Sunday, September 27, 2009

Better Half

I would like to thank all the dedicated readers of this blog. I know I do not blog as often as I would like, but thanks for hanging out with me and all my craziness.

Today I want to talk to you about the most important woman in my life. This would be my wife. She writes this awesome blog about wow stuff from a rogue's perspective. I believe I have shared some of her fan fiction concerning our characters, how they met, fell in love, etc.

Well, the real story of Therigwin and Daraia began before we even met. We both had a connection to a Christian Camp in Michigan, Camp Barakel. My family has been working at that camp for many summers and attended it as campers as well. My wife worked up there as a teen as well. It was during that summer that she met my brother and future sister-in-law. They came away thinking that I should date this girl, even though I was in a relationship at the time with another girl.

Time passed and I found myself at college and not dating anyone. And I met my wife through the drama department. Now I had my eyes set on another girl, but she was not who God had planned for me. We worked on a couple of plays and dramas together, helping out the local Christian High School back staging, cueing the actors and helping with the set. All the kids could see the chemistry between us, but we did not, we were just good friends.

I remember we went rollerskating, and I did not do that well, but my wife helped me out. It was at that event my brother and sister-in-law found out that I had met the girl from Camp. They told mom and dad and everyone started praying.

Well, I was still fixated on this other girl in college, but she turned me down for the formal winter banquet. This was the "valentines" day banquet the college put on each year. So, all my friends were going and I really did not want to go by myself, so I asked her. She said yes and I got the best shock of my entire night that night of the banquet.

My wife is what she calls a "low maintenance" person. She doesn't wear much makeup, keeps her hair in a ponytail, etc. Your basic good looking woman that doesn't demand much.

Well I still remember how beautiful she was that night. All her girl friends had done her up to beyond what she normally was. It took my breath away and I got this thought in my head, maybe this was the girl I should look at for my wife.

Over the next 3 weeks we did various dates and the more I learned about her, the more I was falling in love with her. I asked her to be my girlfriend at the end of that third date. She said no. Man what a blow to me. She told me I was on rebound and I was not truly interested in her and told me to be just friends with her.

Nothing like a challenge to get you more interested. Well I told her she was wrong and asked her what I could do. She knowing that I was very much into Knights, fantasy, and all that stuff, she told me that I had a quest, if I could figure out the one thing she would be my girlfriend. She figured it would take me a year to figure it out. So over the next few days I tried various things, from poetry, flowers being snuck into her dorm room by her roommate for me, starting daily devotional with her, and pretty much romancing her entire dorm. They all wanted her to date me, but she was firm, I had to do this one thing for the quest before she would be my girlfriend.

That one simple thing to do, was to kiss her. She believed I was too shy to try that, and in truth I was very shy and insecure. As I have shared in the past, my previous girlfriend from highschool was a mess and used physical interaction against me to manipulate me. She was really messed up and I did not want my new relationship based on anything physical until we were closer to being married.

Well, I remember the night that I overcame this fear and whispered in her ear, "Is it a kiss?" and saw the hope and panic in her face. I attempted to kiss her 3 times that night in her dorm, only to be interrupted by people walking by, including her "dorm manager or dorm mom". So I grabbed her hand and we went for a walk. We walked over to the seminary on campus where there was a pond and willow tree. Standing under that tree, I looked her in the eyes, bent my head down and kissed her. We prayed after that asking God to direct our relationship. It took me 1 week to complete that quest and win my wife over to be my girlfriend.

A couple months into the relationship, I realized that I loved her, really really loved her and I told her. She said that was nice and she just wasn't ready. Oh the heart break. Then one day while we were walking around campus talking about "The Corner on the Truth", she blurted out, "I Love You". I was the happiest man alive. I remember the exact spot on campus she told me, though the landscaping has changed since that time, I will always remember where she confessed her love for me. She was scared that it would not last over that summer, but it did. We both went to two different camps to work, but visited each other during the summer.

Our love grew and I found out of a tradition of how the guy proposes to their spouse in her family. It was by presenting a teddy bear. We were working on the fall drama again. She was the backstage manager and I was in the sound booth. My parents were coming up and I was trying to stall her as much as possible to make sure all was ready. She was a wreck worrying about her responsibilities and the play. Well the seminar was where the stage was at and I had my parents put the teddy bear all dressed in armor with a pouch around his neck in the spot we shared our first kiss on a blanket.

I was walking her over to the seminar when I said, hey, whats that over there. She thought it was a couple, but I dragged her over there. Now she knew that eventually I was going to be asking her, because we had already picked out her ring and I had ordered it, she just did not know it would be so soon.

I remember her words so clearly..... "I hate you" "I love you" "I hate you" ya, she was a bit stressed. We dug out the ring from the under the armor and I got on my knees and asked her to marry me. She said yes and the rest is as they say history.

