Putting out

Yeah that faggot finally put out and dropped his cloak for me, 1/15 is the final count. I was bored yesterday morning and I need a Stone IV scroll so I figured I would go camp this guy and maybe get lucky and get both drops. Well I didn't get the scroll but I did get the cloak. Of course once I hit 68 I'll probably full time Black Cloak but meh it was worth it.

I just realized I haven't updated this thing in over a month, my longest gap between updates if I'm not mistaken. I don't really have a reason other than I just haven't felt like doing it.

Things are pretty much the same as always, work and watch kid. Its starting to get warm out finally so I can start taking her for walks and stuff soon instead of being cooped up in the house all day. I'm getting ready to go to visit my parents in Virginia at the end of the month so that should be interesting. I'm not sure how she will handle being in a car for 5+ hours but hopefully she'll sleep most of the time. I'm just thinking about the sheer amount of crap I have to drag down there with me (pack n play, bottles, bottle rack, diapers, wipes, formula, etc) and its overwhelming. Its bad enough just taking her out to the doctors or mall for a few hours, now I have to plan for a week long trip.

Anyway with FFXI I've been leveling Alchemy so I can synth all the Igquira gear and its sitting at 40.5 at the moment. I only need to get it to 44 to be able to synth everything, but looking ahead getting to 60 should be cheap and easy so I might just do that. As for BLM, since I don't have a partner anymore I may just shelve the job at 68. I leveled the job so I could duo with my partner, and since she is probably 75 already there is no real point to it anymore. Sure there is level sync but its not the same. Who knows though, I got it this far so I should probably just finish it off.

Well thats it for now, I'll try not to have any more 1 month gaps between posts. See you later.

Finally some pics

Yeah this post is long overdue, being the first time in 2 months since posting pics of Alyssa. Well I can definitely say she's fattened up to normal baby standards, and has lost a notable amount of hair. Despite that she is as cute as ever. Forgive the poor quality of the pictures, the flash on my digital camera is broken so I had to manually brighten them myself.

Newbie days

So like I said in my previous post I've begun to level one of my mules and put Soarian on the back burner for the time being. With leveling Brigide I'm come to remember all the old hardships I had back in my newbie days. Having to walk everywhere since I have no chocobo liscense, airship pass, or OP warps. Being unable to teleport because I have no crag crystals or Teleport spells. Being unable to switch to BLM to warp home when I'm in another town. Being stuck with a mere 30 inventory slots in my gobbie bag. Ahh the joys of starting over.

Despite all this I've had a blast starting fresh with a new character. I get to redo all the old quests and missions and actually have something to look forward to doing besides soloing another job for no real purpose except being able to sub it occassionally.

Well anyway I started her as a RDM and leveled that up a bit along with WHM. I finally got her to 18 and Shay was nice enough to help me get my subjob items. After that I just pushed to 20 instead of leveling my gimped subjob so I could get my chocobo liscense (which I did) and be able to travel faster. Unfortunately I forgot to build my fame before heading to Jeuno so I couldn't get a Gobbie Bag quest so first thing I did after leaving Jeuno was head to Selbina to trade some Moss.

Before doing all that I did some missions and am sitting on the 2-3 Dragon mission, which I'll probably d-box when I get to 25. Of particular note was my epic solo of the 1-3 BC fight when I was only level 14. It is a fight against 3 Orcs in Ghelsba Outpost, and I buffed up, ate an au lait and then.......... proceeded to destroy all 3 Orcs while only losing like 30 hp lol. I actually thought it would be challenging but oh well it was fun.

My goal now for Brigide is to build enough fame for at least 2 Gobbies, level WHM and BLM subs to around 15, then take RDM to 30. I also want to get to Rank 5 (with a little help obviously) and start Prommys (lol doubtful). I don't know how long I'll stick with Brigide before retiring her and going back to Soar full time, but so far I'm enjoying being a newbie again. See you guys in game.

