First Laptop

in contradistinction to my vlog on the topic from yesterday, this will absolutely be an introspective end of the year blog post. this year was marked by going back to school, vlogging, finally starting a regularly updated blog, not going to hong kong, and... oh yeah, moving across the entire country. i was unemployed for most of the year, which was freeing, enjoyable, and miserable all at the same time. i maintained a 4.0 gpa for the duration of the year, which is a first for me. i did a lot of stuff. but at the same time, here at the end of another year, i feel like i haven't accomplished much.

perhaps it's just my nature to de-emphasize my own accomplishments, or to not see the positive side of some things [especially myself], which is decidedly a character flaw. next year, i hope to be more positive, engaged in the communities i participate in, participating in more communities i've been neglecting or avoiding [a.k.a. making friends locally] and many other things. one of which is that i'd like to talk to my sister more, and that i'd like to start making music again. at least more consistently. consistency in general is probably my main 'resolution' for the new year. happy eleven to you all, may God bless you this year.

25 To Knife

christin-chan is sleepwalking! well, not really. she just came out to use the restroom and scared me a bit. it happens from time to time. today i got laundry done, which has become something of an ordeal ever since we moved to a place that doesn't have a washing machine or dryer. laundromats. yay. it's okay, it's not that bad, just time consuming. while i waited for the laundry to dry, i edited a little something called this video. you should check it out if you haven't already. i'm quite fond of it, but i'm quite fond of most of the videos i make.

oh, another interesting note about the trip to the laundromat! i got there, lunch in hand, computer in the car, ready to edit video while i waited, and realized that i brought everything except the one thing you need to do laundry: the laundry. basically, i'm an idiot. but it's okay, all ended well, since i got to stop by the store to get ritz crackers [amongst other things] which christin used to make our fabulous chicken dinner, which we ate while watching buffy. i disliked angel as a brooding anti-hero love interest, so far i like him much better as a villain.

some other highlights of today include nothing at all. it was pretty dull, flat, uninteresting, other similar adjectives, et cetera. tomorrow is new year's eve, which i couldn't possibly care less about at all, but it means that christin will probably be working super late if her boss and husband go out for it. blech. i work until 8pm, which is when sears closes, but i'll be heading over there after that to hang out 'til it's time to return to the homestead. saturday is a free day for both christin and i, which should be nice considering we don't get a whole lot of time together these days. we may go see a movie and use the tickets mom and dad got us for xmas. thanks mom and dad! and now it's time for sleep.

Rorm Doom

one way we can all ensure that the night goes well is to have a nap in the day. i had one today, for the first time in a good long while. black friday doesn't count, that was more of a sleeping session or blackout than a nap. i didn't sleep well last night, so by the time i got home it was definitely nap time. long day. once christin got home, we had some dinner and watched our show. i hit level 70 on the paladin tonight, which was good, though i could've done it faster. shadowmoon valley is such a terrible zone, i couldn't stand it anymore. slow day, slow night. goodnight.

note: good next-night, apparently.

Dizzy Moose Rag

as you may or may not have noticed, the video didn't happen. i'll be putting one up tomorrow, just wasn't feeling it today as i thought i might not. it's so close to the beginning of the new year that i'd thought of re-launching my channel for its second year of activity, but since changed my mind on that because i feel that my viewership is too small for that to have any sort of effect. i don't know. i would love to take vlogging a bit more seriously, but i feel too disconnected from the world of those who engage in it actively. i've tried to become part of the team, but it just never feels natural. i'm not going to stop, i'm just not vying for exponential growth.

of course, i've been doing this dance with youtube for some time now, over the past year. i've gone from literally zero people watching to 237 subscribers [how many of those are valid is up for debate but there are way over 100 people watching regularly] which is something. i could promote harder or try more, i could be more consistent or pander to an audience to increase views, but i'm really just having fun. if it becomes a 'work thing' i don't think i'd want to do it as much. maybe it would. but i kind of don't want to put forth the enormous amount of effort [or hold out hope for the incredibly unlikely amount of luck] necessary to get to that point just to figure that out. but it's not like i'm totally ruling it out.

today was a lazy day, but i did a lot of thinking about video ideas and cleaned up around the house a bit. that was nice. progress! i ordered all of christin's books for school, well most of them at least, and mine as well. i'm finally 100% caught up on my youtube subscriptions, which is something i haven't been able to say for at least 2 months now. it feels good, but now i have less to watch, or at least listen to when playing wow, but that's what netflix is for, right? work was boring but felt short. hopefully tomorrow goes by just as fast, but i must say that i prefer closing to opening shifts. we'll see how it goes. goodnight.

