Zug Zug

    Been a bad writing week for me.  Sorry about that.  Between a holiday, sickness, work being crazy and fun new adventures being had, I've just not had the time this week.  But then I do this for fun and to entertain people, so I will not get all whiny about the crazy that life can be.  Especially seeing it's not been a bad busy, just busy.  Some of it has been downright happy and pleasant.  Despite the sleepiness that my body has been enduring as it wishes I was still able to be much more of a lady of the night.  However now 3-4am comes with a price when there is my working in the place of encryptions and decoding the next day.  But isn't that the way it works?

    When adventuring it seems that there are times when we will find a side quest or even a daily quest that will require a little bit of a sacrifice on our parts.  For example, I'm making more gold then ever from my new daily, but it requires me to sleep earlier and do less during the week.  It's also taken a little bit of time away from my writing, even on here.  Which is somewhat sad, but right now I am ok with that due to the ability I'm going to have to finally make enough to pay for a new to me means of transportation and a roof over my head.  Whether it be with other's who need to find a new place to live or not (knowing me I will have to do just that, however, it's nice to think about the fact it's not too far off). 

    I've also been horrible about playing my games this week.  I believe I signed onto my little elementalist for maybe 20 minutes all week.  I'm shaming the fact I'm a gamer by this.  Though staring at the computer screen when I was sick, wasn't a fun thing that I wanted to do, and last night, the first I was fully better this whole week, I was out enjoying an evening of downtime with someone who I'd recently been spending a little time adventuring with.  There was tasty bits of steak and veggies, then there was much watching of things.  Was a nice relaxing evening after half a week of sickness. 

    I SHOULD get back on par with all my dailies, my rolls and spell craft checks soon.  But this week was just, CRAZINESS!  I keep asking myself when did I blink and get a life.  Because that is exactly what it has felt like has happened.  Hopefully it won't all go by as quickly as a blink, as I'm really enjoying the dailies and new adventures I've been having. 

Bamph...I'll Be Back...

    Isn't it always the case in games where the healer usually forgets to heal themselves?  Yeah, silly me, thanks to the below freezing, the rain and myself being too stubborn to stay inside the WARM buildings I am attempting to stop failing a Constitution check yet again.  So far my regiment of Echinacea, Vitamin C, Zinc, Mucinex and tea with honey have been helping.  Sadly there is no cure potions right now to make this ALL go away.  But at least there's not really been a fever since last night and I'm working on using my first aid / heal skill to get better. Can't use the healing magics on myself as it's not really a wound.  But hey, it is what it is.

   Sadly I did attempt at heading into work today and due to the illness, I am not deciphering and decoding puzzles today.  I even offered to continue my research and work from home.  But was informed to go home, relax, take a down time day and just get well.  Was a nice change from the, get here if you can, who cares if you're sick.  That I am used to from the powers that be in my working.  So here I am, attempting to relax, using my first aid to pass my Con check and get back to completely functioning.  Though compared to how often I used to get debilitatingly ill I'd say I must have raised my Constitution with in the last year or two a bit.

    I completely dislike being ill.  I start to feel down on myself for letting down the people I work with and for.  I start feeling as though I'm infringing on people when I talk to them due to boredom or feeling lonely.  I feel exceptionally lonely and want nothing more then to be with or talk to those I care about.  But at the same time really don't want to be near them for fear of getting them sick as well.  Quite the inner battle goes on when I have actually gotten to the point of bed rest, even for a day.  Might make me seem a bit crazy or it might be something you all deal with as well.  Either way, it's a frustrating thing.  So instead I watch movies, read, sleep and take all the things to get rid of the sickness even faster!  Because I can!

    No one can ever say that I'm not resilient after seeing me sick, hurt or just down.  I come back as quickly as I can.  So this too shall pass.  So hopefully by tomorrow I will be back to my normal happy-go-lucky, mostly healthy self.  For now I head back to my nostalgia watching one of those crazy shows from my youth, "Hercules, the Legendary Journey's"

Look, Listen! The Real Life Heroes We Should Remember

    This past weekend Kyranthia was fantastic!  There was fun, there was intrigue for the players and oh my word was there Bards, Barding and Bardic Magic!  Was kinda awesome!  I am so very excited for the future of this game, to be able to watch the development of the players, the plots and see where we go from here!  There's already been a lot of rolling with the punches, feeling out what's coming next and having to plan for the worst case scenario with this game.  Yay for that!

    I seem to have passed my Constitution checks after this one as well.  Either that or I've got a pretty good condition remover going on right now, that prevented the post larp plague.  I've known for years that my low score was definitely Con on my real life character sheet.  I almost always get sick when people around me are.  However I'm pleased to announced that it seems like this time I may have avoided it.  I will be continuing to hope this and knock on wood several times after saying this, however.  It seems to be the case.  

    Last week was quite busy, the one thing I didn't really have to worry about as much was Captain Mosquito.  Though I have managed to aggro some other folks, which I may have bubble to get rid of that aggro soon.  But it was mostly nice and quiet on the unwanted attention front, for the most part I was quite happy with the attention I recieved, especially from a particularly welcome and smile worthy source, but I'll go on about that another day.  Good things indeed!  Seems to be a lot of good things going around lately.  I'm hoping it stays that way and spreads to those who I know have had as tough a time as I have recently.  Again, I'm not saying I don't still have battles to fight and achievements to unlock, because I really really do, just things seem to be going in an ok direction currently.

    So as I didn't get to it yesterday I wanted to talk a bit about what yesterday was as a day.  It was Memorial Day.  Sure it's a day off from work, or a day which a lot will mark as the first big weekend of summer (first one I've had off since I began working).  It's also a day filled with drinking ale, eating food which has been prepared over a fire pit, and generally having some good old fashioned party / down time.  Which is great!  However it is also a day when we celebrate the lives and sacrifices of some of the real life heroes.  People who have served to protect us against the villains and evils that are in the world at large.  These are people who we should be proud of and glad for everything they have given.  They are some of the true heroes in this world

    I believe we should be thinking and thanking those soldiers and heroes every day, however Memorial day is a day where everyone should stop their busy adventuring lives and remember.  We as a whole have benefited from the sacrifice of other's and probably not everyone thinks about it.  We've all been so busy adventuring, dealing with our own down time, and just being too oblivious to realize it.  I know I for one will always think on these people and be grateful for the sacrifices that were made to keep our lives safe and allowing us to continue in our own adventures each day. 

