Ouch...probably needed a little break after that. Nice levels.

So I have done a bit of mining, greatly helped by the advice I got from KrumEater and Zabolca.
MIddle, top, slightly to the right you can see Natalie in her pen. The open, raised, grassy area on the right I might make a woodland with a pond. My beacon (Haste II) is floating in the top, middle, left a bit. Far over on the left in the middle you can see some blue glass and a chest. That is the end of my iron farm. I need to mine out all around it. I live under the deep ocean so the roof is as high as I can make it without flooding the cavern. The far wall is just over 100 blocks from where I am standing.

Thx for the tips. Definately feeling you Krum. I get an 30-60 min a day. Using 3 picks. I have no helpers so I am trading about 4800 carrots and potatos with a few pumpkins and wheat thrown in for variety to get the xp. It grows in about the time it takes to use up thier endurance. have a ton of emeralds :-)

Very nice design.

Awesome tower. I like the purple.
Another question on mining out vast areas. What technique do you use? I started off just hacking everything in range of my pick but soon discovered if I made 2 high x 1 wide corridors the length of the area I wanted to clear, then stood at one end looking up, mined the 6 blocks vertically above me and walked forward doing that to the other end of the corridor I would be more efficient. Effectively cutting out 8 block high strips. Once a "floor" was clear I went up above (effectively to stand on the 9th block, the one that the pick would not reach) and repeat. Finally I would come top down removing all the floors. How did you guys do it?

I suspect it is 2^31-1 or something like that

Question for Crafty really.

LifeLongStew7 brought a friend on to the 1.9 server and they wanted to random TP together. They both got random TP'd but to different places. We reproduced it 3 times. Never seen that before - I have random TP'd with Stew a gzillion times. I thought it might be because his friend is not a VIP but Venetorem did not think that was the case?

A beacon does not help a lot...it helps a lot, a lot. That was good advice KrumEater. Set myself up with a 4 layer beacon, Haste II, S1E5U3 diamond pick - and it motors. The documentation says 20% faster for Haste I, 40% faster for Haste II but in reality Haste II is way more effective.
Best tip I have ever had I think. Thanks.

A beacon does not help a lot...it helps a lot, a lot. That was good advice KrumEater. Set myself up with a 4 layer beacon, Haste II, S1E5U3 diamond pick - and it motors. The documentation says 20% faster for Haste I, 40% faster for Haste II but in reality Haste II is way more effective.
Best tip I have ever had I think. Thanks.

Hey Neon, been there, done that. You reminded me of a fun time I have with LifeLongStew7 on a Nether adventure. Complete disaster. I wrote a post on the old forums about it which I have dug out and copied below so it is not lost. Makes me smile (now - didn't then).

Myself and Stew are pretty tooled up, maxed armor, swords, picks and so on, so you would not expect us to die at the hands of vanilla mobs, especially not the two of us together, but we managed it this morning. We were on quite a large nether plateau when a couple of ghasts decided to pick on us. No big deal, just whipped out the P5F1U3 bow and went to work. Unfortunately a zombie pigman stepped in front of me just as i was letting one fly and took it in the back of the head. Straight away a group of 6-8 of them are in front of me including one of those quick little bastards. I start back peddling to draw them into a line and switch to Old Painless (S5K2L3F2U3 sword). I knock off a few but more zombie pigmen join the pursuit and I still have 6-8 in front of me. I know running backwards in the nether is risky as you can drop into one of the many pools of lava, and I am starting to lose a sense of where I am, so I spin round only to get a golden sword blow in the face from the leader of another half dozen zombie pigmen. Completely surrounded and taking a hell of a lot of damage I am screaming at Stew (who is in the same room as me) to help. This is the point at which things started to go south...Stews swordsmanship is less fencing more fly swatting. He charges in slashing around taking out a few but also hitting me and setting me on fire. Dangerously low on health I decide to run for it, but the flames only extinguish when I have half a heart left and in my panic I had run into a dead end. Turning quickly I see Stew right behind me and about 10 zombie pigmen. With no way to string them out Stew and I just have to go for it. I take down a few but succumb to the hoarde, my stuff spilled out across the floor. Stew does well and polishes off the rest of them barely with a heart to spare. I am shouting at him to pick up my stuff quick but his inventory is full and a he goes to throw some stuff out (I am watching through the red mist of death) when two pigmen run into view. I start screaming at Stew to move but he turns the wrong way and before he can finish saying 'Where are they?' pops into a pile of highly enchanted diamond kit. An expensive trip to the nether.