Words of Amazing Wisdom

The Circle of Life Revolves Yet Again

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:25:48 GMT

The department where I was previously employed is being transitioned out-of-state, and I am once again looking for a day job. There seem to be a good number of 3-6 month temp jobs for techies, and since I don't need to bring in benefits, I'm guardedly optimistic. Oh, well, time to contact some more friends and update and check dice, monster, craiglist, etc...

Checking out the Stars

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Wow. Haven't posted for awhile.

On July 17th, we went to the Chabot Space and Science Center Got to look at some actual space equipment, sit in a replica Mercury capsule, had the best landing of the day on the LEM simulator(at least until 6:30 or so), Planetarium show was awesome (Immersive Space, only shown on Fridays, highly recommend it), and got to see both a binary star system through the 20" refractor ("Rachel") and Saturn through a 36" reflector ("Nellie") - really neat stuff. Great value for $15.

Of course, I then had to start looking into telescopes. A decent starter isn't that expensive, so if finances improve hope to get one by the end of the year. Doubt if I will build one myself, since the workshops might be free, but they are on Friday nights.

Reflections on 2000-2008

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 01:17:57 GMT

Thought I would take advantage of the New Year and do a partial 'The Century So Far' entry / mind dump / writing exercise:

I've learned to live in the present, but even then I sometimes think of New Year's Eve.

My first full view of the Pacific Coast was on top of a high cliff that washed into the ocean a few years later. Heavy coastal wind, intense sunlight, smell of salt and seaweed, and utter vastness.

Fly over Tokyo at night and you may whisper "that's amazing" ; gaze at the night sky in the Black Rock Desert and words fail.

Step one in being laid off from a dot.com is being hired by a dot.com.

In San Francisco 100,000 people walked in solemn silence as the TV cameras focused on a few hundred young people screaming and yelling about sorrow they didn't understand but which many would become all-too intimate with in the years to come.

Stand alone for 15 minutes in the Cathedral Grove of Muir Woods on a perfect spring afternoon at magic hour, and you will understand Enya's Memory of Trees.

While eating sushi in Asia, don't open your mouth to say, "Putting a chunk of wasabi in the middle gives it a great taste" Unless, of course, you need to flood something out of your eyes with your own tear ducts.

Walked the Golden Gate several times; it's weird how you can get vertigo looking up instead of down. Cruise ships sailing underneath look like toys.

Touched Bat Rays at the Monterey Aquarium. They're living velvet, not leather. Looked a hammerhead shark in the eye.

It's neat to sample wines at Napa Vineyards during harvest season before they ship to anywhere else.

Go into a grocery store in a land where you do not speak the language and you will remember what it was like to be an infant.

Hiked Vernal Falls in 96 degree weather and there was still a frozen water bottle at the bottom of the insulated bag after 8 hours.

If you're lucky, you get a moment of hyper-sensitivity at Glacier Point and see the entire valley at once.

Current count on watching the sun set into the Pacific: three
Current number of lunar eclipses: two

I've watched jets fly overhead at Fleet Week air shows; I've seen a passenger jet escorted by an F-15 into SFO.

Visited Hearst Castle and the Mystery House; I know the real mystery.

If you ride on the Cable Cars in San Francisco, ride on one of the hand-grip side-rails if you are able.

Been to the beaches in Southern California and learned that regular folk go there as well (unless, of course, the cameras are rolling.)

One flight to GenCon skirted around a midnight thunderstorm as Thor and Odin continued their family squabble. I've been to the show twice but haven't played a game yet.

I learned the difference between good and bad Thai, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Korean, and Seafood.

Merry Christmas!

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 22:37:49 GMT

Hope the fire is warm and the beer is cold!

Christmas is Approaching

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 19:11:14 GMT

Nice Article On CNN about gifts vs Gifts

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/12/19/fun.toys.not.pricey/index.html

Actual Winter-Like Weather

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 04:07:14 GMT

There was snow in Berkeley yesterday.

We went for a walk last night, actually had on gloves and scarves since it was below freezing. (A decade ago, I would have laughed at wearing such a get-up for any temperature above twenty degrees. Of course, a decade ago I would never have eaten sushi... yum...)

Got up this morning, the car was frosted, and I think there might have been a light coating of snow as well.

