MTG Salvation

I'm a little out of the loop here. Will I need to log in to a new site and get a new log in and password and stuff? How different will this be? What exactly is Ria leaving (being left behind?)?

Not much news from me. I'm still spending a few nights a week out camping and collecting data. Spent another few nights in that luxury cabin and hope to go back soon. I'll continue this schedule till at least October 14th...then we'll see how much more camping I get.

When I'm in the office I've been doing a lot more social media stuff than I realized I would. It's mostly dealing with the learning curve of what I can and can't do, plus factchecking what I post so I don't say/do something stupid. I'm representing an organization after all. I still don't get the utility of twitter....it still seems dumb to me and I can't put into words why any of my constituents would want to bother with it. The google+ is up to 4 followers...one of them being "Butte's Mile High Chrysler Jeep Dodge Kia"...which I think is a car dealership in Montana. O_o

I've also been trying to get a Linkedin Account which might actually have some utility. We have access to some of the most important people in rangeland ecology...professionally associating with them in one place might be handy.

But bah...whatever...been spending way too much time on these things with very little gain.

Beyond that...um...I've reached top 8 silver in Starcraft 2.

Update: my RL has fallen over itself. I just don't have time or desire to be in here anymore.

Love you guys, peace be with you.

Quote from rianalnn

Update: my RL has fallen over itself. I just don't have time or desire to be in here anymore.

Love you guys, peace be with you.

Well that's unfortunate, but real life is complicated and if it is calling then I understand.

Take care of yourself out there and keep in touch on facebook.

Had a fun weekend at GP Brisbane. Went 0-3 drop in the Legacy event, which was disappointing, but I picked up some Natural Orders to make NO Bant so that should be fun to try out. Then I played the Australian Highlander event and went 1-2-1 drop so I could have a beer or two before Day 1.

On Day 1 I started shaky, losing round 1 to Storm. Round 2 I beat Storm, round 3 I beat Merfolk. I was feeling pretty good until I lost of Jund in round 4 (Affinity can't beat turn 2 Stony Silence) and that put me on the bubble. Beat a weird (but awesome) Jund-coloured Landfall deck with Bloodghasts and Vengevines in round 5, then stomped U-Tron in round 6. 4-2 going into round 7, I find myself up against American Control, my absolute worst WORST matchup. He crushes me game one, game two is long and grindy as I resolve a Blood Moon and he can't deal with it. Game three goes to time, and is a draw - After a tense five minutes I concede to him because I wanted to leave and get drunk and I wanted to play vintage the next day. He ended up making day 2, and coming 35th overall.

In the vintage event, playing Dark Times, I crush Reanimator round 1, lose to Oath Tendrils round 2, beat Dredge pretty easily round 3 (4 Leyline of the Void maindeck is pretty good), then juuust lose to Tinker round 4, and the top 8 is already decided pretty much (4 people on 10 points, 4 people on 9 points, oh well). I play round 5 and crush another reanimator deck. I think my favourite play against him was

Him: Badlands, pass turn.
Me: Draw (my hand is now Swamp, Bob, Bob, Liliana, Dark Rit, Dark Rit, Demonic Consultation - I mulled to 6), Swamp, Dark Rit, Dark Rit, Demonic Consultation.
Him: In response, Entomb Griselbrand.
Me: Naming Faerie Macabre.

I hit it after only about four or five exiles, wipe his graveyard, then proceed to drop two Bobs on turn 1 and pass.

All in all a super fun weekend.

Wow, 15 days with no posts huh. We're about as dead as dead can be aren't we.

So what's everybody been doing lately anyway? It's a busy season for me at the moment. Monsoon season has been over for a while so that transitions us into monitoring season. I've been out to a variety of ranches across Arizona collecting data.

We also gathered and processed cattle. Which required I go on an all day cattle drive by horse back. That was fun, though my horse didn't care much about listening to me....either that or I kept telling her what to do without knowing it...subtle body language and whatknot. The other days was pregcheching the cows and weaning the calves. Some vaccines for the calves to prepare them for the feedlots, that sort of thing.

So busy busy and that's still going strong. Hope you all are doing good as well.


@Charlie
That sounds like a pretty awesome hand. Wasting their main theme and getting two bobs....mean.

Why would they entomb in response to your consultation?

Quote from votan

yeah man, this place is quiet.
I for one, have little time right now. As my fast drop from Admin to local hints, I have little time for anything not work related right now.
I have a lot on my plate. I'm doing my work, learning some new stuff and having 12 hour work days.
It's time consuming, but at least I love my job and not many people can say that (I couldn't for a few years). Plus, the way things are working out, I'm riding the Promotion wave for 2013, so that's not something to frown upon

All in all, I'm doing fine, but extremely busy.

