Forgot password?  |  Register  |    
User Name:     Password:    
Blog - General Entry   

Update: Colorado floods, gaming, reading


On 09/13/2013 at 06:28 PM by Michael117

See More From This User »

UPDATE #1: The flooding in my city is much worse than I expected. I haven't seen all of it but based on some of what the news has revealed, we have some entire neighborhoods and trailer parks under water in the city right now. I think calls for evacuation were given out before hand but theoretically there could be many dead in these areas by our rivers if people didn't listen or didn't get out in time. Also, the town of Longmont south of here has been cut into thirds by the St. Vrain river as it's flooded over the banks. My Aunt and Uncle live there, but their house is higher up and away from the river, we will need to call them to make sure. We have family strewn all across the front range here, and many of their towns have rivers that are flooding and in various states of emergency it would seem.

UPDATE #2: My cousin Joanne and her children in the town of Frederick have evacuated their house because it's under water now, and they've moved to my grandparent's house where it's higher and dry. As far as I know we don't have any casualites or injuries in all of our family and friends along our flooding cities. I will text my friend Jade to see if her and her child are safe. The rain will pick up tonight and the city is watching the bridges to the south and east. Travel along those roads are blocked and the water levels are predicted to come up over the bridges tonight.

I live along the front range in Colorado and it's been raining and soggy for most of this week, and there's been a lot of flooding, especially in Boulder southwest of here where a few have been killed so far and a state of emergency is called over many areas. We're northeast of the worst hit areas and downstream of some of the heavier rains. However, this morning a state of emergency was called out in Evans which is a stone's throw from here basically. Our city and the smaller town of Evans are squished together and share a common swath between the rivers. The city is surrounded by two, the Poudre river to the north and the Platte to the south. We live on the east side of the city and further east of us the two rivers meet up. I haven't seen it for myself yet but supposedly both the rivers are breaking out of their banks this morning.

Mom's work is near the north side of town by the overflowing Poudre, and her and all the employees were sent home. My nephews are being picked up from school now and pretty much all the outdoor activities across the city this weekend have been cancelled including my nephew's football game. Some of the highways that enter & exit the city are closed for now, at least at some points since they bridge the rivers. Dad works outside the city and commutes to and from a town west of here where he works, so I don't know if that means he will be blocked from coming home or not. Probably not, I'm pretty sure he will be able to get safely through the west side of town just fine. The flooding is around us to the north and south, and the two rivers meet up east of our house, but the west seems just fine. The rain is going to continue through this weekend, but I'm pretty sure our neighborhood will be fine throughout the flooding, but we will have to stay in contact with friends and family closer to the river banks. The only problem today is making sure everybody gets home safe and is accounted for. For now the city is telling us that our water isn't compromised and we don't have orders to boil our water, yet lol. This weekend we will just huddle up, hope the power doesn't go down, and hope we continue to have clean water. We have candles and bottled water just in case.

Gaming

This week I've only been playing a little bit of Borderlands again. I started a New Game+ with my Siren character and did a respec with her skills. I have three different playthroughs (I've played a lot of Borderlands) but I've never actually done a New Game+, I've always just started a new game with a new character. New Game+ is awesome so far, it's really tough and all the badass equipment I fought for in the original playthrough is weak now. Especially my shield, I had an awesome shield but in New Game+ it's so bad that little Skags can take it down in a heartbeat. The game feels fresh again and there's all new scaled weapons and items to find, new higher level enemies, and some super punishing encounters.

This week I saw that a Borderlands 2 GOTY edition is coming in October and I'm super excited because I never played that game and I've been waiting for this to come along. I'll finally be able to jump into Borderlands 2 for the first time and have all the fixins too.

Reading

I've been doing more reading than anything. Since the last time I updated you, I finished two novels. A Storm of Swords has been wrapped up and it was fantastic. It was quite a roller coaster ride for my favorite characters and fans of the TV show will be in for a wild season 4 since it'll be based on the last half of A Storm of Swords. I still have the next book ready to go, A Feast For Crows, but I'm going to take a quick break from A Song of Ice & Fire.

I also read through the novel Ringworld Engineers by Larry Niven, the sequel to Ringworld. It was the book I ordered from ThriftBooks.com for cheap and it was amazing. A great sequel to the original. I love these characters and the epic adventures they're getting up to across the ringworld, I'll try to get the next book in the series sometime soon.

Since I finished both of those books I'm trying to get into The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I've only read the prologue so far, but this weekend maybe I can put more time into it.


 

Comments

Matt Snee Staff Writer

09/13/2013 at 06:34 PM

darn man, be safe up there.  I heard it's been flooding like crazy in Colorado and I saw pics but I didn't hear anything firsthand from anybody until now. 

I've never played Borderlands, but I'm hoping to pick it up with a Vita sometimes next year. 

Michael117

09/13/2013 at 07:02 PM

Thanks Matt. We don't ever get this much rain so when we hear of flooding we are skeptical, but the amount of rain that the front range is getting is ridiculous and it's continuous for the most part. The overflow of the rivers in my city is way worse than I expected it to be, some places are higher up and are perfectly safe while other places are entirely under water now.