Voiceovers

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 01:43:30 GMT

Took an introductory voice-over class. Will see what the results are next week.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 01:42:49 GMT

Busy with the job (now it's a day job, with more normal hours), house, etc....

Good news is, the writing bug is back after an extended hiatus. Game writing has been off-track for almost a year. The real impulse, though is short-story and novel writing, which, quite frankly, has been smoldering in the background for over a decade.

Lot of Changes, Quick Update

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:41:19 GMT

Well, got a "day" job (although working 5am-2pm is really more of a "morning" job), got a house and renting the condo for awhile, and simply trying to get back on track for everything else that got interrupted by the two items previously mentioned at the beginning of this very long and rambling sentence.

Main thing I'm going to miss this year is the trip to GenCon; have the money, don't have the time. Hoping to put together something for next year, if things go well.

ZZzzz. agrnuch!!! Zzzz SNORKLE..Zzzzz... huh?

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:24:18 GMT

Got the results back from a sleep study I took earlier in the month that confirmed I've developed a respectably heavy case of sleep apnea. I should have one of those masks by mid-April. I've heard they often look a bit like Darth Vader masks. Sweet :D

Probably developed over the course of the past year or two. I've been married for almost a decade, and my snoring started waking my Wife, who used to live next to train tracks. Energy level steadily dropped, and in the past three months I've occasionally had 'nap attacks' where my body simply forced me to sleep mid-day.

Overall, doing good and optimistic that my energy levels will start improving and the amount of rambling in my first draft writing will reduce down to previous levels....

Other than that, fighting off a flu and narrowing down the list of programming languages to use for a few projects (Down to determining which projects to code in C# and which in C++. Visual Basic.net has migrated toward C# so much that minimal effort is required to pick up VB.net if you know C#.)

Multitasking: Job Applications, Writing, Programming, Desiging, etc....

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:56:23 GMT

Sending out a lot of resumes in the hope that something will 'click' somewhere. Goal is to get at least 50 online applications filled out by the end of the month.

Took one of the up-front screening tests from Cryptic on Monday (A 6 hour one with questions that any sane person would take at least 2 days to answer in a real job.) There must be something wrong with me, because I actually had fun until about 5 hours into the test, when I finally started to run out of gas (Submitted it at 5 hours, 15 minutes.) The great thing about such tests is you demonstrate your actual ability and style (which means less of a chance of a misfit if you do get a job), but the weakness for a job searcher is you can only properly do one such test a day.

When I'm not job hunting, I'm splitting my work time between computer/video-game-prep stuff (reading background materials, just installed DirectX SDK and simultaneously ramping back into programming via C++, C#, and VB by doing 3 different projects, re-reading some usability/interface design books, and putting together a project for submission to the IGF for next year's GDC.) and pen-and-paper stuff (wrapping up a freelance writing job for one place, putting together the MegaDugeon crawl for this year's KublaCon, waiting to hear any feedback from GRG regarding the Action! System(TM) translation of Cel-Maris before posting on OBS, starting another system conversion for Cel-Maris, and starting on an even larger, brand-new pen-and-paper project that I've been wanting to get to for years with Action! as the first system.)

Current Novels:

Zorba The Greek

The Iron Lance

Current Online (O'Reilly Safari) Book:

Crawford on Game Design

Current Tech Readings:

Game Writing Handbook

Introduction to 3d Game Programming with DirectX 9.0c: A Shader Approach (mostly reviewing math-type stuff I haven't looked at in awhile)

The Elements Of User Interface Design (re-read)

Current RPG Readings:

Spirit of the Century

Shinobi: Shadows of Nihon

Action! System Core Rules (quick post-project re-read)

"'Action! System' and the Action! System logo are trademarks of Gold Rush Games and are used with permission."

Getting ready for GDC

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:53:07 GMT

Almost finished with an uber-concentrated one-page resume. Nice alternate layout with a bit of color in it (I am going after creative jobs, after all :) Probably finish that one up tomorrow and print up a couple of dozen.

Will wrap up the biz card for the show about the same time and have plenty of those on hand.

Experiencing a bit of early nerves before the show. I know I can do the work, just nervous about finding places that would be a good fit and getting past the initial cuts. With programming or visual arts the job titles are fairly standardized: C programmer using Direct X, texture artist, modeler. With writing jobs, exactly what a position handles and is responsible for varies all over the board from very little influence ("Smooth out this dialog. Events have to follow these diagrams.") to an extreme amount of influence ("No, that's not a typo. The Dragons are plaid...")

