Notag

Saturday temps hit mid-20s so I and kid#1 packed up our gear and headed out to Afton.

To my amazement a crew member from the past took time off of work and met us out there. Chief has returned.

Packed powered (of course) was the stable for most runs with the occasional “pillow” of snow made by the snow machines (not!).

We forgot kid#1’s goggles so it was an icy dagger run through the snow makers. Fun stuff.

It looked like all of the Meadow and Alps are open. Terrian park in the Meadows and the rabbit run in the Alps. The major runs in the highlands are open. Bridge was open, but full of snow makers. Highland rabbit run was closed. Atomic Drop was closed. Jump Park closed.

Funny story.

We took a run through the meadow’s terrain park so kid#1 could check it out. We stopped at one particularly long kinked-box-slide and watched. Everyone was having problems with it.

1 crew of teenage boys was filming and being a typical all-boy snowboard crew. One member came down and face planted hard. He got up and dusted himself off to the jeers and laughs of his crew. His response, he flipped them the bird.

Kid#1’s eyes got very large and she pulled on my sleeve and pointed for us to go down the hill.

On the chair-lift she leans over to me in a voice filled with exasperation and says, “Dad, did you see that boy give his friends the middle finger?!”

I tried to keep a straight face and just said, “Yep.”

She sat back into the chair-lift and talking to no one in particular said, “Why do teenage boys have to be so naughty!”

Well, isn’t that a question for the ages!

I treasure these times with my daughter. She’s old enough to have an adult conversation with but still young enough to want to be with her dad and thinks it’s cool.

Did my 100th random PUG (pick-up group) and I got the achievement Looking for Multitudes and I got some email from WoW Dev team.

Thought that was kinda cool of the dev team.

Watch this little dog. The butt-drag/sniff animation is funny!

Perky Pug (direct link) or Youtube below:

I know many of the readers of this blog aren’t excited about the snow and potential blizzard that is coming, but as a snowboarder the snow makes me giddy!

On Sunday 13 runs are open at Afton, I expect even more this weekend.

First run of the year was great. Snow was packed powder. Imagine that! And already? Got there shortly after 4pm and the crowds were light. Was able to do turn-abouts.

Meadows has 2 runs open. Alps has 2 runs open. Bunny hill was open. The Bunny Hill was make-shift rail park.

Stuck to the meadows with kid #1. Coverage was pretty good and like every year the small base exposes lots of fun terrain! I had to exercise lots of parental restraint and set a good example for kid #1

Normal ride I felt right at home, almost like I never stopped boarding. Fakey was a little shaky but that only started feeling good the end of last year.

Got a couple comments on my carbonite board, which is always a good ego stroke

Kid #1 was right at home as well. Pizza and french fries are and I quote, “… for little kids …”, turns, stops, and control all looked good. The couple of inches in height from last year make the chair lift piece of cake this year.

Couple things I forgot.

Water, everyone was thirsty after riding.

Snack, everyone was hungry during the ride.

Change of hand gear, since kid #1 still doesn’t get that a snowball fight just gets you gloves wet and hands cold
Convince Mom glove = bad, mittens = good. Even a high quality glove is not a match for warmth that a mitten can provide.

Snowboard Season History

First run of the 2009-2010 season was December 5, 2009

Last run of the 2008-2009 season was March 15, 2009

First run of the 2008-2009 season was November 16, 2008

Last run of the 2007-2008 season was April 5, 2008

First run of the 2007-2008 season was November 30, 2007

Last run of the 2006-2007 season was April 3, 2007

First run of 2006-2007 was not tracked. Bummer!

I hoped this day won’t come, but it’s Dec 1st and no snow. Not even a hint of snow. The temps have been more like early fall then winter!

After leaving my old guild I tried some PuG-raiding.

VoA 10/25 give opportunities to PuG some raid-like content and there’s always some sort of Naxx/ToC/Uld 10 PuG forming on Executus.

I did do some 10 man PuG stuff but all(!) of them failed. I’m sure that does not surprise anyone reading this. Still baffles me why! Maybe Gevlon is right that most servers are made up of M&S?

