Well, the last few weeks have been full of doctors visits as the insurance slowly ticks away. I finally got my knee taken care of! Well, hopefully. The surgeon was fantastic, got me in for surgery the day after we went in to talk to him. So, in for the scoping on Friday, and I was back on my feet by Monday! Turns out there was a ton of dead cartilage that was flapping up and down causing all my issues. After removing all of it, he said I should be good in about 6 weeks, but they did send some of my cartilage to a lab in Boston to grow me a replacement chunk if I need it. Science is awesome!

The surgery itself was fascinating, though sadly it did involve getting a large part of one of my legs shaved… Never thought I’d see the day. Everyone there was very kind and friendly. I had always seen the patients going under in seconds in the movies and such, but didn’t really expect anything like that… Yeah, I was quite wrong. After they wheeled me in and got me on the table, they said they were just giving me some oxygen with a bit of something else to help me relax and that it would smell funny. 4 breaths later I’m waking up in the recovery room. But now I’m up and about, with only three small cuts on my knee. The whole process seems crazy.

As for the job front, I still really haven’t started investigating anything. I think I’m still hoping that I’ll wake up one morning to find out they’ve decided to hire me back. In talking with my previous co-workers, they’re hoping the same thing. Sadly, it’s not likely to happen. My wife and I have been discussing all sorts of options, from going back to school, to teaching some computer classes on the side till I find a job I’m really interested in. Will start the actual hunt today and see what is out there.

Otherwise I’ve just been trying to relax and make the best of the down time. Catching up on some reading, and some games. Enjoying evenings with my wife more, now that we’re both not coming home stressed from work. Overall, it’s been a good few weeks! Guess we’ll see how things continue.

Assuming there is anyone reading this who doesn’t communicate with me otherwise, I got laid off yesterday. Fortunately, this is a whole lot different situation than last time I got laid off… I actually have full faith that my co-workers and managers really wanted me to stay, and tried hard to keep me there. They are all also looking out for new job opportunities, and have made it very clear that any job that opens up in their department will be made available to me (assuming I’m qualified that is). So overall, it’s almost a heart warming experience this time, vs the deception of NuSkin. I had intended on taking a weeks breather… Mostly since my official termination date isn’t till the 15th. But, it seems there are people interested in talking to me about some time sensitive offers, so I had best get on top of those. I will keep this updated as I can, not that I’ll be lacking in free time or anything

It seems that I am being drawn to the realm of “gun nut” a lot faster than I expected. My wife and I got our permits this past week, but had already picked up a rather nice Springfield Armory XDm in December. Just in case anyone is wondering, buying a gun then dying to go out shooting in the great outdoors in the middle of winter isn’t the best idea. Lets just say we were met with several feet of snow at the usual spots. We did eventually get to a good location and had a blast. That is when I fell in love… With a gun. Obviously.

See, my wife quite enjoyed shooting the AK47 on our earlier trip, and even said that at some point we should totally get one. This trip I was introduced to the AR15. Now for those of you who aren’t gun nuts (which included me at that point) the AR15 is more or less a civilian version of the M16. Nice, black, semi-auto, amazingly accurate, fun as heck to shoot. After much discussing and deliberating, we decided to buy one. Sadly, this would be in the middle of the crazed gun buying rush from everyone thinking anything that goes boom will be banned from existence the minute Obama is sworn in as president… So after much searching, we ended up pre-ordering one from what is becoming my favorite gun shop, FBMG. Sadly, the current back order time is 2-6 months… So I get to be “patient” and await the delivery of my new baby.

