Life

So at one point today I was browsing YouTube (during a state enforced break) and found this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPA-LjSIlsM.

Basically it's a vid from a former WoW addict like myself. Now the video isn't much to look at but it, as well as some of the comments, inspired a sort of soul searching that was almost painful.

Keep in mind for the rest of this that this a retrospective, I've been off WoW for a while. I couldn't have written this clearly without a degree of separation.

Most people don't know just exactly how 'in' to the game I was. Normal people play 5-10 hours a week, have a life, a girlfriend, a family, etc :). At my 'prime' I was playing 16 hours a day. The game just wasn't an addiction for me any more...

It was a universe. An existence in which I could escape the reality that I had been handed, or so I thought. In that world I knew I was someone. People respected me, came to me when they had problems or just wanted to talk, and looked to me for leadership. I lived out everything I wanted to be in real life in WoW. I led 40 man raids through dungeons so fast that we set server records, steered guilds from behind and the forefront, acted as a liasion between groups of people and at points, guilds and the list goes on. There was an extreme satisfaction knowing that I had somehow 'changed' things and as a result people would say "Ashenteil/Elenara? Oh I've heard of you!" when they met me.

However, the joke was on me. Over time the social structure of the realm I played on (Thunderlord, represent! :)) started to disintegrate. Many people blamed this on the large numbers of problems our 'hardware' was having (Thunderlord was an older server and the new patches had brought its raiding abilities to a near standstill). People left for other realms, real life and just about any other reason you can think of. The entire structure of the realm changed, guilds, friends lists, etc. Most of the die-hards made it through intact and formed new alliances but the foundation was now fractured.

A lot of what we went through after that break up is still chaotic in my head and as such I find it difficult to explain. Maybe one day I will finally be able to lay out why it all went wrong.

I can't really explain how I finally got back in touch with reality, that is something that continues to elude my contemplation to this day. I know for certain that it involved, in no small part, two people who cared enough to be patient with me while I sorted out a very confused Nick. They encouraged me to NOT stop cold turkey but to keep playing and start investigating the reasons I was playing for. Combined with that advise and continuing shake up of the world (By world I mean Thunderlord and the social structure therin) I was given an 'out', a chance to lay down the staff and step back into reality. It was a small portal, but by that point the choices were slim. The world I had lived in was crumbling and, as a result, so was I.

There's no way to explain how you feel when a world you were so confident was 'yours' just destroys itself around you. Maybe this is how God feels as he watches us destroy this beautiful place he created. It's a horrible, wrenching feeling. You end up rethinking a lot of your previous assumptions. For some the feeling of loss is almost too much to stand.

So that's it; you now know most of the important details of why I lost almost 2 years of contact with the real world. Looking back, I had a lot of good times with a lot of good people. Those of you who read this, I miss you all. You were part of something I will never forget. May you find something real in life to pour all those skills, desires and dreams into that made us what we were in the game.

PS:
Yes I played females in the game, and hush you, they're better looking than guys! ;) Ashenteil was my Night Elf priest and Elenara my human mage. Toward the end I was known more as Ash then Ele (El got retired in mid 2006).

Shoutouts to my UT, KnD and Cheerios people!

Lokes! You were the best mage EVER. Everyone on TL knows it, now get off that inflated gnomish ego and go dance or I shall beat you with the flaming broom! (ooooh!) PS: I miss ninjaing the zepplins with you.
Sai, Zel and Syb - We had a lot of good times. Thanks for being there when I needed to talk things out.
Aver, Zoton, Moon, and Eldo - You guys made KnD. We never did get raiding going but it was fun trying!
Mary and Dave - My late night grinding buddies! Thanks for all the fun you guys, and go get a room already!
Sage - Dude, your fruity pally rocked. Thanks for always buffin' the priest.
Imereth - I have no words. You have seared them out of my head. Kudos to holding the Silver in my 'Damn Dirty Gnome' book (second only to Lokes).
Minipaul - /point /gasp /pat /comfort /punt /giggle
Adel and Pomme - Thanks for the Cheerios experience, it made playing on TL fun for a lot of us, even when the hardware was trying to devour the universe as we knew it. I'll miss our late-night fun Pomme! :)
Ohi - OMG GTFO my damn wagon already! Okay so you're SoL but you still count in my book, good times.
Enkidu - Your rogue rocked, thanks for all the support when UT was struggling.
Omega - We had our differences, but you still tried your hardest and I respect that to this day.

And to the many I probably missed, thank you. Playing with you was awesome and I hope life treats you well!