Missed Anniversary

i may make a video tomorrow, but i haven't totally decided yet. it would be better than sleeping in, though i'm sure my body will completely disagree with that statement in the morning. today i went to nordstrom's and applied for a job at their warehouse, which would be cool if i got it. what i did get was a self-esteem boost when i took the written assessment they give you. when i walked into the testing room, dressed in dickies and a polo shirt with a hat and work jacket on, there was a well-dressed young man taking the test in the desk-stall-thing next to me.

when i left 10 minutes later, finished test in hand, he was still there.

so that kind of made me feel good about myself. maybe basic math and upc/sku order reading isn't his thing. it's not really my thing either, but i'm trying not to be insulting. it's hard to feel good about your superiority without also gloating about someone else's inferiority. and that's the trouble with competition: there always has to be a loser. there's more to be said, philosophically, on that particular topic, but i'll digress for now. perhaps i'll include it in tomorrow's video, which may or may not actually be a video that i make tomorrow. we'll see. i said that already. well, i didn't really, but i implied it. had leftover turkey and watched buffy tonight. christin is well. all is well, in general. for now. was that depressing?

A Place Of Your Own

lazy sunday, wake up in the late afternoon, because your alarm went off late and you missed out on church. yeah, that was the beginning of the day. the rest was interesting. we saw black swan, which was genius as i sort of expected. given the director's track record, it'd be hard for him to turn such an interesting idea into crap. portman and kunis' acting helped as well, and it was just really good. a bit raunchy for some peoples' taste, but i think it fit the story well enough. not recommended for children or the squeamish.

we got home and, surprise surprise, watched some more buffy. it's so good. i can't overstate that, really. we had potstickers for dinner, which were delicious, then ate some more xmas candy after that. mmm. it's nice to have a stash again. mwahaha! but i've got to get back to the gym soon if i want to keep from expanding further, which would be good. got the pally to 66.5 and i've only just now finished hellfire and zangarmarsh. i think i'm going to do everything in outland, even some of the stuff i've never done, like most of shadowmoon valley. i feel like i missed a lot of that expansion and it'd be fun to check it out.

note: turn on my computer and notice this sitting here. bad me!

Hellmouth

remember how i said today's blog may be interesting? no, definitely not. today was a good xmas celebration, consisting mainly of us opening our presents together with the babies. this was my first away from my parents, not counting the one where we were in another country, and i think i did well enough. called them and that was nice, got to talk to steven and julie too. christin liked what i got her, which was the first three rambo movies. yeah! we kind of have this tradition of me buying her a trilogy for xmas, so i continued it today.

after the festivities at home, we went to dan and sarah's and had way too much to eat, played with carter, watched toy story 3 [which was sad] and came back to the house. then we ate some more and watched buffy. we finished season one tonight and watched the first couple episodes of season two. the show is getting really good, and it's totally addicting. i'd imagine we'll be through the series in about a month or so, if we keep it up at this pace. good times. i played a bit of wow after christin went to sleep. hit 64 on the paladin, did an instance with matt and nikki and the gang on the shaman, which was cool. now it's past bedtime.

Eve

'twas the night before xmas and all up in this ma', bud and christin were watching buffy and it was good times. the end, amen. today was day three of retail hell, beginning with an oh-so-lovely three plus hours of the system being completely down. once it went up, things were still frustrating and annoying, with lots of bugs like credit going up/down and returns being unavailable and debit not working, but i survived the day. annoyances, mostly, but nothing as bad as monday or wednesday for sure. the crowds were a bit less, and once things got going, time seemed to pass quickly.

