Hi Folks,

I did an interview with Ron Edwards, at Forge Midwest. It just went up late last night. We talked about a debacle that took place in these very forums a year or two ago, when story is actually created, Ash cans versus picking pockets, a different way to do cons, and I'm sure other things. It clocked in at just under 2 hours, and is about 90MB in size. If you like this one there will likely be a follow up interview at Gen Con, as I didn't get through all my questions. I feel I should add a question to promote discussion, but am at a loss as to what to ask.

Just under two hours? Is that all?

One thing journalists never fail to mention about Fidel Castro is his propensity for very, very long speeches, often with the implication that this is somehow wrong or weird or tyrannical. My reaction to such references is usually, hey, three hours? That doesn't sound that bad.

Best, Ron

Hey Ron,

I'm not opposed to going longer at Gen Con. Being a beggar as far as driving goes was my main limiter. I've got no problem with making a three, four hour podcast, and I don't like the idea of being outdone by Communist dictators. I'll bring eight questions, how's that sound? *chuckles*

This podcast was superb. I highly recommend it to Forge visitors, or anyone else interested in RPGs for that matter!

Thanks, Clyde & Ron.

Heya,

Everyone who first comes here should listen to that podcast.  Nice work Ron and Clyde.

Peace,

-Troy

This may be a dumb question...but how do I actually get the fil?.  I can subscribe and listen to it on my pc but I want to put in on my player and listen in the car...but the only file it lets me actually save to my computer is the intro music.  Where can I grab the actual MP3 from?

Hey Ralph,

The direct link to the file is exactly what Clyde posted above:

http://www.theoryfromthecloset.com/shows/tftc_show008.mp3

If you're getting just the intro music, you're only getting a partial file download. I've had the same issue trying to download Clyde's podcasts at work. The connection gets broken and you get a partial file. (I attribute my problem with this to a substandard quality of internet connectivity at my company.) You can still play a partial mp3 file. It just cuts off abruptly.

Paul

I don't think so Paul.  When I view the podcast as a play list its clearly showing 2 tracks...one 40 seconds or so that is the intro and one 2 hour file that is the actual interview.

The link above only downloads the intro file...same 42 seconds each time I try it.  It doesn't cut off abruptly...its a complete 42 seconds every time I down load it.

Hey Ralph,

That's a really interesting problem. I used the link Paul threw up, and it's working fine for me. I'm going to poke around and see if I can see why you're seeing two files, and if I can make that stop happening. As of this moment though I can't recreate what you are seeing. I put the file in a separate folder just for you:

http://www.theoryfromthecloset.com/ralph/tftc_show008.mp3

Can you give me more info like what your operating system is, and what program you are using to access the files?

Clyde, Ron, the interview was fantastic! Thanks guys.

I was a complete Story After guy for years. Piecing together stories in Story Hour posts after our play sessions, but have after years of story gaming been able to grasp conflict and am now utterly enjoying Story Now play.

Great interview,

Yoki

Ron wrote:
One thing journalists never fail to mention about Fidel Castro is his propensity for very, very long speeches, often with the implication that this is somehow wrong or weird or tyrannical. My reaction to such references is usually, hey, three hours? That doesn't sound that bad.

Clyde wrote:
Hey Ralph,

That's a really interesting problem. I used the link Paul threw up, and it's working fine for me. I'm going to poke around and see if I can see why you're seeing two files, and if I can make that stop happening. As of this moment though I can't recreate what you are seeing. I put the file in a separate folder just for you:

http://www.theoryfromthecloset.com/ralph/tftc_show008.mp3

Can you give me more info like what your operating system is, and what program you are using to access the files?

Hey Ralph,

If those give you trouble you might try using iTunes. I have directions how to subscribe with itunes on the website here. This is the software about 3/4 of the people subscribed to my podcast are using. Likely you'll get a better experience with it. iTunes would be my choice if they had a Linux player.

Thanks for the tip.  Itunes will make it easy.

I finally got around to listening to this today (twice!) and it really made sense of the whole "Story Now" thing. Cool. It actually made me wonder if I am one of those people who can't "see story", despite only having played a very little bit of Werewolf, and really having played very little of ANY game through to the "end of the story" per se. So I'm not sure where I might have lost that ability. Or maybe I didn't, I don't know. I certainly tend to focus on the geeky minutia and when I describe a movie or book it is difficult for me not to want to include every neato detail. Is there a way to test oneself for "story blindness"?

