up Defcon?"
Charles: "WHAUT?"
Brendan: "Defcon!"
Charles: "WHAUT?"
Brendan: "It's a game about nuclear warfare, dude!"
Charles: "YEAHS!"

Almost instantly (okay, I waited until Sunday), I snatched up the demo. Apparently, the Introversion guys got slammed by downloaders when the game went live and I was one of the lucky fashionably-late comers to the party who didn't even realize he was getting all the shit at the bottom of the mojito pitcher.

Well, I slotted this bad boy and WHAUT - sorry, what - did I find? A very interesting commentary on where PC games are headed.

At first glance (and you can judge for yourself by the screenshots), the game is bare. Not as bare perhaps as Uplink, their first game, but still sparse, even to the point of everything being lines. About the only thing filled in are the nuclear explosions - everything else is a spartan planescape of stoic national borders cris-crossed with ballistic trajectories and flight paths.

But - get this - they're glowy lines. Things glow. And pulse. And say "I'm urgent" in a subdued yet throbbing-pulse way that you can only squeeze out of a conical projection abstraction of the real world. Everything about this game is done not to connect with your guts about nuclear war, but with your head. Adding to the surreal presentation is the music, a bizzare Brian Eno-Music For Airports mix interspersed at intervals with the sound of a woman crying.

When you play this game, you can play it in real time. The object, of course, is to "win" nuclear war by nuking the enemy's cities while suppressing their own nuking capabilities. You can do so with bombers, nuclear submarines, and silo-launched ICBMs. Picking the pattern and form of your strikes to match and counter your opponents moves is the critical dance necessary to win the game. Of course, millions of imaginary citizens die. That's the point. But it strikes home especially hard when you set it to real-time and just watch.

The missiles move, arcing over the great circle just like Dr. Strangelove taught us, and in real-time they seem to linger in the corner of your mind, almost moving through another tick of motion, but in the next second stock still, poised on the edge of its arc. And yet, you know that in eight minutes, it'll be making nuclear jelly out of a city somewhere, and so you let it sit.

Sit and run. And be a part of your life. More than a game. An interactive display of art, a concept piece, a zeitgeist-spiele, a bloated exaggeration of a game we still play in bunkers too deep to bring reality TV, in real-time or in game time.

The makers advertise a "whole day" game that you can play in the office while you work. There is a running demo mode that I envision being an amazing screensaver for Media Center PCs, an ever-running simulation of the end of civilization.

When I play Defcon (and I'm not sure play is even the right word), I get a sense of urgency, of tension, of importance that adds to my cache of already-stressful tasks to accomplish - on top of all, add not letting the damn Commies nuke D.C. - as part of my daily life. Like a good workout for the body, Defcon is a sexy, semi-sadistic addition to the mental knife drawer, and perfect to add to your day if you've got a second computer to spare (hey, some of us do, alright?)

It's something I'll hope to see a lot more of; these sort-of-game-sort-of-art-sort-of-time-wasters that take only as much of your time and attention as you're willing to give, in the very best traditions of Five Minute Slices.

So, way to go, Introversion - I think you're leading the pack for the future of PC games. Let's get it mobile, let's get it on Media Center, let's get it playing on touchscreens and in airports (okay, maybe not airports, that'll freak a lot of moms out) and try to remember that we're human, that we're absurd, that we could, every once in a while, use a trip to the bunker.

Related Tags: charles cox, defcon, introversion, five minute slices, pc games, computer games, strategy games, nuclear war