Coldie

New Position ....

Mon, 14 Nov 2005 19:23:11 GMT

Well, they still haven't accounced who got the position, and I haven't been told that I didn't get it yet. The major hold up is that one of the appilicants was got last week and there was a test we had to complete. I did ok on the tech side of the test. The adminstrator side not so good. The questions they asked on the test I was never trained on and I can only blame my supervisor for this. If I wasn't trained on the information, then how can I be tested on it. But we will see. If not, I will just keep trying until I get promoted or leave.

Anyways, I will keep you guys updated and thanks for the good lucks.

Job Interview

Wed, 09 Nov 2005 22:55:46 GMT

Well, I had a job interview for a Team Lead position at the place I work. I believe that I did pretty well. If I get the job, I will get a pay raise and I will be off the In-bound phones for a good majority of the day. I may have to a hour or two when we get busy, but for the most part I will be helping other technicians. This put me in a good line for a supervisor job in the future. I will know if I got the job on or before Friday.

Wow. And I don't mean the game.

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 23:34:30 GMT

Ever felt like you have just been kicked in the balls. well, I have that feeling right now. I just got off AIM with the one person that I have ever truely loved, besides my daughter, and found out that she is getting married soon.

It is my fault that I broke up with her and I will have to live with it. But I have determined that I will find a person soon and start to live again. I feel that it is time to stop brooding and get on with my life. I know it is easier said than done and I don't know where to start. We will see won't we.

Mon, 19 Sep 2005 19:32:28 GMT

So I posted last week about how I was losing interest in the travel d20 game, but now that I have eliminated the complex space combat rules and our Ace Pilot meet an untimely death, I am starting to get interest back again. Really, I have never been happy with any space combat unless the players were in their own fighters. Because if they are on a ship, some people won't get to do anything. I have gotten so into it that I have actually written the rest of the story line for next week's game. Go me.

In other news ...

I took a trip up to Bowling Green, KY to visit family and I am happy to report that my car made it to and fro without a problem. The only problem was that I drove up and back in one day. It is about 3 1/2 hour drive from Memphis to Bowling Green and that can wear on the body. Heck, I was still tired on Sunday (I drove up on Sat.). But the family seems to be doing well. My daughter played all day with my cousins. Yes, my cousins. My family is weird I guess. I am 29 and I have a cousin that isn't even born yet. Go me. So on my Mom's side of the family I have a couple of cousins my daughter's age and they had a blast. I hated to leave so soon, but I had to get back so I could run the game on Sunday. Which went every well. More on that after next weeks game.

Work seems to be doing well for me, except that they are thinking about adjusting the pay from per hour to per call. That is a load of shit in my opinion. I will be looking for a new job shortly, unless I can get a position that makes me exempt from this new pay scale. I hope everyone elses job is going well.

So what do I have planned for this weekend. Well, I can tell you that I will not be driving 500 miles. I think I will take my daughter to the park if the weather is good, if not we will go to the movies. I would perfer the park, because it is free. Speaking of my daughter, it has come to my attention that my daughter needs glasses. It seems that she has 20/50 vision, so we have some on order. I am going to buy her some backup pairs just in case.

Well, talk to everyone later. Hope you guys have a good week.

WoW and what it means to me.

Tue, 13 Sep 2005 22:42:56 GMT

Really, it is just a game. I guess what I got tired of was the consent arguing of guildmates and then the destruction of the guild honestly, I just want to get together with my friends and PvP the crap out of the game. I am tired of the instance runs and I guess that is what burnt me out. I am going to take some time to think about it and talk with some level 60 friends of mine and see if they just want to get together and PvP. I think that is the best part of the game.

Who knows. I may be back within a few weeks. We will see what deals I can barter. Heck, one person offered to buy me my epic mount. Well damn, who would pass that up.

Mon, 12 Sep 2005 19:16:27 GMT

Well, lets start with the good news first:

My car is fixed. It took about 30 minutes to replace the part and get the car up and running again. The part wasn't as expensive as qouted. It only cost $133 after taxes. That is a lot better than the $174 that was initially qouted. Why the price difference, don't care. Wasn't going to complain that they were charging me less money.

Other news is that my WoW account has been disabled for 3 days now and I don't miss the game. I guess that is an indication that I was no longer interested in the game. Oh well. I did pickup the expansion for Sims 2 it is alright. I am still learning it and I will probably get better as I learn the game.