Other than that, the interview was excellent, and really put a lot of things into context for me. I will probably listen to it once or twice more to let some of the finer points really sink in. Thanks a lot, Clyde and Ron!

Hey, if anyone wants to follow up on topics or questions or whatever from the interview, please feel free. I'd be happy to discuss them here.

Best, Ron

I wish Clyde had asked a little bit about Spione: what it means to you, and where it fits in your corpus of non-professional work.  (Fine, fine, it's not an RPG, but one can still ask about an interviewee's side projects.)

Hi James,

That's because in my internet peeking I didn't come across Spione:. I'll pencil that in for Gen Con's interview.

Hey Ron,

One thing I wish I had asked is if your thoughts on White Wolf's products were based on personal experience in groups you had interacted with?

Hi there,

James: Spione is a political act on my part, but not in the sense of inflicting (much) polemic on other people. I'd like to make a game, or rather, a constructive social creative act, out of reflecting on the Cold War. Bluntly, I think most of the former western bloc is blinded by a false triumphalist myth, and I think it's resulted in horrific errors in the real world, even before 2003, and in fact, even well before 1991. I think the consequences of that myth are literally culture-destroying for the U.S.A.

Spy fiction (of the type I'm talking about) has always been dissident fiction. It can even be a way of leaking information to the public to get through overly-classified filters. Even when not written literally, it asks the right questions. I think that if you just ask a person what they think of communists or the Iron Curtain or whatever, then you'll get a lot of mythological bullshit as answer, and the person will probably even believe he or she is being sincere. But if you do Story Now with the same issues as context, with the conflicts being specific to spies in Berlin, then you (and everyone involved) will find out what they really think, or better, what they'd really like to know.

The game itself is only a piece of the book, and the game-activity itself is only a piece of the website, which contains activities that are worth whole websites in and of themselves. So it's an important piece, but not the only or even the central one.

The reason I didn't design it as an RPG, write it as an RPG, or market it as an RPG, is that what I'm trying to do has literally nothing to do with fan-based fantastic-spy adventure, nor with the trappings-obsessed, self-referential, rather insular role-playing subculture. The habits and priorities most commonly found in that subculture (and I know this well because I'm part of it) are exactly the wrong way to address my goals with Spione. I'd really prefer not to see it in an RPG store or discussed at an RPG site.

Clyde: my comments on White Wolf games are based on a handful of attempts to prep and play Vampire or Mage on my part, as well as detailed and repeated discussions with people who'd played (I'm talking about the original Vampire, Werewolf, and Mage). I'd say maybe 80-100 people in all, from the early 1990s to around 2001 or so. That's not counting any discussions I've read on-line, all face-to-face, and usually in the context of playing some other game with them, especially early versions of Sorcerer.

All that said, I am still quite motivated to play a game of Wraith one of these days. That's the only one of that original pack which seems to me to have put its money where its mouth is.

Best, Ron

Coming into the forums and discussion via Clyde's interview as well.

Ron wrote:
All that said, I am still quite motivated to play a game of Wraith one of these days. That's the only one of that original pack which seems to me to have put its money where its mouth is.

Hello, Daniel. Welcome to the Forge!

You are not describing a hybridization or any kind of split of Story Before, Story Now and Story After.

From your description, you are describing Story Now. That's all.

Your Story Before is not pre-planned story. It's simple preparation, in this case preparing a situation. Sorcerer is a good example. It calls these Bangs. (When the players themselves come up with it in Sorcerer at character creation, it's called a Kicker.)

Story Before is when someone, usually the game master, prepares the resolution of the game's story before hand. It's frequently referred to as "railroading."

Your Story After is Actual Play that examines Story Now. It is not Story After. Story After is when people don't actually create a story in play (I'm talking about story as Ron defines it -- a series of fictional events that resolve). Story After involves no actual fictional resolution, but instead inventing resolution of story elemens after play is over. It is retroactive.

Finally, you do seem to be describing Story Now, though more information might help illuminate.

As for the Storyteller system, I highly recommend you take your use of that system and post in Actual Play. That would be great! I'd like to see that, actually. You can post about what you do when you actually play with friends using Storyteller, what you like about it, and maybe ask some questions about how you can go about improving your experiences during play.