But back to the whole “one step closer” thing. I’ve been carrying my XDm around the house for a while, and out in the world after I got my permit. I must say I’ve grown quite used to it a lot quicker than I expected. My wife has been thinking about the needs to have a gun around a lot more as well, which was assisted by a journey through the less than pretty parts of Local Larger City. So while we were out at a Photowalk this past Saturday (where she took over as lead photographer, so proud!) we stopped by the great FBMG as it was near by. They happened to have the XD Sub Compact gun that Kibeth has been thinking about getting for her concealed weapon… And well, who could resist a beautiful woman asking to buy serious firepower? So we bought her one… then ended up buying me one as well as we were running about looking for good ammunition. So, one step closer to being a gun nut… More guns in the house than people. And hopefully soon there will be twice as many guns than people. Then we’re looking at the beautiful 1911s… and an AK47 in addition to the AR15… It does end at some point right?

It seems there is a misconception about my gender.  At least according to http://genderanalyzer.com/.  Who would have thought that I blog like a woman?  So I guess it now my duty to up the “man quotient” here.  Lets start with the activities of the weekend, that should put some testosterone into the site!

I’m getting a concealed weapons permit, mostly due to timing and connections I’m going to the class this week.  While checking around to see if others would be interested in joining me, I come to find that unknown to me my dear brother already has gone through the class and has a gun as well.  But hey, lack of communication aside, means I have access to a gun!  So, we setup a time to head out and go shooting so the wife and I can get a feel for it.  That would be this past weekend, in case you haven’t put the two and two together.

We met him at a midway point, as rumor had it we were going offroad.  Once we got to the spot of choice, we setup and went through the basics of handling, loading, safety etc.  Then we all took turns shooting.  My first round was not the most impressive, but hey I’m just learning!  Was fun though.  Second round, with some more confidence and understanding I actually got several really good shots in.  But then my brother had to head back home, so we packed up.

One thing of note from that first trip, there was a group shooting down the road from us that was creating one of the most interesting unique sounds I’ve ever heard.  It’s hard to explain, but every time they shot the sound/echo traveled down the road to us like normal, but once it got a couple hundred feet past us it seemed to just go silent.  No return echo from the other side of the mountain, just stopped dead like it hit a soundproof wall.  Was creepy, and quite cool.

So, then later in the day my brother sent me a message saying a friend of his was bummed he couldn’t join us that morning, and was going out that afternoon to do some shooting and wanted us to come too.  Sweet!  This guy has a couple more guns, including the ever popular AK-47.  We picked up a couple of very small watermelons and a head of lettuce to use for target practice.  Bragging rights on my part, first time shooting a large gun (the AK) I managed to nail a watermelon!  Got a couple bullseyes as well.  Was a blast!  And in true Counter Strike fashion, we did the hand gun in each hand rapid fire thing.  While impossible to hit anything, was also inspiring.

So there.  I hope I’ve talked about enough manly things to sway the gender mark more in the proper direction.  Also, if anyone is interested in a concealed permit, my class is this wednesday.  The more the merrier.

Anyone have a spare greenhouse they’re not using?  As a bit of a surprise, my Aunt came by my place last week with a dwarf Eureka Lemon and Bearss Lime tree!  Both of them are over 3 feet tall, and the lemon is already even bearing fruit.  Currently, we’ve moved the banana, jasmine, and anise to our library in hopes that a bit of real light will be enough for them for the winter.  The banana and citrus trees are already so much taller than my Miracle Fruit plants that we needed to move the banana out of the greenhouse, and there was just no room for the citrus plants.  There are so many more plants that I want, but alas I am now 100% out of room.  The world is topsy turvy I tell you.

Huh, maybe I should start keeping track of my age in Binary, it makes this birthday appear like a lot less of a milestone.  Though will look like a lot bigger in a couple years when I get to turn 100000 years old…  Guess I will need to refine my time tracking methods by that point.  But there I go rambling, I must be getting old or something.  Oh, and to those people who swear just because you turn 30 you aren’t going to be old overnight, that’s a pack of lies!  The morning of my birthday, my hip seized up twice in ways it never had done before!

