Am I the only one who just noticed that it’s Wednesday? The holiday week with the free day is completely screwing me up.
Just to make this a relevant post:
Spend less!
Save more!
Invest!
Wee!
Happy Form
If you don’t know why you are hear, please read about the 21 Day Happiness Training Challenge.
Requiescat In Pace
Today, I am sitting at a funeral. My oldest friend’s dad died on Sunday.
Mark had an amazing ability to make anyone feel like family, from the moment he met them. The day I introduced him to my wife, he taught her to throw a tomahawk, and she still talks about it, 10 years later.
I don’t have a post in me today.
Mark Wayne Dwire, 61, was accepted into his father’s arms surrounded by his family June 24th. Mark was born to Wyman
(Jack) and Donna (Hasbrouck) Dwire on March 25th, 1951 in Park Rapids, MN. Mark graduated from Walker/Hackensack High School in 1969. He was married to Sherry (Garbers) Dwire on July 31st, 1971. Mark was a business entrepreneur. He started as a logger when you could still make a living with a chainsaw and a tractor.
Mark was proceeded in death by his father, step father Robert Dwire and stepfather Patrick Harrington, his brother Kerwin Dwire.
Mark is survived by his wife Sherry, his mother Donna (Hasbrouck) Harrington, children Jesse, Jason, Terra Fine (Andrew), Jeremiah (Tanja), and Daughter-in-law Elizabeth. Mark loved his grandchildren Cameron, Emily, Madelyn, Lydia, Faith, Elaina and Ellery. He was fondly referred to as ‘Super Papa’. He is also survived by many siblings, nieces, nephews and cousins.
Can EverQuest Next Compete with World of Warcraft?
Legions of MMORPGs have graced the internet to do battle against Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, yet no challenger has bested
Blizzard’s massively multiplayer online juggernaut. Huge marketing campaigns and years of development by the makers of games like Star Wars: The Old Republic and Rift have left players less than satisfied, with an initial big burst of player excitement and eventual failure.
Every software developer that creates an MMO that tries to take a slice of Blizzard’s pie invariably ends up as a “free to play” model. The latest MMORPG slated to try and take a shot at fighting Blizzard’s dominance is EverQuest Next. The developers are looking to lure players to EverQuest from a variety of other games such as EVE Online and Warcraft, but the design of the game seems to straddle a few different genres.
As with other game releases, the developers at Sony Online Entertainment have tried to suggest that their game will be “new” and “different.” It’s not difficult to understand why skepticism is high. Every game that has seen release in the past few years has had developers boast the same and has crashed and burned just a month or so after the release.
Players of EverQuest Next will find a game focus that includes some familiar fantasy elements of an MMO game (like elves), but developers have sought to step away from the traditional, linear questing experience and offer some world-building opportunities for players (much like EVE Online). One of the interesting features expected of the game is the ability for players to impact permanent change upon the landscape.
For example, during wartime a player might decide to build a wall somewhere, and he or she can accomplish this and actually have that wall erected as a permanent feature in the game world. Similarly, when players fight one another or monsters, a spell or explosion that creates a hole in the world will remain permanently. One of the developers likened this feature to the idea of putting Minecraft into an MMORPG.
Although absolutely everything in the world can’t be destroyed (certain structures will be permanent), this opportunity to build, create, and destroy represents a jump forward from the same opportunities players have had in games like EVE Online. World of Warcraft has occasionally offered players the opportunity to change the landscape, but not on a regular basis. Such changes have generally been implemented after a reset with all the realms taken offline, after which players would log in and see the changes.
However, the lack of appreciable impact on the environment hasn’t stopped players from flocking to World of Warcraft for nearly a decade, and EverQuest Next will need to bring an amazing player experience to lure away current players as well as retain them. The ebb and flow of Warcraft’s player base often coincides with the new release of another MMORPG, but after a month or so the new game’s servers are ghost towns. It won’t take long to see whether EverQuest Next can compete with World of Warcraft.