As most people know, I am running the Traveler game on Sundays and the more I read about the game and run the game, I am starting to not like the universe. I mean I have four different characters playing the game, but they don't seem to be clicking. Oh and Rodney's obessions about things he thinks he should be able to do is getting a little frustrating. I mean in some aspects he is worse than Scott about obessing with things. Oh yea, Scott is taking a break from my game. He states that he needs a break, but he is gearing up for another game that Anthony is about to run on Fridays. I hope that Scott isn't giving me some lame excuse to drop the game by lying to me.

Don't listen to me. This is just my paranoria getting the best of me. Anyways back to the game this Sunday. Two words can describe it: Total Diaster. I mean no one worked together. I had one person go on a mission by herself. I had one person just sitting around awaiting loan paperwork for his ship. Which I know that he won't even attempt to makes payments on the ship and that will force me to attempt to repo the vehicle. Had another person attempt to complete the main mission by himself basically. This is a diaster. They don't work well together and it is tough to try to force them to do stuff. Oh well, I am going to think about this more, before next Sunday.

Well that is enough rambling for now. Well, enough for public display at least. I have more but that is too personal for public viewing.

Blah

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 21:37:31 GMT

I don't know what it is with me and cars but somehow I seem to pick the winners. However, this time I know how to fix my car. I am going to get the part this weekend and hopefully have the car up and running Saturday.

In other news, work is going well. I have landed a pretty cushie job. I handle the "mentor" line at work for this month. Hopefully this will lead to a supervisor position. The person that I am filling in for the month is up for a different job directly with Brother. If he gets the job, then I will be in position to take his position. This however will force me to go back to working the closing shift. I am can handle that since it will take me off the phones permenantly for the first time in my call center experience. I believe that he will get the job, because he basically wrote the test that he just took. With any luck, within the next month, I will have a new position and a raise to match the position, along with an hour lunch, instead of the 30 minute lunch that I currently have.

As far as gaming right now, I am running a hybrid sci-fi game. I am using the base Traveler d20 game, but with an added sci-fi feel of the game. I have adjusted the combat rules, as far as damage, to make the game less lethal, but it is still lethal. It seems to be going well, if I can get the players to stop trying to sabotage the flippen game. I swear I try not to make my games deadly, but the players seem to take my challenges in the wrong direction. I mean why murder the entire security force when you can lie your way through the situation. I am still trying to learn the space combat rules. I have never been happy with any of the rules I have read in any of the books. Right now they are dealing with a zombie infestation. They seem to be doing well. I haven't killed any of the characters yet. I have gotten close which is how it should be.

As far as other games, I still want to return to my roots and run a Shadowrun game. However, the people that are currently in my game want to stick with this type of Sci-Fi. You know space travel and futuristic weapons. Someday I will return to Shadorwun and run the campaigns that I have ready for it. I want to read over Shadowrun 4th edition, before I run again. However, I believe that I will stay with 3rd edition, since I haven't liked anything that I have heard about. There are no flipping combat pools. I mean what is a SR game without rolling 18d6. I mean heez. That is the fun part about the game. I will incorporate the non-rule mechanics of the game. The new weapons and gear that is available. I will say that the 3rd edition is kind of outdated with what is currently available in real life.

Speaking of real life, my daughter started kindergarden this year. Most of my friends still remember when I used to bring her over in her car carrier to games and she would sleep through the games. I can't believe that it has been 5 years already. She is such a pistol. highly intelligent and uses very simple logic that will defeat any arguement that you may attempt to have with her. She is enjoying school a lot. Which I am glad. However, I will know that this will not last. Come on, the first couple of years of school were good, but about 3rd grade they actaully started to make you do real work.

I think that this is enough rambling for now. I hope everyone is doing well. Hope to talk to you guys again.

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 19:07:31 GMT

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 18:53:52 GMT

So I just quit WoW. I feel great now that I am no longer playing a game that bores me. I might come back later, but I doubt it. I apologize to all my friends that I am leaving on the game, but it holds no interest to me. All you do is kill and get gear. My account runs dry on 7th of next month. I will continue to play until then and try to help everyone out.

YES!!

Fri, 25 Mar 2005 18:07:33 GMT

I bought a new car today. it is a '04 Pontiac Sunfire. Sunrise Pontiac was able to finance me of all people. ya, me.

Howdy

Sat, 19 Mar 2005 00:03:53 GMT

Well, it has been a bit since I have posted in this forum. Well not has much changed in my life. Got a good job, though I am going to be joining, hopefully soon, the MPD. My daughter just turn 5 last weekend. So not much has changed.

Our thursday game is finally over. I now have a D&D character that I played from 1st level to 20th level. He has good gear, an awesome keep/temple, attained Demi-god status (even though I know that some of you don't agree with that), and only died once over 20 levels.

