It’s wednesday, server maintenance on EU servers and allthough I’m working during the day, I consider wednesday my favorite day to read up about all the upcomming stuff in World of Warcraft. It’s the best time to check MMO Champion and WoW.com since they mostly focus on US server news as they had their maintenance a day before.

I came across a new Blizzard mini-site that they created in order to celebrate the 5th anniversary of World of Warcraft. They made a great video with interviews of all the big Warcraft boys. The founders, designers, co-writers, game masters, you name it, they are all in there. Each person get’s the opportunity to tell what’s their greatest memory about playing a warcraft game and when did they realize when Warcraft became more than just a video game. Get yourself a drink and a snack and sit down because as a WoW player, you are going to enjoy this. You can find the mini-website here.

While I was watching the video, I started to ask myself the same questions aswell. Find out what my most memorable moments are after the break.

When did I start to realize that Warcraft was something more than just a computer game?

I never really played on consoles because as a kid I wasn’t allowed to claim the television all for myself. So what was the point of buying the first playstation if you don’t have a screen to play? So most of my game life has been spent on PC. Early versions of Destruction Derby, Fifa and some other soccer management games, Earthworm Jim, Max Payne, Company of Heroes, Need for Speed, GTA 2, Age of Empires, Rome, Civilizations, Battlefield where some of the games that past before I met World of Warcraft. Not sure how old I was but I remembered that I installed a trial version of WoW with some 10 days free pass. The only thing I did was running arround in Elewyn Forrest with my priest and trying to figure out what the tutorials where trying to explain. I wasn’t able to understand enough of it to actually realize what I was playing.

Years later, I ran into Tzuké and Nelek in real life and they told me more about it and I was thrilled about the fact they were actually talking about a game and sharing their expieriences with eachother. I decided to install the game again and give it another go. A couple of weeks later I told them proudly that I allready had a lvl 17 warlock on a Horde server. Only problem was that they weren’t playing Horde and I was on the wrong realm aswell. Glad you mentioned guys, anything else?

I started to play a mage, Distefano and got him up fairly fast, even before Tzuké and Nelek hitted 70. Couple of weeks later I got asked to join Oldtimers by Drysk, a hunter who helped me in Arathi Highlands. He helped me to do some really hard quests together with his cousin (forgot the exact name but he played a rogue and is also known as Serine). That was the first time my mouth fell open upon seeing them handle their characters with such ease… So I got accepted without really knowing what a guild was for. And I continued to do my thing for another couple of months.

Actually playing the game, getting to know others aswell and hearing how they explained things, was such a nice expierience. It was a virtual world and before I entered Oldtimers I didn’t really realize there were a lot of other people playing the game. But this was huge!

What is my best in game memory?

I got invited to some occasional heroic dungeon runs but I never really got the point of why we use a tank to tank things and why can’t a healer do it? But one night, they were raiding SSC and needed to fill a spot at the final boss. I accepted without knowing what I was about to see. I got summoned and followed my guildies into the raid. Seeing a group of players standing before the boss, all waiting for the tactics and the go was just…breathtaking. Raid markings are been put up, I was assigned to one of the adds on the side wich I had to take down as fast as possible. I didn’t really get the rest of the explenation, but back than, that was all I needed to know.

We started off and everything got into motion, all adds started to move and attack people, the boss was being kept in the middle. I had only one task, smash my button while selecting circle. If he went down, I moved to square. It was an amazing moment, nowadays I would call it an epic moment. Having so many people all together into one place, trying to accomplish the same thing…that gave me thrills.

Looking back at that moment, I have to confess that WoW has become more than just a game. It’s an expierience, something beyond solo gameplay. The stories, the graphics, the characters, the questlines,… Every aspect of it has had an effect on me as person. The social aspect of the game has made me a wiser person. That’s hard to explain to people who never played the game but knowing that 11 million other people play the game aswell, that’s something special.

Playing WoW is nothing compared to the fact I am building my own place to live together with my girlfriend, or the succes at work or maybe a small version of Masiv… I’m thankfull that I am able to play this game with various people from all over the world, aswell as real life friends. I look forward to my next memorable moment I am about to face.

27 september 2009,

Deze opendeurdag ging door samen met de lokale kermis, doordat beide evenementen ook nog eens op aangrenzende terreinen doorgingen was er een grote opkomst op deze zondag. Zie ook de website van brandweer Lede

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Enkele fraaie oldtimers waren opgesteld in de Vijverstraat

Autopomp Mercedes-Metz (TLF 8-11 ) uit 1954, deze wagen reist nog af en toe het land door ondanks zijn leeftijd. Zo kwam hij al eens in het West-Vlaamse Ingelmunster voor de lens van dezelfde camera…

Deze Volkswagen werd vroeger als slangenwagen ingezet bij brandweer Lede, bouwjaar 1976.

De blikvangers tussen de vele voertuigen waren wel de twee nieuwe aanwinsten van Brandweer Lede; de ladderwagen en de hulp en signalisatiewagen.
De nieuwe ladderwagen is een Mercedes Atego 1529F met een Metz L32 ladder van 32 meter. De ladder is voorzien van een kooi met 270kg laadvermogen. Er is een infosheet beschikbaar op de website van Metz.

De bediening van de ladder.

De bediening van de stempels

De ladder..

De tweede aanwinst is de hulp en signalisatiewagen, dergelijke voertuigen kunnen ondermeer voor extra veiligheid zorgen tijdens interventies op snelwegen.

Naast de vaste ‘traffic advisor’ kan er een extra paneel opgericht worden met signalisatie.

Verder was er natuurlijk nog meer te zien van het huidige wagenpark.

De slangenwagen Mercedes Sprinter 413cdi met 4×4 aandrijving en laadkraan.

De materiaalcontainer gebouwd door Dias in 2007 en in gebruik sinds maart 2008.
Tot de belangrijkste uitrusting hoort:

• Stroomgroep 8kVA
• Stroomgroep 2kVA
• Draagbare verlichting Teklite Senior
• Verlichtingsmateriaal
• Signalisatiemateriaal
• Slijpschijf, boorhamer, cirkelzaag
• 3 lastwagens 500kg
• Isolatiekoffer met spanningsdetector
• Tirfor van 3,5 Ton (soort manuele lier)
• Handmembraanpomp met toebehoren
• Assortiment detergenten
• 2 Splashpakken
• 2 Ademluchttoestellen
• Wegwerp overalls met handschoenen
• Timmerhout voor salvagewerken
• 3 Natobrancards
• Vuilwaterpomp Honda G200
• Vuilwaterpomp Robin
• Dompelpomp ATP20R 2300L/min
• 2 Dompelpompen 440L/min
• Motorzaag Stihl MS361
• Persslangen Ø45, Ø70, Ø110
• Assortiment dekzeilen
• 4 waadbroeken
• Generator voor licht schuim
• 240 liter schuimvormend middel
• Monitorlans op voet, gevoed door 2xØ70
• Rookzuiger met toebehoren
• Lansen en verdeelstukken
• Ladder uit twee delen van 5,5m
• Ladder uit twee delen van 4m
• Haakladder van 4,4m

Verder was ‘Autopomp 2′  ingezet om een schuimtapijt te creëren voor de jongste bezoekers.
Dit voertuig is een halfzware autopomp Mercedes 1124F, bouwjaar 1998.

