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January 26, 2004

Changing the way I play FFXI

Okay, I'm changing the way I play FFXI.

Up until this point, I have been playing FFXI like everyone else has. I've been devoting my time to leveling and been doing other things on the side. Since my only real play time is on the weekend, I can't possibly keep up with those who have more time to play than I do. So, I thought about it and decided that maybe leveling isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

Instead, I'm going to work on gardening and craft skills. I've even developed a method that will bring me in roughly 28,200 gil per harvest. While I know that this is chump change to most higher levels, this is a rather big deal to me. I've been wanting to increase my crafting levels for quite some time, and now I've decided that this is the way that I'm going to play the game. After all, the game isn't going anywhere ... I can level anytime.

So wish me luck. I'm hoping to have about 300k gil saved up in a matter of a few weeks. Looks like it'll take me about 11 harvests to get to that point. No matter, as I can generally harvest twice in a week. I'll be where I want to be in roughly 5 weeks. If I want to spend a few more dollars per month, I can lower the amount of harvests. However, the real problem is getting the capital up to get myself to the level of getting everything setup. I'm looking at about 14200 total initial investment.

Posted by ed at 10:34 PM | Comments (0)

January 25, 2004

Crossover Office ...

... rules my world at the moment.

Posted by ed at 09:38 PM | Comments (0)

It's pouring buckets of ice

I'm looking out the window at the moment. The ground is white and completely covered, but it's not snow. It's been raining ice since I got up this morning. As a matter of fact, it's what woke me up in the first place, hearing the ice pelting against the window. It was loud and constant. I can't sleep if there's noise, so I made myself get up.

I'm glad, however, that it isn't freezing rain that's coming down. The stuff that's hitting now is already frozen in small round balls. I hate freezing rain, it always ends up being so damn destructive. I have a good story of being stuck in a freezing rain storm too.

It was either later 1996 or early 1997 (can't really remember), but it was winter and damn cold. Out of nowhere it seems, this winter storm hits ... bringing with it freezing rain. At the time I was living in Frankfort, in my parent's house by myself. I remember that the heat went out for some reason and I was friggin freezing, in addition to there being this freezing rain storm outside. My only comfort was my Internet connection.

Well, later into the afternoon, I started hearing noises that I've never heard before. Loud moaning and groaning kinda noises, followed by a breaking noise, which was followed by a loud BOOM. Come to find out, the trees in the back yard were giving in under the weight of the freezing rain. Tree limbs were coming down left and right ... and we're not talking little branches here either. I'm talking BIG ASS HUGE LIMBS. So, these branches made me nervous, but I felt rather okay in the house ... until I heard a HUGE booming noise. Come to find out, one of the branches landed on top of the roof and ended up causing quite a bit of damage.

It ended up taking the neighbor to come over and using a chainsaw to remove all of the branches, after the storm had passed ... of course. There was alot of wood there, and I think we ended up making them into firewood for someone, but can't remember who though. Another memory that I have is going onto the road in front of the house and sliding up and down the street with Darren ... and just having a blast doing it.

Posted by ed at 02:28 PM | Comments (0)

January 22, 2004

I need to play FFXI more

Amanda has reached level 24, which is the same level I am. She's been playing for about a month. I've been playing since November.

Guess I need to work on my leveling instead of making my virtual garden grow.

Speaking of virtual gardens, I have 4 plants growing in my Mog House at the moment. I'm hoping to come in tomorrow and will be able to harvest them on Iceday. My goal is to aquire as many Wind crystals as I possibly can. It's almost rediculous to get crystals in this damn game, so I've had to resort to planting grain seeds to get me some.

There HAS to be an easier way to make gil in FFXI. I'm sure there is, but the people that know about it aren't going to tell anyone ... that I'm sure.

Regardless, I really need to bring my craft levels up. I'm doing well in both fishing and woodworking, and have a few levels in bonecraft and now smithing (thanks to making a shield ... brought it up to level 1 in one try). It's just simply amazing the things that you have to do to bring up your craft levels. I'm sure that Square made the game this way so that you'll have to play forever in order to achieve your goals, which in turn means paying the monthly fee and giving them more money.

Hell, I'd almost pay real money for gil ... but I'm not going to.

Posted by ed at 09:04 PM | Comments (0)

January 21, 2004

First day back from time off

Yesterday truely sucked.

