This has been a nerd alert…

-Chris

Wow, it was been a LONG time since I blogged, and needless to say, much has happened..

Where to begin…hmmm….

Emma’s first Christmas went VERY well. We had a blast with some extended family who were super nice to let us come and hang out with them in San Pedro. It made for a nice day, instead of a day spent pining about the old Indiana Christmases…

Old Indiana Christmases??
You guessed it! We now live in sunny Valencia, CA!! We migrated west around the beginning of December, and I unpacked the last box of crap last night! We’re settling in nicely now, which is a huge plus. Emma had a couple of really early mornings before she got her timezone switch squared away. She’s still sleeping a bit randomly, but she’s growing/teething all the time it seems, so it’s always hit or miss. But she really enjoys taking trips with mom around Valencia, and they have found Cali versions of most of the familiar Noblesville haunts. We’re excited to get to turn her around in the car soon though!

Turn her around?? She has to be 1 year old for that!!

Speaking of that, she’ll be ONE year old in 5 days!!!!! Jaime and I are really looking forward to taking some pictures of Emma wrecking a birthday cake. :-) The year has just flown by, but it also seems like Emma’s always been here. We’ll be having a small affair at our townhome in CA, but we’ll be heading back to IN sometime in Feb. most likely. We’ll have a big bash then for all the family there. We also plan to visit our Noblesville friends and our old church.

Old Church??

Believe it or not, commuting to Indiana every Sunday morning is a bit tedious. We had a lot of good input regarding quality churches in the LA area. Most of the recommended churches were >30 minutes away from our new place and, to be honest, I wanted to go to a more “local” church. One of the things we LOVED about White River was its proximity to our home. It made trips there easy, and helped us to get plugged in even quicker.

To that end, I did a google search for Valencia churches and, lo and behold, there was a church not even 2 minutes from our place! I decided we would go there and check it out. It’s a baptist church, and I generally not for denominations of any sort. I decided I would withhold judgment until we at least saw what they were about. Turns out, the Church is highly motivated to save the community/world and they were all very, very nice. Moreover, Emma had a blast her first time in the nursery there. They have a very sophisticated system for their child care that was a huge factor in our choice to worship there. Compound that with the fact that the messages are bold, but not brash, and they have a music ministry that seems to be thriving, not to mention very professional. Needless to say, we’ve continued attending Grace Baptist Church (www.gracebaptis…) and are very happy. They even did a candlelight “Silent Night” a capella on Christmas eve. :-) so cool. Still can’t find a church that encourages bringing dogs though. :-P

Dogs…oh yeah, how’s Norbert?

Norbert is doing fine. He is four years old now, and seems to be mellowing out a bit in his old age. ;-) Seriously though, he’s adjusted very well to CA living, and seems no worse for the wear after the cross-country drive.

Cross Country Drive???

I thought I blogged about that … oh wait. Anyway, Norbert and I drove from Indiana to CA. This idea came from my research into flying pets on airlines. You see, people fly pets all the time without incident. I knew this, and began researching what I need to get Norbert airborne. As I was doing this, I began to find recommendations from pet specialists along these lines, “Never fly your pet in cargo, unless you absolutely have to.”

Now, one could argue that if Jaime/Emma/Myself are flying, then Norbert “absolutely has to”. I dismissed it rather quickly and continued my research. They advised freezing water in a dish so it wouldn’t spill if the crate were to shake or tip.

shake or tip? what?