• Bluspomp lage druk en hoge druk. Zoals gebruikelijk bij vrijwel alle autopompen wordt hoge druk gebruikt voor de twee haspels, lage druk wordt aangeboden aan de uitgangen onderaan.
• Watertank 2000 liter
• Watervoerende armaturen
• Monitorlans
• Overdrukventilator
• Detergenten en absorberende korrels
• Stroomaggregaat > 5kVA
• Elektrische winch 3,5 ton
• Ademluchttoestellen
• Lichtmast

Deze info komt van de website.

Bij verkeersongelukken moeten soms slachtoffers bevrijd worden uit hun voertuig. Om op dit soort interventies snel te reageren dient deze reddingswagen.
De Mercedes Sprinter 416cdi heeft volgende uitrusting:

• 6 simultaan bedienbare hydraulische reddingsgereedschappen (2x spreider – 2x schaar – 2x vijzel)
• Hydraulische voetpomp met deuropener
• 8 hefkussens van 5 tot 67 ton
• Stroomaggregaat 10 kVA
• Lichtmast
• Reddingsplatform
• Bevrijdingsharnas
• Ademluchttoestellen
• Lekafdichtingset

Info van de website

Autopomp 1 van brandweer Lede werd gebruikt voor de demonstraties. Deze halfzware autopomp is een Mercedes Atego 1428F voertuig, bouwjaar 2006. In dienst in lede sinds 2007.
Volgens de website bestaat de belangrijkste uitrusting uit:

• Bluspomp lage druk en hoge druk
• Watertank 2500 liter
• Schuimtank klasse A 27 liter
• Watervoerende armaturen
• Hydraulische reddingsset met combitool (spreider+schaar)
• Overdrukventilator
• Stroomaggregaat > 5kVA
• Warmtebeeldcamera T3Max
• Explosiemeter
• CO meter
• Ademluchttoestellen met communicatieset
• Elektrische ledigingspomp groot debiet
• Lichtmast
• Schouwvegerset
• Motorzaag

Een oudere wagen is autopomp 3, een Mercedes 1113 uit 1978.

Voor het vervoeren van containers en als kraanwagen werd in 2008 deze Mercedes Actros 2636 in gebruik genomen. Uitgerust met een 17Ton haakarm en Hydraulische kraan.

Voor de aanvoer van bluswater en opkuisen van het wegdek wordt in Lede deze tankwagen gebruikt sinds 1997. Het Mercedes 1928 voertuig heeft een watertank van 12000L en een autonome lage druk bluspomp.

De tankwagen en autopomp 1 na een blusdemonstratie.

Ook het Rode Kruis Lede nam deel aan de opendeur, deze ambulance werd ingezet bij een demonstratie.

Daarnaast organiseerde het Rode Kruis enkele doorlopende activiteiten.

Man I have been busy. It doesn’t always look like it but I’m starting to realize that time flies (even when you are not having fun). Work has kept me from launching some much needed actions. I usually find a spot during the day to check some blogs and keep up with our forum but now it’s hard to provide a blog post every day. And just some post to attract visitors is not my kind of thing, they will get bored after a while. Maybe some of them allready are.

So what have I been upto besides work and some other real life things? Trying to master the AH. I was getting low on gold and needed to supply 3 active raiding characters with the much needed repair funds. As I am not an all day long grinder, I mostly rely on my epic gem transmution and some herbs/alchemy stuff. It usually pays the bill but gearing up Masiv demanded a lot of epic gems and they are costly. I’m sure I’ll make a post on it someday, when I have 5 minutes more spare time.

As usual, we also had some guild drama. Ah well, drama, not really. Some loot issue caused a new discussion on the forum and things started to heat up. It’s never a fun thing to deal with and especially not when the people involved are close game friends. I like to be a popular officer but that isn’t always easy. Oldtimers has a lot of intelligent people and every argument holds some truth in it. I’m usually the one who tries to combine all of these arguments into a single wall of text wich every person can rely to. But this time I had to smack the door and ask for silence. Things are running out of hands on the forum and it is my responsibility to act as a leader now, although I never asked to be in this position. I’m not always sure if I’m doing the right thing for the guild. The things that happened during the past days have made me wonder why I still play the game and why I put all of this effort in it.

All of the previous officers seem to have had that “burn-out” feeling and not a lot of them have decided to stick to the game. I’ve had it several times before, but I always managed to find some bag of motivation wich kept me going. Sigge seems to be an expert at it. He’s been arround for a long time and I’m sure it affects him aswell, but he’s still an oldtimer. Can’t really imagine what our guild would be without him. Luckely we have those kind of people at oldtimers. There have been numerous occassions where things could have caused to wipe to whole guild.

So, AH and guild drama and I’m also waiting for my new hardware to show up. I’m developing my new UI aswell so I have a good idea on how to implemment it into my new screen. And that will also be the start of some video footage. A UI guide, some PvP combats, some progression movies in ToGC 10 and perhaps IC. Lot’s of plans, not sure they will all make it to the blog.

I have a patch post in draft for a long time now but I guess I will skip it untill the patch actually hits the live servers. There are some interesting things I look forward to. And ofcourse some new raiding place. I hope we get the guild back on her feet first. But for now, I’m going to try to afk a bit longer. Perhaps my game joy will come back a bit faster.

26 september 2009,

De meest recente editie van de Werktuigendagen voor land- en tuinbouw gingen door op 26 & 27 september 2009.
Luchtballons trokken al de aandacht van menig bezoeker zelfs voordat hij het terrein betrad.

Naast vele professionele exposanten was er ook ruimte voor oldtimers.

Een impressionante Buldog tractor

Oldtimer tractor met hijsinrichting

Beetje een kruising tussen een tractor en een vrachtwagen, van het merk ‘Samecar’

Een Unimog vrachtwagen

Douglas ‘task master’

Een ‘Minerva’ terreinwagen, hetzelfde voertuig was ook aanwezig op de ‘Wings And Wheels’ 2009 te Ursel.

Deze oldtimers ondernamen ook een parade op het terrein.

Een nieuwigheid in deze editie was het dorspark met een oldtimer statische dorsmachine.
De schoven worden bovenaan in de dorsmachine geladen.

Het stro wordt tot balen geperst.

De volledige machine wordt aangedreven door een oldtimer tractor via het vliegwiel en een lange aandrijfband.

Bij de oudere bezoeker zal dit tafereel zeker herinneringen oproepen.

Het grootste deel van het terrein aan de Axewalle was echter voorbehouden voor modern materieel.
De nieuwste tractoren in grote aantallen.

Telescopische verreikers.

Caterpillar challenger, een tractor met rubber rupsbanden.

Sproeimachine

Reusachtige mestinjecteerder ‘Hydro Trike’

Rondjes rijden met tractoren op het Goodyear test circuit.

