A Clockwork Rat

Relatively easy day at work today. I got out at an earlier time for the extra time I put in during the week, so I got home with time to spare. Tossed some lasagna in the oven, started a load of Clara’s laundry, picked up the usual breakfast and lunch trash left behind from Colin’s and DeAnn’s rush out the door and still found myself with a little extra time.

I logged in game to find a couple people looking for something to do, so I asked if anyone was interested in farming up some pop items for FNLE. We camped in what is the present day coffer mob room in Castle Oztroja [S] and farmed up two pop items. I took hate at one point from reposing one of the links and took a Fire IV followed by a Firaga III to the face. x.X; I knew I had that coming the minute the repose took hold. I got a pop item and I think Emma did as well. I also got a Yagudo Kote for the Windurst Campaign Op off of one of the lower Yags running around up there.

That farming run lead right up into static. Our camp was back out at the ruins. I subbed my severely gimped corsair for Corsair’s Roll to help boost the experience we were getting. We tried a few different configurations of roaming, but eventually found that running the whole circuit in fact did produce more experience than just bouncing between the rooms with the most targets. We skipped the “secret rooms” altogether – I don’t want to do those again until we can land sleep more reliably. We’re on the verge of getting Lv63; we’ll easily get it next time.

While we were there, I drew up a color-coded map of the area to help us and future Soulfire BLMs. I joked that I’m thinking about releasing a manaburn party guide, since there are none out there. But with all the blogging I’ve done, the maps I’ve made and the adaptations and improvisations we’ve developed from other guides, it would probably save someone a lot of time somewhere down the road. I mean, I’ve been using a mix of the Beastmaster Soloing Guide, the Black Mage Solo Guide by Lion Heart, some forum research and a good chunk of exploration and hearsay. I would have been glad to been spared the time if someone had posted a guide of what they did first. And it’s not like it would take me a ton of time either – I already have everything written down somewhere, just have to pull it together in one place. So I’m considering it…

For FNLE tomorrow, we’re going to pop a bunch of NMs from the past. One of them (the one we were farming pop items for today) drops a really nice pair of gloves for BLMs and DRKs that enhances Absorb spells and boosts magic attack. Eiael, Emma and Crazygirl tried to trio the NM and “got worked like school girls” as Eiael put it. Should be an interesting fight with a full alliance.

A Genuine Parental “What the…” Moment

My work has taken a cue from Google and decided to start changing the main intranet landing page to be individually personalized based on each person’s job functions and work group. The people in my department have been chosen to be part of the pilot group to test this page, so we had a meeting about it today – over on the other side of campus. At least they had refreshments waiting for us after the hike. Whole thing took about an hour, and they passed out 1GB key drives for everyone. I got an extra one for DeAnn’s PC before I left.

I went out to get my hair cut after work and went home in time to help D out with the laundry. I told her about my day and what the key drives can do with Vista and she was all “ORLY?” So I got her PC set up with ReadyBoost using the new key drive. She said she noticed a little less lag and such, so I hope it helps her out. We got the baby set up with some dinner and sat down to the business of the evening.

I offered to login for Captsassypants to get him the Dynamis – Buburimu win tonight since he had to work, and I swear I will never get used to playing a Galka. It just feels like I’m driving a semi truck in first gear all the time: tall and slow. As we were getting set up for entry, we hear a little voice go “Ut oh…” from the kitchen. I thought she had dropped her cuppy or something. Then we hear a little voice go “Oh no!” For the record, she says this in a way that is so incredibly earnest and heartfelt that it makes it too adorable for words. D went off to see where she decided to toss her cuppy this time. Then I hear a forebodingly weary wife voice go “Oh no…” and Clara mimics more emphatically “Oh no!” in that cutesy manner and I can’t help but say “Oh no…” as I walk out to the kitchen.

The cute little warnings were so sorely ironic to what was going on. She had went number 2 in the most horrific way. It had not only completely filled the diaper, but overflowed up over the waistband, over the top of and through her skort, down her leg and onto the highchair, nearly filling the highchair liner to overflowing with foulness. I kid you not, the 20lb child bent the laws of physics and shifted 5lbs of poo… I nearly lost it right there. The stench was unbearable and D was starting to panic. I ran upstairs and got a plastic bin to toss her into so we could transport her. We brought her into the backyard and hosed off all the overflow we could into the grass before gingerly stripping her soiled clothes and diaper off, wrapping her in a towel and running her up the stairs to drop her into a running bath. While D did the bath, I ran back to the backyard and hosed off the skort, highchair liner and plastic bin. The combination of the indescribably horrid stench and the running up and down stairs between the backyard and my panicking and hysterical wife finally did me in: I threw up in the backyard while washing off the bin. Then I came inside, washed my hands and threw up again in the bathroom. I hate the taste of toothpaste after doing that. No matter what I tried I couldn’t get the smell out of my nose: I was wretching and ill the rest of the evening.

