My New "Get Fit" Lifestyle

I was suppose to go to my friend Amy's going away party but the past few days I haven't been feeling well and today was no exception. Woke up with a soar throat and decided to just take it easy today. I did manage to clean the house a bit.. it's something easy to do as I can rest every few minutes. I feel guilty now just sitting and doing nothing. I watered the yard again and did a little bit of yard work. I played some LOTRO (Lord of the Rings Online). As it's the perfect excuse to play when you're not feeling well. I also finished editing my next Alien Nation podcast. Now if my brother and I could only find the time to record more.

As part of my "get fit" lifestyle I have moved my elliptical from my garage/weight room to my house. My biggest excuse for not doing my cardio is that it's super hot outside, even at night and the garage is twice as hot. So now it's in my temperature controlled house.. no excuses. I also put it in my TV room so I can watch all the shows I have on my DVR while I am doing cardio and not feel guilty about taking time to watch some TV... no excuses. So my goal is to do at least a half hour of cardio a day. But what I'm really hoping is to do the elliptical three or four times a day while watching TV... get in a good few hours of low impact cardio.

Though I wasn't feeling well (no excuses), I still manage to do 30 minutes of cardio while watching a repeat of The Big Bang Theory. It's so nice to have the elliptical in the house.. though it almost killed me dragging it over here from the garage... anyways I think this will be a good thing. I manage to eat better today.. not great but I know that food will be my biggest issue and slowly but surely I'll will be changing my eating habits.

So Day 1 of my new "get fit" lifestyle has come to an end... and I'd say it was a success.. got only the rest of my life to go :)

Podcasts, LOTRO & Pests

After my doctors visit I came home and jumped right into editing another MASH podcast. This one isn't due until August 15th but I really want to try and get as many of them done beforehand as possible. We record up to six podcast at a time and I normally wait until a few days before they are due to be released to edit them.. well that's going to change. I'm going to try and edit the remaining five that I have recorded for the next few month in the next few days.. get them out of the way. Took me about six hours but I got MASH 4077 Podcast Episode 60 done and ready to go.

I took a break from podcasting and jumped on LOTRO and played for a few hour, they are still doing their summer festival and the have daily quests you can do over and over. While I was playing and traveling from one location to another (sometimes it could take a few minutes by horse) I wrote some more blogs. I'm really trying to stay up on my daily blogging. I also realized that it was getting dark and I had to take a break and go out and water my trees and shrubs. Yeah I'm still watering everything by hand until I can afford to hire someone to come out and look at my watering system. It's a pain in the butt but it's something I have to do.

I jumped back on LOTRO and played for another hour.. while I was playing I started talking with my buddy Chris and updating him on my doctor visit.

I finished playing LOTRO and still had a few hours before I was going to bed so I figured I'd get a jump start on editing my next Alien Nation Podcast. But before I got started I went into my kitchen to get a snack and I noticed at the bottom of the pantry, a bag of paste was torn open and then there were a few other things with holes in them.. crap, I thought, I have another mouse in the house. Living rural this is a common occurrence but it's been a good six months since my last visitor. I went to throw the open bags away and turned on a light and I don't know who was more startled the mouse or me.. I could hear it's little feet slipping on the wood floor. It took off further into the house.. I searched for it for a while but no luck.. time to get the traps out again. I hate killing these mice as I love rats and mice (I've had many as pets in years past). But this one has got to go.

Anyways I did mange to string out my audio for Alien Nation, and do my second pass of editing out all the flubs and dead air. I started cutting in audio bites from the actual TV episode but my eyes started to go cross about 10 minutes in so I called it a night.. will finish it off tomorrow.

So tomorrow I start my new daily workout and try and cut down on my carbs and sugars.. this is going to be fun.

Scary News

So today I had my doctors appointment, I left my house at 8am for a 10am appointment as you never know how bad traffic is going to be and my doctor is in Los Angeles. I got there in about an hour and 15 minutes so I played Candy Crush for 30 minutes before heading to the office.