Voting tomorrow and busy

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:13:03 GMT

Primary and several state & local initiatives are on the ballot. For the first time in awhile, I actually have my mind made up on all the measures and such the day before the vote (Usually there's at least one or two items I have to think about, but this time I'm not particularly thrilled with any of the ones of the ballot.) As for candidates, we need another Pat Paulsen...

Otherwise, staying very busy with a couple of projects and getting ready for the GDC.

Back from a Long Hiatus

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:27:38 GMT

Wow. It's been awhile since I posted.
Been very busy with stuff, a good bit being re-designing and building the new site for 3 Sages Games (http://www.threesagesgames.com) All that's really left to do with the site is to put up the new background images when they are done (The current/old ones are banners that we decided to use as background images.)

Finally got the Fudge System(TM) Version of Cel-Maris Station up for sale on RPGNow!

Working away on converting Cel-Maris to a few other systems, putting together notes for my next project, working on the outline for a novel, and working on a few writing projects for three sages games that will be revealed as time goes on.

Getting my resume, biz card, and portfolio ready for the GDC in Feburary (Looking for a full-time job or at least some part-time freelance work in the computer game field.)

Things are chilly and damp here, with more expected chilly and damp for the rest of the week. I thought there was perpetual sunshine in all of California? I want a refund for every day without direct sunshine ;)

Condo is still up for sale. We're getting some good results, and we think there's a good chance of selling it before mid-year, despite how horrible the market is (When we bought the condo, we were anticipating a 3-5 year stay, so we followed Rules #1-#3 of selling property: #1) Location, #2) Location, #3) Location :) Since the Mrs. can now work several days as a telecommute, moving to a more suburban/semi-rural area keeps getting to be a nicer and nicer idea (If she couldn't telecommute, we wouldn't have the place for sale and certainly wouldn't be looking as far away from the large cities.)

"About Fudge: The Fudge game system is copyrighted (c)2000, 2005 by Grey Ghost Press, Inc. and is available for use under the Open Game License. See the fudgerpg.com website for more information."

"The Fudge System logo is a trademark of Grey Ghost Press, Inc., and is used under license. Logo design by Daniel M. Davis, www.agyris.net."

Working

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 19:40:34 GMT

Tuesday After GenCon

In better shape than usual since I finally learned how to put myself in a semi-meditative rest state. Posted a GenCon report to the GPA List as well as took care of a few remaining follow-up emails from GenCon.

While not overdoing things, it is good to get back to a regular schedule a.s.a.p. after a show because of the energy boost. This week I'm wrapping up a few items before the freelance stuff starts to come in next week.

In other words, D&D 4.0 was a little bit of a surprise to me in that they are actually using an Open License. What wasn't a surprise at all is that the d20 Trademark License is being pulled from virtually unlimited use to a "you need to get our approval" format. Right around July 2008 should be interesting (the approximate time given for the actual "release" of 4.0 & the "death" of the 3.5 trademark license.)

Back from GenCon, In a Great Mood, But A Bit Tired

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 02:03:22 GMT

Just got back from GenCon. Had a wonderful time and met a lot of great folk.

The primary business purpose of the trip was to talk to people I already know in the biz and to make contact with more industry insiders and potential writing/editing/layout/cartography clients. Things turned out better than I hoped, and I'm already busy putting down the ground work on a few items.

Worked most of the time in the dealer's room at Firefly Games this year with Patrick, Dave, Dan, Keith, and the folks sharing cashier duties from Blood & Cardstock. It's easy to work long tiring hours when your co-workers have such great personalities and the games you are promoting and selling are a ton of fun for everyone and reasonably priced.

I finished the first Beautifulharmony Fudge(TM) System module Cel-Maris Station(c) literally the day before I arrived on site, so I wasn't expecting many or even any sales since I hadn't done any advertising. As I wrote above, the main purpose of the GenCon trip was to make business contacts, anyway, and in that respect the module was very successful (It has some really cool text in it along with some nifty maps and a fantastic cover illustration by Bryce Nakagawa, if I do say so myself.)

I think Cel-Maris Station will sell respectable numbers once I get it posted on a few .pdf stores and get the word out on the Fudge(TM) boards and such.