I would encourage all of you to read this:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E2D9173CF933A15750C0A962958260.

These are the type of people we are trying to put into power over us in the US. Do you REALLY want a man who thinks that schools exist to train 'citizens' or that freedom requires 'the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do' to be in power over you?

Let me put it this way, how would you like to live in the old USSR? This is the type of speech that promotes that type of distorted reality.

Please think before you vote next year! :)

So today I was having a conversation with a co-worker from our Portland office and the following emerged from my fingertips:

"Yes well you don't have to live with me so it's hard for you to see :). I have to live with me see... although I keep trying to get me to move out. I'm getting on my nerves."

I'm sure everyone's had a point in their life where they have thought something close to this.

Well I suppose it would be good to let everyone know what's going on...

Nothing! BWAHAHAHAHA!

Okay in all seriousness now, I really haven't been doing much of note lately other than work :). I'm currently finishing up a large refurb project on quite a few computers I've inherited/bought. When the machines are (finally) finished, I'll have loads of computing power and absolutely no clues what to do with it! :) Actually I have quite a few ideas, I'm just not sure which ones I have time to implement. Also from the house of Power Consumption: I just aquired three SMC 8624T TigerSwitch(es). These switches are fantastic devices and SMC's warranty on them is wonderful. They replaced a unit which had the password set to something strange and after five minutes on the phone with them, sent me a brand new RoHS model (which I dig). I'm giving one of these units to Devin who set me wise to their abilities. Thanks D!

Beyond the computers I'm working on a couple of solutions for a renewable power system. Right now my server room circuit is pushing 10A and with all the new machines coming online it will probably be near 25A of constant-load power (this is when they're _idling_). Now that works out to a ton of power consumed each hour and while power rates in Snohomish County are better than Whatcom, they're still moderately pricey. So the plan is to try and implement something solar (I have a relatively reasonable amount of roof-space) to supplement my existing power grid. Currently I'm researching the solutions others have come up with in an attempt to find one that will work easily for me and my budget.

I think it would also be nice to come up with a sort of continuous monitoring system for power and heat in the server room. My summer projects include building a rig to hold at least one air conditioner for the machine room and I want the ability to monitor the room environment and if possible, adjust it remotely. The biggest problem with closing a room to outside air is, if your cooling dies, your machines die with it, literally. I gambled on a heavy-duty Kenmore AC unit up in Bellingham (and won... that time) but I really don't want to do that again, not with so much equipment at stake. The biggest problem will be balancing the heat load with the air conditioner's capabilities. 10K BTUs will not work this time around, so I may have to put two 12K units in to handle the heat load. I have yet to do the wattage computations for the machine room so I can figure out how much heat I'm creating.

Honestly I don't have the slightest clue why I'm putting so much work into this (I'm literally creating my own mini-datacenter). But it keeps me busy and I get to play with computing hardware, which is something I'm very good at.

Finally a shout out to Ryan who just moved into his first house (well first house he owns). Grats man, hope it's a wonderful experience.

And on that note I'm going to get back to work! Have a pleasant day everyone.

*koff* *koff*

This is for those who understand. Comment away ;)

Okay so this week I turned 27. Wonderful age 27, you can year your thirties screaming at you from around the bend.

So as a reward for my ascendance up the age chain I was hit with a horrendous little badass of a beastie (no I will not use 'virus', that's far too tame of a term). So far I've been out of the action completely for 5 days and I'm just now starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. Luckily after seeing a doctor at the local clinic today it sounds like I won't be hosed for much longer. According to him it's a very common bug going around and you're usually out of it by day 10. Hmm... I hope so. This thinger has killed all my sick time :(.

Anyway, beyond that not much else is new (for obvious reasons). I got a Car Toys gift card from my parents for my b-day which allowed me to replace the failing radio in my Cavalier. The commute to work is much nicer now (well it was... the one day I went!).

Well this is all I really had energy for, catch y'all on the flip side.

So I'm home sick today and figured it'd be a good time to update y'all on what's going on with me.

As the title says I have not only purchased a new car, I've also acquired a new apartment (finally!).

Okay so let's handle the car first. It's a 1991 Chevy Cavalier with 94K miles on it. The car has a few quirks (like a radio that works when it _wants_ to) but all good Cavaliers have personalities, my family and I have owned enough to know. The engine runs fine after I gave it a quick tune up and the body is in reasonable shape (rear tail light has a hole in it and there's a dent in the driver's side of the car). Over all I'm incredibly happy with my purchase. I paid cash for the car so I owe _nothing_ on it, a concept I thoroughly relish.