I wasn't actually seeing my Doctor, Dr. Mills today I was seeing Peter the nurse practitioner. I've had appointments with him before and he's just as nice and well versed in medicine as my doctor. This was my six month follow up so it was a quick check up unlike the long ones where they poke everywhere and check everything. After the check up we looked at my blood work from last time. Blood pressure and cholesterol are good (thanks to meds) but there was one red flag.. my sugar levels were too high. I'm not going to go into great detail.. needless to say that I'm on the verge of being a diabetic.

I have to admit that this isn't a surprise, I have had weight issues my enter life, but the past 10 years I have gone from 165 to my current weight of 210. If you follow my blog you know that I have tried to lose weight but it's hard to change my diet mindset of the past 42 years. I'm not opposed to working out..if fact I love it.. I love the way it makes me feel.. but being at home and not working makes you very lethargic, unmotivated. I struggle everyday just to get outside and do yard work or continue with the painting of my house. I struggle with editing podcasts or writing my script for the webseries I'm working on. Everyday is a struggle.

I know those are just excuses. At night I think of all the things I could have gotten done during the day if I wasn't so lazy... and I hate myself for it.

But things have to change, no more excuses.. I know it's not going to be easy and I will stumble and fall every now and then but if I continue down the path I am going I will A, not be here for much longer or B, I will not be able to do all the things I still want to do in life. And neither of those options are what I want for me. And the good news is.. If I can lose the weight and eat healthier I can reverse my potential diabetes scare.

So starting today.. the workouts are back on, diet is going to be a work in progress.. I'll start with cutting back on fast food, white carbs and sweets and will go from there. I promised Peter (nurse practitioner) that I would lose 20 pounds by my next six month check up and I'm determined to do it.

Wish me luck!!!

Rough Times & Great Friends

Woke up this morning with a sore throat.. not sure if it's "Con Crud" or not since SDCC was a week and half ago. Anyways I don't feel so great so I spent the majority of the day in my chair feeling dizzy and watching TV. I did manage to go outside and do some yard work, I even started editing my next MASH podcast 14 days before it's due (which is huge for me :)

I had to go to the post office to mail out some things that came to my house for Anthony and Michele, been promising to do that since before SDCC. After that I went to Taco Bell to grab a late lunch/early dinner and while I was in the drive through my buddy Chris texted me with an important question. I'm not going to go into detail here but needless to say it made my day and it's not because of what he asked or did, it's knowing that I have a friend who thinks that much of me.. he truly is my best friend and I love him to death.

Driving back home. I tweeted "I may be getting sick and life might not be going as planned at the moment.. But you know what.. My heart is happy" and it's true...  It's hard to explain the feeling of simple joy. My heart was happy. My life is pretty rough at the moment, I haven't been able to find steady work in a long while, I have ran out of money and as of July I'm living off credit cards. I'm doing everything I can to try and not lose my house and car. But what I have an abundance of are friends and love. They keep me going, they keep me smiling, they are the reason why I'm not curled up in a ball on my bed having a panic attack. 

And thank goodness for season passes, both my Disneyland and Magic Mountain passes were purchased well before my financial woes, so I'm still able to go out once in a while and have some fun with these friends. 

So life isn't going as planned at the moment but hey.. it could always be worse. I'm thankful for all that I do have.. and that's alot of love :)

MASH 4077 Podcast Episode 59

Download from itunes tinyurl.com/MASH4077itunes , listen on Stitcher Radio ow.ly/iZJIz or Listen, get direct download from our main website MASH4077Podcast.com

Show Notes

Kenny Mittleider from Knights of the Guild, Alien Nation: The Newcomers Podcast & Confessions of a Fanboy Podcast, Simon Meddings from Waffle On Podcast, Al Kessel from Tales from the Mouse House, Fast Forward & Just Because Podcast & special guest listener co-host Rick Peete discuss one of the most successful and longest running television series in history.. M*A*S*H

Today we cover Season 3, Episode #11 - Adam's Ribs

59th Episode Overall

Directed by Gene Reynolds
Written by Laurence Marks
Production code B316
Original air date November 26, 1974

Set during the Korean War in the 1950’s

Plot Summary: After literally being fed up with mess hall food, Hawkeye goes on a desperate quest to order barbecue spare ribs from his favorite restaurant, Adam's Ribs, at Dearborn Station in Chicago.