so i've never really been too into the holiday season, ever since i got past the super-excited-about-xmas-phase of my life [a.k.a. when i turned 18 or so], but tomorrow i have to be. i'm here now, on the east coast, and christin's family is all about it. i'll do fine. ;-P it's not like i'm faking it, it is a nice time of year and such, i just come from a family that doesn't go all out and hasn't in a long time. now i'm with a family that is practically the opposite. christin is making me a big turkey breast, which should be magnificent. wait, what? magnificent? really?

aside from the work and the buffy, i managed to get what little shopping i had done today, which consisted of purchasing a snow shovel, cat litter, and a small gift for christin. also, i found the blu-ray she bought me [zombieland] for half the price she paid at best buy when i was shopping, so that's a plus. gonna return the other one. what can i say? i'm a saver, born and raised. when you are as poor as we are, you kind of have to be, and i fill the role well enough. anyway, it's now time for bed, as i'm dead tired from work, but tomorrow should be eventful enough for an interesting blog. here's hoping!

Breaking Into Gringott's

just as i start to get comfortable, reality sets in and shocks take place to throw things back into the usual turmoil. we got some bad news today regarding christin's job. hopefully it won't all happen, but it looks like at least some of it will. she will only be working at her current job until the end of march, and she will likely begin working for her brother as our nephews' nanny indefinitely at that point. this is good for many reasons, but bad because they cannot afford anywhere near what she is making right now. we're going to have to either find another child for her to take on, which would be fine, or i'm going to have to miraculously obtain a high-paying full-time job in the next three months.

guess which one we're shooting for, primarily?

it's just as well in the end, i should be working full-time. but being out of full-time work for a year has left me embittered and frustrated. the long hours of filling out applications that seem to vanish into the ether, the total lack of responses from most places that i call and pester about jobs, it's all just so discouraging. i'm trying my best, and school is almost finished, but now the pressure is really on for something to happen, and soon. in lighter news, we started watching buffy the vampire slayer season one today, and it's quite amazing. good end to a bad day. now i must sleep and prepare for a 6:45am-3pm shift of maddened last-minute shoppers.

The Failure

oh me, oh my. today was another day in retail hell, just like monday. system was down for a good half of the day, manual price entry and all, which was just unbelievable with the crowds in the store today. it's almost unbelievable that such a thing could be going on during literally the busiest time for retail shopping all year, but nevertheless it is what it is. i got my lunch break illegaly late, and i did get off on time, and i did get a wonderful compliment [as well as my first incredibly rude lady] which were all pluses. but the rest of the day was decidedly double plus ungood.

then i came home and basically passed out for a few hours.

having elijah gone is a different experience in this house, since this is the first actual day in which we've kind of been in the house together as a family without him. it's good settling in to 'normal' and everything, this house really is a lot better than our old one. the animals like it, i like it, christin likes it [especially the kitchen] and it's been good for us. tonight we watched a national geographic show about this crazy prison that houses mostly rapists/pedophiles/etc. apparently our friend vince is going to be working there... nuts! and this female prison in jessup, md which is not far away. scary people. no work tomorrow, lazy day. paladin is now 62. and now i bid you a fond goodnight.

Anger In The Forge

it's so late and i'm so tired that i really don't know what to type. took 'the boy' to the airport today and his plane went out, which is good. we were worried about the flights being canceled because of the weather in europe right now, which is awful, but he's well on his way by now. sears was not as bad as yesterday, but still quite busy and draining. oh, retail. i need a new job! christin has exciting stuff in the works, some good prospect coming soon, which would be a real help for us financially. we hope it works out, and a full time job for me would be icing on the cake.

man, i never realized how much i took it for granted that i'd be able to stand up for 6-8 hours at a time and not feel it in my joints. sure, i know i'm out of shape, but my knees are killing me. i need to get back to the gym, and now that we live so close and things are calming down in the east coast newman household, that's a real likely thing. i'm probably going to head there on thursday, my day off. i know, i'm a glutton for punishment! i work tomorrow at 6:45am, which is going to be the death of me. hyperbole, of course. same shift on friday, xmas eve. blah. it's money, though. i got decent hours this week, which is good. thing are well. time for bed!

