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.

Fly Eagles Fly!!!!!

In what was the greatest (American) Football game I have ever seen, my Eagles stomped the shit out of the sorry ass Cowboys tonight 44-6 to clinch the final playoff spot in the NFC. It was just total, unadulterated rapage the Eagles dished out tonight and I loved every minute of it. Fuck TO, fuck Jerry Jones, fuck Tony Homo, fuck Pacman Jones, fuck the shitty bandwagon Dallas fans, you can all kiss my Cheesesteak eating Philly ass. I hate the Dallas Cowboys in case you can't tell. God embarrassing them so badly on national TV, with the playoffs on the line, was just beyond epic.

So yeah I know I haven't posted in a while. Its been a combination of things but mostly lack of motivation. My Christmas was good and extremely hectic. I visited more family than I even knew I had and got to show the baby off to everyone. Of course she got a bajillion presents while all I got was some T-shirts and socks, but meh I guess I should get used to it.

In FFXI its been pretty much soloing SAM in my limited free time lately. Its up to almost 34 and will be capped as a sub shortly. I'll probably move on to RDM next, though I was actually considering THF first (its 26 currently). With the exp changes for EP-DC mobs and Fields of Valor soloing up subs is easy as hell now.

I'm also starting to plan my "end game" right now, which means the end of me playing FFXI. Things haven't been exactly as I expected with the kid free time wise, and I don't see myself getting normal play time again any time soon. Soling subs in my free time is ok for now, but not enough to keep me around. Right now I'm targetting the end of WoTG expansion as my exit, but things can change and I may stick around longer. Its not the first time I've planned to quit and not gone through with it so don't panic. As for my To-Do list before then, finishing up Bonecraft (97.6 atm) and AU and WoTG missions are at the top of my list. After that who knows but another job to 75 would be nice, just have to decide what one.

Well thats all for now, see you all later

My new toy

I added a new little toy to my blog over there to the right. Its my Bush counter, counting down the time he has left before leaving office. We are so close to finally being rid of him, yet still so far away. It can't come soon enough in my opinion.

So its rapidly approaching Christmas and I haven't bought anything yet. I'm not going to really buy much since I have no money right now, but something small for the family. I wish Alyssa was a little older so it would be more fun, but next year I can go crazy and enjoy it more. She is still growing pretty quickly right now and has outgrown a bunch of her clothes already. We have another appointment next week and I can't wait to see how tall she is and how much she weighs now.

In FFXI news I got my SAM up to 19 by mass exterminating EP and DC mobs. That new Fields of Valor thing seems kind of interesting, though most people say its better just to mass kill everything in sight instead of targetting the specific mobs it gives you to kill. I'll have to try it out. This coming Saturday night I am completely free for the first time in months, and I'm hoping to get a lot done. I am hoping to start out doing some stuff with Shay, maybe level BLM, then after she goes to bed try and do AU44 again with Soul. If we can't manage that hopefully we can knock out the new WoTG quests and missions.

Depending upon if I have to pick Alyssa up or not I may be able to play a few hours Sunday morning too. Then I'll probably just solo more if noone else in on.

Well thats all for now, time to actually do some work.

My old past time returns

Its been a while since I talked about Politics, figured I might as well give it a whirl today.

So Obama has been steadily naming his White House staff members over the past few weeks, and he finally starting cranking out the big ones. He named Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State in a move that doesn't really surprise me. Its one of the most important and prestigious positions in our government and I think she will do well there with her considerable foreign relations experience (just in case you were wondering what exactly this position is, Condeleeza Rice is the current SoS).

He also kept Robert Gates, a Republican, as the Secretary of Defense, another good move in my opinion. He was probably the only good thing to come of Bush's choices for staff besides Rice, and I expect he will continue to do well under Obama. All in all its looking like a good start to hopefully a great presidency.

In Alyssa news, she's starting to get big. Well not really big, she's just been growing really fast all of a sudden. The Newborn diapers barely fit her anymore and I'm hoping to finish them all off before moving to the size 1's. Her poop is also starting to stink. Badly. Thankfully she only does it once a day so its not too bad. She also eats twice as much as she did when we first brought her home, and more frequently too. We finally moved her out of the basinette in my bedroom to the crib in her room and so far she doesn't like it lol. Oh well she'll get used to it, she was getting too big to stay where she was.

In FFXI I finally managed to get my Dancer to 37 over the past few days and am likely to move onto SAM sub next. I want to get that to at least 25 or so before doing anything else. I'm also now 0/17 skill-up attempts in Bonecraft and still sitting on 97.3. I will get this damn craft to 100 I swear it.

Well thats about all for now, later

More pics

Nothing new to talk about today, just pics of my kid. Enjoy.