Well, that’s a possibility. Also, if you’re dog is spastic (which Norbert clearly can be), don’t give them any tranquilizers or calming drugs. The air is thin in the cargo area and if there breathing slows too much, they might suffocate. Oh, also, if your dog is a pug, which have breathing issues inherently, you cannot fly them at all, because they will most likely struggle in cargo. Oh, one more thing, it can get very hot or very cold, depending on the weather, so make sure your pet is well ventilated … or covered … depending. All this if we even let you fly your pet, which can only happen if the flight path doesn’t go through any areas where the temperature drops too low or rises too high …

Hmmm… That’s not ideal. But, what can I do? I can’t drive Norbert. Well, maybe I could. I mean, people drive all the time. Plus, we could get some necessities there long before our household goods arrive (via the movers). So, on the way to buy a crate for Norbert’s flight, I tell Jaime that I can’t seem to get over the fact that Norbert is undergoing all these risks. I had thought about driving it … but that’s crazy … right? Jaime says, “If you feel that you need to drive Norbert, then you should drive Norbert.” That sealed the deal. I bought Jaime’s dad a ticket to fly with her and Emma, and Norbert and I headed west.

We drove the same drive that the old route 66 took, which was very neat. We had been watching Cars recently, and I was taken by the history that exists along that drive. We saw a lot of neat things and I took a bunch of pictures all the way. We drove around 9 hours a day, and stayed at Best Westerns each night. Best Westerns rock, by the way. They have a $15 fee to have your pet stay with you, which made it nice to have Norbert in the room. Not to mention that they are very cheap (price-wise) to begin with.

So, we made it to CA a couple days before Jaime/Emma/Whitey arrived. We had some time to get the townhome squared away, and learn the lay of the land a little bit. I also had the opportunity to have the obligatory “WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?! THIS PLACE IS A NIGHTMARE AND I HAAAATE IT!!!!!” freak-out/breakdown. I’m sure Norbert was relieved to see he wasn’t the only one having to adjust. :-) So, we chilled a couple of days in the new place. We got to relax, which was nice. I played some World of Warcraft in that quiet downtime, which was a nice throwback to some prior normalcy. :-)

Oh boy … Warcraft again…

I’m not going to talk about it anymore, I was just saying. It made a nice diversion until all our stuff arrived, and we got our new TV hooked up.

New TV? ooooooooooh

Yeah, we got a Vizio 37″ LCD HDTV (www.viziotv.com…) from Costco. It’s a beautiful TV, and it really works well and the picture is simply amazing. This is our first real HDTV, so we’re loving it. Vizio is a really interesting company that is garnering some attention in the TV space due to their mantra being different than many other TV manufacturers. They make a small product line, with limited distribution, but their prices are unreal. Our TV was $899.99, which is cheap for such a nice television. The interesting thing is that the Vizio TVs are getting really good reviews, and they are getting exceptional reviews when you factor in the price compared to the competition in the LCD TV space.

We plan on getting a bigger TV eventually, but the 37″ is a great fit for us now, and will be good in the bedroom if we upgrade to a larger screen. Right now, it’s just nice being able to watch some movies/TV shows/news. :-) Our old 27″ CRT was having some issues. They might be related to the fact that it was a cheap TV when it was purchased 8 years ago. :-) But it’s cable ready, so it’s better than nothing for the bedroom TV.

So, in total. We’re now in CA, we had a nice Christmas, and we’re welcoming visitors! Hope everyone’s year was awesome, and let’s pray for a great 2007!

-Chris

However, that’s all behind me. It’s a new day and I’m blogging like it’s 1999.

So, what’s been happening…

Emma’s 5.5 months old now. She couldn’t be any cuter and I just love her to death. She is doing all kinds of cool things now, not limited to: rolling over (both directions), moving in reverse, singing, screaming, crying, pooping, eating, laughing, and pooping. I mention pooping twice because she poops with more fervor and sheep prowess than all those other activities combined. Pictures are a-plenty and you can find the Photo Album link on the right…

Jaime is doing great. She loves being a mom more everyday, and she is darn good at it. It’s like she was born to be a mom and has always known exactly what to do. I am so proud of her! She has started working part time at the newspaper, which is where she worked prior to Emma’s arrival. She gets to work her own hours and full time from home and she’s making a great wage doing it! She’s really keeping busy though. She and Emma have been taking regular day trips to go shopping, grab some lunch, or maybe visit friends. Emma loves traveling (until she’s ready to go home) and usually puts on a good show for the various crowds.

Norbert is just great. He is still a dog. He is still very small.

