Of Life and Diversion: 2008

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

2008 Year In Review

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Weekend Intelligence: Merry Christmas!

It might have been sunny and 80 when we left, but this weekend was all about dreams of a White Christmas. Since there was so much going on, and I felt more like sleeping and goofing off than writing on my vacation, I decided to put it all into one big Christmas post. So, in typical weekend intelligence fashion, here are the highlights!

She had the day off from work, but I still had to work a half day. I dropped Suzie off at the vet for boarding beforehand. Work was pretty slow on the day of Christmas Eve, so I was easily able to get out on time and make it back to the house to help D finish the last of the packing and preparations. All in all, we had 6 checked bags and 6 carry on items for the four of us, so it was a bit of a juggle getting all the luggage into curbside check-in. After that balancing act, we had to jump through the TSA hoops.

San Antonio Airport has a separate line for families with small children, for which we were only initially thankful. They were no more understanding or accomodating in that line than they would have been in the regular one. Clara ran back through security twice in the process of trying to get all the carry-ons set just right in the bins and taking off our shoes. And each time there was a security guard just watching her run off and snapping at us to move along. And the lady behind the X-ray machine barked at me that all laptops needed to be in their own bin, not on top of the bags like the last time I travelled. EXCUSE ME! I'm only stripping clothing while trying to accomodate all your ridiculous rules you change every 2 months and juggling a toddler. Moron.

The plane flight out into and out of Dallas, as well as the layover were pretty uneventful. Just a lot of people. The flight from Dallas to Omaha made a stop in St. Louis that wasn't on the itinerary. I guess they redid the flight plan to accomodate some cancellations. And it was a good thing, too. Clara had a serious 'blowout' in the plane and needed a new set of clothes. Luckily we found a St. Louis onesie in a terminal gift shop, and were able to stuff her soiled clothes in a few plastic bags. The flight out was delayed by about an hour to make sure everyone that was travelling on Christmas Eve was able to make it. I was annoyed at first, but as I thought about it, that must have been a hard call to make and was the right thing to do considering what night it was.

We landed in Omaha and were greeted to a draft of 6 degree air. Ahhhhh... Home. Grandma and grandpa were ready for us with all the warm coats, scarves, gloves and snowpants for the kids. They brought my big poofy trusty blue coat ( UNIBloo! :D ) that I had when I was in college. When we arrived at the rental car counter, there was some poor girl who looked like she lost a bet and had to work Christmas Eve, and rather unhappy to see a customer. The economy car we had reserved was gone, so we got a free upgrade to a midsize. There was a Camry and an Impala available. D wanted the Camry and I wanted the Impala, so we went to our main fallback for dispute resolutions: RPS. Best of 3. Impala it was, and by the time we were finished with our antics, the gal behind the counter was laughing and had an ear-to-ear smile. She admitted that it sucks to work Christmas Eve, but we made her night. A 2 hour car drive through the snowy countryside put us in Norfolk around 1:30am, where a nice warm bed with PJs and a drink were waiting. It was so good to be home.

The kids made out like bandits Christmas morning. Colin got all sorts of Star Wars gear: the original trilogy, DIY lightsaber set and Clone Wars DVD. He also got a set of classic books and a big Rube Goldberg marble machine. Clara got all sorts of cute things: a fairy princess tea set, talking piggy bank, peg puzzles and books. The grandparents got us Wii for the family that they had snagged as a Thanksgiving special (not Black Friday, which I thought was odd). I got D a 9+mpxl Kodak, an 8gb iPod and the folks got her a digital photo frame: all the big things on her list. I got the boxed set of The Red Green Show. The show is apparently still on PBS in reruns, but now I got a whole bunch of them to whet my appetite. Later that afternoon, Grandma, Colin and I went out to Skyview for some sledding. We were only there about a half hour total, he went down the hill all of twice before getting too cold, but we had a great time nonetheless. While I wish I could have brought Clara for the sledding, she's too little yet for sledding. Still would have made for some great pictures of her in the snow. We ended the day with a great turkey dinner with all the trimmings.

We went out with the grandparents the day after Christmas to look for good deals and get gifts for the family white elephant gift exchange. The crowds didn't seem as crowded as I remembered them. Maybe its the economy, or maybe it is because I'm used to a lot more people. Either way, it was nice. I stopped into the local GameStop after lunch to see Matt, a good friend of mine, who is the assistant manager there, and we made arrangements to talk later. The agenda for the rest of the day really just involved sleeping, eating turkey hash and goofing off. We even got in a little gaming on the laptops we brought with us. Nothing heavy though.

We made arrangements to visit Matt and his girlfriend on Saturday. They had twins earlier this year, and we got to see them. He was appologetic for the state of the house and I could only think to myself "Wow, this is the loft on a good day..." They had a boy and a girl, and the little guy had lung collapse when he was born and has since seen some work, but he's doing just fine now. He sat on my lap for a while and studied my face before giving me a big cheesy grin. Saturday was also grandma and grandpa's 28th wedding anniversary, so they took us all out to eat to celebrate at the 'best margarita spot in town.' That's them up there: 40oz margaritas. Jordon and DeAnn finished theirs, but my stomach acted up before I could completely down mine. When D asked them what their secret was for staying together for 28 years, grandma jokingly replied that they hadn't seen each other for most of it - being apart really helped. The idea of a 30-year bash was thrown around: a nice vacation destination or maybe a cruise in the Carribean. At any rate, mom said no one was allowed to have kids or get married then. :P Gives me two years to earn some vacation time and save up. They said that about their 20 and 25 year anniversaries - I'm gonna hold them to this one! LOL

Sunday was the extended family party in South Dakota, a little over two hours north of Norfolk. It's a white elephant exchange party that they do almost every year, however it's been increasingly hard for everyone to make it anymore. Most of the 'kids' are grown up and in college and having kids of their own, but I was rather impressed at the turnout. There were about 25 people all told. And they all thought Clara was the cutest thing. It was good to see my grandma, too. We got a 4-generation photo with grandma, my mom, me and Clara. When it came time to for the exchange, I got a purse (-.-;) which was traded out for a bath robe, and D swapped out someone's gift card, but then got it stolen from her for a set of saws. (-.-;) So we didn't fare so well, at least for useful things that would fit in a checked bag, but it was a good time nonetheless. The drive back gave us a gorgeous sunset and many farm houses decked out in holiday lights and covered in snow.

Monday was our last day out there. We drove back to Omaha and got through security two and a half hours early, with no major issues. Security there was much friendlier there than in San Antonio. Imagine that. -.- Both the flights into and out of Chicago were jam packed, and Clara was incredibly wound up the whole time, refusing to nap and getting fussier by the minute. Combine a cranky toddler with a very heavy load of carry on luggage and the holiday flying circus, and you have a very worn out pair of parents. I kid you not, she screamed and yelled nearly the entire time we were in the air. At one point she stopped and did something cute, and the couple in front of D noticed. The woman turned to the guy with "those eyes" and asked him if he didn't find that absolutely adorable. "Doesn't it make you want one?" His eyes said it all: she'd been working on him for a while. He looked helplessly over at me and it was all I could do to shake my head at him and mouth "NO!" before she saw and shot me a glare. Poor man. Poor, poor man. Fight the good fight, brother.

We finally landed in San Antonio just shy of 11:30pm, over half an hour later than expected. They, again, waited for everyone that was supposed to make the connecting flight, and that meant that if their flight was running an hour late, so was ours. >.<; I can understand on Christmas Eve, but that was just silly. After we claimed our bags (they all arrived in relatively good condition), we caught the shuttle out to the parking lot, got the Vue and got home. We dragged all the stuff in, resolved to put it away at a later date and called it a night around 1am.

Overall, I had a blast. I've needed a snowy Christmas for years and I've been homesick for so long. I miss the way things make more sense. It's hard to describe, but sometimes things just don't make any sense here in Texas. Things move a little slower there, and there are simply less people. Grandma and Grandpa absolutely doted on my children - they loved every minute of getting to see them and spoiling them rotten. Dad insisted that Clara sleep in their room after the first full night. Apparently she got up at 2am and started singing. I was about to profusely apologize for the lost sleep, but he said it was the most precious thing he'd heard in a long time, and told me that the only one in the room that minded the addition was Roxy. She was a little jealous that there was another little thing in the house getting all the attention. :P

This trip was very good for my soul.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Festivus 2008

Just thought I'd throw that out there for all the Seinfeld fans out there.

