Round 7 Part 13: Enterprise Park (2053-2057)

Ryker is 46, Jackie is 30.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

narrated by Jackie Owens

The first few years of Ryker and me living together were seriously like one long vacation. We had our jobs, of course, but those only take up so many hours of the day and then we had the evenings to do whatever we wanted.

Sometimes we had people over...

Sometimes we went out...

And sometimes we stayed in by ourselves...

But perhaps we had one too many nights in, because a year ago I found out that I was pregnant, quite unintentionally.

After we'd had a few days to digest the news, Ryker asked to talk things over. He explained that as far as he was concerned, getting married was just exchanging a couple pieces of jewelry...

But he still felt like it would be better for the three of us to be one social and economic unit, and marriage does confer certain benefits in that regard.

I told him that neither marriage nor having a baby had been part of my original plan, but that I didn't really care what road we took as long as we took it together.

So we got married in a small ceremony attended by immediate family and very close friends.

And five months later Deanna was born! She looks much more like her father than me so far. The blue eyes weren't a surprise since mine are gray but the blond hair was definitely unexpected! Though I was talking it over with Mom the other day and she said she's pretty sure my dad had blond hair when he was younger, so I guess that's how Deanna got it. If she's really lucky, there were some recessive genes lurking for a nose that's not quite so...aquiline...as mine or Ryker's.

Week Six Part Thirteen: Enterprise Park

Ryker Owens: 39 years old. Aspiration: Fortune. LTW: Become Prestidigitator. Astrological sign: Gemini. 

No family tree this time. Ryker was the Greek House placeholder a while back and is currently not related to anybody, though that will almost certainly change soon. :)

"Connections"
narrated by Ryker Owens

So, y'all want to hear about my life? There's not much to tell, I guess. I've been friends with Tim since we were little and in a group home together, and the story of how I came to Prosperity Plains is about the same as his, 'cept I was more friends with Rishell than with her brothers, and I didn't end up marrying anybody. Not yet, anyhow.

After I graduated from Sim State I did move back to Prosperity Plains, on account of the fact that all my friends lived there. Didn't really have anywhere else to go. I'm interested in the performing arts and Tim put in a good word for me at the club where he had worked for a while, but at the moment they don't have any openings. So I got a job as an adjunct back at Sim State. Funny, isn't it, how it's easier to get a job teaching drama than it is to actually perform?

I tried to foster as many friendships as I could...when people asked me if I wanted to go downtown, I went. I figure a lonely guy like me needs all the connections he can get.

I also kept in touch with my Greek House "siblings" and all their various siblings and cousins and what have you. A bunch of new kids from Prosperity Plains had just started at Sim State, and I made sure to give them tips on how to get into good old ZZE. I hope it ends up meaning as much to them as it did to me.

Ryker's house at the end of the week. I don't know why I made it blue. It just seemed like a good idea at the time.

Upstairs is a bedroom/study and a bathroom.

I like the way the exterior turned out.

Notes:

1. I didn't actually take any notes. Single Sims are very boring, especially when they're too poor to go on vacation.

EDITED TO ADD: CC credit: In the introductory picture, Ryker's eyes are Philadelpia Story by Juri Anne, used as default blue. I also have Set 1 as custom eyes, though nobody in Prosperity Plains has custom eyes (as far as I know). You'll see more CC credits as I go along.

Sim State University Class of 2046

Loosely based on what I've seen in places like Sullivan and Lakeside Heights. I just felt like pulling some of this out of the narrative posts and into this. Plus I am starting to get a teeny bit better at taking close-up shots of my Sims and wanted to show them off.

Gavin Dejackome
Major: Mathematics
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Gavin plans to reside in Prosperity Plains with his aunt, Melanie Tse, and his fiancee, Annie Riedmayer. He is looking for a job in the imports business.

Theresa Dejackome
Major: Art
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Theresa plans to reside in Prosperity Plains with her fiance, Malcolm Landgraab V, and his family. She hopes to have a career in architecture.

Malcolm Landgraab V
Major: Art
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Malcolm will reside in Prosperity Plains with his parents, local entrepreneurs Malcolm Landgraab IV and Beata Riedmayer-Landgraab, and with his fiancee, Theresa Dejackome. He hopes to work in the publishing industry and eventually start his own newspaper.

Ryker Owens
Major: Drama
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Ryker has received a land grant in Prosperity Plains and will be living alone. He is looking to get into the entertainment business.





Agatha Riedmayer
Major: Philosophy
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Agatha will be living in Prosperity Plains with her mother, Jill Smith, and uncle, Johnson Simpson. She is keeping her options open in terms of future employment.




Annie Riedmayer
Major: Psychology
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Annie plans to reside in Prosperity Plains with her fiance, Gavin Dejackome, and his family. She is seeking employment with the Sim City Police Department.