EDIT: Don't take my request as a moderator, by the way. Just a request from a fellow Forge visitor. This Adept Press forum particularly is Ron's forum, and he has say in all this stuff. Just me trying to offer some help.

Hello, Matt, and thanks for the welcome.

You know, putting Story Before (SB, SN, SA hereafter) as railroading, and SA as Actual Play suddenly makes it very clear; thanks for that.

The Storyteller games that I'm am mentally referring to are a few years old, so I don't know I could reconstruct anything resembling an Actual Play post at this point. I can tell you that, clearing away as much haze as I can from my memory, they involved a lot of talking; it was not uncommon for us to have entire sessions of 4-6 hours in which no dice was rolled aside from the fidgeters in the group. It's not that we weren't having conflicts, but that there were many times when the actual conversation of the PCs and NPCs, coupled with some quick looks at the stats as they appeared on the page to see how any particular individual measured up against another, got the story moving where stopping to roll dice might have broken the flow. For a short time I also had a table of pre-rolled d10s and whenever there was a need for a dice roll, I'd scratch these off as they got used up. My priority was to keep the story going.

I will be starting a new Victorian Age Vampire game with my wife this weekend using the NWoD Storytelling system, and for this game I had already planned to keep Actual Play reports on my blog, so maybe once I start getting those in that will help me see areas that may need addressing.

Thanks for your help, Matt.

Interesting, Daniel.

Ron's actually really good at offering some insights that you might find helpful, and I think he'll likely respond to your description of play (and do it better than me, he's just got a good knack for it).

For my part, what strikes me is that your group was using a system (informal, little to no dice) that was not actually the Storyteller system. Which is fine. Lots of groups play like that. So, my question to you is, why bother using that system at all? This isn't an attack or anything, just urging you to think on it. It seems pretty clear, at least in the games you're describing here, that you don't want to use the system in the book. By your actions, you and your group are saying "We don't trust the system presented in these books to get what we want, so we're going to go our own route and make up a system that barely has anything to do with these rules in the book."

What I would urge you to consider is this: Would identifying another system, another set of rules BETTER help you achieve what you want?

Ron is very good at recommending such systems, and I can help as well. As can many, many others here. But the choice is really yours. If you're happy with this play, great. If you are not, I think you're bound to find a lot of helpful information and suggestions here. So, ask away!

Hey guys,

This exchange caught me in the middle of a few other obligations, so it'll be a little while before I can reply. Everyone else (not Matt), let's keep it from becoming a dogpile, OK? Let's hold off until I can find a couple of minutes to compose.

Best, Ron

Hey again, Matt.

Matt wrote:
For my part, what strikes me is that your group was using a system (informal, little to no dice) that was not actually the Storyteller system. Which is fine. Lots of groups play like that. So, my question to you is, why bother using that system at all? This isn't an attack or anything, just urging you to think on it. It seems pretty clear, at least in the games you're describing here, that you don't want to use the system in the book. By your actions, you and your group are saying "We don't trust the system presented in these books to get what we want, so we're going to go our own route and make up a system that barely has anything to do with these rules in the book."

Matt wrote:
What I would urge you to consider is this: Would identifying another system, another set of rules BETTER help you achieve what you want?
Ron is very good at recommending such systems, and I can help as well. As can many, many others here. But the choice is really yours. If you're happy with this play, great. If you are not, I think you're bound to find a lot of helpful information and suggestions here. So, ask away!

Ron wrote:

This exchange caught me in the middle of a few other obligations, so it'll be a little while before I can reply. Everyone else (not Matt), let's keep it from becoming a dogpile, OK? Let's hold off until I can find a couple of minutes to compose.

Having dipped in and out of the Forge for years, I've only managed to take the big things from it. For me, the interview did well to sum up big things I'd missed and other things that I might have missed if I'd not heard it. I know I've come into your place, Ron, I do hope I'm welcome.

I completely agree with the idea that gamers can pick up habits in their formative years, habits that are difficult to break. I'm not sure Brain Damage is quite the right term for it. Certainly in the UK, there is a difference between a physically damaged brain and 'incorrectly' trained one. I don't want to get into the semantics of neuron/learning theory (part of my PhD thesis) but I certainly agree with the sentiment. I know loads of people that protect a game because they were introduced to it in their formative years and have a blindness to well argued reason. Vampire is definitely one of those.

