Slip Slide’n By Himself!
Last week and this week we’ve been doing swimming lessons with Luke. The goal isn’t to get a 2 year old to swim, but more so get them comfortable around water and be safe. But today he actually got to swim in the “deep” end by himself with a floaty kick stick (with mom right next to him) and he got to go down the water slide all by himself! What a big boy!
[youtube=http://youtu.be/r5XsSRVEv-Y]
Still Kicks My Butt
I’ve played a lot of Final Fantasy X. I’m not a master but I’ve been around the block. Even so, this game can still kick my but, and it’s been just long enough since I last played I forget some important things.
Last night I decided to play some more FFX-HD before I went to bed. I’ve been having fun taking my time with this game since it came out. Been leveling all my characters up evenly and haven’t had any trouble at all so far. I spent about an hour last night working through one of the final areas in the game. I was gaining levels and loot like crazy, pretty much cruising through the area until I met the Bohemouth King…
He was pretty tough straight away, able to kill off any of my characters at will with his “Heave” move. But I was fairly charged up so I would quickly bring them back into battle. I whittled him down and finally dealt the death blow, and that’s when I forgot that the Bohemouth King dishes out a massive party wide attack when you kill him. You can’t avoid it, it’s just what he does. And it wiped out my entire group. GAME OVER.
I lost an hour’s worth of progress, experience and loot. At first I was pretty pissed. And I won’t lie… I’d love to have all those sphere levels back (about 8 per character) that I didn’t get to spend. But I always talk about how I wish I could go back and re-experience my favorite games without being so jaded. Well I look at this as a moment where that particular wish was granted.
07.30.14Woodlawn and Blurry Memories
As I try to refocus on the blog now, one of the things I hope to do is write a lot of things down before I forget them entirely. I hope to do some more “nostalgiariffic” posts mostly about growing up and the places and things we would do. These won’t nesiccarily be in any particular order or anything, just whatever perks to the top.
Somebody earlier this week was asking me where all I had lived. And the first place would have been Woodlawn, KS. Just a little blip on the map with a population literally in the single digits. When I was born, the population of the town literally increased over 10%. We lived there until shortly after my sister was born when I was 3.
Some of my Woodlawn stories I’ve already shared before on the blog in other posts, but it’s all worth sharing again. To me anyway.
To describe our home, it was a fairly nondescript small white house. We had a front porch with steps that lead down to a sidewalk that proceeded two thirds of the way to a dirt road that crossed in front of the house. To the east was the Woodlawn Baptist Church. And to the west a small garage. Inside the front door you had the entry into the living room. Wood paneling if I remember… that part is rather fuzzy as I didn’t give much thought to interior decorating when I was 3! But what house in the 80’s DIDN’T have wood paneling!? Past the living room was a dining area separated by walls with ledges cut into them that would play a significant role in a story later on. Further still, through the next door was the kitchen. Take a left from there you were in my parents bedroom (I think) or maybe separated by a back porch area between the bedroom and kitchen. Keep going through the bedroom and you find the bathroom with one of those porcelain tubs with the feet on them. Then if you walk through the bathroom you reached the second bedroom where I stayed.
I don’t really remember a lot about the bedrooms. But I do remember you could run all the way around in one direction in circles through the house. We had a little plastic three wheeler and we would shove the long attachment from the vacuum through the bottom of it and I would set my feet on it and mom or dad would push me around the house.
We had a cat that I mostly remember for climbing the screen on the front door. “Bridges”… or “Bridget”… I think was her name. And we sorta had a dog. His name was Jack, and I say “sorta” because he was Dad’s dog, but when Dad brought him to our house, he would always run back to Grandma & Grandpa’s house a few miles down the road. Or maybe that’s just what Mom & Dad told me, haha. Jack only had 3 legs after he got one got stuck in a trap. I always remember him as a three legged dog, but I can’t remember for sure if he had already lost his leg at the time we lived in Woodlawn or if that came after.
I was very young when we lived there, so I don’t remember a lot. And what I do remember is quite fuzzy. But here’s a few things I recall about living in Woodlawn.
I remember thunderstorms. Maybe it was just one storm that my memories have edited to make it seem like very storm. But it seemed like any time there was lightning, there was always a bolt or two that would strike the house, or very near the house. I remember it feeling very scary. I also remember blaming the house for attracting those bolts. Haha.
I remember playing with a plastic yellow Corevette. It was a large car for a toy and of course one of the most fun things about playing with cars is CRASHING cars. Well for whatever reason, I decided one day that this car was too durable. So I started jumping on it and breaking it. Pretty much demolished the thing. I remember Mom or Dad asking me why I broke my car. And at the time I didn’t really know. That’s just what I had decided to do and didn’t have much of a reason. I try to remember with Luke that sometimes when kids do things that don’t make any sense… they don’t really have a reason why they did it.
I remember an old mechanical hand pump water spigot out in the yard.
I remember jumping into beanbags. Those ledges I mentioned earlier? They were perfect for climbing on and tossing yourself down into beanbags below. Of course this meant lots of burst holes in the beanbags and one almost cracked open skull as once I jumped trying to get some major air, and went headfirst into the ledge above. I don’t remember much immediately after that, but I remember not jumping into the beanbags much after that.
I remember a figure 8 slotcar track that Dad put together for me. He mounted it to a large piece of wood so you didn’t have to take it apart and put it back together all the time. You just lean it up against a wall and when you’re ready to play with it again, take it down.
I remember the pokieness of real Christmas trees and keeping them watered. I also got a Hot Wheels toy for Christmas one year that you race the cars across a bridge and use a little TNT lever to blow up the bridge as the cars go across.
