Here are the “rules”:

1 – Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random… Read More”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 – Go to “Random quotations”
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 – Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

Herewith, my submission (and my abject apologies for not grabbing the credit for the photo; I refreshed a LOT, to no avail):

And since this isn’t WoW-related, I’m going to tag three WoW bloggers on their non-WoW blogs, because I’m sure they have nothing better to do (and they probably think I stalk them anyway):

• Bre, from TMI: How Much is Too Much?
• Tami, from the eponymous Tami Moore.
• Lauren, from P’ville Girl.

I Blame Softi (Yet Another Meme!) is a post from: Kestrel's Aerie

Shadow in the breeze
Stealthily stabs, disappears
Was he even here?

Silent arrow flies
Like love to a waiting heart
Piercing with anguish.

Healing falls like rain
Cleansing bodies and spirits,
Battle is rejoined.

Mana surges in
A river of death flows out
Fire and ice combine.

Shadows mask the threat,
Owl, bear and cat defend us,
Healing branches soothe.

Tag! You’re IT

I used a unique method to choose my victims. Actually, they self-identified after I invited WoW bloggers to reply to me via Twitter to be tagged. Special mention goes to @FeistTheRogue, who responded thusly:

With impunity
I can reply anyway
Not a WoW blogger.

So without further ado:

@ladygypsywho blogs at World of Warcraft Wanderings

@Wynthea- part of the team at World of Matticus

@holydiscipline, Anea at Holy Discipline

@ILikeBubbles- Ambrosyne at For the Bubbles

Gettin’ My Ku On is a post from: Kestrel's Aerie

To quote Jess:

“This award is bestowed upon a fellow blogger whose blog content or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant.”

1. When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided [emphasis added by Kestrel] soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real.
2. Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.
3. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!

So now I need to come up with 10 relatively unknown but non-boring things about me that you, in my wildest flights of fancy, might be interested in knowing.

1. On June 22, Mrs. Kestrel and I will have been married 35 years.
2. My granddaughter (4½) thinks I’m “silly all the way to Pluto and back!” (Until this month, it was “all the way to outer space and back” but she’s been learning about the solar system in preschool, so has determined I’m even sillier than previously believed.)
3. I build my own desktop computers; I love Vista; I also love my MacBook Pro. I strongly prefer Intel to non-Intel, and nVidia over ATI.
4. If I had my choice of where to live in the US (cost of buying a home not being considered), I’d probably pick San Luis Obispo, CA. Kailua, HI would be a close second. (Unfortunately for me, Mrs. Kestrel is perfectly happy in Rapid City, because…)
5. …because our three sons are in St. Louis, Rapid City, and Brooklyn, NY, respectively.
6. I am a gadget freak. I have (and use) both an iPod Touch and an iPod Nano. I wish I had an iPhone. Or a Blackberry. My wife, however, is not. This leads to conversations such as the following: Wife: “Why do you need THAT?” Me: “It’s not about need.”
7. Twenty years in the Air Force conditioned me to hate the ringing of the telephone (landline). On my cell phone, however, I know it’s either family or friends, so I welcome the (few) calls I get.
8. To keep this WoW-related, I really prefer pewpewing with my hunter to healing with my priest. There, I said it!
9. I’m not afraid of the dark, or spiders. I don’t like spiders, but I don’t fear them.
10. My favorite color is deep sky blue.

Now comes the fun part: I get to present an award to seven fellow bloggers (that is a LOT of people!) to respond in kind. So in no particular order, my awards for blog(ger)s whose content or design pleases me greatly go to:

1. My favorite undead rogue, whose taste in beer is sorely lacking (maybe it has to do with being undead), Arrens Caltrains.
2. Everyone’s favorite bubbly healer, Ambrosyne of For The Bubbles.
3. Cadistra, the Canadian Tauren, and hilarious cartoonist, eh. (Well, her cartoons are hilarious, which leads me to believe she is at least amusing.)
4. Dueg the Holy. Priest, that is.
5. Kadomi, who tanks like a girl. She’s German, so think Panzer.
6. Jezriyah, troll MM hunter, because one does not want to meet a troll MM hunter when enraged. Far be it for me to omit someone like this!
7. Bellbell of 4Haelz fame, because she’s just.that.cool.