The convention idea that Ron described is how things should be. While I was still undergraduate at the University of Reading (UK), we had a thriving Games and Roleplay Society and threw a couple of "conventions". A few tables were reserved for a Magic TG competition but a large proportion was just set aside for gamers, be they roleplayers, wargamers etc. As the day pushed on to about 9ish, a band set up and we got quite drunk and then tried to play more games, with hilarious effect. GenCon UK was a bit like that at the end of the 90s and I'm hoping GenCon UK (1 mile from my house) will be like that.

One huge benefit of listening to the podcast is to hear The Passion Of The Edwards (Hollywood, take note!). Text can be terrible at conveying emotion, regardless how good a writer you are. To actually hear The Passion Of The Edwards does bring Ron, The Man into focus from Ron, The Legend. It's a demystifying process that certainly reduces the pantheon effect caused when someone has created something truly great.

I fully understand that the world the Forge was born into has changed but I do hope it can keep going as long as it is relevant. If nothing else, it's a good community of people who now have history together. That, if nothing else, is worth preserving.

Thanks Clyde and Ron, it was a great thing to do. Let's have another!

On a subject unrelated to my other conversation above, I finished the interview this morning and the last part, where Ron talks about the idea that founded the Forge, its purpose, as well as the whole ashcan process, was just excellent. Like many others out there, I had taken the Forge to be more of a club, and listening to Ron's explanation was like seeing something for the first time. I've never been a Forge-hater, but I certainly bought into the elitist idea for a while there, which is certainly not the case the more I look around.

I'm finding that a lot of my preconceived notions being challenged of late, which is a good thing.

In any case, great interview overall (even if it made me somewhat mad at the beginning ;) ).

Hi Daniel,

My apologies for the delay. I only have about half an hour (and will be away for some time after that), so I'm not sure whether I'll be able to compose what I want to say.

I greatly appreciate your thoughts and points upon finishing listening to the interview. Those, as well as any reflections or thoughts that will occur from this point on, are more important than reactions you experienced during listening. In fact, I probably should stop there and dismiss the latter, refusing to discuss them, simply because they were merely reactions. At the risk of going back on my word, I think that's what I'd like to do.

One of these days, I might compose something along the lines of "ode to the White Wolf loyalist who won't play it," or perhaps an alternative title would be "you've pulled one hand out of your ass, why not the other?" If I do, then I'd ask you to direct your attention, please, to the sticky thread which leads this forum. This is a party forum in many ways, very likely because if it weren't, I would have no reason to post except to answer rules questions. It's not an attitude or context that I've seen anywhere else on the internet, and I hope that my points in that thread can help you see where I'm coming from. In the tequila zone, what I say might have any effect whatsoever, and so instead of trying to paint a certain picture of myself or prompt a certain reaction in you, I'll say what's on my mind with some disregard for those things.

So the abortive piece which I began to compose a few minutes ago would have been needlessly provocative, considering the larger/more-important framework, i.e., that you liked the interview and are experiencing a bit of a sea-change in viewpoint, and also considering that you probably aren't quite yet attuned to the party-tequila context, meaning, rude speech and a hit-or-miss style of offered views. It wouldn't be dialogue, even; it'd be some kind of beatnik stand-up rather than dialogue, permitting you to take what fits or ignore any and all, whatever.

I probably won't ever write it. Why should I? Why bug people who don't want to be bugged, when it's also so clear that people who want to move on or to see what's up (on my mind) will eventually - given a little kicking and screaming - work through it themselves? I am still amazed, because I've never seen people pull themselves kicking and screaming toward an alternate viewpoint, when all the while I keep saying, "Look, you don't have to listen, and if you think I'm wrong, then OK, sure, call me wrong, I won't mind." Nope, they keep pulling themselves over, and protesting loudly the whole way. It's pretty wild.

Anyway, I think my point here is that you arrived at least a little bit willing to look for a fight, but now, even upon completing your first post, and certainly now that you've finished listening and had a bit to think, you aren't in that mental position at all, after all. So I'm happier that way and so are you. Why dig back into that post for me to try to refute what you don't really think anyway? An exercise in internet bullshit, is what that would be.

So ... umm ... I guess I'm saying that I'm not going to address your questions from the first post, at least not in the context of the first post. However, I don't want to shut you down, either. If, now, there's any direct question remaining that you really, really want an answer to, please let me know, and I will take it up.