Super Bowl Sunday

So it has come, the biggest unofficial US holiday, Super Bowl Sunday. Yet again my beloved Eagles fall one game short leaving me disappointed as usual. I'll still watch the game though since I like football in general, and I expect an easy win for the Steelers. Hopefully the commercials will be good this year.

So yeah I caved in and came back to FFXI after quitting for a whole 2 weeks. I am so weak I know. I realized after 2 very trying weeks dealing with my daughter that I need a social escape and nothing else but FFXI fits the bill. I have decided to do things a little differently this time around though.

I have decided to level a mule so I can do what is ultimately my favorite thing in this game, quests and missions. With Soarian I am almost done every mission, and any quest I have left I need help for so there is little left for me to do with him besides level subs which gets boring. Honestly after RDM I don't need to level any more subs as is so all the more reason to level a mule.

So I am leveling my Hume female mule Brigide at the moment, and she will ultimately be a RDM due to me always wanting to level the job, and because it is in demand for damn near everything. Why did I pick Brigide? Thats easy, because she is the only mule of mine that has an Anniversary Ring lol. I plan to keep leveling her and doing any and all missions with her (nation, RoZ, CoP, etc) and doing more quests too.

So for the time being Soarian is in semi-retirement and I'll only use him to finish off my RDM sub (26 currently) or for any help he may be needed for. I also want to work on missions with him and duo BLM with Shay if we can ever manage to be on at the same time. More than likely I'll get bored with Brigide and go back to Soar full time but who knows with a ready made pl available getting stuff done like will be less tedious.

Everything else is pretty good right now. We just got a bunch of new work at my job so it looks like mine is secure, which is good in this shitty economy. Alyssa just got done going through a growth spurt which saw her gain almost 3 pounds in a month. She was very fussy during that time but she has been much more content lately. She loves being on the floor so I lay out a blanket and let her be and she is content for hours at a time. Maybe now my play time will start to get better. Meh probably not lol.

Inauguration day

The big day is finally here and boy am I excited. In approximately 3 hours Barack Obama will be sworn in as President of the United States and Bush will offcially be gone for good. Oh how sweet it is.

In sad news my beloved Eagles yet again lose an NFC title game, this time falling 32-25 to the Arizona Cardinals. Its the 4 time in 8 years the have lost in this game and frankly I'm getting tired of being so close to the Super Bowl then blowing it the game before. We played like shit in the first half and fell into a 24-6 hole at halftime. We bounced back nicely in the 3rd quarter to take a 25-24 lead but gave up a late touchdown that ultimately ended our season. Hopefully they will FINALLY learn from their mistakes and get another WR and RB to put us over the hump.

Other than that nothing much is new, just my usual go to work/watch the baby routine. I'm stuck at work today so I can't watch any of the inauguration but I'm sure there will be tons of highlights on news stations when I get home.

Talk to you all soon I hope

The final journey

"Everything that has a beginning has an end" The Oracle - Matrix Revolutions

As with most everything else in life there comes a time to move on, and that time for me has come. I've been thinking about my exit from FFXI for quite some time now and it never felt "right" until now. It just sort of hit me suddenly, and I thought to myself "Ya know what, its time for me to end this" and so I am.

I ask my friends for forgiveness at the way I left, without saying a word. It may seem selfish but its the only way I could go through with it. I've never been much for saying goodbye, and I never liked to linger longer than I should, so to be true to myself this is the way it had to be.

Let me first say that I will miss both Shay and Soul very dearly, you were the only 2 real friends I made on this game and I hope to keep in contact with you guys. You both know how to get a hold of me and I'll always be here to answer you back. That means keep in touch damnit, I got a kid and can't always initiate contact so don't hesitate to contact me. I'll also miss the game in general. It was basically my social life for the last 5 years and its hard to walk away from something like that. It had its pain in the ass moments but overall it was a tremendously good game.

There is a lot I will remember from my time here, from my first login, to my first party, to the first time I met Soul and Shay, to the first time I hit 75, and even when I finally beat CoP. There are regrets of course. I wish I could have joined an end game shell for at least a little while, and fought things like Tiamat or Behemoth. I wish I could have done more events like Salvage or Sea or something like that. I wish I could have finished Bonecraft (only got it to 98.4) and finished all the games missions (only got to ToAU 44 and WoTG 10). One of my favorite things about FFXI was its great storytelling and I will miss it a lot.