And the Award Goes To… is a post from: Kestrel's Aerie

Faradhim, I’m sad to report I have no screenshots from WoW. I think, in the four years I’ve been playing, I have taken maybe a half-dozen screenshots. However, when I reinstalled WoW with the release of WotLK, I deleted the screenshot folder. I’m just not a screen-shooter. Boring, I know. (You were warned!)

I can do slightly better when it comes to explaining my character names.

“Kestrel” came from Mercedes Lackey’s “Bardic Voices” series; specifically, from the second novel in that too-short series, The Robin and the Kestrel. I started using that character name in Asheron’s Call, for an alt. When Asheron’s Call II came out, I abandoned my long-time nom de jeu of “Eärendil” (from Tolkien) in favor of Kestrel; I’ve been using it ever since.

Being a bird of little imagination (“birdbrain”—there, I said it first!), I tried to maintain the bird of prey theme when I created my alts:

• Falken is a Rogue
• Talons is also a Rogue
• Kestrel’s cat is named Talon; so was his bear (when he had a bear)
• Sparverius (another Hunter) is Latin for “falcon”
• Osprey, of course, is the Priest
• Raptor is a warrior
• Peregrine is yet another hunter (originally, I was going to have one of each spec; all three, however, are Beast Masters)
• Falconer is a warlock
• Owlhawk is a druid
• Earendil maintains my old Tolkien roots, but as a Death Knight.

Originally, Kestrel was my Hunter on Icecrown. When I transferred him to Kul Tiras, he became Talonis; Kestrel was a Rogue. A few months ago, as Osprey became my main and my rogue-crush had long since passed in favor of my first love, hunter, I paid to rename Talonis to Kestrel. Kestrel the Rogue was deleted, but a cooperative GM restored him, and thereby Talons was born.

Eventually, if I actually do level up a DK (although I can’t really imagine doing so), he’ll become Raptor (more fitting than the noble Eärendil!). Not exactly sure how I’ll do that, but the Warrior would probably be deleted. 

I would have loved to use the names Falcon and Talon, but they were taken. Of course, in over three years on Kul Tiras, I’ve yet to see either character.

Rather than tag others, I’d like to encourage all my readers to respond with how they named their main character and one or two alts. If you’re a blogger, blog about it (but please link back here!). I think it would be very cool to get 20 or 30 comments to this post. (I have over 500 regular readers; maybe we could shoot for 100??)

Wherein Kestrel Proves How Boring He Really Is is a post from: Kestrel's Aerie

I started this blog back in August 2007, on Blogger. That first post is still there, in fact. And then look at who commented! Yes, no other than Petopia‘s Mania (also, of course, the author of Mania’s Arcania and one of my inspirations for creating my own blog). Here’s what she had to say, 22 months ago, and just a few hours after I first posted:

Not the only person [reading Kestrel's Aerie]. :> Welcome to the neighborhood! As not only a non-raider but someone who doesn’t like to group at all, I look forward to reading more of your thoughts.

Mania may not be quite as big an Internet ammalgamation as BRK, but definitely a WoW blogging superstar in my eyes! Those few words really fueled my initial passion for the blog, and every single one of the 1,466 subsequent comments has added to that fire. (Even though, of late, it may seem like some dimly glowing embers.) :p

So in keeping with the spirit of such memes, I want to tag some of the folks who’ve commented on my blog, and have inspired and befriended me as we all continue this grand adventure (and if someone already tagged you, my tag trumps!): Vonya, the Egotistical Priest; Breana, that Gun-Loving Mace-Wielding Dwarf Chick; Arrens, who sees things Through the Eyes of a rogue; Lassirra, who is invariably spot on The Hunter’s Mark; and Galadria, who was one of my first comment correspondents, and whose encouragement to follow the Holy Light helped Osprey become whatever it is he is today. To you five, and to the hundreds of others who have honored me with your comments, thank you!

My First Commenter: A Retrospective is a post from: Kestrel's Aerie

September 11 Attacks

September 11, 2001: I was getting ready to go to work when our neighbor phoned to tell us to turn on the television. At that time, the second plane had yet to hit. My first thought was of the "wtf?" variety. How the hell does an airliner hit one of the Twin Towers?? As soon as the second hit was reported, I immediately thought, "TERRORISTS."

