Luke Loves to Laugh
Sometimes when you’re a baby… everything is funny.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/fVOaQSPBk20]
TGIFFFA
Thank God It’s Finally Freakin’ Friday Again!
I’m really looking forward to the weekend. It’s the first weekend since probably November that I will have nothing to do. We aren’t going anywhere, and I don’t have to work (crosses fingers). So I’ve got big plans. Okay, maybe not BIG plans.
Need to do a few odd things around the house. We want to seal up the windows in the guest bedroom to keep bugs from crawling in this spring like they did last year. Probably should go a head and bug spray the house while I’m thinking about bugs. Honestly haven’t seen too many creepy crawlies since we moved in. But don’t want to give them any ideas.
One thing I’m really hoping to do is a Vanquish campaign in Guild Wars of Kryta, Northern Shiverpeaks and Old Ascalon. That will take a while, and there will be lots of AFK time as I’ll be bouncing back and forth between the game and hanging out with Luke. Andrea might even join in. It’s sure to net a lot of cash and hopefully some good items too. But that’s something that might take the whole weekend on and off. Plus I still want to get in some time with Zelda and Mario 3D Land.
I’m also working on another project on the side that I’m not quite ready to disclose yet. I like the way its starting, but I don’t know if I’ll have the follow through to complete it for one, and two how it will turn out when it’s done. So if you never hear about it again, know that it must not have turned out well! Haha.
I hope your weekend is fantastic. I’m hoping to Livestream a lot of the Guild Wars vanquishing this weekend, so check the Livestream tab from time to time and see what’s up.
02.13.12What a good lookin’ guy.
6 Months Old. Must have got all his good looks from Momma. I know he didn’t get them from me!
I’m taking it easy.
It’s weird. This past week hasn’t been too crazy, but sitting here this morning relaxing, it sure feels like it has. Honestly the weekend is going to be more crazy than my week, but I think I’m going to combat that by just going with the flow.
We are getting Luke to the photography studio (AKA JC Penny) to get some professional pictures taken. One of these days I’m going to save up and get me a nice DSLR camera and just take my own pictures. A gal I work with got one last year for Christmas, and it’s amazing the quality those things can produce in conditions that the little point and shoot can’t handle. But alas, it’s lower on the list of priorities. Of course I’ll be sharing the pictures of Luke once we get them. To get your complete fill of Lucas pictures, just follow Andrea on Facebook!
I wish I had time to play some Skyward Sword this weekend. That’s not going to be in the cards, but I will be keeping my 3DS handy and I hope to knock out Super Mario 3D land. I’m having to go back to some of the early levels and get star coins that I missed so I can progress into some of the later levels. Apparently there’s a toll on Princess saving plumbers in the Mushroom Kingdom.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 came out a week or two ago and that will probably be the next game I get after I beat Zelda and Mario. I’m not in a huge hurry because I still have a decent backlog of games to work on, plus all the old games that I always keep going back to. It’s not like I really need another new game right now. I have found that I really can only handle keeping up with one system it seems. I remember back in the college days when I had the Gamecube, PS2 and the Xbox, there was just not enough time, let alone enough money, to keep up with all the great games that come out. You just have to let some of them go. Hopefully XIII-2 doesn’t become one of those games.
Time to get this weekend rolling!
02.8.12Podcast for reals yo.
Heavy gaming talk in this podcast. Lots of stuff about Super Mario 3D Land, Guild Wars & Guild Wars 2, plus more Skyward Sword, but no spoilers!
Podcast music as always.
Vanquishing
I just can’t stay away from Guild Wars. I haven’t blogged much lately because I really haven’t had much interesting to say. Not that this is interesting either. But figured I’d post some screenshots from my vanquishing session from earlier tonight.
Setting out to kill every enemy in this frigid land.
Here's a fortress, but no one is home. Even the outposts are starting to be just as vacant in this game.
View of a homestead across the chasm.
Overlooking a beachside settlement.
Another small village. I just love the detail in this game. There was no need to put a village here, and most people won't even notice. But they did it anyway. It's the little things like this that make this game so immersive.
And vanquish complete! Took about an hour to kill around 200 enemies.
I think we found Nemo.
Piped up!