Nothing much to talk about, so I'll keep this post pretty short. I dropped off the gifts for Noni and her family. They've been such a blessing in our lives over the past year - the whole family. Especially considering what we were stuck with before her that somehow passed for licensed childcare. I know the gifts weren't much, but we really tried to find things that they'd either use or get a pretty good laugh out of.

Tonight, we were just doing some of the last of the packing and cleaning up before we're gone. D got the confirmation for the airline, the rental car info and the boarding information for Suzie while she was at work. I'll be taking her with me tomorrow on my way to work.

This whole holiday season has had D and I on edge, so after the work was done, we had a drink and took a moment to reconnect. It ended up feeling like it was the Airing of Grievances, though. Poor D, I kinda blind-sided her with just how stressed and lonesome the holiday campaign mindset has left me. We came up with an action plan, then did a little more 'reconnecting.' -.^

Well, by this time tomorrow, we'll be in the air on the way to Omaha. I wonder if we'll see Santa out the port side windows. :P

Monday, December 22, 2008

Weekend Intelligence: It'll Be A White Christmas...

Despite the size of this post, there is actually quite a bit going on this last weekend before our trip. It's just that most of what's going on isn't so much many different things as it is a LOT of a few things. Volume. So, in typical weekend intelligence fashion, here are the highlights!

House and Home:

Laundry. Laundry. And, um... Laundry. This weekend saw us do every article of laundry in the house. Sheets, towels, clothes: the works. All told, there was probably about 10 loads pushed through or still in various stages of completion. Couldn't do it all, but will probably finish it on Monday. Got tons of packing to do too, but can't do any of it until the laundry is finished.

Also cleaned up the animal filth in Colin's room. I'd been on him to clean his room for weeks now, and especially after our most recent discovery in there, I wanted to vacuum and shampoo. He spent most of the weekend picking up his room and throwing away all the things that the cat and dog had soiled, but that he'd left lying around to rot. He complained that it smelled like the bat cave, and I had to agree with him. Why didn't he notice that stench sooner? o.O? He got some of it, but by the time I had told him I would be up to vacuum and shampoo, there was still stuff lying around on the floor, dried cat poop stuck to the carpet and clothes that were "crispy." It took me almost 2 hours to clean, vacuum and shampoo that room.

Left to do items finishing the laundry, packing and taking out the trash from all over the house. Not too shabby for a weekend.

In Game:

Beastmastered it up. A lot. We dinged 59 on Friday night in our Antican camp, then returned there and nearly made 60 the following night. We finished 60 off with some Fields of Valor rounds, which allowed us to equip our full AF and matching Tungis. That is a monster of an axe, by the way. In the early days, it was rumored that it had a hidden effect of double attack. It has since been debunked, but it sure does hit fast and hard. I can see how some people would mistake it's sheer speed for double attack, especially if their CPU was lagging. While the experience is still fine at the Quicksand Caves camp, we're starting to pull way too much hate from our pets, making it difficult to regain the proper enmity balance due to constant curing. Now, with the addition of the better gear, I think I'll be scouting around for a new place for next time - it's still a bit early for the Boyahda Tree camps.

We are now in desperate need of resupply on our BSTs. I had 2 jug pets left and less than a stack of pet food after our most recent run of leveling. Keri completely ran out of jug pets and her pet food stock is dwindling as well. After I was sure that we were not needed for Soulfire's Dynamis - Tavnazia run, I went to Aht Urhgan Whitegate and fished Hamsi for over an hour. Keri's cooking mule whipped them up into Fish Oil Broth in short order, so at least we have expendable pets again. Need to go to the Sanctuary of Zi'Tah for a night and farm up some coeurls to turn into pet food.

Lastly, we decided to do all the in game Christmas events. There's presents for the kids, exchanging cards to other people and giving gifts to some of the nation's more "Bah-Humbug" citizens. The big prize this year were handbells that jingle when you hit things with them.

As for the picture - we got word that Norfolk got some pretty decent snowfall. I've been dreaming of a White Christmas for several years now, and it looks like I just might get it. ^_^

Friday, December 19, 2008

The Legend of the Cursed Red Ring of Death

Yes, that is my XBox... Yes, those three lights are red. And yes, while you can't really tell from the still photo, they are blinking. It's the thing that every XBox 360 owner dreads seeing - the Red Ring of Death indicating a general (read: vague and indescript) hardware failure.

This nasty little demon was waiting for me when I turned on the machine after getting home today. The generation of machine I had purchased was supposedly more resistant to RRoD, but apparently not immune. I called XBox support right away. After a heated exchange with the automated menu system and a short hold, I was connected to some poor phone monkey in India. I must admit that their phone skills and accent suppression training seminars have gotten better as time has gone on - I could hardly tell what region in India he was from, only that he was from India. We ran some quick troubleshooting before he got the RMA process started. Apparently the warranty runs out on December 26th, so if it was going to go on the blink, it chose to do so in the knick of time. A box is on its way to ship this out, and I should have it back in 2-10 weeks. -.-; Just as I got a NICE entertainment setup...

What can I say? Stikes and gutters. After dinner, D and I gamed for a bit. We've been wanting to get out in game characters married to each other for some time. Unfortunately, as is the case with most of the real world, only characters of the opposite sex are allowed to marry in game. And since Keri and I are both female characters, that's something that's just not likely to happen. So we decided that we're going to try to get our main characters hitched to mules of nearly the exact same name. I finally said goodbye to Noyoudo and created a Hume MNK names "Shrades" and Keri created a Hume WAR named "Keriths." You only need to be level 20 to marry, so it shouldn't take long to get them up to snuff. Then, when one of our applications gets approved, the other will get a ring that says Shrades or Keriths. Close enough, right? >.>;

After leveling these new mules to Lv5, we hopped on our mains for more BST leveling. We both dinged 59 and ran through the leftover ring charge from last time and most of another one before we called it quits for the night. We're holding a pretty consistent chain 3 now against the ants, and the experience is rolling in. We should be able to work another level or two out of this camp before we will have to leave, as the pets/prey don't get any stronger, making it too easy to pull hate from them.

Each passing day, I'm more and more excited about the vacation. I have one more day of work, followed by a weekend, then two and a half days before a long five and a half day vacation. Weekend intelligence will likely consist of laundry, wrapping, packing and gaming, but something always seems to happen to keep life interesting. >.>; Sure hope I'm not jinxing myself...

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Tech Support Bloopers

Anyone who's worked in service, particularly tech support, knows that people can say and do the strangest things. They weren't always funny at first, but they're pretty humorous looking back on them. Always makes for a quick, fun post about some of the stories that stand out from the rest. So, sit back for some adventures in troubleshooting:

Recently, I was talking an end user through connecting to an Outlook Web Access site to check their email while they were out of the office. I asked him to type in "H-T-T-P-S, Colon, Slash Slash..." to which he replied "... Colon... Colon... Where is my colon? ... Where'd it go? Do you know where my colon is?"
A semi-retired client living in Costa Rica called in at 5 'til 5pm (love those calls... -.-; ) and was trying to connect to his company's VPN. It was very hard to walk him through all the steps to troubleshoot because several things that I needed him to do he simply couldn't comprehend. After nearly half an hour of troubleshooting, I told him that, based on what information I had, that he had no internet connection. He told me that was silly, and we agreed to consult a coworker tomorrow who had gone home for the day. The next day, after another 30min troubleshooting session with said coworker, he came to the same conclusion. As it turned out, the gentleman had forgotten to pay the bill from his ISP.
I received a call from a rather panicked general manager that the phone system, voicemail system, network and computers were all completely non-functional. He needed to call me on his cell phone. I started with the computer issue, asking him to power the machine all the way down and try to reboot it. To which he replied, "I can't do that, we don't have any power."

EDIT: For all you concerned readers, D is doing OK after her accident yesterday. She has some back and neck pain, but she's going to see a therapist tonight to get a claim started. Keep her in your prayers. ^^/

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Avoiding the Wreckage: A Primer for Inclement Weather Driving

I love wintry weather.

I love the crisp, cold feeling of the air in my lungs. I love the feeling of the cold wind piercing through coat and clothing alike. I love the fact that, at least after Christmas, people stay inside and I can go out and enjoy places being considerably less crowded. Likewise, I love how the roads are generally less crowded. I love how it makes that special someone that much more inclined to be close to you. I might be a little crazy, but I love the wintry weather.

