While it's quiet...

Well, I thought I'd try to get an update in while the office was quiet, even thought there's not much to update on. I was going to go over to Noni's last night to get her going on FFXI, but she had a quick change of plans. Hoping to aim for this weekend for that. I also got confirmation of my business trip to Orlando. I jet out there on Wednesday next week and come home LATE Friday night. And that tropical storm rumbled just south of San Antonio, but we still got a nice rain out of it. Which made the road where they are doing new construction nearby all sorts of muddy. Car needed a bath anyway.

That's about it in a nutshell. Hopefully, I will have a little more for weekend intelligence, though all my plans this weekend revolve around gaming. >.>;

Catch Up - Some people have more catching up to do than others...

Wow. It's been far too long since I've been in the officeg. It's almost like starting a new job all over again. Several things changed about how we do daily business that I'm finding myself very busy during the work day and simply exhausted by 6 o'clock. I've wanted to blog, I've thought about my blog, but just haven't had the time to sit and type.

Well, I suppose I should hit on the highlights of the past few days. Sooo busy...

Biggest news I have is that they are sending me to Orlando next week on business. The assignment I was on needs someone to help out in consolidating some stores, and I was picked to help out. I'm looking forward to a change in scenery - should be fun. ^^

FFXI for the 360 came in on Tuesday, and I spent the evening installing it. From start to finish, the installation process is WAAAY faster than it is on the PC, and everything from looks to loadtimes are much smoother. I'll give Noni the content ID and the Gold World Pass I bought tonight to her when I go over there tomorrow. Gonna give her the basic rundown of how to play, and maybe walk her through the first handful of quests. :D

Hurricane a-comin'! We're supposed to get some pretty decent rain from it. That'll be nice, because unless you have several hours a week to spend working on your yard, the grass is likely a breath from being dead. And who doesn't have a copious amount of free time to spend working in the yard? >.>; Hope it lets up by this weekend, though. The ground will be nice and moist and easy to pull the forest of weeds that are creeping up along the back fence.

Oh, and lastly, D learned last night that there was a big conflict in Europe in the 90's:

D: Apparently there was a WAR in Europe in the 90's
J: Uh... yeah. There was major genocide going on in Yugoslavia. Where were you?
D: I was, um...
J: That's why there's no Yugoslavia anymore...
D: There isn't?!
J: Someone needs to wiki the 90's...

Weekend Intelligence: Vacuum Cleaners Need Exercise, Too

This weekend just flew by. It was a lot of fun, but I kid you not, sprouted wings and flew off. Oh, and Noni, here's the fish picture. >.>; So, in typical weekend intelligence fashion, here are the highlights!

House and Home:

Friday was the last day of my assignment in New Braunfels. While I'll be glad not to have a 2 hour daily commute, I'll miss the nice overtime and mileage checks and guys I met up there. Pretty sure I'll see them again.

Our goals were pretty simple for Saturday: take care of the items that have been accumulating for "another day." We made Saturday that another day. We got all the dishes done, did all the recycling and cans, cleaned desks and took out mountains of trash. We even managed to push a few loads of laundry through. After that, we went out and took care of the WalMart run for the week. On our way there, we saw a woman taking a leisurely stroll down the street, walking two full-sized... vacuum cleaners. >.>; Like nothing was out of the ordinary, just taking her vacuums out for a walk. It was pretty surreal: she looked like she was geared up for jogging, too. Guess you had to be there...

That night, we'd been invited over to Noni's house for dinner. We brought the beer. She ordered the pizza. :D She's been interested in playing FFXI and I was supposed to get her machine cleaned off, upgraded and install the game. As nervous as social gatherings can make me, I had a pretty good time. ^_^/ D likes to poke fun at me being the guy at who went to the college parties and spent time optimizing the host's computer instead of doing kegstands and getting trashed. It's sad because it's true... I just find it fun.

Anyway, I was working on the computer between kids and dogs and conversations. It wasn't just that she needed the game installed. She also needed a better video card and more memory to play the game with, and there wasn't enough room on her hard drive to install. I took a look at the first of the usual suspects: the Recycle Bin. O. M. G. 1579 files taking up well over a gig and a half... O.O She didn't know she had to empty the recycling bin. XD Love ya, Noni! After much cleaning and dust bunny genocide, I got the disk cleaned and the extra hardware installed. We didn't leave until nearly midnight, and the installation process was still only about 75% done. Had a blast.

Sunday rolled around and we were la~azy... I got up earlier than everyone but Colin, who'd already been up, turned off the house alarm for no real reason, ate all the leftover pizza, started the dishwasher with no dish soap and went back upstairs to watch TV, taking the pizza crusts with him. -.- If you look in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and see ADHD, you'll see a picture of him: rolling around on the carpet on a bed of pizza crusts, laughing hysterically... I asked him what was so funny that he was causing this kind of ruckus first thing in the morning, and he replied he didn't remember. I went back over to Noni's to finish the installation and get updates started before Dynamis - Xarcabard.

In Game:

We had Storms of Fate scheduled for Friday night. This is the fight that people who have completed all of the Zilart and CoP missions can do to continue the story arc that was left unfinished between the two expansions. It's a fight that allows an entire alliance to fight Bahamut, the King of the Dragons. It's not a bad fight if you are well prepared. Which we were. XD We were able to take him down and get people closer to Apocalypse Nigh. The rest of the evening was spent campaigning on my BLM. Once you get the hang of it, BLM isn't so bad to campaign on. Nice and safe distances, powerful spells and then go back for new tags when you reach magic damage cap. I did that 2-3 times per a fight for about 2400 experience per battle. Not bad at all.

Didn't do much on Saturday. DeAnn's sister and her husband started playing several months back on our Gold World Passes. D's sis got one from her and her hubby got one from me. Since then, I think I can count on one hand how many times I've seen him online. Well, the both of them were on last Saturday, so I got him to log into his character in San d'Oria and picked up our 100day item. He got a yakuta, I got the timepiece. After that, we went to run around and get them their subjob items. Finished out Saturday afternoon with a besieged battle and capped out my magic skills on BLM for 68.

The main event on Sunday was Dynamis - Xarcabard. It went well for the most part. I am sitting at negative points, so I wasn't up for the Monster Gloves - the last item I need to complete BST relic. None dropped anyway. ; ; We made an attempt at Dynamis Lord, but all we walked away with was a Dynamis Lord footprint on our collective asses. x.X We got owned pretty hard this time around. Apparently one of the stuns either got resisted or didn't go off, and that's all it takes to make it all go downhill.

I apologize in advance if my posts start getting sparse again. Tomorrow is my first day back at headquarters in literally months, and it might be a bit crazy. We'll see how much I can get done.