Personal stuff first, for those of you who actually know me or of me over the years. In September I left my military contractor company to work from home for a company who produces WordPress premium themes as their Customer Support Manager. It was a great gig… until they up and kicked me to the curb in the first week of February, stating a “change of direction” for support. Since customers were happy, I had no idea what the heck that meant and was devastated for most of February. The very next day I began working for myself and have been ever since and just formed Petersen Media Group, LLC this week to get a business bank account set up. Things are going great now, so for all of you who follow me on Twitter @jpetersen and Facebook, thank you for your support the last 2 months.

On to WoW now… I’m hooked again. I took Protectr all the way from level 66 on expansion night to 80 in under a month and he’s doing Naxx 25 both with his guild and even pugging it from time to time and is a fierce tank, even if Gitr is still level 70. Sorry, I just can’t bring myself to play a “smack me” toon again who can’t heal himself just yet. In lieu of playing Gitr, I’ve decided to level Grimr to 80 ASAP to get him into dps slots of parties and he’s about to hit level 50. I’m power-leveling him with Kopp’s Guide to see how fast the Alliance side of leveling can be compared to my experience with Joana’s on the Horde side.

Just as I dinged, Punitor (Phil) got online and I ditched Huntr for the night and played Paladr with him. We cleared out the dreaded scorched crater area of those annoying harpies. I’d been up since 4:30, and it was almost 11:00, so it was time to go to bed before rinsing and repeating today (note time now — I’ve already played and am walking out the door).

I am picking the trail up at Silithus.

One of my highlights includes taking down Ursius solo as a 56 Elite to hang over my mantle.

I started on several of the quests in Silithus, but work drew me away at 95%. I decided groceries over game. It should only take me 20 minutes to ding tonight.

There is a gap there where I was crafting, auctioning, and just plain old having fun being 50 and totally unmotivated to do anything more in Tanaris involving robotic chickens, a giant tortoise, or bugs.

I upgraded my bow to a slower one, but one that packs a ton of punch, especially when I trip my BM crit-based talents.

I was remiss in mentioning that I tamed King Bangalash on Saturday, just hours before I spotted Grunter. He’s going to be a lot of work, and I haven’t decided if it is worth all of that painful leveling to have a white tiger at this point. I’ll tell you, he was a tough tame at 51 because of the adds. He got me down to about 5% and then turned on his buddies. LOL!

I have not spent the last 2 talent points yet. BRK? You out there? I’m full BM with 41 points, all the way down the tree.

Last night, I had an embarrassing self-moment. I was in my Spellbook and discovered that I had Beastial Wrath sitting there without a button on any of my bars. Now I know where Big Red Kitty gets his red look. /slap

I was quite disappointed with my trip to the trainer and the AH. There were only 3 spells that I wanted and NOTHING good up on the AH. There were only 3 pieces of mail armor between level 45-50. What a letdown. I’ll check it again when I come home before I hearth back to Gadgetzan to escort Tooga.

Tomas was curious about my DPS. Here is what I was doing to the Thistleshrubs in Tanaris just moments before dinging this morning:

I’m at 40% of the way through level 49, so maybe my wife will let me play to 50 today to wrap up a great week of leveling to concentrate on more important RL stuff. I’m working on editing a book and starting up something special WoW-related, so stay tuned for further details. I already have the name ready, and about 1/3 of the material, but I’m not going to release it before it’s good and ready.

I dinged 48 with 3d 17h 41m /played time. This morning I went to Grom’gol to train my next level of Aspect of the Hawk to get an additional 20 AP. I think that was worth the 5 minute flight back to Searing Gorge.

My current problem is finding enough Taskmasters and Slavers to kill. I’ll also need to kill a ton of Steamsmiths to get the Smithing Tuyere, although I already have the Lookout’s Spylass that dropped after 2 kills.