But I swear, if it merely threatens to look like there might be a chance of a possibility of potential unfavorable weather, everyone in South Texas freaks the hell out and starts running their cars into each other. It's as if the cold weather causes what precious little brain cells the people around here have to say "¡Híjole! Olvide este, jefe. Call when it's warmer; we'll be down in Puerto Vallarta if you need us." That forces them to use the brains they bought at the iPhone Apps Store... Talk about things that make you go 'Bruu...' Sometimes I wonder how people still have vehicles in this city...

D was in another car accident this morning. She was hit from behind in on a "slippery" patch of road. I say "slippery" only because the road was completely dry and clear on my 50ish mile commute, but had the sky decided to spit on that patch of road, it would have been frozen. She's OK thankfully. The Vue is, yet again, a little banged up, but drivable this time. On my way into work today, I must have passed by a dozen wrecks. Each one involving at least 3 cars, and they were all on the on ramp or off ramp of a major street or interchange. All but one wreck, which was cause by people rubbernecking in the fast lane and therefore was off on the left-hand side of the road, just behind the blind side of a curve. -.- I watched as one person slammed on their brakes and slammed into the growing pile. Instead of slamming on the breaks, I just coasted right around them, and saw another person in my rear-view mirror slam into them.

Let me reiterate that the roads I took were clear: no ice, no water, no patches of fog. It was cold and windy to be sure, but the physical road condition was A-OK. I have a hard time believing that every one of those people in the accidents this morning ate lead paint chips while being dropped repeatedly on their heads as children. Maybe a sizable majority, but not all of them, right? I just think they honestly have no clue how to drive in any weather but sunny and 80 degrees. So. for those readers that live and work in Texas or other warm climate, I'm writing this short primer on inclement weather. Listen carefully...

If you're afraid of winter weather, the worst thing you can do is slam on the breaks. Seriously. Plan ahead. Treat each pedal in the car as if there was an egg between your foot and the pedal. Apply no more pressure to that pedal than would break an eggshell. This is THE rule to remember when all other rules have been forgotten. If that means you need to back the hell off someone's bumper to have enough reaction time to slowly decelerate, then do it. It's not like you're gonna get there any sooner by riding someone's ass the whole way. The problem most people have is that they are entirely too close, going entirely too fast and when some dumbass in front of them lives up to their namesake, they have no room for the error. They are forced to slam on the brakes or over-correct their steering. Now who's the dumbass?

But when your car is not mating with the car in front of you, you should have plenty of room to make any maneuver you need without the risk of loosing of control of your vehicle. After you have that #1 rule down, add these to your skill set, and in this order:
-Because your front tires share their traction between braking and steering, coast to decelerate if at all possible. Letting gravity do the work gives your tires the most traction for steering.
-Try to avoid the lanes closest to the entrances and exits to the freeway, moving over about a mile or two from your destination exit. This keeps the lanes used for merging clear of clutter and reduces the chance that someone will merge into you.
-Don't rubberneck at other accidents: the safety distance in front of you is to make up for other people's stupidity, not your own.

As long as you're following the main rule about the eggshell on your pedals, the other guidelines should fall into place: you should have enough room to gently steer your vehicle or slow down without sliding into anyone. And the more people that follow this rule, the faster and safer the traffic can actually move.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Weekend Intelligence: Search and Seizure

Lots going on both at home and in game. This time of year is always kind of crazy, and our family just seems to have its own brand of insanity. So, in typical weekend intelligence fashion, here are the highlights!

House and Home:

Friday night was my company's Christmas party, and one of DeAnn's coworkers graciously offered to watch the kiddos while we went. The party was at a high-end French restaurant. They had wine and mixed drinks you could buy with drink tickets, and two buffet areas with appetizers like quail, crab cakes, spring rolls and a variety of cheeses and desserts. I introduced D to some of my coworkers and management, and we had a few drinks and chatted it up for a little over an hour or so before ducking out. Later found out the party ended shortly after we left. Overall, we had a really good time. When we picked up the kids, we found them settled down watching Finding Nemo. I guess Colin had won the game of Scrabble they brought out to play. LOL

There was just so much to be done on Saturday. Dishes and laundry and cleaning and more laundry. We ran our WalMart run and picked up Colin's meds all at the same time, while juggling several loads of laundry. It'll be a few more days until we have the laundry pile back to a manageable heap. At least we had Omaha Steaks from D's mom for Christmas, so the grocery bill was lower and we had good food to look forward to. If only the kids would cooperate long enough for me to cook a meal...

Maybe it's just the weather, but the kids seemed to be particularly off-the-wall lately. I don't know what it is about them, but they seem to know when its the worst possible time to act up, and decide to act up then. Colin will be completely oblivious to the destruction he's causing in the depths of his ADHD madness, and Clara will be only too happy to help. We try at least to keep her entertained with raisins for a snack and Veggietales, but she gets bored of the videos and just ends up feeding the raisins to the dog.

On that note, did you know that raisins can cause seizures in dogs? I sure didn't! But sure as could be, just as I was sitting down to take my first bite of the delicious steak I spent the last 45mins preparing, Suzie huddles right next to me, looses bladder control and starts to spasm. Poor girl! ; ; I tried to keep her calm until it was clear she was coming around, while Clara started to launch food and Colin watched, laughing at Clara one moment, visibly concerned for Suzie the next. D had already finished her meal and went to the computer to email the vet, leaving me to juggle the convulsing canine and both kids at the same time. -.-; My steak dinner was cold by the time I got to it.

Sunday was not quite so madcap. At least it didn't require us to leave the house. We still had a walking mountain of clothing to wash, illuminating the need for more hangers next time we go to the store. I think Clara is eating them. Between rounds of gaming, Colin and I picked up around the house while D cleaned the catbox. Nothing in there...

>.>
<.<
>.>

So... where is the cat... Um... o.O? We started looking around the house. Turned out that the cat had been using Colin's room as a toilet since Thanksgiving, and he was completely oblivious to it. I really try my best not to go in there, but I walked in there this time and retched. He plays in there. He reads in there. He hides from his baby sister in there. HE SLEEPS IN THERE! How can he NOT smell that? I thought I smelled something funky upstairs, but everytime I did, I found yet another diaper that Clara had hidden somewhere, and figured that must have been it.

I wonder how I can make the cat's disappearance look like an accident...

In Game:

While Soulfire was doing Medusa and tier 4 ZNMs this weekend, Keri and I decided to get some good sessions in on BST. Mainly, this was due to us not being home for Medusa and Keri isn't much into ZNM. Something about needing a ton of open inventory spots... We did a few rounds of Fields of Valor in Xarcabard to ding 58, and I level synced to her and helped her do a round without flagging one myself to get her caught up to me.

We decided to look for a different camp than Toraimarai Canal. While the experience there was really good, it simply wasn't worth the amount of work it takes to drag the charm-resistant slime through a nest of aggro-happy mobs. That place is really unforgiving of any mistakes, which abound when playing BST. I picked through some forums and found that there was a nice camp for a 60ish solo player in Quicksand Caves using the southwesternmost entrance. Same entrance you use to get to the Chamber of Oracles. The plan was to throw the lizards there at the ants. While the whole "60ish solo" part had me a little worried, I decided that we should go check it out.

Glad we did. The lizards didn't con any higher than T, even at that level. Easily zooed. And there were about 3 lizards for every 2 ants, so we had plenty of pets available for swaps. The only rough part tended to be the PLD ants down there, because they would perpetually cure themselves to be just beyond us being able to land a killing blow. I think we should be able to ride this camp out through 60 or 61, and then we have The Boyahda Tree to look forward to.

Quaide was missing for our normal Nyzul runs, and since we beat 100, the only reason we'd be going would be to farm floors for weapons and armor. We enlisted the help of some LS mates who needed floor 40 win and decided to make a farming/win run out of that. No armor or weapons that we needed dropped, but the WAR weapon that Quaide would have wanted dropped. >.>; The other two tags we spent getting Japolo caught up to us in Lebros Cavern assaults.

We were a bit rusty in our Dynamis - Xarcabard skills. For some reason, we just kept making sloppy mistakes. People took too long getting into the zone and got wiped out on the sac pull. One person got away from the main group of demons, but trained a smaller group of them from the sac pull and wiped more people. On the demon kings, people were chasing instead of staying put, aggroed a large group of demons and wiped us again. We started the line pulls too soon after a wipe, the sleepers weren't ready and we got wiped again. Somehow Keri got lost and made it behind the line, making it impossible to get to her without dying at least once. And lastly, it was decided that we only really needed 2WHMs for Dynamis Lord, which not only failed miserably, but took forever to recover from. Something about only having 2 WHMs to scrape people off the ice.

