Todays guest is El of LA, the woman with the sultry gravel voice and journalistic excitement ( check out her interpretation of brief, lol ).~


UO Senior News Manager and UO Moderator are the titles under your name. Please give a brief description of duties associated with these titles.
I joined Stratics a little over a year ago and became a sort of "Jack of all trades." I started as a shard reporter and just kept adding stuff on!

I became a Moderator for the ML Beta period in our ML Beta forum when they needed more warm bodies to watch over this amazing number of posts that the forum was getting, and then I traded that spot for three of the Profession forums last winter to help out in some places I could be more useful. I currently am a moderator for the Alchemist, Tinker, Scribe, and LA Forums. I view that job as a sort of "babysitting" to make sure the posts follow our Rules of Conduct. Fortunately on the Professions forums people are pretty well behaved and on LA they are all so friendly that they take my scolding pretty well when they "stray from the path"!

I recently became UO Sr. News Manager and my job description is generally to coordinate and assist all the Shard and General News reporters. I take care of a lot of the administrative duties like recruiting for new volunteers, adding new reporter volunteers to our staff, and taking those out that decide to leave us. I work with the Shard News Managers to try and facilitate them in their work. The News Managers of the shards also maintain the various shard news page sidebars that carry the individual shard's special reports and lists of "establishments" that make each shard unique and express the shard's special character (and characters!). I try to assist in the updating of those pages as well. I also am trying to stimulate and enthuse the reporting staff and make their jobs a bit more fun and creative by expanding our reporting styles and breadth of reporting into new areas, plus encourage innovation in our reporting efforts and in the tools we use to do our work. In addition I still post General and Community News and attempt to keep doing some shard reporting on Lake Austin. Generally this position keeps me off the streets of Sosaria quite a bit!

I never realized before I became the Sr. News Manager how many staff members we have on Stratics news! We currently have 51 reporters volunteering on the various shards and have a number of unfilled spots open that we are recruiting for! (Hint, Hint� if you want to be a reporter I can find you a place to do it!)

What and how do you determine " Community News " worthy?
The main guideline set for Community News is that the news we post should be something of interest to the general UO and Stratics community. Following that guideline we post news we receive from any legitimate UO fan website or community of players that is for more than a single shard's interest, including news from our various sister Stratics websites on other MMOGs and game news. We don't post guild news unless it has relevance to the entire community of players, and we leave shard-specific news to the shard news pages and their reporters. We do check to make sure that the news we post doesn't take our readers to suspect websites or obscene ones! We try to make sure that anyone with news of interest to the community gets a chance to have their news posted in a fair and open environment.

How long have you been playing UO and how long have you been the Senior News Manager?
I started playing UO on a copy of UO Renaissance my husband bought me in 2002. He thought I might enjoy it, and that was an understatement! It took me a bit of time to get the hang of playing in a wide-open online game, but I got hooked really quick and it has given me a great deal of joy and satisfaction since then.

I still feel like I became the Senior News Manager just yesterday! In truth I took on this job about the first of March this year. I guess that means I've been doing this for nearly four months now. Someday, maybe, I'll feel like I'm not a newb at this job!

Since taking on the role of Senior News Manager and knowing the News prior history which shard is the most difficult to hire and/or keep a reporter?
Several shards have been without a real shard reporter for a time now and are sort of "out of the habit" but I hope to change that! When I started as a shard reporter for LA we had been without a reporter for well over a year and I think a lot of the forum members doubted that a reporter was even needed� or wanted. It took me a while to get established and build my credibility, but now LA has three reporters, the reports are more frequent and cover a wider range of events and individuals, and more people know about Stratics and Stratics' LA Forum on the shard than they did previously. I believe that with a little work we can build all the shard forums into well-covered and lively forums that reporters will enjoy working for.



You are a self proclaimed " Dog Mom ". What does this mean exactly?
My husband and I couldn't have children. We wound up taking in 8 dogs who were neglected or abused and homeless over several years as kindof "consolation prizes" as we found we wouldn't be having a house full of human children. We already had two cats when this started and so we wound up with 10 pets that we felt were "our kids." It was quite a group! We started with our little dog pack 14 years ago and have entered the second generation of what I refer to as the "Woof Pack." Currently we have 7 dogs in the family. All of our dogs have a story and came to us from various rescues and unfortunate circumstances. Several of them have injuries or disabilities that gave them "unadoptable" designations and so made them immediate candidates for our house! Therefore, I call myself a "dog mom" since while I'm typing away on Stratics stuff all day and night I'm surrounded by a loving and active group of dogs who make my days wonderfully happy and much busier!