Ras Trent

it was the worst day in retail so far. today the entire system was down, and when i mean down i mean all the way down. to the point where we were manually keying in sku codes and prices and calling managers for approval for almost every single customer. lines all day, non-stop apologizing to customers, frustrated co-workers, overworked managers... it was a mess. the sad thing was that the shift was only six hours, but it felt like an eternity. so tired. i work tomorrow too, but not until 5pm. christin made delicious pizza for elijah's last day, and i got him his favorite ice cream. we watched zombieland on blu-ray, which was an early xmas present from christin. love that movie. paladin is level 58 now. sleepy time.

What On Earth?

i've always taken things like washing machines for granted. the only other time in my life where i didn't own one was when i was in hong kong, so i thought 'well that's different.' because it's another country and all. but even then we had a washer at a couple of the places we stayed, just not a dryer as well, and we had to put up the line. but then we just took our stuff to the cleaners, which was not cheap, but it was very convenient and no work. today i went to the laundromat. it's not bad, i'm not complaining, it's just different. it's something out of the norm for me, and i thought it was worth mentioning on here. that's all.

tomorrow i've got to work again, and it's our last full day with elijah here, at least for the forseeable future. we played some wow tonight, which was fun [got my paladin to level 56], and we finished up firefly and serenity in the daytime with christin. that was wonderful. i love that show. tomorrow i'm the lunch reliever work person thing at work. heh. 11:45am-5pm, which is a weird shift. it's barely 15 minutes over a 5-hour shift, necessitating a 30 minute break, so they get me from the times they want without having to pay me for a half hour of it. strange. but it's a paycheck. i've got a prospect in the works for a new potential job, but i won't be releasing details at this time. just pray for wisdom. thanks.

Samesong Distribution

saw tron legacy today, which was pretty good. the 3d was excellent and actually enhanced the movie, unlike some others that have came out using the gimmick technique in recent history. the story was fairly unmemorable, and some of the things weren't very well explained, but olivia wilde was fantastic and jeff bridges was jeff bridges [a.k.a. amazing] even when he was cg jeff bridges, which was pretty convincing as i've said earlier on twitter. yep. i liked it, even though over 50% of critics did not. take that, mainstream film criticism.

on the way home, we returned our samsung failure and picked up the sony version from best buy for $20 less, only to get to the house and realize that we got the wrong one. there are apparently 2 of them with nearly identical boxes and item numbers that have one number difference, but one of them has wi-fi built in and the other does not. oh, and there's a negligible price difference so there. but we got it home, signed up for netflix, and watched about 6 episodes of firefly with elijah. he's just about done with the series now, which is sad and happy all at once. and now it's time to go to bed. christin isn't feeling well, and laundry must be done, so we're not going to church tomorrow. sad. goodnight.

Indian Corn

i am quite upset with samsung right now. they hath failed me! i got a blu-ray player with my xmas money from my dad and grandpa, since we've inherited [at least for a while] a nice hdtv, and elijah and i had a hell of a time getting it set up. we got it to connect to the internet, but none of the stuff worked. seeing as how we don't have any blu-ray discs, and the streaming netflix feature was the only real selling point for the item. so after a few hours of beating my head against the wall trying to get it to work, we are going to take it back tomorrow.

which is good, because the sony one is actually $20 less.

anyway, besides that, the boy got his hair cut and i got my cheese log. it was delicious, as per usual. christin worked late tonight and we got a little bit of leveling done while she was gone, but not near as much as we'd have liked. christin and i played a little bit after she got home as well, which was nice. i work a lot next week, including the day elijah leaves, which is kind of lame as would be expected. i work that night, so i get to drop him off a bit early and head back hopefully in time to make it to work. let's just hope it doesn't snow or anything.

note: i should really stop writing blog posts so late, it messes with my ability to remember whether or not i actually hit 'publish'.

Peppered

it snowed today for the first time this year, meaning the first time it's been more than just flurries that don't stick to the ground. we got about an inch and a half at the house, and the dog is loving it. she likes to go for walks in the snow, so we stayed out a little extra long today. it was fun. christin made beef for dinner and i had leftover lasagna, which was tasty. we got to play a bit of wow as a couple, which is nice, and we hit level 84 and did about half of uldum. neat zone. i always like playing with christin, and i'm glad we're leveling slowly together. i'm in no rush to hit 85 and start the grind, i'm enjoying the new content.

we put up the tiny fake xmas tree today, which was fun despite the fact that i'm not really big on holiday decoration or 'decking the halls' if you will. it's about three feet high and we crammed it full of tons of little ornaments and candy canes. we didn't get to put the lights on because we don't have anywhere near where we've set it up to plug it in and the strings of lights christin got are way too long for it. seriously, like 4x too long, it's hilarious. so i'm going to see if i can get a little set of 25 lights or maybe 30 or whatever it comes in that's smaller than 50. target for that and cat food, amish market for cheese logs [been too long since my last] and trying to get to level 60 on our alts. exciting for us, boring for blogging!