Now on to the Shadowrun campaign ... well may be. I don't know if it will happen or not. I was up to eight people, now down to three. I don't know if I am going to bother and have a Saturday game. I haven't made up my mind yet, but should know shortly.

Well, that is about all that is going on in my life. Nice and simple. Talk to you later.

An update of sorts

Fri, 10 Sep 2004 20:59:32 GMT

Brad's week in reveiew.

This has been a pretty much uneventful week. Starting last week I stop smoking again. I has been since thursday or friday that I had a smoke. I think I am good to go, but time will see. I have also been off of caffinee for the most part for about a month or so. Every once and while I will have a soft drink, but I have mostly been drinking water. Let's see, what else can I talk about.

Work has been going good. Like everyone knows, or should know, I am on the software team at Brother. I have only been on the team for little over a month, but my metrics are well below what they need to be, so know the only things that I have to work on is the fine tuning of the things. So what are these fine tunings that I have to work on, sales. Yes, I have to sale ink, toner, etc for the machines that I support. Heck, they even want me to suggest people to purchase a new machine when the old one breaks. So, I am doing both technical support and sales, go me.

Things seem to going well in my personal life. No new mind bending news about my ex to shake a stick at. Surprisingly she is bringing my daugther over to see me and is coming back over to back her up. This is nice. I did miss my daugther when I didn't get to see her during most of the month of August and July. My daugther is doing well. She is looking forward to going on the vacation. Hopefully the weather will be kind and stop the hurricanes that are pounding the dog-you-know-what out of Florida. Rain or shine, I beleive that my parents are taking my daughter on a vacation, before next year. That reminds me, Elise starts school next year. I need to talk to her mother about Elise living with me and at least going to Whitestation, instead of the schools that are around her parents place.

hum, what else, the car. I perfer not to talk to much about that car. I have decided to look for the short myself. So I have plans to rip apart the dash to see if there are any shorts in the wiring that are behind the dash. Well, I have that niffy manual to tell me how to remove it. Step 2 and 3 worries me a bit. I have to remove the sterring wheel and the sterring column. Yikes. I don't know if I really want to do that. So I will need to make my decision soon on the car. Hopefully once I get my payraise, I will be able to find a car that I can afford and get a different car.

Lastly, on to my gaming news. Well as most of you know, the Sunday game is missing something .... maybe a game. Hopefully we can soon fix that situation. Tek2way is coming over this weekend to hangout. That will be nice, I can't really remember the last time that we just simply hung out. The Sunday game maybe on hold right now; the Thursday game is in full swing. I just hit level 15 last night. Yea me. But more on that later.

Talk to everyone later. (10 days until my Vacation)

I am beginning to hate my car.

Wed, 08 Sep 2004 18:15:25 GMT

Things have been going pretty good. The car has been running to and from work. This morning however the car died on me. Luckily I was close to home and some very nice people stopped by and jumped the car so that I could get it home and one person followed me to the apartment complex to make sure that I got home safe. Who says that there aren't nice people in Memphis.

Well, he I am, no car, and no one to call to come pick me up for work. So what does Brad do, I walk to work. So 1 hour and 45 minutes later, I finally arrive at work. I am hot and sweaty and now I have to listen to people's problems with their computer and their fax/printer/scanner machine. Sigh, today is going to be such a lovely day.

Things are going good

Thu, 26 Aug 2004 22:03:45 GMT

Things seem to be going ok. I think I have figured out my car issue. I have a short some place in the engine compartment. Vague enough for ya. I found out that if I let the car run for a few minutes before I drive, I don't have an issue. However, if I crank the car and start driving I have all types of power issues. Granted this is no fix, but it will allow me to get to and from work.

Other news. Tonight game should be interesting. Rodney has been too busy to make the mobs for tonight's game, so I made them for him, and we all know how friendly my mobs are to the players. I believe that I, I mean, Rodney will kill off half of the party in one breath weapon. Adult red dragon with a maxxed out breath attack. That would be 120 points of damage. I have the most hp with 123. I love my mobs.

Other than that. It's my birthday day is on Saturday. Yea me.

Talk to everyone later.

Weekly update

Fri, 20 Aug 2004 18:30:01 GMT

My car is broke. I believe that it is alternater that is causing the problems, but I still have to remove it and get it rebuilt. The strange thing is that I had a dream that I had the thing rebuilt, but that did not fix the issue. So we will see once I get it rebuilt if my worset fears are true.