Friends on TV, Babylon 5 & Sad News

I was watching TV today and saw a McDonalds/Smurf 2 commercial and at the end I saw this girl/employee and the first shot I thought.. hmmm I know her and then with the second shot and her amazing smile I knew it was my friend Marissa. I love when my friends show up on TV, either in commercials, TV shows or movies.

I cleaned the house today.. did all the rooms except my bedroom where both of my suitcases are still sitting there from SDCC. I also worked on the yard a bit more. Still have loads to do but it's getting there.

I was checking out the "numbers" I am getting on this blog and some posts get 15 views while others get 200 views and it got me thinking.. why do some posts get more views then others. It has to be the title of the blog post because that would attract the reader. But then again you take my recent blog posts about SDCC, there were five of them, Day 1 got 79 views, Day 2 got 49, Day 3 got 47, Day 4 got 109 and day 5 got 34 views. They were all titled the same with except to the Day, so that theory goes down the drain. Maybe it's more about when I post it and how many people are online. Then that got me thinking.. I blog daily so is there anyone out there who just checks my blog every few days to read the new posts or do people only read my blog when they see tweets or facebook posts about it? I guess my situation is not that unusual as I have spoken to other bloggers and it seems to be the all around.. guess there is no real rhyme or reason for blog readership.

It's Wednesday so that means TV night at my buddy Robert's place. We are continuing our first time viewing of Babylon 5. We have seen the first five episodes of season one so far, we didn't realize that he pilot wasn't part of season one to the first thing we did was go back and begin with the pilot to Babylon 5. Here's a quick synopsis; This TV movie is the pilot for the "Babylon 5" TV series. Set on a space station in the late 23rd Century, Babylon 5 is a centre of diplomacy and trade, in neutral space located between many rival space empires. The project's success, already shaky, is put further in doubt when incoming Commander Jeffrey Sinclair is the key suspect in the attempted assassination of Kosh, a mysterious alien ambassador.

I enjoyed it very much. If I would have watched this back in the day it would have hooked me and I would have watched the series. Some of the characters makeup were different and a few cast members were different (doctor, telepath, 2nd in command) but the characters that I really like were the same.. Londo and Garibaldi. It was a nice introduction to the Babylon 5 universe.

After the pilot we picked back up where we left off last week. Season 1 Ep 6 "Mind War", The Psi-Cops arrive at the station to capture Talia's old Psi Corps instructor. Catherine is warned not to survey a sector of space by G'Kar.

Another strong episode, lots of questioning ethics in this episode. I'm only six episode in but the writing is amazing, There have been a few of the episode so far that has really gotten Robert and I talking. Still not sure about G'Kar.. bad guy or comic relief or a bit of both.. guess will have to wait and see.

Our final episode of the night Season 1 Ep 7 "The War Prayer"  A pro-Earth group attacks a Minbari poet and two Centauri lovers seek Londo's help.

Another great episode, this time the theme is all about racism and hate, episodes like these really remind of the fantastic TV series Alien Nation that dealt with the theme of Human/Alien relationships all the time.  

We called it a night and I headed home, I couldn't sleep so I jumped on LOTRO and played for a few hours. While I was on a friend of mine facebook IM chatted with me. He hasn't been having that much luck in life the past few years and he just informed me that they found a mass in one of his lungs... cancer. He's only 29 years old... my heart broke. He is such a sweet guy and so many bad things are happening to him you just want a bit of luck to come his way and then he has to deal with this. He's now dealing with  his insurance and if they will cover the chemo or not... so sad.

