This morning I am getting a late start as I took Friday off. It didn’t really make sense to go back from the fourth for one day… only to be gone for a week after that. I was fairly exhausted by the time I made it to bed last night, and it was only through the nudging of my wife that I got up and around this morning. Just as a warning this is probably going to be one of the most real life posts I have made in awhile.
The Houseguest
We have a really unique relationship with one of our neighbors… it long ago transcended friendship and moved into the adopted family territory. When she was run over by her Ex-Husband… we were the ones that rushed to the hospital. When I had my insane arterial spray bleed out incident… she was the one we called and while we were in the hospital she did what no one should ever have to do… cleaned up the CSI inspired mess. So essentially we will do anything for the other, it is just the norm. We’ve been in each others lives for roughly fifteen years.
All of that said… her kids are essentially like our kids too… or at very least like a niece and nephew. Roughly a week ago there was a simple fight that escalated into something bigger… he went off in a huff saying he was moving out. The problem being… he is a High School junior… and while legally an adult he has no facilities to survive on his own. As a result he has been couch surfing since then, staying with whatever friend would let him for the night… and from the looks of it… not really sleeping or eating much.
Initially we were planning on having him stay in our house as a house sitter while we were gone next week. But after seeing him yesterday and how rough he looked we essentially told him to come in… take a nap and that he could stay with us until we left for the trip. Apparently we are a safe place, because the second he laid down he was out like a light. The only problem is our house is not really equipped for guests. You essentially have the option of sleeping on a couch or a loveseat. While he was napping we ran several errands, one of which was to go get a blow up mattress to at least give him something vaguely resembling a bed.
My hope is that we can act as a neutral ground and that while we are gone the he and his mom can reconcile the differences. This way staying with us… we at least know he is not out “getting drunk, getting high or making babies” as my wife put it. He is a good kid, he just makes some phenomenally dumb decisions at times. This is the same kid that was notoriously losing his bike… because he forgot who’s lawn he left it on. He does not have a malicious bone in his body, but my fear was the longer he was out there the worse things he would have to do to survive. Additionally we know at least his mom can rest a little easier knowing he has a safe place to stay for the time being.
The Flood
As a result of having a houseguest, one of the things on my to do list that I had never gotten around to was changing out the apparatus in the tank of the upstairs toilet. This is something I have done a few times before, so was not something I had the least bit of hesitation about. I turned the water off at the wall, drained the tank, undid all the fittings and swapped out the apparatus. All of this took about 20 minutes or so. After hooking everything up… there was a leak. I tightened the plastic nut to make sure it was not coming from the tank.
I didn’t feel like I could really get it tightened enough, so I ended up running around the corner to home depot to get a tool better suited for the tight space. Finally I toweled everything off and verified that it was not coming from the tank. Instead it looked like it was coming from the braided hose that connected to the wall. I began trying to tight that up a bit… and the plastic collar of the hose essentially disintegrated in my hands… and the result was a gushing torrent of water going everywhere. I managed to get the water shut off at the wall quick enough… but the floor and me that was laying on said floor… was completely drenched.
At this point I feel like I have left my depth of home repair know how…. not that I had much. Apparently my penis was not fully programmed with all the knowledge it should have about how to fix things. After all since men always have to do this sort of thing… it must come pre-programmed out of the factory right? I know to take care of what is wrong, we will have to shut off the water outside in our front yard. But know we are getting into actual plumbing… because it seems as though the current cable is essentially JB Welded onto the pipes. Actually it looks like it is stuck on with games workshop “green stuff” which I have heard is actually a plumbing compound.
I feel as though we should probably just call a plumber, but for the time being we are down to one restroom. That said we have essentially been down to one restroom for a good 6 months… since the tank upstairs has been wonky at least that long. We have one more day before we leave for a trip… so this all may be something we just deal with afterwards. After that point we will no longer be trying to share a restroom with a houseguest. I just hate the concept of rushing around trying to fix something right before we are going to leave town.
Stealth For Me
When things finally calmed down I collapsed into my comfy spot on the couch and decided to play some Rift. Of late I have really been enjoying my rogue Belgrave on Deepwood. Some time ago I wrote about trying out the Granpa build that PK suggested. I cannot swoon enough about how awesome the build is, and just how much it has improved the fun of playing a rogue for me. The most interesting thing about it for me however… is that I am actually enjoying playing a stealth class. This is however I think because it works drastically different than most stealth classes I have played in the past.
Always in the past it felt like you were at a great disadvantage if you were not constantly stealthing around in game. Stealthing in games like WoW feels much like race walking… equal parts awkward and frustrating… and just not that enjoyable. I hate the construct that moving in stealth makes you move slower, and until now the only stealth class I had really enjoyed was my Dirge in EQ2… and that was mostly because thanks to bard songs… I could move faster stealthed than most classes did on mounts. The moving through molasses aspect of rogues in the past has made the class seem overly tedious.
Rift on the other hand with the Nightblade has made stealth a temporary buff that lasts at most 30 seconds. As a result this completely changes how you use stealth in the first place. It ceases becoming a tool that lets you skip content, and starts becoming a strategic resources that you employ to open combat, or at most to sneak past a single mob that is overly tough like an elite. Additionally this short term stealth buff does not slow the player down… so the combat feels just as fluid as I stealth up just before I enter combat.
Additionally the build I am using gives me essentially no downtime… so I can roll from mob to mob or even packs of mobs… stealthing quickly between them to get my next opening off. The feeling is extremely awesome, and gives me whatever was lacking from a rogue in the past. This is not a prodding game of shadows… this is feels more like fast paced ninja assassins. Otherwise… I feel like Rift does rogues in a way that traditionally warrior style melee players can enjoy. Unfortunately I figure it is probably lacking for the folks that like poking along through content at the pace of a snail.
Wrapping Up
Now you have a rundown of all the major shifts that have occurred in my life over the last 24 hours. Hopefully we have made the right calls, and hopefully we can act as a neutral ground as mom and son reconcile. Additionally… hopefully we have not just delayed the process… and or inherited a semi permanent member of our household. I hope you all have a great day… and I hope that you don’t have any awkward decisions on the horizon.
/agree on hoping that all works out with your houseguest and his mom.
Glad to hear that the “Granpa” build is working out for you in Rift. The rogue was always my “I want to like it, but just can’t quite get there” class in the pre-SL days. I got it up to 46 before I got pulled over to SWTOR, and the “melee ranger” build (was enough Assassin for Leeching Poison, enough Ranger for the Greater Wolf pet, and then the rest in Blade Dancer, actually — was sometimes called the “assdancer” build too) that I was using was pretty nice, really, but I still just never “felt it.”
Until SL came out. I’d finished getting to 48 in the sinking sands, mostly going full assassin with 4 tactician and I don’t even remember my 3rd soul, but at 48 I wanted to go to the SL zones and my build wasn’t cutting it for me, so I went searching solo builds. 36 Ranger/XX marksman was ok, but not spectacular. Bunch of builds went really high Riftstalker and I didn’t want that much “tankage.” Never really “felt” the Tactician/Marksman “Martian” build either…. and then I found Granpa. It had enough Riftstalker in it that I was a touch worried but then I tried it out and. . . yowza! Can’t say enough good things about it.
Man! I hope things work out for your houseguest and his mom. I went through a similar bout with my own mother at that age.
As for the plumbing, I feel you, bro. I’ve replaced several tank hoses and valves. They never seem to not leak the first time. It would be odd if the valve really is welded, if your house is less than 20-30 years old.
On my few stealth toons, I always go for speed boosts. And use it the way you describe, only in short bursts.