FNLE: Drunken Monkey Style

The week couldn't be over fast enough. Stayed 30 minutes after I was supposed to leave on a call that would not end. And this after I turned in my timesheet. I'll be 'creative' with my timesheet next week.

After the kind of week we just had, DeAnn got a six-pack of beer and we gamed the night away. We tried to get a BLM party together with Talon's MNK, but our PLD tank was an idiot and our RDM was one of those stuck-up endgame players who, ironically, couldn't perform as a RDM for beans. The only able pickup player was a DNC that we had partied with before. He warned me about the PLD a little too late. We ended up disbanding so that we could get rid of the dead weight, but couldn't regroup for another pass.

So after a few beers, we tossed around some ideas as to what to do next. Turned out that Talon had a LOT of catching up to do on his BLM as far as AF quests. He hadn't even done his weapon quest (available at 40, he being 54). So we geared up, he flagged the quest and we all teleported out to Xarcabard to beat up a poor helpless elemental. He had to log out soon after that for the night.

Enter more beer and a quick beer run. Keri and I decided to try to duo some experience. I had read a guide that described soloing BLM, and I figured that two BLM's would make much easier work of it than one. We went to Gustav Tunnel, around where Lv60 people go to party, and started picking off Goblin Beastmasters' pet leeches. We got a experience chain #4 before the party that was there left, making it very hard to pull anything. We decided it best to go and keep our experience.

Finished off the night with a Garlaige Citadel party to help us get behind the gates. We enlisted the help of two LS mates, one needed to get behind Gate #3 for a quest. Keri and I both got our old gauntlets, and are one step closer to being done with BLM AF. Sky gods tomorrow, might try getting our BLM hands finished up, too. We'll see. ^_^

Sick Taru Saga

This is quickly becoming one of the most exhausting weeks on record.

Wednesday: Dynamorz – Qufim

DeAnn stayed at home with Clara Wednesday so I could get a whole day in. It’s going to be a slim couple of weeks if I can’t get some hours in. I stayed a little late and worked over half my lunch to make up some here and there.

We spent little time in game. We got the first item for our BLM artifacts before the dynamis run. The LS ran Dynamis – Qufim this Wednesday night. We got the win for several people there that needed it, and BST belt dropped, for which Keri won the lot. Maybe it was that I didn’t really want to be there, and would have rather been out doing BLM AF, but it just didn’t seem that we had our communication together. People didn’t know where exactly to go, and the chooser changed rapidly, sometimes with no chooser at all.

Thursday: Building the BLM Army

I stayed home with Clara today, and I got in some quality time in game and out. Started out in game after everyone had gone about their daily business. I logged myself, Keri and borrowed Talonshard’s THF for Treasure Hunter. Was kinda cool being one third of the linkshell. I took us about all of Vana’diel, gathering everything we’d need for BLM AF. By the time Clara woke up for midday, I’d gotten about half of what we will need to get us all in BLM AF.

Clara woke up midday in a puddle of sweat. Yes, sweat. Her fever had broken hard, and she was a very happy kiddo to see me. After a change of clothes, she sat down and ate two whole slices of buttered toast with a bit of cinnamon and sugar, and a whole sippy cup of milk and some apple juice. That was by far the most she’d eaten all week, and I was relieved to see it. We watched a little Blue’s Clues and played a game with a toy for a while. She likes to play this game where she’ll give you a thing (anything, really) and you take, tell her thank you, and then give it back to her so she can say thank you. Sometimes she won’t want it back and she’ll give a no thank you and shake her head. Absolutely adorable. After this, we took a trip out into the sun and fresh air and picked up a game from Blockbuster with a gift card that had been burning a hole in my pocket since December. She was ready for an afternoon nap by the time we got home.

Once she was down for a nap, I went out again to continue getting stuff for our 3 BLMs. I wasn’t long out, though, when Talon logged on. We tried getting the keys we needed from Davoi, but only got one before I had to log for the afternoon. After DeAnn got home, the kids fed and baby put to bed (still feverless, so we're trying the daycare thing tomorrow ^_^/ ), we gathered to try to get our static together for some experience. Unfortunately, no one was seeking that we needed, so we decided to finish off what we need for the BLMs. By the time we were done, the only thing left was an item from Crawlers’ Nest for Talonshard, and that was only because it just refused to rain and spawn the Water Elementals we would need. Now it’s time for coffer hunting. I checked quickly behind Banishing Gate #3 before logging off for the night. I’ll check again tomorrow before work and, if nothing still, again when I get home from work.

One Sick Taru

I spent half the day at home with Clara. Her temperature had gone down a bit from the 103 it was at the doctor’s, but it was still too high to go to daycare. She slept most of the morning, and I did too. I’m coming down with whatever bug DeAnn had at the end of last week. Too bad we ran out of Cold-Eez then. DeAnn came home for the day early, after her sacs (sacrificing animals involved in experiments) were finished. The day at work was pretty slow, thankfully, because I was really out of it from being stuffed up and for lack of a good night’s rest.

I came home to dinner already in the oven, Colin working on the dishes and DeAnn and Clara upstairs watching Blue’s Clues. It made me wish I made enough to let her be a stay home mom if she wanted. Hopefully, the certifications I’m working on can help.

