Seriously, It’s Dark in Here
11:40pm and everybody in the BRK House of Insanity is mega-asleep, so we can sneak into the kitchen nook and write a blog-post in the dark without waking anybody up.
Tonight Aetherial Circle took down Kaz’rogal, the third boss in Mount Hyjal. We weren’t there. Why? We were playing legos.
Today is the last day of the month, and Mrs BRK is in sales. You can guess what that means: quota-time. We make a good income, but it’s Mrs BRK who makes the mortgage and funds our lustful habits. Regardless of how late she needs to work to make her bonuses, she’s got to do it. Her normal home-time is 7pm, which on Mondays and Wednesdays is plenty for us to greet, exchange pleasantries, and to pass the boy over as we get ready to raid.
But at 8pm tonight, she wasn’t home. The paycheck difference between making and not making quota is thousands of dollars. Mrs BRK was not coming home until it was done. The house and the boy and the dog and the cat needed us, so our raid was going to have to grab someone to take our place.
When people ask us how we make the time for WoW and blogging and Real Life, well, the answer is always simple: sacrifices have to be made. Tonight, we sacrificed a guild first-kill in order to stay up with our son who wanted his mommy to come home and tuck him in, as she does every night. We’re not going to send him to bed and let him sit alone while his mommy is out working. Nope, that’s not how we roll. Legos FTW.
Spaghetti and meatballs is easy, but when Mrs BRK comes home at nine and finds a nice, hot, homemade meal ready for her, we get massive Wife Karma. The boy is fed, washed, pajama’d, teeth brushed, and happy. The family is safe, she’s exhausted, and we missed our raid.
But the lego houses, trees, and one scary, eye-less duck, are shown with pride and love to Mommy. She excuses herself, changes, takes the boy to bed, reads to him, tucks him in with the expertise motherhood instinctively imbues, and he’s done for the night. Mrs BRK grabs the bowl of pasta, comes to bed, carefully eats her fill as we watch… sheesh, we don’t even remember. But we watched TV together and talked about her kills. Customers. Yeah.
She was asleep by 10pm, snoring like a miniature, redheaded, Sales Goddess.
We take her bowl and place it in the sink. (Putting it in the dishwasher doesn’t allow her to fuss at us in the morning, and we’re not going to take that away from her.) We take the dog for a last walk, gulp our vitamins, including the B-12 which is not delicious, regardless of what the bottle says, and settle in to bed.
Then we pop open the iBook, check the guild forums and see they’ve progressed without us. And it hurts. These are our best friends, our comrades-in-arms, the only people on the planet crazy enough to call this 39 year old systems engineer, “Kitty”. We loathe missing raids, and first-kills are especially rare and momentous and fabulous blog-fodder and makes all the wiping and learning and cursing and computers thrown in the pool worthwhile. D@mn.
We see Mrs BRK sleeping, exhausted. Our boy mumbles loudly in his sleep, “That’s my house!” And the darkness in the kitchen covers us with a comfort and joy few people will ever know. Crickets, the air conditioning, a snoozing 100lb yellow lab at our feet, and the snick-snick of laptop keys being struck; these are the sounds of Family, and it’s what we hope everybody remembers is the most important thing. Even more important than Mount Hyjal, if you can believe that.
Vashj better go down on Wednesday, though. /fistpump
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39 Responses to “Seriously, It’s Dark in Here”
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Doing your home duties FTW! That boss will fall over again, probably many times, and it will always happen the same way, at least as far as the animation is concerned…
BRK:
We took a poll and feel that the run went incredibly smoothly mostly due to your absence. As such, you are fired.
Seriously though, not a problem. We’ll nail him next time.
BRK!!! BRK!!! I MADE IT TO THE RAID!!!! … I was missing pieces of gear, and I probably hindered ppl more than helped… but I MADE IT!
stupid effin hackers.
Way to go all. BRK gets mad troll props for taking care of business at home. Way ta go mon!!!
I r teh sorry BRK. Family first though. You were missed on the raid tonight though! Hopefully you can make the next downage cause well, I think Cay enjoys making our ears bleed immensly and I think you should suffer too ^.^
P.S- Kel didn’t hinder us at all
-Clin
You Da Man BRK!
Family First.
BRK
That was a lovely post, it made me think twice about what i sacrifice for raids. You a true champion and deserve the world.
Zerobeast
Well said sir. Well said. I know every Friday night, my wife and I go to my brother-in-law’s house and we play card games with him, his wife, and her grandma. We don’t know how much longer she will be around, but we love her, and all the time we can spend with her counts.
