The Day I Met Royalty

If you're familiar with MMOs, you probably recognize the person above as basically the father of the genre, Lord British. Ultima Online was the first successful game of that nature and paved the way for all of the subscription based games so many play now.

I don't want to get bogged down too much on all of this person's achievements in video games. Before the series even went online, Ultima had been around for 15 years. So there would be a lot to go over.

Last Saturday, I came across the opportunity to hear him speak. Not about his games or about the video game industry, but about Space. Yes, this man has been to Space. He was the first American Second Generation, as his father went to space before him.

I posted both parts unedited for those of you who want to download it.

Richard Garriott Space Talk [Part 1] [Part 2]

I'll just say that I really overwhelmed. All this time I thought, he's a smart guy who makes video games. After hearing him speak, I really felt like an ant among giants. This man basically said, I want to go to space and then proceeded to go through all the steps to get there, including raising massive amounts of money and repairing his body surgically. There are tons of people out there smarter, better, and way ahead of any of us. Geniuses who build spaceships in their free time and here I am struggling to find time to go running in between work and the podcast. It really make me think things over and humbled me quite a bit.

Finally, I wanted to point out to those who may not listen to the recordings. At one point Garriott explains how basically every accomplishment in space travel is credited to the Russians. Every first, except the moon landing, was accomplished by the Russians, but still they celebrate us on equal terms with them. Where as here, we don't hear anything about the Russians at all.

It's an interesting listen that enjoyed,

Thanks,
David

Also thanks Casey for letting me know about the event.