We got online a bit later than normal, which was OK since there was an Adamantoise camp going on. We stayed for a few windows, but Talon, Keri and I left the window before it popped to get ready to static on our MNK and BLM’s respectively. We got a JP NIN and RDM, and a very noobish THF. I say noobish because, despite being a Rank 10 Lv50 THF, he had WAR subbed, couldn’t pull and couldn’t manage SATA to save his life. I’ll not get into his gimped gear: my gear isn’t all that great, and a good player can do well even with the gimpiest of gear. Eventually he got the idea that he could pull while the current enemy had not yet been killed, and didn’t need to wait for us to be fully rested between each fight. I fully believe that we could have ground out 10k with that party if not for the THF and the constant string of 10 minute AFKs, because once he actually started pulling, we got fast experience. Keri and I dinged Lv50 and got to use our scrolls of Freeze – our first Ancient Magic! I even got to die to my first ancient magic-related incident. Ancient magic hits hard, but it also generates a lot of enmity. I decided to try it out on a beetle we were fighting, and they just couldn’t pull the bugger off me. It pummeled me into a black mage sludge.

Just as we were getting ready to call it a night, Clara started screaming. I thought it was a bad dream or something, but it turned out the fever had reached 104.5. We found the little bit of baby Motrin we had left, and I went out to get more. I hope my baby feels better soon…

Rude Monday

Isn’t it always the way, that when you have a particularly good weekend – restful, lazy and as relaxed as can be had with two kids – that the following Monday is going to be particularly wretched? I had a customer at work that had made it his mission for the day to vent his frustrations at his own ineptitude on me. He called three times: the first time he got me at random, the last two he asked for me personally…

I picked up Clara from daycare, and was met with the news that she had been running a fever and that they would not have her back until she had seen the doctor. Great. The only thing that’s going to be able to take us at that time is going to be the after-hours clinic. DeAnn decided to get a quick pizza from Little Caesar’s, and after a quick supper we sat in the clinic waiting room. After about an hour and a half of waiting, we were called back to have her vitals taken and were shown to an examination room. She was running a fever of 103.3, worse than the 101.8 she had when I picked her up.

Another half hour or so waiting in the exam room and we finally saw the doctor. After looking in her ears, nose and throat, and after much poking and prodding to ensure she was sufficiently squishy, he sent for a nurse to have a strep and influenza test run. That was a trick: she did not want to open her mouth to get swabbed. I had to trick her with the Tylenol syrup to open up and she quickly got the swab in. All tests came back negative, and to the doctor’s amazement, he couldn’t tell us why she was running a fever when everything else looked so healthy. Summary: 3+ hours waiting, pocketbook punch, take 2 teaspoons of Tylenol syrup and call in the morning. -.-

So, needless to say, we neither went to sky, nor did we go after any AF stuff. What little time we did spend in game, Keri checked her chocobo and got a rank up for all the campaign shenanigans (I had gotten mine several days prior), I bought out all the Moat Carp on the AH and turned in nearly 30 stacks of fish. That put me over the 6k/10k mark. Finished off the evening with a 15 minute campaign battle for 1k limit points.

Static is tomorrow, hoping I can ding 50 so I can learn Freeze. Also hoping my supervisor doesn’t fire me or my coworkers won’t kill me for skipping work yet again this month. On the bright side, I did hear back from the seller of the Cisco equipment I purchased earlier this month. Apparently, the check had gotten stuck in a newspaper in his mail and he found it after I replied to his non-payment complaint. I'm just glad it's on the way.

Clean Sweep

The weekend started with a cleaning day. The bedrooms and upstairs loft area were the pits, so we decided to start in one end of the house and work our way to Colin’s bedroom. The master bedroom and loft were easy enough, but Colin’s room… Ugh! It was a complete horrorshow. Old moldy food, pet excrement, toy packaging, scum-covered toys and fetid clothing all tangled together in a nauseating heap of disgusting. I don’t think he ever intended it to be quite that bad; it was too easy to put off cleaning until later, and later turned into weeks and weeks turned into a mess that an 8 year old couldn’t very well handle on his own. He was visibly excited to get some help. We hacked at it for a solid hour before breaking for lunch, and then went at it again for another 45 minutes before we called it quits. Took about 2/3’s of the mess out: two stuffed trashbags and a whole tub of toys that can go to consignment. If only he can leave it the way it is this week – maybe we can get the rest of the room done next weekend.

After our WalMart run, we hit Fafnir. Hooray for moat carp, boo for botting. After Fafnir, Keri, Talon and I decided to pass up Sea in favor of leveling our static jobs. We picked up Eddieboy (an LS mate) on his PLD, and a DNC and BRD and hit the Citadel basement again. Eventually Talon had to logout, and the BRD was falling asleep. We limped along with a replacement MNK and PUP until Eddie and the DNC got their level, then decided it was best to call it. Finished off the night with a late Adamantoise camp. At least it popped unclaimed…

Sunday was lazy, lazy, lazy. We slept in very late, and didn’t really get online until just a bit before Dynamis – Bastok. I died so much on my WHM that I was within 200 of de-leveling. At least I got a Wootz Ore for my troubles. Keri and I did some campaign battles after Dynamis to get back our buffers before calling it a night.

Sky is tomorrow, but I’m kicking the idea around of going out and getting a head start on AF for BST and BLM. In particular, there’s an item that drops from Water Elementals in Crawlers’ Nest that both Keri and I are going to need, as well as the typical spread of chest/coffer keys. My gear is pretty sad as it is – would be nice to AF ready to grow into.