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Getting Out of Bed
- Image by Wha’ppen via Flickr
Why do you get out of bed in the morning? Is it so you can exercise the privilege of spending 8 hours in a cubicle?
I didn’t think so.
In Okinawa, it’s call the ikigai. In Costa Rica, it’s the plan de vida. It’s your sense of purpose–the reason you get out of bed in the morning. In these cultures, having a strong ikigai can be directly correlated to a statistically extreme lifespan*. All around the world, the plan de vida is the single factor most likely to cause someone to feel they have lived a fulfilled life.
Do you know your ikigai?
For some people, their plan de vida is to successfully raise their children, then their grandchildren. For others, it is charity. Some folks are serial entrepreneurs, always looking for the next deal, the next business. For still others, it is a collection or an urge to travel. There are even some whose sole reason for getting out of bed(other than potty breaks) is work.
The last category is most common with teachers, soldiers, and police. The problem with wrapping so much of your identity up in your profession is retirement. What do you do when your ikigai–your reason to wake up–goes away? In Okinawa, teachers and police tend to have very short retirements because they lose their reason to for living.
What is your plan de vida, your passion? What drives you to keep going? Do you live to write, or to raise your children? Do you <shudder> live solely for someone else’s happiness? When you find it, it will resonate as “this is you”. Finding it is a deep soul-searching, not a light-hearted explanation or a new fad.
Your reasons can, and should, change over time. You can’t live for raising your children years after they have grown up and moved away. Finding this one factor in your life can be the thing that leaves you on your deathbed looking back with a smile instead of regret.
What is your plan de vida?
* From The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest
Horseback Riding Lessons
For the past couple of years, my daughters have been riding in horse shows with a local saddle club. We’ve been lucky in that my wife’s cousin has let us borrow her horse for the shows, so costs have been minimal.
Unfortunately, that horse isn’t available this year. We knew that a few months ago, so the plan was to take a year off from the shows and focus on lessons, to get the girls some real skills. We found a great instructor at a stable about 30 miles from our house. Since we live less than two miles from the border of the biggest city in the state, that’s a comparatively short drive.
We pay her $200 per month for 1 lesson per week for both girls. They each get 30-45 minutes on the horse during each lesson.
Now that show season has started, the plan seems to have changed. The girls will be riding a different borrowed pony tomorrow. The shows cost about $50 for registration, lunch, and gas. Our club has 1 show per month, but my wife has assured me they’ll only be hitting three shows this season and limiting the number of events to keep the cost down.
The direct costs aren’t too bad, but there’s a problem with keeping-up-with-the-Joneses accessorizing. Vests and boots and helmets and belts and shirts, oh my.
I’d guess our costs for the summer will be $300 per month.
One thing we’ve been considering is buying a pony. We can get an older pony for around $500-1000. Older is good because they are calmer and slower. Boarding the thing will cost another $200 per month. We’ve been slowly accumulating the stuff to own a horse, so I’m guessing the “OMG, he let me buy a horse, now I need X” shopping bill will come to around $1500, but I’ll figure $2000 to be safe. We already have a trailer, a saddle, blankets, buddy-straps, combs, brushes, buckets, rakes, shovels, and I-bought-this-but-I-will-just-put-it-in-the-pile-of-horse-stuff-so-Jason-will-never-notice stuff. We’re certainly close to being ready to buy.
(FYI: If you’re starting from scratch, don’t think you’re going to get into horse ownership for less than $10,000 the first year, and that’s being a very efficient price-shopper.)
So we’re looking at $5400 for a horse, gear, and boarding the first year. If we cancel the lessons, by spring we’d have $2000 of that saved and most of the rest can be bought over time.
On the other hand, if we go that route, we’ll never save enough to buy the hobby farm we’re looking for.
Decisions, decisions. I should just buy a new motorcycle. Within a year, I win financially.