I’ve been working/churching/babying/gaming with my time.

I recently went to California for some job interviews with Technicolor. They all went very well and I anticipate hearing back very soon.

I know, I know…

“Why do you want to move!?” – I’ll gladly tell you! With a large amount of truthiness, we don’t want to move. We love it here. We have good friends, a great church, great jobs, a great house, our family is close, and we can see snow periodically. There’s no compelling reason for us to move to California.

“Sooo, why are you even thinking about it?!” – I’ll gladly tell you! Three years ago, when things at Thomson in Indy were looking a bit bleak, I sought after a couple of positions in California. At the time, Jaime and I decided we would turn my career over to God and stop worrying about it. We prayed that if God wanted us to move to California, He would provide me a job out there, and take care of the moving/finances to facilitate our move. He chose not to do that, but we continued to pray.

“Why did you keep praying about it!?” – I’ll gladly tell you! I don’t know… :-P

So, that’s the scoop on Cali. I’ll post again when I hear one way or the other about my tentative migration westward.

I continue to play World of Warcraft in my spare time. It’s still pretty fun and they’ve been making a lot of big improvements in time for summer. The nerd in me loves the strategy, but the man in me loves the competition…what can I say?

I grow weary of this post…more to come.

-Chris

I am most definitely glad to be done and looking forward to the week off before we start the IT management course. This next course should be a breeze, seeing as I’ve been working in IT for almost 7 years now.

Also, BIG NEW FOR THE MEADE FAMILY!!!! Doug/Jana are pregnant!!! Haven’t got any details about their trials, but it sounded like something that they have been working at for a while now. Big ups to them and send some prayers their way. He posted some pics over at www.dougmeade.c…. Check them out for sure.

Emma rolled over this week!!! She’s rolled over a couple times before, but then stopped doing it, but she had a 4-in-a-row rollfest this week, and Jaime got a couple of them on video. (The Canon S45 digicam video mode r0x0rs for a cheap video solution, fyi). Anyway, you can check it out on the photoalbum site, which I found out supports video as well. :-) One of those, “Let’s see what the photoalbum does if I upload a video to it.” kinds of moments… Here is a link straight to the vid. Good times if you have a sound card, fyi. :-P

What else … oh yeah, I started a loot list for my WoW characters so I can keep track of the items that I would like to get, and I can cross them off as I get them… Props again to the dude that wrote the wordpress plugin for automatic item linking. It is really cool to get those tooltips. Here is a link to that page if you are interested. If you want to post any good ideas there, leave a comment and I’ll add ‘em!!!!

Also, if you comment, you can actually do the auto-link for WoW items by surrounding an item name with a special tag: (item)Necrotic Wand(/item) BUT use “[]” instead of “()”…

Have a great week!!

-Chris

It’s March, for Pete’s sake, and it was 30 degrees today on my way into work. I’m definitely ready for some warmer weather. I know that Emma’s itching to get outside and play, even though she’s only 9 weeks… :-)

Seriously though, she has been growing like a weed since we brought her home. It’s a good thing that we take so many pictures, because you forget about the little one you brought home so fast. We got a footprint cast today as a gift from the hospital. It as a trip to think that her feet were so small just 2 months ago. I’ve always heard people say, “They grow so fast!!,” and I always rolled my eyes and thought, “I’ll bet they do…” Turns out that they really do grow freakin’ fast.

I’ve been really lax in getting this blog current, but it’s been a lot of the same really..

We did have our first big outing with the kid this last weekend. We drove the 1:15 to Martinsville and saw both sets of parents, and my Grandparents (Jaime’s Grandparents are all in Florida right now). It was a really fun day and went a lot better then either myself or Jaime expected. We figured she would be a holy terror the whole time and we wouldn’t be able to enjoy ourselves. She only got fussy a couple of times and was quickly calmed and really had a fun time. We know that the respective family members really enjoyed getting to spend time with her without having to drive up here.