Rupstractor van New holland, met metalen rupsen

Gigantische oogstmachines waren er in overvloed.

Deze beweeglijke laders van Ahlmann trokken de aandacht.

Sommige bezoekers werden met paard en wagen rondgevoerd.

Er waren ook wedstrijden met vee.

Boven in de lucht was een klein deeltje van de omvangrijke veiligheidsorganisatie zichtbaar, de RAGO van de Federale politie.

Meer foto’s op Flickr:

They are down! K.O.!

Last night we formed our 10 man again and headed back for the big bad ugly Yeti. It took us some attempts and some still wanted to hug the white fluffy Yeti. But he is down and he will stay down. I got some video footage comming up aswell, I’m just waiting for Jacopo to finish his encoding. More will follow later. Next week we hope to advance even further and take a better look at Lord Jarraxus in hard mode. Good job Oldtimers!

Beasts of Northrend – Trial of the Grand Crusader was killed by Masiv, Estme, Madpriest, Tzuké, Keizer, Lossoran, Tigerbap, Jacopo, Lovelace and Felios.

Update: Video after the break thanks to Jacopo

These oldtimers I photographed two years ago. There might be some unknown to You like “Tsaikka” from Russia. / Estos viejos coches que fotografié hace dos años. Quizás haya algún desconocido a Usted como “Tsaikka” de Rusia. / Cettes Voitures anciennes j’ai photographié il y a deux ans. Il pourrait avoir quelques inconnu à Vous comme “Tsaikka” de Russie.

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Oldtimers-Lovely, elegant Lady and her chofer

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Oldtimers-Tsaika

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Oldtimers - BMW

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Oldtimers - BMW

I hardly slept last night because of a pain in my neck.  Two weeks ago, I did something to my neck, and it’s been mildly achy to very ouchy off and on since then.  Mostly it would hurt when I turned my head in the car to see my blind spot.  I know there’s a metaphor there somewhere.  But the night before last I had a hard time laying down.  The bad pain has actually moved to the other side now.  Last night it was impossible, once I’d laid down, for me to move at all without bad pain.  So that made sleeping difficult.

I don’t like doctors and I don’t like massage and I really don’t like pills.  I’m sitting here with a heating pad wrapped around my neck and I’m wondering if I try not to move it today, if that will help it feel better.  I’ve also taken three Ibuprofen and this is just no fun at all.

What was fun was my meeting last night.  Some friends brought their dogs over and that’s stressful, but my happiness that my big girl has company, even if she’d rather not, outweighs the stress of barking dogs.  Our yard is fenced and our meeting is across the street so they left their dogs here for the meeting.

At the meeting, the woman I asked to tell her story and lead the discussion revealed that her sobriety year is 1984, like mine.  There was one other person there from the class of ‘84 which I thought was amazing.  Others were celebrating anniversaries – 17 years, two years, and 8 months.  And a woman was there for her very first meeting.  All that put together was so cool.  I can’t help but wonder if the newcomer will be one of the lucky ones, even as I know the odds are against it.

I also have a bit of jealousy for some of the people who got sober around here and are still here.  I did not know the other 1984s when I was getting sober.  They were here and I was 400 miles away.  There are very sadly few people I know from when I was getting sober.  I can think of four who I could call and they would know who I am.  One I’m still in touch with because her daughter moved to my exact present location shortly after I moved.  One I never lost touch with but I’ve only seen her once since I moved, because she also moved away from where we lived, but in a different direction.  One woman and I had baby girls one years and one day apart, and because of the kindergarten cut off date where I lived when Erika started school, when we moved back home, she was in the same class and became friends with this woman’s daughter.  So we’ve been in touch and our daughters are still “Facebook” friends.

So anyway I do feel the jealousy of the longer history some of these people have with each other.  But it’s just a twinge and I stamp it down fast.  I’m very abundantly blessed in this time and in this place and even my pain in the neck is temporary.  Today is going to be another great weather day and I’ll take the darn computer outside to keep the dogs company in the awesome fall day.

3 oktober 2009,

Op 3 & 4 oktober was er opendeurdag in de nieuwe kazerne van brandweer Oudenaarde. Naast de brandweer was ook het Rode Kruis van Oudenaarde gastheer daar zij een deel van het gebouw mogen gebruiken als standplaats.
Wat een bezoeker eerst zag na aankomst was de static show van de huidige voertuigen, materiaal en old timers.

Zoals veel korpsen maakt brandweer Oudenaarde ook gebruik van diverse containers en haakarmvoertuigen.

Waterbuffer container met een capaciteit 32000L

Deze pompcontainer heeft een maximum debiet van 6000Liters/minuut en wordt aangedreven door een 240Pk motor.
Hij is voorzien van een generator die een bijhorende zware elektrische dompelpomp kan voeden.

De bijhorende elektrische dompelpomp om efficient oppervlakte water aan te zuigen heeft eveneens een maximum debiet van 6000L/minuut. De pomp wordt met de kraan van een haakarmvoertuig in het water gedompeld.

Haakarmvoertuig 1 (MAN Silent 26.343 / Rosenbauer) met een slangen container.
Met de grote lengte aan slangen en de pomp container kan een grootwatertransport opgezet worden.

Autopomp 3 van Oudenaarde, een Dodge G1313 (Rosenbauer), in dienst sinds 1983.

Zware autopomp 2, Mercedes 1724

Tankwagen 2, Saviem SM260T van 1979 met 8000L tank en een Rosenbauer R120 pomp goed voor 1600L/minuut aan 8 bar druk of 120L/minuut aan 16 bar. (Info van http://www.bw-oudenaarde.be/tankwagen_2.htm )
Deze wgaen wordt ook ingezet voor reinigen van het wegdek met de sproeibalk vooraan en een inrichting voor zeep patronen.

Snelle lichte autopomp Dodge (Power Ram 450) gebruikt als 4de autopomp in oudenaarde.
Uitgerust met een Pomp, type Rosenbauer R120, met voormenger voor schuimvorming.

Deze pomp geeft lage druk 1600L/ bij 8 bar en middendruk 120 L bij 16 bar.
Het voertuig heeft verder een watertank van 750L.
(Info van http://www.bw-oudenaarde.be/4de_autopomp.htm )

Deze Magirus 150D met 30m ladder is nog in gebruik als 2de ladderwagen

Nog een Dodge Ram, wordt als autopomp1 ingezet bij verkeersongevallen. In dienst sinds 1984.

Commandowagen Renault Espace.

De brandweer van Kluisbergen kwam bij hun Oudenaardse collega’s op bezoek met deze Toyota terreinwagen

Als eerste ladderwagen wordt deze Renault-Metz combinatie ingezet. Het voertuig is een Renault type G280 EPE uitgerust met een ladder, type Metz EAL 25. Deze ladder is hydraulisch uitschuifbaar tot 30 meter in 3 delen. Dit voertuig is in dienst sinds 1993.
(Info van http://www.bw-oudenaarde.be/ladderwagen_1.htm )

Een recente aanwinst van brandweer Oudenaarde is deze Industriële autopomp. Een Mercedes Axor 1930 F voertuig, door bedrijf Vanassche uitgerust. Deze wagen is bekend bij het korps als ‘autopomp 6′.

Deze IGS container is beschikbaar voor de volledige brandweerzone Vlaamse Ardennen.

De CP-OPS container van brandweerzone Vlaamse Ardennen.
Deze container is ingedeeld in een communicatie en een vergader gedeelte. Het communicatie gedeelte bevat diverse A.S.T.R.I.D. en analoge apparaten. Het vergader gedeelte bevat ook de monitor van het CCTV systeem, de camera is bestuurbaar en staat op één van de drie telescopische masten.

Een 8kVA generator dient voor de energie voorziening. Er zijn ook drie telescopische masten met schijnwerpers, airco, koelkasten en een weerstation.
De container werd gebouwd door Warsco Units NV in 2003

Dit voertuig is ook een commandowagen met communicatie voorzieningen, gebruikt door de Federale Politie

Bekend als ‘Oudenaarde 1′ wordt deze Mercedes Sprinter 315CDI ingezet als dienst 100 ambulance. De standplaats van het voertuig bevind zich in het ziekenhuis AZ Oudenaarde samen met ‘Oudenaarde 2′.

De derde ambulance in de regio is ‘Oudenaarde 3′ een Iveco Iveco 35.10.1 met bouwjaar 1991 en hier in dienst sinds 2001. Deze ambulance wordt opgesteld in de brandweerkazerne.

Een belangrijk onderdeel van de opendeurdag was natuurlijk de nieuwe kazerne zelf, een uitgestippelde route bracht de bezoekers langs talrijke interessante plaatsen waar ook uitleg gegeven werd.

Al direct aan de ingangsdeur trok een oude slangenwagen de aandacht.

In één kamer was een omvangrijke collectie foto en video materiaal ondergebracht waar de geschiedenis van het korps geïllustreerd werd. Ook werd er aan opmerkelijke interventies uit het verleden veel aandacht besteed. Een collectie brandweer miniaturen zorgde voor een visuele toets.

De radiokamer in de nieuwe kazerne wordt bemand tijdens interventies, naast radio apparatuur zijn er ook kaarten op computer waarop het interventie adres aangeduid wordt. Door bewakingscamera’s kan de hele omgeving van de kazerne gezien worden. Er is een computer systeem waarmee de richting van een eventuele giftige rookpluim voorspeld kan worden. De alarmering van de manschappen gebeurt echter vanuit het hulpcentrum 100 in Gent via ASTRID pagers.

Eén van de informatieve standen ging over wespenverdelging en het onderscheid tussen wespen, bijen en hommels.
De aanwezige imker had zelfs een kolonie honingbijen meegebracht, de koningin was gemerkt door een kleine groene sticker.

Onderhoud, testen en herstellen van ademlucht (perslucht) apparatuur vergt een afzonderlijke ruimte en speciale apparatuur.

Dit apparaat wordt aangestuurd door de PC er naast.
Blijkbaar een Dräger Testor 3100 apparaat, www.draeger.com/ST/internet/NL/nl/Producten/Bescherming/T…

Het parcours bracht de bezoekers ook buiten de kazerne waar o.a. uitleg over en demonstraties met verschillende types brandblusapparaten gegeven werd.
Links een CO2 en rechts een schuim blusser.

Ook het doven van een brandende frietketel ontbrak niet. Dit was een winderige dag zoals de vlammen laten zien.

Brandweer Oudenaarde had eigen oldtimer voertuigen opgesteld.
International Loadstar 1600 oldtimer met voorbouwpomp.

Chevrolet oldtimer

Ford oldtimer, naar verluid de oudste van de drie.

De eerste demonstratie werd verzorgd door de sportploeg, in zo weinig mogelijk tijd een reeks slangen afleggen en correct koppelen met een motorpomp. Ook de aanzuigslang moet gekoppeld worden.

Do you see it aswell? That look in his eyes? That little bit of Yeti drool that’s dropping out of his mouth. He is sniffing for dwarf sweat, sweat caused by fear. He forgot to brush his teath aswell, wich is not always easy if you don’t have the brain to distinct your mouth from your butt. That’s the reason why he unleashes that stinking frozen breath, who wouldn’t get stunned by that? I’ve faced him multiple times with my shaman in normal mode, we got him down every single time. But the heroic version demanded something more, something hard to swallow, something…Masiv.

Nice intro isn’t it? I feel lyric today. And to say it’s friday… Perhaps it’s because it has been a while since I filled you in on my game status. Well Masiv got kicked in the ass by me and I got him back on par with the rest of the guild. Our best geared members are our tanks and I’m not yet a part of that. But I managed to grab all of my Emblems of Conquest upgrades and I was lucky with some drops in Onyxia pugs. Last weeks guild run in ToC normal didn’t gave any tank loot as reward, bad luck I guess. I didn’t got a scratch on my plate shoulders, Masiv can handle that.

We’ve been clearing ToC Normal (10) for a couple of weeks now, each time getting better and better and our kill times are getting shorter and shorter. As long as we bring a decent balanced group in there and we got some healers to count on, we can practicly get all people through it. So it was about time we tried something different: ToGC 10. The first 2 raids we were in there, we got our *ss wooped by Gormuk. If we were lucky to survive him, we didn’t manage to figure out what to do exactly at the worms. Funny how the normal goes so smooth these days and when you look at the heroic version, we’re running arround like screaming little kids.

Tanks got smashed by the Impale, ranged got fired up by bombs and those snobolds seem to love our healing squad a lot. I thought Fugaru was able to keep people up, but I didn’t seem to get any decent heals out of her. Well maybe the heals were there, only they didn’t really had an effect. Luckely we use a forum and we have some people who like to spend some time looking for relevant information on how to handle the situation. We had a lot of input and I scammed the tankspot forums to plan for a more succesfull raid.

First thing we changed was our tank setup. Our druid tank and warrior combo is most of the time sufficient for every encounter these days, but a 3rd Impale on Sigge was getting really hard to heal. We decided to bring a protection paladin. Masiv was not feeling to confident to head in there. Standing still for almost 2 months, not a single drop in the normal version of ToC and now going to take a tank spot that didn’t seem to be healable? Oh man, I could allready feel the repairbill stacking. I needed more stamina for this, I was bearely hitting 40K when I had some buffs. I did some regemming and applied some new enchants aswell. I made some armor potions with Fugaru, I figured I could use those.

Second thing we changed was our healing squad. Last raid we had Fugaru on heals with 2 holy priests. You can practicly see it comming beforehand, that’s not really ideal to keep tanks alive who get 15k damage spikes within 1 or 2 seconds. So we needed Tzuké (you know, the dude that didn’t wanted to be a dude anymore?). He got some nice upgrades aswell in ToC normal, it wouldn’t only help him, but the tanks aswell. Beacon is really nice to have if you know how to handle it. Our druid tank switched to his Resto Shaman because of the hero but apart from that, a resto shaman is the only one who I see as a decent option to heal a tank in the heroic mode. We don’t have a Disc Priest in the guild so that wasn’t an option. We brought a Holy Priest to take care of the raidhealing. Another thing I found out was that levitate actually “ignores” the fire bombs. You’ll get hit by it but it’s not leaving a fire aoe on the ground. Not sure if Blizzard wants it to work like that but why not use it if it helps us?

Our DPS squad was fully equiped and ready to go. With a Balance druid, DK, Warlock, Rogue and Hunter we should have enough firepower to take things down. But we need everyone to do their part of the job ofcourse. Beyond expectations, Gormuk went down well in time and no one died. No time to think about how we did that, let’s just continue with the worms. I took the mobile one so I was responsible for freeing people who got the Toxin. It took me a while to figure out how to position the worm so people were able to reach me. We lost people…wipe it and try it again. Damn, that was not bad for first try, we had a much harder time previously to get that far. I think people needed to see we were able to actually progress and they picked up the confidence to try again.

The taunting went fine on Gormuk, I was well in controll of the Impale stacks, both on myself an my co-tank. 3 stacks on Estme, 3 stacks on Masiv, Bubble, 3 stacks on Estme, I gave here Hand of Protection and than I only had to take 2 more stacks and he went down. Solid rotation, we got that covered. I than screwed up and faced Dreadscale towards the raid when I wanted to free people of the toxin. Dreadscale took the gift with both…euh hands and had the opportunity to wipe the whole raid. My bad! I decided not to let that happen again so I took Dreadscale for a walk in the park in the other direction, waited for the spray and than run to my green friends. OMG (I don’t really use that expression in game) we got a worm down! This was going to smooth. Shouldn’t we be dead by now? Well, some of us did, but we continued anyway and tried to take Dreadscale aswell. Estme was ready to pick up Icehowl but we didn’t managed to get to him.

After that, we really got better, we got the first part covered and if you can survive the first phase with the worms, we actually had a good chance to get to Icehowl. With the use of hero, both worms got down. To bad we lost dps to have a real chance at Icehowl. Only 2 minutes to take 100% down…nah, wipe it and try again. People wanted to go one more time. It was just before 12:00 and I decided to give it a go.

Gormuk down, no deaths, Worm 1 down, Nelek down, waiting for battle rezz, Worm 2 down without using hero and Icehowl was allready chewing on Estme. CR on Nelek, first Crash, he slammed his ugly face against the wall…HEROOOOO! Good, 75%, let’s keep it comming guys, spread out… I allready saw it was to late for Nelek. I looked at my Lay on Hands but it was on cooldown, he died a second time. Ah, come on, this is doable, second crash incomming and he didn’t realize he was about to run in again and smash his head up again. NUKEEE! 47%, we lost another one and had about 1 min left on the clock. The 3rd crash was succesfull aswell but we ran out of time. Enrage at 10%…down went the raid. Damn, that was close.

Everyone was disappointed but at the same time I could hear they had a great time during the raid and enjoyed how we made progress. I think we all realize now this is doable by Oldtimers, we just got to tweak that last part of the fight. I’m pretty sure we will see some heroic loot soon.

I’ll give you a screenshot on how close we were that final attempt:

Blame the warlock! Well, we had fun, we laughed, and we’re confident to go in there again. Even Masiv is. Although I must thank Blizzard for Ardent Defender. That thing saved my life multiple times and I love it. Keep it quiet, most of the time they tend to change the things I love.

Like a sore tooth, when my mind is quiet for a second it goes back to poke the admonishment I got the other night.  In addition to asking this person for his career advice, I would like to seek his opinion on my parenting.  None of this is even a little bit loving.  See, my marriage is better than yours.  My sobriety is better than yours.  My career is better than yours.  My children are better than yours.  Tell me again what I should do?

And since I’m recording my messed up oldtimer thinking, I’ll record that I think 25 years (or however many) of sobriety are a handy target for anyone’s anger.  When I worked my first job, my mother gave me the job, and twice in six years (twice that I know of), when someone was angry with me, there came the phrase, “I don’t care who her mother is.”  My son is very bright, and I know it’s happened to him.  “I don’t care how smart you are.”  I imagine it happens from time to time with most people who have something outstanding.  And I’m sorry, 25 years of sobriety is outstanding.  If I drink tonight, I still accomplished (with AA, I couldn’t do it without AA) something wonderful and it’s unfortunate that someone who can’t stop drinking would attack that.  This is actually only the second time someone has said something like that to me.  Not counting Carole, but I think all in love is fair.  Ten years ago a friend of hers made a nasty remark about my then 15 years of sobriety and unfortunately, that person is dead.  Killed by a lack of sobriety.

So, just getting this off my chest, I hope.  I know it actually traumatized me a bit.  I’m very grateful that my parents never hit me or yelled or swore much, and I have a low tolerance for it now.  This person approached me that way.  Not concerned, not sad, but angry and attacking.  I don’t get attacked often.  I respond by defending myself by turning off and tuning out and going away.  Really, was the anger supposed to make me come to my senses?  It didn’t.  It made the messenger seem over the top and out of control.  An expression of concern might have made me consider his point more positively, rather than bringing to mind all I think of when I “consider the source.”

Again, I’m very glad that this is a very rare occurrence.  I wonder what I will learn from it.  This is someone who I expect I will know for a very long time, so I guess I’ll see.

I left work early today to go get a mammogram.  That’s always a bit frightening, and from time to time I practiced relaxing in the fear in preparation to fly.  I was all clear for another year and I thought of many things to add to the gratitude list.  The leaving work early, and not going in at all tomorrow to work off site and then come home, causes me anxiety and I’m determined that after my flight I will put what I learn into use against my worry about work and the dog.  I really will.

And last night, Carole and I went to a meeting we had never been to before.  It was less than 20 miles away.  We live in a suburb of a small city so 20 miles can take some time to cross.  I bet we couldn’t go to a meeting that close by without seeing someone we (or really she) knows, and we did know one person out of the bunch.  I like to experience different meetings even though it’s always a bit uncomfortable for me not the know the routine and the regulars.  It does take a lot of the social drama away from the meeting, which is interesting.

2 augustus 2009,

Ter gelegenheid van het 180 jarig bestaan van de brandweer Ingelmunster en de 50ste Kriekekermis werd de werd een grootse veiligheidsdag georganiseerd op het feestterrein aan de Kweekstraat.

Zo was er een oldtimer rondrit en tentoonstelling.
Eén van de talrijke oldtimers was deze DeLorean DMC-12

Een Cobra

Een Cadillac Eldorado

Ook een paardentrekwedstrijd stond op het programma.

Ook tochten per koets waren mogelijk

De brandweer van Ingelmunster gaf onder andere een demonstratie rond het blussen van een brandende frietketel.

Er was een static show van brandweer oldtimers en de huidige Ingelmunsterse brandweervoertuigen.

Autopomp Mercedes-Metz uit 1954, brandweer Lede.

Magirus brandweerwagen uit 1952, brandweer Dour.

Chevrolet brandweerwagen uit 1925, brandweer Ingelmunster

Ladderwagen Magirus Deutz uit 1952, brandweer Vilvoorde

De huidige autopompen van brandweer Ingelmunster waren aanwezig.
Mercedes 1124 in gebruik sinds 1998

Dodge RG13 in gebruik sinds 1981

Ladderwagen Iveco 150E27 NB met Magirus ladderpakket
(Zie http://users.skynet.be/bs131346/brandweer/1024nl/wagens/ladder.htm )

Het Vlaamse Kruis deed EHBO demonstraties.

Het Rode Kruis was aanwezig met diverse voertuigen.

SIT-MED en CP-OPS voertuig
SIT = Snel Interventie Team, bij rampen brengen deze voertuigen extra materiaal en hulpverleners ter plaatse
CP-OPS = Command Post Operations, dit is een voertuig met communicatie apparatuur te gebruiken door de bevelvoerders van brandweer, medische hulpdiensten (MUG arts) en politie die op de plaats van een ramp aanwezig zijn.

Een Ford 4×4 voertuig

De douane gaf demonstraties rond het doorzoeken van een verdacht voertuig
Daarbij werden motoren en een X-stralen scanner ingezet.

De scanner is van het type HCV mobile

Een deel van het terrein was omgedoopt tot helihaven

Ook de MUG helikopter West Vlaanderen kwam ter plaatse.

In de namiddag was er een grote demonstratie waarbij een verkeersongeluk met een auto en bus werd gesimuleerd.
Hier namen het Rode Kruis, brandweer Ingelmunster en de MUG heli aan deel.

Rode Kruis hulpverleners evacueren het slachtoffer in de auto.

Na de brandweer komt ook de MUG heli ter plaatse.

Blussen van een gesimuleerde brand in de motorruimte van de bus.

Na de demo wordt de bus terug op de wielen getrokken door de kraanwagen met voorbouwlier.

Meer foto’s op:

Een foto presentatie: van de demo

6 september 2009,

Tijdens de opendeurdag van brandweer Lokeren was deze pompwagen te zien.

Voorzien om getrokken te worden door twee paarden, pompen gebeurde met mankracht. De koperen bol is waarschijnlijk een ‘windketel’ en dient om de opgebouwde druk door de pompbeweging meer constant te maken.

Verder zijn er aanzuigslangen te zien en banken waarop de bemanning moest meerijden tijdens een uitruk. De twee houten palen moesten blijkbaar in de haken op de uiteinden van de hefboom geplaatst worden om te pompen.

Wie op de autoweg N60 richting Gent grondgebied Ouwegem passeert, ziet deze oude ladderwagen staan.

Nu uitgerust met een lichtkrant en beschildering moet deze wagen de aandacht trekken van het verkeer. Deze ladderwagen blijkt nog uitgerust te zijn met manuele stempels.

8 augustus 2009, Ursel

Dit is een jaarlijkse military history show, historische voertuigen, reënactment en een grote militariabeurs zijn de hoofdpunten.
Zie ook de site: http://www.wingsandwheels.be

Bij de historische voertuigen en materiaal vielen er meerdere interessante exemplaren op.

De ‘Kettenrad’ uit de wereldoorlog II periode had als officiële naam ‘SdKfz 2 ‘

Een halftrack M3 of beter M16 omdat deze versie uitgerust was met het M45 Quadmount luchtafweer wapen.

De rupsen bestonden uit met staaldraad versterkt rubber

Zie ook http://www.strijdbewijs.nl/voertuig/halftrack.htm

De bijhorende M45 ‘Quadmount’ stond afzonderlijk opgesteld

Maar liefst 4 zware machinegeweren kaliber .50 (of 12.7×99mm) op een elektrisch aangedreven opstelling.

Uit de zelfde periode een M4 Sherman Firefly tank

Van Duitse oorsprong, de Kübelwagen en de amfibische Schwimmwagen

De propeller werd omlaag geklapt eens het voertuig dreef, bij laag toerental werd de koppeling met de aandrijfas gemaakt. Sturen deed je met de voorwielen.

Aan Amerikaanse zijde deden dezelfde concepten intrede onder de vorm van de Ford GPA ‘Jeep’ en afgeleide GPW ‘Seep’

De Dodge D12 Staffcar uit 1939 was toch wel een van de elegantste voertuigen van het evenement.

Van het Pegagus Museum uit Diest, een Minerva Recce jeep

Nog steeds in actieve dienst de Leopard 1A5

Recenter materiaal van de Belgische defensie, de Iveco LMW

Ook de Federale politie was aanwezig met oud en nieuw materiaal.

Een Ziegler sproeiwagen

De gepanserde wagen Shorland 600

Een Porsche 911 en Harley-Davidson van de voormalige Rijkswacht

En een huidig patrouille voertuig voor de snelwegen, Volvo S60

Een groot aantal deelnemers was aanwezig met uniform en uitrusting conform een bepaalde periode uit de (krijgs)geschiedenis.

Een M16 geweer doet denken aan de ‘Vietnam periode’

De ‘Smoking devils’ groep toont het plaatsen van telefoon palen tijdens WWII

Op brandweer gebied was brandweer Maldegem en ander historisch materiaal aanwezig.

Een 4×4 bosbrandweerwagen uit Maldegem, in dienst sinds 1983

Historische kledij en uitrusting

Hittebestendig pak met asbest.

Nog meer foto’s:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kpmkpm/sets/72157621980919996/

Een foto presentatie

I know you’re probably reading this and thinking that there’s no way I should be calling a 9-3 game a nail-biter (especially if you’re from the red team).  However, in what was a much more closely contended match than the score reflects, the WOHL served up yet another reason why its such a great league to play in.  Lots of goals, some big hits, a couple of close icings and spares that continue fill the coffers for the year-end symposium.

The red team’s energy line did most of the damage in the second period after the blue team had lead for a brief time 3-2.    The second period turned against the blue squad though, who were gassed after firing an incredible 71 shots at Moose in the red cage in the first period.

Jamie Buchanan said after the game that he kept thinking we were going to come back even as the goals against kept rolling in.   Rich Crowley claimed to have the same feeling.  However, Larry Davidson perhaps was a little more realistic when he suggested he was looking at the clock with 14 minutes to go wondering how long that time would take.  Everyone in the blue room agreed that we were missing Rajna’s stick though.

It took a while before I came up with an appropriate title for this post. In fact I’ve started to write my text first hoping it could give me an idea. No, nothing yet, let’s skip it for now. I did find a nice comic that sort of tells the whole story. It may not be clear yet, but just read on and you’ll understand. I hope I will to.

Last night we tried to have another go at Anub in ToC 25. We had some usefull comments and analysis on our forums concerning the encounter. I felt we were better prepared for it. And we had a full guild run again, all spots were filled. Everyone was on time, that’s how we like it. We switched a healer for a dps so that left us with 5 healers. It never felt hard to heal during phase 1 and phase 2. Most of the time I was only taking down frost patches without healing something. The only tricky part is when the adds come in and grab one of our healers before they are picked up by the tanks. And that caused some losses during the adds phase.