My niece plays soccer and you better believe Uncle Drotara was going to be at those soccer games to watch her run from the ball.
Great post. Way to be a dad first!
Can’t count the number of times I have left my mates hanging in an instance while I went off to sooth the little fella that had woken to some bump in the dark.
Always nice to return to the PC to find my mates either waiting patiently (or a pile of corpses… but that’s just a sick pleasure of mine) - but never complaining about the unscheduled absences.
recently a couple of mates had their 1st kids (a day apart), so I expect the same will be returned.
I never feel guilty about minor absences, though I do like you hate hearing about the boss kill in my absce (I am indispendable damn it).. all good to have the priorities straight.
Enjoy your family.
Yep, family first
Though its always nice to be there for the first kill. We got Illidan on Sunday night (and a OH warglave on the first kill) and it was awesome to be there, heart pumping for the last 3 mins where all hell breaks loose!
20 minute fight… OMG I hate it lol
Check out our kill http://banned.guildlaunch.com
“[...]Crickets, the air conditioning, a snoozing 100lb yellow lab at our feet, and the snick-snick of laptop keys being struck; these are the sounds of Family, and it’s what we hope everybody remembers is the most important thing.[...]”
- Perfect rendering of the conclusion of a good night.
Sorry, you missed the guild’s first kill, but you gained so much more….
aww! that was very sweet to read, BRK. Though i do understand the sadness of missing guild firsts.
i’m jealous of your guild, a little bit.
This was (as always) a very good read BRK.
My guild of pure awesomeness downed Kael for the first time last Sunday, and I was there, like all the times we have wiped on him. Vashj is coming next, and we - or should I say my guildies - are starting this coming Wednesday. I want to be there. I totally really want to be there! But the festival season is starting, and all my mates and I are going Wednesday afternoon. So I cant be there!
It’s a wired felling being split, when there’s no doubt what I want to do. I’m really looking forward to spending the next five days in a tent with the beer flowing and the music playing, while I enjoy the fantastic company of my RL friends. I wouldn’t change it for a thing. I don’t have my own family yet, so here friends come first, always. Still, it’s hard to describe why, when I’m out roaming the many parties in the greatest company I know, I will miss the company of my guildies when they start playing with Vashj.
But hey, one can’t have it all, and I’ll drink a beer in their honour. Dammit it’s going to be one long awesome weekend
Indeed, family IS the most important thing. And friends. And my boyfriend. And my (RL) kitty. Everything else comes second. Yes, even Maggy. God, I can’t wait to kill him.
Cheers for the great post, BRK. I should get my former raiding-obsessed guild to read it. I can’t possibly raid 5 times a week, you nerds! I’m not even surprised they disbanded.
Well it always hurts missing first kills, my condolences.
Though first kills can hurt too!
Check the screenshots in this thread (should allow anonymous access) from our first brutalus kill! http://forum.blarf.be/viewtopic.php?t=4201
Shortly there after Felmyst (lured in by our aoe on the screenshot) and proceeded to eat the raid (screenshot no 2, further down).
the shouts and self-congratulations on vent quickly turned into shrieks and curses!
Sweet, truly sweet. Life at its best.
Awesome BRK, just awesome. Nice life perspective.
Last night we had to have a break during our guild run to down Netherspite and clear Kara for the first time cos one healer got called away by his mum for strawberries and icecream.
Not exactly hard-core, but we have fun - he returned, we downed the beast and danced in an empty kara
/party
Well said, you are a true Daddy and a good man.
Amen Brother! Family for the Win!
Check what dropped for me last night…
http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=34183
Not sure if its better than the S3 axe though. I dunno.
Been reading here for nearly a year now… best post yet
(And BRK is nearly as old as I am!)
Dude you normally make me wet my self with laugther but today I shed a slient tear at how sweet and lovely this post is.
Good Job
Great post BRK
But I just have to say this The Elites did kara last night the best we have done so far is kill midnight 1 time and kill the spider and bat rare spawns but last night we had a holy priest(witch i still out healed with my pally) and a shadow priest…
We took down midnight, morose and the big bad wolf…..
We are going back tonight and are going to try it again and hope to add another bass or two to the list
You Truly Freakin’ Rock BRK.
Greatest Blog Eveh! and thank you so much for constantly reminding me why I read your blog everyday.
-1080p
Really great post. Family and friends always above some ones and zeros.
Legos.
Hot pasta.
Contented sleepers.
Sounds like the formula for a happy, happy life.
Best to your family (and good luck on Vashj!).
