The Value of a Good Story
There is something truly amazing and powerful about a great story — Even better if the story is well narrated.
I didn’t grow up in the era of the radio show. But I can certainly see the charm and wonder of what it brought. And the stories that were crafted in that medium allow the listener to create their own impression, vision, and interpretation of the story in a way that is blatantly absent through television or video.
If you have never heard of Stuart McLean and his weekly radio show, the Vinyl Cafe, I would highly recommend you take the time to check it out on CBC. You can also subscribe to the pod cast of just the stories.
I just finished listening to the October 10th show: The Arthur Awards. I love the concept of the awards and this was a truly inspiring show!
If you always wondered what makes a Canadian tick, listening to Stuart McLean will give you the insight you seek.
Highly recommended!
/bow
Sun
Just a Pet… Perhaps
I think anyone who has played the hunter class in WoW, as a main or for an extended period of time, will tell you how much they are attached to their pets.
I mentioned this some time ago, while I sat in a tree in the Barrens, looking for a particular black lion by the name of Hummar the Pridelord. This wonderful cat still runs with me… although I’ve renamed him Makesh to honor another hunter I used to play with.
Makesh (Hummar the Pridelord)
The same is true for Mithril, a wonderful tiger from the frigid hills of Winterspring.
Mithril (Rak'Shiri)
The thing about these wonderful companions, is they each hold their own story — How they came to know a lonely hunter in his travels. They each share a wealth of adventuring time together battling the toughest creatures and dragons that cared to cross their paths. They threw themselves in the path of those trying to harm Tenzin or any of his friends.
Well, it seems a wonderful new creature has chosen to join Tenzin in his travels through Azeroth and beyond. A chimaera by the name of Nuramoc.
Khorium (Nuramoc)
While traversing the energy-charged landscape of Netherstorm with my good friend Gavynn, Nuramoc choose to fly over us and we convinced the awesome beast to join the cause of the Alliance. 
I have yet to name Nuramoc — I always prefer to join my companions for a time before they choose to tell me what their name should be. But I really like him so far and hope to have him join me for some time.
Being a rare-spawn pet, similar to Hummar and Rak’Shiri, there are not many hunters in Azeroth with such a unique and beautiful creature at their side. And it makes it even better that I happened to find and tame Nuramoc on my friend Gavynn’s birthday! Happy birthday wonderful pally!
/Raises an ale in honor of good friends and battles yet to be won!
/Bow
Tenzin
Edit (October 20th): Nuramoc seems to match the rarity and beauty of the metal Khorium — a fitting name I believe! 
Still Here!
I apologize for the lack of posts lately.
Between catching up at work and recoving from the vacation, things have been very busy of late.
I have been crazy busy at work and things are just starting to slow down a bit now. I’m certain they will pick up again shortly.
I’ve been spending a fair bit of time in WoW lately and, as I mentioned earlier, it is really great to reconnect with my friends there! I am in a small guild and we have the philosophy of doing the best we can with what we have. And we have a great deal of fun in the process.
Well, we decided to challenge ourselves last weekend and attempt the new Onyxia encounter with the players we have. For those who don’t play world of warcraft, Onyxia is a very large dragon who breaths fire and other wonderful nastiness. It is designed as a 10-player encounter.
This means Blizzard tuned the encounter to have 10 players attempting it. So for us to try it with 5 is pretty crazy and near impossible. Especially considering our members are not the best geared (running mainly heroic item and what emblem gear we can muster).
Well, I’m very proud to say, we downed Onyxia after several attempts! Our amazing healer and priest, Murasaki, captured this epic battle and has posted it on Youtube:
I am that crazy hunter with the wolf pet.
Mura also posted a great forum entry about our guild philosophy and accomplishment on the WoW forums. There is some very nice feedback from the WoW community there.
Well, that’s all for now. We may try some other interesting stuff this weekend. There has been talk of trying the Onyxia 25-man version of the encounter with 8 players — we’ll see.
I’ll try and post a little more often as time permits.
Stay well!
Sun
A Day of Rest
Thank goodness!
Somehow I managed to get sick on the journey down and am recovering slowly. I don’t like taking cold medication. But it is helping quite a bit and I need to be ready for the remainder of the drive to Florida in the morning.
The kids are having an amazing time with their cousins. I know it will be tough for them and their cousins when we leave tomorrow. But it will give them something to look forward to next time we visit.