It was also nice to get some photojournalism of Emma and her Great-grandparents. We are excited to get as many photos as possible so when she gets older, we can show her pictures of some people that she might not remember…time is a commodity that you just can’t count on…

What’s interesting about this whole child thing is how you look back and think, “I’ve been a dad for two months now.” Then you think, “I cannot believe I’m one of those people that I couldn’t imagine being just a few years back.”

Seriously, I didn’t get a crash course or have to pass a test. You bring the kid home and you’re being a dad. It’s such a trip to think of the supposed “experts” like my parents, or friends from Church with older kids having their first experience being so similar and just going with the flow until you’ve suddenly raising a teenager. Whoa!

I’m getting a little ahead of myself I suppose, we’re not out of the woods just yet. As I write this, Emma’s crying on and off trying to get to sleep. I speak for Jaime and I when I say that we are definitely looking forward to leaving the insane crying sprees behind us as she gets a bit older.

I wish I could remember what drove me at that age to cry, but I’m certain that it was something silly, like “I’m crying too loud, I’m going to cry about it.” Crazy kids…

On a less important, more nerdy note, I finally hit level 60 (max level) in World of Warcraft. I actually got to participate in my first-ever endgame instance the other night, and it was a truly a mess. I realized that planning a group of 40 people who are all over the world can be daunting, even with the best of intentions.

Well, that’s all for now…

-Chris

I cannot believe that it is February already. January was simply a blur. With a kid being born on New Year’s day, you really don’t get that “Here comes 2006!” mentality. It’s all about the baby and when you finally poke your head up to see what’s happened in the world, it’s February! shish

Anyway… there’s been some cool stuff going down in my perimeter…

First

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAIME!

I know that it is belated here on the blog, but the world should know. There are pictures of her cake on the photo site (photoalbum.theh…). We had a nice day, and my gift to Jaime was letting her order herself some stuff on Old Navy. I realize that this is, by all accounts, a rather lame gift. What you don’t understand is, she loves to shop, and she hasn’t gone clothes shopping for her normal self in months due to Emma’s residence.

All in all, she got some stuff that she really wanted/needed/fancied and that’s what matters to me.

Also, I’ve overhauled the above linked photoalbum site as well. I was many, many, MANY versions in arrears on that system. I brought it up to the latest spec and threw a new look & feel on there to boot. The latest version has some nice additions. My favorites are the “last pictures uploaded” and “last albums changed” areas near the top. It makes it easy to see what has changed “at-a-glance”. Previously, you had to navigate a category to see if there were any new albums/photos. Well, NO MORE OF THAT!

Check it out and let me know if you have any feedback.

You also might have noticed, but only if you’re a WoW geek, that I redid the addons page to make it MUCH easier to use. I broke apart the active/inactive addons into two lists, and made both lists sortable to find what you are looking for easier. As I mentioned before, hardly a day goes by without a change or ten :-) on that page. Also, if you see, or don’t see, an addon that you have suggestions about, please comment and let me know. I have worked hard to be able to account for what every single one of those addons is doing to my interface, so if you have questions, I might have answers… :-P

Speaking of wow geekiness, check THIS out: [Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros] or [Ashkandi, Greatsword of the Brotherhood] or even [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker] or perhaps [Ashbringer]. Whoops, almost forgot [The Twin Blades of Azzinoth]!!

Yeah, I found a WordPress plugin that auto-links all WoW Items in line. So nerdy…

So here’s some cool news. We found out recently that two sets of our friends are adopting children. Moreover, they are both adopting from Guatemala! The weird thing is, these two sets of friends don’t know each other AT ALL, but made decisions to adopt at just about the exact same time. They both feel God pulling them very strongly to do it and do it this year!! We are so happy for them and, as you might have guessed, are wanting to support them however we can. If you would like to help financially, let me know and I will put you in touch with them for that purpose.

At the least, I know they covet your prayers over this whole process. Foreign adoption is a trying ordeal, and we hope that is goes as smooth as possible. We plan to adopt in the future as well, so we’ll be taking notes the whole time. :-)

That’s enough for now. I’ll holla later. ;-)

-Chris

Luckily, all that stuff is integrated into the main software now, so it was no concern going forward. I also went with a new theme just to get a change of pace. My wife and I looked at several and finally decided that this was the best one.

