Welcome back everyone. Good to be back after the new year and all the hoot’nanny that goes along with it. I want to start off by wishing everyone a good new year for the coming weeks and whatnots.

Long time readers know that every year i do a little review of last years goals and then set some new ones that i try and check in with midway through the year as to try and keep them on track. So lets began the year in review.

1, Be more forgiving in game. Wow, DDo was a huge part of my world at the start of the year last year. Now i barely play but i am happy to say something flipped in me and i am fairly forgiving of others mistakes as well as my own. Not real sure when that happened but i am glad.

2, Gencon and weight loss. So in January i was reeling from suddenly not being employed and i let it get to me in a bad way. A large part of that was a hit to my over all health mostly at due to my large belly. And i want to say i was doing well again. Or at least better. Then Remmie had his run in with the car and MY health was no longer an issue. But i could still fast walk from one side of the con to the other and not be super winded and that was my goal.

3, Education. Can’t say expanding my edu has been a huge focus. I mean i have been learning a lot of things in lots of areas but mastering a topic hasn’t happened. But i can always do more and i should.

4, Podcasting…. So i did some pods. I can’t help being on break, right?

5, The pen and paper module, well i did make some strides in that area. I did get to run it once this year with a trusted test group and while i think we added some things that made it less then amazing it was fun and showed me where my problems are. Now i just need to get them fixed and fleshed out.

Okay so with those in mind, i need to set some goals.

1, Be kinder. I am not a nice guy. Nor am i intentionally mean. But what is the difference between some one that is unintentionally mean and some one that is? Not a lot right? I have a lot of pain and baggage from my past that touches me every day every minute and it colors how i see the world. About once a month my wife gets her fill of my shit that i don’t even know that is bothering her and calls me on it. And it would be nice if she didn’t have to call me out so often.

2, Write more. I started another project that might if it goes well, change the way my family lives. It is risky but comes with great rewards. And instead burning all my free time on bullshit i should try and write more. I mean i have a hour or so each night before finally mentally chilling out i could spend some of that time sharing.

3, Play more. More DDo, more Magic, more Pokemon, more everything. To do all of that i need to better handle my time. there is 24 hours a day and if i spend 7 of them asleep and 15 of them working i have 2 hours somewhere for other things. I just need to get those 2 hours in a place where they can be better spent.

4, Try out the pro’s lists. I am not a deck copier. Sometimes i think i would get better results if i was. So i want to try a few “pro” lists and see if my own desire to build my own deck is holding me back or if it is my play skill.

5, Show Profit. My other other job is at my local game store, The Arena. I have been working as the Community Manager there for a few months now and the turnouts for a lot of our different tournaments/events have grown but sales have not grown by enough to say i am very profitable. And i both love this job and want to see my shop grow because they are my friends/my shop. So i need to start to show larger payoffs at the end of the day and i think that will happen as long as i keep giving it my all.

Bonus, Get my level 1. In Magic the Gathering, judges are a tournament resource like any other and in my area we need more of that resource. I have been working with a couple of guys to get them their lvl 1 judge and one of them did last weekend and i could not be more proud. But just like how i haven’t actually played in the last few larger tournaments to spend my time running said tournament. I didn’t want to over work the judge we were able to bring in to help us out with out event.

There we go, six simple to say hard to do goals. Plus the standard ones of getting back on the healthy track and more Edu…

<3s and i hope your 2015 is a great one.

So once again it is time again to layout a few simple goals and for the most part not bother with any of them. Well F that! I did fairly well last year and this year I will try and do as well.

1, Focus more on work at work. I know this one is super ironic as I start out every morning at work with my blog post and plan to keep doing so but a lot more time then I would like, I feel my mind wonder to this gear list or this build. And from those thoughts to lets just take a peak at the forums and then I spiral out of control. Ending up only getting 4-5 hours of work done in my 8-hour day. I can do better then that.

2, Keep reading but add in more learning materials, thinking one “thing” a month. One of the things I feel hampers me from ever leaving this dead end job is I spend my time working (mostly with old tools/teck), playing DDo or generally enjoying my free time. I need to get at least get a better idea of what is out there, even if that is all I learn….

3, leading again. Finally back to a real DDo goal. For a long time now I have used the early failures of the F2P groups as my excuse not to lead groups any more. And to be fair that time really left a nasty taste in my mouth. But I have been in the leadership role more and more lately be it leading the DG/HoDW team ups or even a raid or two. And while I don’t really like it, there are things that need to be done. At least on Sarlona some raids have completely dropped off the raidar (see what I did threre? ☺).

4, Be more grateful when the loot gods favor anyone, something I think a lot of people could work on. I like most people want things. Oh I love things. So when someone else gets things I get a little jealous and want them to give me their things. Sure I can be glad for friends and channel people but often I just want MORE STUFF for myself so even if I do feel happy for people I also have that hit of jealously. And I don’t think I can cut the jealously but I can try and be happier for others.