Real Life Run Speed, Automatically Movement x's 2

    Prepping for both larping goodness this weekend AND the long weekend!  I'm excited to go out and see my pc's, to help overrun the town AND to get all the plots out and going!  I also get to finally meet all my bards, I run the bards plot and guild at the game!  I'm seriously sitting in my desk here at work doing a happy dance, I think it helps that half of the bards are part of my real life adventuring family, whom I love dearly! 

    I can hardly wait until 4:30 to run out of here and get home to be started on my way.  I will, and I'll keep busy as I've been continuously been sent missives from the higher powers, keeping my workflow going.  Still, I'm excited.  It's been a busy busy week, filled with lots of prep work, lots of helping friends with things, a bunch of fun and all in all, I'm here on Friday, not dragging my feet and wanting to hide. 

    So I also have embarked on a new adventure in my life, yet again.  It seems that right now is truly the time for new adventures.  I'm excited and happy with all that's been going on.  I'm going to remain quiet on this new adventure for a bit, but I can assure you once I'm more certain of what is going on with this new quest in my life, I'll brief you all with smiles and amusment.  As this has caused a rediculous amounts of smiling, laughing and just general fun.

    I also have some news on the license achievement, thanks to the MUCH larger gold intake here at the job of deciphering, I am officially in process of telling CT to shove off and validate that license.  The next tier on that achievement is to in turn talk to MA, and see what I have to do, it does look like I can complete the achievement "Massachusetts License" by July 2nd.  Which is the BIG deadline from the court.  And there was much rejoicing...yay...

    As you can tell I'm a bit of a scatterbrain today.  I've been having a crazy day at the end of an insanely amazing couple of weeks.  This adventure I call life has been going insane lately with good things, FINALLY.  I'm only hoping that I can share some of that good with my adventuring party so they too can be smiley, happy and finally relax and have some fun!  So now I go back to my cyphers and texts and be a busy little lady until it is 4:30 and therefor time to go home. 

Hmm, Weapon of Choice, I'd Have to Go With, A Spork!

 

    I have so been there.  Part of the problem with being into video games is that I do have this happen.  One of the big things that usually can draw me to a new game is the graphics.  I know I talk about GW2 a LOT, but well, I play that one most often as of late.  It is also a way to spend down time with some of my crew when we are not out adventuring together.  Good things all around.  Plus, I mean how many things from that game have I used on here?  When I really look at it, there's been quite a few.

    So one of the cool things about that game, is that I don't have to worry about this weapon changing issue.  They have a neat thing where you can just combine the item looks that you like with the stats that you want.  They do a LOT right on that game, but I do believe that is one of the cooler things that I have encountered. 

You get the "stones" that you use to do this from map completion or you can spend gold to get gems and buy them from what is this game's auction house.  It's a really fun thing.  I can honestly say I've had my Princess Wand skin on EVERY weapon I've needed since I got it way back at level 10 or so.  I don't think I'll ever be changing it out.

    Where am I going with this you ask?  Well, it's sad in real life as well, when a favorite item ends up damaged, hurt or lost and the replacement just isn't quite the same.  I especially have thought about this now as I deal with people's losses in their homes, sheds, barns and on their properties.  So it's kinda on my mind as of late.  Sadly we haven't developed the science just yet in real life to switch how these items look or feel to make them like the old one.  I think we better get started on learning how to use the spell Prestidigitaion.  Because at least for a while that might be the only way to do it. 

    To be fair, in the long run, it's only stuff, and shouldn't really be used to define ourselves.  But I know with today's society and the way was work, we definitely DO let our stuff become a part of us.  Some of it being much more important then it aught to be.  I sometimes think about just getting rid of everything and starting over.  But then I think about all of the gold I have spent at the vendors of life on everything and just can't do it.  But hey, at least it's a thought that happens.  Something I challenge each person to do is to think about exactly what you could and would give up, what you don't need to live and what you do.  Feel free to let me know if you'd like.  I'm interested to hear what people have to say about it. 

So Many Real Life Mini-quests!

    This week life outside of work is proving to be the busiest week ever!  It's been a WHILE since I've seen this much happening in one week.  It's exciting and been keeping me from being bored that is for sure.  Last night was the first ever Dishcrawl for Pioneer Valley, it was really good.  The restaurants did a great job with the food, and there was walking involved in between so even the copious (for me at least) amounts of food I ate last night didn't seem like as much as it was.  I was returned home, full, and in really good spirits.  Was definitely a very neat quest to go on.  I can't wait to do it again!

    Along with my crazy new quest line here at work this is also the crazy week outside of work. Almost every night this week I've been off doing some mini-quest line, keeping me busy.  It's been nice to not be at home the whole time.  Crazy amounts of things.  I also have Kyranthia coming up this weekend, so I'm excited about that.  That is a baby larp, which I've been helping with since the first event.  I have been writing plot lines, running the bards guild and now I even get to help out with the church of Light.  Should be a good time!  More running around for me!  YAY!  Though this is in quite the literal sense, running around with foam weapons, song books, and bird seed packets to help our players have the best time they can!

    Tonight is going to be the side quest of preparing for this event.  Getting the articles I need for my big quest line, prepping songs for the bards guild to sing and have fun with, because I WILL have a sing along by the fire this event I demand it!  Making sure all my garb and such is clean and ready to go.  Remember which articles of garb I need for which character and basically, getting all the stuff ready.  If I feel ambitious I may even do some baking, as I hear a rumor there's a couple of birthdays for players this weekend and soonish, but I said nothing!  Should be crazy and spastic tonight to prepare.