So now we turn full circle back to the beginning of the story. Camp Barakel. That is where my wife is presently with my sister-in-law at a Women's retreat. She has been gone since Friday and while I am glad she gets to get a break from the family and renew her spirit, I really miss my partner, my helpmate, my love. She will be back later tonight and then we will celebrate our youngests 5 year birthday.

One of the things I did for her when she was gone was completely redo her UI and I will now share her previous UI and her new one.

Previous -















New -

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Laughing no more, and improving failures

So we did Ulduar 25 last night. We were down some people, had a couple of pugs, but overall we smashed through the flame leviathan really fast.

And to my shock, [Titanguard] dropped. It was a very hard decision to make for me.
I had been using [Last Laugh] from KT as my tanking weapon. And while it was not [Sorthalis, Hammer of the Watchers], it was still an upgrade. But it was an upgrade for all the tanks going with us.

Then I needed to remind myself of our loot system. That it did not make sense to horde points. I was top on the list, so I needed to spend those points. So I spent them and got this sword.

It is not the best model out there, there are other tanking weapons that look better, but it was nice to be using a sword again. My hope now is that I will some day get a tanking mace instead, as paladins should be using maces. :-)

Mod Spotlight - EnsidiaFails
This is an awareness mod.
It spits out a report during and after a boss fight of all the things that people should be aware of during the fight. Like, get out of the fire! Stop casting!
It is a tool to help your raiders know what they need to work on. If there are so focused on one thing, then they may die or cause a wipe. It is an excellent tool.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Ret DPS

Today I want to talk about my off speck.

Ret.

Wow, I never thought my off speck would be ret and not Holy. Who knows, maybe I will dabble back in Holy later on.

Anyway, back to Ret Paladins.

They can be either the most rewarding or most frustrating dps to run. The big reason is their spell rotation is a priority system, meaning based on what is available for you to hit, you should hit that.

For many, this can be very frustrating, never knowing which button to hit and their dps in parties and raids are very very poor.

Well, I am here to tell you there is hope!

First off, you need to make sure your paladin is geared correctly. You want to be hit capped (267ish). After that, it is all about Strength and Crit. The more the better.

Be glyphed. Make sure you have glyphs in each spot. I like the Divine Storm, The Judgement one and the Seal of Command one.

On trash, run Seal of Command. On Bosses, run Seal of Vengence.

Now for that tricky spell rotation.

Get this mod - clcret
http://media.curse.com/Curse.Projects.ProjectImages/20386/16808/clcret_frame_bf.jpg
It shows you what button to hit next.

There you have it, get your dps in ret where you want it to be!

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

UI Mods Part ummm next? Raiding

Ok for those following my mod UI series here we go -

Charming... Very Charming is all about Target Charms.

UI Mods Part 1 - Solo all about my solo UI and a full listing of Mods at that time.

UI Mods Part 2
- Continues talking about View ports.
UI Mods Part 3 - 5 man discussing my UI for 5 Mans.

Ok We also have my classic thread on my 3.0 UI

Oh ya, and we talked about Chocolate Bar here

Finally I did have a plug for Ampere an awesome mod for turning mods on and off without logging out of your character... that takes us to.....

DARE TIME!
Click the picture.

RAWR.

So this pic is a bit old, I have updated again since I took it, but WOW is down and I did not want to wait to blog. So here we go.

I am in a 10 man, tanking Hodir, for those wondering. Notice Xperl is now showing the two raid frames. I have debated getting rid of showing party and raid frames all together since VuhDo now does that much better than healbot, but ya, that is another blog for another time.

Lets talk about this picture.

You can see Mik's scrolling combat text in action.
You see Chocolate Bar with all the Broker Plug Ins.
Omen is going on along with Tidy Threat.

Yeah, lots of things going.... I know, how about an updated list of my mods and I will let you know which ones you see active in the picture.....

