Programmer, Analyst, Learner, Leader, Gamer

So Friday along with all the stuff I got done I also went by and finally got my knee brace. It’s made a big difference and even though at times it’s uncomfortable on my skin, it’s still very nice to have. I feel like RoboCop when I have it on. The doctor says I have a “severe anterolateral femoral condylar contusion and medial patellar contusion… consistent with a trancient lateral dislocation of the patella”. Translaction: “severely tore up the tendon on the right side of the left knee because I dislocated my knee cap to the left outside of the knee”. Apprently the tendon on the bottom side of the knee is damaged too, though perfectly “intact”.

After much deliberation, we’ve decided to impliment a “Raider” rank in the guild to restrict those who are undergeared from raiding. This isn’t a punishment but rather a means to an end to ensure people are serious about pre-gearing up and that we don’t take people who aren’t ready to Karazhan. I’d rather not raid at all then take people who are undergeared and wipe over and over. Thankfully this is getting 100% positive feedback from the guild and it’s something I would have implimented sooner if I thought there would be such resounding support for it.

Ray got a really bad ass sword over the weekend and we got it all enchanted up with mongoose for him. Hopefully the mongoose on this sword will be a good luck charm because it’s thanks to our first Moroes kill that Orcinus got the enchant and now that enchant is on Gnar’s sword. Paid for with the void crystals gotten from several raids perviously. The guild really pitched in to make sure the main tank is well geared and that makes me proud. He’s really only missing his shoulders and a better cape then he will be completely decked out in some of the best stuff you can get pre-Karazhan.

Spening a good part of the morning between projects catching up on mail. I’ve got several stacks, I’ve got my WaMu stack, Benefits stack, 401K stack (needs it’s own), My Dolphin Paperwork Stack, DeVry stack, and my HealthCrap stuff stack (all recent health paperwork like xrays, mri, etc). A lot of this still is preperation paperwork for Mark (my financial planner) so he can get a summary of how I’m doing, etc with my current financial situation. I even got a letter from Fred Bachofner, reminding me about him for my future home loan, I emailed him back telling him not to worry and that I haven’t forgotten about him. My car will be officially paid off by Feb 2008. I’m going on a vacation in late December to celebrate what will be at that point 3 Semesters of hopefully all A’s in school.

Well back to work, doing some cool cleaning of some of Hewlett Packard’s data right now. They really embrace our Lot transaction system and have some good control policies. I’m going back and fixing up some data that is incomplete before they tightened some of their transaction policies.

First off I got home at 7:30 server time. Gnar started forming the raid at 7:15. The raid didn’t start until 8:45. We gave up at around 9:30 server time after so many wipes that I was down to 37%. Entertainingly and sadly enough our last attempt was completely botched due to someone not repairing like the should have before the raid and after his third or fourth death right before midnight he was red and had to hearth “really fast”, well in Karazhan “really fast” means the trash resets and it did. By that point after 2 sad pathetic attempts on Attumen, Mogani having to leave because the raid took so long to get started and everyone was being retarded, I decided to call the raid. Our dps was crap. One of in my opinion of the least geared mages in the guild was 2nd on the damage meter. There’s something wrong with that. I had people on the raid with some of the best gear pre-Karazhan and they aren’t outputting the damage. Someome who just hit 70 and has “meh” gear shouldn’t be #2 on the damage meters and someone who’s been 70 for 3 months is just barely above the main tanks. Something is wrong and I don’t know how to fix it.

Well my knee is doing better. Hopefully I should have a semi-sane/healthy week before next week when I have my colonoscopy. I have to be on a special diet for days before the procedure and the day before and of I have to be on an all liquid diet along with magic powder which is going to flush me out. Joy and fun all around.

I saw the specialist today and he said hopefully I just damaged tissue around the knee cap. It’s still tender there, more tender than I even thought until he started poking it. He said I could have dislocated the knee cap which caused the hyperextension. He said most likely this is caused by my knees caps not being centered like they should but actually off center (off to center to the outside of the knee). He said the other pain I’m having might just simply be a normal side muscle that takes a while to heal. He was worried that there might be damage to my ACL, which he said actually happens 80% of the time in this kind of injury. To be certain I need an MRI.

MRI has been scheduled to be done tomorrow at 2:30. I was also sent to an Orthotist (prosthetic/brace specialist) and they are making me a custom fix brace that should be ready by Thursday. Even after I get the brace he said I should continue to use my crutches (*sigh*). A follow-up examination of my healing and the MRI results is scheduled for the last Tuesday of the month.

I’m telling you, once this is all over, I’m going to go back to the doctor on my own dollar/insurance and having my other knee looked at to make sure it’s ok too.

Last night we responded to ganking of Jem in Hillsbrad by going on a slaughter fest. First we killed every living sole and npc in Southshore including the magistrate, then we stormed over to Arathi Refugee Point and slaughtered every guard, npc, and even the Arathi Basin battle master, finally we ended the evening by infultrating Mithenel Harbor and taking control of a ship. Many alliance walked the plank as they met Davy Jones curtousey of my Mind Control. Noted we did slaughter a lot of lowbies, but unless they were dumb only once. We didn’t greif, just killed some lowbies during the war.

Courses this term are pretty cool. CIS115 though brainlessly easy is nice because I’m learning a lot about Visio. It’s a piece of software that I never learned well and it’s a nice tool for documenting code projects. I’m really glad to get that exposure. BUSN115 on the other hand is really tough but in a nice and fun way. It’s really getting deep into global economics fast and this week we’re going into ethics and ethical differences in business in other countries. Can you believe that the concept of “bribing” is legal in some countries and totally common place and a standard of doing business? WTF? They talked about Abbott Industries and how great they are with ethics, which is cool because they are a client of Dolphin.

Last night and tonight we downed the first 4 boses of Molten core as well as the Bat boss in Karazhan. Not the kind of sucess I like to see in progression, but I think we are finally getting the Moroes fight down which makes me happy. We had him down to 18% on one attempt and might have actually beat him if we didn’t have a tank go down due to priests running out of mana. I think we might have even been able to evasion burn him down, but oh well that’s spilled milk. I must say that at the very least me and Juan have down the shackling concept and I kept the Retadin shackled the ENTIRE fight multiple times. He never broke shackle. Thanks WoWWiki for a good shackle “focus” macro.

So my knee is NOT feeling better, in fact it’s feeling worse today compared to yesterday. I’m tired due to having to stress my body out trying to hobble on the crutch. Overall it really fucking sucks what’s going on. I called and made a followup appointment with a specialist as the hospital suggested if I wasn’t signifigantly better by today. I put in my PTO request for my Gastroenterology appointment on the 1st. Not looking forward to that.

At least the guild merger went well.