I'm sorry...

Ok first off this post is meant to help, honest. It is advice, but it's going to sound bitchy well cause it is a little.

People, quit saying you are sorry for not posting in x days or x weeks. No one cares. You aren't helping your image by starting every 1st, 2nd or 3rd post with "sorry". One of the more amusing facts is that it is those people who don't post often that say sorry most often. Don't be sorry, that's just how often you post. If you keep saying sorry, you really begin to sound like you didn't want to blog anyway but felt obligated. Just post and say what you want, and be done. If you and me and the rest of us are lucky well hear from you again soon. If not it's no big deal...honest.

Saying sorry all the time is a negative connotation and you are literally pointing out the problem for all to see. Ex. Sorry my resume is wrinkled. Sorry I am late, sorry I ate the last piece of salami, sorry i look like shit, sorry all i have is cheap ass wine and only a rusty corkscrew to open it, sorry genie I can't wish you free.

For all that is holy and unholy, please stop saying you are sorry.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone, so deal with any mispelling, grammatical errors or strangly out of place words caused by mis-autocorrection.

Arnon and Peccanouette

It's been a long time since I had been to Arnon. However; in the course of the mineral market taking a downward swing, my bid to buy minerals in Essense region reached Arnon and the surrounding systems in the constellation Peccanouette. I flew over there in my freighter to pick up the massive amounts of minerals that quickly accumulated. I was amazed at how much the place has grown since the days I built up the mineral market there.

When I began my career as a miner I lived in the Peccanouette constellation mining plagioclase, omber, scordite and veldspar, but mostly plagioclase. I quickly learned that bringing your minerals to Oursulaert was much more profitable than selling to the nastily cheap bids to be found out here on the far edge of the region. Another thing quickly learned was that a hauler full of tritanium and/or pyerite didn't get you a whole lot of extra money and it made more fiscal sense to just dump your cheap minerals on the market where ever you were so you could fill up on more Mexellon and Isogen. Since I soon got bored of mining on my own, only getting into large mining operations on a rare occasion with my friends, I tried something different.

I started buying the tritanium that people didn't want to haul to Oursulaert and carried it for them. Some people still hauled their own tritanium when the price was really bad, but if I offered a fair bid at about 30 cents less than the bids in Oursulaert, people were more than happy to sell it to me. I was giving them a fair and much better price and there was enough margin to operate profitably. I soon began working in both directions, carrying at first mining crystals, and then mining modules and mining frigates and finally mining barges, exhumers and strip miners.

I started talking to miners in the newbie systems and invited other veteran miners out to Peccanouette to reap the benefit of a cluster of good mining systems plus a mineral market and mining supply chain right there in place right where you are. I soon found in my Iteron Mark V, that I couldn't haul enough to keep up with business. I was running back and forth constantly between Peccanouette and Oursulaert and inventory grew faster than I could move it, but so was my net worth climbing as well, and one at a time I fitted rigs to my Iteron Mark V until I maxed out what it could carry.

I finally bought my Obelisk, and steam rolled Peccanouette and built it into a really nice marketplace, and the best part was i was making enough to stay ingame strictly by buying GTCs with isk to pay for my subscription. I was in a great position to keep the competition out, and I learned market warfare and all that stuff that makes life easy for me but hard for the other guy. Things like artificially raising prices letting the others penny me and each other up, then going ahead and dumping my inventory on them for a profit without having to haul it anywhere, and setting the market back where I wanted it.

Seeing my project grow from something I created to support my own habit, into becoming the central mineral market serving three regions really tugs at my emotions and pulls out the best salty carebears tears...tears of pride.

Anyway, why am I telling you this again? Because oh my god, the tiny mining hub and mineral market I created has grown to colosal proportions. It's the mineral equivelent of Oursulaert, not quite as big but pretty close focused on stripping all mineral resources of Peccanouette. And...everyone, everyone, everyone, my corp, my mining associates, and traders alike...all of them thought I was crazy to haul tritanium, and it made me a multi-billionaire. Today, people are now calling me crazy for turning efforts to low sec, and say I can't possibly create a market hub in low sec. I am now done focusing on one region's low sec and beginning to branch out into a second region of low sec. What do you think?




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone, so deal with any mispelling, grammatical errors or strangly out of place words caused by mis-autocorrection.

Most Embarassing Ship Losses

Bill over at http://journeytoneweden.blogspot.com/2009/11/oh-no.html, posted about his most embarassing ship loss. Well since I haven't been inspired with fresh material and since I have a couple embarassing
moments, I thought i was share them. Good topic Bill.

My most embarrassing ship loss was also a total newbie move on my part as well. As previously written about, I had gotten very good at running missions with frigates and assault frigates, and subsequently
moved out into Low Sec to further my trade career. I stopped running missions as the principle need for running missions for me was for corp and faction standings. Anyway, I guess my mission skills had
gotten stale.
My then corp mate who plays with a rather spotty schedule, asked for some help with some level 3 or 4 drone nest mission since he was still relatively new at running them. Since I was online I offered to come
on over to help him complete the mission. I got in my ishkur and headed his way. The first room was mostly cleared and he hadn't gotten into the second room yet, so we headed that way after clearing out the
remainders of the first room and finding the trigger to unlock the warp gate to the second room. I proceeded to warp on in, and my corp mate followed, and I hight tailed it over to the first closest group
of drones (which included some cruiser and battleship class drones). No problem, I start getting hit, and I speed tank the damage as well as running my reppers on full. When all of a sudden, I started taking
on massive damage very quickly.
I went to warp out, and I wasn't warping either. I informed my corp mate I was about to die, and then waited for the inevitable and just trying to take out as many drones as I could before I did finally pop.

I quickly warped to the nearest semblance of a market hub and fitted me up a replacement ishkur, warped back in through the gates to the second room, and proceeded to get my ass handed to me yet again in
short order. This time however, I noticed that I was getting webbed and scrammed. I hadn't noticed it the first time, and lost a second ship because I was "too good" to worry about such things in a mission.
I was a Low Sec pilot after all right? Holy cow, 2 ships with 200 million isk each lost within a period of about 5 minutes.
This time I refitted a new ship, came back and slowly went to work on the drones, kiting them out with my drones, and pulling them in small groups to range, and we finished the mission, but at too great a cost.
I mean I can afford the loss, and my corp mate worried quite a bit too much about it, but it was embarassing as hell.
There was another time I lost two ships back to back last year sometime. I lost two domi's in a level 4 mission I was trying to run solo, but just couldn't get it done alone with the domi's. I let
myself get in far too deep a trouble before aligning to warp out and one time actually saw my ship explode in warp. After loosing two ships, I ended up asking my then CEO to give me a hand and he was
happy to. He came in with an Ishtar (T2 HAC), which had the most amazing shield tank on it. I couldn't even come close to breaking the tank with Domi, guns and drones combined. Anyway, just splitting the
aggro in that one room that was giving me trouble ended up being more than enough to help.

Both situations embarassing, but the ishkur losses were the most embarassing, being a hardnosed low sec pilot now after all.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone, so deal with any mispelling, grammatical errors or strangly out of place words caused by mis-autocorrection.