Catching up.

rizz

rizz

New Member
So, i forgot how long its been since i have bene in here. I would love to hear what has happened in everyones life since.. well must be like 2004. Is everyone still around? The CS gang of Goose/Elite/Parakletos, all the forum and staff guys. Tek and Elihu, LionofJudah and all the guys i met up with at the ToJ gathering. This is a thread for stories, or pm me if you dont want it splashed all over the forum ;)

As for me, since November 18th 2006 i am married to Mrs Trena Johnson who hails from San Deigo California. We eloped to Scotland and got married in Gretna Green due to visa constrictions, then had a huge ceremony in march. Well i say huge.. We had a great time though.

I cant remember if i had a job when i was here before. Now i am an engineering technician working on large distribution centres. In training and doing a degree to be a full fledged structural engineer. Hopefulyl when all thats completed i will be minted and able to work anywhere in the world. We have our eyes on California for family reasons, or New Zealand.. But thats a long way off yet and we are still in the renting a small place and chipping away at the huge debt monster as much as we can.

Havent had much of a pc life since before. Just have a small laptop with a variety of software to help me study and work. No games really, although my spider solitaire rating is awesome :cool:. I do have my Wii which i love. Cant wait until SSBB comes out here so i can get my smash on.

Church life is a bit strange at the moment. We left my church of 18 years due to a dispute with the leadership. Long story, nothing we did but got caught up in as usual. Currently we are looking for a new place to go. But nothing is feeling quite right. Faith has become a bit more fundamental and less about the small things.

Ok that about covers it.
 
rizz said:
So, i forgot how long its been since i have bene in here. I would love to hear what has happened in everyones life since.. well must be like 2004.
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2004, eh? My life is radically different from what it was like in 2004. I'll hit the highlights as it concerns life in general and gaming specifically:
  • Got married January 2005. Next to accepting Christ as savior, this was the best decision I ever made.
  • Found and joined a terrific church in the St. Louis area. The genuine hospitality, love, and desire to serve the Lord exhibited by the members of the church helped repair the damage to my faith in the Western church inflicted by Tulsa McChurches and "pastors as public speakers" rot.
  • Graduated college May 2006 with my Bachelors degree in Communication. Wondered many times since if the degree is worth the paper it's printed on. Promised to never donate a cent to my college's alumni program.
  • Tried to enter the field of journalism. Didn't pan out.
  • Traded a life of my year for money on a help desk for a medical software company. Saw the absurdities of the corporate world first-hand and burned out on help desk support.
  • Traveled with my wife during her last year of graduate college. Moved 6 times in the span of 9 months to stay with my wife. (That doesn't count traveling to visit family and friends in other cities and states.) We've since "landed" in Springfield, where my wife wants to stay. Our long-term place of residence depends almost entirely on where my wife is able to find work.
  • Shifted from PC to console and handheld gaming. Bought a Dreamcast, Playstation, Playstation 2, Wii, and Nintendo DS Lite. Received a Gameboy Advance SP Retro Edition as a Christmas gift from my wife. Bought my mom and wife DS Lites.
  • Played World of Warcraft and retired before getting addicted. I miss visiting with guild members and PvP (even though it didn't stack up to Dark Age of Camelot's RvR), but I don't miss the quests, level grinding, pub groups in instances, and every other component of the game.
  • Returned to first-person shooters to play Team Fortress 2. Spent an unhealthy number of hours configuring Tribe of Judah's TF2 server last November. Still serve as a Server Admin, but handed the Server Operator reins over to Shagz, who also serves as ToJ's TF2 Chapter Leader.
  • Received Unreal Tournament 3 as a Christmas present from my wife. I haven't clocked as many hours in UT3 as in TF2, but I still enjoy playing FreezeTag on ToJ's UT3 server (lovingly configured and managed by our very own Captain_Tea).
rizz said:
Is everyone still around? The CS gang of Goose/Elite/Parakletos, all the forum and staff guys.
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I haven't heard from Goose, Elite, or Parakletos in a long while. None of them left on bad terms. None of them really left, they just...disappeared.

After the decline of ToJ's Counter-Strike chapter, ToJ shifted its central focus from first-person shooters to MMO games. ToJ features some of the oldest and largest Christian MMO guilds for World of Warcraft and Guild Wars.

Several members of the CS chapters traded their M4s for ph4t l00t in WoW and GW, then returned to FPS games when Valve released Team Fortress 2. That's the beauty of a group like Tribe of Judah: you can move from one game to the next to the next and still get into the game with the same friends.
rizz said:
Tek and Elihu, LionofJudah and all the guys i met up with at the ToJ gathering. This is a thread for stories, or pm me if you dont want it splashed all over the forum ;)
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Elihu plays a mean Soldier in TF2 and is a server admin for ToJ's TF2 server. He and his wife also bought a Wii and will be buying Mario Kart Wii to play online with his best friend soon. <pokes Elihu in the ribs with a stick>

LoJ is a member of the Tribe of Judah Official Facebook Group, but I haven't seen him in a game in ages.
rizz said:
As for me, since November 18th 2006 i am married to Mrs Trena Johnson who hails from San Deigo California. We eloped to Scotland and got married in Gretna Green due to visa constrictions, then had a huge ceremony in march. Well i say huge.. We had a great time though.
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That sounds like the plot summary for a great screenplay. <wonders who he would cast as Rizz>

rizz said:
Hopefulyl when all thats completed i will be minted and able to work anywhere in the world. We have our eyes on California for family reasons, or New Zealand.. But thats a long way off yet and we are still in the renting a small place and chipping away at the huge debt monster as much as we can.
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ToJ has a sizable crew of regulars in California. If you end up in Cali, you should try to find other ToJers in your area.