What I found out by doing a bunch of PuG-raiding is my old guild is made of very skilled people. In general the toon population on Executus are not skilled at raiding.

Your latest season arena gear gives amazing burst damage but what do you do the other 7 minutes of the fight when you are in viper or oom? Arena gear is not raiding gear. Trying to explain that and people get all defensive.

I don’t mind wiping while I raid. I even don’t mind the constant reminders from the raid leader not to step in the “fire” or the fight strategies typed over and over in /raid.

It frustrating when people don’t learn and/or do the same thing wipe after wipe. If a tank-n-spank didn’t work the first 2 times, why do people think it will work on the 3rd attempt?

I really dislike PuG-raid calls like “LF1M DPS 5K or higher” or “VoA 25 LF1M DPS, link achievement”. I point people to this and say skill > gear. But I don’t know how to check someones skill but there are a bunch of tools to check gear. Don’t know how to change this “check” of players, I think good gear represents time, not skill, but people constantly look at gear as measure of skill.

But I really hate the snide comments said in a PuG’s /raid chat.

In fact, the last VoA 10 I did was so virile I just stopped PuG-raiding.

I do not raid anymore at all. It will be a long time before I raid again.

If I could find a guild that would make snide comments in vent and /raid raid-kick offenses I might try raiding again. Maybe give the raid leader and raid assists the ability to mute people in /raid? Seems like a good idea

And yes, Mike and the other Mike, this is a WoW rant. Enjoy.

Avoiding my old raid leader was pretty easy. I just left the guild and won’t join any group or raid he is participating in. WoW allows you to easily avoid people (ironic isn’t it?)

Not being in a guild is a big part of not raiding. Raiding with a guild, even as good as my old guild, seems like an exercise in frustration.

People are late. First pull at 8pm doesn’t mean 8:15pm or 8:30pm. When you are going to be late a text or post to the forums would be nice! I really hated waiting for one more.

Dealing with a raid leaders idea of the Perfect Raid Composition. Sucks to be a survival hunter doesn’t it?

The worst thing to deal with was the crap that was said in vent and typed in /raid. Vent will get its own post.

The best guilds wipe. It happens. Constructive criticisms from the leaders are expected. And for me, expected and wanted. The “crap from the peanut gallery” only drops morale and isn’t necessary.

I don’t like my old raid leader but I was always respectful in /raid and vent and never questioned his strategy or motives. Being rude and cynical in /raid especially to the raid leader is just bad.

Last minute comments in /raid from non-leaders are just a distraction. It’s worse when the comments in /raid are contrary to the directions of the raid leader. It just adds to the confusion. People just need to shut-up and listen to the raid leader. Right or WRONG the raid leader’s strategy is the one that should be followed.

Openly mocking the raid leader or making personal attacks should be raid-kick offenses.

I think a guild should gear up tanks, healers, then everyone else. My old guild used to do that but somewhere along the way things all messed up and I think raiding suffered.

If DPS is “low” the fight will just take longer. If a tank(s) cannot take the beating or the healers cannot keep the tank(s) up it’s a wipe. Why would you gear up the DPS first?

I don’t have a solution to any of the above problems. I think they are just part of any MMO. I could bitch about it all day but I don’t like complaining without suggesting some sort of solution.

The solution that works for me today is not to raid.

In early September I /gquit my GLA and stopped raiding. Besides being treated poorly by the raid leader I also wasn’t finding WoW fun anymore.

Could be just simple burn out?

I wanted to know if I could find the fun in WoW again.

I did not play for a week and I made a list of the things I did not like about WoW and how to avoid those things.

Here is my list:

* Raider leader of my old guild
* Raiding
* The current state of the Hunter Class
* Damage meters
* DPS calculation spreadsheets, web sites, programs
* Grouping/Parties
* Loot allocation
* The PVE curse
* Ventrilo
* Guild Drama
* Find crafters/Getting things crafted

The list shouts “Stop playing WoW” (or any other MMORPG). I have a couple months left of my subscription. I’m going to see what I can do about the list.

People ask me, “What do you do at the Vikings?” or “What is it like sitting in the stats booth?”

Well, here you go. Picture worth a thousand words?