Minecraft - Still Mining

Happy New Year everyone! Fear not, I haven't disappeared! I simply haven't done much to warrant a new post yet. The "little project" I started back in December is taking a lot more work than I thought it would, especially since I'm doing it all by myself. I never really thought it through when I had the hairbrain idea in the first place. On the plus side, I am inching closer to my goal of creating a surface to bedrock pyramid underground.
I only have about 12 layers to blast through which doesn't seem like a lot until you consider each layer down steps it out 1 wider. I don't remember my exact count, but it's going to be close to 125 blocks wide at the bottom when done.

I have managed to blast out the perimeter of the pyramid so I know exactly where it will end. It will be cutting off a good sized chunk of the caverns we found / made when we first played with TNT so very long ago. I also ran into more Lava in a few places down there while cutting the perimeter. I know once I get back to those areas, I'll hit it again. I can already start to hear it bubbling through the floor.

During this process, I have collected an insane amount of cobblestone. I'm working on filling big chest #37 with it. A few more and I'll have to expand my store room for a third time since starting this project. What am I going to do with it all? I have no idea. I might start hauling buckets of lava to he surface and smelting / crafting it all to stone bricks. I've been thinking about creating a structure around my spawn area as I don't have one right now. I'm sure that's what some of this will be going to.

I've played around a little bit with animal breeding since the last update too, but the animals tend to hack me off. All they do is stand at the gate and jump up and down. Makes it harder to get in there and breed them more.

Back on the PC, I've pretty much abandoned my desert temple level I started forever ago. I created a new world and have been playing on it in pure Survival without the Creative head start. I love how much different this feels than anything else I have done before in the game. The Endermen are just downright creepy! Luckily, I've found diamond so I've been able to visit the Nether (which resulted in my first and only death so far) and, more importantly, build an enchantment table. Since then, I've been doing really well. I'm farming, mining, killing and exploring very successfully. In fact, I've only had the one death and it was only because I was stupid and attacked a Zombie Pigman.

I've explored quite a bit of surrounding area around my home and have yet to run into anything significant. Lots of ravines and caves at the surface, a few extreme hills, several small jungles and deserts, a massive swamp and an even more massive tundra, but not a single village, temple or even a well. My base is nestled between a small forest and tundra. Underground, I did manage to find an abandoned mineshaft which is pretty cool to explore.

An atempted panorama of my house's first floor.

And the second floor too.

What a great view looking out the front of my house.

Not a bad one out the back either.

 

There is one more really insane project I've been doing on the PC in Creative Mode, but I think I'll keep that one under wraps for the time being. All I'm going to say is that it puts my Hyrule Castle on the Xbox to shame. ;)