rizz said:
Havent had much of a pc life since before. Just have a small laptop with a variety of software to help me study and work. No games really, although my spider solitaire rating is awesome :cool:. I do have my Wii which i love. Cant wait until SSBB comes out here so i can get my smash on.
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Most of the old school members have scaled back their online game time, myself included. Many of them also have bought a Wii and expressed an interest in a Wii chapter. All we need is a Wii Chapter Leader and we can get things underway.

rizz said:
Church life is a bit strange at the moment. We left my church of 18 years due to a dispute with the leadership. Long story, nothing we did but got caught up in as usual. Currently we are looking for a new place to go. But nothing is feeling quite right. Faith has become a bit more fundamental and less about the small things.
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My wife and I can sympathize. When we moved to St. Louis in 2004, it took us over a year and visits to over 30 churches to find our "home" church. It was very frustrating at times, but the Lord sustained us--even when we came to dread Sunday mornings.
 
I have a little bit of old news from Elite and Goose, I suppose. Elite faded away from the gaming with ToJ before CS:source relased. RL took hold and he went for it. Goose lingered a little longer due to his L337 CS skillz. He and his wife last I talked to him had one heck of a beautiful baby boy. Sortly after Goose's sons birth I lost touch with the two of them. Sort of miss the two, they were two of the main reasons I first joined ToJ for CS.
 
Parakletos tried a stint in World of Warcraft, but he faded away to legend with Elite and Goose. I've become a spamming maniac in the years you took a hiatous.
 
Coolness. Thanks for the heads up. Yeh i miss all the old skool, i have LionofJudah as a friend of facebook but havent heard much from him.

I saw your post count GP.. nice work, i am down to 5th in the rankings ..lol
 
Hey Rizz,

It's definitely been a while, and man have we missed you. The wife and I talk about you and the year you visited from time to time and often wonder how you've been. It's awesome to hear you've gotten married (grats) and are working. Not a ton has changed here. Itsuka still works at the same cafe but is the manager of it now. I've changed jobs to a property management company, and just recently became a partial owner as well. Its definitely a long term decision, but at some point in time in the future we would also like to look into moving into the N. Cali area (San Fran\San Jose area) so perhaps we'll be neighbors!!

As far as gaming is concerned, I made the move from CS:Source to World of Warcraft and stayed with it for about 4 years. After WoW (big step for me) I moved to Call of Duty 4 and then to TF2 and have been there since. I am ready for Warhammer Online to come out as I plan on playing it, and I may be purchasing the new Battlefield for Xbox 360. The wife and I have also gotten into some Nintendo DS gaming together recently.

As far as the others you mentioned, I know very little about what's happened with them. But as it is with ToJ people seem to come and go, resurface sometime later, or disappear forever. Real life does take precedence though and I remain confident that whenever a person leaves, that God blesses us back with even more. Our cup will runneth over one day, and I will continue to celebrate every little drop that gets added until then!
 
I have to say that week in Tulsa was a blast. I cant remember much of what went on. I know i was skinnier then..lol.

Am glad you are doing well. And ToJ always survives the phases. Just keep pumping new people in.
 
Hi rizz, good to hear that your up and about. I'm still playing Unreal Tournament (co-leader still) and others. Captn teabags came along at the right time jumping into the co-leader spot for Shagz. He has done an awesome job keeping UT afloat.
I play pc, xb360, PS3 from time to time. My Mrs. is a breast cancer survivor (Praise God) so it has taken a lot of my gaming time away to be with the Mrs. in the evening. She is doing really good.
I am now have 2 granddaughters. One 8 months and one 5 weeks. I am still digging coal out from under the mountain and about 3 miles deep underground.
later., CS
ps. Seems like someone should dig up some old videos of the Tulsa trip and pictures. I betcha money those would jog your memory. :)
 
Hey CS, good to see you. Yeh i would liek to see the video of LoJ catching a shark again...lol
 
rizz said:
Hey CS, good to see you. Yeh i would liek to see the video of LoJ catching a shark again...lol
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I'll see what I can do.

I probably have the video saved to my desktop computer, which is still boxed from all the frequent moving. My wife and I are living with her parents and there's no place for me to permanently set up a computer desk.
 
My sister in law still lives out there in Watford, I suppose when we go back that way to visit her, we should stop by and have a spot of tea!
 
Wish I had the video of LoJ catching the shark...think that was on Tek's camera though. I do have tons of pictures from that week though and would be happy to post them. Perhaps to the gallery for CGA?
 
Elihu said:
Wish I had the video of LoJ catching the shark...think that was on Tek's camera though. I do have tons of pictures from that week though and would be happy to post them. Perhaps to the gallery for CGA?
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The gallery's been down for some time now, but I think the forums now have a photo gallery feature. I haven't tested it yet, though, so I can't verify that it works.
 
re: Goose...I think he played UT2K4 for a while, didn't he? And I seem to remember seeing him posting stuff in the Guild Wars forums. Is this the Goose of which you speak?

As for me, I think Quake 3 as a chapter kind of died off soon after you left Rizz. I kept on playing Q3F and little else for a *long* time and eventually got into (and ended up co-leading) the UT clan with UT2K3/2K4.

I was there for a while until Guild Wars sucked in me into its addictive MMO clutches. Played that for over a year I think it was, but never beat the game (the original or the first expansion) and then eventually just stopped playing all together.

Then came TF2 and I've been in love ever since. Left the UT clan in Captain Teabags capable hands and to head up the TF2 clan.

Life-wise, could probably go on for awhile, and I can't remember when it was you left, so lets just say I've been building websites, djing parties and traveling around the world. :)
 
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