Week Five Part Thirteen: Sim State Dormitory + Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House

Annie Riedmayer: 18 years old. Aspiration: Popularity. Lifetime want: Become Captain Hero: Astrological sign: Aquarius.
Theresa Dejackome: 21 years old. Aspiration: Romance. Lifetime want: Become Celebrity Chef. Astrological sign: Libra.
Malcolm Landgraab V: 24 years old. Aspiration: Popularity. Lifetime want: Become Media Magnate. Astrological sign: Gemini
Gavin Dejackome: 21 years old. Aspiration: Knowledge. Lifetime want: Become Criminal Mastermind. Astrological sign: Cancer.
Agatha Riedmayer: 19 years old. Aspiration: Romance. Lifetime want: Woohoo 20 Different Sims. Astrological sign: Sagittarius.

Gavin is the last in my wave of Knowledge teens, as you can probably tell.

The Riedmayer family tree. I might have to start breaking it up into subfamilies. Anyway, Annie and Agatha are first cousins, and then Malcolm is Agatha's nephew (even though he's older than she is) and therefore Annie's first cousin once removed.

The Dejackome family tree is much more manageable. Gavin and Theresa were adopted by founder Rivka Dejackome and I pretend that they are twins. Their older sisters are recently married with young families.


Narrated by Gavin Dejackome

My sister Theresa and I ended up getting assigned to the same dorm as three other students from Prosperity Plains. I think the administration puts us all together on purpose. Anyway. As soon as we step out of the taxi Theresa and her boyfriend Mal--they dated in high school--were all over each other. I wouldn't mind that; some people are just into PDAs, but I'm pretty sure Theresa wasn't faithful to him and it bugged me that she was letting him think she wanted to be with him when she was with a bunch of other guys too.

The two other girls were Annie and Agatha Riedmayer. Annie told me that Agatha was her sister, but then later explained that they're first cousins but were raised together and think of themselves as sisters. Considering that I have an aunt who's not my aunt, I don't really care if she wants to say her cousin is her sister.

Annie was pretty sociable, taking the initiative to get to know all the rest of us. Theresa definitely encouraged me to spend time with Annie. I think she thought that if I got a girlfriend I would be less curious about her...extracurricular activities. Like a guy is ever going to stop looking out for his little sister. (She's only 5 minutes younger than I am, but that totally counts.) I did think Annie was quite nice, though.

At one point that first semester Theresa asked me to "help" with her term paper. And then she said she was going to the restroom and didn't come back for an hour. So I didn't help her the second semester.

Meanwhile, Annie was connecting with Ryker Owens, who was currently in charge of ZZE Greek House. Pretty soon all 5 of us were members of the Greek house.

Theresa also managed to make it into the Secret Society during her freshman year, which is a school record. Apparently she's really, really good at making connections with the other students.

I must admit, I'm not sure where Theresa ran off to all the time. I was perhaps getting a tiny bit distracted by Annie after all.

The next year, we all moved to the ZZE house. It was way better than living in the dorms. The food was better, there were state-of-the-art computers for everybody, all sorts of tools to help learn different skills...

There were even a bunch of clothes left over from previous residents. Nobody had had the money to go shopping, so they eagerly raided the dressers and took what they wanted.

Time passed pretty uneventfully. We learned things, we all got into the secret society, we all eventually made Big Sim on Campus.

About halfway through our time at college, Mal and Theresa got engaged. I worried that they were going to regret it.

Theresa claimed that she had told Mal about her other lovers, but I'm not sure I believe that. She also said that she wasn't with anyone else after she and Mal got engaged. From the way she talked after that, I worried that she had picked Mal over her other lovers because he was rich, not because she actually loved him.

Anyway. I suppose that might have put the idea in my head, because within a year I had asked Annie to do me the honor of becoming Mrs. Dejackome, and to my immense delight, she accepted. I was blissfully happy.

Both of my older sisters had recently given birth, so they were unable to come meet Annie, but Aunt Melanie came. She and Annie hit it off right away.

Theresa asked a guy named Douglas to join our Greek House near the end of our time at college. I wasn't going to ask, but she made a point anyway of telling me that she never slept with him. He seemed very academically minded, at any rate, so I rather liked him.

Douglas Long
S4 skin, black hair, green eyes
Aspiration: Knowledge
Lifetime want: Become Prestidigitator (of course)
Astrological sign: Sagittarius

Even though he was several years behind the rest of us, he joined our study sessions and was actually quite helpful.

Just before graduation we had a toga party to which we invited as many of our family and friends as could come.

Then came graduation. It was easy for the five of us from Prosperity Plains; we were all moving back with our families or our future in-laws.