    It will be a good weekend.  I'm looking forward to it muchly!  Hey if you folks have a free weekend and desire to come out and give us a few hours hitting people with foam weapons or want to come and pay at the door to play, come on out.  The powers that be, LIKE to know ahead of time, but honestly the more the merrier!

    I am also looking forward to the rest of this week, there's some good things in store!  But that may or may not be stories for other days.  Off to the realm of puzzle breaking and deciphering texts as I just got my next missive from the heads of my organization. 

Whaddaya Say We Try That Again huh? Yes, Yes, Yes, Without the Oops

    Today is the day for Pioneer Valley Dishcrawl!  Looking forward to hopefully seeing some of you fine folks out and about tonight as I help my dear friend guiding those who have come out for the fun to the four restaurants to have some choice food from some of Northampton's best!  It's going to be a lot of fun, if you did get a chance to get tickets and come out for this one, don't worry, there will be more opportunity to do so!  So keep an eye out for future events with this! 

    So with every new adventure there are mistakes.  There are trials, and there are things that make us stumble a bit.  Yesterday I failed another perception check.  Granted, it was my first day with this new type puzzle to work my way through and I was thrown to the wolves as it were to figure out this particular thing, with only the clues that I recieved during training on Friday.  So it was definitely a, "it's dangerous out there, here take this" kind of moment on Friday.  Granted the preception check I failed is definitely not a horrible one as it shows that I am in fact decent at this job.  As it left me doing a lot more work then I was supposed to do and seeing their goal is much lower then what I averaged for it when I did the calculations.

    I was sent a missive telling me which particular book I needed to read, translate and appraise (this is a skill I'm currently putting points into with this adventure in my life).  They informed me it would be the first of the two items in the book.  So I sat down, found the book and started into what I thought was the first puzzle.  Which the two were listed top to bottom.  I set to work, reading, translating, appraising the items.  Decoding and trying to finish the puzzle of wits in record time, with no mistakes.  A flaw could very well be a difference between replacing something cherished or not.  I just couldn't take that risk that I could make someone upset like that.

    Now as I went forward, much over the amount of items that were supposed to make up this puzzle, I realized that I had done so.  When I went back to look at the bottom puzzle I realized that in fact, that was the one I was supposed to be fixing.  I sent a missive to my superiors and started on the one I was supposed to be doing.  By the time my work day was done I was just about finished with it.  Proving that I indeed have the stats to do this job.  However, was an amusing thing that I could definitely finish more then they had assigned me first off.  Which is good seeing I was able to get through my first real big hiccup in this new adventure.  Which of course was on my first day, so, it can only get easier and better from here. 

Real Life Level Grinding, About to "Ding!"

    Okay so I apologize for not posting on Friday.  I ended up just putting my nose to the grind and working. Plus they have been liking to give me the bigger more complicated projects the last few days of work.  Perhaps that's because they have been testing me.  As of Friday at 3pm, they actually had me go into training for the next tier of the training.  So I've completed the first tier of the dailies and am now going to be working on the second.  There are only three tiers to get to being fully trained and certified to do what I do.  I'm completely certain that I'll get there and quickly.  In the course of people who've worked for the company there's only been 4 people to make it through all three tiers of the quest to get the achievement, "Fully Trained"  But I plan on being number 5 on that list.  I'm well on my way!

    So I do feel like I'm about to level up in general.  I've been doing the grind and working on things in my life, gold intake and spending, and doing all the dailies / personal story stuff that I needed to do before moving forward.  I'm now in process of fixing a few things AND I feel like I'm in that last bar before I hear the ding, next level!  There's been so many good things going on, and unlocking of achievements in my life lately that it has to be about time.  Between the job bits, and the fact that I'm good at it, and my supervisors have continued to be impressed and tell me so.  Plus I kinda fit in with all of them.  One constantly makes Star Wars or video game references, one has a Wheatley key chain for her key fob to get into the office, one is quiet but when he speaks it's usually encouraging or geeky and the last one is hyper intelligent and likes to be sarcastic and witty.  I get along with them famously!

    There's other parts of my life that seem to be coming into the home stretch for the next level as well.  Thanks to the new job, I'm in process of paying off the CT part of my license issue.  Once that is done I can turn around and save for another car.  Which will be two of my BIGGEST achievements done, that I've been working on.  I'm really excited about it.  I can't wait to have that done and moving forward with all of that.  I have another one that I've been working on for a year, that I WILL talk about eventually, but it's too early as of yet for me to disclose things.  Just know it's more good things and means that I've come a LONG way in the last year.  

    I do feel like I've been at that stage of just too early for one zone but sorta too big for the zone I've been in for a bit now.  So I've been working on all of these things, grinding to get through it all as it were, to complete this level and move forward into the next level and next zone.  For once all this grinding feels like it's finally paying off and just coming together for the next level.  I have plans in place, I have happy things to think about and be on the horizon and life seems to FINALLY be working itself out.  Now I just need to figure out balancing the new job and my writing and I'll be golden!  So now I keep on grinding that last little bit of level to make it to the next step and sneak through the portal to the next one.  Yay!  Wonder what sorts of surprises I'm going to discover there!

    Also I wanted to remind people, that tomorrow night in Northampton, MA, we have our first EVER Pioneer Valley Dishcrawl!  Going to be a blast, good food, good company and fun times walking about Northampton discovering some of the great restaurants they have!  If you haven't you should totally get your tickets today, as I think we have a few left.  I am going to be one of the "guides" to get you from place to place and I'm SO looking forward to the fun!  So please, come on out, enjoy the food, fun and company and who knows maybe you'll find your new favorite restaurant in the process! 

Finding Their Precious'

    Today has been another busy day on the net.  Cracking the codes, which I do seem to keep getting the harder ones, yay for challenges.  Rolling my computers + enigma's to get through each project and keep myself moving forward.  I have a feeling that once I'm taking calls it will be a different story as to the challenge all together.  Seeing I do have a pretty good memory to start with and I actually am ok at listening.  So that is ahead.  I will still have have to use all of my net running skills to look up items / prices and break some of the codes that get sent to me.  But I'm looking forward to what's ahead.