At least Monster Gloves dropped... O.O Yeah! That concludes my gear desires from Dynamis. I'm still looking forward to doing more Dynamis, but now I'm more or less just doing them for the points. :D Oh, I'll take the WHM belt if it should drop (it's a sexy piece), but that's the last piece that I really WANTED. I'm now 5/5 on MNK, WHM and BST, and I have the BST accessory piece. Now to get the 17 levels I need to wear the set...

Ended the night by catching the tail end of the officer's meeting for DeathByHairball. I missed the majority of the meeting while I was in Dynamis, but I was able to get the basic idea of the point system they want to implement. We're also looking to start doing more events after the holiday season is over to try to build group cohesion. This time of year stresses just about everyone out, and there's been a lot of arguments, hurt feelings and people are leaving over them. Hopefully things will settle down once the holiday stress is taken out of the picture and people can just enjoy their time again.

Hard to believe, but in less than two weeks we will be heading out to the great white north for Christmas at my folks house. I haven't been up north in 3 years, and haven't seen my parents in over a year. I'm really looking forward to getting the hell outta Texas for a couple of days.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Farming Out: The FFXI Winter 2008 Update

The Winter 2008 update for FFXI dropped on Monday, and as fully expected, I didn't play at all that night. I had two machines and the XBox to update. But, unlike with previous updates, it didn't drop me anywhere near as many times. I think I needed to restart the PC update twice - it finished before bed. o.O The XBox update completed flawlessly overnight. That's considerably more hassle-free than past updates, where I've spend two full days in frustration as I countlessly restart the update process and pray the next restart doesn't bomb my system.

There were quite a few things added in the new update, and I've decided to dedicate one full post entry to some of the more noteworthy changes:

-Introduction of "Fields of Valor": a new system in which players can take on voluntary training regimes to slay a number of specified enemies in an assigned period of time. ... If successful, players will receive experience points, gil, and Fields of Valor points redeemable for other benefits.

So, lets say you have a low to mid-level job, or have a friend who has one, and they want to get some experience, but don't want to put together a whole party. Hell, they may only have 30mins until they have to call it a night. All you need to do is go to the area you want to train in, register a training plan, level sync to your friend (if needed) and kill the mobs on the plan. They're all outpost areas, so you can easily warp to them. As long as the mobs yield some kind of experience, they count. Once you meet the quota, you get a big bonus.

Pretty amazing stuff, really. Keri and I teamed up with Relme on our BSTs with his DNC and synced down to 39 and did a few rounds in Beacedine Glacier. While the experience per mob wasn't outstanding, the bonus at the end made it worthwhile. The total exp/hr was actually comparable to our run-of-the-mill sessions duoing, but with the safety of partying with someone and being really, really close to a way to get home. About that -one of the things you can use the points for is a warp home. The manual is at the outpost area. So if the region is owned by the beastmen, you can still use it to go home. Keri and I also duo'ed in Xarcabard for a few rounds on BST to similiar results. Each round only takes about 15mins, so its perfect for the casual gamer or to simply pass the time waiting for something else to start.

-Members of a Level Sync party will no longer lose beneficial status effects such as Protect should the synchronization designee level up. Accumulated TP, and the effect of the Charm ability on monsters, will also no longer be lost.

-The following equipment attributes have been added to the list of those which will remain in effect, and be adjusted accordingly, during Level Sync: Evasion / Enmity / Healing HP / Healing MP

They should have had an emergency maintenance over this issue when Level Sync was implemented, in my opinion. I've heard tales of people getting synced while trying to get into very dangerous places, having their beneficial effects wear off or having their pet decharm, and dying in a place where they had to homepoint because no one could get to them. That they included this in the update seems a little late. At least my Dark Staff isn't completely worthless anymore and I can get hMP+ while synced.

-While the query selection boxes associated with the white magic spell Raise and the black magic spell Tractor are being displayed, the same spells will no longer be able to be cast on that player.

This saves me more MP in events/dynamis/besieged than I can rightly put into words.

-The enchantments on the following items can now be recharged in Al Zahbi, Aht Urhgan Whitegate, Nashmau, Southern San d'Oria (S), Bastok Markets (S), and Windurst Waters (S): Chariot Band / Empress Band / Emperor Band

Finally, a good use for those 230,000 some-odd allied notes. And here I thought I'd have to use them all on chocobos and sprint shoes...

-The tax levied on bazaar purchases has been abolished in the following areas: Ru'Lude Gardens / Upper Jeuno / Lower Jeuno / Port Jeuno

Which resulted in the mass-exodus of RMT/LS bazaars from The Shoppes of Batallia Downs. They're all on the Upper Jeuno Bridge now, just inside from Batallia.

-Players can now warp to Aht Urhgan Whitegate from Jeuno by talking to the Salaheem's Sentinels representative deployed there.

-The locations of outpost warp NPCs in San d'Oria, Windurst, and Bastok have been changed as follows: Northern San d'Oria (D-9) -> Northern San d'Oria (K-9)Bastok Metalworks (F-8) -> Bastok Mines (K-8)Port Windurst (D-5) -> Port Windurst (L-4)

In other words, the amount of time spent travelling on foot has been drastically reduced. Especially in the case of those OP NPCs - they put them RIGHT NEXT to the mog house entrance. Very nice. And I always thought it was weird that Jeuno had an invitation quest, but not a warp representative like the other nations.

-The sale prices for the following items have been changed:Black Ink / Bugard Skin / H. Q. Bugard Skin / Orc Piercer / Yagudo Freezer / Shellbuster / Leech Saliva / Bird Blood / Beast Blood

{begin rant}

This just pisses me right off. Seriously. You might recall that over Thanksgiving, I NPC'ed off the Beast Blood that dropped off Lesser Gaylas to afford the Apollo Staff for my BST. Earlier this year, Talon, Keri and I would farm Castle Zvahl for those weapons to fund our BLM. Many, many other legitimate players use these farming methods to get what they need. But everytime the average player finds something that they can really cash in on, SE nerfs it so that it can't be used by RMT. Instead, why not fix the root cause: that the amount of gil needed to do endgame activities is too difficult for the average player with 1-2hrs/day play time to get without spending weeks farming. All this does is drive players who would otherwise be honest, rule-abiding players to buy their gil from the very sites SE is trying to fight, and at an even more inflated price due to the increased difficulty of getting said gil.

Wake up, SE.

{end rant}

Overall, this update leaves me with more game to play and less means needed to play it. And I'm not sure how I feel about that. A little confused? I mean, how did they put so much win AND so much fail into a single update that didn't take two days to download? I'm gonna just have to suck it up and spend a week doing nothing but fishing in Nashmau for the gil I need to do endgame stuff.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Weekend Intelligence: This 3-Day Weekend Brought to You by the Saturn Vue...

It was a great 3-day weekend. If it weren't for how I came about getting a 3-day weekend. Gotta love unexpected car troubles. Hey, at least I got some extra time getting acquainted with the new home theater system. :D So, in typical weekend intelligence fashion, here are the highlights!

House and Home:

Friday morning started off like any other Friday morning. We all went about our morning routine like the clockwork it's become, until something jarring sounded from under the hood of the Vue as D tried driving it off for the morning commute. It was difficult to even start, let alone drive, and made a horrible grinding sound. I told her to take the convertible for the day, effectively leaving my workday at the mercy of the mechanic's shop.

Not that they're bad people to be at the mercy of. We got the Vue at the Saturn dealership not more than half a mile from our house, and they've always been fair to us the few times the Ion we owned had been in the shop. I was able to coax the Vue to start and limp the half mile to the shop, where they took us in immediately, despite having no appointment. Clara made a bee-line over to the duplo blocks table and started going through the large sack of blocks, picking them out one by one, inspecting them, saying "No" and promptly chucking them over her shoulder. Once she had thrown all the blocks on the floor, she brought each one to me to look at before taking them back and putting them back in the bag. Then she wanted to look at all the cars in the showroom, and I let her sit in the driver seat of each one. She called each car "mine pretty car" and played with the steering wheel and honked one of the horns on accident. >.<;

Once it was clear what I would and would not have to pay for on this repair trip (((>.<;;;))), they offered to shuttle us to wherever we needed to go. I had the option of dropping Clara off at the daycare, but I decided to spend the day with her instead of dropping her off. We watched Disney's Robin Hood and Dr Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas together, and about halfway through Robin Hood, she curled up on the couch with me, falling into a deep snore during the Grinch. It was nice - she's not normally a cuddler. After she went down for a nap, I spent most of the rest of the day cleaning and doing laundry.