Ryker was the last to leave the Greek house. He wanted to stay in the area, but didn't want to move in with any of his friends and burden them--I doubt he would have been a burden to anyone, but I can understand that desire to stand on one's own two feet. Fortunately, Ryker found out a few months after graduation that his application for his own plot of land in Prosperity Plains had been approved. All the rest of us pooled our money and gave him some things to help furnish his new home, since he wouldn't have a lot of money to start out with. Maybe that was wrong, considering how strongly he felt about independence, but we had all become such good friends in our time together that not helping each other out at least a little was unthinkable.

Notes:

1. I was going to post pictures of the Greek House, but now I think I will do a more detailed tour in a separate post. It has changed radically over the years, but at the same time it doesn't change in the same way as the other houses in the neighborhood. 

2. I never would have thought that I could do a college post with a first-person narrator, but I think it actually  worked. I think it's funny that Gavin is so very different from Corbin, who narrated the post before this one.

3. I glossed over a lot of Theresa's escapades in the narrative, so here's a recap: I decided that I was going to shoot for her impossible want (30 simultaneous lovers) before she hit the end of her sophomore year, so that I could change her aspiration and get the prosperity challenge points for TWO impossible wants. So I had her purchase the cheapest community lot in Bluewater, threw in a double bed, and had her start inviting over every single guy she knew. (I used the college directory and the "network" business perk to get her more acquaintances.) She did manage to hit 30 lovers in time to change her aspiration to Fortune (new LTW: Become City Planner). I am so never doing that again, though.

Poor Agatha got neglected as a result of my getting burned out with Theresa; she had an affair with a professor but otherwise didn't get to do anything Romance-y. 

4. Ryker got a lot of stuff because I wanted to keep GH funds below 20k. I think they only take away funds if there's less than 20k per resident, but I am a control freak so I keep it below 20k just in case. Ryker was the only one who wanted for anything, since everyone else really did move back to established houses.

Week Four Part Ten: Sim State Dormitory + Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House

Taking my cue from several other Prosperity bloggers, I decided a while back to start taking portraits of each family at the beginning of a round. Now you all finally get to start reaping the fruits of my labor. 

So, the new college students, from left:

Jeannie Dejackome, 17 years old, Aspiration: Knowledge, LTW: Become Head of SCIA, Astrological sign: Aquarius

Mildred "Millie" Landgraab, 20 years old, Aspiration: Knowledge, LTW: Become Education Minister, Astrological sign: Gemini

Veronica Whitfill, 21 years old, Aspiration: Fortune, LTW: Become Prestidigitator, Astrological sign: Libra

Rishell Whitfill, 21 years old, Aspiration: Knowledge, LTW: Max All Skills, Astrological sign: Pisces

Gretchen Dejackome, 17 years old, Aspiration: Knowledge, LTW: Become Criminal Mastermind, Astrological sign: Aries 

You can really see the results of the wave of Knowledge teens I got a while back. Also, I think it's funny that sisters Jeannie and Gretchen have such opposite Lifetime Wants. Also also, I think it's funny that of the five girls in "The Whitfill Household", four will have the last name Whitfill at some point in their lives. But I get ahead of myself.

On to the story:

The students of Sim State University were not immune to the Great Flu Epidemic of '32. Millie Landgraab and Rishell Whitfill had to spend most of their first semester in bed.

Veronica didn't get sick, so she started work on getting them into the Greek House. Timothy Seifert was delighted to admit her.

Rishell followed in her sister's footsteps as soon as she had a clean bill of health.

Then all five girls had to hit the books to make up for lost time so nobody would do poorly on finals.

(Actually, Gretchen had the college meter glitch. So I kept them studying as long as possible as extra insurance. Fun fact: The Sim who had that glitch first was Gretchen's future husband, Donte Whitfill. I am almost looking forward to seeing if their children get it.)

The next semester, Jeannie managed to get into the Greek House.

As soon as everybody got back from their first day of classes, the girls all went clothes shopping.

The next night, Gretchen asked Timothy if she could join ZZE. He said yes, of course.

Millie took the opportunity to ask as well.

The night after that, Rishell managed to get into the Secret Society. (There are no real secrets in a group of five girls.)

Meanwhile, back at the Greek House...

Jeannie found herself thinking more and more about Timothy Seifert. She made sure to call him from time to time to make sure he didn't get too lonely in that big old house all by himself.

Side note: As a result of befriending all the girls, Timothy was Big Sim on Campus by the time I got back to him.

Near the end of the semester, Timothy invited Jeannie over, saying he needed some advice on fixing the place up before all the girls moved in. Jeannie never made it past the living room, however.

The first morning of the fall semester, Timothy welcomed everyone with pancakes and a rousing discussion of robots.

Don't forget, Timothy is also a Knowledge Sim.

Jeannie, Veronica, and Millie were all inducted into the Secret Society that semester.