I’ll keep my eyes peeled, because there are some things that I would like changed about this latest theme.

So, what’s happened lately…

Well, Emma is now officially over a month old. It really has gone by blindingly fast. I know that people say that all the time. But just looking over her newborn photos makes me notice just how much she has changed in this short amount of time.

She’s still doing great, and she’s almost 10 pounds. She had her 1 month Doctor’s visit and she left with a clean bill of health. The doctor said she was eating great, and growing just perfect.

Jaime also got a clean bill of health and can resume completely normal activity with no restriction. This was good news as the doctor originally thought at least 6 weeks. Lucky for us, she’s an overachiever, so she shaved 33% of her recovery time right off.

Finally got settled back into the grind that is the working world. The time is really flying by these days, but I’m getting enough rest to make it through the days and still be productive.

Now, I’m not going to lie to you. There are days where I could close my eyes and be asleep before my face smashed into my keyboard. But all in all, it’s really working out great.

Jaime and I are using a system that we hoped would work per our pre-birth-of-the-baby conversations.

Basically, I, being a natural night owl, stay up until 2 to 3ish and tend to the princess so that Mommy can get some rest during that time. After her 12:00ish feeding, I get her back to sleep and I go to bed. This usually brings us to around 1:30am-2:00am. When she cries for her ~4am feeding, Jaime takes that one after getting, hopefully, >5 hours of continuous sleep. I then sleep from the 2:00ish bedtime until I get up for work around 6:30ish. Well, I don’t get up at 6:30, but my alarm goes off then… So, I get up about 8:00am and get myself ready to go…

What else…

I did get to go back and practice/play with the praise team last Sunday. It was great to get back into that as well, especially with a new year/new start to the worship teams. It will be really fun when March rolls around and my team is back on.

I blogged a while back about Mark coming back to Thomson. Well, that tour of duty is over as he is now back at his previous employer. Thomson is divesting some more of their portfolio of consumer electronics, and being employed there less than a year, wasn’t willing to take the risk of a layoff. He’ll be sorely missed as he was a tremendous asset to the team, not to mention a great friend. Wish him well in his new/old career.

I’m still playing World of Warcraft, though much more sporadic than previously. As Emma is awake more and more, my spans of time shrink less and less. I did get a comprehensive list of all my plugins put together. You can find it by clicking on the header at the top of page. It’s under “My WoW Addons”, duh.

That’s all for now. Have a great week all!!!

-Chris

—————————————–

For the purposes of this guide, I’ll assume the warlock is Soul-link specced, since it is the most imbalanced build as people say.

Preparation
You can find an SL warlock outside IF or Orgrimmar, this is the place were most SL warlocks hang out.

To initiate combat, you should approach the warlock and talk to him. He will say something about how nerfed warlock were, and how they could not kill anyone in previous patches, and how they became godlike while mages are now water dispensers. After you talk to him, click DUEL to start the fight.

—– PHASE ONE —–

You should position yourself as shown in this image:

The warlock will begin the fight without a pet, because he will feel too overpowered to use a pet against you. MT#1 and MT#2 should position the warlock so that his back will face the tank farther away from the IF door. It is advisable for them to have at least 350 shadow resistance, and one of them should also have 250 fire resist minimum (This is explained later). Greater Shadow Protection pots are also a good commodity, as are Whipper Root Tubers and +50 stamina potions from the quest in Blasted Lands.

The melee DPS group (shown as YELLOW in the pic) should stay behind the warlock, near the tank farther away from the Gate. This is done because they will need to retreat behind the tank and bandage from time to time. (Bandage spot is shown on the pic)

The rest of the raid should be positioned as shown in the picture. It is important for the raid to have about 120-200 shadow resistance, which will help sustain the damage. Keep in mind you will need at least 2 dispellers for each debuff type, otherwise you will wipe pretty quickly.