    Though today has been crazy as I've had a particular project that I just can't seem to break the code and get through it.  It shouldn't be giving me this much problem, but alas, it is.  At least I have my next project lined up for this afternoon and I'm ALMOST done with it.  A lot of it is having to work my way through the codes and look up the items so that I can find out what they are talking about.  As this person's encryption is vast and filled with many traps like misspelled words, incorrect grammar, or things that just don't exist even in my digging and searching, it's been taking me a bit.  Thankfully the stress from that will be releaved the instant I am done and move onto my next project.  Just been working on it a long time today. 

    It's interesting to learn about people in this job.  You really can tell a lot about someone with what they see as important to them.  When I'm deciphering the codes and figuing it out, I'm always amused to find people with similar things that they would deem as needing to be replaced.  I mean most of the projects that I've been dealing with have been from people who have ALL of the gold achievements in real life.  Because WOW, I don't know as though I could EVER horde as much gold as they have.  I swear I'm breaking codes dealing with dragon's things.  But I have been finding every now and again I'll find one person, who will put down that he or she has lost their superhero ation figures, comic books, movies, video games or some other such geeky type thing.  When I come across those folks it always makes me stop and wonder if I actually do know them, and to have a moment of sad that they've lost all of these things which would also be important to me. 

    So now I go back to the ONE project that seems to be taking me all day and hope that I get to go out and dance tonight to releave all the stressiness that seems to be eating away at my shoulders due to not getting more then this done today.  I've been able to get my speed up and have a good and steady pace until this particular thing.  So I'm pretty sure they can't fault me for this one.  At least I know that I'm doing a decent job at it as no news is good news on my projects and I haven't gotten a lot back.  So yay for doing well!

This Princess is for Another Castle!

    Anyone who has known me for more then the past few months can tell you that life hasn't always been kind.  For whatever reasoning, the "GM" of the universe has seen fit to have me have a lot of horrible encounters over the course of my life.  Things I usually just make my checks and push through.  Again, it goes along with one of my superpowers being my resilience in life.  Things I just don't bring up due to not wanting people to worry, think I'm complaining or feel badly for me, and that is just not what I want AT ALL.  I am okay, lately actually I've been stronger and happier then ever despite some of the leftover stupid, badness and crazy that's been going on.  My life has started moving in a better direction and there have been SOME happier things going on.

    Lately I've been dealing with a named Champion, if people remember my references of Champion's from GW2, or in other game's terms a rare spawn / mini-boss.  I have started refering to said person as Captain Mosquito.  Despite all of my skills to avoid aggro lately, I have somehow captured ALL of the attention of this person.  Despite repeated spells with verbal components to tell him to go away, he just hasn't.  I have been using my air spells to try and push him back, with verbals of course, I have told him I'm not interested, not going to have a fling with him, and in general he needs to back off.  I receive messages from him EVERY day, trying to get me to see him, spend time with him, go out with him, informing me how much interest he has in me and in general wanting me to reciprocate the interest he has shown in me.  To the point of being me finally switching to fire and telling him off.  Which STILL doesn't work most of the time.  So I ignore him and try to hide from the fact that I get so many messages every day from this person.  

    Now I understand that slow, steady and persistent wins the race, but I assure you, I am no race.  I understand that I am an okay looking, geeky, gamer chick, but I am not a prize to be won.  If I have informed you to go away, do so.  I know I've babbled about all this before.  But it has been frustrating me to no end that this person WON'T listen to what I've said and just let me be.  I've aggro'd him, but I've also been honest, clear and undesirous of his OVERWHELMING amounts of attention.  As a good friend once said about a situation that he was dealing with, this person is a class 5 clinger.  Though I did nothing but be nice at first, to warrant such attentions.  It has gotten to a point where I'm tempted to tell him to come out, and then invite all of my "tanky" friends over at the same time so THEY can tell him what he hasn't been hearing from me right along.

    Again, I'm not complaining about attention (anyone who tells you they HATE positive, individual attention, even if it makes them blushy and hidey is broken) and the fact I have aggro'd attention from someone.  I'm not complaining that someone has decided that I am his Princess, I just wish I could go to another castle and have him search for a different princess.  I'm not Peach, I'm Daisy (kudos to you if you get the reference) darn it!!  I am NOT the prize for him to rescue, take home and keep forever, as a few in my past have wanted to.  I am my own, I am happy being that for a while longer, and I'd LOVE for him to listen to the verbal's on the spells I'm casting in his direction as it hasn't been just because I feel like wasting my spells on a named, spawn who seems to be rhino hiding his way through life.  Because I can't seem to get through his barrier of "Immune."

Cracking the Codes, Roll Computers!

    Sorry this is later then normal today, we had a fire alarm this morning for half and hour and threw off my entire day somewhat.  So needless to say it's been a day of playing catch up and getting all my stuff done as quickly as possible.  It seems like they're finally giving me the challanging codes to break.  Because I am actually having to use my brain, memory and roll my ciphers on the codes I'm needing to finish my projects and move forward.  I'm kinda ok with this.  I mean anyone who's known me for longer then perhaps a month or two would know how much I love a challenge.  It's not something I've had for a WHILE and it's great!

    It is really helping me feeling like I'm using the points that my natural character sheet has in intelligence.  I knew they were there, it's just been a while since I've had a job or something I've done every day where I used them.  It's definitely a nice and fun thing.  So often I find myself dumbing down what I'm saying or doing, as I don't like to confuse people.  Lots of things go on in my head that I just don't say because I'm pretty sure that most wouldn't comprehend either how I got to that thought, the thought itself or where I'm going with it.  Plus you know, by the time I say something I'm usually about 3 thoughts ahead of where I was.  So often times, I just stay quiet or dumb it down.  I don't want to force people around me to be constantly making intelligence checks or believing that I'm the crazy that needs to be put away.  Because last I checked, I'm crazy, but not PSYCHO!