Saturday morning was our long-scheduled dentist day for the kids. The dentist we went to was kinda neat - they had a large kids play area inside the waiting room that Colin and Clara climbed around in, and several scooting options for younger kids. Clara sat in the car they had and scooted around. She also attempted to climb the water fountain. Clara's visit was just a quick brush/floss and play in the chair. Just to get her used to the office and not permanently scare her. Colin had no issue with the dentist - in fact, he's been asking when he can go for the last few months. We've been unable to go much because we had no dental insurance for a while, but now we're all caught up.

We did our WalMart run and got the oil changed in the Vue shortly after the dentist, and were more or less bums for the rest of the weekend, only doing some light laundry here and there and keeping the mess to a minimum. The only other times we went out was to get the convertible's oil changed the next day, and we didn't hang around for that.

In Game:

Surprisingly, I didn't play anything during the day on Friday. I spent the day pretty well divided between playing with Clara and cleaning the house. Soulfire was attempting another Medusa run for FNLE, as our first attempt was a valiant, but ill-fated effort. This time, though, we were much better prepared, but as it turned out, she wasn't feeling much like playing and was nowhere to be seen. -_-; Who hunts Medusa, honestly? We killed a SMN NM Lamia in there, though. Almost wiped when its avatar used its 2 hour move. Nothing to show for it. :P

We spent a bit of time after Medusa and on Saturday night leveling BST in the canal, but it didn't go so well. Toraimarai Canal is very unforgiving if you aren't paying complete attention or if you make a mistake, and Keri ended up dead several times. We both had to home point at least once. While the experience is great when you don't screw up, it is brutal in there when you do. I might start scouting some of the other areas to see if there isn't somewhere that is a little kinder to the distracted BST.

Sunday morning was our last Nyzul climb session. I say last because we beat floor 100, so all the runs we do from now on are purely for fun and farming. We can also start focusing more on assaults that we need for rank up. We did Dynamis - Valkurm later that evening, and Keri got the BLM belt and I got the BST belt, both very sexy pieces of equipment for the spot they occupy.

Version update is coming up, so my next post will either be what I think of it, or complaining about not being able to update. Or both. >.>;

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Shopping Frenzy Post-Mortem

Hard to believe that the week is already half over. It feels like I just drove into San Antonio from El Paso last night. LOL Could be due to the fact that I haven't been in the office at all the past two days. On Monday, I was up at my favorite New Braunfels client helping their help desk cover calls, then on Tuesday I was in Boerne working on a laptop most of the day - no phone work involved! Been a nice couple of days.

D and I are slowly coming down off the spending high we've been on the past few days, and it's kinda hard. Everything, everywhere is asking for money this time of year, and it's been hard putting the checkbook/card down and just take a moment to assess our standing. We're good so far, but the temptation to continue to dump our cash is strikingly sharp.

For example: While we got a good deal on TV/Home Theater set-up, we didn't get anything to put them on. We picked a nice one up from WalMart last night, but I can't help but feel some buyer's remorse for buying one of the more expensive ones. This one is mostly metal, with 3 tempered glass shelves, flat panel mounting stand and wood finish that matches the woodwork in the kitchen. I guess you get what you pay for, and I don't want a really nice TV/stereo to be sitting on a piece of junk TV stand, but still...

Another example: My laptop has always been a bit of a headache. It runs waay too hot, usually shutting down abruptly due to overheating. The sound device driver is cobbled together because the one that came with it made the speakers distort. It has a tendancy to lock up for a minute or two when under load. So its no surprise that I've been browsing computers online. D and I almost bought one last night from TigerDirect. Almost. It's not like the laptop is getting worse: it's always been like that. If I've been dealing with it for this long, I can hold out another year. In the end, it was just too hard, given all that we've bought, to justify buying me a new computer at this time.

Speaking of TigerDirect. Noni told me that her stereo reciever went out on her. >.<; That's when I mentioned that Tiger was having some great deals for Cyber Monday. Tiger's been rather good to me over the years, so I don't have too much of a problem giving them my recommendation. That's saying something because I typically don't give recommendations because businesses today give a pretty sketchy level of quality of service. But all my computer builds have been mostly through them, and when components have been DOA or gone bad, they've been really good about providing prompt replacements or refunds.

So aside from the odd gift here and there, we are pretty much done with our Christmas shopping, and were able to get away without having to sell body parts or children. ^_^/ Now if I could only pry my wife away from shopping sites...

Monday, December 1, 2008

Weekend Intelligence: Beeps, Dings, Chimes and Rings

We had an awesome and adventure packed Thanksgiving weekend in El Paso. And each adventure seemed to be heralded by some sort of alerting noise - beeps, dings, chimes and rings. So, in typical weekend intelligence fashion, here are the highlights!

House and Home (and beyond!):

Beep... Beep... That's the noise that I woke up to on Wednesday morning. Apparently it had been going all night, kept Colin up and woke D up much earlier, but she didn't want to wake me up - figured it would eventually wake me up. All it ended up doing was driving her nuts for a few hours. After some hunting around and some light acrobatics, I eventually found that one of the smoke alarms had a dead battery, but as I was already late, I decided I would deal with it later. I remembered to get my badge out of the convertible just before D left for work, I was taking the Vue.

Noni's daycare closed early on Wednesday, so I had previously requested a half-day off so that I could get Clara. This would also give me enough time to clean and get started on packing the Vue. On my way to the daycare, D rings my cell phone. Apparently, the dinging of the car telling her that the headlights were still on didn't have quite the annoyance factor of the smoke alarm. The convertible was dead. Of all days to have an automobile incident, we'd have to have one when we needed to be on the road early. Someone in the lab she works in offered her a jump, but the battery was too drained for a cold, uncharged jump and it didn't work. So I got Clara, quickly cleaned up the Vue, picked up Colin, my emergency auto kit and the chinese food I had ordered ahead of time, then raced out to the ISR to jumpstart the convertible.

Begin PSA: Just incase you're unaware, if your battery is dead due to a slow drain (headlights, map light, cabin lights, etc) and the engine won't even crank over, then you're going to need to charge the battery a little bit before trying to start. Hook up the battery like you normally would, but rev the engine on the vehicle that's giving the jump. Hold the engine revved for about 2-5 mins, and keep it revved while trying to start the dead car. 90% of the time, it works everytime.

After some cold chinese and a packing frenzy, we were on the road. It was only about two hours later than I wanted. But that makes the difference between being able to cover a large chunk of highway at 80+mph and crawling along at 65mph all night long. -.- For all you non-Texans, the interstate speeds change around here at dusk. It would make too much sense to leave it all the same speed. I set the cruise to 70 after dark and just plodded along with everyone else. The kids wanted to watch a movie on the laptop, and D was having a hard time getting it set up. Go figure that the minute I take my eyes off the road, I nearly rear-end a State Trooper. He had just finished pulling over some bozo who decided he was going to pull over on the wrong side of the road, so as he was trying to merge back into traffic, I came up on him waaay too fast and got pulled over myself. A siren is kinda like a beep... >.>; I think he took one look at the chaos in the cabin and understood, 'cause he asked me where I was traveling for the holiday, let me off with a warning and told me to be safe and enjoy my weekend.

Thursday was VERY relaxing. We slept in very late and idly watched football and gamed a little. D's mom had bought a 17lb turkey for 3 people and 2 kids, so there was a TON of food. We went through the Black Friday ads and decided to enter the early morning craziness for the Polaroid 42" HDTV they were selling for under $600. The plan was to wake up at 4, get something quick to eat and bring it to the store to get in line for the TV.

That was the plan, anyway. The phone alarm dinged around 4, but we ended up taking a little longer than anticipated getting up, sitting in the drive-thru for nearly 20mins waiting for service and found over 200 people already in line for the 20 TVs they had. Do the math - it don't work. D and I just decided to stand off to the side, eat our food and watch the crazy people. That was the only deal worth being anywhere but at home at that hour, so we went home and did all of our holiday shopping online. We did end up buying a TV and nice Home Stereo System at TigerDirect. The TV was normally $1100 and the Stereo $500 - we got the whole rig for under a grand. We also picked up all the gifts for the kids and most of the family as well. Very pleased with our finds this year.