Now on to the apartment. I just heard today that I got the apartment I'd been waiting for. YES! This apartment is special due to the fact that it is a two bedroom in Monroe that's in line of sight to my friend Devin's place, which means that he and I can keep our network setup going. The apartment also has washer/dryer hookups which was one of the requirements for me getting into a place (No more coinop for me, no sir).
With the two bedrooms I can FINALLY have a place for me to sleep and not have servers screaming in my ears. I also get to have an actual living room (whoah), something I've never had before.

I've also acquired four new servers, all rackmount. So now I think I can finally go get a nice rollable rack and mount all my servers in an enclosure, which will help TONS with cooling and space conservation (those of you who saw the server setup I had in Bellingham will understand my desire for space).

Now onto the groove. I've been listening to some newer stuff, now that I'm finally back in range of Seattle and some acceptable radio stations.

My current song I'm obsessing over is U and UR Hand by P!nk. Now the original song is good but this remix is just fantastic. Don't ask me why I like it, I'm not entirely sure but man it's got a good groove.

Well that's it for now. Be well people.

Just a quick update as I sit here and watch Devin play NFS Most Wanted.

For starters I lost my NFS save game last night (I was in the process of challenging #4, grrr). Man I was pissed, but I've started over and I'm #11 after about 4 hours of play. I'm absolutely determined that, for once in my life, I will complete a bloody game.

Work has been crazy, about every day the boss has been handing me something with the 'panic' label on and and somehow, I miraculously pull the magic out again and fix the newest problem. The only problem is it's taking a bit out of me and I'm starting to get sick (I was a complete loon at work today).

However the end of the darkness is in sight. We launch our new product Monday the 15th and just today the Java dev team finished putting the final touches on it while I finished the last 'panic' module for the website.

The fun stuff now commenses. I have the next two days to do a full merge between the dev website and the live website both of which have been actively added to over the last month (ugh). Most of the merge is complete after some hectic hours today but the remaining stuff is just tedious as heck. Lots of editing and bug fixing to get pages to match up right (which in a CMS is NOT fun).

Anyway I'll probably go ape crazy on the site tomorrow and bang everything out, but for now I relax and dream of Tuesday when life will finally settle down a bit :).

So as some of you know, I've switched my primary window manager over to KDE. Now I know some of you are looking at me like I've lost my mind but I feel that with some of the new improvements that KDE's done it's actually a better WM for my needs than GNOME. Here's a screenshot of my new sexy. The look needs a bit of tweaking to be as polished as my laptop but it's coming right along.

EDIT: Yes I know, the full-size image breaks the theme, I haven't had a chance to dig into the CSS yet and fix that. :)

So Ryan just dropped this link on me about an hour ago and I simply must share it with you:

Watch It Here!

Prior warning, it's 41 minutes long, so watch it when you have some spare time. But i'll tell you this, it's worth the time.

Where you're just not quite sure what's going on and wondering what that blur is that's moving by around you?

It's been one of those months :).

I hope you all enjoyed your holiday.

Christmas was good. I spent some time with Devin and Steph in the morning (they ARE my roommates after all) and then proceeded to head over and hang out with my parents for a bit. After that I pretty much came home and crashed (Life casts Introversion. Life crits nickw for 5344. Nickw passes out).

Tuesday was a paid day off (I will wax poetic about my job in a second) so I stayed home, tortured the kids and finished tweaking Gentoo on the laptop. Everything finally works! I also started working on some game concepts using AJAX, PHP and MySQL. Nothing special just a tile-based adventure RPG, something to help me get my head back in the game. College kinda destroyed my desire to be creative and I think it's about dang time I got back into my groove.

Wednesday and today I had to work, which surprisingly enough I didn't dread... for the first time in many a year. Yes that's right people I actually like my job. The people I work with are cool (what little I see of them, I'm a team to myself) and my boss knows how to sit back and let me perform the magic I've been hired to do. Oh... and I get paid holidays. See now this is new to me. I've worked for startups and micro-businesses for so long I didn't actually remember what it was like to get paid for holidays. Or to be able to go home at the end of the day and not worry about my job being there the next day (or how I was going to appease a crazy boss).

Anyway, I'm thrilled with the job, life is better now.

Now I must figure out what I'm going to do with this here four day weekend... I managed to catch the elusive elite 'Spare Time' and it's trying to hurt me.

Saving Rolls Now!

PS: To Levi and Kristine: I'm sorry I missed y'all's wedding but I'm sure it was beautiful. I wish you nothing but years of crazy happiness together. God Bless.