Finally went to bed around 2am, it wasn't the best way to end my night but it did make me appreciate what I have and the people I have around me.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Extended Edition Info

DVD Cover

I'm super excited for this.. I loved the Lord of the Rings Extended Editions and I'm sure to love The Hobbit as well. Here's the Warner Bros press release for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Extended Edition with more information.

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY EXTENDED EDITION

A PRODUCTION OF NEW LINE CINEMA
AND METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER PICTURES,
ARRIVES ON DIGITAL DOWNLOAD ON
OCTOBER 22TH AND ON BLU-RAY 3DTM,
BLU-RAY™ AND DVD NOVEMBER 5TH FROM
WARNER BROS. HOME ENTERTAINMENT

Blu-ray 3D Cover

Burbank, Calif., July 31, 2013 – Fans of Middle-earth will have the opportunity to gain a broader experience of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, from Academy Award-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson, when the epic fantasy adventure is released as an Extended Edition on Digital Download October 22nd and on Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray and DVD on November 5th from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE). A production of New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, this new cut includes 13 minutes of extra film footage that extends individual scenes, making this the must-see, definitive version for fans. All disc versions of the Extended Edition include nearly nine hours of new bonus features and will be available just ahead of the December 13 theatrical release of the second film of the trilogy, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Blu-ray Cover

“I’m thrilled that the Extended Edition will give fans the opportunity to experience certain key scenes in the film as they were originally shot, as well as an abundance of special features,” said Jackson. “It’s exciting to present this expanded and enriched version of ‘An Unexpected Journey’ to allow fans to fully immerse themselves in the movie, before seeing the second part of the trilogy.”

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Extended Edition will be available as a 5-disc Blu-ray 3D set ($54.98 SRP) that features the Blu-ray 3D and Blu-ray versions of the Extended Edition; a 3-disc Blu-ray ($35.99) and a 5-disc DVD ($34.99) The Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray and DVD all include UltraVioletTM which allows consumers to download and instantly stream the Extended Edition in high definition to a wide range of devices including computers and compatible tablets, smartphones, game consoles, Internet-connected TVs and Blu-ray players.

The nearly nine hours of new special features boasts audio commentary with Peter Jackson, director/producer/screenwriter, and Philippa Boyens, co-producer/screenwriter, and “The Appendices,” A multi-part chronological history of the filming of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, covering pre-production in the various departments of the film in the months leading up to the start of principal photography, the boot camp training for the main cast, the work done on set chronologically through the three shooting blocks and in the world of its digital effects.

They also release one of the deleted scenes. it's a nice moment between Elrond and Bilbo

 

Regrets

I came across this article today and it really resonated with me. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying

The article is about a woman who was a nurse at a facility where people went to die. She would take care of those folks who had about 3 months to live, she would listen to them, talk with them and she even wrote a book about the experience.

I would say the past three years or so I have really changed my outlook on life.  It's no longer about how much money I can make or what I can buy, it's how I'm living my life, it's spending time with people who are the most important to me. It's wanting to see more of the world, wanting to do more then just simply live the average life. I don't want to have any regrets when it's my time to leave this world.

Here are the top 5 regrets people had before they died.

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

This was a big deal for me as I lived my life up to age 27 pretending/trying to be a "straight guy". I was living a lie and though I had a decent 27 years I wasn't living the life that I was born to live. It's hard to explain the feeling of coming out and no longer feeling the shame of hiding ones true self. It's a feeling that I never felt before and one that I will probably never feel again. I have continued to try and live life the way I want to live it... for me and not for others.