Best, Ron

Hello, Ron.

You know, my gut reaction was to think, "I didn't come here looking to pick a fight!" So I went back and re-read my first post, and lo and behold, yes I did, at least it comes across like that. So I agree, let's throw out that first post and start again.

I'm gonna go and read up a few things first then come back and rephrase my questions anew.

Okay, I did a bit of my homework, so let's try this again:

I read through the original thread of the "brain damaged" comment, and I now I have a clearer idea of your opinion of how WW messed up the "storytelling" experience with their system. It stings a little because I could recognize a lot of events we experienced in our "really good" Vampire game; I'd never stopped to think that those things that happened were, to whatever extent, tied to the game. The roll/role dichotomy floored me, I have to say, because 95% of the gamers I interact with define themselves along this axis and I'm forced to think about the effects it has had on our gaming experience.

Water under the bridge now, though. Let's move on to fixing stuff.

Focusing too much on the system itself may be irrelevant, but given that I'm about to start a new Storytelling-powered game this week, I'd like to ask specifically: what are some mechanical elements of this system that you consider are counterproductive to the Story Now goal. I will be using Storytelling for reasons I explined above, so my goal is to try to identify problem areas where I could try new alternatives to achieve Story Now, something I know my wife will enjoy very much, given her focus for playing is precisely to develop the shared story.

I would also like to have a couple of examples of games/mechanics that reinforce Story Now, if not to use the actual game, then to know how to adapt the system I am using, or simply to understand how mechanics can support the concept. Because it's the book I am reading now, I'm thinking Aspects in SotC/FATE are an example of a mechanic that fosters Story Now, but I wouldn't mind confirmation.

Matt's reply to my first two posts actually helped me understand Story Before, Now and After quite well, so thanks for that.

So, to sum up:
I get the idea of Story Now; now what I'd like to have are a couple of examples of mechanics that foster and support Story Now, so I both know what to look for in a game in the future  and understand how to apply this to my own games (played or created). Because I'm gonna be using Storytelling in the game with my wife, at least for the time being, but if I'm going to go under the hood and tinker with it, perhaps even invoke the Golden Rule, I'd rather it be towards to goal of achieving Story Now rather than to impose my vision of the plot upon the player.

Hope this is better articulated.

(I am also curious as to how Wraith achieved, however much, the promised storytelling as opposed to, say, Vampire or Changeling. I also understand this is nothing but morbid curiosity and me totally looking at the tree instead of the forest, so it's not really a big deal.)

Hi Daniel,

It's wonderfully articulated ... the problem is, I'm not the right person to help you. I don't have the same background and influences, I'm not hip to the ins and outs of the editions and revisions of the core WW games, and furthermore, I don't know the new Storyteller rules hardly at all, on the chance that you're using those.

Geez ... well, here. We're at the Forge, after all, where "actual play" was originally privileged as a topic of dialogue, and where it was later elevated to be the only acceptable basis for theoretical discussion. So let's use it.

I think you should start a solid, not necessarily long Actual Play thread about (a) a relevant past experience, good or bad; and (b) your hopes and plans for the upcoming game, pretty much as stated here. You'll get responses! I know one amazing German who will probably respond with a veritable manual (Hi Frank!). There are a lot of people here who've wrestled with the same issue. I think that will result in 100-times more useful and more empathic dialogue than I'll be able to provide.

Best, Ron

Hi Rob (brainwipe),

Thanks for the kind comments.

It might interest you to know that, despite your self-description of just dipping into the Forge once in a while, you are exactly the kind of participant who is doing the most for the vision here, or even (to kick a very old and tired phrase into taking one more trembling step) "for the hobby."

Really. Take a look at your posts. Comments, feedback, attention to others' needs, gaining inspiration from others and acknowledging when you do ... Fantastic. It's not surprising you responded to the passion in the interview, because it's your passion too.

Best, Ron

Hello, Ron. And thanks again for taking the time to reply.

Thanks for the suggestion to do the Actual Play thread; I'll take it and get that started during the weekend. That'll also give me time to both recall particular events I want to avoid this time around, and to organize my thoughts about the new game we're about to start.