But enough of the ramblings of an old man.  Yes, I just turned 30, and it really seems like it came out of the blue.  But, I promise I will try not to complain too much.  The birthday was nice, had a somewhat quiet gathering with family, though really how quiet can you get with a 3 and 5 year old having access to a running hose. The food was fantastic, the company was great, and I was showered with gifts (and a bit of water… silly hose).  My dear wife got me a new camera for when I don’t want to carry around my whole DSLR rig, a shopping spree at the local media store (hooray for 20% off on birthdays + $100 in gift cards from work!), and a rather impressively beautiful Mahjongg set.  I must say I’ve missed playing, though we still need to find someone to play with us… so drop me a line and I’ll provide the first few games for free!  In addition, I received a couple more gift cards (Thank you!), a couple In-n-out t-shirt + hat (Thank you!), a really cool looking tv show (Thank you!), some sky-diving frogs (Thank you!), a hand turned wooden bowl (Thank you!), and a new sword (Thank you!).  But mostly it was nice to see everyone get together.  Even if it was a bit warm…  Good thing there was plenty of hose water available whenever needed!  And even when not needed!  Thanks again everyone.

In other activities, the need to grow plants is just as addictive as my friend warned me…  Currently in our tub-greenhosue we have 3 miracle fruit plants, a Dwarf Orinoco banana plant, and a few pretty smelling plants for the wife (Anise, Jasmine, and Lavender).  I’m wanting to get a Eureka lemon tree (found a place that sells them grafted on to dwarf rootstock) and a matching lime tree.   I need a bigger greenhouse…  Oh, and a house to put it in.  Details details.

I feel like I’m reaching a new stage of my life. As far back as I can remember, I’ve had no luck with plants. I just never understood how the whole growing thing worked, and really didn’t have much desire to know as well. I do enjoy plants, but never felt up to the task of having any of my own to take care of. It seems, all this has changed.

It starts with my best friend growing Water Lilies. He’s been growing them for almost a decade if I remember correctly. At one point, my wife finds out about this when he invites me to come up and take some pictures of his flowering plants, as they are beautiful and don’t flower all that often. Sadly, I never made it up to get the pictures, but I did get to see a few of his. Then, one day my wife is shopping for flowers for her work, and sees that they are selling water lilies there. She thinks that it would be fun, and that I’d enjoy it, and picks one up. I honestly have to wonder, if as she picked up the plant she had a moment of foretelling and could see what that single purchase would set off, if she would have let out a shriek of terror and thrown the offending plant away from herself… But there is no way to know such mysteries.

So, she brings home the plant, and we start to realize what this is going to take to get going… A large water tight pot, aquatic soil, aquatic plant food, special mesh pots to pot the plant in, cleaning equipment, anti mosquito chemicals, time, money… But figured what the heck, lets go for it! Our first attempt at planting Toby (yes, his name is Toby, I don’t know why) was a total failure. We didn’t understand we needed a mesh pot to put him in, and just dumped a ton of soil in the bottom of a large pot and ran with it from there. Turns out that pot wasn’t water tight… The next morning, poor Toby is almost back out into the world of the dry. So back out on the hunt for a better pot, and mesh thingy to hold the plant, and other various things…  So we’ve ended up with a 35 gallon mini pond out on our balcony.  Toby is alive, so far, and seems to be continuing along this path.  He’s sprouted several leaves, but as of yesterday non have opened up at the water’s surface… Hopefully in time they will.

So then, on a forum I read someone talked about this tropical plant called Synsepalum dulcificum, or the common name of Miracle Fruit.  Intrigued, I investigated more.  I could do a full post on the fruit itself, but will limit to saying when you eat one, for up to an hour sour/bitter things taste sweet.  Check out the Wiki on it for more details.  So I decided I could spend several dollars to get the fruit shipped out to me… or spend a few more dollars to get a plant and get a somewhat endless supply of my own, that I can use for years to come.  With the success of Toby not being dead after a month or so, we decided to buy a plant and give it a shot.  Problem being, it’s a tropical plant and needs warm temperatures and high humidity… Which in my current location, those two things are not all that common.  So we decided to make a small greenhouse for just the plant, and get a small Grow Light to give it some sun.  While planning for this, I started thinking about other plants I had been interested in…  To make a long story short… er…  We just bought a 4 foot wide grow lamp, and are planning on turning our 2nd bathroom into a rather large green house to grow at least one banana plant, and 2-3 citrus trees…  My friend with the water lily warned me about this from the beginning.  I should have listened.