2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

Again this was a big one for me... as I mentioned earlier up to about age 40, work and making money were my high goals in life. I've always wanted a family.. but being a gay man and having a partner who didn't want kids, those goals were not a priority. I use to think that you can't really live life if you don't have money. And that might be true to an extent, but their are limits of what money can buy. I haven't been happy working in the Entertainment industry since turning 40. Yes you can make some good money but along with that is a huge amount of stress, and as I get older I realize that my body can't handle that kind of stress. It's time for a change.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

This is something that I need to work on with my family.. I can tell my mom I love her and give her a hug, I hug my aunts, cousins, niece and nephew but for some reason when it comes to my Dad, Brother and Sister-in-law I don't hug or say I love you to them often enough, and those are the family members I see the most. I guess it's because my dad isn't a very affectionate person, he's never said I love you to me, he's written it in a card here and there over the years. Of course I know and they know we love each other but that's something that I need work on.

When it comes to friends I have no problem hugging my hello's and goodbyes and to my best friends I tell them I love them all the time (maybe even to much). I actually try and tell them every time I see them as you really don't know when it will be your last. Gotta keep that in mind when visiting my family.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

This is a big regret of mine, because I worked so much, my older friendship suffered for it. I tell myself that if we were good friends then we would have kept in touch, but that's not true.. I feel like I have lost many good friends over the years. I am "Facebook" friends with quite a few of them now, but it really isn't the same as seeing them all the time. Why I think some of my friendships don't last...  I feel like I give 80% and they give 20%. I initiate everything.. I call, I text, I plan the meet up, I drive to see them but after awhile you get tired of always being the one initiating and it's frustrating, friendship is a two way street and should be a 50/50 give and take. Of course I understand that life can get busy and time is very important to everyone but if a friendship is worth it then you make the time and effort. At least that's how I see things. I currently have some of the best friends I've had my entire life and I know that some of them will be my friends until the day I die (and thankfully most are younger then me so I will be dying first :). These friends have staying power... but then again that's what I thought with some of my "older" friendship.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

I don't know if I get this regret.. here's what she had to say about it. "This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to them selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again."

I'm a fairly happy person, and many of my friends would say I enjoying living in my "comfort" zone but that is what makes me happy. I know what kinds of food make me happy, I know what kind of TV/Movies makes me happy.. these are all in my comfort zone and they make me happy. So I'm either not understanding this regret or I don't have it.. yay!!

What's your greatest regret so far, and what will you set out to achieve or change before you die?

Back on Track!!

New week.. new attitude. I couldn't do much yesterday because I really wanted to visit family.. so today is all about getting back in the groove. I have podcasts to edit, a house to finish painting and a yard that needs some attention.

I started with my MASH 4077 Podcast, it's due to be released in two days and I barely got the audio strungout. I had so many issue yesterday when I was trying to import the tv episode and come to find out that it actually was my MASH project on my Avid that was having the issue. Only took me a few hours to realize that. So today I had more issues. We had a special guest co-host on this episode and for some reason his audio was extremely low and I couldn't boost it enough in Avid so I had to take the file and bring it into Audacity but for some reason the file I had was corrupt and I couldn't open it. This is where panic starts to creep in. I'm thinking to myself how hard is it going to be to cut around his audio if I can't get it to work. Luckily I was able to use the audio that I imported into the Avid. All I had to do was export it as an AIFF file and then import it into Audacity and that seemed to work.

Of course when you boost a persons audio you also boost all the surrounding noise so there were some loud hissing going on so I ran a normalizer over it to try and pull some of it out.. it worked for the most part. It's the 100% clear but it's good enough for the podcast.

So I re-imported Rick's audio and added it to the string out. At this point everything was strung out and it was time to actually start to edit the audio. But I wanted to get some work done in the yard while it was light outside. I figured I could finish the podcast later in the evening. So I journeyed out into the hot 90 degree weather and started working on my yard. I worked out there for about an hour before having to come back inside to recoup from the heat. I had some lunch and watched a bit of TV and realized that it's just too hot to continue to work outside. So I went back to my MASH podcast.

I do four passes on my podcasts, I first string out all the audio, I then go through and edit the audio down.. take out um's or breaths or flubs. The third pass is where I add the audio bites from the actual TV episode and for the final pass I "sweeten" the audio. I use dissolve to make things blend together and I do one final listen to make sure everything sounds good.