I had taken the Friday before off, and since Monday was MLK Jr. holiday, I had a four day weekend. I paid for that weekend on Tuesday however, as all hell decided to break loose.

First, the main phone line wouldn't receive calls. If you called the line, it immediately hung up on you. This was from both inside and outside the building. Turns out, when the system was programmed back in August, someone messed up the holiday schedule and put MLK Jr. holiday as being on the 20th instead of the 19th. To make it worse, there was supposed to have been a holiday greeting recorded, but wasn't. The system was directed to go to the holiday greeting, then immediately hang up after the greeting had completed. Since there was no greeting, the system immediately hung up the phone. Bleh.

Second, I came back to all kinds of problems with all kinds of equipment. I had a few servers that were buzzing in the server room that required a restart. There were just quirky things all over the building yesterday. Some of those problems have continued into today. If I didn't know any better, I'd almost swear that we had some kind of power hit over the weekend that's causing all of these problems.

Bleh ... gotta run, I'll continue later.

Posted by ed at 09:49 AM | Comments (0)

January 11, 2004

... And It Goeth

The move of the sales department is done. Finally. Caput.

We started the move exactly at 5:30pm on Friday, and unfortunately, left the station at midnight with 5 offices remaining. We would've stayed and gotten all of the offices fixed, however there were no desks in place to put anything on. As a result, Kyle and I had to come back in on Saturday and stay for about 2 more hours.

I'm pleased to say that everything worked out brilliantly. The network is nice and fast, and a vast improvement from the bottleneck that was the first floor. Now that sales is back up to their own private switch on the 2nd floor, the rest of the building should see an improvement on their network connections. Also, the phone system worked out without a hitch. Our adaptors used to extend a single plug into 4 phone lines worked very well. There's at least 2 offices and 1 cube that uses this configuration, and I think that it's going to prove to be one of the smartest moves made thus far.

Now, what remains to be seen is what happens tomorrow. I'm just waiting for that first phone call on Monday morning saying "my [insert item here] doesn't work!" Of course, that'd be a bunch of bull, as Kyle and I both thoroughly tested every single phone and network line in the sales area multiple times. I just know that will happen though. Odds are most of the calls I'll get are "I don't like where this is, it needs to be over here" and I'll have to end up moving something stupid.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Wish me luck for tomorrow.

Posted by ed at 07:42 PM | Comments (0)

January 07, 2004

The Big Move Commeth

Well, the renovations are officially complete at work, and the sales move-in begins this Friday. Naturally, I'm quite excited, but I'm also dreading the amount of work that this move back will require. I spoke with Kyle during lunch about the move, and we both agreed that if we bust our asses, we can probably get it all done and working by late Friday night.

Granted, I don't like the idea of working Friday night, but it beats the hell out of coming back in on Saturday. I don't care how late we need to be there either. Hell, when we were moving sales to their temporary digs, we were there till 3am. Larry had to pull us out of there because he couldn't stay awake anymore ... so I think we can prolly do what's needed to get the job done.

On another note, I'm really enjoying my new office. I wasn't sure if I would miss the window or not, but now that it's said and done with, I could honestly care less. After all, there is a window right outside of my office that lets in plenty of light during the day, so it's all good. I also must admit that I'm in a situation where I just have too much room. Mind you, I'm not complaining, but the reality is that I was so crammed into my old office that all of my stuff is really spread out and I even have room to spare. Kyle and I have joked that we need to put a couch in the office and hook up the projector to watch movies.

I'm very happy with how this whole renovation project has turned out. Even though I was rushed to make many of the decisions that were made in regards to the infrastructure and ordering necessary items, it all really came off without a hitch. I've been able to add room for growth that will most likely outlast the people that are all there. I'd even probably say that when they do the next round of renovations, there's a good chance that sales won't have outgrown what was already there. The best part is that you can expand every item that the IT department is responsible for with minimal effort.

Time to toot my own horn: I'm a damn good IT manager. I don't care if other people don't agree ... I am a damn good IT manager. I've been able to take the station and completely turn it around within a years time. It's not the same place as when I first started. I owe a large part of my success to great support from those above me, and even more support from Kyle ... who has been there whenever I needed him.

Thanks Kyle.

Posted by ed at 07:37 PM | Comments (0)

January 06, 2004

I'm Not Dead ...

... I've just been really busy.

Posted by ed at 10:53 AM | Comments (0)