Redwolf's Journal (continued)

I don't know how therapeudic it is to "voice" concerns in this format, but it feels like time to give it a shot. As said, there are two main things on my mind right now... HOA The first is the ongoing fiasco of HOA finances. Simply put, I'm out of my depth. I accepted the position of treasurer without any real expectation of having to crunch numbers. That was roughly four years ago now, and my term should have ended after two. But I'm here because there hasn't been any full homeowners meeting since 2006, so there haven't been new votes. It puts me in a position of knowing more than most of the owners, but only because I'm on the board and have actively pursued information the last few weeks. So we have a shortage of money. We're getting by, but we have "lost" some of the funds collected to pay for our big exterior repair project to payment of normal expenses. Part of this is because some owners are behind in payments. Part of this i

Ugh. I should probably be doing prep for Star Wars tomorrow night or something. I just can't seem to focus in that direction, though. There's too much on my mind right now including finances way beyond my ability to track and a possible trip to Florida in the next few weeks. Oy.

I'm used to a drop in temperature and often precipitation around Halloween. It feels just a touch early for snow, though. Ah well, what can ya do?

Well, we didn't have a raid scheduled, but Saturday nights are sort of our "raid nights" in WoW. If there are enough people, we'll try to round them all up and do something. We had some difficulties to start with, but managed to get folks together and try the next 10-man guild in "progression" after Naxxramas: Obsidian Sanctum. It's only got one boss, with three sub-bosses who you can leave up if you want a harder (and more rewarding) fight. Being our first time, we figured we'd clear them all and do the boss alone. Sartharion Yep, not the Overwhelming Dragon Damage of Onyxia by any means. We downed patrols and each of the drakes handily enough. The whelps on Tenebron were troubling enough for the off-tank to go round them up. I'm not sure they would have killed anyone, but it was a very valid concern and probably just as well. Tanking the drakes? Boring, honestly. While everyone else jumps through the portals, I get to stand there and poke a

It's been an odd day. Poor sleep, good morning, interruptions to nap, scrambling to fix this immediately arriving at work... The HOA issues with our repairs are rearing up in full, some degree of work is actually being done, some people are voicing their distress, and we'll see how all that shakes out. And I also get to think on a bit of news I got over the weekend. My step-mother's mother passed away Saturday morning, representing the last of my grandparents to go. I was told she was lucid and okay when my dad got down there on Wednesday, but took a turn Friday. No extended illness, just a sad, but peaceful, passing. Somehow, it seems like I never hear about those. I quietly mourn. She was kinder and more generous to me than I probably deserve. But in a way, it feels like it "was time." She was happy enough when we visited over Christmas, but I definitely had the sense that she was sort of going through the motions, rather than finding any enjoyment in life.

Well, we've got a Balance druid about to hit level 80 in the guild, and I was asked to take a peek at something for "raiding and arena." I don't know how much overlap there is. PVP talents are very PVP-oriented usually. Maximizing both would probably mean dual-speccing. Build Naturally, Balance druids do ranged DPS in moonkin form - affectionate referred to as "boomkin." There's a pretty good look at primary spells here: http://druidmain.blogspot.com/2009/08/ways-of-talon-spells.html. Specifically addressing Improved Faerie Fire: at maximum, that's +3% to everyone's spell hit on the boss and the druid's crit chance. Well... if all the casters in the group are hit capped, the value goes down. If they aren't, it's very good PVE. On the other hand, it doesn't stack with Misery from shadow priests, so if there's one of those around regularly, you can go with one or the other. The best general write-up on talent builds I'

Sometimes, in catching up with my dad or talking with a friend, I'm asked what I watch on TV. While it makes good background noise (especially now), there aren't really many shows that I will make any effort to watch. Stargate Universe is on my "trial" list, I suppose. I liked SG1, but was only so-so on Atlantis. Elements of the overall concept are interesting, but we're something like three episodes in and already I want to see some progress away from the "OMG! Life support is failing, we need X to survive!" plots. I also don't like the way that some people walked off through a stargate and one person was shot to prevent him from going, but this incident seems to have been brushed off. I imagine they'll bring back the two or three that went through in some way later, but it seems like that should have had more of an effect somehow. We'll see if I stick with this one. Mythbusters represents the height of the Discovery Channel to me. I