That's good news. Brain's not working...I forget exactly what you do nowadays.

It's nice to ride the promotion train. I know that I'll never have that with my current job. I love my job, but I will have to leave it if I want advancement.

Quote from votan

I am a programmer for a Bank in Portugal. I'm mostly doing work in dynamically filled in PDF files (Dymanic XML). These are PDFs that are filled in by an application. You have an app where you input data, and it exports it to a PDF file for presentation. I create, edit and correct these PDF Files. It's got as much to do with programming as "1+1" has to do with advanced Calculus, but I like to call myself a programmer (I'm weird in that way). Anyway, that's what I do nowadays.

That does sound complicated though. The most technologically advanced stuff I've done is social media. It sounds simple and cheesy, but I'm the only one at work that knows how to run our facebook/twitter/google+. I've spent way too much time on them actually.

I've also recently upgraded one of our computers, so I guess I'm the computer tech wiz as well. The poor thing was slowing down, so I installed two more sticks of ram into it to up the number to a colossal 2.5 gigs. Now I could ramp it up more, that Pentium 4 processor can handle up to 4 gigs, but who needs that kind of power in this day and age?

Well...last week my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She was a gestational carrier for a couple. It was an incredible 9 months leading up to a very touching birth sequence where I saw the faces of two fathers fall in love at the site of their beautiful girl! Watching my wife be strong as a rock and these two men soften up as the touch of their little girl was one of the most amazing experiences in my life.

Then she got bronchitis from the hospital oxygen mask she was given during the birth process.

But we're good now!!

JJ, that is absolutely amazing. You and your wife are incredible, wonderful people for facilitating such a miracle. High five!

Daggs: He thought I was going to go for Leyline of the Void.

Getting pretty excited for the 2014 GP season, I'm looking at playing in four (!) if I can;

Melbourne (Standard)
Minneapolis (Modern) (I plan on being in the States when this is on, so hopefully it'll line up!)
Sydney (Magic 2015 Sealed)
Stockholm (Standard) (If I can afford it!)

I'd LOVE to go back to Stockholm, and I know my way around, so two weeks in Scandinavia sounds pretty good!

I'm playing a Sealed PTQ this weekend, wish me luck!

Quote from jonnyjonski

Well...last week my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She was a gestational carrier for a couple. It was an incredible 9 months leading up to a very touching birth sequence where I saw the faces of two fathers fall in love at the site of their beautiful girl! Watching my wife be strong as a rock and these two men soften up as the touch of their little girl was one of the most amazing experiences in my life.

Then she got bronchitis from the hospital oxygen mask she was given during the birth process.

But we're good now!!

That's amazing JJ. I've heard of that sort of thing going on, but never knew anyone who actually went through it. Glad it was a positive experience for everyone. ...well, except for the bronchitis, would expect better from the hospital. Will your family and theirs stay in contact after all this? How much interaction did your families have during the entire 9 months? What got the ball rolling on this in the first place?

Quote from Daggertooth

That's amazing JJ. I've heard of that sort of thing going on, but never knew anyone who actually went through it. Glad it was a positive experience for everyone. ...well, except for the bronchitis, would expect better from the hospital. Will your family and theirs stay in contact after all this? How much interaction did your families have during the entire 9 months? What got the ball rolling on this in the first place?

My wife has a friend that was having a hard time getting pregnant. My wife never had issues with pregnancy and births so she was ready to carry a child for her friend. Well, her friend got pregnant and had a little boy so it kinda fell by the wayside...this was about 10 years ago. Well about 3 years ago my wife thought that she would give it a shot with a very reputable agency. She filled out the application and began that way. She was 40 at the time, so very few agency were interested in someone over 35. One of agencies final got back to her and let her know that she had passed all of the background checks and that they were ready to move to the next step, which only about 10 percent move to. They scheduled a home visit where the lead attorney and her assistant would visit the house and talk to us and our children. About 2 weeks before the visit they asked if we would be comfortable if NPR (National Public Radio) was there to record the interview for a story they were doing on surrogacy and surrogates. We said that would be fine....we thought that was soo cool. After the home interview the agency liked us so much they decided they were going to commit to my wife and started the process. My wife went a number of doctor's evaluations and tests. We were finally paired up with a couple and met with them through the lawyers. She and I would then have to go through a very rigorous psychological evaluation to make sure that we were stable enough to handle the potential emotional burdens that could occur with some people. We took a very long test with some very weird questions to test whether we were crazy or not, and somehow we came out sane. Then we were to sit with the psychologist and have a one on one session with her, followed by a group session with the potential parents. Well....everyone loved everyone and we began the drugs to get my wife's innards ready for the embryonic transfer. 6 months later we did the transfer of two embryos that couple had from a previous time. Long story short, it didn't take and the couple decided that they were fine with the 3 children they had, and didn't want to continue on. About 2 months later the agency found another couple for my wife and we had to start over with the Psych stuff. Since the new intended parents were using a different doctor for the transfer my wife had to take different drugs. This meant I had to give her a shot in the ass for 12 weeks. We drove up to Connecticut for the transfer of two embryos...in February!! Cold!!!

