Death comes calling

Last night, my family and I attended a memorial service for our friend, Kathy Barnes.

We've known Alvin and Kathy since we moved to Indiana and started attending Grace Bible Church. We hadn't really gotten together all that often as our kids and their kids were 10 or so years apart. But we did occasionally get together for game nights with other couples. More often, I would get together with Alvin and the guys for some Axis and Allies borefests.

As I grow older, I know that I will see more and more death. More of my loved ones will die, as well as associates, acquaintances, and friends. In the first three years of living in Indiana, I attended funerals for one of my co-workers, one of my wife's co-workers, a church member, and two of my wife's grand parents. That was more funerals than all of my 17 years in Alaska.

Kathy's passing hit close to home as she was just 38, which is pretty close to my age. Cancer strikes the whole age spectrum and pays no mind to race, creed, religion, or any other "special snowflake" group. My wife is an Oncology nurse and can testify to the diverse spectrum of people that cross her path at work.

We often look to God and ask, "Why?"

Why Kathy, God?
Why take two precious kids' mother in the prime of her life?
Why make her death so painful?
Why drag out the process for three years?
Why take one of your more faithful servants?
Why wouldn't you heal her? (He's more than able to)

Some answers, I'll probably never know. Some, I wouldn't like if I did know. And some probably wouldn't make any sense at all. What I can count on, though, is God's character, which is partly revealed in Rom. 8:28:

"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." NASB

I can see some of God's working this incident for good already - People being affected by Kathy's faithfulness through her three year fight with Cancer, the church rallying around the Barnes in service and providing for their needs, even at her memorial as the gospel was presented to people who may not have heard.

But all of that doesn't really affect me, however, God is using Kathy's death to spark a much needed revival in my own life. Too often in the past 5 years now, I've grown slack in my relationship with Him.

God warned the Israelites that after they had settled into the promised land and had started enjoying the fruit of that land, to not become complacent and forget the God of their fathers. Moreso, He warned them of the very real temptation to follow after their own desires when their bellies were full and their enemies vanquished.

In short, not having to daily look to God for their food (manna), water, and clothing (it didn't wear out in 40 years of wandering!), would, in turn, encourage them to think they had provided the good things for themselves, to think that they had it all figured out, and to question why they needed God at all.

And that's the place I find myself. I have a beautiful wife, trouble free kids, a nice house, nice cars, smokin' computer, 1337 WoW toons, financial security, and job security (just can't seem to fire those gubment workers). My troubles are few and far between, and I am complacent. I have looked around my "domain" and said, "Self, you really got it goin' on."

Yet, inside, I have been rotting. As Revelations 2:4 pointed out to the church at Ephesus, I have left my first love. And this isn't the first time that I've left it. Ever since we moved from Alaska, I've been moving farther and farther away from God. I look at my life as my own, but the Bible tells me I have been "bought with a price." Well, if I've been bought with the precious blood of Jesus, then my life isn't my own, now is it.

Fortunately, for me, the answer to my unfaithfulness is found right after Jesus' devastating remark, in Rev. 2:5: "Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first..."

For five years, I've been in free fall as God has removed the props that I was using to think my relationship with Him was ok. He's shown me what our relationship is really like - not much of one. That needs to change.

So, to bring this post full circle, God is using Kathy's death to draw me back to Him. And I know it's with Kathy's hearty approval. To God be the glory.

Raid on Alliance, Play on Horde

So, I'm down to just raiding on Daxie, 10 hours/week, on the Alliance side; all of my other play time is spent over on Suramar on my Hordies.

I got a surprise visit from Jay the other day; it really made my day as I was getting a bit lonely as of late. After he logged, I sent him 10 gold and some Netherweave bags to entice him back. Oh and finagled him an invite into the leet guild Cult of Dax. I gots connections!

Over the weekend (and yesterday as I stayed home from work), I got a fair amount accomplished; referencing my last WoW post (yes, I'm going to make you go back and forth):

1. Daxen's Mining/JC is up to Outlands levels! Yes! What a relief to get this grind done. By the way, the absolute best place to mine Thorium is Un'goro Crater. Hands down. Just make loops around the outside and by the time you've made a full circuit, ore will have started popping again. Don't even bother going up into the hills; just mine the stuff at the bottom.

2. I bought the rods for Daxea, so this project can, and probably will, drop to the bottom.

3. Punt.

4. Got in some good LW skill points and have finally gotten up to where I can make some useful armor for a level 70. I also got my Troll up to 71 and am almost prepared to complete all the quests for Nexus.