I remember riding on Dad’s orange motorcycle up and down the dirt road in front of our house.
I remember Jamie coming home from the hospital. I didn’t get to see her much in the hospital, but I was excited to have a sister! I remember when she first came home and my parents laid her in a playpen out in the living room. I remember just looking at her, seeing this brand new person. I was happy and excited that I would have a new friend.
And I vaguely remember getting ready to move to Dodge City. I don’t remember packing anything, but I remember Mom and Dad talking about it before we went. Telling me what was going to happen. I’m sure they had no idea how I was going to handle it. I remember it being exciting though. I was anxious to see a new place and new things. Live in a new house. All that leading up to our extended stay in the Lora Locke Hotel. But that story will have to wait for my Memories of Dodge City post.
32
Well, I know it’s been ages since I wrote last. I’ve been on vacation for for a week now and it’s been outstanding. Good for my soul. Been thinking a lot about why I haven’t been writing lately. I can’t really pin it down other than the time it takes to do it. It’s difficult to do during the day with all the distractions and such. I just don’t possess the focus required. For instance… it’s taken me 10 minutes to get this far.
Certainly much has happened since I wrote last. Can’t say I remember all of it. The Jeep engine has been acting up and indicating that it is going to need rebuilt. That’s going to be a pricey endeavor. The oil pressure has been dropping to zero on hot days at a stop light. But here in the past week on the hottest days… it’s been acting fine… so I’m a bit baffled. I guess we’ll just keep driving it.
Mario Kart 8 came out. What a great game. I’ve been having a lot of fun playing it myself, but most of all, playing with some of the people I’ve met on the N64 forum I’ve started frequenting: N64Forever.com. We do tournaments every Friday night. I’m not very good, but it’s fun to play with real people and then talk about the craziness. It’s about as close as it gets to playing with real friends anymore!
Speaking of party games, we had some family over for my birthday. Nintendo offered a free digital game download with the purcase of Mario Kart 8. I got Wii Party U thinking that maybe… someday… people would come over and play video games. This past weekend we fired it up. I didn’t even get to play, but I had a blast watching everyone else play. It’s just a collection of mini-games, but everyone was having fun, and shouting at each other (all in fun of course). That’s the way games should be played!
Also gaming and birthday related is what is now the centerpiece of my game collection. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law made a NES themed table for the retro room! It’s very cool with raised buttons and everything. I can tell they put a ton of thought and time into it and it’s cool to think that someone went through so much trouble for me. I’m quite humbled and honored by such a gift.
I picked up a Wii U Pro Controller (just writing as the thoughts come to mind now). I’d been wanting to get one ever since I got Mario Kart 8. The Gamepad is ok to play with, but I’m still leary about the punishment that some hardcore Mario Kart dishes out. I’d rather inflict that punishment on a more easily replaceable controller than the expensive gamepad. Though I’m sure the sticks are the same and swappable… Not that the Pro Controllers are very cheap… $50! I remember thinking how outrageous it was that the N64 controllers were $30 back in the day. Even still, it’s a very nice quality controller.
How else have I been spending my vacation? Hmmm… Luke has been going to swimming lessons this week and last week. Too much fun. He looks forward to it so much that some days it’s the first think that comes out of his mouth when he wakes up. They’re very basic lessons, mostly about safety and just being comfortable in the water. But Luke is just out there playing and having a blast. He gets to mingle with some other kids too, so that is good. I swam with him all last week, and Andrea is swimming with him this week.
I had great intentions of being super productive with my time off. And I haven’t been entirely melting into the couch, I did get the yard looking great and the windows on the outside of the house washed. Washed the Cutlass and waxed the Jeep. But nothing really life-changing. I had intended that I would have had the ball joints replaced on the Toronado (already have the parts) and my Vectrex tuned up. Neither of those have happened, but I don’t feel too terrible about it. It’s been nice to have some time just to do things that I wanted to do.
I’ve played a lot of Final Fantasy X-HD. Said it before here… but what a fantastic game. It’s getting close to the end now, so I’m looking for side stuff to do to drag out the experience as long as possible. But I still have FFX-2 HD to play after that, so I should just power through… nah. What good is it if I don’t have all the ultimate weapons! This or Mario Kart is probably what I’ll get back to right after this blog.
I’ve also been thinking more about video stuff. How I can pull it off, not only technically, but also just penciling in the time. If I can’t even make time to write a blog or two in the last several months… how am I going to come up with content for videos and get them edited and uploaded? The answer is I just need to make the time… like I’ve always said, but never do. I could get up early and shoot while everyone is sleeping. Then edit in the evenings. Maybe just set a goal of one video a week to start with. What about? That I don’t know yet.
Luke and I have been watching a lot of a YouTube channel called RaceGrooves. There’s really not much too it other than a guy unboxing Hot Wheels track sets and playing with them on the camera. Luke loves watching it and I admire the guy’s passion. The videos are simple two or three angle videos. He’s not doing anything special, but he has almost 150,000 subscribers and gets close to 1,000,000 views on a lot of his videos. I’m not worried about becoming an internet celebrity, but I enjoy creating things and it’s fun to share it and find out that there’s other people out there as passionate about the things you are.
But now I’m back. After another long hiatus. The long vacation from work has been a healthy thing. I love my job, but sometimes it takes a lot of energy. There’s always something more to do. I’ve been able to spend a lot of time with my family and still have some time for me this week. And that’s the kind of stuff that recharges me. Maybe that’s the difference. I hope to spend some more time here with the blog. Maybe dive into a few things in more detail. Or just push ahead from this point forward. I dunno, and suppose it doesn’t really matter.
See you soon!