I have a real weekend off! Saturday and Sunday=no work for me!

woo... working an extra 4 hours tonight, until 3am.

Back to work later today after 2 days off; plus a Suburban Fire Chiefs meeting...

Grind? Yes please!

I spent nearly an hour yesterday morning playing Guild Wars with my son. He's been playing for less than a month, and is still running around pre-searing at level 8, so it's all very new to him.

I keep a pre character on my main account for Nicholas Sandford, since the party points he gives out help my title hunt. But every time I head over there, I seem to burn out after five minutes. Kill a level one monster in under two seconds. Hope it drops whatever Nicholas is asking for. Kill another one. Rinse, repeat, snooze. I get so bored I just can't do it anymore.

Playing with my son made it a completely different experience. It's all still a challenge to him. He's been asking me over and over and over to go kill some Charr, mom! Bad mommy moment here - I put him off for quite a while because I couldn't bear the thought of staying in pre for more than ten minutes. Finally, the other day, I decided to suck it up, and finally play with the poor kid.

We crossed the wall with my level 9 elementalist and his level 8 ranger and went to find the Charr. And I was so surprised to find myself having a blast. We killed, and were killed (a lot) for almost an hour until we'd killed off nearly everything in the zone. There was a lot of yelling "Ahhhh! runrunrunrunrun! Aaghh, I'm dead!", and laughing like crazy. My son reached level 9 in the middle of it all and was delighted.

He is off to day camp today, but before he left he said "Mom, can we kill more Charr when I get home tonight?" I can't wait.

Sometimes looking at the old stuff through new eyes leads to the most fun you can have.

Grind? Yes please!

Happy Birthday to my darling wife, Rubi!

I took the day off to spend with her; cookout for lunch here, cookout at her parents for dinner.

Whoa! Nice shootin' Tex! http://ping.fm/cPzxK

Wow, I stink!

My poor blog. She has suffered from a combination of my super busy schedule (the kids are home from school for the summer and we're still mired in remodeling hell), and my suffering from a fit of "Oh shush, nobody wants to hear what you have to say!"

I do have a lot to say, though, so I'm going to make the effort to sit down every morning and bang out some of my thoughts. It's fun and relaxing when I force myself to stop, breathe, and write for a bit.

We're currently working on putting our house back together after remodeling the kids rooms, and doing the decorating in their bedrooms. Mine and Kev's room has turned into a landfill of sorts for everything that has been displaced in the rest of the house. Every time I dig something out of the pile, or install a new item in a bedroom or closet, I feel like I should get some kind of scavenging or crafting points. I'm getting better at it, I suppose that's what that is. I'm levelling up!

Right, gaming. My Guild Wars guild is turning four, and I organized a celebration beginning July 14th and wrapping up on August 1st with an in game party. I've had a ton of fun posting games in the forum and planning in game events, and as always, watching the reaction and behavior of people during this time fascinates me.

It's been a chance for people to show off their best sides - people flocked to donate in game items, and not just their junk. Nice things that I am excited to give away, and so many things that I had to create a gift mule to handle it all. My guild leader and another officer came up with some wonderful (and not cheap - I was amazed at their generosity) real world prizes to hand out, including a pretty pricey headset that I am dying to win. People have stepped in to help me out when real life keeps me too busy to keep up with some games most days. Seeing how generous people can be with their time and their money - both real and virtual - makes me smile.

There is the other side too - those people who set out to denigrate it for some reason. In a way, it makes me smile because it's a tiny fraction of the amount of good that I've seen. I had an incident the other day where someone got my character name from the forums, not hard to do at all. This person was a stranger to me, but came after me in game, whispering for almost two hours that I was a "fagget" (at least he gave me a chuckle with the spelling, and the assumption that I was a male.) and various other forms of verbal abuse. That type of person is a large part of the gaming community, and I notice that it's much more prevalant in the summer when school is out. I tend to take the negativity with a grain of salt because it speaks more to what kind of a person they are, than what kind of person I am.

I also tend to assume that these people are young, and mom/dad isn't keeping a close enough eye on what is happening on their child's computer. They have too much keyboard courage and too little supervision. It serves a bit to keep me vigilant on what's going on with my own kids.

Hm, parental supervision on teh interwebz. More to ponder on tomorrow morning. For now, it's time to do some of the work that I'm getting paid for. Off I go!

Wow, I stink!

Wow! Sesame Street has been on the air for 40 years?! Here's a cool interactive who's who: http://ping.fm/irki0

All day I've kept thinking today was Sunday. It feels like a Sunday. Weird work schedule throws me off...

Working 12 hours overnight tonight. Off work at 7am Saturday and have to be back at 3pm Saturday. Caffeine is my friend!

Almost over.

At work two hours. Just got caught up on emails and whatnot from the past 10 days.

Just over an hour and it's back to work for me after a 10-day Staycation. Time off was NICE! Now back to earning an honest wage.

House is noisy again :-) Kids are back home after spending a week with Rubi's parents. We missed them, but enjoyed the quiet time together.