That night, we decided to go out dancing. Last time we were in El Paso, we went to Graham Central Station, but apparently there had been a rash of shootings there lately. We decided to go to the Whatever Lounge and Old Plantation after dinner and coffee instead. For those of you that actually follow the links - yes, there are lots of rainbows for a reason. Ding ding! Honestly though, I'd say it was a good 50/50 split between the straight and the LGBT crowd, but it was kinda hard to tell at times. Some might wonder why we'd chose to go there over other bar/club/lounge choices in town, and the reasons we chose that club over the others were pretty simple:

-Friendlier Atmosphere: Aside from the obvious reason why the patrons would be more friendly, there seemed to be waaaay less "he-said-she-said-baby-momma-drama" style shenanigans that you usually find at a club on a Friday night.
-Better music: Music you can actually dance to, played by an actual DJ from actual vinyl on actual turntables. Bad. Ass.
-Better drink specials: We spent the same amount of money hanging out at a lounge for an hour before the club opened as we did actually in the club all night long. And we were never want for drink.

Long night short - we had an absolute blast. D and I drank and danced to some of the best electro until 1am, and at the risk of giving this post a PG-13 rating, left just after the male strip show ended. So much fun.

The next morning, we woke up just in time to schedule a lunch with Papa (D's grandpa). He's very by the book, which has historically been at odds with our tendancy to be completely bumtastic while on vacation. But we nailed down 11-2 for catching up and eating at a local cafeteria style restaurant. He has been known to get on D's case about her weight, but lately we've been doing DDR just about every night for 15-20mins, and she's made solid progress, so we had a lot of positive things to talk about on the wellness topic. I bragged on her dedication to being more active and her weight loss so far - I think he might have actually been impressed. :D

We finished off the weekend on Sunday with a visit to D's old church for breakfast and worship before packing up the Vue and heading back on the road. We decided to push past Fort Stockton and refuel in Ozona, and were greeted with the ding of the fuel light 30 miles outside of the town. We're blessed we actually made it. Once we finally got home, the beep that started it all came back to haunt us: I completely forgot to put new batteries in the smoke detector. >.>;

In Game:

Not that we played much, but we did bring the 360 and laptop with us, so we were able to play a little bit. Most of my online time was spent doing what I rarely get to do: farm. Earlier in the past week, Keri and I found out why there are always people killing the bats in the Sanctuary of Zi'tah. Those damned things are broken! They almost always double drop beast blood, which NPC's for a little over 1k. Combine that with the fact that they are very, very squishy, spawn rapidly and there are a bajillion of the little buggers, and you have a very lucrative gil-making vehicle that is completely independent of the Auction House market.

Their only "drawback" is that they only spawn from dusk to dawn in game, so you have about 30mins to farm and 30mins of down time. Not really that bad of a deal, really. It means you can seriously do something else while actively farming. I watched Thanksgiving football, played with Clara a little bit, did some laundry, took a shower and ate Thanksgiving Day dinner, all while farming up a little over 175k over the course of the day. I used all that cash to upgrade my Light Staff to an Apollo's Staff to give my BST charm a bit more of a kick.

Speaking of BST, the other thing Keri and I did over the long weekend was put in a leveling session on BST. Back in the Toraimarai Canal, we did the slime trick again and it worked just as wonderfully as before. One of these times, we're gonna have to put in a good 3-4 hour session in there and just grind it out. The experience in there is phenomenal.

That about covers it. I'm on the road on Monday and part of Tuesday, so I might not get time to update like I want to. Gotta love working tech support after a long weekend...

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Weekend Intelligence: Company

So maintaining the clean streak in the house from last weekend paid off this weekend. We had company Friday night, and the house was more or less acceptable not to have to do much with it this weekend. So, in what I hope will become typical weekend intelligence fashion again, here are the highlights!

House and Home:

Friday night was good fun. One of D's coworkers had his kiddo for the night as his wife went out with friends to watch the new love-smitten chick-flick sighfest, Twilight. So we invited him over for dinner and some adult time while the kids play. We hadn't had people over to our house for barbecue and beer in a long time. Apparently, we live on the other side of the world from them. And he is admittedly more directionally challenged than D. That thought is kinda scary, and hard to believe... Anyway, I had to call him to clarify that we did live nearby a different mall than he thought: we're at the one close to Sea World on the Northwest side of town, the one he thought was on the east side. At least it gave me some lead time to properly barbecue the chicken with some sauce I mixed up, instead of quickly just blackening it. Comes out so much better when I can cook it slowly. We ate and drank and talked about all manner of topics until the kids started winding down for the night. We've got to do that again someday soon. I don't mind hosting or driving (whichever is easier on them), but that was fun.

Since we'd kept the house more or less presentable through the week, all that was needed on Saturday and Sunday was some light pickup and maintenance. We went to church on Saturday night. I enjoy going on Saturday night because it leaves my Sunday mornings open to sleep in and enjoy the day without worrying how I'm gonna pack 6 hours of activities into a 3-hour period. We did our normal WalMart run on Sunday. I finally broke down and got D and I new chairs for the office. There was one screw holding my seat together on my old chair, and it was poking me through the cushion in a rather uncomfortable way.

So many bad jokes...

In Game:

Keri and I set up our BST and hit Crawlers' Nest to burn off a ring charge. We had just finished off the charge when Byble, a member in DeathByHairball, asked if anyone was available to help him get Limit Break 1 items - needed to progress past level 50. One of the three items drops off of monsters in Crawlers' Nest, monsters we could easily defeat at our level. That request came across about the same time that two parties decided to descend on our very clearly occupied camp and kill everything that moved. I hate people. After helping Byble, I committed to searching all areas for a new, less frequented camp.

I came up with Toraimarai Canal. This gem of a dungeon is accessible right from our hometown of Windurst - no travelling needed! It has two clear tiers of monster levels, which makes for easy pet/prey distinction. And the lower level tier has slimes, which are quite possibly the best pets in the game (despite being notoriously hard to charm), as they have incredibly strong attacks, special moves and are impervious to physical damage. The drawback is that the pet slimes spawn quite some distance from the prey, requiring us to drag them across the entire zone to camp. Keri died in the process of getting a pet, but once we had them, we didn't have much issue getting back to the zoneline. Once we got back, we Familiared the slimes and tore everything that moved apart. They went through the fish, bats and skeleton targets like they were paper. And since they were so many monsters, we easily kept up chain 4 for experience bonus. We made nearly an entire level, but with the death, I am 1k ahead of her. I'll have to log on as her one of these days and do some campaign ops to make up the difference.

In Soulfire news... We took down Bahamut on Saturday. 18 minutes of preparation for a fight that lasted no longer than 30 seconds. LOL The gear drops weren't fantastic, but he did drop just about every crafting item that would fetch a handsome price on the AH. If everything sells for the going AH price, divided up, we each stand to make about 310k. I can't wait for the next one - I need the money.

We also a did Dynamis - Beaucedine run. Nothing fabulous. We got some nice 100 coins drop, and a bunch of MNK relic that no one wanted. It is to be Shadokaryuudo's last sponsored run. He might still lead the event and teach others how to lead the event, but he's officially done paying back the coins he borrowed to get his relic katana a few months back, and thereby done paying the entry fee for all of us to get into Dynamis.

I'm seriously considering changing my main to BST. I love the job, want to lot on gear for the job, and want to maximize my chances should Monster Gloves ever decide to drop in Xarcabard. That's the last item I need to complete the set. Don't get me wrong. I love MNK and WHM, but I don't really need any more gear for them. I like BLM, and it could probably use some love, but all the linkshell drama involved in the simple act of leveling my BLM to 75, not to mention all the pre-existing competition in our shell for BLM gear has left a nasty taste. I'll need to get a few levels first, though, if I want to be BST main.

Short week coming up. I'm out in New Braunfels Monday and Tuesday, and I have only a half day at work on Wednesday. Noni's closing early on Wednesday, so I need to get Clara, pack the Vue and have everyone be ready to hit the road for a Thanksgiving in El Paso.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Business Trippin'

Rather short update, since there's not much else to blog on lately. Just what goes on during the commas in the "Wake up, work, go home, sleep" routine from the past few days.

We've been playing catch-up on old business since D got her new job and we can afford it. That includes dentist visits, doctor appointments and vet visits. The damage: Mercy has some exotic intestinal parasite, both D and Suzie have Stage 2 Periodontal disease and Clara is a toddler. Only time will fix that last one. Suzie and D both went to the dentist this past week to get their gums scaled. And no, they didn't both go to the same dentist... Mercy has a series of syringes that she has to take by mouth for 5 days. Anyone out there ever try to give a cat medication? Yup, it's kinda like that... My dentist appointment is next week, and the kids' are in December.