I hopped on WoW this evening and we had a 6-man guild run through Serpent Shrine Cavern — a 40-man raid. We one-shotted every boss on the way to the elusive Lady Vashj. And we did really well on her — almost making it through phase 2 of the battle. Looking forward to another attempt in the future. I know we can do it!
I also had the opportunity to pick up a recharge of freon for the van. So, at the moment, the air conditioning looks golden for the ride tomorrow. That is a big relief considering it will be nearly 18 hours of driving.
I hope you also had a wonderful day of rest on this labour-day weekend.
/bow
Sun
New York
One of the things I wanted to visit while in New Jersey was the Apple store in New York.
True to the Apple innovative style and art, this store is truly amazing. This is the entrance and skylight for the store which resides below.
And the stairway and elevator which lead into the store. They are both made entirely of glass. The elevator is round and even the doors are glass. To give you some sense of how important a landmark this store is for Apple, there is a worker in the store whose sole job is to wipe the glass staircase with a dry mop and keep the glass clean.
Anyhow, it was an amazing experience and the store was packed with people. There wasn’t really anything new that I hadn’t seen in the Apple store in Toronto. And I wasn’t there to buy anything — but rather to see the architecture and have a destination as we visited New York.
I would certainly recommend seeing this amazing place if you ever visit.
The trip into New York was amazing — across the newly renovated George Washington bridge and along the shore of the Hudson river. Driving briefly through Central Park and seeing century-old walls constructed with enormous chiseled bricks.
I knew it would take awhile to find a parking space, but we were fairly lucky and it only took about 10 minutes.
We had also come to visit Toys ‘R’ Us in Times Square. The boys, my two and their two cousins, were excited about seeing the giant automated T-Rex in the store and also wanted to ride the giant ferris wheel.
So we walked quite a few blocks before reaching the Apple store. It was amazing to see New York and all the very unique shops and people along each block. Had a few hot dogs and some warm giant pretzels along the way.
The walking was not too bad for me and the other father. But it was a little long on the younger boys. So we ended up carrying them a bit of the way — which I knew they enjoyed.
When we were done visiting the various stores and were headed back to the van, we thought it made sense to hop on the subway — rather than walk the 30 blocks back. So we climbed down the stairs into the subway entrance. On Sunday, many of these entrances are not attended. So in order to enter, you must buy a ticket at the automated machine or a metro-card and credit it with money.
We decided to buy one metro-card for all six of us. The entrances into the subway are not simple turnstyles, but rather, a rotating gate of bars which stretch from floor to ceiling. We thought it best if we let the boys through first, one at a time.
Swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe — all four boys entered without incident. Then I went to enter. Swipe — nothing. Swipe — nothing. It seems that a metro-card is set up to avoid fraudulent use to only allow a certain number of swipes in a short period of time. I recalled hearing of hacked metro cards which had unlimited rides and people with these swiping anyone who entered the station in for free. Well, the unintended effect for us in this case, was we now had two 10-year-old and two 5-year-old boys standing on the opposite side of a barred wall and two fathers rather a little upset at the turn of events!
So we told the boys to sit on a close-by bench and stay put while we went back to the intercom to find out how we could get in — rather in a state of panic.
Since this was an unmanned station, we were told we could only be let in at one of the other subway entrances nearby. The problem was that both of us would have to go to this other entrance to be allowed in.
Quite frustrated and a little panicked, we told the boys to stay put and walked very quickly to this other entrance. In hind sight, and thinking a little clearer, it would have made more sense to get the boys to exit the station — no metro-card was required to do this, and come with us to the other entrance.
But we were tired and not thinking clearly. Luckily, everything worked out in the end and we met up with the boys about 10 minutes later. They were not scared at all, as they had some new toys to play with from Toys ‘R’ Us.
We breathed a sigh of relief when we were back together and hopped on the train headed to the van.
The trip back to New Jersey was short and relaxed and it was very good to arrive back. New York is a wonderful place to visit. But it is not somewhere I could ever live. The quickness of life there is really draining. The indifference and willingness of people to be oblivious of others in their desire to get to where they need to go is disconcerting and sad.
I’m glad we visited and this crazy turn of events at the subway station just makes it a memory my kids and I will remember for years to come.
/bow
Sun