Other news. Working at Brother is refreshing. After working at Stream, I didn't think that I could work for a call center again. However, Brother seems to a little different than Stream. One thing they believe in paying a good wage to the techs that work for them. Second, I was able to get a department transfer for what I knew and not who I knew. Well, Darrell did help me get this job and informed them that I would do good on the software team. However, I talked with the supervisors and it went soley based off of experience and the test scores. So I am now on the software team. I am doiung ok, but there is room for improvment. So that is about all that is happening at work

Gaming news. Last nights game was a good game. We were fighting four leveled fire giants, ick. So me and another player were teaming up on another one, trying to get into flanking positions. Then another one decided to join the party. So these two big dudes were blocking the road and we couldn't getting into our flanking position. So I decided to tumble through the spaces occupied by the giants. Ok, the DC is 27 and I have a grand modifier of 12. I needed a 15 or better on the die. I let the die fly and it landed on 15. Then I got one attack. I actually hit and did about 30 points of damage with sneak attack. The combat shortly ended after that, since me and the other player critical hit a few times, plus my sneak attack damage. But that is all that happened that was exciting in the game.

That is all at the moment. Talk to everyone later.

Another day, another level

Fri, 13 Aug 2004 21:17:58 GMT

Quick note since I am not work. I have reached level 14 on my Thursday night character. Yea me. It has been a long uphill battle. I sorta feel like Aron. My character is the only character that has started the game since day 1.

Oh, another thing. I rolled seven possible crits last night in two battles. Stupid constructs.

I will post later, but don't when. I have had my cable/Internet shutoff since I can't justify at this moment the cost vs buying food to eat.

Talk to everyone later.

I'm still here, ...

Fri, 04 Jun 2004 17:19:32 GMT

Well, things have been going ok for the past few weeks. I still haven't found a job, nor have I even got a job interview. Hell, I applied to a call center as a phone tech, and I still didn't get a call back. The only thing I can think is happening, is that I am suppose to do something else, but I haven't figured it out yet.

But on to other news.

My parents were down for Memorial Day Weekend. It was a nice visit. They came down to see the grandchildren and install some freshly made kitchen cabinets and counters that I father made for my brother. You can tell the difference between to the two, because my father used a better wood that had a different grain then the piece-o-crap cabinets that came with the house. My father loves to work with Oak. I guess that is why when he makes something, it never really falls apart. A few of you have seen my father's handy work with making things. Other than that, my mother did a little bit of shopping.

Let's see. My daughter got a new outfit, new sandals, and spoiled with treats by my mother. She also bought me a new set of cooking pans. The set consists of a cookie sheet, a pie pan, a bread pan, a cake pan, and a pizza pan. She called it my Father's day present from Elise. My mother is wacky I know, but I love her. While we were shopping, we stopped off at Garden Ridge and I bought a lawn chair for the outside. Oh is it nice. Good news is that I still have some money on the Garden Ridge gift card that my parents bought me for christmas. So far I have bought a rug, a chair, and a pot. What else. Oh, bought my daughter a different carseat. The last one was getting kinda of old and nasty. This one never has a cup holder. Of course my mother bought it. I can never buy anything for my daughter when my mother is around. Which is fine right now, since I don't have a job.

Ok, we got that I am still jobless and my parents came down last weekend. Now on to the gaming news.

Last night's game was a good one. Rodney is using the free adventures that are WoTC website. They are pretty good. He has run about four of them and they are well written. Last night was a good dungeon crawl. There were only two mobs in the place, but ouch is the only word that I can say about it. But we were about to make it through with only almost killing the sorceress twice and me once. Neil's character seems to be doing well. Now if only I could find a person to replace Neil, but play that character. Actually Neil isn't the one that is annoying the hell out of me. Tim, the guy playing the Ranger of the group, is annoying the piss out of most of the party.

He is a 10th level Ranger, so he has a couple favored enemies. Every single thing we fight he asks, "Is this a magical beast?". Ok, that is a good question, mostly so you know if your bonuses apply. However, when you start asking if the orc or gnomes that we are fighting are magical beasts and do it over and over and over again, I am sorry, but you need your butt kicked.

Also, is a treasure hoarder. I mean I have a lot of treasure, but I am starting a trading business so that I can build a good size keep so that the party can have a base of ops and a place to retire when we stop playing these characters. Also, this last gaming session, I bought a good bow for the Druid in the party, thanks to Tek2way telling me that the Druids no longer have the weapon restrictions. Also, I was making a resurrection fund, so in case a party member was killed, I could revive them. He seems to see only his treasure count and that is all that he is worried about. It has been this way ever since I found 6k gp and didn't share it with him. Now you may think that this was wrong of me, but in the treasure I found a Longsword +2 and gave it to him. Now who do you think got shorted on that end of the deal?