We're going to have friends over to the house in the first time in a really long time. Since DeAnn is out on a business trip Wednesday and Thursday, and the house could legally draw funds as a Federal Disaster Area, we decided to get as much done as we could before Wednesday. Floors got scrubbed, carpet got vacuumed and shampooed, laundry got moved through. My back was killing me after, but I do love me the stink of clean. ^_^ I guess D is getting teased a bit at work that I'm not really into sports and do a lot of the cooking and cleaning around the house, while she looks forward to coming home to a hot dinner and a beer, and does the token chore here and there. ;P

In game has been pretty sparse. Keri and I have been leveling BST a little bit lately, and I've been trying to brush up my RDM as a sub for BLM. I've also reached 58 Alchemy, and am at a point where I can level Fishing and Alchemy in tandem for skill-ups and gil for the next 10 levels or so.

Lastly, I found out that one of my all-time favorite shows, The Red Green Show, was cancelled in 2006. Before you laugh too hard at it taking me over two years to find out and ask if I've been living in a cave all this time, remember that I have been living in Texas... >.> And this is a Canadian comedy show. The Texas part alone is bad enough. I was pretty bummed out when I read about it - that was one the best shows to hit the airwaves. I went on the Internet to YouTube to watch a few skits and mourn the loss. D looked at me like I was from the moon, but she's from Mexico, so I didn't expect her to understand. LOL I wonder if they have any boxed sets...

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

I am HERO!

If you couldn't tell from all my ranting this past year, Clara has grown into quite a free-spirited and adventurous kiddo. She's a diva. Things are her way or she's not going to have it. She's also not afraid of anything. She's the most rough and tumble toddler I've ever seen. In particular, she LOVES heights. She'll unflinchingly scale some piece of furniture or climb some stairs and jump off! I have a sneaking suspicion she's gonna be into sky-diving...

She also, like most little kids, finds a video to latch onto and watch over and over and over again. Lately, she's been watching a Veggie Tales tape featuring a recurring character named LarryBoy. Think Batman meets Superman meets a bad acid trip at the produce isle of the supermarket. Before the hero LarryBoy jumps into action, he says "I am that hero!" Clara has shortened this to "I AM HERO!" At the top of her lungs. Each and every time. And she's made this her rallying cry before doing something adventurous.

While we're talking about jumping... I woke up this past Sunday morning to Clara yelling "I AM HERO!" at full volume. Followed by a very loud, dresser-shaking thud. I did my fatherly duty and poked D to go see what was up. Unfortunately, as I was realizing she was dead to the world, I hear her yell again "I AM HERO!!!" and another even louder thud. I got up and got to her room just in time to look in on her about to do it again. She had scaled the walls of her crib and perched herself at the foot of her bed. Steadying herself by putting her butt in the corner and straddling the corner of the crib with both feet, she pulled herself up, put both hands in the air and yelled "I AM HEEEEROOOOO!!!" before launching herself from the top floor of her crib onto the pile of blankets on her mattress below.

I opened her door and just stared at her. Knowing she was doing something she probably shouldn't have been doing, she gave me her best "I'm cute" face. -.- I stood my ground, though, told her that was a no-no and got her changed and tossed her to her sleeping mother. :D I joked with her later that I think Veggie Tales are a bad influence on her, reminding her that when Colin Power-Rangered himself head-first off a piece of playground equipment, he was permanently banned from watching it ever again.

The way she is, I know she's going to end up in the hospital. Probably more than once. I just hope our insurance is as good then as it is now.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Political Super Bowl: Election Day 2008

Now, I never intended for this blog to be a political sounding board, and I'm not about to start now. But I'd be hard-pressed to make an entry for today and not talk about my impressions on the national elections.

Coverage of the long lines, voting machine malfunctions and voter fraud legal preparations had begun several days before today. And it was true that there were long lines in many places, but as the evening went on, reports started coming in that polling stations were eerily quiet, and there had been (barring a few rather sinister text messages telling all Democrats and Obama supporters to vote on Wednesday) no real incidents to speak of. Far cry from the mayhem of recent elections.

I briefly stopped by WalMart to pick up some diapers and fill up the car. There was a rush on the gas pump on false reports that an Obama victory would drive gas prices up by as much as $2 this week. People, people... Economics 101: the price of a good or service is generally reactionary, meaning that it goes up BECAUSE of a rush. On the flip side of that, if you DON'T rush, the price will not jump. There were some people at the pump filling all their car gas tanks and storage jugs and large water dispenser bottles with gasoline. When I went inside for diapers, there was a mob of people in the sporting good section. Apparently there was a run on firearms and ammunition as well, on fears that all the guns were going to be taken away tomorrow. Only in Texas... Stupid people should not be allowed to breed.

Poor D was sick, so we spent most of the evening upstairs on the futon watching election coverage on the various news outlets. I was pretty amazed at how different the tone of the various agencies were:
-NBC affiliate had a fluffy feel-good coverage/interview with several people on the Obama team. When they cut to the local coverage, they had one happy, upbeat reporter at the off-the-hook Obama watch party downtown and one relatively unhappy-looking reporter at the nearly empty bar-and-grill hosting the McCain watch party.
-Fox coverage was not reporting any projection numbers that put Obama ahead for a good 2-3 hours into the count. As a result, their numbers had McCain ahead for a little while, even while it was pretty clear the race was over in several states. In addition to their right-leaning reporting of the events unfolding, they had some pretty incendiary commentary.
-ABC tried their best to be balanced by pairing Sam Donaldson with Rick Klein, but Sam went on too many bitter side-topics, grilled the liberal guests, and told too many stories of yesteryear and the old glory days for the more liberal Rick, or any of the other guest analysts, to say much.
-And, as always, I followed the Comedy Central coverage as well. As silly as it sounds, I have found that they have the most balanced (read: all are mocked equally :P ) coverage available at just about any time, despite being mostly satire. The facts that the satire is built on are easy to pick up and you're left with factual coverage and intelligent humor and commentary. More than I felt I got from the fluffy-feel-good or the fire-n-brimstone coverage. Ironic that it comes from a comedy channel. I've watched election coverage on Comedy Central since the 2000 race and have yet to be disappointed.

The night, as we all know, was called for Obama pretty early on, and just after the west coast closed shop, McCain appeared to make a speech. I, as probably was most of America, was expecting him to say that it wasn't over, and that they were going to investigate possible voter fraud and this, that and the other thing. Instead, he delivered an eloquent, gracious concession speech. On top of that, when he mentioned Obama by name, and the crowd cried its usual boo, he quieted them. Not once, but twice. In my opinion, that spoke very highly of him as a gentleman, a soldier and a patriot to gracefully bow out and say what he did. On the flip side, I found Obama's speech to be too close to an inaugural address for the moment. I mean, it was an awesome speech, and he's been known for his rhetorical flair, I just thought it was a little heavy for the moment. Except for the part where he said his daughters could finally have their puppy. :)

Regardless of whether you liked the outcome of the night or not, I'd ask you to pray for our next president, his advisors, and our country.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Weekend Intelligence: Happy Halloween!

I love Halloween. Next to Christmas and Easter (for obvious reasons), it is my favorite holiday. I consider it MY holiday. So, in typical weekend intelligence fashion, here are the highlights!

Halloween!

Yup, that's the big highlight of the weekend. I got home a little early from work, and got all the decorations out for the evening. The door archway was laced with orange cluster lights, a blacklight was set in the front door light fixture and a foam jack-o-lantern sat on the doorstep. In the front window, we had purple cluster lights strung and hanging low with a drape of creepy netting-like cloth and a blacklight to set it off. The bushes in the front had a fog machine and a strobe light in them, two large tombstones and some graveyard fencing. A jolly roger and a scary wide-eyed face were carved out of some pumpkins and sat by the tree. The whole setup was topped off with a small stereo playing an endless CD of creepy sounds and people screaming. As for costumes, we all went as pirates this year: I have a pirate costume I've had for years now, Colin decided to get a pirate costume, we bought a cute pirate costume for Clara, and D was able to get a costume for the first time in years.