Last night, we played in our current ongoing offline RPG. The setting is a heavily-Celtic-inspired fantasy world made by the game's GM. Previous sessions have included dragons in disguise, lots of stumbling around in the dark, death by mushrooms, and many other things detailed at http://aeranos.blogspot.com/. For the last long while, the PCs have been clawing their way from one situation to another just trying to survive. Most of the group wants to fulfill its original mission, but a decision to follow kidnapped townsfolk got them overcommitted and sent waaaaaay off course. In the previous session, we had an unusual situation where we took control. We came up with a plan - an offensive plan to expose a traitor and head off an ambush. Just being able to decide what we were doing and take the initiative for once felt remarkably good after being reactionary for so long. Of course, it didn't work out as well as hoped. The traitor was exposed, but his eeeevil contact summoned nas

For the last week or so, I've had periods of spotting internet connection. High latency in WoW, lag/disconnects on any MUCK, and general unpleasantness I haven't been able to track down. I've restarted all the hardware involved more than once and tried both laptop and desktop, with no discernible effect. Sometimes, things are fine. Sometimes not. And we've had similar issues in the past, but even stranger it would usually manifest where my connection is fine, but my roommate's would lag/disconnect. Now I've inherited this or something? What the heck?

Having just browsed over http://kotaku.com/5384643/i-kept-playing--the-costs-of-my-gaming-addiction, I can't help but think of some advice my father gave me. I forget the exact wording, but it went to the tune of: it's okay to drink sometimes if you want, but whatever you do, don't try to use it as a way to avoid other problems, that's an easy way to get addicted.

I guess I've settled on running my ritualist through Nightfall. No other ideas have sprung up, and we're to the mainland. Of course, this is still a disadvantage sometimes, as with last night. We spent an hour or more running around doing "old" quests. Those quests, however, aren't available to non-native characters, so I was just trying to follow whoever was leading at the time and bust out spirits to kill things. I find that doing this without any sense of quest objectives and where we're going is... unengaging. Once we start moving forward again (next weekend?), that should be less of a problem at least, now that we're "caught up" in the plot to where they bring us foreigners in. We also lost a player who was trying things out. That's a bit sad, but not unexpected. I'm a little unclear on what she wanted out of the camera control, but I guess I can see that as a reason to stop. I couldn't stand the camera in Neverwinter Nights 2,

Alas, raid progress seems to have hit a snag. With a regular healing corps of about three people, there's not a whole lot of leeway sometimes. One on vacation and another just not feeling like playing, and we gathered for raid-time on Saturday short one or two people, and without a second healer. We might have been able to find someone outside the guild to fill the slot(s), but OS isn't the most popular content these days and raids are... well, an experience among friends in my book. After a quick discussion, most of us decided to go romp through Karazhan instead. It was the first time seeing the whole thing for some, we had a non-max level character join in for some XP, and one person was hunting enchantments. No mount drop from Attumen, but we did see the Mongoose enchant drop, along with a few others. We lost the level 71 once to self-destructing elementals, but I don't recall any other deaths until people got a little careless on the way back down (most lethal enemy:

Had our HOA board meeting tonight. And I had more details written up. I wiped it with a bad keystroke, it appears. Points going ahead: - Another board member is trying to meet with our contractor to discuss the progress (or lack thereof) and what's needed to finish at least winterizing the buildings, even if finishing the painting has to be put off. - We're going to have to do another assessment to pay just about anything more, because some has gone to cover other expenses and some people have not paid more than a small fraction of their share - and there's not a lot we can do to collect. - We're raising monthly dues from $130 to $160. This won't go into effect until December, though. Our dues haven't been covering our expenses. This may not be enough, but it's a start. And... we'll see how much more a mess of things we have to deal with, I guess. Feh. But, hey, it's not just us. It seems delinquencies in property tax payment in the county a

So I guess this is my first night returning home after an evening shift since being without a roommate on a regular basis. Quiet. Dark... But I was greeted, in a sense, outside the main door by a group of raccoons. Heh. One, presumably the elder/protective one of the bunch, only backed off a little and growl/chuffed at me as I went inside. I was tempted to turn on the light for a better look, but decided not to pester them with it.