At least the group hadn’t gone in while this was going on. We slogged through dynamis and I got Capt his win. ^_^ After the run, I went to Windurst on Shrade and found a ton of Moat Carp on the AH, so I bought all 36 stacks. On my way to the NPC in Port San d’Oria, I found a mule about to set up shop for the night, selling Moat Carp at 220g per. I told her if she’d lower the price to 200g per I’d buy them all. She agreed and I bought another 12 stacks. I’m now scratching 90% completed on Lu Shang’s Rod. One or two more good Castle Zvahl weekend runs should do the trick.

Static tomorrow evening. We’re going to see if Aydeewa is open, but if not, we’ll head back to the ruins and fight there. I think once we get our system down, we’ll do fine at the new ruins camp, and that location will be able to support us easily until 70.

Hickory Dickory Doc: The Rats Are In The Clock

Not much of any import for today. Ground it out at work, picked up the kiddo and came home. I heard from D that Clara had been sick last night and threw up in her crib, and Danon said that she wasn’t her usual bright, energetic self at daycare. She seemed to be plenty energetic in the bathtub, though. She loves her bath.

After Clara went down, we gathered up in Whitegate and tried to figure out what to do with the evening. I was just in no mood to play the role of leaderman tonight. I’d had a long day and I just wanted to blow some things up. There was a BLM duo in our camp in Aydeewa, so that immediately ruled it out for us. We went to the next camp: a Mamool Ja’s Wyvern pet camp, but there was a BLU and SMN duo there tearing the place up. We decided to try the Qiqirn Poulterers in the Undersea Ruins. They were listed as three levels higher than the RNG rats we had been fighting, so I was a bit weary of fighting them at first since we were having resist issues with the Aydeewa ones.

We did pretty well, but ran out of mobs. Emmaline decided to come out and show us the path to run, turning our stationary manaburn party into a semi-roaming manaburn party. Strangely enough, we didn’t have as big an issue with MP as I thought we would have, and our only difficulties were with links from the Qiqirn Goldsmiths (THF rats). This seemed most likely in the side rooms, so we might just pass on those until we’re a little higher in level and sleeps don’t go quite so unresisted. She also brought up how the insides of those ruins look like the insides a gigantic clock. This begs the question “Why are there rats in the clock?” I didn’t have an answer, but I did give Emma a BusinessCasual pearlsack – she wants to join up with us when we’re all grown up, as well as join up on manaburn BC’s and such. ^_^

I’m taking a friend’s character, Captsassypants, on the Dynamis – Buburimu run tomorrow night. He’ll be at work and won’t be able to make it, but really needs that win. I told him that I wouldn’t say anything weird and fraps it… much… :P I have no experience in playing any of his jobs in an endgame situation, so it should be an interesting run, say the least.

Dancing Fools

First half of the day was kinda crazy. Lots of people came off a 3-day weekend and had completely forgotten how to do certain vital job functions. Most calls were pretty simple: password resets or locked accounts. I had a few that made me wonder about the direction of humanity, though. One forgot where her printer was located in the building, the one that she uses twice a week. >.>; Another had forgotten how to run a report she had ran for years every Monday.

Once everyone had their coffee and settled in for the day, the calls cooled down enough for me to study more subnetting. I got my solving time from 3 minutes per network to 2 networks per minute. ^_^ I think I get it!

Did some minor lawn work when I got home and danced with Clara for a few minutes. I put her down when we got in the house and she just didn’t want me to stop holding her. So we danced for a bit – made for one happy kiddo. When D got home, we made up some fajitas and a bean and cheese taco for Colin. Clara did NOT want the fajita, and did everything she could to pick her way around the beans, veggies and cheese. That was really the first time we couldn’t eventually coax her to eat something she didn’t want to right away. -.-

I guess I’ve been lucky so far avoiding the “nugget-and-corndog” faze. It’s been REALLY nice that we can go out to Chinese or Sushi bar or anywhere really, and we only have to worry about one picky eater being a whiney pain in the butt and turning up his nose. We’ll keep working on her, though. We didn’t come this far introducing her to stuff to lose it now. :P

After dinner was done, Colin went off to play and Clara went to sleep. I went to my studies while DeAnn got set up on DDR and started a workout. We both got a good 30-45 minutes in on our respective activities, and I finally finished my chapter on subnetting. Even Colin played DDR a little bit after D’s workout was done. After Colin went to bed, I didn’t really feel like FFXI, so I played DDR a bit with D. We both got a shower in before bed and slept like rocks.

Static night tomorrow. Most of us are getting pretty sick of the rat camp, so I need to see if I can find an alternative. It’s going to be hard: there are not many locations where the mobs are easily defeated by magic alone and do not rush to melee.

Weekend Intelligence: Happy Easter!

You gotta love 3-day weekends. One extra day to sleep in, get some quality time in with the family and do some work around the house. Strangely enough, I had so much to do around the home that I didn’t spend very much time in game. I can hear it now: it’s called being a ‘grown-up’. *shudder* So, in typical weekend intelligence fashion, here are the highlights!