I finished my MASH podcast around 4pm and started to talk with my buddy Chris. He mentioned that he was going to jump on LOTRO and play for a bit. Since we don't get to play often I said I was just finishing up my MASH edit and as a reward to myself I wanted to jump on a play for a bit with him.. so that's what's I did.

Chris and I played LOTRO for about 2 1/2 hours (lots of fishing). As always it's a blast playing LOTRO with a fellowship.. even if it's a fellowship of two. We finished up around 6:30pm and I went back outside to do some more yard work.. it was much cooler.

I spent the rest of the evening, prepping more podcasts, and finally catching up on my blog posts. With this blog post I am officially caught up.. woohoo.

Visiting Family and Friends

It's Monday.. it's been a week since comic con and it's time to get my butt back into gear. I woke up early and started working on my next MASH 4077 Podcast. I also did a little bit a yard work before stopping around 11am and heading out to visit family. I haven't seen my family in over three weeks which is a long time for me. Because of all the stuff I was doing around the house I was late on getting to my brother's house. I got there around 2pm. Planned to have lunch with Dad and then come back and hang out with my sister-in-law, nephew and niece.

But when I got to the house my nephew heard me and came down all shy (which is unusual, so I knew he was up to something). And to my surprise my niece came down stairs and came over to me and wanted to play.  If you've kept up on my blog you know that my niece and I haven't really bonded. She use to freak out and cry if I looked at her but the past few months she's been warming up to me and now she wants to hold my hand and give me hugs.. so I'm a happy uncle.

Back to Kenobi... he asked me to go upstairs and play cars with him but I told him that Grandpa and I were going to lunch... he asked in a very quiet voice.. "can I go". I didn't quite hear him so I asked what.. that's when my dad said.. he wants to go. At first I thought I don't have a car seat so of course he can't go but then I asked Lora if I could use one of theirs.. if it was easy enough to remove from her car and put in mine.. and sure enough it was. So I said of course you can go with us. And he was so excited.

Come to find out later from my Dad, Kenobi always asks if he can go with us when we do lunches together. But this is the first time he has asked me (hence the shyness). He's now 4 years old and 41 lbs so he can use a booster seat which I plan to buy so he can come with us more often.

We went to a local burger joint (Kenobi is a very picky eater). He was very well behaved.. moved around a bit and played with the pepper and salt shakers but he was very good for a 4 year old.  We ate our burgers, Kenobi had seven bites (he enjoyed counting them) and then headed over to CVS for my Dad.. again Kenobi was great. He walked around the store with us with no complaints.. he tried to have us buy him some candy and silly puddy as any 4 year old would do.. but I was good and resisted.

We got back to the house and I hung out with the rest of the family. Molly was being very attentive to me. She wanted to watch Yo Gabba Gabba with me.

About an hour later my brother got home from work and wanted to show me his new stilts for his Transformer cosplay. And of course me being me.. said.. let me give them a try. So we headed outside to a wall that I could get up on so he could strap me in. They are two feet high, which doesn't seem like much... but when you're up there with the potential to fall.. it's pretty high.

At first I was wobbly and the stilts felt like a ton of weight. But after a few minutes you get use to them and you learn very quickly how you're suppose to walk. There were a few moments when I thought I was going down but my brother was next to me for a shoulder to lean on. It was actually alot of fun. And man is it a good workout for your ankles.. I was feeling the burn only after five minutes of walking in them.

After my stilt walk I hung out with my family another half hour before heading north to hang out with my buddy Josh. Josh and I haven't really had any one on one time in quite some time (many months). So he was off work and I was in the area I figured we'd spend some time together.

We hung out in his room for about an hour or so just catching up. He had some new and really cool Lord of the Rings/Hobbit things in his room. Around 7:30pm we headed to dinner to a local Italian restaurant. The food was very tasty and it was reasonable priced.  Afterwards we headed back to his place to watch a movie. He has a handful of movies that I've always wanted to see but never had the chance. We choose Rent for tonight's viewing. I've listened to the soundtrack and have wanted to see the stage play for years but never got around to it.