Now, I know so many of you have been waiting to hear if the Remastered version of 5th Element is better than the version I had originally.  I did end up buying it, because I seem to be unable to own every version I can of that movie… Yes, I even have it on VHS.  It’s actually rather cruel that the packing for the two different versions is only slightly different, and there is no mention anywhere other than the SKU information that there is really a difference in the two copies.  But, I have watched the remastered version, and can tell you that there is a HUGE difference.  It’s not perfect, as I did notice a few scratches in the first few minutes, but it’s good enough that when I stopped looking for them they were as good as gone.  The issue with the “static” over everything has been resolved as well, which is a huge bonus as that was almost as distracting as the scratches.

So, if you are looking to get 5th Element on Blu-Ray, then make sure you get the remastered version.  If anyone has any desire, I’ll post images of the differences between the two copies so you can make sure not to make the same mistake I made.  Hooray for high definition!

Apologies to those who like to comment anonymously, but it seems that some spammers have taken interest in my site, and I’m having to delete 60+ spam messages per day these days.  So now I’ve limited commenting to people who are registered users, in hopes that the tide of spammers will relent a bit.  Perhaps after some time has passed I’ll change the settings again and see what’s going on in the spamiverse.

In other news, the move to the new building is mostly complete.  I’m still missing a few boxes… Which is a very bad thing as one of them holds all my very important hardware parts.  My new work area is slightly bigger, but smaller overall as it’s serving the purpose of 2 rooms now.  Hopefully with time things will get organized again.  In the meantime I’m working on relaxing as much as possible.  And playing GTA IV, which is quite a bit of fun, but sadly is missing a lot of things that I think really define a GTA game.  Hopefully I’ll be finishing the story mode in a little while, and will try to post my thoughts about the game at that point.

Quick catch up, then I’ll no doubt be disappearing again. Will be a very busy month for me.

My wife won tickets to yet another concert, this time it was Paramore and Jimmy Eat World. We stayed past the no name opening band and watched Paramore, but got rather hungry and Jimmy took way too long to get setup… so we left. Paramore was awesome though. Well worth dealing with all the emo kids.

We’ve recently made some serious updates to the home theater system. We are now watching our movies on a nice 46″ 1080p Sony TV. Blu Ray is awesome, but don’t be fooled into thinking every Blu Ray movie looks good… My standard movie for testing anything (5th Element) actually looked so bad that I had to stop watching after just a few minutes. Anyone that knows me knows that this is no small feat, getting me to turn off that movie. But sadly, the copy I have was just transfer from some of the original film… so it was disturbingly laden with scratches and pockmarks. When we were watching in on a 480p screen, they were visible but not too bad, on 1080p they were just a huge distraction. Also, for some reason there was what appeared to be a layer of static over all the background, things that were holding still had colors jittering all over them… Overall, quite the disappointment. We then watched House of Flying Daggers, and that was quite a bit more impressive even though it had it’s technical issues as well. The third movie, Golden Compass, looked flawless. So it seems some of the conversions to Blu Ray from older movies aren’t going to be that great, which makes me sad. I have seen that there is what appears to be a “remastered” copy of 5th Element out there, so I’ll likely be buying the movie again (I think this will be the 6th time at least that I’ve bought it) and see what happens with that.

As far as being busy, this month my office is moving to a new building, and I’ll be working crazy hours to get our lab taken care of. Hooray for overtime.