    So despite being challenged, I've been facing each one and making my rolls.  Now that I'm in my second week, I've only been informed I did something wrong on 3 of the codes that I've been breaking out of about 20 or more that I've been given.  Not a HORRIBLE ratio, especially seeing I'm still new.  They are pretty sure I'll be ready to move my desk and up in my decoding skills by the end of this week.  It is still reminding me of netrunning in a cyberpunk game, which is great.  As I seem to do EVEN better when I can equate the things I'm doing to something gamer like. 

    I'm happy to report that after a full week and now nearly halfway into my second week, I think this is a good place for me for this oncoming time in my life.  No worries dear readers, it's not going to get in the way of me writing here, nor writing my novels.  Nor for those who I know in real life, is it going to get in the way of me seeing people.  So here goes, the clicking of the netrunning keyboard as I crack each code with even more vigor!

I Aint Afraid of No Rain!

    This past weekend we had a decent amount of rain.  I happen to be someone who loves the rain.  I love he sound, I love to watch it fall down.  I love sleeping during it and I actually do love to walk in it.  It's relaxing, peaceful, allows me to come back from that walking feeling refreshed and better then I have in a little while.  It's a nice feeling, so needless to say, when I went out for walks twice on Saturday it was a great thing!  There was enough raininess to make me feel so very smiley and happy afterwards.  Might be a bit of a weird thing, but the person who calls me normal is a liar and well, we all have our quirks!  It's what makes each of our real life character sheets a slight bit different and it's completely a good thing!

    As I was walking in the rain I was reminded of a couple of larp events I have gone to in the past.  No one has EVER been able to say I hide from the rain at larps.  Now I know there are other's out there, however in my experience, if it's rainy, downpouring or snowing, people tend to hide away from the weather.  It's not a thing I usually do, unless I'm sick, because then it's a whole different ball game, silly low constitution scores!  These event were no different because I refuse to let the weather take away my fun.

      The first time that I tend to think about, I was an NPC.   Playing a dryad, which if you don't know the lore on those, are pretty much one with the trees.  NO hippy jokes, or else!  As this character I was more of a druid or ranger then anything else I suppose and quite a bit of fun to play.  I was originally sent out as part of a plot for woodsy type people.  Trying to hook them onto becoming part of a clan of fae type creatures who lived in the local area of the town.  As this character and adding the fact it was me playing her.  I became well liked and got to go out attempting to help further the plot even more.  It was especially helpful for those who wrote the plot, they knew I was responsible, likeable and knew the plot line well enough to send me out when they couldn't. 

    Also I might add, this as this particular character I was green on ALL showing skin, so that made things interesting as well.  Despite having been in theater for YEARS. my years of NPCing and larping did more to help me gain MANY skill points in disguise, costuming and make-up.  Which helps immensely with my cos-play and costuming now.  One of my favorite things I have found is barrier spray!  Let me tell you if you do costuming with make-up at all, invest in this stuff, it's AMAZING!

    The one thing I did emphasize was the fact I didn't like buildings.  They were made of dead friends and trees which my sister's were connected to.  Yes, yes I know it sounds VERY hippy like, but shh, DRYAD!  So there was one particular event, where it was rainy almost the entire weekend.  Covered in green make-up almost from head to toe, I put on my smiles, and wandered into town to help with this plot.  Wandering near, but not into the tavern, I spent a good couple of hours taunting some of the other folks who were hiding.  By the time I was done, I had a lot of the townsfolk laughing hysterically and had even convinced some of them that, "they needed watering so they should come out and play in the puddles with me."  Was a fantastic time. 

    The second time that comes to mind was for one of the games I play.  There when I am able to go, I play a little Cleric of Radiance.  I had just had a VERY charged weekend, where I'd been chosen by my Avatar, "The Voice of Radiance" and helped defeate a big bad in that particular plot.  Might I add this was my VERY FIRST event as this character.  But it had been amazing!  I LOVE it at larps when I barely have a moment of rest, and this had definitely been one of those events.  This was Sunday morning and lots of the folks were tired, plus it was truly downpouring.  But as people hid in the tavern, we were attacked by dragon looking baddies.  Most of the folks hid in the door way to the tavern, fighting from there.

    However myself and about 5 others, out of the 60 or so players who were inside the tavern, PUSHED the front line outside and into the pouring rain.  I WASN'T going to hide inside and let them take us!  As it went on, it ended up being me fighting along side these 5 others, yelling out to keep the line together!  Was exhillerating and SO MUCH FUN.  After a while I couldn't even tell it was raining any longer because I was just having a blast, helping the brave few push the evil away and help to save those hiding from the pouring rain in the tavern.  It felt great all of us who were outside came back in after smiling and happy, people thanking us for pulling our "crazy antics"!

    Needless to say, it just shows that when I do something I go ALL out.  No holding back, all or nothing.  As I am having my fun I do my very best to take other's with me and help with them having the best possible time I can as well.  Thanks to my charisma scores it usually works pretty well.  I guess it's in my nature to try and help people where I can, even if it's just to stop being afraid of the rain and come out to have fun!  But again, it's one of my merits / flaws, honestly with that one not sure which it is, maybe both?  

   

Botching Real Life Dice Rolls, Oops!

    Occasionally I fail my own perception check and forget that those who're not part of my crew, may not always understand the way I show affection to those who I am close to.  When I tell someone I miss them, it's not always because, I'm being obsessive and clingy, or chasing after them.  Generally it's just because I genuinely miss them being part of the antics and quest, whether mini-conversation quests in the bigger quest.  Which happened a lot last night while I was out completing my weekly of "Dance at Riot," or part of the biggest personal quest of "Living Life." 

    One roll of the dice with how affectionate I am with my close friends definitely has lead to times where people thought I was like that with everyone and got TOO touchy feely.  Thinking that they too could be flirty, cuddly, and have me be the same in return.  Or I have had people believe that I am interested in them, and decided to try and take it TOO far.  Becoming one of the creatures that I have mentioned in previous posts.  Getting to the point when I had to use my dps skills or in a few cases pull in one of my tanky friends to get make them BACK OFF!!  They lead me to wonder how low their perception checks truly are.  Because if my honesty skill doesn't damage them enough to go away, and I HAVE to bring in a tank, lets just say those must be some thick skulls.  While great for fights with things that knock you down and make you hit your head, not so good for dealing with people like me. 