5. Used up all of Daxea the Pox Priest's rested XP. She's up to just shy of 53. I sent over my Heirloom staff to help her out, and she's been healing LBRD and ST. I also decided to grind out Timbermaw rep for the Agility enchants; got the 2H one already and am halfway though to Honored (and the 1H one).

6. He sent his staff to Daxea...and sat around, unplayed.

7. Punt.

8. Oldmandax actually was level 16. I ran RFK a couple of times on him, and he's 17 or 18 now. I haven't sent my Heirloom gear to him, but if I do decide to level him, I may. I'd kind of like to save him for leveling with a friend...hint hint. JAY!! HEY I'M TALKIN' TO YOU!! Jeez. Maybe Robin wants to start playing again...

Ok that's about it. My plan for the next week or so is to burn up everyone's rest XP. Rysteranch the Troll is going to get most of the play because he has so much; although there is something to be said for burning the others and then working on Rysteranch. At the very least, I need to make sure I do my daily so I can get my badges.

(I might be a bad boy and spend Rysteranch's badges on Heirloom gear for Daxea, but don't tell him! He'd get mighty upset...)

The bouncing ball

This is what my weight has done since my last loser update. No, those don't have actual numbers recorded, it's more of a representative of what's been happening. I've been bouncing along and not broken the 186 lb mark like I was hoping at the end of March.

That is until this morning. I finally weighed in at 185.6 lbs. Woot! Time for some ice cream! Or maybe not...

In Retrospect...

Leveling a toon is easier and more fun than leveling Jewelcrafting/Mining. I should have saved $25 and not transferred Daxen the level 58 hunter and switched her profs.

Instead, I should have kept my level 39 hunter Daxen on Suramar because she did have Mining/JC at a level appropriate, erm...level. It would have been much more fun, as well as easier, to transfer my Heirloom gear and just level that hunter.

So, that said, I've stopped all leveling on Daxen in order to get her professions up to Outlands level - 300. And because I need to level both Mining and JC, I'm trying very hard to resist the allure of the AH and buying mats.

One of the things that I hate about leveling JC is the fact that I either have to rely on good prospecting luck (getting the gems I need from the ore) or have some non jewelcrafting mat just laying around (such as Large Fangs). I would much rather be able to at least have a leveling path that consists of just metal stuff so I wouldn't have to worry about having a number of specific gems available. I know, I know, QQ...

The good news is that I'm in no hurry, so this little break from running instances is just that, a stop in the action that will only help out in the long run. It's good to take this view, because I have a whole laundry list of things I need/want to do on this server:
(In no particular order)
1. Level Daxen's profs to Outlands levels. (Actively working on it)

2. Level Daxynn the Pally's Blacksmithing to make Arcanite and Fel Iron (enchanting) rods. This is going to be a longer term project as I need to grind out 50-75 skill points. I may even need to grind out some levels as she's only 39.

3. Switch Daxxy the Rogue's second profession. Currently, she has Mining/Herb, which are both nice for PvP. I'm leaning towards dropping Mining and picking up Inscription; my other option is to drop Herb and pick up Engineering. We'll just have to wait and see, won't we!

4. Rysteranch's Leatherworking is coming along nicely, but it still needs work. I made the mistake of right clicking on a bunch of Borean Leather Scraps to make Borean Leather; I should have gone into my LW screen and made them, as the recipe was yellow to me. DOH!

5. Daxea the Pox Priest is way ahead of the game with her professions (/preen), so that means I need to play her and get her some levels!

6. I have sorely neglected Daxenos the Druid. I don't know where his Herb/Alch stands, so I suppose I should take a peek and make a plan.

7. I have a DK, Vancomyacin. She doesn't have any profs. She's barely out of the starting area. Last priority right now.

8. I have another hunter, Oldmandax, who I think I'm going to delete in favor of another class. I might, however, take to leveling him through the dungeon system just to experience the lower level instances with a hunter. He's 17, so I could try to get the Oldlands dungeon master on him. Once again, very low priority.

That's it! I'm saving a spot for my goblin, once Cata hits. I'm not sure which class he'll be, but I know I NEEEEED to have one.

The Shadow Hunter

I have just received some top secret inside information from my mole that works at Blizzard. This is all hush hush, can't tell you unless I kill you information, and you heard it here first!

The expansion scheduled after Cataclysm is already in development, and the next hero class is going to be the Shadow Hunter! Like the DK is to the Pally, the Shadow Hunter is to the Priest and Hunter classes.

The new class will have a tanking tree, a healing tree, and an omgpewpewtreeofawesomeness tree. Yes, you read that right, there will be no QQ tree! Yes!!