So…  My wife just won tickets to yet another concert.  This weekend.  I have no idea how we got this lucky, but we’re considering running to the nearest lotto distributing state, and taking a shot!

Ok, so I really just got my job, but without the “contractor” status, and with a rather impressive raise.  Hopefully this, combined with uber cheap rent, will get us out of debt and into a nice house that much sooner.  Ok, and will get me the  new TV I’ve been drooling over as well.  And probably the congratulatory guitar I told myself I was going to get when I got a nice job.  And maybe a new laptop…  Ok, so maybe I’ll not be getting out of debt that fast

I’ve managed to stay living in the same place for the longest period of time in the last 10 years.  But it seems it’s now time to leave my apartment of the past 2+ years to go somewhere else.  Fortunately, I’ll not miss that place much.  It did have some benefits, but the problems have been far outweighing the good aspects.  And well, I’m really getting sick and tired of running into the creepy maintainance guy every time I leave my apartment… I swear that guy is a stalker.

So yeah, I’m moving to a much larger apartment that is going to be a whole lot cheaper overall.  We will be using the almost lack of rent to work on 100% debt removal, and then saving for a nice house!  The only real downside so far, other than slight added job responsibilities, is that I’ll be living on the 3rd floor, and I really hate moving anything up that many stairs… I did it once, and I’m pretty sure I swore I’d never do it again.  But such is life!

It seems my wife has made plans for the “big push” part of the move for next Monday, Presidents Day.  We’ve actually moved almost all of the big heavy things, just have a couple smallish book cases and the Evil Bed.  Otherwise, it will just be piles and piles of boxes, that we’ll be spending all this week boxing up.  Should anyone have a great desire to assist, I can assure you that you will receive  nothing less than a hearty Thank You, and possibly some food…  Water will be on tap.

For those who would like to see the new place, we’re roughly always having an open house due to the need to have people come over all the time for parking permits and such.  As long as we are home (which will be a lot more once The Move is completed) anyone is welcome to come by and see it.  The home theater is setup, along with Rock Band, so those desiring that as well are welcome.

So, we just got back from the most amazing IMAX film I’ve ever seen, U2 3D. My wife won tickets to a pre-release showing of it partially thanks to my speedy google skills. Basically, they filmed several U2 concerts with fancy 3D IMAX cameras, and mixed it all together to create one single flowing film. The 3D was impressive, the clarity of the images were mind boggling. The sound was fantastic. Not only did it give a real feel of being at the concert, you felt like you were on stage with the band! It’s hard to convey how realistic and how thrilling the whole experience was. If you are a U2 fan, or even just kinda like some of their songs, you owe it to yourself to go see this. I know my wife and I would love to go see it again, so if anyone around here is interested let us know and we’ll come too!

What I found most amusing is that the geek in me never really sleeps… On the stage there is this hundred plus foot high screen made up of hundreds of smaller panels… Looked like LED displays. I couldn’t help but try to imagine the resolution something that size had, and what hardware it must take to drive it all… I also spent the whole time wondering why on earth there is no U2 in Rock Band!

While we were waiting for the show, we watched another movie there. Juno was impressive in it’s own way, and I recommend it to anyone who might have any interest in it.

As I’m still being thrilled by the after affects of that show, I’m going to go lie down and try to imprint the whole thing in my memory… It was just too good for words.

So tonight I finished the solo mode of Guitar Hero III, and several weeks ago I finished the solo tour mode for Rock Band. It is time to share my thoughts, now that I’ve played both. Much ramblings to follow.

(more…)

Rock Band is so close to coming out, I can almost taste it… Not that I really want to know what a rock band tastes like. Hopefully sometime tomorrow I’ll be playing up a storm! Just need a band name… So far “DM, and the Chaotic Paladins” seems to be the front runner. Why must the days go by so slow?

