Almost forgot about Livejournal hah. Well if anyone else still uses this.. hey! Not a lot of new in life. We just celebrated our first anniversary! Can't believe it went by so fast. Still livin in Edmonton. Not workin yet though. Waiting for the Canadian government to finish processing my Permanent Residency application. When they happens I already have a job offer lined up workin for same company as Mel. If I work there I'd be doing insanely easy tech support work for more than twice as much money as I'd get if we lived in Boise. We still would like to live back in the states for at least a few years but as of now the economy up here is much better. In a few years I'll be able to have all my student loans paid off and we could go down there without too much trouble. One of her sisters also lives in Cranbrook BC where we had our family wedding in June. It's right on the border of Alberta and Idaho so it would be mid way for both sides of the family. I wouldn't mind living there either. It's a decent size town parked in the middle of the mountains. Here in Edmonton it's so flat and growin up in Boise it takes a while to get used to not seeing a mountain in at least one direction heh.

Hope you guys are all doin well. I still think of the fun I had playin FFXI with all of ya. WoW never gave that close community and close bunch of friends that I had on Midgardsormr hehe. I've even been thinkin about quitting WoW. Could probably get at least 500 bucks for my account. I got 5 toons to 70 and a few are really eqpic'd out in good raiding gear. Meh whatever... bleh WoW talk.

So a couple weeks ago my comp started giving me shit. At first it would freeze in full screen graphic heavy apps like WoW or Battlefield 2. Then it started rebooting itself. Then it started rebooting and getting stuck in BIOS testing and reboot again and again until I cut power. Since last august my power supply has been giving this annoying ass grindy clicky type noise when I was in something graphic intensive. I figured I had a busted capacitor and it finally got up with me. The thing was pretty damn hot for a power supply, so I decided to replace it. I replace the thing and the PC won't turn on, but I run some other tests and I know the power supply isn't dead, there's just something wrong. I decided to take a look at the thermal paste on my Athlon 2800 for shits 'n giggles and look what I found.....





My heatsink is a custom built one. A large grill with a 40mm to 60mm fan size converter. So the thing is pretty damn tall. What happend is I think some time during it's trip on some 2 planes and such on it's way up here, my case got knocked pretty hard in the overhead bin or something. My power supply was crookedly alligned a little bit, and put some weight on this tower of a heatsink I have. It pushed it so that it wasn't flush with the CPU chip anymore, and the resulting melt of the 2 pressure pads on the right, and major heat damage. No wonder this thing won't turn on I thought. But this morning I put it all back together and it actually stays on just long enough for me to screw with the BIOS and return the settings to remove the overclock I had on the chip. My system is runnin just fine now, if just a little slower than it used to be. The damn thing is even running 40 degrees cooler than it used to be. Never going above 115ºf. Don't think it's anything less than a miracle that it still runs without licking the short bus windows.

Well something big happend. On Valentine's Day Melody and I got engaged! :o
We've been talking about getting married for the last month and we decided that it's what we really both want. At first it was just an option to get me permanent residency status in Canada but I didn't feel like it would be right to do it just for that. But the more we talked about it the more we realized that's what we really wanted to do regardless of my legal status in Canada lol. So yeah... big step I know, but I'm really happy about it and she couldn't wait to tell her family. I actually got her engagement ring a week before V-day and she knew about it, but pretended not to know about it even though she had to show it to all our friends and even the waitress at the Euro-Asian restaraunt we love the night we got it. I surprised her on valentine's and so now it's official and we're getting phone calls from her whole family saying how they're so happy for us... and can't wait to meet me haha! Her mom said she can't wait to meet me but I can already call her Mom or Val and she'll love it either way so that's a good sign.

We took some engagement photos at the Edmonton Muttart Conservatory. It's 4 glass pyramids that are climatized for the plantlife that grows in each. One is arid with cacti and another is humid and feels like a jungle inside. Pretty cool walking through these when it's about -10 F outside.