I never explored the games areas as much as I would have liked. I would have loved to have gone on an Astral Candy recovery mission once, or fought a Sea god, or hell even explored Sea more than just killing a few mobs near the palace entrance to try and get an Obi. I don't think I ever even went back into the Palace after finishing CoP except to look at the final BC entrance again. I never did Limbus and barely touched Dynamis, Salvage, and Nyzul Isle. In fact outside of merits/exp parties I barely explored ToAU at all which is a shame, Arrapago Reef seemed like the coolest looking zone in the game.

Enough reminiscing, time to get to the point of this post, which is my final journey. I have debated long and hard about how I wanted to end my time in FFXI, especially in the past few months, but I finally settled on something. I had originally planned to retrace the steps of the final missions in the original game, all the way from Sandy up to the Throne Room in Castle Zvhal, but in the end decided on a different path.

I decided to end it where it all began, overlooking the ruins of the city of Tavnazia from Lufaise Meadows (remember the opening movie). Why did I chose this spot? Ultimately it came down to the fact that I felt the CoP missions were the best challenge I ever faced in this game, and this is where the finale was located. Btw I also think this is one of the most beautiful spots in the game, which doesn't hurt.

On my way to this spot I walked from Bastok all the way to the crag in Konschatt and entered Promy (*shudder*, I freaking hated Promy) for the last time. Its nowhere near as menacing as it was back when it was first opened. Yes I was among those crazy people that attempted beating them right away, and it was extremely difficult. It was this that prevented me from doing CoP for a very long time. I then moved on to Valkurm and walked through the Vortex and ended up in Lufaise. After taking the long scenic route I entered Tavnazian Safehold and took some pics of the sights.

My next trip took me to Riverne, another immensely beautiful but vastly under-utilized zone. Why are the best looking zones always the most useless ones (Purgonorgo Island anyone)? I never understood that honestly. It was back to the Safehold and into Phomiuna one last time. I didn't explore far but the memories of Subligar hunts past were fresh in my mind. Finally I went to Sealions Den and took the ship to Al'taieu. I explored there a bit, killed some Goldfish, and finally took the trip into the palace to the final BC zone. The battle area for the final fight of CoP was breathtaking and I wish I could have seen it more than once.

So I go back to Safehold and, with a tear in my eye, sent my final gifts to Shay and Soul and took the trek to see the real Tavnazia. It was a great ride and I enjoyed almost all of it. Who knows one day I may be back, but for now I have more important things to tend to. I'll keep this blog going and my email/cell phone/IM is always available. See you guys later.

Moving on

In a brutal defensive struggle my Eagles prevailed against the Vikings 26-14 to advance to the next round of the playoffs. Truth be told told they played like shit for the first 3 quarters but pulled it together at the end for the win. Donovan McNabb threw for 300 yards and Brian Westbrook had a 71 yard catch and run for a TD in the 4th quarter to seal the deal. Next we move on to play the rival New York Giants, who also happen to be the defending Super Bowl champs. This will be our third meeting this year, with each team winning a game each. This should be a fantastic game on Sunday and I can't wait to kick their ass again.

In FFXI my RDM is now 18 and my Bonecraft is up to 98.2. I'm having a login problem right now for some reason so I'm gonna have to call SE to figure out whats going on. I'll do that some time this week when I get a chance.

I didn't do anything special for New Year's this year, just went out to dinner then came home to watch the ball drop. No parties and only a little bit of booze, pretty uneventful but I wasn't in any mood to party anyway.

Nothing much else is going on, just the normal work-watch baby like I always do. She's been sleeping a lot lately, which is good I suppose, but she's been getting up earlier than normal. Doesn't bother me much but mommy isn't a morning person so it sucks for her. I'll see you guys again soon after I get this logon thing fixed.