Call of Duty: Elite

What is it? What will it do? How much will it cost? Will it really be worth it? All of these questions raced through my mind from the moment I first heard of Call of Duty Elite, which at the time was called “Project Beachhead”. These questions were all answered after spending most of the day at the Treyarch studios.

The simple answer to the first question is, Elite is a service that will allow COD fans an easier way to connect to other players based on similar interests. Elite allows people to create or join groups based on their own particular interests or search for a group that has already been created We were asked that day to give something we were interested in and one of the guys answered "Volkswagen". The word Volkswagen was typed into the box and the group was created. So now people can be a member of the Volkswagen group and people can connect based on their interest to connect with other Volkswagen enthusiast.

Another cool feature of Elite is the gamer having an overload of information and stats at their fingertips in real time. Elite updates the stats as soon as your match ends. It will allow you to see a heat map showing you where you got into gun fights with other players including kills and deaths. Elite will give you the tools to study your game and the game of others so you can improve your FPS skills.

Other things Elite will have include theater mode and online tournaments. Theater mode will allow users to share their game play video with others even if they are not on your xbox or PSN friends list. The online tournaments are something that you can "enlist" in. The tournaments have "real prizes" that a person could win such as T-shirts, iPads, and I even saw one where you could win a vehicle. A gamer can check the leader boards for each tournament they are enlisted in to check their progress in the tournament.

While we were being shown the basics of Elite, the question of cost came up. We were told by someone at Treyarch, if we were going to buy the map packs anyways we would be stupid not to get the Elite paid for subscription. The map packs will come as a part of the paid subscription to Elite. We were not told what exactly would be in the paid portion of Elite but we were told that the map packs would be available at no additional cost.

Elite will be an extensive service with a lot of capabilities, quite a few which will be free and integrated into MW3. Elite will not affect the multiplayer for Black Ops or MW3.

The best thing is there will be a beta this summer. So to answer the question "is it really worth it?" sign up for for the Call of Duty Elite beta here! The one thing people should know is that you need to have Call of Duty:Black Ops to properly test Elite.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

I have been a huge fan of Call of Duty since I first started playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Although my love for the game didn’t really kick off until I played the Multiplayer (MP), which almost never happened. My friend convinced me to give MP a try after I had already beaten the campaign.

If my friend hadn’t been there to party up with me on most nights I probably would have given up on COD4 because I utterly sucked. I hated playing team death match (TDM) because I was always so negative I didn’t want to be the reason my team lost, fortunately my buddy was good enough to carry us both. I must also mention that COD4 was my FIRST experience within the first person shooter (FPS) realm of gaming.

After a few months of playing COD4 on TDM and learning every nook and cranny of the maps my buddy once again pushed my limits and said let’s play Hardcore Search and Destroy (S&D). My immediate thoughts were “HELL NO, I’m not that good on TDM and you only get 1 life per round in S&D, I’ll never get any XP” and that is exactly what happened at first. After a while I got where I could get 2 to 3 kills over the course of the match and with the addition of Hardcore S&D in our repertoire spawned a new addition to our enjoyment of the game….LAN parties.

We all worked at the local college which had large rooms and a lot of bandwidth so we came up with the idea of all bringing our PS3’s up to the college and sit in the same room and play S&D and not have to worry about us being dead and not being able to chat via the headset. For a good year, every couple of months, we would all spend 12 hours on a Saturday at the college playing COD4 in the same room and those were some of the best times gaming, though our wives/girlfriends quickly tired of us spending so much time with “a video game”

COD4 was a drug, plain and simple. I could not go a single day without playing the game, even if it was just three or four matches which it was rarely that short of a period of time online. I spent a lot of money on other games trying to recreate the feeling that COD4 gave me every time I played it. Even the next year when Call of Duty: World at War came out it could not recreate that feeling. I played it long enough to beat the single campaign and get almost all the way top of the ranks before you prestige for the 1^st time. No matter what game I put in my PS3 it never stayed long because COD4 would go back in so I could get some more.