Governments Don't

i have five minutes to type this before my computer automatically shuts down because it needs to install updates and i don't want to hit 'postpone' again. ha! so work today was pretty brutal. i got to work at 8:45 only to learn that i wasn't actually scheduled until 9:45 [thanks, schedule] and yeah. i worked until 5pm, headed home and we went to the in-laws' for lasagna and pecan pie, the latter of which i did not eat, but the former of which was delicious as expected. yep.

i don't have to work tomorrow or friday, which is good because elijah will be leaving on tuesday and it'll be cool to spend a bit more time with him before he goes. it's been a good vacation so far for him and for us as well, though it's been a little weird and crazy at times with the whole 'is he gonna stay with us' thing, but in the end it's just the best decision for him to go. he may come back next summer, which would be cool, but we'll see where we're all at by that point. who knows, maybe i'll get my degree and start applying places and by this time next year, we'll be in hong kong. well, i can dream. i'm incredibly tired! goodnight.

p.s. two minutes left. you know i rule. owwwww!

Strong, Consistent Girl

i was pleasantly surprised to see that i only had to work until 5pm today instead of 8pm, but sad that my total hours for the week went down from 30 to 20. oh well. work went quickly, but took up a good portion of the day. after that, i headed to the old apartment to pick up a few leftover items. i never really, truly realized how inconvenient our old place was to get to until tonight. it was like driving an hour out of the way just to take care of an errand. nasty. i stopped by the store to pick up chicken, which christin cooked and it was amazingly delicious.

we played a bit of wow, did the second instance [throne of the tides] and it was neat. a couple cool cut-scenes and i don't think we wiped on any of the bosses. we didn't do one though, the tank left before we could, so we still have a quest to finish in there. we'll have to run it again before we hit 84. i'm really enjoying the expansion, as i'm sure you can tell from these blogs. our friend josh joined us with a friend on earthen ring tonight. it was nice to see him on the server. ;-D it's bedtime! i've got work at 8:45am tomorrow, and dinner at the in-laws' place... lasagna! yum.

Bad Boys

for some reason, i thought the 'cops' theme song started differently than it actually does. so at one point today, i randomly blurted out what it sounds like [or what it sounded like in my head] and it cracked christin up. that's my amusing anecdote for the day. love it? good. today was a lazy day, slept in late, didn't get much done in the way of productivity. christin stayed home from work and went to the doctor, and it turns out she has bronchitis and ear infections in both ears. nasty. so she got some antibiotics, which apparently aren't free at giant anymore, and such.

hit 83 today, after christin went to bed, elijah and i finished up vashj'ir. cool zone overall, lots of neat stuff. a few annoying points that may be bugs, but other than that it was great. the lore was really up front and there was less 'silliness' than some of the stuff blizzard is known for. the quest line with 'budd' was really funny, i was glad they brought that character back. he's a real nutter. ;-P anyway, it's time for bed because it's way too late. work tomorrow for like 9 hours. ugh!

note: fail fail fail fail fail.

Colonized

this morning, pastor taylor delivered a sermon that was very similar in content and tone to one i did last year at crossweave. it's funny how that and another instance earlier in the week bring my mind back to thinking of the time i spent preaching and teaching there. it was a good time, but it's a time past and [to my knowledge] not something i'm meant to repeat in the near future. i miss my friends in california, but i don't really miss 'there' all that much. it's nice here. despite the impending snow and the cold, i like it. our church is a big part of that.