Got the job done! This was certainly one of the smoothest car projects I’ve done. And I’ve heard stories about how much of a pain exhaust work is. Not bad for my first time!
Here's how I've been driving for a while. You can see where the exhaust ended right under the middle of the car.
New tail pipe, and resonator. The actual muffler is further up under the center of the car. It's kind of odd seeing shiny metal underneath there.
There's the muffler tucked up underneath.
And best of all… it’s quiet again!
One Nut Short
This is re-damn-diculous. I ordered my new exhaust from RockAuto.com and everything came in quickly like I always expect. I finally got some time on Sunday to install it. I got it all hung and lined up and went to put the clamps on. I got all three clamps, but one clamp came with only ONE NUT instead of two! So the project is on hold until I can either get another nut or another clamp.
All in all its gone a lot smoother than I had planned. Separating rusty exhaust pieces is never an enjoyable experience. There wasn’t much left of the old system, it has rusted apart where the muffler used to be and all that was left was the old inlet pipe for the muffler and the old clamp. I put the big breaker bar on the rusty nuts and ended up just twisting the u-bolt in two, then just hammered the rusty clamp off. Of course the clamp had become unnessicary as the old pipe had rusted to the surface of what good exhaust I had left. But about 20 minutes with my angle grinder and I was able to pry part of the old pipe off. Then with vice grips I peeled the rusty old pipe off of the good pipe like peeling a banana. Actually went smoother than I had expected.
The good news is that all the new parts fit darn near perfect! Something I’m really not used to. Haha! And if I would have had just that one nut…. I’d be driving it today. It will be nice to have a quiet ride again, but I guess that will have to wait until tomorrow. It’s just funny because I had mentioned in a previous podcast that I almost always figure out that I will be missing something to get this job done. I thought it was going to be a tool or something I’d have to buy, didn’t think it would be a single nut that was supposed to be included in the first place!
01.27.12FRIDAY, hells yeah.
Finally getting around to blogging again. Work hasn’t been too bad, but I’ve had enough side job stuff to keep me busy at home. I’ve been doing better about getting up earlier in the morning, so that gives me a little time to piddle around and do stuff like this.
I’m excited to see Mom this weekend. Her and Duane are coming up to hang out. At first I thought I was going to be caught working all day Saturday, but now it looks like I’ll at least be getting Saturday afternoon/evening off. So good deal there. I don’t think we have a whole lot planned, but we’ll kick back and relax like we always do. I know Andrea is excited because they’re brining up a Futon for the basement! No more canvas lawn chairs. I’m sure when people see our setup and then see that we’re sitting on canvas lawn chairs they figure we have some priority issues, which might be true anyway. But when we moved into the bigger place and decided to have our living room upstairs and our TV and systems downstairs, we were suddenly short on furniture. They’re also bringing us a bed for the spare bedroom. So that just leaves one room that we’re just using for storage.
I washed the Toronado a day or two ago. Every time I do I think about how I want to get some things on it fixed up. But then I think again that I need to just keep driving it and have a “beater” as they say, that I can drive without care or worry, especially during the winter time. So I think I talked myself out of repainting it again and redoing the vinyl on the roof. The paint isn’t so bad, but I’d have to repaint it to fix the hail dents… and one thing leads to another, and another. But I do want to keep it reliable mechanically, and fairly respectible looking. So my goal is to get the exhaust fixed (hopefully this Sunday) and find something to fix my cracked bumper filler up front without shelling out the $150 for a whole set. I’m thinking I can take some thin gauge sheet metal and bend it into the shape I need. Finding a piece big enough is the challenge for that right now.
Played some more Skyward Sword last night. Still very awesome. The only part that I’m finding annoying is that you can pick up different items throught the game you use to upgrade your gear. Kind of like Final Fantasy or Guild Wars. Well every time you turn the game on, it acts like you’ve never seen these items before. I have 22 blobs of goo, and next time I go to play and find another, it’s going to stop the gameplay the first time I find one and explain to me what it is again, like I haven’t heard it before. So far that’s my ONLY gripe with the game.
Welp, better get ready for work. It’s FRIDAY! So I’m looking forward to a fairly straight forward day! Hope yours is as well!