In the Ranks

DeAnn was supposed to start at her new job on Tuesday, provided they got the drug test back. The only job that was still in the works that we hadn't heard back from was offer from General Dynamics. As many of you know, GD is the contracting firm with whom she landed the job that moved us out here in the first place. They pay really, really well. She had interviewed and was confirmed for a Program Coordinator contract, pending the results of the bid GD was making to the government on the job. This was quite some time ago, and we'd prayed for it, but put it in the "Wow, that sure would be nice" category...

God is good. On Monday, while she was at home, she got a call from General Dynamics, informing her that they had won the contract and the position was hers if she was still available for it. O.O We're talking almost as much every month as the both of us were making combined. The job is decidedly more administrative than physical, so she hesitated at first, but then realized just how much money that was and jumped on it. :D She's out of the lab, in an office where she can wear make-up and open-toed shoes. No more hot and stuffy labs, slicing up small animals or hours hunched over dangerous machinery. As an inadvertent bonus, she can't start until next Monday, so she has the whole week off from work. She's been getting forms filled out, running errands, doing housework and, of course, getting in some well-deserved game time and rest. I'm so proud of her.

I got out of work early on Wednesday to take Clara to her 2yr well baby check up and shot update. Happy to report that she's doing very well developmentally. And, as always, she took her shots like a champ. A very brief display to let us know that she did NOT appreciate that, and then back to her typical cheery self.

Colin's homework has been mounting on him the past few days, and he's starting to realize he can't just slide through his work like he did last year. His teacher expects quite a bit out of him, including neatness, of which he has always been sorely lacking. We was working on a piece of spelling homework the other night that had scribbles, doodles, whole blocks of sentences heavily marked out and was crumpled like it had been picked out of the trash. D and I insisted that he neatly redo it on a clean sheet of paper, and he threw every reason he could think of not to at us. He worked on his homework the better part of the evening and wasn't able to go out and play like he wanted to. His friends are starting to spam our doorbell and phone, I just have to tell them that he's not available until he finishes the things for which he's responsible.

In game, Keri and I have been fairly busy trying to make gil. While home, Keri has been farming up dark clusters in Xarcabard for Rhylosha's gil machine. She'd wait for weather, kill some clusters, the odd Shadow Dragon pop and afk for a bit when weather was down. Well, on one shadow dragon, she popped Biast (AKA Shadow Dragon's Mommy), and it was none too happy that she was killing her babies. She was able to take down Biast with some help from an LS mate, but she nearly got "eated by teh dwagon." I've been trying to farm up enough money to afford a Serket Ring through alchemy and other NPC/bazaar activities. I'm really close, but everytime I get this close, some jackass decides to gouge the price of the ring up another 100k while other jackasses undercut the things I make money on. I hate people.

Finally, we can officially say we're among the ranks of the BLM army. After several months of drama, manaburning and rats, Keri and I dinged 75BLM at last. Seemed like every night this week we were out getting experience points: 2k here, burning off a ring charge there. Last night, while duoing Wamoura Princes, we both dinged on the same mob. :O We took a moment to warp back home and dump the 6 merits we'd been saving up on the AM2 spells Freeze II and Burst II before heading back out and completing the ring charge. All I have to say is AM2 spells on those mobs is almost like cheating. We kept a constant chain 3 without breaking a sweat, even when Gravity failed to stick.

My Wish List over there is starting to look like Swiss Cheese... XD

Weekend Intelligence: Blowing off steam

With the week D and I had last week, we were in desparate need for some ol' fashioned blowing off steam. Just so happened that Noni was in the same boat, so we made a Saturday night of it. ^^ So, in typical weekend intelligence fashion, here are the highlights!

House and Home:

This past week was D's last week at the job she's been holding on to for dear life the past year and a half. It hasn't been easy, and the two-week notice was no exception. I've always said that the concept of two-week notice was the most unfair strategy ever devised by Corporate America. You have to give one to leave on favorable terms in more circumstances. However, most businesses use it as free license to utterly abuse you for the last two weeks of your employment. Businesses aren't held to the same standard they hold their employees to: they can pink slip you at any time for any reason and have security escort you out an hour later. American business would be different if employers had to give that kind of notice, you can be sure. This, on top of mounting pressure from her upcoming offer and trying to push through an offer from someone else made for a very stressful week.

As for mine, one of our clients (our largest client) had a new phone system rollout. This system has exploded at least half a dozen times over the course of the past week. You see that photo I posted? That's a picture taken from inside the project war room. You can't see it, but there's a cot off to the right side. And yes, that is chinese, mexican and Chili's all mixed together with the huge bottles of Coke and Cisco equipment. I heard one of our phone engineers went in last Monday and didn't get home until Wednesday. That picture is an indication of the craziness that called non-stop all week long.

So I asked one afternoon if Noni had anything going on this weekend, and if she was up for some burgers, beer and shenanigans. Just so happened that she has been having a hard couple of weeks, and some cutting loose time was overdue for her, too. I had talked with her son-in-law about bringing Halo over some night and goofing off, so we brought beer and the 360 over on Saturday night for some good times. Go figure he decided to go fishing instead LOL. You know, when a sports team fails to show up to the field on time, its called a forfeit. ;P Of course, I'll be willing to field a rematch. Colin ended up playing the 360 for the majority of the night, and was very pleased when he got an audience while playing Star Wars: TFU. All in all, we all needed a breather moment to relax and unwind with friends. ^^

In-Game:

OK, so Lv75 BLM didn't quite happen. It could have happened had we not tried to level where we did on Friday. As I've said before, SE has all but made BLM obsolete in standard parties. So all BLMs pretty much go to the same place after Lv70. This leads to 50 BLMs running around the same camps on the same mountain after the same mobs. Not a pretty picture. So one of the people we were partying with suggested that we go to a more 'obscure' location in the same zone. First thing that goes through my head when I hear that is the location is 'obscure' for a reason. Now, to be fair, the place was completely empty, and there were good places to camp. But the place we chose to camp was not one of them. It was simply too linktastic. I ended up being about even for the night. Keri, who is not quite as skilled in aggro avoidance as I am, died several times and ended up about 6k experience points behind for the night.

So we spent a good chunk of our ingame time this weekend (and it wasn't much) catching her back up to me. We did campaign battles, ops and even knocked some rats down. We also did another round of Nyzul assaults, and I got the MNK specific mythic weapon. O.O! I couldn't believe it when I saw it drop. Now to climb the rest of Nyzul and get a new weaponskill. XD We're gonna hit some assaults on Tuesday in an effort to bring us all closer to Captain rank, since we seem to work pretty well as a group.

Finished off Sunday night with a Dynamis - San d'Oria run. I'm long past lotting anything on these city dynamis, but its good that several people who had been waiting for certain pieces of gear finally got them. And its 3 more points toward finishing Monster Gear for my whopping 52BST. :P

So starts another week. D has Monday off because the place she got hired at won't let her start until they get the drug test results back. Hope she studied hard. And if last week's phone changeover response was any indication, I might be in for a wild Monday. >.<;