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!
How much do we miss?
[youtube=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY”]
You know sometimes I feel bad for not posting enough, and generally just disappearing off the grid for a while. Then videos like this remind me that I shouldn’t.
06.2.14A Day Out With Thomas
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho23N7me32U]
What an awesome day! My Mom got Luke and us all tickets to A Day Out With Thomas for this past weekend. Luke is huge into trains, and most prominently, Thomas the Tank Engine. Little Guy could watch the same ones over and over again for hours. We have fun playing with all his little toy trains and making them talk to each other. But this event really brought it all to life.
I didn’t really know what to expect. If anything I figured it would be kinda like a “car show” for trains, with Thomas being the centerpiece. Well Thomas was the centerpiece, but there was so much more to do that walk around and look at trains. There were fire trucks there, a petting zoo, inflatables to play on, great food (for kids and grown-ups), toys and entertainment for all the kids. I was really impressed by it all. We spent about 5 hours there and Luke never was bored and cried when we had to leave.
It couldn’t have been any cooler. Thomas took a 5 car train for a 25 minute ride which was basically down a stretch of track and back. But we made it a point to get in line early so we could sit RIGHT BY THOMAS. We waited in line for probably 45 minutes before our departure time, but it was completely worth it. Luke was at the front of the train as close as you could possibly get while Thomas was pulling us down the track. I feel like if it were me, I would have felt a little disappointed if I was way in the back where you couldn’t even see him. We had fun pretending to talk to Thomas and just taking in the ride.
I really enjoyed it too. Everything was just so neat and perfectly set up for kids Luke’s age. There were a bunch of tables with toy trains for them to play with, temporary tattoos and lots of little freebies. He even got a whistle that sounds just like Thomas’s whistle from the show. I don’t remember anything this cool and authentic when I was a kid aside from maybe, Disney Land. And it was cool seeing Luke get to soak it all up.
So thanks to Mom for the tickets, and to Andrea’s sister Michelle and her family for letting us crash at their place just a short drive from the event. It was worth it in so many ways!
Luke Plays Minestorm
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGg3vCuxQ9I]
05.27.14Downtime
It feels kinda weird, yesterday and today not doing much productive around the house. I suppose there’s a few things I could busy myself with, like organizing the garage, or getting the old server stuff migrated over to some new hardware. Nothing critical though, and instead I’ve spent my time watering the grass and playing Minecraft.
There’s a lot of work that needs done, but it’s all in a holding pattern right now. The Cutlass is at the transmission shop right now getting rebuilt. The Jeep needs to be looked at next. The Toronado is ready for ball joints, but I only have half of them, the other half should come in tomorrow. Don’t get me started on the long list of stuff the Black Car needs. The Toro obviously has kinda just been sitting there a while, but the Jeep and Cutlass both kinda all happened at the same time. It’s a giant sucking sound to the bank account… but oh well. Just a setback, nothing more. Small potatoes in the grand scheme of what’s important in life.
So I sorta feel like I’m procrastinating if I kick back and game a bit. But in reality, I couldn’t get much done right now in the automotive realm if I wanted to. So the only real procrastinating I’m doing is by NOT gaming. I keep talking all the time about how I don’t have as much time to play games as I would like to, so if I don’t take advantage of that now, I’m being a bit hypocritical.
So I’m off to play some more FFX-HD. What a fantastic game. This is probably my 4th playthrough of the game and it’s totally time well spent. Even with the backlog I have piling up. Oh yeah. I need to update my Backloggery. Welp, add that to the list!
I leave you with this video of Luke playing Duck Hunt for the first time. =)
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkPUc3S3EsU]
The Problem With the Jeep
This has definitely been the most high maintenance vehicle I’ve ever owned. Seems like there’s always something up. Sometimes little things, sometimes big things. Even so, it’s not a difficult, nor expensive vehicle to work on. Everything that has come up we’ve handled fairly easily.
But now it’s looking like the engine… and maybe even the transmission are about done for. All said and done it would be around $6,000 to $7,000 to rebuild both of them.
So the crossroads we find ourselves at is this… we have enough money to replace the Jeep. That being, the Jeep when running is worth about $3,500. We could go buy another $3,500 vehicle. But who knows what kind of work that will need, could be flawless (not likely) or it could be about to blow just like the one we have. That’s a big gamble.
We’ve been looking around at vehicles in the $5,000 to $6,000 range and there’s a lot of crap out there! 150,000 to 250,000 miles with paint that’s all scratched up, interiors that are worn out. There’s some decent “Grandma cars”, but Andrea flatly refuses to drive anything like that. I guess I kinda understand. You have to at least like what you’re driving or else you aren’t motivated to take care of it.