While we were doing the LAN parties regularly I created a 2^nd PSN profile so I could rank that one up as well so someone could have a decent profile to play on for the LAN parties because not everyone had a PS3 at that time but they still wanted to play the game. So I started ranking up in 2 different profiles and got my primary profile, luckkyd, to the pinnacle. I made it to level 55 10^th prestige. I worked pretty hard after that trying to get my 2^nd profile to same level before November of 2009 because I just knew I would NEVER touch COD4 again after Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) came out because Infinity Ward was making this one so it was going to be like COD4 only better and while I have enjoyed MW2 a lot, even the latest game by infinity ward couldn't replace my love for COD4.

How the Time Flies

Today I was greeted with an email from a coworker labeled "Daddy's Girl". I just thought it was some touching email that people passed around, which seems to happen more around the holidays than any other time, in my opinion at least. When I opened the email there were three pictures so I opened the first one and it was a picture of me holding Keira when we brought her to the college for the first time. She was less than a week old. Below are the three pictures that I was greeted with this morning, after I merged them together of course.

It seems like only yesterday when she was born, but now she's got two teeth coming in and she's got a personality that just so awesome. It amazes me how fast she has gotten to where she is at and I know the time will go only faster. In a few short months, she will be a year and before we know it, she will be 5 and then asking for the keys to the car. I try to remember that the time will fly by and enjoy every day with her and all the other kids because honestly, their childhood doesn't last forever.

Here are some comparison photos, then and now type of thing:

Like I said, so full of personality, and such a ham.

Hardest Job

I've always heard that the hardest job in the world is being a parent. While that job is difficult because one never knows if they are doing the right things for their kids. I believe the person that said that is only part correct on that statement.

I believe the hardest job in the world is being a "step" parent or parental figure. You get all the difficulties of being a parent and then throw in the fact that the kid isn't biologically yours. You love the kids as they are your own but depending on what age they are whenever you come into the picture there is not a guarantee they will see you as a parental figure no matter what you do.

I'm lucky to have a great woman who tries her best to ensure the kids realize that I am a parental figure in their life (God knows their biological father isn't), but that still doesn't force the kids to see me as a parent. Maybe with time and as they grow older and look back on their life they will realize that everything I ever did was done out of love for them.

Here at Last, Here at Last, Keira's here at last

It's been an exciting few days. On Monday Marsha convinced the doctor to induce on labor. The plans were all set we would go to the hospital at 3:00 PM on Tuesday and they would start her on a medicine called Cervidil. They would keep her on that medicine for 12 hours then on Wednesday morning they would start the Pitocin, which is suppose to help the contractions come along at a steady clip.

When we got to the hospital on Tuesday they checked her before starting the Cervidil and Marsha had already started dilating. So basically they let us stay the night and "relax" before all the hard work that had to be done today.

Today was an awesome day, although I don't know if awesome really begins to fully describe the day. Keira is not my first child....she is my first girl however but that's not really what made it so incredible.

Whenever my first, Jordan, was born I wanted so bad to do things "normal". (i.e. rush to the hospital, natural child birth, cut the cord, and all those good things) God didn't have that in the cards for us (Lecia and I) and that's ok because as rough as things were, I wouldn't change things because those times were just as awesome as today.

Today I got to witness my daughter being born and WOW, was that an amazing site. I think that if Marsha and I didn't already have so many kids I would want to do this with her again. (She doesn't know that yet, probably won't until she gets a chance to read this blog, LOL)

I just wanna close this blog out by saying God is Great and I'm a blessed man

Another Trip to the Hospital

So Marsha and I made another trip to the hospital this morning in hopes that we would be coming home in a day or so with our new baby, Keira. Evidently today, like all the other times was not the day to have her. It really sucks to because Marsha was having horrible contractions from about midnight until 11:00 this morning. I felt really bad for her because she was in so much pain and there was nothing I could to alleviate the pain.

I believe the most frustrating part of the whole experience today was the nurse that we got stuck with today or the fact that we both hate our incompetent doctor. The nurse really pissed me off because she had this tendency to talk down to Marsha and I like we are a bunch of stupid idiots. I can stand a lot of things and being treated a lot of ways, but being talked down to in that manner was completely unacceptable.

At work I have to deal with people constantly. I do my best to treat people with respect and try not to talk to them in a manner which would make them feel stupid about a computer problem, not even if the problem is one in which they caused. My question is why can't other people apply that same principle to their daily lives and the people they deal with while they are at work.

Even though I don't post regularly, and I have a lot of stuff that I could post about, I enjoy this because it gives me a chance to blow of some steam.

I am SO ready for Marsha to have this baby.

Windows 7 Beta test

I'm typing this from a gadget I found in the new Windows 7 beta. Just wanted to see what it would do

Memories

Like most everyone, I have a myspace page and I enjoy reading the things people post on their myspace. It usually gives you some insight to who the person is or who the person wants to be at least.

Somehow I ended up on Lecia's myspace page and I noticed her blogs. I saw the blog which she had posted back in August about her life 10 years ago. I know what her life was like 10 years ago, I was there. She talked a little bit about Jordan and skimmed the top about the good and bad about Jordan being born at 24 weeks gestation, which is 16 weeks early for those who don't know.

As she states in her blog, the experience has "brought tears to my eyes every time I close them and relive it."She nailed it on the head with that statement, and actually with everything she said in her blog.

It amazes me that even after 10 years the memories of all of the events that started Jordan's journey in life are still so vivid. I can still remember the ambulance ride from Brazosport Memorial to UTMB-Galveston. I remember the medical students and residents constantly checking on Lecia throughout the night just so they could learn that little bit extra, sitting the operating room as the cut Lecia open and then had to perform a "T-cut" on her uterus because even though Jordan was as small as he was, his head was to big. I could go on for a long time about the things I remember the experiences we had while Jordan was in the hospital and even there after but the last thing I will remember is Christy (I think that's how u spell it).

Christy was a special person. She was probably more special to us than she ever realized. She was the one person that seemed to believe in Jordan when no one else did. She was there to help us make sure we pushed the doctors and asked the doctors for certain things that ended up allowing Jordan to come home.

As I sit here trying to finish this blog, my eyes are welling up with tears thinking of what a gaurdian angel Christy really was. I know all the credit goes to God for Jordan still being with us and I just wanna make sure He gets all the credit for putting Christy in our lives at that time.

I'm not sure if this is one coherent thought or just a bunch of ramblings but those are the memories that popped into my head after reading a simple post on myspace.

Keira's First Real Ultrasound

This is the ultrasound video where we found out Keira is a girl. This was a pretty awesome day as I talked about in a previous post.

Longing for Home

I'm currently sitting in a hotel room at the Wyndham in Las Colinas, which is in Irving Tx. I had to come up here for a training class for work. I enjoy coming up here to Irving and staying at the hotel because it gives me a break from the normal everyday grind and I get to learn new skills for my job.

This trip is different though because even though I'm enjoying the time in class and learning the new skills. I am so ready to get home so I can see and hold Marsha in my arms and rub on her growing stomach as Keira gets bigger and bigger by the day.

First Attempt.

So I'm gonna give this blogging thing a shot. I've never been one to write down or even verbalize my feelings or what's going through my head, which is probably a good thing for most people, but I'm sitting here at work at 1:15 in the morning waiting on some SQL scripts to run so I figured I would at least attempt it.

A few months ago my gf and I found out she was pregnant, I was scared and excited all in the same breath. I was scared because between us we already have 6 kids and I'm not sure that we could handle another. It's a big responsibility to bring a life into this world, especially since we aren't exactly in the greatest of shape financially. On the other hand I was really excited because I love babies and I had thought about wanting another one for quite some time. A lot of people, especially family members thought we were crazy for letting it happen, but at that point it wasn't going to change the fact that she was pregnant.

As her and I have gone through this pregnancy and have shared the experience with the kids, hers and mine, I believe it has drawn us closer. On the 10th of November, we went to the doctor and had an ultrasound done and found out that our miracle of life is going to be a girl. I can't even begin to describe the emotions that ran through me when the ultrasound tech told us it was a girl and begin to show us how she could tell through the grainy black and white images being displayed on the screen in front of our eyes.

For years I have thought no matter what I did, I would always be blessed with boys over girls. Most guys probably wouldn't complain about that, but I always wanted to have a daughter, a daddy's little girl. I just didn't think it would happen, but it did and I'm thrilled about that.

I am ready for March to get here so I can hold my precious lil girl in my arms, at least I think I'm ready, lol