Lastly, he is always complaining that he is never going to level. He has been level 10 for two whole gaming sessions now. Cry me a river right. He really got frustrated last night when the Druid got 7k in XP, and he only got 2.5k. Well the mobs were a CR9 and CR12. We got bonus XP also. The Druid is level 6 and he is level 10. Now the Druid should have gotten more than him. Tek2way tell me if I am wrong, but that is how it goes right.

Well that is about all. I need to get cleaned up if I am going to see that new HArry Porter movie.

Long time coming ...

Sun, 09 May 2004 09:08:25 GMT

I haven't posted much. I am still looking for a job. Not much out in Memphis that will pay what I need to continue my current living conditions. It seems that if I want to get a real job, I will need to move outside of this area to get the money that I need.

I have a applied for unemployment and will be receiving maxinum benefits for the duration of my unemployment. However this will not pay all my bills, so I am going to be moving in with Rodney and Jill for a bit. This is not the best choice, but it is the only real choice that I have. If I was able to find a job that netted me the money that I was making at Gateway, I would have stayed at the apartment, but since I could not, I am forced to live with roommates. Now for those that have lived with roommates that was not a girlfriend, boyfriend, or a spouse, you know that it is ass.

But it is the only way for me to save money and be able to buy the things that I need to survive, like food. The only good thing is that I own my car, so I don't have to worry about the lender repoing my car, again.

I did receive some good news about a job. A friend of mine is starting a business and he has offerred me a job. The bad news is that I will not be employeed until sometime in Septmember, so I will need to find a job until then. We will see.

Other news ... the gaming front seems to be going strong. The game that Rodney is playing is getting interesting. I am a 9th level Wild Elf Rogue. We just finished up two campaigns last week, and I am halfway through 9th level already. The first one took two days to complete, while the second one took about one hour to complete.

The first campaign was to help the city remove an influx of Yaun'ti that was invading the city. Had to go through a dungeon crawl to get to the final boss and had to kill him. Now this was too bad, except that we don't have a tank in the group. So my rogue, the highest level character, had to be the tank. I forced the ranger, whose main weapon of choice is the Longbow, to help with the melee so that I could sneak attack and hopefully drop the Boss with little damage to me. Well, it worked, sort of. Rodney almost critcal hit me three times and comfirmed once. I was down to half hit points at the end of the combat. Luck for us that was almost the end of the campaign. The last part wasn't that hard to complete.

The second campaign almost killed the entire party. There were four mobs in the adventure, so it was very short. The mobs were two oozes, which I spotted while they were 60 ft, a Human Monk/Druid/Barbarain, and an Anicent Manicore. The Manicore was leveled as a fighter, CR 10 creature. There were a few things that helped with the fight. 1) The oozes were spotted 60ft away, with only a movement of 5ft, we were able to dispatch them without a problem. 2) The monk surprised us, but I was able to get a sneak attack on the monk and did 32 pts of damage with a short sword (1d6+5d6+3). 3) The manicore charged us and hit me. The ranger charged and critical hit the monster for 25 pts of damage. The sorceress ray of enfeeblment the monster. I made my tumble checks to the back of the monster and scored a 29 point sneak attack. At the end of the combat, the ranger was at 10 hit points, the sorceress was at 3 hit points, and I was at 14 hit points.

So now the group consists of a level 5 Monk (guy hardly plays and will be leaving the USA for the summer. He is teaching English as a 2nd language.), Level 5 Druid (Jill falls asleep about 1 hour after the game starts. She puts in a 12 hour day and there you go), a 7th level Sorceress, a 8th level Ranger, and a 9th level Rogue. Our Paladin (Neal) is side lined out of the game due to a back injury. Who knows when he will be back yet.

So my character is doing well, I have some good gear, nothing to really write about. The only thing that he has got is about 20k gp in gems. I just don't know what to do with it yet. That is about all on the Thursday night game.

Last Sunday is when we finally started gaming again. Tek2way is running us through some Dungeon mag adventures until the Eberron campaign fully comes out and then we will restart characters for that setting. In the campaign now, I am playing a Fighter/Pyshic Warrior. Not a bad combo, but I feel that it isn't a type of character that I would play for a long time. I think that I really enjoy playing a rogue, a cleric, or a wizard. I know that Tek2way told us that we were not to think about what character classes that we are going to play in the Eberron campaign, until we have a round table discussion about what we all as a group want to play.

Well, sorry Tek2way, I have been thinking about what I would want to play in the Eberron setting. I have narrowed it down to a few choices, Fighter/Cleric, Rogue/Cleric, or Wizard/Cleric. Really honestly I should say I a going to play

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I haven't posted much. I am still looking for a job. Not much out in Memphis that will pay what I need to continue my current living conditions. It seems that if I want to get a real job, I will need to move outside of this area to get the money that I need.