    The other dice roll that I have encountered with that, is people have believed that I was VERY interested in them, too attached or chasing them myself.  Which I'm pretty sure, if I were truly interested, they would know it.  I mean I only have a level or two of rogue, so I'm still not the best at hiding some of my feelings, especially for happier things.  I've come a LONG way on that, but then, we all have our Merits and Flaws.  Granted I have MOSTLY tended to be interested in people I'm already friends with in the past, but still, THEY'D have to not pass any checks with perception or alerteness EVER! 

    I am thinking I MAY have had the second dice roll happen recently.  I had messaged a friend to ask why they weren't out at our weekly "Dance at Riot" run, as he'd been showing up quite a bit before that.  He had stuff come up, so wasn't a big deal, and I told him that he was missed.  I added that I at least missed him, he played it cool and let me know he'd be around.  Now I haven't seen or heard from said friend since.  I was a little saddened by this.  It was not meant to be needy or sound like I was making chase of him.  Nor was it meant to sound like I was playing games with him.  I hope I'm completely off base on this, but it was really convenient that it all happened RIGHT after that comment.

    If that is what happened, well I've been giving some time to show, hey, wasn't my intention.  But either way, it's kinda sadness that my friend hasn't been around.  But hey, just have to remember that sometimes the way I am with some people is not how I am with others.  Just see how the dice rolls from now on. 

Real Life Quest Lines, Rolling the Dice to See What's Next!

   So far this week, I have shocked my higher ups in the organization with how quickly I've been able to get everything done for them.  I'm already breaking codes left and right in this new job.  I seem to even have gone above and beyond what I needed to get done with my projects in speed, accuracy and figuring out the information they need.  I do believe that I have rolled well with finding this chance and moving forward on this personal quest here.  Apparently they're not used to people who have the points in Intelligence, Computer Use and Enigma's that I have.  As they've been very surprised.  When I started 2 days ago I was told after I get to 5 projects with 95% accuracy or more I'd be trained for the next tier of my job.  Well I finished that last night.  This morning I was already given two lets call them codes to break, and I did that in an hour.  Oops, I THINK I might be in the right place for right now.

    So that is going well.  Other things in my life, are on hold while I accrue money for one of the achievement's I'm working on.  I am still on the mend as far as my emotions and feelings towards finding a partner to share things with, I might get there sometime in the nearish future, but I'm SO not there yet.  Do I miss having someone there?  Sometimes, but I've honestly been able to do what I need to do without worrying about checking in with someone, or having to make diplomacy checks on something that I "did wrong."  I've been able to pay attention to EVERYTHING that I need to put more dots into, fix in order to complete a personal quest or just in general be alive, and happy by myself.  Because I really don't want to bring the past baggage forward if and when I do decide that I'm ready to move on, on that front.

    Has that made the puppies, mosquitoes, skunks and other "creatures" stop pursuing?  Not so much!  I guess when you, as people like to tell me, have a decent real life character sheet, it happens.  Plus I'm nice, sometimes too much.  So that doesn't help.  There have been a few times recently that I have had to call in some of my friends who're of the tanky variety, which I love!  They're SUPER helpful in those instances and it makes me REALLY glad that they're as protective of me as I am of them.  I mean after all, I'm either heals or dps primarily so sometimes I agro EVERYTHING or EVERYONE too much.  But it is how it works sometimes.  Needless to say it keeps me on my toes and practicing my skills all the time! 

    I can say that my personal adventure has been somewhat crazy at times, but so far it's allowed me to become who I am today.  Which all in all, I don't really see that as a bad thing.  I'm kinda starting to like who I am, what I've become and where things are heading in my life.  Weird huh?  Definitely not the same girl I was even 6 months ago, much less 13+ years ago when I first started to come out of my shell.  I'm now ok with making my mistakes, I'm ok with just living and both finding the path I want and seeing if they fit with where I feel I should be.  Life I'm pretty sure is on it's way to better.  Still trials and things to overcome in front of me, still things that bog me down.  But with some hard work and some allowing myself to breath I think those things will be behind me in no time!  Also, yes, I know I'm annoyingly optimistic, but it's nice to be back! 

Real Life Enigma Checks

    So now that I'm on my second day here at the "New job of shininess" I have been having all sorts of numbers and facts going through my brain.  Due to the nature of this job I feel like I went from a fantasy style dungeon at the last job to a sci-fi based netrunner position.  Lots of on the web and going on's.  Fun stuff!  I am learning a lot about the encrypted languages of insurance adjusters and agents.  Figuring out what they are trying to say, even when I can't read it due to HORRIBLE hand writing.

    Hacking my way through each day with the codes and numbers I'm entering.  It's definitely been keeping me busy and on my toes!!  Rolling my skills of computer use to make it through my projects.  The co-workers in my department all buzzing away on their own netrunning projects.  Breaking the code that is each adjuster's handwriting or typing as the case may be.  Or sometimes they are even listening in to what the adjusters have said.  Which I'm actually on my way to doing as well.  I'm on my 5th project I need in order to get past to the next level of training.

    Now on one of my 15 minute breaks (I FINALLY get those now!!).  I am standing in one of our conference rooms watching the storm overhead.  It feels like walking from my net runner desk and area to a high palace tower to look out over the area!  Shiny!  Granted it is in the middle of the city here, BUT it's still gorgeous!  I love watching the power and beauty of the storm coming in or floating over head.  Letting us know that nature is INDEED still more powerful then us.  At least until someone with the power over weather is discovered as a super power.  But I don't think we've found that person yet.  *shakes fist at Storm from the X-Men* (yes she is my LEAST favorite female X-Men).

