casual_friday { I've been so casual, this blog has been inactive

What can I say? Been busy with life, both real and virtual.

My guild, despite numerous set backs, is progressing. We're in to Heroic Kel'Thuzad. We've done Heroic Obsidian Sanctum with one drake up, and only 20 people (due to no-shows). We've cleared 10 man Eye of Eternity. We're working on achievement runs. We're working on crazy in-game shit (like voidwalker tanking).

The raid thing this cycle has been rough as hell. Its been a crucible that has revealed the good people and what they are made of emotionally. The raid and officer corp decided this raid cycle we'd be more 'hardcore', which means raiding more often per week and being focused more on progression than we had in the past. Its not been perfect, and its not been what some have wanted. We've been weeding out the unhappy ones who have been leaving (despite our help). As we've come to more of a balance the content has been getting easier as people are getting geared and experienced as well as happier, happy raiders are more productive. Some who thought progression raiding would be fun realized it is fun, but a lot of work, especially if your raid is like ours, learning together. Almost the entire raid is made up of people in house, and/or who haven't done the content before so we were all going through it together. This means a lot of wipes, a lot of repair bills, and such as everyone learns to work together. It was made harder by the constant attrition and as I suspected, but we've confirmed, the constant effort of an unhappy element in the officer corp who was actively trying to dissolve the raid and sour the guild. There was a lot of faux drama, people burning bridges as they left in melodramatic ways. We wish these people well, but the ones who left in a 'blaze of glory', well 'happy trails to you'. You're not welcome back. In the case of the disgruntled officer, his arrogance was so extreme he thought his leaving would cause the guild to dissolve. Well three people left over it.. All told we lost about six people in the last month or so for various reasons (real people not toons) but gained eight. The guild and the raid has been less tense.

Real life, well its hard to not be affected by the current economic situation. People are getting laid off and a hiring and training freeze. There is still a lot of work but now less people to do it. I'm only 1 of 2 Solaris admins full-time who take care of ~100 Solaris OS images plus a full project load.

Since the stress of my cancer, I don't put in a lot of overtime at work if I can help it. You need to have work and non-work separated.

Anyways I'll be trying to write more, but I have 3 blogs now (including this one).

So here's some music: