Wake Up Call
stargrace 
There’s nothing more refreshing then the cold morning air blowing past you, unless it’s combined with rain and snow and it’s bright and early on a Tuesday morning, you’re standing in your jammies with your jacket on, camera strapped to your back and a shivering kitty in her crate.
That was my wake up call this morning and I thought I’d share. You know how every one has a few particular items that they just couldn’t do without (or so I think) if the house were on fire? The things that spring up right away in your mind when you think about losing them? Well, the fire alarms don’t go off too often here, but I treat every time as though it’s an actual fire (which is more then a lot of the building people do) and I take some things with me every single time just in case the one time I don’t treat it like a real one, and it ends up that it is. Does that make sense? Think I got some snow lodged in some place and my thought process is a bit foggy.
Anyhow. Fire alarm goes off, I hunt down the kitty (who hides in any number of places) pack her into her carrier, grab my purse, some shoes, a jacket, and my camera bag. Once the laptop gets a bag (on the list) I’ll probably grab that too. My camera bag has an umbrella in it and a few other goodies tucked into pouches, purse has important things that I’ll need etc etc. It works out well.
Lugging the kitty down the 11 flights of stairs, not so fun.
Picture above is of the fire men getting to the building, we had THREE trucks show up for a malfunctioning pump in the garage apparently (that’s what the supervisor came out and told us. Lets take note of the fact that she stayed in the nice warm building while all of us hung out in the snow). The building is 18 floors, 15 units or so per floor. The second picture to the right is Shadowgeist and Princess (in the crate that would be Princess not Shadow) trying to avoid the rain, snow, and just hanging out waiting to be let back into the building.
I decided yesterday to get station access. I seem to switch my subscriptions around every month, so I wasn’t surprised when I began feeling the twinge to play Vanguard (not to mention EQ1) again. I wish SoE offered some sort of family plan along with station access. In my house there are three EQ2 accounts, although now it’s two EQ2 accounts and one station access account. It would be nice to see more variety for billing options. Anyhow, Kasul and Gozad were both in game as well. I wasn’t feeling all that social (hey, it happens, I like to talk but don’t always like to group) and so I hung around trying to get used to my keys again. I’ve always enjoyed Vanguard to quite a large degree, but the population coupled with lack of a guild to call home prevents me from making it my ‘main’ game (that and sinking 4+ years into EQ2 now). Anyhow. I noticed I had a new /claim item. Opened it up excitedly, and found resting inside a new camel mount for each of my characters. I named this one Spit, pictured above with my Raki paladin sitting proudly. It’s 30% speed, which is pretty good for a low level mount. My level 41 blood mage is riding the quested mount that gives 70% speed. Of course when you add horse shoes it’s faster, but I’m not complaining. I also got 25 experience potions (in Vanguard potions count for tradeskill, adventure, and diplomacy as well as quest experience. I’d love to see this implemented into EQ2) for a 50% bonus (for an hour) to all spheres. 
Tipa and Silhouette, watching the Far Trader sail off into the distance. Yesterday brought about our second Nostalgia craft night, where Tipa, Kasul, and myself headed off to a tradeskill instance to kick some serious craft machine butt. We did pretty well too. Of course, I was the slacker. I figured out why though. Some times I’m so busy spamming buttons and I look away half an instant that I miss a counter during the process. If you miss a SINGLE counter in an archtype that is not your own, you have a very good chance at failing that complete combine. Key to winning these (and not being far behind) is to just pay attention. Or at least pay enough attention that you can counter everything. It was a great evening, Tipa won herself a bit of crafting gear, and I managed to get a void shard recipe book. The way the book works is quite simple. The Void Shard merchants sell you two types of gear. One is lesser, the other is greater. The greater pieces cost roughly 24 void shards (for the breast piece) – if you get it commissioned by me, it costs 21 void shards. Not too shabby. 