Look, it's a Landgraab in the Landgrabb Society! (Relatedly, EA Games needed a better copy editor.)

Living under the same roof did nothing to dull Jeannie's fascination with Timothy, or his with her.

Near the end of their sophomore year, Timothy decided that he never wanted to live apart from Jeannie again and asked her to do him the honor of becoming Mrs. Seifert. Jeannie agreed, as long as she could hyphenate her name.

Something I might as well note here as anywhere else: I have the women take their husband's last names, as Prosperity rules dictate. However, on this blog I refer to married women by whatever name seems to best fit their personality and background.

These last two pictures really were a semester apart, by the way. Jeannie liked that drum kit almost as much as she liked Timothy.

Also during their sophomore year: Jeannie and Gretchen made Big Sim on Campus; Gretchen made Secret Society.

Although there was only one in-house couple at ZZE, love was in the air for some other residents. Millie invited over her old friend Blake Whitfill and they discovered new feelings for one another. Unfortunately, he had the flu, so he couldn't stay long.

Blake's brother Donte stayed longer, at Gretchen's invitation.

Meanwhile, Rishell Whitfill invited her friend Ryker Owens to pledge. She wasn't interested in him that way, but he was a great guy and Tim was kind of overwhelmed by all the estrogen in the house.

Ryker Owens
S2 skin, blond hair, light blue eyes
Aspiration: Fortune
LTW: Become a Prestidigitator (because you can NEVER have too many of those...)
Astrological sign: ???
 

Around the time Ryker pledged, Millie came down with the flu for the second time in her college career, probably thanks to Blake. Gretchen also got sick. She blamed it on Millie, but Millie said she'd probably picked up some germs while sharing spit with Donte.

Other junior year accomplishments: Rishell makes Big Sim on Campus.

By the fall of their senior year, Millie and Gretchen were back to full health. They used some of their newfound energy to play videogames late at night. Ryker, who had just moved in, had a blast watching them.

Later that semester, the members of ZZE had a toga party. Nobody felt like singing a folk song, so instead they formed a rock band, The Angry Tribbles. Their first performance, Jeannie was on lead guitar, Gretchen on bass, Rishell on drums, and Timothy on piano.

Most awkward picture ever: Happily married mother of 4 Joan Pons is in the hot tub NAKED with Ryker Owens. (Ryker had the decency to wear his swimsuit.) Ryker just nonchalantly carried on a conversation. Nothing untoward happened; Joan just does that because she has 10 outgoing points. It's still disturbing.

Thanks to his Greek House connections, Ryker was able to make it into the Secret Society later that semester.

In no time at all, the older members were getting ready to graduate. All of them managed a 4.0.

You can see Millie's scary eyebrows in this shot. Her two younger sisters have them too. Usually they're covered by hair.

The Angry Tribbles held a parting concert (with Timothy on lead guitar, Veronica on bass, Millie on drums, and Gretchen on piano) before packing up their things and heading back to Prosperity Plains (Timothy, the only non-native, was more than willing to move for Jeannie), leaving ZZE Greek House in Ryker's capable hands.

Now it's finally time for some Greek House pictures!

The ground floor. The kitchen (on the right) was part of the original massive renovation near the beginning of Week Three, during which I knocked down almost all the walls in the area to the left of the stairs. The pool (in back) and hot tub/bar area (far left) were added at the end of Week Three.

The red sports car almost never leaves the driveway; it's there mostly so the students don't clog their wants panels with "buy a car." It's also useful for acheiving Dream Date status, if you take my meaning.

The second floor was renovated the most during Week Four. If you have Sims 2 University, you've almost certainly seen this house (it's 80 Crumplebottom Road at SSU and it's also available in the Lots and Houses bin in the regular neighborhood). So you'll know that in the original design there were two bedrooms just to the left of the stairs.

At the beginning of Week Three, I added the two bedrooms and bathroom to the right of the stairs, for a total of four bedrooms and two bathrooms. During Week Four, I knocked out the two original bedrooms and added on a wing over the hot tub wing downstairs, so there's a huge open study/hang out area. (The musical instruments used to be in the open area downstairs; now that's a dancing/mingle area for when they throw parties.) Then I added two bedrooms and a bathroom over the pool wing in back to make up for knocking down the old ones.

Here's the attic area, also known as the computer lab. The wing with all the desks was added at the beginning of Week Three. That's also when I knocked down the wall to the little room where the black desk is in this picture. (When I had a bed up in the attic, it was useful to have the noisy computer behind a closed door.) Notice that there is a mini-fridge and a trashcan so that term-paper-writing Simmies can grab a snack and throw away the wrapper without leaving the computer lab.

The attic bathroom is the only room in this entire house that remains unchanged...for now. 

And, last but not least, the outside. It's becoming a cumbersome-looking house, but we'll leave aesthetics for the main neighborhood, right?