So I got back to Edmonton on the 5th... and the bastard Immigration Officer I had to talk to thought I was lying about why I was coming up here, and only gave me 1 week to stay. Was a hard few days after that but then Melody got a great idea. I ended up flying back to Seattle on the 12th like I was told to do. My dad picked me up from the airport and I spent a night at his house in Lakewood WA, just south of Seattle. The next morning we drove up to Vancouver and I entered the country through a border crossing instead of the customs/immigration mess at the Edmonton airport. I was nervous as hell but I told the guy I was coming to see my girlfriend and her family down in Calgary, which was true. He asked how long I would be in the country. I told him 'about' 2 weeks. He said "ok have fun welcome to canada!" Handed back my passport without ever scanning it into the computer thank god! Who knows what kind of flags that asshat in Edmonton's Immigration office put on my name and that passport.

Drove up to Vancouver Intl Airport and took a domestic flight for about a hundred bucks back to Edmonton. So now I've been here since the 13th and nobody who can do anything knows I'm here. By canadian law, an american citizen can be in the country for 6 months out of 12 WITHOUT a Visa. Since I was here for 2 months before xmas and a couple weeks before that, I have another 3 months to look for work and apply for a work Visa before I have to go back to Boise. Hopefully Melody will get enough time off work then and we'll both go down together so she can meet the family that wants to know the girl who kidnapped me and took me to Canada.

Enjoying WoW: Burning Crusade that just came out. Didn't bring my laptop this trip so I get to play when Mel is at work then she plays at night. Love her computer though. Only person I know who has a better one than I do. She custom built hers like I did but had the cash to spend on a 256mb Video Card so everything we play just looks great.

For some odd reason I've been thinking about FFXI lately. I kinda miss the old days of MPKing fishing bots in SarutaBaruta or farming Rams at Teleport-Dem zone... Konschtat Highlands was it? I forget a lot of the names but those were still good times. I wonder if PlusOne still uses Koric as the LS mule? He looked so badass in his DRK Af2 and I really miss owning sky gods on his RNG. I'm not thinking of a comeback or anything like that though. Too busy to get back in to that game and Burning Crusade is all the gaming I need. I guess playing it for as much as I did in those 2 years is enough to still give me withdrawals haha.

Got back in town on Dec 17th after 61 days of living in Edmonton. Going back up next wednesday if everything goes well with my uncle's standby passes he gave me to fly up there for big discount. Saves me some cash on the plane ticket that normally runs me about $450. He's a pilot for Alaska Airlines so I get to fly for about 50 bucks anywhere they fly as long as I go standby.

It's funny how people here bitch about it being so cold. It's been floating around 40 degrees the whole time i've been here. About 4 weeks ago up in Edmonton we had an arcitc wind blowing right down from the north and the arctic circle so with the windchill, it was -28 degrees. Yes that's NEGATIVE 28. Now that is what I call cold. SO cold you can't feel your legs after walking outside for 5 minutes. Apart from the cold winters Edmonton is a pretty nice place. Only gets up to about 80ish during the summer. Here's a nice pic of the river valley not too far from Melody's house. Only takes about 45min to walk downtown from her apartment, or 7 minutes on the LRT.



I think there are some other pics of Edmonton on my photobucket but I haven't had a chance to host some of the ones we took while I was up there recently. This pic was taken when I was there in September.

Got to hang out with some friends I haven't seen since High School in the last couple days. Went up to the cabin with my dad, grandpa, and step brother for 3 days. Having fun back here in Boise but I'm ready to go back up to Canada.

Gave work a 2 week notice on Monday. Talked with Melody over the weekend and now my 5 day trip to visit her this month is turning in to a "come up and visit and we'll decide when you go home later" type thing. I couldn't be more excited. Had to book a return flight within 90 days due to non-visa holding laws, but I could be up there until Christmas for all I know! Birthday coming up on the 18th. Same day I fly up there! Gonna look at a bunch of different schools and look at my options of continuing my education up there. Going to be interesting surviving the Edmonton winters..

I still play WoW now and then. I pop on a couple days a week for the big 40man raids. All of BWL on farm status for us, and we just had our first Huhu kill in AQ40. They're looking at possible Naxx in the near future but I don't know how much I'll be playing when I get up to Canada. I just don't feel like sitting on any computer when we're together. My hunter is just missing Dragonstalker Legs for full Tier 2 set. Nef dropped my breastplate on Friday so that's a pretty cool thing. Warrior on same server is most likely as far as I'll ever take him. He's all epic'd out although not as well as the Hunter.