================
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.” - Mark Twain
Ya know… ive been following this blog for some time. AC’s progression has paralleled my own guild’s pretty closely.
Last night we downed Kaz as well (a one shot no less). And much like BRK I had to sit out of this one. Not, sadly, due to needing to spend time with a little one (big kudos sir) but because we had a hunter who hadn’t been to a raid in a while and the Hunter officer made the call that he should go. Even tho Im the GL I rolled for a spot with the other guys and I rolled low. So I happily sat and got to listen to my guys go in and give the big guy the business.
I relate the story only because it amazes me sometimes how much I have in common with the BRK. Serendipity is a strange thing.
Keep up the great work sir and thanks for the wonderful blog.
The “we were playing legos” quip brought tears to my eyes, bro.
One of the most favorite things my daughter and I do together is play legos. She has the big pink mega blocks that she totes around in her little pink carrier. She loves it when dad builds her a big, tall tower, because she can come over and knock it down.
It’s always good to see the little ones aren’t forgotten when WoW is about. Thanks for that, man. =)
Now, back to legos!
Wow. As a 38 y.o. PhD who doesn’t blog, but tries to raid and has the successful working wife and the 2 kids and the dog and the house in the burbs, and has found a great guild that doesn’t blink when he misses every weekend raid and still lets him in for three raids the next week, and hates it when the screenshot of a first kill goes up on the webpage and his toon is not in it…. well, I don’t know what to say. I’m here in my office scarfing a sandwich checking the guild webpage real quick and let’s pop over to BRK, and then I read this. Too say I was touched or shivered or had a tear in my eye doesn’t do this passage the justice it deserves.
Thank you is all I can say.
I share your pain. On a Saturday that I was scheduled to raid, I was instead required to spend some really nice family time with people I otherwise don’t get to spend much time with. Because of this, I missed the first downing of Kael’thas and the first downing of Kaz’rogal (they did this in *one* raid day! Go them!). Do I regret it? Partially, yeah. If I had known they were going to make such progress on that day, would I have canceled the family outing? Nope.
Here’s your [Cookie]
Family FTW
Aww. Loved this post BRK. I can tell you put a lot of feeling into it. <3
Once every couple of months or so, my current job holds a “mandatory work meeting” on a Sunday evening at 7pm-ish. Now Sundays I am guaranteed off so Sunday ends up being my optimal raid time, and lemme tell ya, the first time I had to go to one of these “mandatory meetings” I had to miss a Karazhan for it and I got home and found out my guild had a blast without me and had done all this stuff without me and I was pretty grumpy.
This latest work meeting though, I thought “ya know what, I don’t even feel like raiding anyway– I do wanna get out of the house.” And I went to the meeting thing and my department got a special ice cream sundae party because we’d done so well on the latest review, and we screwed around and joked for an hour or two and it was weeeeeeeell worth it.
Attitude is everything, and WoW, well… isn’t always
Awesome post
It’s important to remember what really counts in life…even if first boss kills are important to us.
Legos ftw! I still have fond memories of my own countless hours of lego creatin’ and my boys are well on their way to making their own. Of course, I never fully realized the importance of cleaning them up until a mother myself, I encountered an especially spikey robot alone in the dark hallway at night, while walking bare footed past the kid’s room trying not to wake anyone up!
Kids are great, just wait until he talks you into letting him play wow! Our 5-year-old is allowed some supervised play, and has informed us that once his character is “old enough” he will be joining us on raids.
that was sweet and made me laugh,prioritys well in place
cheers dan for putting a smile on my face;)
I love your blog. As a writer, you had command your words well. And as a person, you have your priorities in line. WTG!
BRK, i’ve been reading your blogs frequently for the last 2 weeks. I’m a military guy with 3 kids, and obviously a wife, I’m glad to hear that i’m not the only jerk who misses raids. I was actually recently in a guild that couldn’t understand why I didn’t have 100% attendance even when I let them know in advance that I had kiddy duty. Glad to hear you’re in a guild that understands that after this game is gone your family will still be there. Big props BRK and I’m gonna keep reading. Between your hilarious military posts and your down to earth heart felt RL posts I can’t begin to tell you how much I love your blog. Never mind that the forums are awesome too.
I linked your post in our guild forums BRK. I think you’ve made some new fans.
Keep up the great work man.
Dear Mr. Brk,
I’ve been reading ur blog off and on since buying WoW about a year back. I too am a father of a small child and realise what kinda of push and pull one experiences with playing WoW and raising children. I TRULY respect this blog, your work and you as a father and a fellow hunter/WoWer. Family FTW