What are your dogs names?
They are
Gretchen the Dauschund (13 yrs old),
Fred the Shizhu/Poodle (12 yrs old),
Penny the Black Labrador (11 yrs old),
Charlotte the Black Labrador (litter-mate with Penny) (11 yrs old),
Casey the Black Labrador (10 yrs old),
Harry the blind Shizhu (4 years old), and
Rusty the "Poobah" alpha-male, a Siberian Husky (2 � yrs of age)

Here's some links to my "vanity pics" of them:
http://www.geocities.com/uolaot/images/Fred12-31-05.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/uolaot/images/charlotte12-28-05.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/uolaot/images/friendlywelcome.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/uolaot/images/gretchen12-28-05.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/uolaot/images/harryfredpencasey.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/uolaot/images/harrynrustywrestlesm8-2005.JPG
http://www.geocities.com/uolaot/images/harrynrusty2-3-2006.jpg

In passing you mentioned you once played the Great Lakes Shard and now Lake Austin is your home. Why did you leave the land of the Great Lakes?
I left Great Lakes in the confusion of the AOS rollout. Most of my guild and other friends had moved to the brand new Lake Austin shard because housing was so hard to come by on Great Lakes. I loved my little shop so much outside of Britain that I had stayed on the Great Lakes shard to keep it. At the time I shared a 300-lockdown 7x7 with another guildmate there! *giggles remembering the crowded conditions*

Much to my horror however, I lost a number of things through various bugs and shard reverts in the AOS rollout difficulties and I was just grieved by the losses. Then I lost my blue bug full of all my BOD collection in another shard revert that happened one night as I slept. By then I'd lost so much of my treasured stuff that it was pretty easy to give the house to a buddy and just move to start over in new territory! I went over to LA as the last member of my guild to switch and we re-established our guild, Order of Truth (O*T), on the Lake Austin shard.

I actually still have characters that I play on Great Lakes when I feel like being in crowds! *giggles* O*T is still a guild there too with several members.



What was the inspiration for the name El?
El is actually the first two letters of my real name and was the name I used for my first mage/scribe on Great Lakes. I became known by El on Great Lakes and it stuck when I moved to Lake Austin. I like the name, and have become so used to it that I often find myself signing email in the real world with the name and I have to erase it and put in the right one! *blushes*

Most of my guests are asked this question and you are not escaping it. What is your favorite color?
I just adore Periwinkle blue and have been trying to convince my husband for years to paint the kitchen that color instead of the copper-brown we inherited in our vintage-1960 house! He's somewhat resistant to the idea though. *laughs*

If you had to choose between designing a plot and decorating it or hunting with a group of players what would it be?
Absolutely it is designing a plot. I hate to admit it but I'm a terrible "home body" when it comes down to it and love nothing better than to sit there filling kegs or designing a new house. I came into UO to be a tailor and merchant and even though I enjoy going out with my friends on hunts I'm still a merchant player at heart.

If you had to look like Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie which would it be and why?
Oh heavens! Neither. I could never look like an Angelina Jolie� I simply don't have the sophistication and can't imagine it with my Irish untamable hair and freckles LOL. I'd like to think I could pass off something like her brains though. She is a smart lady and does a lot of good things in the world. If I can say I'd want anything to be like her, it would be to have the opportunity to do the kind of good in the world that she does. I also wanted to adopt children and give them a good home. I had to substitute dogs for this aspiration, but I love hearing about her getting the opportunity to do this and how she is managing it.

If you could have dinner with Brad Pitt or George Clooney which would it be and why?
Hmmm� probably Brad Pitt because then I could get him to bring Angelina to talk about the projects she does in the world! LOL

What do you admire most in a friend?
Generosity of spirit. The willingness of a friend to spend time to talk, enjoy each other's company, or give support even when it isn't convenient, and the generosity of spirit that leads one to give that to others also when they aren't close friends but just other people in need.

If you could change one thing about UO what would it be?
I think I'd put the economy back to when GM Armor meant something and a person could actually play a merchant like I do and make a living, and reputation, at it. Right now I keep a shop for the love of it, but it costs me more to "feed the vendors" than I make back in any sales. I miss my little tiny pre-AOS shop just north of the East Brit bank where I made a mint selling GM armor, potion kegs, and scrolls. It was heaven in a little tiny 7x7 house spot!

If you could change one thing about the real world what would it be?
Oh heck� I could say "make it so the Democrats had won the 2000/2004 election in the United States," but I think instead I'll just leave it to saying that I wish UHall was easier to report on by making it much less depressing! All the griping and complaining can really get a girl down when she has to spend hours and hours a day reading it and reporting comments! :P

What is your motto?
I learned it from my husband and use it in my life extensively as I have a lot of things I cannot change or control in it. It's: "Don't sweat the small stuff."

My husband taught me to remember what is important, like spending time with your family, loving and playing with your pets, and being thankful for what you have rather than worrying over possessions or the everyday hassles of work or home chores. This lesson helped me greatly as I went through a physical decline that led to my retirement onto disability due to Multiple Sclerosis. There's tons I can't do now, but its small stuff! I try to remember that and appreciate the small things I still can do and enjoy that to the max!


El, It was great learning more about you and I am sure our readers enjoy it also. Fondly, Lady Lava

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