Or for $6,000 we get a brand new engine and transmission that has no miles on it at all, comes with a 3 year warranty and should be good for 100,000 miles if we take care of it, like we certainly would.
If we didn’t like driving it, it wouldn’t even be an issue. But it’s comfortable, roomy, and it looks good! Plus we just spent $1,000 on tires 6 months ago.
If we do this though, it pretty much guarantees we can’t sell it… ever. It just wouldn’t be worth it. Even after dumping $6k into it, it’s still a $3k vehicle to the rest of the world.
Sucks to be in this situation, but I always try to think about how we can come out better than before it happened. Going to keep thinking and praying on it for now.
04.7.14“I don’t want to be frustrated.”
I really can’t believe how fast this little guy is growing up. We were heading home from Wichita on Sunday and about halfway Luke was getting quite restless. I had my 3DS with me so I asked him if he wanted to water some flowers in Animal Crossing. “OH YEAH!” he said.
So I got the game started for him. Got it all set up. And he pretty much took over. The part I can’t believe is how much he can do for himself. Together we’ve probably only spent maybe an hour or 90 minutes with Animal Crossing. But he knows how to walk around, switch his tools, paint on the patterns and open the chat and type letters. All on his own.
It kept him satisfied for a good 30 minutes or so, but he was without a nap all day and started to get frustrated. I asked for the 3DS and told him he needed to take a break because he was getting frustrated.
“I don’t want to take a break!,” he screamed.
“You need a break because you are getting frustrated,” I reiterated.
“I don’t want to be frustrated!” he sobbed.
It was a little sad, but mostly cute. It reminded me of the first time I got to play a Nintendo at one of Mom’s friend’s house when I was just a kid around 5 or 6 years old. I didn’t want to leave and wanted to stay and play so bad I remember crying.
Tonight we played some Super Mario 64 and I made him do all the work. I’d give him instructions like, “go left” or “push A” and most of the time he’d figure it out. He’s not going to be saving princesses anytime soon… or is he? Don’t blink, I tell ya.
03.29.14One of the Best
I can’t tell you if it happens the moment I finish certain games. When the game I’m playing becomes one of my most beloved. But without a doubt, after time, there are some games I’ve played that stand out far above the rest. Guild Wars, GoldenEye 007, Super Mario Bros. 3… all of these are games that the memories stick with me. And Final Fantasy X is very much in their company.
This game first came out in 2001, the year I graduated. I spent part of the Christmas holiday with a friend, James, in San Antonio. He had recently gotten the game and was in the middle of playing it while I was there. The graphics were amazing. That was my immediate draw to the game. But as I watched him play, so much of the game felt larger than most. The soundtrack, the world, the story. It was grim, sad, and kept me wanting to know what was going to happen next.
I left San Antonio long before James beat the game. I myself didn’t own a PlayStation 2, so I had no means to play it for myself. Months went by and I didn’t think about it much. I was very much a Nintendo fanboy so I spent my time playing Gamecube. Around my birthday in 2002 (I think) I took some of my birthday money and bought a PS2 bundled with Gran Turismo 3. One thing Nintendo didn’t have was a realistic driving game that was anything like GT3. So without much thought about Final Fantasy X, I snatched up the console.
I don’t remember when I finally bought Final Fantasy X. It was long enough that the game had dropped in price. I remember seeing it on display at a music and game store in the Manhattan Town Center Mall. It was $20 off or so and it really wasn’t until that moment that I thought about all those great experiences again. The more I thought about it, the more I figured it was a no-brainier to pick up.
I played it, several of my friends played it with me, and after several weeks, I beat it. Like I said in the beginning, I don’t know if at the moment I saw the ending that I was hooked on Final Fantasy or not. But sometime between now and then I’ve become quite a fan.
Let’s move ahead about 10 years. The PS3 is out and the PS2 is quickly becoming “retro”. Ouch. Very quietly it’s announced that Final Fantasy X is getting an HD remake. WOW! I’m excited! All of a sudden, I have the urge to re-live the story all over again. But if this game is coming out soon I didn’t want to dilute the experience by replaying it now. So I hold off.
Weeks go by and there’s no news. Months go by… maybe it was cancelled. There were never even any screenshots shown. But Sony press conferences come and go, and not even an acknowledgement of the game. Then about 6 months ago, some news that not only will it be Final Fantasy X, but it will also include X-2 and many of the international features that never made it to the US game! Then the soundtrack starts showing up on news sites and Youtube. Finally it’s a real thing.