If anyone still reads this journal... wish you all happiness in whatever you find yourself doing. I'll try and update this Journal when I think of it but as you see from the time between posts it's not too frequent. Maybe I'll have more big news soon. I still have the same Cell # so if I gave it to you don't hesitate to gimme a call sometime.

Short entry better than none :o

Busy busy busy month. Working out at Micron, security 5 days a week. WoW guild Nefarion on farm status and half way through AQ40. Big accomplishment for you non WoW'ers. Moving to a new place in about 2 hours. No sleep, still packing... and working later today. Gonna be a shitty day but owells.

Took a trip to Seattle last week. Got to hang out with my Dad and see a Mariners game which is something I've been putting off for way too long. Met up with 2 friends from WoW for 3 days. A girl from Canada and a guy who lives in Redmond WA and W O R K S at Nintendo, lucky bastard... Anyways, Canada girl and I hit it off right away! We had no idea that it would be like it was, but we are totally in to eachother :o
Now I'm going to Canada to visit her already. Heading up there for 4 days in 2 weeks. Boss probably getting tired of me asking for so much time off as I needed 3 days covered last week after I missed my plane home.. on purpose.

Gotta buy a car this week too. So much stuff happening at the same time :x

Another great quiz results..

My lj wedding by chynafox
username
age
city
you will marry	arioka_mage
flower girl	cronoh
best man	rhyse
bridesmaid	lord_lilf
you will have your last fling with	rhyse
registrar	ani__gav
secretly wants to marry you themself	giacorleone
date of the wedding	March 11, 2006
number of times you do it on your wedding night	39
Quiz created with MemeGen!

Haha Ari I knew I'd get ya in the end. And ooooh SNAP Mike is the flower girl XD
Apparently we got married a couple months ago so... when are you movin in? We did it 39 times on our wedding night and you still won't call me! Was it because I had a little gay time with Rhyse?

Hmm 4 months since last post already?

Uh.. School out, shitty semester with the grades to prove it.
Got a fun easy new job that pays great. Working security for Micron Headquarters. For those who don't know Micron they are the parent company of Crucial, the company who makes RAM and other DRAM chips for cell phones and such. Most of the R&D and testing/fabrication goes down here in Boise. So yeah.. Idaho DOES have some shit other than potatos dammit!

Searching old screenie folders and found a great one that made me lol quite literally. Pieced together the convo.



I haven't been on AIM much, dunno why. Busy working and when i'm not there, I'm playin WoW. Guild half way through Blackwing Lair already after only 4 weeks of first stepping in. Quite an amazing thing really. Most guilds wipe on the second boss there for weeks or even months before bringing him down. Some guilds even break up because of the resulting drama. We whooped his ass down on the 6th attempt ever and easily put him on farm status afterwards.

Here's a pic of my main toon for those who play WoW and know the gear =P
Yeah that's the set of both Hakkari blades from ZG. Sexy no? Also have the Dragonstalker Bracers but you can't see them obviously.



Almost 6am. Gonna sleep a bit. Gonna be getting a new place with Jake soonish. He's the guy on the right in the pic of me getting molested at Green Day. The dumbass wearing the glove... yeah.

I guess this was on the main WoW General forum a while back but I never saw it. Someone posted on my guild forum the other day and it's just too great to not share!

---
I need some advice on what could be a life changing decision. Thanks in advance guys.

I've suspected for some time now that my girlfriend has been having an affair. The usual signs. Phone rings, I answer, someone hangs up. She started going out 'with the girls' a lot recently although when I ask which girls it is always "Just some friends from work, you don't know them". I always look out for her taxi coming home but she always walks down the drive although I can hear a car setting off. As if she has got out of the car round the corner. Why? Is it not a taxi? I once picked her mobile up just to see what time it was and she went beserk and screamed that I should never touch her phone again and why was I checking up on her.

Anyway, I have never approached the subject with her. I think deep down I just didn't want to know the truth but last night something odd happened. She had come over to play WoW and had forgotten to sign off of AIM after she left. It was whilst I was going through her buddy list that I noticed my mage had just been two-shotted by a rogue.

