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 ...