While waiting for Rock Band, I have been playing several fantastic games. Most noteworthy is Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. This is my first jaunt into the world of Ratchet and Clank, but I’m very glad I decided to go for it. I finished the game last week, but am already a good chunk though “challenge mode” which is pretty much the normal game just harder. I love the weapons, and the leveling system. The humor is priceless as well. So far, the best PS3 game I’ve played. Not that this is saying much, but most people tend to agree that it’s fantastic.

We also picked up Super Mario Galaxy a little while ago. Mostly because I’ve been looking for a platformer game that both Kibeth and I can enjoy and play together. Fortunately, this game has a nice lite co-op option for a second player to be quite involved with the game. It has been quite fun, even if the insane gravity of most of the worlds is enough to give anyone a headache. And, it’s been good to get back to playing the Wii as well.

To beat a dead horse… Waiting for Rock Band has almost been like waiting for Christmas day as a kid. I wake up in the middle of the night, hoping that maybe I slept through a whole day and it has finally come. I’m sure tonight I’ll be tossing and turning, and end up too tired to play at all… Thank heaven for caffeine!

It truly is amazing how out of nowhere, so many things can happen and work out well.  So let us discuss the torrent of recent events, and how they’ve un-folded so far.

My new job still is amazing.  A couple weeks ago, my boss comes up and asks if I’d be ok to travel for a few days.  She then explains that there is going to be a huge move in the company offices in california, 4000+ servers in their lab moving from their old building to their new.  Obviously, they needed help.  She said they’d pay to fly me out, put me up in a nice hotel, and feed me well.  Oh, and if I paid for her ticket, my wife could come too.

As this was my wife’s first time flying (at least since she was less than a year old) we really wanted to make sure that we sat together, but were worried that it might not work out, as work would be buying my tickets, and we’d be buying hers.  Fortunately, there were some issues with getting my purchase requests taken care of, so they told me to just buy 2 tickets and they’d reimburse me for one of them.  Sweet!

The other condition for me coming to California was that I would be able to take some time and see my Grandpa.  Fortunately, that went off without a hitch, and we just got back from visiting him.  So hooray for no issues on that front.

Anyway, we get ready for this trip, even though there were concerns about it not all working out down to the day we were supposed to go.  Obviously they worked out.  So off to the airport with us!  Now, I find out that my driver’s license had expired on my birthday a couple months ago… This is a problem.  Fortunately, the airport let me through with just a few more moments of security checking, but when we got to LA we realized that I wasn’t going to be able to get the rental car we needed.  Fortunately, my boss flew in a couple (boring) hours later, and gave us a ride to the hotel.  We had been planning on sharing a car from the start, but that made it a bit difficult to do.  Eventually, we were able to get a car for my wife, as my boss went back home Sunday evening.

The hotel is amazing, though I have to wonder why a “5 Diamond” hotel, with an ocean view, valet parking, etc. still uses crappy single ply toilet paper…  Anyway, our room is in on the executive floor, a nice suite with an ocean view.  You’ll have to ask Kibeth about any more details on the hotel, as this has really been the first time I’ve been in it without passing out on the bed as soon as I can…  But we’ll get to that.

Thursday night, they take the team managing the move out to dinner.  Lawry’s The Prime Rib in Beverly Hills.  Holey crap that was some amazing food!  Kibeth came, as well as all the family members of the people that were there.  The dinner was fantastic, and the conversation was almost better.  It has been eye opening to see that there really are groups of people like me.  At dinner, at any given point I could join in on a conversation about running raids in World of Warcraft, the history of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, or the details of configuring a Cisco Catalyst switch.  I’ve never felt more at home with a group of total strangers.  After all was said and done, most of the guys there guessed the tab for dinner was probably around $2000.  And all just to welcome us to California.  I love this company!

From that point on, I’ve just been working 13-16 hour days, with occasional stops to eat and sleep.  I have learned so much in the past few days, and I can’t wait to get back to my lab and start applying the knowledge.  We are moving to a new building next year, so it will be nice to have the experience of this move, and the contacts of the guys who helped us out.