During Phase 1, the warlock will perform a series of attacks:

Shadow Bolt: A bolt of shadow is launched every 4 seconds to the tank that has aggro, causing 1200 to 2500 shadow damage, depending on resistance. A shadow bolt will crit between 3500 and 6500 damage, again depending on the target resistance. This is were MT#2 should come into play: If a Shadowbolt crits MT#1, he will have a debuff that will increase Shadow damage by a Zillion times. This is when MT#2 should taunt the warlock to prevent MT#1 from dying. MT#1 will then do the same thing once another Shadowbolts crits MT#2.

Curse of Doom: Every 1 minute, the warlock will cast CoD on a random raid member. This member should move outside the raid and unload full DPS, since he will die within the minute.

Shadowburn: The warlock will cast Shadowburn every time he changes target. If one of the raid members gets aggro, he will suffer shadowburn and instantly die. It is important not to OverDPS, or members will die one after another.

Fear: The warlock will cast Fear on a random raid member every few seconds. You should provide everyone with Fear Ward if you have it and dispel fear ASAP, especially on MTs and Healers.

Phase 1 is relatively easy and will last until the warlock has 70% life. This can take between 3 and 5 minutes, depending on your equipment.

—– PHASE TWO —–

When the warlock reaches 70% life, he will instacast a felhunter and Soul Link it. This is when the fight becomes harder.

Note: You cannot kill the warlock while the felhunter is alive. If you try to, the warlock will say, “It’s not my time yet!” and will use a healthstone. This will probably render the fight impossible in phase three.

A few moments before Phase two, the raid should move as shown in the pic.

Note: MT#3 and MT#4, which are tanking the felhunter, should stay at least 10 yards away from the warlock.

Phase two is all about killing the felhunter.

The felhunter CANNOT BE DAMAGED by magic, as it has very high magic resistance. Also, during phase two, you should not magic debuff the pet or the warlock, otherwise the felhunter will remove the debuff and heal himself.

MT#1 & #2 should stay on the warlock with a few healers, while the melee DPS group takes down the Felhunter and the magic DPS group focuses on the warlock. During this phase, the warlock will receive next to no damage, as he is Soul Linked to the pet.

During Phase two, the warlock will have a new attack at his disposal:

Hellfire: Every 20 seconds, the warlock will cast Hellfire and hit anyone within 10 yards for an incredible amount of Fire damage.

Every DPS class standing near the warlock should retreat as shown in the picture and bandage as soon as he casts hellfire. Only the MT with Fire resistance should remain near the warlock. This is done because if the warlock finds no one within melee range during Hellfire, he will summon an Infernal and wipe the raid.

When the Felhunter is dead, PHASE THREE begins.

—– PHASE THREE —–

Phase three will begin as soon as the Felhunter is dead.

Note: The warlock should be at around 40% health now. If he’s any higher than that, you’ll prolly not be able to take him down before you wipe. Also, if you have more than 6-7 dead members by now, you will probably wipe as you can’t do enough DPS.

During phase three, the warlock will use all of his arsenal to kill you.

Curse of Shadow/Elements/Agony: Every 10 seconds, the warlock will cast a random Curse on the entire raid. These debuffs should be removed as soon as possible. If CoE or CoS are not removed after 10 seconds, the warlock will cast Immolate/Shadowbolt on the member, killing him.

Howl of Terror: The Warlock will randomly cast HoT, hitting all the melees around him. You need to be quick and dispel Fear on the MTs otherwise they will lose aggro.

Death coil: The most imbalanced spell in the warlock’s arsenal. This spell will be cast on a random raid member killing him, and will heal the warlock. CT_RaidAssist will warn you when the warlock is about to cast Deathcoil, and all Healers should hide behind the tank. If more than 3-4 healers are killed, the MTs will not be able to sustain damage and die, wiping the raid.

Note: In this pic an arrows point to the out-of-LOS spot for Healers. This is where you should hide when the warlock is about to deathcoil.