it's funny how we ended up at trinity reformed. we were going to a big church in annapolis, a p.c.a. church, and it was okay. we were just sort of showing up, worshiping as a couple and leaving right after the sermon ended. the church had a large membership, so it was easy to blend in and not be involved. it was something i hid behind, thinking about how i always felt pressured into ministry at every small church. trinity wasn't so. we found the church on the o.p.c. website, and only went there because it was the closest one [35 minutes away, though now we're about 20 since the move]. we love it there. i'm glad we went.

it doesn't feel like sunday, even though we had church today. i've got a paper due tomorrow, which should be no big deal, and then i'm done with school for the rest of the calendar year. that is exciting. next week is all work, tuesday-friday, half nights and half mornings. it's going to be a busy week, and possibly our last with elijah staying with us. it's been fun. we're still not done unpacking, but the place is looking considerably more like home. christin is still not feeling well, but i think it's different this time. it usually happens when we move houses. i think she wore herself out and made herself sick moving yesterday. she'll be staying home tomorrow.

whew! it's way past bedtime. only reason i'm still up is because christin gave me and elijah the green light to continue leveling up without her, and we finished out to level 83 and did just over half of the vashj'ir zone. it's pretty cool so far. you get a seahorse mount, and as limp-wristed as that may sound, it's actually pretty neat to ride. it feels really fast, but mostly just because you move so slow underwater without it. the quests and lore are cool, which i'm reading and enjoying, but elijah not reading and skipping ahead is still kind of annoying. ;-P anyway, sleep time.

Films About Nature

i've been staring at this screen for a while now, wondering when i'd think of something to say other than just that today was a long day of moving and i'm tired. that's pretty much all i've come up with at this point. i'm kind of at a place in my life right now where, despite the fact that there are a lot of things going on and things are changing and progress/improvements are being made, there's just not a lot of depth to focus on and talk about regarding it. we moved today, we're about 33% done with unpacking, and our new place is quite wonderful. but that's all i have to say about that.

oh my, am i turning into forrest gump?

most days are typical. i work or don't work, i do school stuff, i read, i watch videos and play wow, i spend time with my family. it's good to have a routine, and it's good to be stable. the whole situation with elijah [which may not be a situation if he doesn't find a job in a week and two days] makes it a bit more interesting to talk about, but nothing really substantial. i haven't even been making videos consistently, which is weird because i have a whole other person at my disposal to bounce ideas off of and talk about and film with. weird.

now i really should go to sleep, because it's a half hour later than i wanted to stay up, and i am pretty much exhausted from driving and packing and unpacking and hauling and lifting. it's been a long day of moving and i'm tired. there, i said it. happy now? or not. ;-P i'm so sarcastic. the cat doesn't like it here, but i think she'll get used to it and be okay soon enough. she was hissing and hiding behind the huge couch earlier, but now she's sitting on the couch arm next to elijah who is sleeping next to me. she'll come around. more tomorrow. church tomorrow. i need it.

Irradiated

oh, the packing. all day today, pretty much. this morning was spent sleeping and eating, but the rest of the day was spent organizing all of our crates and bins in the house into piles, then putting them back in a more organized fashion. tomorrow is the big day, so the pressure's on. after we did that, christin came home from work [she worked super late] and we threw ourselves at stupid yogg-saron and failed for a couple hours. it's getting quite annoying now. we're probably not going to bother trying again until we're all max level. we got some bad luck this time.

this is likely to be the last full night in this house, and i'm not terribly sad about that. it's served us quite well, and it was definitely a Godsend, but there are many things i certainly won't miss, and christin will miss those things even less. going upstairs every time we want to cook something on a stove, that's one. having a full kitchen and a large closet with plenty of storage space is also a great selling point for the new place. it's exciting. we'll be spending most of tomorrow doing that. i'll be moving stuff all day tomorrow, so it's probably not going to be too interesting to blog about.

note: posted next day because i'm a total failure.

Former Fatty

sick! christin gave me her sickness. sad times. i stayed home from work today and basically sat in bed until 2pm, which is less fun than it sounds. i'm still tired, drained really. i spent most of the day working on packing stuff, which means consolidating our crap and moving it into bins. tomorrow i'll hopefully finish the rest of it in time to actually move on saturday. we've got all day and most of the night, so it should be easy enough. then we played some more wow, almost finished every quest in mount hyjal [got the achievement already but we still have a few more quests, we're level 82]. got our alts to 45 after that. slow day, dull day, boring day. they happen.