    I'm looking forward to the potential future netrunning, rolling well on my enigmas checks and getting to know my fellow employees here.  Tonight I leave at 4:30 to be collected by my friend who is the afforementioned person who runs Pioneer Valley Dishcrawl (she still has an event coming up, and you all should get tickets and come out because it's going to be tasty, fun and did I mention fun?), and head out for another evening of watching Iron Man 3 and general good geeky company!!  Yay!!  Should be a fantastic night!

    So as I head back to work for my last little bit of time here today.  Let me ask, what places make you feel like you're in a palace? 

   

First Day of Real Life Dailies!

    So far the first day of the new adventure is going well!!  I have been sent to eat my provisions and it is a very good feel to the place!  It is a bit of a labyrinth right now but I am pretty sure I have enough points on my real life character sheet that I can learn this maze by heart. 

    This seems like a place that I could really find a good quest line for life right now.  I will have a little less access to some of my regular daily quests, but I will be kept busy so, I think that will be ok.  By the end of the day I will be thrown in the fray to actually do the work in my first tier of the achievement of non-temporary employee! 

    All of the "Champion's" (i.e. mini-world bosses) seem to be happy to have me here and think that I will earn that achievement no problem!  I think I might like it here!!  Time will tell for sure as to how this quest goes, but so far so good!!

    Edit: first day down!  Looks like this maybe what I need to reach my other achievements that I need to reach coming up soon!!  I am happy to say thatI iimpressed people today with my skills in computers and typing.  I am definitely the new girl in the place but everyone actually seems happy to be there and they all were eager to introduce themselves to me and help me get acclimated to my new quest!!  The only thing I need to do is put more points into decifering hand writing as I am already dealing with hand written things which I have stared at for a moment or two before figuring out what it was I was looking at.  

[ Ctrl L] Next Up in the Real Life Quest Log

    Today is the last day of my mini-vacation in between the dungeon that was my old job and my new personal quest that starts tomorrow.  Let me say how excited I am about this.  I'm looking forward to adding points to my real life character sheet in new skills, meeting new people that I'll be going forward on this quest with and to finally have things start turning around.  Very well could be the start of a great adventure for me.

    Was a relatively busy weekend filled with lots of geekiness and shiny things.  Especially Saturday, we had free comic books and finding a great new comic store down in Enfield, CT (though MY store is still Modern Myths up in Northampton, MA) had fun with friends seeing Iron Man 3 for the first time while in the theater, which I'm seeing it again with other friends on Wednesday and Saturday night heading out to support my brother-in-law and a couple of my friends band, C.A. Jones!  Fun times indeed.  Though by the time I got to the show I felt like I was going to fall over from tiredness.

    Ever have one of those times, when you're out at something you should be having fun and awake enough for and you just can't wake up.  That was me on Saturday night.  I think I really need to start making my spell craft checks, because the way it felt, I swear someone had put a sleep spell on me.  It did not stop me from finding humor in some of the other ladies there.  As the night progressed we ended up with many "hehe girls" showing up.  One group was failing their diplomacy checks with the band, by rolling their eyes and sighing when the band didn't know how to play something.  Another group had three drinks and started being loud obnoxious and failing ALL of their performance checks with both singing and dancing.  Needless to say my sister and I couldn't help but laugh.  Then there was one particular girl who was rolling to seduce EVERY guy there EXCEPT her boyfriend, sadly we watched that blow up in front of us later on in the evening, though somehow she seemed to manage to convince her boyfriend that it didn't mean anything and she completely loved him.  I'm a charismatic, flirtatious, cuddly with my good friends person and even I was blinking at some of the "moves" she was pulling.

    It was amusing to watch the faces of the band members with all these crazy women about.  When the singing began half of them tried not to laugh and the others were doing their best to hide their cringing at the pain that was being inflicted on their ears.  It was almost as if they were being assaulted with a sonic attack of some sort, some had resistances and some didn't.  I was amused.  The ones who failed their diplomacy checks eventually ended up leaving after much eye rolling and attitude towards the band.  Where the seductress just kept up her snares and even tried to play her charms on one of the band members.  I felt bad for her boyfriend watching all of this.  It really just kept making the song "Stupid Girls" by Pink go over and over in my head.  When I mentioned this to the band, they laughed and informed me they didn't have that one in their song lists sadly.  I would have fallen over laughing if they had and had indeed did that one.

    So now I have had a few days off, to get rid of the ick and stressiness after the long hard battle with the dungeon and await the morning so I can wake up, choose my spells and get going on this next endeavor in life.  Because of my hours and the fact I'm not sure I'll be able to update as early as I had been at the dungeon, I'm taking this as the start of my posting in the evenings, as I SHOULD be home before this time every day from now on.  So here we go, time to buckle in and set up for blast off!  Yay!

Meanwhile Back in the Real Life Gamingness!

    I know, super late on the post today, I've had a busy busy day.  Was informed this morning at court that I have one more tier in order to gain the Achievement I was looking for, but that is completely ok.  I have two months to spend all the gold I need to spend to get the title "Massachusetts License Holder" which should very do-able.  I was also happy to spend a bit of time around town visiting various establishments to procure items I needed for future quests.  Was a good morning.

    So before I get going today (for my last post until Monday) I wanted to mention something as it is coming up and it will be a fun night filled with good food and perhaps discovering some new great restaurants if you live in the Pioneer Valley.  I know I have mentioned my friend who owns Strange Child Productions, and runs Pioneer Valley Dishcrawl, I wanted to let you know about her next event!  Dishcrawl Event!  or for those on Facebook, (I know a LOT of you have them), May 21st!  I know it's a Tuesday night, I know it's $45 but you know, you get food from not one but FOUR really good restaurants in Northampton, MA.  Plus you know, as of today, it seems as though you could even come hang out with me as I was asked to be one of the tour guides for the event!!  I can tell you it'll be fun, tasty and quite worth it!  *bats eyelashes and gives best kitty or puppy eyes, whichever works better*  I am DEFINITELY looking forward to this event and I hope to see you all there as well!