And I’m now too tired to get half my words straight (thanks to the inventor of the backspace key, you get a semi legible  end result).  I will try to post more in a few days, when I finally wake up.  In the meantime, I just hope the LAX airport security people are as nice as the local ones, and don’t arrest me for having an expired license or something…

Well, now that my issues with Nexl appear to have come to a close (one more note for those investigating, they never did refund the money in the alloted timeframe, so start your chargebacks asap), I guess I should turn back to talking about the rest of my life.  And much has been happening, let me just say.

Lets start on the employment front.   I think I’ve found my dream job, at my dream company…  now if only it wasn’t contract based.  I’m working as a lab tech at the local office of a very large software company.  Basically, I’m in charge of all the hardware in the lab, and all the laptops/desktops/etc for all the developers and testers as well.  I get to spend all day building, testing, fixing etc computers.  It’s so wonderful!  And, the company is great to it’s employees as well.  Even though I’m just a contractor, my first week they gave me a paid day off to go to their summer party, where my wife won an iPod, and a paid half day to celebrate the launch of the latest software release.  Not bad for the first week.  And they really do make sure we have everything we need.  I’ve been here a month, and just got approvals to buy a $5000 piece of machinery to save me some time, and thousands on other hardware/software just for me.  And it’s even more amazing to see what comes out of a place that takes such good care of their employees.  The results are inspiring to say the least.  Fortunately, my supervisors and bosses like me enough that we’re already making out plans for how I move from a contractor to a full time employee.  At the very least, I should have almost a year more here.  I’m crossing my fingers that it’s more than that though.

My wife has also recently started a new job.  She’s the manager for a rather impressive apartment complex in our city.  It’s difficult work, but she is doing fantastic at it.  Every day she is impressing her co-workers and managers with the things she can do.  I’m so proud

We’ve also both started new characters in World of Warcraft..  I know I shouldn’t say anything about it, as it will cause more confusion about me being the Kishkumen that apparently everyone knows in the game.  So lets say it again, I’m not that guy.  Really.  I’ve been using this name for well over a decade, but I’m not the one you are thinking of.  Unless you happen to be one of the… maybe 3 people I’ve been in a party with.  Then maybe I’m the guy you’re thinking of, though I doubt any of them actually are going to be looking for me again.  Anyway, moving on.  We got the Burning Crusade expansion, and have started out on the Horde side.  I’m playing a bloodelf rogue, and my wife is playing a Tauren Druid.  So far we’ve only made it to about level 10, but I’m enjoying it.  I’ve missed the DPS a good rogue can pull.  One of the most annoying things about starting over is not having a mount though…  I miss being able to go fast.  Oh well, we’ll get there eventually.

Oh, we did get a PS3 recently… Thanks to one of my friends.  He caught me up to date about Sony not using hardware backwards compatibility  on the new 80 gig PS3 systems, so I got a 60 gig once the price dropped so I can be sure to be able to keep my old stuff.  Just have one game for it so far, but we are so very looking forward to Rock Band coming out in November.  I’ll be accepting applications to audition for the bad, as well as suggestions for the bands name.  We are currently known as TWEC, but since no one really knows why, we’re open to change.

I do believe that’s the major stuff.  Hopefully I’ll be able to write a bit more here and there.  Guess we’ll see!

Well, I’ve given up on waiting for the refund and called my credit card company to dispute the charges.  They’re working on it, and did say that they didn’t see any attempts to refund listed on the account, though it would take another week before they could confirm Nexl didn’t really try to refund at all.  They are contacting them to dispute the charges, hooray for my bank!

I get the feeling I just had my last contact with Nexl Sports.  They e-mailed me letting me know my order was can canceled, and that I should be getting a refund.  I did reply and asked if they have any intent to let me know when the helmets are available, but I’m betting there will be no reply.  Farewell Nexl.  I truly hope you either learn from your mistakes, or die trying.