This weekend, the game finally materialized. I relish these experiences as an adult, because it makes me feel like a kid again. I was always anticipating some game back when I was younger and it always felt like forever before it released. I probably haven’t felt like this about a new game since Skyward Sword. And this isn’t even really a new game!
I’ve been playing it pretty hardcore since Thursday night. It’s as much fun as it ever was. Between X and X-2, I could play them both, then just immediately start back at the beginning of X and have just as much fun as the first time though. Partly because the games are so lenghty, but mostly because they’re just so good.
I would love to watch Andrea play the game through. It’s such a great game that the only part that sucks is the lack of people to share your thoughts and feelings about it with. I know she respects that it’s one of my favorites, because she pre-ordered this remake for me before I did! I suppose that is enough for me.
03.26.14Crossing State Lines
I can’t remember the last time I crossed the Kansas border. It’s been years for sure. But recently we headed to Denver for a Boston Bruins vs Colorado Avalanche game. In the last two years Andrea and I have grown an affinity for watching Hockey. If you look back far enough on this blog I talked about wanting to get into the sport but not sure who to cheer for. I proclaimed at the beginning of the season that I would choose the team I would follow by whoever one the Stanley Cup that year. So in the 2010-2011 season, every team competed for the NHL Championship… and me as a fan for life. I was that close to being a Vancouver fan, but Boston won 4-0 in Game Seven.
We had great seats. We were up high, but right on center ice. It was a great view and a great game as Boston won 2-0. It’s always cool going to any game like that and seeing the same guys you see on TV all the time.
My Entourage
After the game, we headed back to the hotel. Saturday was a fun day. We went to the Denver Museum of Science and Nature. It was a pretty neat place. There’s a TON of stuff for kids and I really want to bring Luke back in a couple years when he’s old enough to have fun with a lot of the different exhibits. The museum offered pretty basic information, but it covered a really broad spectrum and had great exhibits that showed how things worked.
I learned quite a bit of stuff I didn’t know in the nature museum. Like beavers lips close behind its teeth so it can carry sticks without swallowing water. And that caribou are the only species where females grow antlers.
After the museum we went to a place downtown in Denver called the Cherry Cricket. The place was jammed. Definitely not Denver’s best kept secret, there were more people in the place than live in my entire town. It was a pub type atmosphere but got great reviews for its food. We decided it was worth waiting 30 minutes for a table… I’ve waited longer for worse food. And the food here was superb. I ordered some kind of specialty burger medium rare, and it was outstanding! Best burger I’ve had in a long long time. Good beer on tap too. Worth tolerating the crowd and the wait for sure.
It had a name, but I only remember how it tasted.
That afternoon we took a short drive up into the mountains and just kinda roamed around with no particular place to go, and no idea where we were going. It was actually snowing on Saturday, so that made for some absolutely breathtaking scenery. I really wish we could have spent more time in the mountains. I’m not a big city, big crowd, guy at all. Get me off the beaten path and let me relax and take in creation. That’s exhilarating to me.
It was getting dark by the time we made it back to Denver. We headed back to the hotel to decide where to eat. We settled on a unique little pizza place of which I can’t begin to remember the actual name. I just remember I kept calling it “Joe Blow’s”. A joke which I probably took to its absolute limits. It was good though. The Pizza was sold by the POUND and had big thick crusts, but wasn’t greasy. Joe Blow’s was probably the least populated place of the entire trip. The waitress was fun and quirky, but it could have used some atmosphere. It felt like an old Golden Corral. I remember Andrea watching a lot of soccer on the TV while I enjoyed one of the local brews… Coors Light.
It was a good trip. I’m really glad we went. Now it’s time to hunker down for what we are calling, “The Year of Boring” as we save up for a house. Still a year or so out on that project.
Level 80
I finally did it! It only took about 2 years, but I’ve finally reached the maximum level in Guild Wars 2. This doesn’t mean I’ve beat the game, just that I’ve maxed out my character’s growth and power. I spent about 35 gold last night decking him out with all the level 80 gear. It’s worth it though because I’ll probably be using this stuff for quite a while.
I played a bit while Mom was down over the weekend, then Sunday I made my final push to get from level 78 to 80. Didn’t take that long really. You earn so much more XP by doing events and goal oriented things than you do just killing stuff. But it’s hard for me to pull myself away from just exploring.
So now, I’m ready to move on and finish the rest of my personal story and “beat” the game. Though there’s a ton more content out there past the main storyline. I’m even toying with creating a new character afterwards… We’ll be talking about the Summer Olympics by the time they reach Level 80 for sure.
So here’s a few more screens from this beautiful game taken over the last couple days.