We found that this transfer took and that she was pregnant with ONE baby. While the couple wanted two, they were very happy that they would be getting one. My wife was REALLY happy only one took...she didn't want to carry twins. Anyway...the pregnancy went very well...very little complications, and she gave birth two weeks ago today.

We met with the couple a few times for lunch or dinner and got to know them. My wife would Skype with them weekly, just to keep them abreast of how things were going for her and to update them with the size of the baby as it grew in her belly. The couple is French, so the language barrier made for interesting letters and emails. They were new parents and very nervous, spending too much time on the internet reading the goods and the bads of pregnancy. They were both men, so they had no idea about how a woman is during pregnancy. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was annoying. They met our children and my kids liked them very much.

Before the birth there was a lot of legal things that had be taken care of because they would need for their child to have French citizenship when they moved back this coming summer. We never paid for anything out of pocket, or if we did, we were reimbursed quickly.

It was quite an adventure, and I'm amazed and astounded at how well my wife handled everything. She was calm and collected the whole time...I was in awe.

Sorry I didn't respond right away JJ. It's a great story and your family is remarkable for going through with that. Is your family thinking of doing that again?


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It's about time we have a candid conversation about what we all know is going on: The future of this clan. That last bit of clan drama hurt us more than we wanted to admit, but we've been on a steady decline for several years. That last clan contest we won was partially motivated by wanting to go out with a bang, go out on a high note...and that was three years ago.

Fast forward to today. Few of us still play magic, few of us visit, and few of us post. We can say "forever called" all we want...but sentiment and no posts is not enough.

Basically...Officially...we are not active enough to stay alive as an active clan. Is there any real honest desire to change that? Is it time we go the way of Project Mayhem, The Greek Alliance, and the several other clans that migrated over from MTGNews? They've all fallen and we are the last, but again, sentiment alone wont keep this clan going.

Thanks Daggs! I don't think we'll be doing this again. My wife is 43 and that's not young by any means. If the parents she did this last one for ask her, then maybe. I doubt it though.

As for the clan.....

I haven't been a member of this clan, really, for a few years now. I think the heart of the clan still exists, but the lack of activity is the deciding factor. I don't see why this clan can't still post when they do visit, but as an active member of this community, it certainly isn't.

I think deep down inside, those that are CALLED will always be that way, but I think the clan has died....and not recently but long ago.

I think it should be given a couple more weeks for everyone who cares and visits to say their final words, then the thread and clan should be laid to rest in the history books as the best there ever was.

That's my opinion.

jj

I'll honestly say that it really isn't us that's hurting right now, it seems like Clans as a whole is at an all-time low.

But, I do think that this Clan isn't active enough to warrant it's existence, unfortunately.

I loved my time in the Called, even if it was more brief than some user's tenures. Sure, we've had drama but overall, we've been a Clan that has stood the test of time.

I'm going to agree with jj and suggest that we keep the thread open for a week, to let people post their sentiments and whatnot.

As slow as it is, I want this clan to stay open, but I guess it can't last forever. It's been fun, guys! I'll catch you all around elsewhere.

Luck dropped me a line, looks like I'm here in time to pay last respects.

"Now that I'm old
I am not the way,
The way I thought I was"

I hoped these days would never come to the oldest and most influential clan ever on salvation.
While I was never a member of the called or anything like that, I know the importance many of your members had and have on the clans sub forum and the site in general.
I hope you guys stay in touch with each other.
When I first started in Dimir, I actually wanted to have the clan run much in the way the Called was ran.
Anyway, any clan would be lucky to have such a long and glorious run.
I know I don't say much in here, but I wanted to thank you all for kind of showing everyone how a great clan works before the thread was retired. I hope this doesn't mess up the solemn but fond goodbye session.

forever guys. And thanks for paving the way.

It'll probably be soon we should be retired, right? Like I said, I don't want us to disappear!

If this is the end, I want you all to know that I appreciate the past several years. The Called has been my favorite aspect of this site, and in my time here I have found a few people I would truly call a friend.

I hope we can talk more elsewhere on the internet. I've missed you lot.