Naxxramas completed. Yay! Kel'Thuzad It wasn't easy, that last fight. It took... umm... four? Five? Six? times... They sorta blend together. We had a couple bad incidents going from Phase one to two with several banshees and an abomination still up. We had some positioning problems in phase two. Mostly, we were losing people along the way, and just didn't have enough to get through the last parts. In one particular try, our off-tank was going to handle the adds about to spawn at the beginning of phase three only to be ice blocked. She survived, then the hunter misdirects went bad and pulled Kel'Thuzad to her, too. Then, as we scrambled to reposition after that, someone got ice blocked and caught at least three other people. Yeah, that didn't go well. ;) We did learn, though, and got better. On our successful run through, actually we had everyone survived. It might have helped to have our Ret paladin healing through most of it (maybe we would have done better

Oof. Think I slept wrong or pulled something - stiffness in my hip and lower back. Some days, I feel older than others. Last night's offline game was good. We found a traitor and came up with a plan to expose him. That felt liberating just because we, the PCs, have been on the defensive almost the entire game, whether driven by duty or survival. To actually have a chance to work against an enemy on our terms was nice. Of course, it hasn't netted us much advantage in the end, but it was fun while it lasted. ;) We squeezed in a quick heroic Nexus run last night afterward. I can't say it was good, but I wouldn't call it bad either. I admit that I'm a little spoiled at this point, and usually expect to run through heroic 5-mans at a fair pace with deaths approaching zero. This was slower and, I think, closer to 5 deaths. That's not extremely frustrating, mind you, just minorly disappointing. So what problems did we have? Well, I'm still not the best paladin

"The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition to be born in moments of revelation." - G'kar I don't think it is in any way a surprise that losing a roommate of six years and coming home daily to an empty home is a big change. I'm sure it's affecting me on levels I'm not even aware of. Consciously, things are different, but not necessarily bad. There are uncomfortable aspects like glancing instinctively toward a clock no longer there only to see an empty room, or being able to hear bumps of the neighbors more than music from the room. There is also a certain freedom in not having to worry about anyone save myself. I can eat what and whenever I prefer, rather than having to consider someone else's tastes and schedule. It's a mixed bag of circumstances. Similarly, I find myself torn on what remains. There are still things such as wall decorations and kitchenware that are not mine around. Part of me wants them to stay out of famili

Persistant, rogue antispyware programs make me want to cry. Or kill someone. Alas, I don't get to tell the publisher of the paper that it's basically his fault for clicking on something he shouldn't have. *lesigh*

I've had thoughts before on the impact of undead on societies, most frequently stemming from events on Faire thought they're more general than that. I know some books/games have addressed it at least in a small measure, but I don't think I've read anything that goes into great depth. Perhaps that edges too much toward the theme of science fiction. Zombies! Least of the corporeal undead types, zombies are perhaps the most obvious undead to have in quantities. I think I'm going to set aside thoughts of "plague" zombies. Their diet of flesh or brains would make them awkward to maintain and doesn't fit well with creatures whose resilience comes from a lack of metabolism anyway. So... purely "magical" zombies (which get to defy biology and physics almost by definition): basically mindless, reasonably strong, tireless, and potentially obedient. You've got the makings of excellent dockworkers and military grunts for direct engagements. If t

So... finished the "official" moving out of the roommate today. There's still a lot of little things that will probably migrate away as time goes on - some food, dishes, a bike, wall decorations, a stereo... I'm tired. And this will definitely feel weird for a while.

Well, after working on the move for the day (and dang, I was starting to think that bed would never fit past the bend in the stairs, we settled in for the evening raid time. I had convinced our dear rogue to keep her computer here and play for the night rather than moving it and being stuck with dial-up. ;) The Frogger corridor once again claimed many lives over the course of the night. Sad, sad lethality. Grobbulus : Most of us got to see him last week. This week, he went down on our first attempt. We changed the kiting path (and direction, but I'm convinced that has little to do with anything) and without being two people short, it was just a matter of time. Then... some people had trouble staying on the pipes. I think everyone made it through the first time, but some fell thereafter. Heh. Gluth : He seems to be immune to taunts during his mini-enrages, which is not something I learned from video-watching and note-reading. So it was harder than expected to taunt him back

I find myself... not feeling too hot tonight. Physically, I'm fine, but I suspect there's a little too much on my mind at the moment aside from the usual moodiness. gabefinder is in the process of moving out - back to her mom's to be there to help out. That feels really weird. The prospect of living really alone isn't something I've faced, though this isn't like I'm moving off to someplace where I know no one or anything like that. It's awkward, and it feels backwards somehow, but I'm sure I'll adapt. And there's the ongoing HOA crap. The property manager has been more forthcoming of late, but I'm still having trouble finding the specific answers that I'm looking for amidst all the numbers. We board members have been emailing and are looking at a meeting in about a week and a half. But the bottom line still isn't good. Even if everyone paid up what they owe (which they're not going to spontaneously do), we'd still be