So we sat down to watch Rent. I've heard so many great things over the years that I knew there was no way it could live up to the hype.. And to be honest it's what I expected, it was fun, entertaining, sad, motivating and the music was amazing. I can see myself buying it on blu-ray, not that I would watch it all the time but if the mood struck me I'd like to be able to put it on. I'm glad we watched it and I can finally say that I saw it.

It was now 11:30pm and I said my goodbye and made my long (hour and a half) trek home. It was a long but fun day.

Hobbits, Droids & Harpies.. oh my!!

Today is Sunday so that means D&D Pathfinder, but that's not until 3:30pm. I planned to edit my next MASH podcast or finish up more blogs but instead by best bud Chris came online and asked if I wanted to do some questing on Lord of the Rings Online. And since he's extremely busy and we barely find time to play together I of course said yes.. everything else could wait. So we played LOTRO for about four hours before I had to call it day and get ready for D&D.

Something awesome happen during this time at Star Wars Celebration Europe, they announced that Star Wars Celebration VII will be happening during the month of April in 2015 at the Anaheim Convention Center... wooohooo!!! I'm super excited as I haven't been to a Celebration since IV here in Los Angeles. Of course it makes sense that they would be having in 2015 a few months before the release of Star Wars Episode VII and it makes since that it would Anaheim where Disneyland is.  What is crazy is that tickets are going on sale in nine days for this... that's a year and a half before the event. I am of course getting a 4 days pass the moment they go on sale. I don't have money but this is worth putting on credit card. I know my buddy Chris and my brother Mike will be going with me.. it's going to be EPIC!!!!

I got to D&D just in time at 3:30pm and most of the folks were already there. I hugged my hellos and found a spot on the couch. We were still waiting for three other people so we got a game of Cards Against Humanity going.. that's always a fun game to play.

Here's a great sysnopsis from tonights ordeal (Thanks Dallas for writing this)

Melzarin said that he’d come along to guide you to the temple but he wanted first pick of the treasure. The party hesitantly agreed so the aged wizard folded up his house, stuffed it into his hat, and was ready to go. On the walk over to the widow’s cottage to retrieve Elward, it became apparent that the venerable wizard was really going to slow the group down so after the widow talked your ear off, you hit up the livery to see if there were any horses. The stables were pretty picked over but you did find an old broken down nag and a cart. You also found the liveryman’s life savings but put it back for safekeeping and set out upon your journey.

It took four days of travel across the plains, the Hazy Wood, and the Dirk Moors before you arrived at the secret temple dug into a damned off area of the Dirk Moors. Ginneon slipped on the slimy steps and Zander grabbed after him, sending both sliding down into the darkness. Zander very nearly died facing off against the guardsmen at the bottom but in the end they were defeat with the last shoeless minion being sent back down to the bottom again with a mighty kick from Nár. The party helped themselves to the black and red robes that the guardsmen were wearing.

Meandering through the subterranean tunnels, you found the barracks and managed to bypass other sleeping guards. You helped yourself to some dried beans in the dining nook. After finding a door with a black mark on it, you backtracked to the crocodile pool, and then, deciding that the unknown was somehow better than the known, backtracked again. A harpy sang to the stalwarts of Ginneon, Elward, and Jefrion but they resisted the charm of her song and she attacked. With the party members pushing their way in, she was defeated in short order. Just as the party was about to leave, the heard a voice calling out from the harpy’s lair.

Zander braved the muddy pit to make it to the harpy’s lair and found a young female Dragon Cultist with her eyes clawed out. After finding the bit of gewgaws that harpies like hoard, the party prepared to cross the pit again only to hear the hideous screeching of another harpy and those fatal words, “Oh, it’s the harpy’s mate.”

Dun, dun, dun... We gotta wait three weeks before we find out what happens next. It was another fun adventure.. my character Dash leveled up.. I'm now one of the few level 2 characters. Thanks Dallas for making this such an awesome game.