I'd like to see how Borderlands 2 runs on Vita. It's nice that it's coming to Vita, there's actually a lot of great games finally on the way for that platform. The most surprising thing at the recent Gamescom convention was that many of the most interesting games there were Vita games.

leeradical42

09/13/2013 at 06:59 PM

Wow I wish Austin Texas would rain like that its like a desert here but I hope you all are safe. Borderlands both 1 & 2 are awesome games im stuck on number 2 keep getting my butt handed to me im afraid I may have to go co op to progress.

Michael117

09/13/2013 at 07:06 PM

Thanks Rodney. Julian Titus here at the site is from Austin and he's talked before about how dry and hot it is, and how alien and magical it feels when rain comes along. It doesn't rain that often here but when it does it can get intense. When it rains we usually get lots of wind and lightning here in Colorado, and hail that damages people's roofs.

I'm really excited for the Borderlands 2 GOTY, I've been waiting to play that game and it'll be fun. I really enjoy the gunplay and the music in Borderlands. It's creates a great dusty, wild west, futuristic vibe.

leeradical42

09/13/2013 at 07:57 PM

Yes its very dry and the only chance for rain we may get will be from that tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico.

You will love Borderlands 2 but word of warning its way tougher then the first one but its better in every way but it is tough and the GotY edition will be great I got the season pass so it would be a waste for me to get it.

So are you planning on getting GTA5 im so freaking excited about this game I cant think straight lol!!!

Michael117

09/13/2013 at 08:31 PM

I've got too many other games this season to get GTA 5, but I'm hoping it's good because I may play it sometime later. If you buy it you should blog about it and let us know what you think. I'd like to watch some Let's Plays of it when those come along too. It'll be a while before I'd get a chance to play it.

leeradical42

09/13/2013 at 09:15 PM

Well I will definitely blog about it for sure.Wink

mothman

09/13/2013 at 07:41 PM

Keep us posted Michael. I saw some footage and it's pretty crazy stuff. Hope that you and yours come out of this unscathed.

Michael117

09/13/2013 at 08:37 PM

Thanks Peter, we've been seeing footage from the helicopters and it's pretty crazy. They're watching the bridges around here, some of them are shut down and might be overflowed overnight. We can head west to the University if flood water shows up since there's high ground over there.

Nicoleb1989

09/14/2013 at 12:38 AM

Please be safe good sir, wouldnt want anything bad to happen to you!

I heard about the Borerlands 2 GOTY edition, didnt know it had a release date though, its nearly time for all of us who have waited for this game to finally enjoy it! Im wanting to read the A Song of Ice and Fire series but I have soo much to read already on plate, Ill get to it eventually though.

Michael117

09/14/2013 at 02:04 AM

Thanks Nicole, I appreciate it. I didn't hear about the goty edition till recently, I guess they annouced not too long ago. I stumbled across it while I was surfing Amazon.com and then I went to IGN and other press sites to confirm it. It's out October 8th here in North America. It comes with a whole gang of DLC, all four of the campaign expansions, all of the new classes, level cap raises, and all kinds of the other DLCs big and small. Gearbox really spent a long time supporting that game and they put out a ton of DLC, it'll be great to get it all at once and finally get to play the game!

Ranger1

09/14/2013 at 07:17 AM

Stay safe and dry, and I hope the rain stops soon. I'll quit whining about not having seen the sun in four days now. We've had flood warnings for a few days here, too, but I think most of the damage will be just the usual washouts and undercut ends of driveways. Not like in 2008, when this happened:

I hope you enjoy The Name of the Wind. It's a little slow at first, but picks up very quickly, to the point you don't want to put it down.

Cyberxion

09/14/2013 at 08:19 AM

I live in Longmont. It's not too bad in my little portion of the city, thankfully. It's nuts everywhere else though. I'm hoping this shit lets up soon, but it's looking like it's probably going to resume raining here fairly soon.

ThatKidOverThere

09/14/2013 at 12:53 PM

The last two years here on the east coast there were two huge hurricanes, but I think we've dodged that bullet this year. Hope I didn't jinx it lol. Anyways, stay safe, and I hope you all can ride this out.

I'm excited for the borderlands goty edition, a bunch of my friends have been bugging me to get it and this might be my chance. 

Alex-C25

09/14/2013 at 09:57 PM

Be safe Michael.

In reading, i've started the second Hunger Games book, Catching Fire. So far, really good.

rejo1479

09/16/2013 at 09:24 AM

Storm of Swords is a fantastic book!

It's pretty astounding how your book list is echoing mine. I finished Ringworld a few weeks ago and just picked up Ringworld Engineers to continue the series. And I picked up The Name of the Wind on recommendation of many, many modern fantasy fans, along with Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself. I'm hoping to get to those books sometime soon. 

Log in to your PixlBit account in the bar above or join the site to leave a comment.