The tanking tree will focus on pet survivability and tanking abilities. Major talents in this tree include Spittle Laced Growl, Putrid Dog Breath, and, my personal favorite, Annoying Howl. The SH humanoid half will concentrate on keeping all of the pulls' attention on their pet with Misdirects, Stickers, and Peanut Butter. The humanoid will also incorporate traps, snares, and camouflage into the tanking role.

The healing tree will highlight the pet's special abilities to comfort, inspire, and soothe. Lick Wounds receives a major buff in this Xpac and will rival the Holy Priest's Greater Heal in power. Once again, the hunter will augment the pet's healing with bandages, special herb mixtures, and cheerleading chants. (We've got spirit, yes we do...)

The omgpewpewtreeofawesomeness tree will take all of the existing talents from the current trees, make them 1/3rd of the cost in points, and basically be a 168 talent tree for the bargain basement price of 56 talent points. Yeah, it's that awesome!

In short, the Shadow Hunter will become what every Hunter dreams of and every other class QQ's about them. That's all the info I have for now. Stay tuned for further developments!

For the Horde!!

Dang, it's been a week since I posted! The good news is that I did get all my work done for the month of April, and I don't have as much work for May, so I'll hopefully be posting more.

Over the weekend, I abandoned Andorhal. I sold a bunch of junk, consolidated all my gold, gathered up all my heirloom stuff on Daxen the Hunter, Daxenos the Druid, and Daxynn (now Daxxy) the 6K kill Rogue and moved them all to Suramar.

So, now I have my first toon - Rysteranch the Troll Hunter, my former Pox toon - Daxea the BE Priest, my new transfers with their yummy Heirloom gear, and a smattering of other alts all over on Suramar in my one man guild Cult of Dax.

No, no, no, I haven't forsaken my Alliance toons (still am raiding on Daxie Sun, Mon, and Wed and trying to do the daily on Daxxy the Druid), but I have shifted the majority of my play time to my toons over on Suramar. So, what have I done?

Daxea has gotten to 300 Enchanting and one half bubble until level 51.

Rysteranch dinged 70. This is the highest that I've leveled a Horde toon (Daxie doesn't count because I transferred her at 80). I hit 70 before I started sharing the Heirloom gear from Daxen, so I expect that his next levels will come a bit quicker with the 20% XP gain and rested XP.

Daxen dropped skinning/LW for Mining/JC and has been leveling that as well as running Ramparts. So far she's gotten the legs, a neck, and a staff out of there and is hoping for the gloves off the second boss.

That's about it aside from organizing the rest of my toons. Daxynn the Pally has a new chest and shoulders that she needs to christen with the blood of her enemies; maybe I'll get to that tomorrow night. Daxenos the Druid hasn't been out and about on Suramar yet, and Daxxy the 6K kill Rogue is wiling away her time in the pub...for now.

Work, Work, Work

And that meant no posting as of late.

Allow me to update you.

An interesting thing happened on the way to leveling through the LFG on Daxxy the Druid. I mostly stuck to the plan for the BC content (a few quests for Honor Hold to get some gear) and abandoned it almost entirely for WotLK content. Why?

It turns out that the XP requirements up to level 70 are conducive to leveling in instances, but after 70, there are some steep increases to the amount of XP required to level.

Compounding the issue was the beginning instance for Wrath (UK) seemed to pack a wallop that was difficult to keep up with on my poor little healer. Of course, at level 68, that might be expected.

So, I figured I'd get some of the new gear from some of the beginning areas to see if that made a difference in the ease of healing. It did, somewhat. But the real kicker was getting to level 70 was much easier with questing rather than struggling to heal a 5 man.

Now that Daxxy is 71 and has several Wrath drops and quest rewards, healing instances is much easier, and I may return to just leveling through them, but I don't think I will. UK and Nexus can get a bit monotonous.

Also, I picked up epic flying for her and love just cruisin' around! I love the fact that I can collect flowers without shifting out of flight form.

----

Ok, so everyone knows I'm lovin' my alts. Currently, I'm trying to start new classes to replace some of my hunters in the trade skill areas (Daxxy will replace Smoochie as my Herb/Alc toon). So, to that end, I started a Rogue named Daxen on Kael'thas to replace Rysteranch as my Skinner/LW.

Yes, I plan on doing a lot of BGs with her ala Daxynn on Andorhal.

Yes, she's rockin' Heirloom shoulders, chest, daggers, and trinkets.

Yes, she did her first BG at 10. At 12, she topped the Alliance chart for killing blows.

Yes, she's Subtlety spec'd.

I just picked up a pocket healer in a guildy, so I'm really looking forward to the second half of the teens as an invincible rogue. rawr!

That's all for now, got to get back to work.