—– PHASE FOUR —–

When the warlock is at 5% life, he emotes, saying “The Warlock performs one last service for Blizzard.” He will then cast Curse of Doom on the entire raid. This means you need to kill him within one minute, or you will wipe. You should have at least 15-20 DPS classes still alive here, otherwise you won’t be able to kill him in time.

If you manage to kill him within the minute, congratulations! You have just killed the hardest boss currently in World of Warcraft!

-Chris

It’s been a fun couple of weeks, and we got to take Emma to the doctor today to see if we’d screwed her up.

The doctor’s exact words were “She’s perfect.”, so I guess we’re in the clear!!

I head back to work on Monday, so please pray for the big change as Jaime will be solo during the day, and I will be worried the whole time. :-) In all seriousness, Jaime is an awesome mom, and I don’t worry about her doing a great job, I just worry because I’m a natural “fixer” and I have a hard time taking my hands off of a situation…

So, pray for us as we go back to our almost normal lives.

We’re going to go to Church this Sunday, which should be a really fun time!! We were gonna go last week, but Saturday was pretty rough and we didn’t want to take her just to have to calm her the whole time. Now we’re starting to get the hang of it a bit, and we’re ready to give Church a go.

I’ve been posting pictures as much as I can, but we have been more focused on spending time with her than taking snapshots. More will come though as we get more settled and she really starts growing.

Speaking of growing, she weighed in at 8lb. 5oz. today!! That’s 1lb. 5oz. more than her weight when she was released from the hospital. She’s really feeding well, and Jaime’s nothing short of a pro at breastfeeding. We’re going to start pumping a bit soon, then I’ll be able to bottle feed her and give Jaime a break.

We had a nice laundry list of questions for the doc today, and he patiently answered them all. He’s such an awesome doctor. If you live on the northside and are looking for a great doctor, I highly suggest Dr. William Wunder. He runs a family practice, and has been like a good friend before/since the delivery. He actually stopped by our room to share a story about double deliveries he had to do last night. He also noted that both of them added together were easier than ours. :-)

So, we’re still trucking and she’s still growing. Keep on praying for us and if you would like to come visit, just let me know. If you need my contact info, shoot me an email from the contact tab.

Now, on to the mundane business of free time….

I’ve been playing only a bit of World of Warcraft, and usually in short spurts. It’s still fun and it’s a nice stress reliever to focus my brain on something else.

When I first started, a buddy from work, Don, brought me up to speed about the power of addons within the User Interface (UI) of the game. Basically, you can load some little tools that are written by various people to aid you in certain tasks within the game. They help you to overcome many of the annoyances of the game that you find from the start, but some add functionality that the game simply doesn’t include out of the box.

I started with a packaged collection from Insomniax (www.insomniax.n…). It was really good, but I noticed almost immediately certain things that I didn’t like. After Blizzard (the company that “owns” WoW) released some patches that basically screwed up the addons that had been working. You can think of it like a phone cord plugging into a wall. If the phone company came into your house and replaced all your phone jacks with new, differently shaped phone jacks, your phone service would still be available, but until you replaced your phone cords, you couldn’t use it.

Due to those changes, which broke most of the addons and caused lots of in-game errors related to the UI, I started tinkering with the individual addons, instead of a collection.

I slowly whittled the collection down to the individual addons, and figured out what each one of the did. From there, I was able to remove many of the addons that added to value to my gaming experience, and also added a few that I really love.

Sum total, I now maintain a fully customized addon collection of 90+ addons that all do different things that I really couldn’t live without. :-)

If you click on the WoW addons tab above, you can see the latest collection that I am using. I maintain the versions as I update/test/validate them, and I do that almost weekly.

Anyway, have a great weekend, and I’ll catch up with you all later!!!

Oh, Andy, I got your phone call and email, thanks for the contacts and I’ll ping you next week sometime.

Thanks everyone for your patience!!!!

-Chris

First, and foremost: Emma Leigh Heacock was born on 1/1/06 @ 2:35AM. She weighed 7lb8oz and was 20in long.