Should I stick with my mage or should I play a class with more survivability?
---

Already 2 weeks in to spring semester. Sure does fly by. Can't complain about that but the homework load is significantly higher :(
At the last minute I decided to drop Math 124 and add another core class. Focus on math when it's the only core left that I'll need for the bach degree. Anyways I added Biology and the required once a week lab session for the course. I called my friend Gino who's on his 4th semester now. Told him I needed a core class that doesn't give homework XD. He pointed me to Biology with Prof. Troy Rohn. Says he got an A in the class and never had homework, didn't even buy the books for the course. Sure enough, this guy is cake. Just like last semester's Psychology prof I had, he posts everything we need on the web, notes included. Each test we take is open book... so basically the answer keys are my notes and I get to use them on the tests... Can't complain about that!


The down side of my little last minute class swappage was the schedule change. If I kept math, my earliest class would have been at 11:40am and I got Tuesdays and Thursdays off. But now I have Biology at 9:40am with a 2hr lab on Thursdays at noon. I can deal with 9:40 though, especially for this cake walk class. Math last semester was at 9:15 and I did ok. The downside to this early Bio class is the 2hr 10min I have between Biology and my next class, Survey of Western Art, which starts at 12:40. I figured I would just haul my laptop to class like I did last semester and play some WoW on the wifi to kill the time. Well that idea lasted 1 day. The wifi is bogged down during the lunch hour so I can't stay connected long enough in a high activity online app like WoW. That and this semester I actually have a few classes that need me to bring the books to lecture, so my laptop bag weighs a ton. How did I solve this little problem you ask? Well I asked the squirrels... crazy no? Not the tree climbing squirrels but the gaming kind that have nuts, you can play with outside... Ok this is getting nerdy. I bought a PSP! Hellz yeah!

I love my PSP. Best thing I ever bought XD. I got GTA: Liberty City Stories, and Wipeout Pure. The graphics on this thing blow me away every time I turn it on. Plus I can rip any DVD I have and put it on the memory stick. MP3s, Music Vids, whatever I want it's all on this baby. Yeah it was expensive. Too expensive really but I love it. Took a while to justify spending the 300 bucks in my head but when I went to Best Buy and held one in my hands, I couldn't wait to get it XD.


Watch it!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5797108766137110904
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=793643946456575749

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/06/29/news_6128319.html


...LOL!!

There was also an article on CNN.com about this same thing but it's been cycled out with other news.

So... I started to feel nasty about 5 days before xmas. At first it was just a cough but then it got to be the worst fever I've ever had. For 4 days I would wake up every hour or so soaking in sweat. Around xmas I started to feel a little better and did end up goin up to the cabin with dad and g-pa. It was a fun few days "roughing it" with cable TV and all the other stuff we have up there. When I got home from the cabin I got a really sore throat and my ears plugged up. Finally went to the doctor's today and found out I started out with the flu and now it's turned into pneumonia and a double ear infection...
So yeah. Never been this sick in my life. Dunno how it happend but god I feel like shit. It was yet another Merry fucking Christmas this year.

Well I think I got outta my first semester ok. It got rough in the end cuz I put off way too much to the very end. Gotta make sure I don't do that next semester as all 4 of my classes are core education classes. Better to get them out of the way now and then have 2 years of easy-ish networking classes and that's it. Western Civ, Art-Painting Theory, English 102, and Math. Not looking foward to that huge homework load but maybe I'll get lucky and get some nice teachers like last semester.

Just enjoying my time off playin WoW of course. Gonna go up to my family cabin in the mountains the day after xmas. Just gonna be me, dad, and grandpa. Gonna have a great time with just the guys XD
In Idaho we have real mountains, not the dinky foothills like they have back east... *cough*Gia*cough* There's a natural hot springs that comes out of the mountain about 3 miles from the cabin so we can ski or snowmobile down there and sit in the pools right next to the frozen river. It's so cool up there. I really need to spend more time there but hey, it will all be mine some day so who knows. I might retire up there..?

Here's a nice lil pic of my WoW toon. For you fellow WoW'ers you'll see that I got full Beaststalker and bought my epic mount the other night. Quite an accomplishment!