    Now that I've shown my excitement over all that, lets get back to the real life gamingness!  As you all know yesterday I completed the dungeon at work.  I beat the boss, the adds and made it through the day with victory fanfare in my head.  Was a good day!  NOW I expected there to be a giant final boss battle with lots of bad verbal spell casting and the feelings of one last wipe before I left for the day with my head held high.  However that was not what I received.  I DID receive good luck wishes, people telling me they'd miss me and even the boss seemed to realize that I had finally beat him as he was nice to me and told me I'd do well at the new job.  I was in shock.  For the first time in MONTHS he was pleasant and seemed to relent to the fact that I made far more successes on my dice rolls then he had the entire time I was there.

   After that I KNEW I had won!  I knew he had realized that my real life character sheet has WAY more dots in intelligence then he gave me credit for, I DO have lots of diplomacy and perhaps I was worth more then he had given me credit for.  It was a nice validation for the months of wipes and having to leave the dungeon before beating the battle I'd had.  I left work yesterday with my head held high and a huge smile on my face.  I now have a whole long weekend to relax, have fun and oh...did I mention I'M GOING TO SEE IRON MAN 3 tomorrow AND again on Wednesday?  Because I am!  SUPER EXCITED!!!!  On that note, I wish you all many great adventures this weekend and LOTS of fun.  If you're bored and know me in real life and want to do something between now and Monday night, let me know!  I'm dancing around to LOTS of victory fanfare this weekend!

Dungeon Complete! Beating the Real Life Boss Fight!

    As of 5pm today I will finally have wiped on this particular dungeon for the last time, I will have beaten this boss fight and gain the Achievement of completing the quests for this place and FINALLY downing the boss and his adds!  I start the next part of my personal quest line on Tuesday!  So I even have some downtime this weekend to refresh my spells, and celebrate my victory!  I have seriously had a case of smiling since my interview yesterday morning and I am glad to be done!  If you couldn't tell, I'm pretty excited about all of this and am absolutely excited about my forward move to better things!

    Some of you might remember that earlier in the week I said that I had two hopes of achievements this week.  Tomorrow I face my second one which has been in the way on the way to yet another title in life.  I have been dealing with a battle with license and car stuff since December.  A ticket I never received caused my license to be suspended in December.  Now I had no idea, and was pulled over for a light that I had just replaced ending up out again.  From that point they actually arrested me, put me in a holding cell for the night until the person who takes the bail payments for the town was awake at 5am.  From that point there have been several court dates, finding out that my CT license was suspended so I had to fix that first (which took forever to hear back from them regarding this, sill people not having messengers that I can speak with on hand).

    Now the first achievement will be helping with the second.  I finally had a break in my attempts at finding out their story quest line a little bit ago.  I found out how much gold it was going to cost me to start to fix the problem.  I still couldn't start doing that yet as it would take a couple of weeks saving to do it.  However I did finally find out.  Now that I will be getting more hours and at a better rate of pay, I can finally start the process of fixing all of this.  The achievement I'm hoping for tomorrow is that it will be the last time I have to traverse to court and all will be wiped from my record as I am attempting to fix it all.  This was the agreement that I was given the last day I had gone to court.

    As I have said, this has been a LONG winter filled with lots of crazy, stupid and badness.  Things are finally starting to work themselves out.  Now if I can just get through my quest tomorrow and get the achievement for that, I'll be well on my way to the change that I've been waiting for.  I'm hopeful and I am pretty sure I hear that victory fanfare coming!  Just have to make sure when I pick my spells in the morning I make sure to add a "good luck" spell to my repertoire and cast it on myself.  For tonight I'm HOPING to get out to our local night of dancing and fun to celebrate with some of the people I care about most!  Because these things that are happening, are things that are worth celebrating!

   

Come On, Just One More Daily

    So I want to start out by talking about the fact today is Beltane/Walpurgis Night/May Day and various other names that this day has acquired over history.  This day in history was celebrated as somewhat of the beginning of summer and warmer weather in the Northern Hemisphere of the world.  It has become a lot of other things in more recent times, however it's essentially all about growth, seasons changing, flowers and in many cases fire.  Warmth and light returning.  Things coming back to life, or beginning a new life.  Generally it's celebrated with a lot of reckless abandon, fires, May Poles and well things I won't discuss on here as I try to run a "clean game" I'm pretty sure you can roll a perception check to figure out what I'm talking about.  Even if you don't celebrate it as such, for some reason the first of May is just FILLED with some sort of energy, it's as if life has returned and it has realized that the Winter Queen has indeed finally relinquished her crown to her sister (yeah ok, I like fae things deal, I have to prove I'm girly sometimes).  It's really somewhat amazing and I love it!

    I'm pretty sure that between the fact that today is Beltane, all the Charisma rolls I'd saved up and made the last couple of days AND perhaps I someone cast a "Good Luck" spell on me, I didn't roll my spellcraft check this morning to see, that it has all paid off.  My interview this morning went AMAZINGLY WELL!!!! This is a job I would be able to succeed at, the HR lady liked me a LOT AND the employees don't look unhappy and miserable working there.  It'd be a new part of my personal quest like that I believe I would be VERY successful in completing and enjoy doing the daily for said quest each day.  Not just because I HAVE to be there or do it.  It also seems that the reward amount for completing each quest daily is going to be a really good source of gold coming in.  Which is something I haven't had in a WHILE!

    Generally in my experience when the person you're interviewing with informs you that they're double checking your test scores (I had to take some preliminary tests for this position), but she was pretty sure that I scored VERY high.  Then getting back to your "handler"  at the Temp Agency you found the job through today (it's a Temp-to-hire and after 10 weeks if I do well they'll offer to hire me on as a full employee rather then through the temp agency, so I'm not worried).  That she may even be able to have me start as soon as next week, it's a REALLY good sign.  It could very well mean tomorrow I will finally be able to beat this boss and get the achievement of dungeon complete!

    Now I'm sitting here at my desk knowing that soon I will hear the ding and will have the "Achievement Unlocked" Full Time Job! flash on my screen (well I'll imagine it anyway).  Which will come with the title of The Job Seeker!  Filled with the giddiness that I've accomplished something good today on one of my

favorite days of the year!  So with that....