Wow, I stink!

My poor blog. She has suffered from a combination of my super busy schedule (the kids are home from school for the summer and we're still mired in remodeling hell), and my suffering from a fit of "Oh shush, nobody wants to hear what you have to say!"

I do have a lot to say, though, so I'm going to make the effort to sit down every morning and bang out some of my thoughts. It's fun and relaxing when I force myself to stop, breathe, and write for a bit.

We're currently working on putting our house back together after remodeling the kids rooms, and doing the decorating in their bedrooms. Mine and Kev's room has turned into a landfill of sorts for everything that has been displaced in the rest of the house. Every time I dig something out of the pile, or install a new item in a bedroom or closet, I feel like I should get some kind of scavenging or crafting points. I'm getting better at it, I suppose that's what that is. I'm levelling up!

Right, gaming. My Guild Wars guild is turning four, and I organized a celebration beginning July 14th and wrapping up on August 1st with an in game party. I've had a ton of fun posting games in the forum and planning in game events, and as always, watching the reaction and behavior of people during this time fascinates me.

It's been a chance for people to show off their best sides - people flocked to donate in game items, and not just their junk. Nice things that I am excited to give away, and so many things that I had to create a gift mule to handle it all. My guild leader and another officer came up with some wonderful (and not cheap - I was amazed at their generosity) real world prizes to hand out, including a pretty pricey headset that I am dying to win. People have stepped in to help me out when real life keeps me too busy to keep up with some games most days. Seeing how generous people can be with their time and their money - both real and virtual - makes me smile.

There is the other side too - those people who set out to denigrate it for some reason. In a way, it makes me smile because it's a tiny fraction of the amount of good that I've seen. I had an incident the other day where someone got my character name from the forums, not hard to do at all. This person was a stranger to me, but came after me in game, whispering for almost two hours that I was a "fagget" (at least he gave me a chuckle with the spelling, and the assumption that I was a male.) and various other forms of verbal abuse. That type of person is a large part of the gaming community, and I notice that it's much more prevalant in the summer when school is out. I tend to take the negativity with a grain of salt because it speaks more to what kind of a person they are, than what kind of person I am.

I also tend to assume that these people are young, and mom/dad isn't keeping a close enough eye on what is happening on their child's computer. They have too much keyboard courage and too little supervision. It serves a bit to keep me vigilant on what's going on with my own kids.

Hm, parental supervision on teh interwebz. More to ponder on tomorrow morning. For now, it's time to do some of the work that I'm getting paid for. Off I go!