I have a applied for unemployment and will be receiving maxinum benefits for the duration of my unemployment. However this will not pay all my bills, so I am going to be moving in with Rodney and Jill for a bit. This is not the best choice, but it is the only real choice that I have. If I was able to find a job that netted me the money that I was making at Gateway, I would have stayed at the apartment, but since I could not, I am forced to live with roommates. Now for those that have lived with roommates that was not a girlfriend, boyfriend, or a spouse, you know that it is ass.

But it is the only way for me to save money and be able to buy the things that I need to survive, like food. The only good thing is that I own my car, so I don't have to worry about the lender repoing my car, again.

I did receive some good news about a job. A friend of mine is starting a business and he has offerred me a job. The bad news is that I will not be employeed until sometime in Septmember, so I will need to find a job until then. We will see.

<lj-cut text="Gaming Stuff">

Other news ... the gaming front seems to be going strong. The game that Rodney is playing is getting interesting. I am a 9th level Wild Elf Rogue. We just finished up two campaigns last week, and I am halfway through 9th level already. The first one took two days to complete, while the second one took about one hour to complete.

The first campaign was to help the city remove an influx of Yaun'ti that was invading the city. Had to go through a dungeon crawl to get to the final boss and had to kill him. Now this was too bad, except that we don't have a tank in the group. So my rogue, the highest level character, had to be the tank. I forced the ranger, whose main weapon of choice is the Longbow, to help with the melee so that I could sneak attack and hopefully drop the Boss with little damage to me. Well, it worked, sort of. Rodney almost critcal hit me three times and comfirmed once. I was down to half hit points at the end of the combat. Luck for us that was almost the end of the campaign. The last part wasn't that hard to complete.

The second campaign almost killed the entire party. There were four mobs in the adventure, so it was very short. The mobs were two oozes, which I spotted while they were 60 ft, a Human Monk/Druid/Barbarain, and an Anicent Manicore. The Manicore was leveled as a fighter, CR 10 creature. There were a few things that helped with the fight. 1) The oozes were spotted 60ft away, with only a movement of 5ft, we were able to dispatch them without a problem. 2) The monk surprised us, but I was able to get a sneak attack on the monk and did 32 pts of damage with a short sword (1d6+5d6+3). 3) The manicore charged us and hit me. The ranger charged and critical hit the monster for 25 pts of damage. The sorceress ray of enfeeblment the monster. I made my tumble checks to the back of the monster and scored a 29 point sneak attack. At the end of the combat, the ranger was at 10 hit points, the sorceress was at 3 hit points, and I was at 14 hit points.

So now the group consists of a level 5 Monk (guy hardly plays and will be leaving the USA for the summer. He is teaching English as a 2nd language.), Level 5 Druid (Jill falls asleep about 1 hour after the game starts. She puts in a 12 hour day and there you go), a 7th level Sorceress, a 8th level Ranger, and a 9th level Rogue. Our Paladin (Neal) is side lined out of the game due to a back injury. Who knows when he will be back yet.

So my character is doing well, I have some good gear, nothing to really write about. The only thing that he has got is about 20k gp in gems. I just don't know what to do with it yet. That is about all on the Thursday night game.

Last Sunday is when we finally started gaming again. Tek2way is running us through some Dungeon mag adventures until the Eberron campaign fully comes out and then we will restart characters for that setting. In the campaign now, I am playing a Fighter/Pyshic Warrior. Not a bad combo, but I feel that it isn't a type of character that I would play for a long time. I think that I really enjoy playing a rogue, a cleric, or a wizard. I know that Tek2way told us that we were not to think about what character classes that we are going to play in the Eberron campaign, until we have a round table discussion about what we all as a group want to play.

Well, sorry Tek2way, I have been thinking about what I would want to play in the Eberron setting. I have narrowed it down to a few choices, Fighter/Cleric, Rogue/Cleric, or Wizard/Cleric. Really honestly I should say I a going to play <insert any class (except Paladin or Monk)>/Cleric. Now with this in mind, I will be playing a Good aligned character for two reasons:

1) Tek2way does not allow Evil characters in his games.
2) He won't ever let me play a neutral cleric again. (AKA Pay per Heal policy)

I don't think I am going to play a psion or anything like that. I just don't think it would be me. </lj-cut>

Well off to bed. I need to go pick up my daughter tomorrow.

Life is the in the crappier ...