Long wipe short, we didn’t make it and weren’t even getting closer in my oppinion. 60% was as far as we got, but leaving a lot of adds up and to close to enrage timer. We need to find some solutions first. Better luck next week. I called the raid so we had a chance to form another 10 man in ToC 10 wich was still untouched this week. I took a look at the planner and gave the names of the highest rolls. Hé, our druid tank was allready saved so I gave his spot to Sigge and than the next dps in line could have a spot. With Beric, Munado and Madpriest on heals…that should work, the dps was reliable.

I skipped a hunter who had the highest roll in the dps colum. He reacted suprised in guild chat. He was part of our ToC 25 run earlier on so I guess he expected to join the 10 men aswell. The problem here was that he did about 1.9k dps overall, lowest on the charts, even our tanks did more damage. And it’s not like he’s a fresh lvl 80. He got the gear, he just need to learn his class better. I didn’t had a problem taking him into ToC 25 because it’s better to fill the spot than to leave it empty. But in 10 man, he is one of the 5 dps’ers that need to bring down the bosses and adds on their own. We don’t have 4 dps’ers who can make up for the lack of dps from 1 player.

I see it this way; less dps means a longer fight, means more punches on the tanks, means more healing, means getting low on mana, means no healing after a while. It’s a circle, everyone needs to contribute to the raid to make it succesfull. ToC 10 isn’t a walk in the park yet for Oldtimers, at least not for the majority. You really need to be focused and do your job. We had the same thing in Ulduar 10 when we reached the keepers. If we brought in some lesser skilled players, the raid wasn’t succesfull just because others couldn’t pull it straight. After a while you get some gear, you learn the bosses and your raid starts to improve automaticly. Steadily we invited 2-3 lower geared players who than had the chance to prove themselves in there. And it worked, untill we reached a new obstacle, Minimiron and General Vezaxx.

The hunter is a real Oldtimer, he’s social, always ready to help people, brings joy on vent and gchat and enjoys the game. Most of time his game is focused on some soloplay and he doesn’t really have a real raiding history. Ofcourse does he want to raid, it’s a part of the game and most of the time we are raiding. I made the decision because 9 others would get frustrated if he doesn’t deliver the goods. And right now, he didn’t show me the opposite. You can feel the tention when you are in a raid with someone not skilled enough for the content. Others feel it aswell and it has an effect on their own gameplay. If a healer can’t rely on his collegues, he will heal worse. Same goes for tanks. If the MT is uncertain about his OT, he will be taunting everything off and eventually fail to do his part of the work.

The past days we had some people who offered some help and advice to our hunter. He had to change trinkets, adjust his specc, gem for agility and hit instead of intellect or spirit, etc. He doesn’t really need the gear although it helps but with his current gear and decent specc he should be able to do 3 k easily without much effort. Someone with a perfect rotation can do 5k with his character. If you know you have the potential to improve, than you need to practice. And you do not practice a rotation in ToC 10. You start on the dummie and heroics. In heroics, your only task is to focus on 1 mob at the time and finish that rotation, no aoe, no traps, just the rotation. And if you are getting above the tank on the damage done list, than it’s time to start with the next level.

He didn’t really understand my way of thinking. He left the guild…

I’m sorry if I offended him but that wasn’t my intention. I’m trying to make him realize that there is something he is doing wrong to become a better player. We have tons of people who have room for improvement in Oldtimers, even our best dps’ers can do better. I still learn every day, even after 3 years of gameplay. At the moment we are trying to encourage people to think about their class, read some helpfull information only to make them a bit better. We’re here to help, to give advice, not to instruct like a highpriest but to guide people. The only thing we ask in return is to accept the fact they need the improvement.

Rome wasn’t build in a day, Oldtimers wasn’t either.

Let’s see how our members react. Some supported the decision in gchat, others didn’t really understand the reasoning. I hope I can have a chat with him. But atm, I’m thinking in Orcish and he’s not able to read my mind or to understand Orcish. There you go, I found a title!

Last night, we headed back for Trial of the Crusader, the 25 man version. On our previous visit, last thursday, we struggled with the Beasts and Lord Jaraxxus. We needed 3 attempts for every encounter. We usually need to wake up a bit first before people realize that they are raiding. And to say that we raid fairly late. Maybe they got tired of a long day at work, can you imagine that?

Why did we wipe? Well, we were 23 people in the raid but that wasn’t the reason. I think some of us wanted to give Icehowl a hug because he looks so fluffy and soft. I could hear them thinking when Icehowl moved to the center before he charges in: “Ow fluffy bear, pick me, pick me, I really want to give you a hug!”. Although I wear mail as a healer and I can take a few more punches compared to my priest collegues but when that Icehowl charges, I’m out of there! I wouldn’t like to have his drool all over my oh so shiny epics. I was a bit suprised to see a little holy paladin running as fast as he could to reach the oversized Yeti. Icehowl wasn’t so happy with his plate toy boy and turned all red.

I can’t really remember what went wrong on Jaraxxus. Probably some mess with the adds and taking them down well in time. The healers didn’t miss an incenarate flesh but our tank missed a lot of interrupts and people didn’t move when they got Legion Flames. They know the fight, they’ve done it atleast 3 times now in 10 man, but still they can’t figure out what to do when they see their hitpoints go down rapidly. Such a shame to see people die. Most of the time I notice it right away and I always have my eyes on DBM messages to see who has got to move. I’m the first aswell to call it out on vent and I feel like I’m saving lifes with it every single time. On moments where things get hectic I don’t always have the time to push my “vent-button” and tell people what to do. I’m pretty sure they blame the healers for it when they go down. Yes ofcourse, the heals don’t really work when you stand in the fire or hugging the infernals.

That is something I miss during our encounters: communication. It’s pretty normal that when a raidleader explains the assignments, the raid chat or vent stays clear. But when everyone is in the middle of a fight, an extra “Watch out”, “<playername> move” or “Special ability incomming, do this” would be helpfull. Not sure if they are afraid of doing it or if they just don’t notice it that well.

Well, our thursday raid was over and before we ran out and went to bed, we checked what faction champions we had to face next raid. Damn it, resto druid, holy paladin and a resto shaman. God have mercy on our souls, this isn’t the gift I was hoping for. Luckely we had some time to think about it and start it on sunday with fresh courage. After a night of wiping and having a hard time to survive, everyone was happy to log off.

We decided to burn down the shaman and paladin first before taking out the rogue. I had a feeling our CC was pretty solid, didn’t see anyone go down fast. Although it took a while for the shaman to go down. I think some of us forgot to purge/dispell. Yup, I blame myself this time aswell. I focused the shaman, smashed my purge macro and down he went. “Skull down, new skull up”. Nelek died, our backup banisher. No panic, we had it all covered. Paladin went down and the Rogue, Warrior, DK, Warlock, Shadowpriest, Resto Druid, Balance Druid and Hunter all folowed his example. First try, down. There, simple as that. I could hear people releasing there stress. Glad that went smoothly, actually we made it look easy.