5, Be more forgiving in game. I am often quick to anger and long to cool down, at myself or others. A few quick examples (who doesn’t like a few short stories?):

Last weekend I burned a few bypasses with Tobril on Abbott runs, mostly to get his last few in for a 20th list before he TRs his FvS. The runs were mostly good but I don’t think we won goggles on the first try even though we were in the same room talking and planning out the path. So the other day when I saw what looked like a few good people leading one I was unsure if I wanted to give it a try. But I did and while it was filling a person (a reader here) sent me a tell and we talked back and forth. It so happens that we ended up in Ice. But almost at the end this person shot the island a little too far and I didn’t make it. Causing us to wipe ice, causing us to have to re-beat down. We happened to be the only room that failed. Had my partner and I not been joking and having a good time I would have been very pissed. Which was not needed and would not have been helpful. Instead we joked about it and it so happened that I got my Litany! So totally worth it!

One more, last afternoon I lead a CitW raid. Just on normal as I am still getting my bearings in the quest and I was super upfront as to my lack on knowledge of the raid, but I had a basic plan and was willing to take any input if anyone had any. And way the raid went really well. I even had a Twilight drop for me. With out really thinking about it I kicked it over to one of the Brits who had said he was looking for one when we started first learning the raid, THE 7 OF US. And he happily looted said item and life was good. Well as the group disbanded one guy asks if any named loot dropped? I say yeah a Twilight dropped. Then he asks, who looted it. I said the Brit’s alt name looted it expecting that to be it. And he points out that it is not in the loot list. I take a look as the wife and I were also talking about the stick and I ended up pulling up the wiki page on it for us to look at because it was not in the list. Then he says “Didn’t if fall in your name, Sam? Its cool if you kicked it to a guildie or something.” And I said yes it did and I passed it really with out thinking. And he goes Oh one of those groups; at least it was a completion…. And I got pissed. Not a sec ago he wanted to be sure it got looted or seeing if we got skunked and then it became he wanted my loot. I know color me ironic, but I don’t think I deserve anyone’s loot even if I want it… His little comment pissed me off had the Brits also not been logging off just then as it was getting on for them it would have made a real unfun play time for us for the next couple hours. Instead I took a break to calm down, thinking about it now I am a little pissed. See why I need to learn to let this kind of thing go? In hindsight maybe I should have rolled it off but like I said it was mostly with out thought and the Brits and I have been coming up together in this content even short manning the raid a time or two depending on wither you count tomorrows post as a win or not..

Anyway time to go. Hope you have a few resolutions on tap for the New Year and I hope you all have a good one.

<3s

I had a few loose goals on my list this year and I have to say I did okay this year, but unlike most years I posted them on online where I could easily review them and see how I did really. So if you missed it here is a link to my 2012 resolutions. How did I do? Lets see.

1, Take more time to play the “end game”.
At least in the last few weeks I think I have hit this on the head, well mostly with the brits. Yesterday, afternoon for me we did a few runs on EE on my dps project there were some deaths but we won. Heck the first run even we lost a man (our arcane) but still won out in the end. But even before we started playing with the brits I my tank got a lot of end game time, I powered up an while Samius is busy CC caster and got him working some epics and Butters is always ready for epics.

2, Wrap up Samius’s TRing.
Well for now I am done and I am just grinding out destiny stuff and enjoying the end game stuff. If I decide to do a few more lives I will first burn some +x hearts and get another FvS life if not work on getting 3 total. But MORE HP is where it is at, but Barb lives for for 20 more hp would suck. Although tring would be easier then ever now as the VoD we did this weekend offered up two Tharn’s Goggles. One for me, in my name or I wouldn’t have tried to get it over others that might use it a lot and one for Tobril’s tank. My wife passed it over to him, as that was why we bothered with the raid. I really was hunting for one during all those TR lives and now that I have more or less given up I get one. Oh loot gods; you’re all so funny.

3, More reading,
Think I did well on this one also and I will keep it on the list again this year but with a few tweaks but I will get in to that on Wednesday. But my reading habit shot up a lot compared to 2011. I would have to look at the lists to know for sure but I am up to date in IM for the first time in years. Even picking up a few other marvel books every week and I have been doing about a book a month for the last year. Some have even been educational. Not all but some.

4, New Look for Gencon.
This was two pronged. I wanted to shed a few pounds and grow out my hairs. I have to say for a while I looked as much as I could like my Samius pic as I could. Have to say it was not bad switching to peleo has been a good switch, although the last week I have been a cheating turd, but I am full on starting today again.

So over all I did fairly well. Think having this blog to keep me honest helps but most of my goals were easily met. Next years will need to be a little more extreme!

<3s