!BugGrabber This capture those nasty bugs, you don't see it active completely, but kinda, ya...
Acheron - I love this mod. You see the purple skull up at the top, it access it, but right now you do not see it up and active. I should blog about it later.
Achieved! - You don't see it on this screen shot, but this allows you to move the achievement windows.
Ackis Recipe List - This one tells you all about recipes and where to get them.
Ampere - Yup talked about this one.
Atlas - The classic map of the dungeons and raids.
Atlasloot Enhanced - Tells ya what loot drops from what, really handy.
AtlasQuest - Fan Update - Tells what quests are part of dungeons.
Auctioneer - A classic.
Bagsy - Hmmmm, I forget... Oh ya, I got this with Combuctor to help manage my bags.
Bejeweled - Fun game in a game!
Broker uClock - the Clock in the corner
Broker_CalendarEvents - the calendar in the corner
Broker_CPU Memory - The performance meter
Broker_Currency - My cash
Broker_epgp - Access to EPGP woot!
Broker_Location - where are you?
Broker_Recount - access to Recount via broker
BugSack - Get those bugs info from BugSack
ButtonFacade - Make the buttons purdy
ButtonFacade: Caith - The skin I use in the UI
Capping Battleground Timers - For my wife, I don't pvp
Chinchilla Minimap - How I made my minimap so awesome
ChocolateBar Broker Display - Yummie Chocolate!
ColorTools - Just found this one on wow interface, allows tweaking of colors even more!
Combuctor - Yup, my bag mod... LOVE IT!
CowTip - Tips of awesome! You see it in action in the picture too!
CurseProfiler 2.0 - Um, this is an evil mod... But it comes with the Curse Updater. I have it turned off cause it lags my system up.
DBM-Sarth-ShadowFissureWarn - Nice DBM addon for Sarth to let you know when the shadow zones.
DBM-VictorySounds - I missed my BigWigs victory song, I got it back with this.
Deadly Boss Mods - Yup, I am a DBM user.
Deadly Boss Mods - Burning Crusade mods
Deadly Boss Mods - LibDataBroker
Dominos - How I get my buttons arranged where I want them in my UI.
Dresser - A much better way to dress up when CTRL clicking items.
DualSpeccer - See that broker mod up top, one click and it switches my speck!
Elephant - Records all chat channels, cause well, ya... It is good to have it when people are stupid.
EnsidiaFails - This is a great mod that announces the failures to the raid so they learn.
epgp (dkp reloaded) - yup, our points system. I love it.
EPGPLootmaster - This makes epgp worth it, everyone has this installed and loot go so smoothly.
EWOlson_RealName - This is a classic mod I used to put my real name in Guild Chat.
Fishbringer - Great for the fisherman in you.
Gem Quota - Great for getting your meta active.
GuildBankSearch - Every want to find something in your guild bank? This helps you find it.
GuildCheck - This lets me know when people leave, join, etc when I am offline I get a report when I log back on.
HeadCount - Raid tracking and loot tracking awesomeness.
Hit Assist for casters and melee - Great mod to help with hit cap
InspectEquip - when you inspect someone, it tells you where they got that gear.
Learning Aid - Learn a new spell, a window opens for you to add to your action bar
Livestock - The cage, horseshoe and winged shoe icons in my ui. Brings out a pet or mount.
Macro Broker - This allows you to create a macro and put it in your broker mod. I used this to get VuhDo and Trinket Menu into a quick access.
Mapster - You saw this one before ;-)
MikScrollingBattleText - Numbers scrolling in the picture.
Misspelled - I LOVE THIS MOD. Spell checker for wow chat.
Omen Threat Meter - Yup... I am tanking and have threat.
OmniCC - The nice numbers on my buttons that count down to let me know I can push the button again.
Outfitter - Best equipment manager in the game. PERIOD!
Overachiever - achievement tools and tweaks - Revamps the achievement system to be more friendly.
Peggle - another game in a game!
QuestHelper - You all love it, you know you do.. .Just turn it off before the raid.
RatingBuster - While blizz has good item tool tips for gear compare, I still use this mod because it gives so much more info.
ReadyCheckAnnouncer - Lets everyone know when everyone is ready!
Recount - Please don't post the numbers to raid please lol
RecountGuessedAbsorbs - Hey, is that Disc priest really doing it?
RepairBroker - Time to repair, I guess. Nice mod.
Reputation Monitor 3.0 - Good rep tracking mod
SatrinaBuffFrame - Ok, I use this in conjuction with xperl It gives a few more visual identifiers so I can hit exorcism when it is an instant cast or keep Divine plea active for mana.
SharedMedia - Musics and fonts and images for mods!
Sunn - Viewport Art - Yeah, you have seen it before.
Sunn - Viewport Art Pack 1
Sunn - Viewport Art Pack 5
SustainedTps - This one I am thinking of dropping cause I never look at it... lol. But outputs to chat frame my tps after each fight.
TankadinTps - my gui replacemetn for Sustained TPS
TargetCharms - Charming, I know.
tomQuest2 - My replacement for QuestFu. I love it, cause well, my name is TOM! lol
TrinketMenu - A classic for trinket management. I still love this mod.
Volumizer - Best volume control broker mod ever!
VuhDo - This healing mod rocks. The next thing, replacing healbot for sure.. Even GRID and Clique I would say have a tough time holding there own this bad boy.
WIM (WoW Instant Messenger) v3 - PST me please! This is a must for those that manage tons of whispers.
X-Perl UnitFrames - So purdy
ZOMGBuffs - I have talked about this mod before and it keeps getting better. I recommend for all classes, especially paladins.


SO you have seen my UI and my mods. All my mods except EWOlson_RealName can be found on Curse.com or wowinterface.com

Over my next few blogs, I will hit some of these mods in more detail. ya I got lazy and stopped linking them at the beginning lol. But they are easy enough for all of you to find.

I hope my server is back up... Happy Gaming!