My wife and I are very very excited, and not just because she’s the prettiest baby in the whole world. She was the first birth of the year in Noblesville, and we even got a story printed about in in the local newspaper! www.noblesville… is where you can read the article for yourself.

The labor was very trying for Jaime, but she was simply amazing and refused to give up regardless of how tired she was. She was in labor for 29 hours. That’s not a typo, it’s twenty-nine alright. Our doctor was in New York due to family concerns, and Jaime had to basically sit and endure 5 hours of hard contractions with virtually no hope of moving forward. She was so exhausted, but she perservered. We ended up doing everything short of a Cesarian section, even though that team was standing by, ready to operate.

All in all, it was totally worth it, and she would say that more emphatically that I would. She is the most beautiful thing that we have ever seen, and we are honored that God blessed us with her…

You can see pics ongoing right here: photoalbum.theh…

I also want to mention that the Nurses and facilities at Riverview Hospital here in Noblesville were simply amazing. They were very very good at their jobs and made everything just about as smooth as possible. It is such a comfort to know that there are some very smart people one call away. Sum total, I highly recommend Riverview if you’re looking for a great facility to give birth..

So, that’s the big news.

Here’s some other news…

My Grandmother just had some major surgery to remove some cancer that was discovered. It was a really tough time for her, but she’s been doing better and better, and recently moved to a managed care facility near my parent’s place. She’ll only be there for a bit, she won’t need full time care for any real length of time, but the doctors wanted her watched to be sure that she was safe and taken care of. Apparently she has been doing much better than expected, and might get to go home even sooner. If you would add her to your prayer chains, it would be great!! She has also expressed major interest in getting plugged back into Church and rediscovering who God is and His plans for her. I’m so excited for her, so pray for that too!!!

I’m still doing the MBA program, and I’m almost halfway through. It seems like I just got started yesterday or something. It’s going really well, and I’m learning tons. There’s a whole different vibe to Master’s programs, and it’s a vibe that I really dig. You definitely get what you want out of it.

Also, I’ve pretty much abandoned Guild Wars. I finally caved and bought World of Warcraft. If you have any interest in the Legend of Zelda style RPG games, but are also intrigued with the idea of being in a world with not only a ton of computer characters, but also a ton of real humans, you should definitely check it out. It is really really immersive and you can get lost in the seemingly hundreds of story lines. I’m more of a straightforward quester, not so much interested in the story lines, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. There are some pretty major differences between WoW and GW, but the biggest difference is that Guild Wars doesn’t have any quests that are done outside of instances.

What’s an instance?

Basically, the massive multiplayer games breakdown into two segments, even within the same game.

There are areas that are shared between all the people on the server. You can think of these as a public park. There is one and only one public park, and if you want to go there, you will have to contend with any others that might want to go there as well.

The pros: There will be other people around to help you play volleyball, or throw a frisbee.

The cons: You might not be able to get onto the swingset or into the pool due to the crowds at that time.

There are other areas that are basically turned on for every group individually. They’re called instances, because a new instance of that area is spawned for each group that enters that area. This guarantees that the area isn’t affected by any other players. You can think of these as movies in a theater. Everyone has to go to a theater to see the movie, but two people can see the same movie in two different theaters and not be affected by either.

The pros: You can plan for exactly what you want to do, and you don’t have to worry about someone else swooping in and stealing your quest objective

The cons: Due to the nature of the instance, they are much more difficult than the normal quests withing the game. It’s also difficult to find a quick pickup to run an instance

In Guild Wars, every single questing zone is instanced, with a limit of the number of players. Compared to WoW, you are much more limited with regards to strategy…

Anyway, I have a bunch of friends from work and we all login together and play when we can. It’s been a while, due to Emma’s arrival, but I will login again someday… :-)

Well, that’s it for now. I’ll try to get back to this, as I hope I will have more and more worth sharing!!

Thanks for all the prayers for Emma and us, and have a Happy New Year!!!!!!

-mrw