Jet Coltsman

the job hunt was interesting, and the early morning is now wearing on me as it's currently quite late at night. we got a lot done, between about 12 applications on paper and online combined, so we may see some progress sooner than later, which is about when elijah needs it. we stopped by best buy to get christin a wireless adapter for her desktop and i couldn't believe it was $65! so much. so we're going to see about running a cat5 cable downstairs instead, and if we can't do that we'll try the crappy usb one we have. last resort: paying way too much.

mount hyjal is totally awesome. we did about 2/3 of the zone so far, and it's really, really fun. we'd started leveling a bit early in the day because christin took a half day. ;-/ she's not feeling well. we brought her five guys for lunch, which was amazingly delicious. between the jobbing, the wowing and lots of phone calls to various social workers and other people [liz, elijah's mom, included] i am just totally worn out. it's bedtime, for sure. tomorrow i've got work in the morning, which i'm not at all looking forward to, then alissa's recital at 7pm. that will be good times. goodnight.

Elect

another day, another day of work, another expansion for world of warcraft released. flew around the old world a bunch today, and it was really neat to see everything from a different angle. the new stuff has been highly enjoyable up to the patch and now that it's hit and we can fly around and go to the new zones... it's really exciting. i've been playing this game for 6 years now, and it's just incredibly surreal and bizarre to see that the zones, areas, quest hubs, etc. that we've been so used to for the past half a decade are now totally different.

we won't be really playing for reals until tomorrow, because then christin will be able to level with me and elijah. that will be fun. speaking of elijah, he and i will be going out tomorrow in the morning to look for a job for him, it'll be his first real job. if he can find one before his flight out [a week from tuesday], it looks like he'll be staying with us indefinitely. so that's news. helps us with rent, helps him with life in general, etc. anyway, i'm going to sleep early tonight, so that's about it. i may write a bit more before then.

note: and now that i come to write tonight's blog entry, i shall actually post this one from yesterday. blah!

Hot Stepper

and so begins the packing. well, at least the organization before the packing. going through our stuff in big boxes, etc. and arranging it all and getting it ready to be moved to the new place. exciting! the rest of most of my day was not eventful, however. elijah and i played some wow, i went to work which was annoying, and did a bit of homework as well. i swear, sears is one of the worst managed companies i've ever worked for. no one seems to know what they're doing.

maybe i'm working too hard, but when i walk by literally 5 people doing absolutely nothing with a handful of stuff that has to go back to different departments [which is not actually my job, but i can't make the people who are supposed to do this job do it]... and they don't even look at me or offer to help or anything. it's mind-boggling. truly mind-boggling. anyway, not to complain. i make a decent wage in terms of the difficulty of the job vs. the amount of money i'm paid hourly. the hours suck, but it's work. going to be looking more intently for a better one once we get settled in the new place. cataclysm in 10 minutes, but i'm going to sleep. goodnight!

Deeper And Steeper

the guest pastor today at trinity reformed was great, and i thoroughly enjoyed and was blessed by his message. he discussed a portion of scripture that, honestly, i would normally breeze past. it's the first 7 verses of joshua chapter thirteen, talking about dividing up the currently unconquered and not-yet-possessed lands amongst the israelite tribes. there was a lot to say about god doing the work and providing the victory, all joshua needed to do was divide the land up. despite the fact that he was far from the ideal candidate [he was very old], God chose to use him.

elijah seemed to enjoy the service as well. he hadn't been to church for about six months or so, and honestly i can't really blame him. the only church nearby that isn't an abomination [read: catholic] is entirely in french and hard for him to really glean anything from the message and fellowship with the saints there. i think it's good for him to be able to go to a proper church. anyway, today was fun. after church, we ate lunch at kfc [don't ask... i had a hankering] and headed home to catch up on the amazing race and community. then i caught up on homework and cried as the chargers got totally destroyed by the evil raiders.

stupid raiders. seriously. ugh.

all in all, it was a great day today. lots of time spent with friends, christin and i got some time to ourselves, and elijah and i got to get our new characters on wow to level 30 and get dual specced before 3am, which is an accomplishment in and of itself considering i wasted some time selling off crap from my main's bank and sending stuff to a bank alt. good times. tomorrow we'll get into a few instances, which will be cool, before i have to go to work at 5pm. should be excellent! until then, this is me, signing off. wow, that was lame. don't ever let me do that again. goodnight.

