A member of the 'LAN' party

Matt, Gavin, his brother Tyson and I got together today for a all-to-rare-in-our-old-and-increasingly-so network/LAN party. Gavin was our gracious host for the occasion and things went smoothly enough for us to cram hours of games in. The setting was the garage at the newly purchased home of Gavin and Holly just up the hill from Ikea in Kent. We set our machines up in the spacious surroundings and prepped for the festivities by downloading patches and making sure everything was running smoothly. After a quick bout in Unreal Tournament 2004 we left to watch Gav fly his Zagi at the nearby Boeing model plane club field. Note to self: wear pants if joining Gavin on any further flights on this field -- the dried thistle really smarts! No thanks go to Matt for tickling my stalks with reeds of grass!

Timid from a crash this Thursday, Gavin wasn't so sure about the weather today. Large clouds hovered on the horizon and a slight but stiff breeze blew across the grass. Things grew a little calmer and he was able to launch for two flights and managed to get in a loop and a roll before calling it quits. Amid the wind Gav made a noble effort and regained some of his confidence especially after flying in adverse conditions.

Videos
Zagi Flight #1 (WMV, 7MB)
Zagi Flight #2 (WMV, 5MB)
If video doesn't play, right-click on video links and choose "Save link/target as" to save to your hard drive.

Then the games began. We ate some soup created/donated by Tyson and snacks purchased at a nearby Fred Meyer (saw a great Halloween gag hanging from the trunk of a parked car there) then proceeded to game until 2am. We played the first-person shooters, some Nintendo-esque side-scrolling action
titles, and a little 3D tank game with rubbery physics. Tyson's computer was rather chronic all evening when it came to playing Unreal and my machine seemed to be suffering from a bit of a studder but we made the most of it and enjoyed ourselves until we slept.

Comments (6) | To Top

10/25/2004 @ 10:26pm

By far the best LAN party I've been to. With a bit more prep and a bit less choking from Tyson's computer, we should be able to top it next time.

by Matt Turner

10/26/2004 @ 7:05am

I credit the good times to Tyson's fab soup. The bad... let's blame it on this Wednesday's impending lunar eclipse! Yeah! Cover your wells, flip over your spoons and turn off your computers -- the eclipse is coming!

(well and spoon reference: http://space.com/spacewatch/top10_eclipse_041026-6.html)

by KevinFreitas

10/26/2004 @ 6:23pm

I think this is the second time that you've posted videos in which I can't get them to play with a left-click. Windows Media Player fires up, but doesn't do anything. I know that you've posted a comment regarding this. I'm just curious as to what causes this to happen. Is it a MIME type issue for the web server?

by Matt Turner

10/26/2004 @ 6:59pm

Thanks for taking video of the Zagi in flight. A little bumpy up there but I love it against those dark clouds.
Everyone could use a good zagi.

by Gavin Jensen

10/26/2004 @ 7:00pm

http://zagi.com

by Gavin Jensen

10/26/2004 @ 7:44pm

Yeah, I set up what I thought was the proper MIME type on the server but it still doesn't appear to work all the time. Before I did any MIME stuff it was just kicking out screens full of text characters. Progress? Yes. Perfect? Well, no. I'll check in on it sometime soon.

by KevinFreitas