Click here.
Take the quiz.
Post your results.
( See koric's results. )


Yeah it's a little boring cuz I have 5 friends on LJ... big whoop, wanna fight about it?

Best video i've seen in a loooong time. For you fellow WoW players, you'll love this even more!

http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=11070

It's 5:30am and I have a Math test in 2½ hours. I barely studied, and I haven't done 3 of the 6 homework assignments covered on the test. I think my only option is to email the prof today and tell him I was sick or something. He said at the beginning of the year he doesn't give makeup tests but he did it for the only other A student in the class so he better do it for me ><;

My old friend was discharged from the Navy last week. He fucked up a couple times but nothing too serious. The Master of Arms on his ship got this huge negative vibe from him though so he just tried to shit on him every chance he could. His name kept coming up in reports so often that the captain finally got tired of it. It got so bad he had to spend a couple days in the Brig. Good news is he's out and happy. His discharge was general so he still gets most of his benefits for serving more than 2 years. He'll be home on the 15th and it's gonna be great to have another old friend back. I've known him since 2nd grade and he's always had it rough. His mom died then and his dad wasn't the best. He was kicked out of the house a couple times during the years in high school. To get away from it all he joined the Navy but he told me on the phone that after all he's been through with his dad and other bad things, he's never been treated so bad as when he was in the Navy. Says he hasn't been this happy in almost a year so that's cool. When he gets here we're definitely gonna have to do some hardcore partying.

Guess I'll go to sleep and hope mom doesn't realize I'm still asleep instead of already gone when she heads out to work at 10. Really hope prof buys my story :(

Well I finally did it. Finally told SE to piss off and cancelled my Content IDs for good. Just 1 month shy of 2 full years playing. When I look back at all the time I spent playing this game and doing absolutely nothing else, it just makes me sick. Sure the game was fun and I made some great friends, but 2 years of just sitting around playing a game... Guess I got that break I wanted after High School and then some.

College is getting harder but I'm not stopping until I have that degree. After spending a whole day up in Seattle with my dad at his job and seeing what happend to him by smokin weed and not going to school after havin a kid really motivates me. I don't want to end up like that. He's been living paycheck to paycheck for 20 years. Just thinking about that makes me sad for him but it's good that I have something that strong to finally get my ass serious about school.

On saturday I had a little goodbye thing in FFXI. Gia and Ari came down to sandy for the final /logout in KRT. Gia and I met there as wee n00bs back in March of '04. She was all 1337 RDM in her Cuir Bouilli set and I was trying SAM because I was so sick of seeking party for 6 hours as a 40 DRK. Ahh fun memories XD
One thing I had never done was see if I could kill myself with Souleater. I decided to play with it on the mobs around KRT in East Ronf but at around 120hp the effect stops taking health and goes back to normal damage even if SE is still active. I still went the extra mile for the sake of a good screenshot. Bet nobody has ever seen a DRK in AF2 dead in East Ronfaure!



After about 2 weeks of sniffing around for a reasonably priced NT on AH or in a bazaar I finally found one. It's a little overpriced if you ask me but Gia finally has what she needs so it's worth it ^^
I made 4 signed Dark Staves for the other good friends I still had in game. Glad that I could do all this for my friends when I quit.



Gia got all excited about getting her NT but when it came down to the trade, SE came through with the win! This is one of the funniest screenies I think I ever took XD



So yeah... /farewell FFXI. Glad I got to go out with a bang =)

Well it's Oct 18th. My birthday. So far it sucks. I'm 21 but to me it's not that big of a deal. Maybe it's cuz I don't really have anyone to party with. All my friends from high school are in the navy/army/college out of state. I have one old friend still livin in Boise, but he's not 21 for another 3 weeks. I'd probably have alot of people to hang out with if I didn't play FFXI as much as I did for 2 years >.>
So looks like I'll go to dinner tonight with some family and that will be about it. Going to Seattle for the weekend to hang out with my dad. He said we'd go downtown and hit up some clubs but that doesn't sound too exciting to me. Maybe my week will get better but I doubt it. Had 2 tests today and have the big Psychology test on Thursday. Don't see alot of happy comin my way anytime soon.