SunnyD & Rum

today was long. too long. i'm actually insanely tired right now, just sitting here thinking of what to write here, but i can't think of anything. i did what i said, in the sense that we messed around and we made another video, which is on alissa's youtube channel. check it out here, it's pretty awesome and all that jazz. she's hyper-tastic. got home at around 3:40 and did my best to clean up the house a little bit, because apparently rhonda's got people coming over here tomorrow to look at the place. yeeeeeah... no comment. wait no, not really. comment.

it's kind of annoying, honestly, partly because it's on a sunday and partly because it's just very inconvenient for us to have to be here when she's trying to sell the apartment we're currently paying rent for. meh. and now i've just realized that my homework is officially three days late. i hope they accept it three days late, because man. i just completely forgot to do it tonight. i knew it was going to be two days late yesterday, because i couldn't have possibly done it last night, but now i'm just a failure. bah! work was boring, but not too slow. kept me busy. big easy for dinner — it was delicious! goodnight.

Xenophilius Lovegood

today was a good day, i didn't even have to use my a-k. wait a second... i always have to use that. it doesn't matter if it's a good day or not. i think i just wanted an excuse to reference ice cube. anyway we made this today. it's excellent and bizarre. starring me as eugene and elijah as eugene's buddy, samuel, as well as our nieces who just kind of dance with us in our 'crew' of peeps. it's a new thing. we wrote an awesome rap song to go along with it as well, so you should probably watch it and like, dance at your computer while it plays. seriously. no one will make fun of you.

christin just pulled an enormous tick off of one of alissa's cats. eww. off her face too... nasty. we are on the eastern shore yet again, babysitting for our nieces and nephew at bob's place while he and donna are having a night out at a company party. good times! we made that video, at pizza, and we just got done watching the newest iteration of 'a christmas carol' with jim carrey. you know, the animated one. i had seen it already but christin and elijah hadn't. they liked it. so yeah, it wasn't the most exciting day in the world or anything, but dude! new video!

tomorrow should be interesting. we may record another video, maybe for alissa's new youtube channel that she started last week. then when bob gets back i'll have to head back to the other side of the bay [the western shore?] since i have work from 5pm-closing again. hope i get off at a reasonable hour, and i hope we finally get yogg+1 down and get that much closer to the drake we have been working on. blah! cataclysm tuesday. so excited! we move next weekend. also excited! got paid today, which was wonderous. and now it's bedtime.

Granite

another day, another dollar. it's been almost a week since i'd worked, and it was almost like i didn't have a job again. or like i was on vacation or something. anyway, it was strange. even though i was scheduled until 11pm, i actually got off around 10-something and headed back to the house. that's a good and bad thing. i get paid tomorrow, which is excellent, and it looks like our funds are doing a-okay for this month and next. just trying to take things slow and carefully in order to make sure the move and everything goes smoothly.

today, i introduced elijah to the wonders and greatness of the cheese log. mmm. amish market. i'm on a bit of a pretzel kick lately, i just freaking love soft pretzels. it's a problem! we went to visit christin at work after that and hung out with her for a bit while we enjoyed our cheesy goodness, and the babies were being good for her. one was a bit of a pain, but one always is. then we went to the house and leveled up our new toons some more, doing a bit more of the new content. dungeon revamps are totally boss, and the way quests work in dungeons are wonderful as well.

note: unfinished blog is unfinished! posted late due to noobery.

Oh Yeah, Baby!

today was a lot of chores and a lot of quests. we re-subbed elijah's wow account in preparation for the upcoming expansion next week, and we started leveling some new characters. when christin got home, she joined us and we started some others to play with her, since elijah and i will be going quite a bit faster due to having more time to level up. good times. not really much to say. christin got her new woot! shirt in the mail today, which is awesome, and she had a meeting with rachel to meet her other kids and her husband. cryptic! anyway, tomorrow will be amish market, dog bath for monster and work from 5-11pm. boo that part.