Sat, 03 Apr 2004 06:12:52 GMT

Well, it isn't that bad ... or is it. I applied for a Store Manager job with Gamestop. Hopefully they will give me a call back. I have other leads ... Rodney is going to talk to his Uncle and Father to see if they can find me work. His Uncle is a head big shot at a company and maybe able to get me a job. Rodney's dad works for the State and I may be able to get a State job working in the IT department for the State.

The other lead that I have is a former co-worker has a lead for me in the IT department that he works. It means going back to doing phone work, but it is internal IT. Doesn't sound too, too bad, but it's work. I will keep you guys posted.

Oh, for those who knew Holly and Jason from Stream I have some blah news. It appears that when Solectron purchased Stream, Holly's position was downsized and she has been out of work since Feb. 25th. It seems that it doesn't pay to work in the computer field anymore.

My living arrangements are taking a turn. I will be living with Rodney and Jill in a spare bedroom. Which means that most of my stuff will be going into storage while I am living with them. It will be ok. I like living by myself, but if I don't have a job, how am I suppose to pay the rent. I am going to talk with the Greenbrook on Monday and tell them that I am not renewing my lease. Hopefully I can find a job soon and that living arrangement will only be short term. I need to get the carpets cleaned and remove the stuff that I have hung to make this place more of a home.

I really don't want to move, but really don't have a choice in the matter. I really can't blame anyone for the situation that I am in, because those people that made the decision where just trying to save thier own jobs. I can't fault them for that, because I would have done the same. The only upside that I can see in this living arrangements is that I will be able to save up some money to get my car fixed up, that will be nice. I will also have more money to use to provide for my daughter. That is the key to this situation. I have to get a job so that my daughter will not go without.

Looking around the apartment, I see that there are a lot of things that I will need to get packed up and moved. This just really sucks major ... you know what. Well I am rambling, so I will stop. I am sure that I have bored you by now.

Other news (if you have managed to get this far). I just saw Walking Tall. Good movie, if you are an action flick kind of person. I really feel that The Rock is the next action superstar of the era. Kinda of scary, yea. But at least we can just this action hero, unlike some of the other actors *cough* Arnold *cough*. Well talk to everyone later.

Well it has finally happened

Fri, 02 Apr 2004 04:55:24 GMT

As of 4pm CST, I was informed that Gateway Country Stores will be closing on April 9th, 2004. This means that I will have a job until April 16th. After April 16th, my employment will cease to exist.

So what is Brad going to do ... found another job. I have already contacted some people that I know, applied for a job on Monster.com, and Rodney has asked around with his contacts for him a job and me a job.

So what will happen to Brad's living arrangments. Well, if I can find a job lets say in the next two days that will allow me to keep the apartment, I will stay here. If not, I will be moving into Rodney's house for a little bit, until I can get back onto my feet. This means two things, 1) I will have to store most of my junk, either at a storage place or at my brothers, 2) the Sunday game may be cancelled.

You may ask yourself why the Sunday game would be cancelled if Rodney is playing. Simple, Jill, Rodney's wife, has Sunday as her day to crash and relax. So we will have to play it by ear as they say.

Hopefully finding a job will not be that hard. I just have to find a job that pays me 27k or more a year, with benefits. That is the key. I must have benefits for my daughter's sake.

And so no one is thinking that this is an April Fools joke, here are a few sites that have the complete story.

USA Today ... it made the front page

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2004-04-01-gateway-stores_x.htm

CNN Money

http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/01/technology/gateway.reut/index.htm

Gateway.com

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl?ACCT=144245&TICK=GTW&STORY=/www/story/04-01-2004/0002139696&EDATE=Apr+1,+2004

So as you can see, I am not joking. This f***ing sucks.

It's been a while

Sun, 28 Mar 2004 00:23:39 GMT

Not much has happened since my last post, but I feel that I should burden you by forcing you read about my boring life.

Last Tuesday about halfway through the workday, my boss informs me that he has to make a trip down to the Jackson, MS store to help them out. He asks me if I would like to come down and help him. Now I just did one of these trips to Hoover, AL and my work was not appreciated by the techs down there. So I wasn't too thrilled by the idea, so I declined. My boss then asked if I would do it if overtime was involved. At this point, I wasn't going to be stubborn. I agreed to go down and help them out.

We left Memphis about 6:15pm and arrived down there about 8:30pm. My boss was driving about 85 mph all the way down. We had dinner, Popeye's Chicken, before we went to store. Once we got to the store, we were locked in and started to work. We didn't leave the Jackson, MS store until 11:00am the next day. I splet about halfway through the trip back home. I hated that I did, because I am sure that my boss was just as sleepy as me, but my body gave up about an hour outside of Jackson. I woke up and I was full of engery. I was able to get my boss awake, because it looked like he was going to doze at any minute. Well not wanting to go to bed in the middle of the afternoon, I stayed up until about 11:00pm and then crashed.