House and Home:

Thursday evening was the big Easter Egg Hunt and BBQ at Clara’s daycare. When we arrived at the park, Danon’s daughters and their friends were hard at work not cooking the food, so I stepped in as grillmeister for the evening. Clara had a great time going down the slide, playing with the other kids and searching for eggs. She wasn’t too sure of what to do, so Colin helped her out. When we got home, DeAnn noticed the DDR Universe bundle that I got her for her birthday. I checked every Best Buy, GameStop Target and WalMart between the Rim and home: I swear it was the last one in town. She wants to work out, but doesn’t like looking clumsy in front of other people. This way she doesn’t have to worry about where to exercise or who will watch the kids: she just has to plug in and go.

I’m proud of her. She’s been a sad panda for quite a while now about the state of her fitness and being out of shape. I tell her I love her, and I will love her no matter what shape she’s in, but I do wish she was healthier. I don’t like seeing her in poor health. It hasn’t been until recently that she’s really been driven to do something about it, and I’m happy she’s decided to go for it.

We had a chance to spend some good ol’ fashioned family time together on Friday. We slept in really late, got a late lunch and piled in the car for a trek to the park. The wind was pretty mild, the sun was out and it was a perfect spring day for Frisbee golf. Clara felt like walking a good chunk of the course by herself. That was a relief – she’s getting heavy! We made it through about half the course before she started getting cranky, so back home we went and took a late afternoon snooze. We went out to Mr. Gatti’s for the pizza buffet and let Colin run off with $2 in tokens. Even in that kid-crazed loony bin, it was nice to have a few alone with D: chillaxing, drinking some soda and watching what was left of the Spurs game on the projection screen TV there.

We got yard work and laundry in on Saturday. The homeowner’s association sent another one of their nastigrams earlier this week about our lawn needing to be edged and weeded. I think we’re getting these more and more because there are so many houses up for sale, and they want the neighborhood to look pristine. Hey, it’s not our fault the housing market crashed… Anyway, D pulled up all the weeds while I went and edged all the pavement that could potentially be considered our responsibility – even edged the neighbor’s portion of the grass along the sidewalk. DeAnn had pulled up a weed that was larger than one of the bushes, and it took a whole trashbag by itself. After that, D went inside to cool off and relax, I washed the clipping and last week’s mudstorm leftovers (eww…) off the driveway and sidewalks, spread some fertilizer and started the sprinkler.

Didn’t do much of much on Sunday. We slept in and relaxed, made a little more headway on the laundry and gamed that afternoon. Was kinda chaotic trying to get the kids back into the regular workweek routine after being allowed free reign for 3 days, but we were able to call it a night at a somewhat normal hour.

In Game:

We hopped online after the BBQ to see if the static was doing anything. Didn’t see Ame or MC online until later, so Talon, Keri and I decided to go farm Castle Zvahl.. None of the NM’s were up, and our weapon drop was mediocre, but hey, gil is gil. Keri got Fire IV: the last scroll she needed from there. After Talon logged off, I tried dual boxing in there, but it was just too rough on my poor laptop, so we spammed campaign battles for a bit instead. I was able to rank up just by spamming ops on PLD earlier, so they all went to my next rank. Keri got her Sterling Star – not too far behind.

We spent very little time in-game on Friday – we were just too busy enjoying the gorgeous spring day in real life. We didn’t log on until much later in the evening, after we got back from dinner. And we didn’t do much at that – we did a few campaign battles but nothing major. Saturday was spent in much the same way. We tried to help Ame get the Ancient Salt she needs for her Opo-opo Crown, but I think we might be more of a curse than a charm for that particular drop. It took me several days to get, we didn’t see it at all that night, and it dropped on the round of worms right after Keri and I logged out. -.-

Dynamis – Bastok was the name of the game Sunday evening. Leading up to the run, Keri, Talon and I raided Castle Zvahl again and got more gil drops. Dynamis was largely uneventful. Low attendance due to the fact that it was Bastok, so the killing was a bit slow. We still managed to pull off a win rather well, though. Keri lucked out and got a Wootz Ore. Those are like 100k or more nowadays. She said she would send me some gil from it for my moat carping. ^_^ We had about another hour before TS needed to log out, so we went back to raiding Zvahl. We were able to fit a coffer and Marquis Amon in there as well, netting us all about 45k overall for the weekend shenanigans. Not bad for killing time and waiting for dynamis to start.

Monday tomorrow. Yay. I wonder how many people I’m going to have call in because they forgot how to do their jobs? Weekends are generally rough, and 3-day weekends really cause people to forget how to function. If we ever have a 4-day weekend, I’m betting a sizable portion of the workforce will forget where they work… In a way, I’m kinda sad that my weekend is over, but I’m well rested and ready for work. I think. >.>; I hope your Easter Weekend was as blessed, peaceful and happy as mine. ^_^/