O-Dark-Thirty

Okay, so let me be clear up front. I'm no financial analyst. I rely on what other people - much smarter people - write. I rely a little on gut feelings, but not so much any more. I also rely on prayer. Yes, you heard that rightly. I do pray about finances. Why not? Jesus solved Peter'a concern over government taxes by having a fish cough up some coin. Do it again, Lord, and I'll be fishin' every day! Let's face it - the USA is going to get hit by some sort of financial crisis. Everyone knows it. Heck, the government is partly shut down right now, though I hear the congressmen are still getting paid. Darling and I wrote a book in October of 2012 warning of the Fiscal Cliff - what it was and how it might impact us and some thoughts on how to prepare for it. ( The post is here .) We expected the government to get in gear and solve at least some of the problems. It didn't  happen. We elect these folks to go to DC and work for us and I'm still not sure...

If you read much of my blog, you know I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I don't put a religion on that label. Paul even says in 1 Corinthians not to be divided, but be united in Christ (I'm paraphrasing, of course). Having said this: Merry Christmas to all, and a blessed New Year. The finances of our country are in peril, but I'll address those issues in future posts, and I'll try to be more consistent and provide some useful advice. In the meantime, you could check out the book we wrote on the Fiscal Cliff , which is still relevant. God bless you all.

Look what my friend Rex (TXTRex) made for me for Christmas. He 3D printed it and painted it. What a guy! The game? Still a game I hate to love - barely playable. Why did Bethesda not talk to the Ark developers when they put this together? Darling is playing now, so it makes it more fun to kill Super-Mutants with her. Merry Vault-Tec Christmas everyone!

Choosing Perks in the new incarnation of Fallout really confused me. I ended up making three characters until I finally figured it out. You're choosing TWO attributes when you select a Perk, so be careful. The first selection is from the list of SPECIAL categories. Scroll left and right and you see all your favorites for Fallout: Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck. When the selection pops up on your screen, your default selection is Charisma, because it's the one in the middle of the list. I didn't think it mattered and selected Charisma just to get to the cards - and ended up with 11 points in the Charisma category of SPECIAL. So that first click selects the SPECIAL category to which you are allocating a point for your Perk. You DO NOT have to choose a card from that category, though that is the default when the next selections show up. Using Z and C lets you scroll through all your available cards. For example, supp...

It's brutal out there. I'm still talking about Fallout 76. Still playing it. The multiplayer doesn't seem to be an issue as most players don't bother you. I set my character to pacifist ( mentioned in my last post ), so I can no longer inadvertently shoot someone. Flying bullets abound. The multiplayer gives the game a different feel. I'll wander into an area and hear gunshots and explosions. In previous incarnations of the game, you learned where everyone was, rarely encountering random beings. Now, every live person is a random being, changing the environment in ways that NPCs just could not. We (TRex and I) were teamed and got caught in an Event. Super mutants were calling us names and hurting us. Out of nowhere a level 40-something player in full Power Armor (and a nice Power Armor skin) waded into the fray and saved us. He gave me great weapons that I can't use (I am too low level) and disappeared into the sunset. Multiplayer is better than I tho...

[UPDATE] Here's a map to everything in FO76 to-date. This will be quick, because I need to get back into the game. Yeah, it has me hooked (poor Darling). Wait! Oh No! Scheduled maintenance! They need to fix some things... A few of the quests we've done are bugged. One cannot be completed. If you're stuck, a quick internet search on the quest name will let you know if you can finish the quest. [UPDATE] It's a 15GB download and install. Specific updates are on the Bethesda site . WANTED. TRex walked into someone's camp two days ago and looked around. After a few minutes, he became WANTED and the defenses targeted him, even though he did nothing aggressive (so he said). The owner came back and TRex killed him. WANTED indeed! The only way to remove the bright red tag is to have someone kill you. [UPDATE] I got some of that story wrong, but there is a pacifist selection in the game so you don't need to worry about PVP. I don't know if it protec...

My buddy TRex and I both love FO. He got me hooked on playing FO4 on Survivor mode, although he'd go on to finish the game and I didn't. I really hated the limited endings. We both said we might wait until Christmas to get the Fallout 76. You know, let the devs shake the bugs out first. My Darling Daughter called me on the 13th and asked if I was playing yet - it was out early. It wasn't out, but I logged into Bethesda and downloaded it. It took forever . TRex had a hard time logging into Bethesda on Nov 13th but managed to on the 14th. His copy downloaded in less than half an hour. I knew we wouldn't make it until Christmas, but I thought we'd make it longer than opening day! Creating each other as friends worked well. We did that from the Main Screen before logging in. Just select the Social choice. Once in the same world, we tried to team up and it failed, over and over. Eventually I got tired and went to bed. TRex went on to conquer the local Super M...

I'll break my thoughts on FO76 into a few parts. Does this look familiar? If you played Fallout 4, this looks like the world you grew to know and love. Or hate. Maybe both. FO76 plays almost exactly like FO4. Instead of Raiders, we have these burning folks that know how to use guns and open doors and shoot you square in the face. Yeah, I think they re-skinned the characters, but left the mechanics. It works. You get quests, similar in nature to the ones in FO4. They lead you deeper and deeper into the world. Stock up on Stimpacks - you'll need them. Weight has always been a problem in Fallout, and 76 is no different. There are player caches tucked away in different spots. As far as I can tell, you can always find one in the Red Rocket stations. The nice thing is they are all linked, so if you drop ammo in one, you can get it out in a different spot. There is a 400 pound limit on that chest, though. I haven't had a problem so far, but I scrap almost everything, ...

Nothing to see here. I'm playing Fallout 76 . PC. X-box available. As soon as it downloads and installs. So far, that process has taken over six hours and I have a couple hours to go. It takes a long time to get into the Fallout World. I'm sure the updates that inevitably come around will take time too, but if this game is even close to Fallout 4, it's worth it. Oh, and it's multiplayer. See you in Appalachia. In two hours.

When we become self-centered instead of God-centered, we allow our hurts and disappointments to become roots of bitterness and unforgiveness which separates us from the peace of God. We cannot do anything about what others do. That's on them. Through God's grace, we can only control our reactions. Saying someone else is responsible for our happiness is a lie. The Bible clearly says to take captive all thoughts to the obedience of Christ (Rom 10:5b). Our own thoughts can either be captured to God's control or they can capture us and imprison us in a cage of our own making. Romans 12:2 says to transform our thoughts. What does that mean? Grab that thought that slides across your mind and wrestle it into submission to God's will. Are you unhappy because someone let you down? Why? Was it outside their nature? Perhaps they need loving guidance. If it was part of their nature, then why do you expect them to behave differently? The quagmire of your own dark thou...

Am I still here?  Perhaps. I'm not sure. I have two other blogs starting. For writing, I have Vincent Bernhardt - Author . It isn't pretty, but it is there, and I'll post some bits about writing. The idea, of course, is to motivate myself t o write. Every writer's bane... For traveling, I have the Traveling Grouch . And let me be clear about something - I'm not a grouchy traveler! Well, I guess I am. Hence the new blog.  Yet, even with those two blogs, I miss this one. I miss expressing my thoughts to you, my fellow travelers in this world. Things like, what the heck is going on with the stock market? Once again, I am convinced the market is rigged to allow only certain people to succeed. The genius ones, of course, sell newsletters telling you how to get rich. We all love that one don't we? Like the latest lotto that was over a Billion dollars. Thanks, once again, for reading. Maybe I'm back...