Other than that, work has been work.

Well, as you may or may not know I am running a Shadowrun game on Sundays. This would have been then 3rd or 4th week that we began playing. I read and re-read the adventure that the players were playing. I wanted to make sure that I knew everything that I could about the adventure. Well, that was shot to hell when I killed all the characters in an hour and a half. The players said that it was their fault, but I don't believe so. I should have toned down the module a little. Lessons learned.

Tek2way will soon be taking over, so I will have time to think about how to be a good GM. He is going to running a FR game. I am going to playing my 8th level Sun-Elf transmutator, again. Hopefully the group will learn from the past and wait for me to apply buffs, before they rush blindly into combat. This would be nice. That was the only reason I stopped playing my transmutator. No one would wait for me to cast spells. I really can't blame them. The thrist for blood is great and its hard to wait when faced with things that are there to kill you. I guess, I will just have to go to the front lines with the fighters to bluff them in the middle of combat. We will see.

Other news in my gaming world. A friend of mine is running a D&D game and I am playing a Wild Elf rogue. He is Neutral and self appointed leader of the party. Why did I appoint myself leader, no one else in the game is real fimilar with D&D. I am basicly using my experience as a D&D player to help guide the four newbies that have no idea what they are doing. The only person that I am butting head with is the Paladin of the group. A neutral rogue vs. a paladin. It doesn't make a good couple. His vealot ideals conflict with my morals of money and money. But I am sure that the player that is playing the paladin will self-destruct and start playing a different character. The guy playing the character is a guy that likes to kill things, just to kill things. So hopefully he will play something else.

But who knows, he may turn out to be a good paladin ... a dead paladin.

That is about all that has been going on in my life. Slow yes, pathetic maybe. But hey its my life and not yours.

Another major battle that my character survived ...

Fri, 12 Mar 2004 23:52:17 GMT

ATTENTION NOTHING BUT D&D GAMING STUFF! Read at your own risk

Ok here is the set up the of entire gaming session.

We finally made it a large city, only to come to realize that there were 3 armies advancing on the city. So we were asked by the local government to defend a section of the wall. Ok, our group consists a 2nd level Druid, Monk, and Sorceress, and a 4th level Rogue and Paladin. We had 6 1st level archers and 10 1st level fighters. Not bad to defend a section of a 105ft wall.

Well, it won't be bad if we didn't have 60+ CR 1/2 goblins, 40+ CR 1 goblin wolf riders, 25 CR 4 orcs, and 25 CR 6 Orcs w/ clerics mixed in. Well, we managed to get through the first two waves without a problem. The thrid wave killed most of the human fighters and the fourth wave was about to strike, when the GM saved our hoops with a deity intervention.

There were two factors that let us live through the first three waves. 1) A 10ft wall that they had to scale, 2) I laid traps thoughout the battle. They were simple traps such as a)3 5ft wide and 105ft long oil lines, b)I greased the top of the first wall, and c)60+ bags of caltrops right behind the wall. These traps allowed us to survive, until the last wave.

So we survived and were paid for our services. Instead of calculating the XP for all the kills, the GM gave us a level and enough XP to be 1 point away from the next level.

So now we are helping to rebuild the walls and parts of the city. Yea for the good guys.

Ughhh

Thu, 11 Mar 2004 17:19:06 GMT

I went to go to get my brakes done finally, since I was not able to change them myself. Well, I went there and there were some many other problems wrong with the car. It is going to cost me $1250 to get the car safly back on the raod, but there will still be some things wrong with the car.

Oh well, no more luxury stuff for me anytime soon. I am going to ask my parents for money for my birthday and christmas to continue to fix the car.

As far as the crap in Hoover, AL. We got the store completely caught up, but now they are falling behind again. Was it worth it, not really. I was up for 37 hours with only a 20 min nap, before I passed out.

Long time no type

Wed, 10 Mar 2004 08:47:20 GMT

Well its 2:44 am and I am pulling an all nighter at the Hoover,AL Gateway Country store fixing their computers. Only about 7 more hours until me and my manager will drive back to Memphis. Yea, 5 hours in a car after spending 5 hours to get here, and then immediately start working from about 8:30 pm to 10:00 am. Yea, I am so going to bed once I get home.

Talk to everyone later.

Happy Un-birthday

Thu, 19 Feb 2004 18:04:46 GMT

Happy Un-birthday to everyone that wasn't born today.

Oh and Happy Birthday, Aron