Tuesday 15 May 2012

IRL It's been an odd few months. Work continues in two directions. Hoping that a better one will appear as work becomes more grinding, contrasted by working harder and throwing myself more into my unwilling role change. However, if I keep my head down, it lets me build FreeNAS boxes and tinker with personal projects without anyone batting an eyelid when we're not busy. The first part of that has lead me to hoard IT equipment that might form the initial basis of a small company IT infrastructure. I have that much kit, it's true. How many people have 3 SME level Windows servers in a room at home? I have been asked this by my nearest and dearest, but really she knows it keeps me amused, so it's not all bad. Finally hacked the meadow down to a lawn (It's been raining a lot in Britain, so the grass is growing quickly and getting cut infrequently) and planted an apple tree. Sweet! Family life continues apace as my youngest child rapidly approaches 1 year old. He's a bundle of fun, but his late night wake ups are grinding the life out of us. He has 4 teeth now, just another 16 to go - lol, there may be a few broken nights' sleep left, then. My eldest boy is hard work, but when he's sweet, he's absolutely amazing. On the subject of FreeNAS boxes and the like, I'm in the throws of a large project. I have one PC (Dual Core Intel, 8GB RAM, Win 7 64bit) to run everything on currently. I mothballed my old Games PC (AMD 6 core, 4GB, Win 7 64bit) but now I reckon I've cracked it. The Games PC became better (i7, 12GB, 16GB flash as cache and much quieter) the old AMD went into a new case and is now Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64bit and this will run the side monitors for browsing etc, and the old HP will become a VM host. The Pinguy running HP Microserver will go over to FreeNAS, so I can use the limited hardware to better effect. WoW - Or more accurately 'gaming in general.' Steam has bee a source of solace, as I haven't played WoW for about 6 weeks. Most people who have known me in the last 5 years would not have credited me with that sentence, but there it is. I've been playing Borderlands pretty heavily, and am very much looking forward to the sequel in September, but I haven't limited myself to one game only. Supreme Commander has been fun, as has Sol: Exodus, and Star Trek Online (Rear Admiral: Lower Half!!) If World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria doesn't rock my world, it will be my last expansion. And today's the day I got ....... Diablo III, the third incarnation of the game that made me a gamer. So far, playing the Demon Hunter, loving it. Nearly home to play some more, laters all.

Thursday 8 March 2012

WoW vs. STO vs. New Job Pt II

IRL
The job is still ongoing, still a combination of stultifying procedure and lack of social interaction. My back is suffering from the stress and I've been looking over job sites for something reasonable, and not so bleeding depressing. Office Politics is an interesting quandary: How do you deal with a colleague that seems to lord it over you in spite of being in a junior role. I have a colleague that is a seasoned 1st line engineer. I'm a very senior 2nd line, regular 3rd line engineer, Mac, PC and Linux in varying degrees, ex-field engineer, project work etc etc. We're both doing 1st line work. I take exception when they patronise me. Has this person got some nerve or am I still reeling from my painful demotion. I really need to reign in my pride, it'll mess me up if I'm not careful. Am I being over-sensitive yet again?

I have another iron in the fire, that I hope will come to fruition very soon. If it does, I'll be the Chief Techie in a financial firm with a hand on the IT tiller.

In my day to day, both my boys have had Chicken Pox recently. They've soldiered through and now are recovering nicely, we might try moving the little one into the big one's room again, soon. They're both beautiful boys (Yes, I'm biased, but they actually are)

WoW
Been a bit quiet on the WoW front of late, I do random Heroics at the weekends when I get a quiet moment, mainly with my DK tank. Darkmoon Faire is 'in town' so I've been boosting my professions the past couple of days. However, I've been playing....

STO
Star Trek Online - it's Free to play and very enjoyable, so been beaming up and down and stuff. I've recently made Captain, and I'm enjoying the storyline aspect. On that note, I'm off for a spot of Trekking....

Thursday 5 January 2012

A man's pride vs. A father's pride vs. Priest gear

IRL
My job has changed. I'm now answering the phones and logging calls for the team I used to be a full member of. This is a weird transition for me. It's definitely a drop in position, and it's made the group dynamic a bit odd. The money's unchanged and they've signed me for a year's contract. I'm in an odd position because of an internal conflict. As a bloke and an IT engineer, my pride has taken a dent. I'm doing the job I shouldn't have been doing 6 years ago. I love going to see people and mingling on the floors. I'm trying to lose weight, and this sure won't help. On the other hand my pride as a father and the main breadwinner is telling me it's all good, and simply endure. I'm soldiering on, keeping myself in a job and the wolf from the door, the money's the same so no loss there, we have a home and it's still being paid for and I'm the one doing it. The issue I have is after the recent change, I wanted the option of saying bollocks, no! but I don't have that anymore, not without some olympic jobhunting. It's making me quite unhappy at the moment. I have to do my bit, but I still resent getting dumped on. It has eased in the past week or two, but it depends on how much sleep I get, and if my boss is still trying to stop smoking. I empathise, I did it, and I was a monster when I gave up. But it's still a situation with a glaring dichotomy.

One thing I'm not split on though, The Experience by the Prodigy. Finally went ahead and bought the mp3 of the 'Experience: Expanded' fully remastered album with extra tracks. It is beyond awesome and has made up most of my listening for the past 3 weeks.

Other news
I love Steam. (The system where you can buy games online, often at silly discounts, download and then play them; Not the fluffy hot stuff, that is still nice during baths but annoying otherwise)

WoW
2012! Ellyllaidd is now a full blown 5 man tank blood spec Deathknight. 'Tis awesome, I tell thee! Loving tanking. No funny comments, not amazing performance, but ticking over nicely, barely ever wiping. Also, Love is in the air/Lunar Festivals have made for some nice doodads. So far I've done the hour of Twilight 5 mans, if not entirely (Joined a group last night mid-wipe. Tank bailed. Why are most tanks such arseholes?) So far, only 3 heroics, but not one funny comment even though I know I'm not special. Disciplined maybe, but not special. I shall have to check my threat, but I pride myself on not letting it get crazy and letting the DPSers and healers get directly attacked through aggro. I like collecting the mobs and keeping them occupied. The little satchels of goodies are nice, too. Tanks get rewarded if there are a dearth of them online, which is AWSM!!

December I was mainly grinding away at my priest. Still fairly sad DPS, keep being the butt of jokes in PUGs. Been Shadow almost all the way but considering learning how to heal as Discipline spec. Enjoying the new Hour Of Twilight (4.3) 5 mans. The drops seem to favour plate and mail wearers if my last few sorties are anything to go by. I did roll need on the awesome Mallet 'Scepter of Azshara' from the Well of Eternity instance but didn't get it. Every time I roll I get the instance with the traitor Benedictus at the end. No problem with that per se, but it's a low chance of any desirable goodies run. Want me some Well of Eternity lovin'. Cloth and caster gear central! I'm slowly working my way towards shiny new weapon and trousers. My current selection is roo-barsh (As we say at home) The PvP cloth trousers have the appropriate level but do not have gem slots, or count towards being epically geared, and earn you scorn from other PuG members.