Shortly after I got to work that morning, we moved a television from our break room to the main floor of the call center. I was fixed on the television: My youngest son had just started his sophomore year at New York University, and his dorm was scant blocks from the World Trade Towers.

I recall thinking, before it actually happened, that if the fire were severe enough, the buildings could essentially implode. Dreadfully, that happened to the first tower just moments later. I was fairly numb throughout the entire drama, including the crash of the third plane in Pennsylvania and the almost-miss of the Pentagon. Once we learned our son was unhurt (evacuated from his dorm, and ended up staying with a roommate’s family for a few days), I went into a bit of shock as I realized just how close I came to losing a son.

Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster

January 28, 1986: I was stationed in West Germany with my family at the time, with the Air Force. I actually didn’t hear about the explosion until I got to work on the morning of the 29th (which happened to be my wife’s birthday). We had all been anticipating the launch of Challenger, with school-teacher Christa McAuliffe aboard, quite keenly. The rest of the day wasn’t terribly productive, though we still had a mission to perform, and work to do. It took many years for me to be able to celebrate my wife’s birthday without thinking about the tragedy of Challenger.

Hurricane Katrina

August 29, 2005: My oldest son, his wife, and our not-quite-one-year-old granddaughter were living in the Tampa area at that time. Every week or so during the summer seemed to bring a new hurricane bearing down on Florida (and as an Air Force member, I had a clear recollection of the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Andrew a few years earlier in south Florida).

It was clear early on Katrina was going to be a bitch; the big question was where she’d make landfall. While we certainly hoped it wasn’t Florida’s Gulf Coast, we were glad the kids lived a bit inland.

Once Katrina hit New Orleans, I remember watching the reports on CNN, shaking my head at the complete and utter destruction wrought by the storm, and then as if adding insult to injury, the resultant flooding when the levees failed.

Reagan Assassination Attempt

March 30, 1981: We were living in California (Vandenberg AFB), and I’d heard something just before leaving work. Went home and watched all the news coverage. By the time I got home, the President was either still in or just out of surgery. My bigger concern, I recall, was for Jim Brady, the President’s press secretary. I am a strong supporter of an undiluted Brady Bill.

John Lennon’s Death

December 8, 1980: John Lennon was probably my least favorite of the Beatles (for you youngsters, that was the band Sir Paul McCartney was in before he became a knight; in fact, before Wings…umm…never mind). However, in the past couple years, I’ve come to have a much greater appreciation for some of his post-Beatles music.

Notwithstanding, hearing of his murder in New York City came as a huge shock: I became a teenager during Beatlemania, so of course the Fab Four had a huge impact on my life and the world around me. To be honest, though, I simply can’t remember where I was when I learned of his death. I do recall the sight of middle-aged women weeping at the news, though.

Kurt Cobain’s Death

ca. April 5, 1994: I was still in the Air Force in April 1994, about two months shy of retirement. While I wasn’t a fan of Nirvana (and I doubt even then I could tell you what band Cobain was in), quite a few of the younger officers who worked with and for me were pretty familiar with him. Their reactions ranged from shock to "can’t say it surprises me." But to be honest, his death, while it made headlines around the world and was certainly a topic du jour on CNN, it was barely blip on my personal radar.

And as promised, one more from a bit earlier in time:

John F. Kennedy’s Assassination

November 22, 1963: I still can remember this as though it were yesterday. I was in 7th grade; we’d just broken for lunch. Mine was the second lunch period, and as I headed towards my locker, a friend who was coming in from lunch said, "Did you hear the President was shot?" We didn’t have time to chat, but my thought was "maybe the president was shot at." However, when I got to the food court, the radio was tuned to CBS news coverage.

I don’t recall eating anything; about halfway through lunch, Walter Cronkite announced the President’s death. A couple friends and I saw the Vice Principal. We asked him if we could lower the flag to half-staff, but he told us that would be taken care of.

The next day was my mother’s birthday; not one of her happier ones. The day of the President’s funeral was a national day of mourning, and school was canceled. I watched the entire funeral, and developed a serious crush on Caroline Kennedy.¹

• Lassirra
• Fimlys
• Breana
• Maerdred

Meme: Where Were You When You Heard About…? is a post from: Kestrel's Aerie