I've been discussing your interview on a blog post comment thread from my buddy Mick Bradley (of the various podcasts at the Harping Monkey) and I've run the gamut of emotions there, from my knee-jerk reaction to actually thinking about what was said, which is what led me to come here directly. Mick said something in a recent reply to my last comment that really made it all snap into place, especially in regards to the Storyteller system since Mick also grappled with that system much like I did.

Mick wrote: ... you’re asking about how the WW system fails to support Story Now, or in some sense, maybe you’re asking what WW does to actually HINDER it - well, I don’t think it does. But it also doesn’t do anything in-game to promote or reward it, and I think that’s the point. The flavor text and the fiction in the books are all about story, but the mechanics are story-neutral. They do not reward it in-play, unless you count getting XP for “good roleplaying” but that in my opinion is not quite the same thing. My point is, there is no mechanics resource that a player can use to affect the story directly, except actual roleplay, and frankly, that might affect the story VERY deeply with some Storytellers and groups, but it might amount to banging your head against a wall with other Storytellers/groups. The power to affect story is in the players hands only if the Storyteller allows it to be - and if and when the Storyteller allows it to be, it has nothing to do with the game system and everything to do with the personality and whim of the Storyteller. And in that sense, it’s not real power, because it can be taken away or applied unevenly at a whim.

Mick wrote: We all wonder, ‘why are you [story-game proponents] so pissed at systems like White Wolf? They inspire rich story in their setting and flavor text, and the rules are simple enough to get out of our way and let us tell our story.” And it becomes a badge of honor to say, “there are lots of times we don’t even ever roll dice, all night long!”

Hey, I’ve been that guy and part of me still is. But the thing is, what I think The Forge and Ron and so many others who’ve been growing the story games movement over the past seven years, what they’re saying is, “If you have to get your system out of the way in order to go into story mode, then you need a new system that actually can be used IN story mode.”

And just like that, and coupled with Matt's post above, I realize how, yes I was having fun, but the system had nothing to do with it, because at the end of the day, we really were throwing it aside; it wasn't doing anything special for us, even if it didn't actually hinder us directly.

Holy crap, Daniel, I didn't actually expect that anything I wrote would be helpful. But thank you.

Um, hi, everyone. I don't know what I should try to write in my very first post on the Forge, but, um, I'm Mick Bradley. Thanks to all you theorists and game designers for doing what was so badly needed - to make story play better and more fun. I honor you all.

Hi Mick!

I tend to stay away from blogspace, but I went and took a peek at your stuff. Talk about feeling honored! Thanks to you for your thoughts & representation & walking the walk.

Did we all just get into the huggy "I love you man" phase of the tequila party? I think we did!

Best, Ron

Hey Daniel,

From someone who's been on the other side of the fence, this realization is sometimes painful, but it's necessary to really start getting everything you want out of gaming.

By other side of the fence, I mean I played and enjoyed WW games immensely, and I thought I was telling a story and all that, much the same as you. The major difference was that I was mostly following the rules as written, but what was happening wasn't story. My realization wasn't that WW's mechanics weren't meeting my needs and were simply "getting out of the way" so much as it was realizing that my needs were not, in fact, Story Now.

My preferences are evolving, and I'm not sure White Wolf would meet my needs any longer. But realizing the effect that mechanics have on the play has allowed me to find, and fully enter the process of designing, games that meet my needs. I am now finally, after years of bitterness, learning to play D&D and enjoy it for what it does well.

It's funny how it seems that these journeys of realization often begin with arriving here at the Forge, and deciding that we need to prove Ron Edwards wrong...

Wolfen wrote: From someone who's been on the other side of the fence, this realization is sometimes painful, but it's necessary to really start getting everything you want out of gaming.
[...]
My preferences are evolving, and I'm not sure White Wolf would meet my needs any longer. But realizing the effect that mechanics have on the play has allowed me to find, and fully enter the process of designing, games that meet my needs. I am now finally, after years of bitterness, learning to play D&D and enjoy it for what it does well.

Wolfen wrote: It's funny how it seems that these journeys of realization often begin with arriving here at the Forge, and deciding that we need to prove Ron Edwards wrong...

Ron wrote:
Did we all just get into the huggy "I love you man" phase of the tequila party? I think we did!

Well, thanks to all of you guys for making my week.

I hope to meet as many of you as are coming in Indy!

Ron wrote: Did we all just get into the huggy "I love you man" phase of the tequila party? I think we did!