Next up, Twins. Oh boy, this was my personal nightmare. As a healer, you absolutly can’t controll the situation. You just got to stand still, heal like hell and hope you don’t get hit by the wrong orbs that often. I really like the fight in 10 men, a bit less people to heal but atleast I have a feeling I can breathe during the fight. On 25, I’m sitting at the top of my chair, clicking like a mad cow on my grid. Beric has a point when he sais that chain heal is overpowered during that fight. True it is, it’s practicly the only spell I use in there. But frankly, I don’t really have another option. Sure, I can finish off a riptide first and refresh the earth shield on a tank but you can forget the single target heals. They just don’t work in there. So many people are taking damage, you got to chain heal. I explained the fight again just to be sure. Everyone had been there, just a matter of execution.

I told people not to switch for twins pact, we had the dps, we jast had the switch fast enough to burn down the shield. It took us a try to realize that. Than we had 3 to 4 attemps where switching to either the black or light vortex went wrong. After a while we all managed to survive the switch but than one of our tanks died every single time, and I couldn’t see what the reason was. I think I need to check the combatlog later on. Lovelace asked me who was healing the tank. “Euh, we all are”. No single target healing here, you won’t make it that way, I think our healers realized that by now. I must say, 2 holy pala’s and no resto druid isn’t the best setup, but we had to make it work. Attempt number 7, I told people we would take in an extra holy priest if we failed again, we did and actually we weren’t getting any closer. We really were missing heals. In came the extra priest and they went down instantly. We were allready healing with 6 people and the 7th saved the raid. In fact, healer number 6 was making it hard on all of us.

I always have my recount on “healing done – current fight”. I resized it and I only see the top 4. To see healer number 6 on the meters, I had to scroll down every single time. It was like this last thursday and again last night. I allready took the time to see what he’s doing wrong and I can rephrase it in one word: everything. I could write it down here, but than I have to make an extra page to fit it all onto my blog.

It makes me sad and at the same time mad aswell to see that 1 person isn’t doing his/her job. If a dps fails, that’s fine, we let him die and hopefull they learn a lesson. But a healer isn’t allowed to make mistakes. But our healer n°6 wasn’t making mistakes, he was just playing his class as it isn’t ment to be played. I ask myself: doesn’t he see it himself that he’s healing low? Doesn’t he ask himself during or after the fight what he’s doing wrong? Isn’t he curious how he can improve? Isn’t it frustrated to see lower geared healer from the same class topping the healing every single time? I know one thing, it’s frustrating me and probably others aswell.

I don’t mind if your healing is a bit low compared to your gear or that you aren’t that high on the dps meter when actually you can easily hit the top 3. But “failing” every single time? That’s just not fair towards your guild members. 7 wipes before we downed the twins, that’s a huge repair bill, you need to rebuff every single time, take a new flask aswell,… that’s a lot of gold. People need to work to earn that gold. /sigh

I got to handle this one on one. Confront him with the facts. We need him as a healer when we want to have our daily 25’s. But when he plays like this, we have more chances by exchanging him for an extra dps. A quote I got reminded of last week: “We are a casual guild but when we raid, we do it seriously”. Time for some to take it more seriously.

/flame mode disable

Ow yeah, almost forgot. 2 wipes on Anub. It was getting late, we called it. We’ll try to finish it this week. I hope we can grab 25 people again and make them do it. Would be a shame for all the effort we have put in it.

That’s me! Amongst a couple of other guildies. If you’re read the previous post, you probably know allready that I’m part of a guild called Oldtimers (Perhaps I didn’t mention it, either way, you know it now). Oldtimers is a guild that was founded in May 2006. A bunch of people enjoyed playing the game but they were disappointed in the way people acted against eachother. Oldtimers tends to be a mature and social guild for people that have real life issues aswell.

An Oldtimer is a person, male or female, who has the age of 20, 30, 40 even 50 and higher. Some of us have kids, just got married, other still go to school or got a buys working schedule. We got people from Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, UK, South Africa, Bulgaria, Greece, US, … so a whole lot of different kind of people with their own social background, their own personal issues and their own personal lives. One thing we all got in common: We like to log in and play with a pixelated warrior, rogue, mage, … . While doing so we find communicating with other people very important. In short: Oldtimers is just a nice place to hang out and chat.

We’re mainly a PvE guild, meaning that most of the time you’ll find us battling against a creature with an oversized head, hoping for a nice shiny epic staff or headitem to drop. The person who wins it can than shift click it in the gchat and brag about it. Okay, you may find that strange if you’re not familiar with the game but in a way it’s something you automaticly do.

You’ll find out more about Oldtimers in my future posts because I spend 80% of my gametime with these guys. If you want to know more about us, I suggest you visit www.oldtimers-sylvanas.eu. Perhaps we meet eachother one day…

The Woolwich Oldtimers Hockey League started play in their new home in Elmira last week.   What a beautiful facility.  Playing on an NHL size rink means a bit more huffing and puffing than normal but we’ll all be in shape in no time.    I believe that’s Tim Farrell ripping off one of those patented laser beam snap shots of his that has goalies in the league running scared.  “He just has more room to shoot now than ever before”

Farrell rips one

said one of the goalies who refused to be named “and frankly, that scares all of us!”

With a new season now underway, a few fellow old-timer hockey players and I were reaching way back to our first games, first goals, etc. and we got thinking we should write some of these old stories down. And with that, rinktales was born.

So if you feel like hanging out with some old duffers and trading hockey stories, bookmark rinktales and come back soon.

Foto’s van Jelmer, dit keer van de ploegwedstrijden in Westendorp. Hier de foto’s:

Wilt u deze foto’s in grote resolutie? Mail naar oscar_stoss@live.nl, en je krijgt de foto’s toegestuurd.

Met dank aan en foto’s van: Jelmer Buunk – www.Agri-Twente.nl.tt

Soms komt er een auto voorbij, of ik zie er eentje staan, die mijn hart een sprongetje laat maken. Dat zijn bij mij niet de dure zakenauto’s – al vind ik die meestal niet lelijk – maar wel de klassieke modellen. Ik schreef er al eerder over op dit blog, zie de post over de Volvo Amazone.

Vandaag zag ik tussen de familieauto’s en leasebakken van mede-Meerkerkers een mooie oldtimer staan. Ik dacht gelijk: Morris Minor, maar ik had het mis, want dit bleek een klassieke Peugeot 203. Wat een schoonheid! 

En nu ik toch lyrisch over auto’s doe, laat ik gelijk maar een paar plaatjes zien van twee schattige auto’tjes die ik gisteren zag staan. Dat klinkt verwijfd, maar ’schattig’ is hier echt wel op z’n plaats. Het gaat om de Goggomobil, een autootje van het Duitse merk Glas.  Zie de website van de Nederlandse Glas Vrienden Club, het officiële Goggomobil register en hier een Duitse site. Voor mijn foto’s moet je deze post even verder openen… 
Klik op de foto’s voor grotere weergave! Ben je heel enthousiast? Kijk en luister dan hier!