The daylight picture doesn't do it so much justice, but you could see the house from the corner of the block after sunset! The house was so creepy, that some of the littler kids were too scared to come up to the doorstep. People took pictures of the house and pictures of Clara and picture of them with me and my big bottle of rum! As for taking the kids around, I took Clara down one side of the street before sunset, and she got all worn out and needed me to carry her back. After she got a "taste" of why we were going door-to-door, she went out with D for a second go around after dark, and made out like a bandit. Hell, some houses let her take handfuls of candy out of the bowl by herself. That's right, give the Cute One all of your candy, humans. :P Colin went out with a bunch of his friends before I could get back with Clara, and still made out like a bandit.

While they were all out, I held down the fort: reassuring scared little kids that it was all fun and scaring high-schoolers that came to the door. One of them knocked and I opened the door from a hiding spot in the downstairs bathroom. When he was all "WTF" I slammed the door shut and got a decent shriek outta him. Was sure to give him candy. Another one I pounded on and yelled from the other side of the door, then said in a scruffy, pirate voice, "Who let ye out? Git back in yer cage afore I whip yer agin!" just before opening the door. The two girls were visibly shaken LOL. The way I see it, if you're gonna go trick-or-treating as a teenager, you gotta A) be ready to explain your costume if you're not really dressed up and B) be ready to take a little bit of harmless trickery. ;P

At any rate, a good showing in our neighborhood, the kids were coming starting around 7 and didn't completely let up until about 10, when we did a quick tear-down before any real witching hour mischief could happen. With Halloween on the decline in recent years, I find it comforting to see it so alive and well in my neighborhood. For all you photophiles reading this, here is the link to the photobucket album for this years Halloween.

Got several on-site assignments this upcoming week, as well as the national elections and typical daily craziness. Hopefully I'll get in a word edgewise. ^^

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Lights in the Sky

Interrupting the daily grind with some highlights from the past (two? -.-) weeks...

-Nine Inch Nails had a stop in San Antonio on their Lights in the Sky tour. Being long-time fans, D and I jumped on the opportunity to get seated tickets for the concert. The opening group, Ghostland Observatory (also here, but I like the MySpace link better), were absolutely rocking. Heavy Europop influence with streaks of David Bowie, Prince and... Elvis. Doesn't sound like it could be awesome, but it was great. And, of course, Trent and his gang brought everything they had when they took to the stage. True to the tour name, one of the main special effects of their show was a massive display system with LED lights sewn into a curtain drop. It was like having 4 transparent stage-sized monitors that could give the band any setting they wanted. There must have been literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lights. One setting had them in a desert, with a cloudy sky and shifting sand. Another obscured them in white noise, only to make a member visible when they approached the backside of the curtain. It's hard to put into words how awesome the end result was - we had a blast!

-Colin had his LaserQuest birthday party. Only one of his classmates showed up, and none of the neighborhood kids came. One of them cancelled at the last minute with no explanation. Noni's kids came, though, and we had just enough to make the minimum number of people we had planned for. D was a nervous wreck through most of it; I took care of most of the setup and such while she was in the laser tag arena. I don't know what it is about her and planning events, but she gets really wound up trying to make sure everything is just right. I think the failure of most of Colin's "friends" to show up threw her for a loop, and she never did just calm down.

-After the party, we trekked into the depths of the Texas Hill Country in search of the Bat Cave. LOL There actually is a bat cave called, for severe lack of creativity, Old Tunnel. It's a wildlife management area that is home to hundreds of thousands of bats, and every night around the same time, they come out in big swarms and fill the night sky. Noni had reserved a showing for the daycare kids, so we packed all her kids in our vehicles and left from the LaserQuest to the bat cave! The two younger girls that went with me in the convertible were dancing to the music on the radio with the convertible top down, and motioning for all the truckers we passed to honk. Hilarity ensued the whole way there.

When we got out there, we had a little less than an hour before the bats were supposed to come out, so a bunch of the older kids decided to go exploring around the wildlife area paths. When they got back, there were several kids missing, including Colin. -.-; Would figure he'd get lost in the wilderness... I went out and found him and the missing kids lost way out in the woods, off the marked trail (of course), across a small ravine. He was very happy to be back with the rest of us, and hopefully scared enough not to go hiking off like that again anytime soon.

Clara had started channeling lesser demons, so I went up to the top of the hill with her so she wouldn't disturb the park guide... er... bats. Seriously, she looked at me like I was from the moon when I got up from her lecture about the various bats of the world to go look for my son who was lost in the woods... Anyway, once I'd gotten Clara away from people, she complained a little bit longer and then settled right down, almost falling asleep at one point. It was just too dark and too late for such a little one. I set her on my lap when the bats started coming out, and she whispered a very excited "Wow!" while trying to follow the little critters across the night sky.

-Lastly, our house is decked out for Halloween! We put up strings of orange cluster lights around the doorway and purple cluster lights and creepy cloth hangings from the front window, a foam Jack-O-Lantern at the doorstep, replaced the porch light with a blacklight, and set up tombstones and ghoulish fencing in front of the bushes. We also got two pumpkins that we'll likely carve a day or two before Halloween. The San Antonio heat will make them get nasty if we carve them too much before then. I'll be sure to take/post Halloween pics on the Photobucket. Beside Christmas (for obvious reasons), Halloween is my favorite holiday! :D

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Gupolupo: Everyone's Favorite Mule

In FFXI, a mule is a character created for the sole purpose of increasing the amount of inventory space to which you have access. For an increase of $1/mule/month in the monthly subscription fee, each mule created gives you, essentially, another whole person's inventory to fill with your own crap. Some people level a craft on their mule - Keri's mule, Rhylosha, has a very high cooking skill. Others use their mule as a way to increase the amount of things they can sell through the Auction House system and on overnight bazaars. Most of them, though, are just characters created for the 30+ extra spots of inventory.

Enter Gupolupo. Yup, there he is. He's smart. He's handsome. He's witty. He's wanted by all the ladies. He's the Tarutaru of Leisure. Think Hugh Hefner, but as a midget. And always clad in a bathrobe. Why wear anything else? He's a lover, not a fighter: he's never defeated a monster in his nearly 5 years of existence. Hell, he's only been outside the city walls once or twice. Keri and I use him as a mule to carry our crafting supplies and crystals so we don't have quite so much cluttering our personal inventory. But lately, it's becoming apparent that Gupolupo is running out of space, and growing increasingly tired of the same four walls. He wants to see the world! So I've made it a pet project to try to get Gupolupo's inventory upgraded, as opposed to simply buying yet another mule.

The upgrade that produced the most extra inventory (and killed the most time) was the one I did first - gaining access to a Mog Locker. To do that, Gupolupo would need to be a registered mercenary in Aht Uhrgan. To be a Mercenary, he would need to travel to staging point across the churning seas and beset with hordes of really nasty monsters. To even get to Aht Uhrgan, he would need a boarding pass for the boat to the Near East. To get the pass, he would need to join a highly-secretive group of pirates and smugglers and complete a quest that would take him all over the world in search of the six subjob items. All on a Lv1 character.

Hey, it'll be fun. The following happened over the course of 2-3 weeks, and involved waaaaaaay more death and home-pointing than I care to cover in detail.

I started preparing him by taking him around and getting all the telepoints, making it easier for him to get around later. Once I finally decided to start the quest, I borrowed Keri and took Gupo to the dunes and hunted crabs and flies until they gave up the goods. Then we went to Gusgen and hunted ghosts and skeletons there until they dropped the items he needed. Finally, we went to Buburimu and Keri made quick work of dhalmels and rabbits for the last two items. After a very careful run to Jeuno, Gupo was rewarded with a shiny new boarding pass to the Near East! Before disembarking, I completed the invitation quest in Windurst, anticipating future use of the warp NPC there.

Once in Whitegate, Gupo stopped by the sentinels mercenary office to start the next leg of the adventure. He got orders to deliver a supplies package to a far-off staging point in the wilderness of the empire. The easiest staging point to access involved an NM-prone boat ride and a trek through a zone with true-sight and highly aggressive monsters. x.X; In the end, though, he finally made it there and delivered the supplies, used the warp to get home and joined the mercenary ranks. He immediately opened a Mog Locker lease and did the first of 5 upgrades to it, adding 40 spaces to his inventory.

The next item was his Mog House storage. I'd been researching quick, cheap ways to boost storage space, and found a particular piece of furniture that gave lots of inventory, had a strong elemental power and gave the Moghancement: Gardening effect. I got 10 of them to max out his storage space, and make for a claustrophobic arrangement for his moogle. LOL It took the better part of the evening to move all of my other mule's stuff to Gupo. Next, I'll have to camp the AH for some items to upgrade his Mog Safe and personal inventory, and take a serious look into taking up gardening. ^^