Major League Baseball!

For our one month anniversary, Chuck surprised me with tickets to the Atlanta Braves vs Arizona Diamondbacks game this past Saturday night. It was my first major league game, and first time in such a huge stadium. There were 37,000 other people watching the game as well -- it was SO awesome!

The Diamondbacks soundly beat the Braves 13-0. The stadium itself is just amazing. There is a swimming pool and spa right there alongside the field, and when the Dbacks hit a home run, the fountains in the pool kick up -- pretty cool to see. We had great seats, the pic here is right from where we were sitting.

Walking through the stadium to our seat, there was a guy with a six foot alligator...I think advertising a wildlife park. And another guy holding some kind of snake. There were all kinds of people, all shapes and sizes. The guy sitting below us was pretty hilarious -- one of those "rabid fans", which added to the enjoyment of the game, we laughed so hard. The dogs were most excellent, of course, and we had peanuts too.

Being in a ballpark that size, the stadium doing the wave, the graphics on the scoreboards, the fountains, the cheering crowd, and the fact that the stadium roof can open and close like a convertible car roof -- what a fantastic evening. Now I'm hooked, I can't wait to go to the next Dbacks game. Having attended some of the Tulsa Drillers baseball games in the past -- they now look like a little league game compared to going to a major league ballpark.

Enchanting Gripes

Rant Post INC
<rant>So. Saguaro, my shadow priest on Argent Dawn, just made 35. Since she had Ghoulia (my lvl 60 mage alt) feeding her stuff to DE, cook, materials to tailor, etc, she maxed 225 on all of her skills by about thirty. So I pushed to 35 and managed to see the Master Tailor, get the cooking to 300 quest, get the Hammerfall first aid quest, etc etc.

That leaves enchanting, which I've maxed at 225. I go see any enchanting trainer, and they tell me that the Master Enchanter is *drum roll*... in Uldaman. Um... WHAT? How come everyone else's master profession trainer is in a decent area, but to max enchanting you have to do one of the worst instances in the game? For those of you who think I am speaking Greek, I'll translate. You go talk to trainers to up your skill. However, Blizzard decided to place the enchanting trainer in a very very nasty area that is not reachable by any lvl35 character soloing. So I pull in Nightmarcher for the big guns. He escorts the priest all the way in, only to get ganked by 1000000000000 scorpions. We spirit rezzed and went to bed.

I'm thinking I'm going to get my mage (Ghoulia) tonight and just run out to Uldaman and wreak havoc just for revenge. Arrrrrgh!! I'd love to know WHY Blizzard puts the one trainer in such a high level area. That's great to make something hard for players, but to make it unreachable for that level? Why not just require that to get enchanting past 225 you have to be lvl45 or lvl50 instead of lvl35? I'm thinking Saguaro at 60 won't be able to melt faces fast enough to get back there! </rant>

Gaming too much?

Not much to report recently except that perhaps I've been gaming too much. In this morning's meeting I glanced over to see that a coworker's energy drink had Tauren in it. Guess that gives a whole new meaning to the drink Red Bull. If you don't play WoW, it's a game reference. Don't fret over it. ;)

I'm also learning that hiking in the Arizona sun when it's 100+ degrees outside is a lot different than hiking in the Arizona sun when it's 70 degrees outside. The last time we hiked Piestewa Peak it was a "cold snap" and there was snow on surrounding peaks. Still a bit of a tough workout, but it was gorgeous, and comfortable. This past Saturday we decided to hike it again, only I slept in too late. So we hit Piestewa around 10am. It was a struggle this time. It was so hot, and just beating down mercilessly... hiking in the desert heat is definitely something I'll have to work up to. It was finally more tolerable when we were in the car with AC and Chuck bought me some shave ice.

I've been gaming so much with the new laptop that I haven't done much else photo posting-wise, but I promise some photos up this evening from Pinnacle Peak, and whatever else I may have missed here and there.

We're planning on hitting Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, CA sometime soon, not sure if we want to brave Memorial Day weekend, but I think we might get season passes and try to hit it a few times this season now that they've got about 1.2 billion rollercoasters (numbers slightly exaggerated).

Oh and I've discovered podcasts. I'm now hooked, I get both audio and video podcasts, and they pretty much get me through the workday coding (so long as I remember to update my ipod the night before). Shoutouts to the guys of The Instance podcast, my favorite World of Warcraft podcast. Also shoutouts to Mara and Seth, who got married last September and I just found out this past weekend :P Come move to Phoenix!

Dell XPS M1710

Sorry I haven't blogged in a week or so -- my new laptop came in and with 2gb of RAM, 512mb Nvidia 7900 GTX vid card, and 7200rpm 100gb hard drive, I've been gaming my little heart out! The 17" laptop is really easy on the eyes, too -- gorgeous glossy screen.

Finally a system that can play World of Warcraft at 1920x1200 resolutions with the settings cranked to the max! Also finally able to play Oblivion and The Sims 2 has been pretty sweet. Couple that with being able to run Maya 7, Photoshop CS2, and Visual Studio .NET, and I'm a happy camper!


Went to a great place this afternoon called Farelli's Cinema Supper Club where we saw Eight Below (the Disney movie about the sled dogs left all winter in Antarctica). The place had gourmet food at great tables inside a converted movie theater. I had garlic shrimp pizza with feta cheese and artichokes *mmmmm*. It's great living here, there's so much to do in Phoenix.

Last week we hiked Lookout Mountain -- short, but fun summit hike, and this week we hiked directly from the condos out to the Phoenix Mountain Preserve Visitor's Center (round trip about 3.5 miles). Tomorrow we're headed to Pinnacle Peak, I'll be sure to take a few photos for the blog!

Here's a pic of Pinnacle Peak...I'll take a better one from the summit!