yotogi.net

got a mail today from an old lover who i haven't heard from in about a year. it was really good to hear from her and brought back so many memories of times that have long ago passed. kind of strange to look back on those times and how different things would have been if i had left for UT austin after my freshman year of college to chase someone that always will mean something to me.

going out tonight despite my better judgement. oh well, i had a breakthrough at work today!!

making my way thought the stack of e-mail. almost done. it was a working weekend where i got a whole lot done and am back to being caught up. i just wish that things that i worked on would not end up getting mysteriously broken while i wasn't looking at them. the coolest thing about my job is the feeling right after i have been bashing my head against a problem for days on end. the feeling when a problem is solved by some process in your head and carried out by your hands. i just love that...

on other less substantial notes, it is amazing to me how time that has past and to some degree distance are nothing, almost completely irrelevant, when compared with the time that is the moment and the distance which applies to it. you can spend years and hundreds of miles away from someone and see them and none of it matters. but then, upon realizing that you want to see that person, the moment lasts forever and the miles seem such an obstacle. surfice to say that my weekend, or today rather was one that brought back many wonderful memories, like a the amazing beauty of a smile, and feeling that comes with an amazing syncronicity despite explanation for it.

i will sleep well tonight.

so much more beauty is contained in an honest look, held in a moment in the air surrounding eyes and lips turned up in a knowing smile. and i remember the times that i have seen that beauty and i cannot help but to smile as well...

the funny thing about all of this is i am still in a good mood...

my mom says spring is in the air. i tend to agree, she is really smart like that. -=grin=-

my mind wanders to resource loading and comment blocks and making cameras spin when i spin...

the PS2 is going the way of the Xbox and including a boot setting for the screen format. this is the root of my headaches for this evening. for some reason that i cannot fathom, the PS2 is shipping with the default screen format being a 4:3 letterbox format instead of a 4:3 fullscreen. this introduces a ton of headaches in my life, but oh well. i will work through it all.

a shave and a brush of the teeth and off to bed i go. congrats to mr. bill on some nature of coding job and to jenn on a decision to spend another summer in the much more pleasant climes of alaska. and a note to myself as a reminder that i should be a little more careful what i say without explanation yet i offend without at all meaning to.

we got a new intern at work this week. an attractive art one at that. funny thing is that it has done nothing but confirm my ealier rant about the gravity of pretty girls. the little ripples of interest and forces of attraction are evident about the art department. it is quite hilarious. i have laughed a great deal about all of this. more on this later when i have had a little bit of sleep.

code is good. good code is even better. -=grin=-

so i could bore you to tears with a ton of wining about how long the cycle was and all of that, but i don't think that is very interesting. besides, i do enough wining about work at work, or at least i have the last couple of days. -=grin=-.

so for the next couple of days, i will be doing my best to try and get closer to that work-life balance that i hear some people have. and i am certain that i will have something really clever to say soon. i think i have something but i want to work on it first.

that having been said i am currently wondering which i dislike more. the boring 8 hours of work that i am doing these days with weekends off, or the crazy 16 hours no days off stuff that i was doing just a week ago. i like to keep busy, i get lazy when i get bored. catch myself zoning off into space or something like that, but i like my work to chalenge me, not bore me to tears.

on a personal note, i will reiterate a point that i have made at some point. if you have the nerve to get someones phone number, please at least return the call to tell them that you giving them the number was a mistake. that or have the decency to reject them on the spot. of course, i don't really know why i say these kinds of things here, most of the people that bother to read this are decent human beings... -=grin=-

boy, i am feeling really chatty today. perhaps i need to get out some more, but what to do on a tuesday night? hmmm... any ideas people?

today was laundry and napping on the couch and warcraft 3. ah, weekends. i can't wait for vacation starting next week.

to fill that time, i have been partaking in the act of attempting to plan something like a last minute vacation. don't know if i will make it out of orlando, but there is always that chance. seattle, chicago, san fran, dunno. as long as there is public transit i think that i would be game.

on the other hand today i just got out of bed too early, having only slept 6 hours. just needed to get up i guess. felt a little crispy from going out last night. not bad, just a little cinged on the edges. today was pretty much spent making my brain bigger reading up on a ton of stuff on the internet. it feels good to learn. i took a nap for an hour at a friends house while she bustled around unpacking all of her things. funny thing was the boxes were all full when i fell asleep and they were all empty when i woke up. it was kinda startling not waking up in the same place you fell asleep. went over to bob's place and spun records for an hour or so. talked to krink on the phone for another 45 minutes or so. then read some more stuff on the the internet.

so the weekend if over and the week begins. i feel good, relaxed, happy, smarter, pretty much a peace with my life and the world in general. and the really funny thing is i still have 14 more days off.

over the last couple of weeks i have met some really amazing people. one of them even had coffee with me today. conversation ran the gambit, as they typically do when you are first getting to know people. but it was really nice talking to a genuine person. you know, the kind of person who can look you in the eyes when they talk to you. these kinds of experience are so good. they leave you warm inside and full of energy. i guess that is why i was able to spend the time writing the e-mails. so i need to remember to thank her for that.

the poly discussion and the touchdown theory discussion are churning on in e-mail form. i hope to be able to post some back and forth findings on the both of them soon. but like all of my promises here, that is pending me actually doing it. we shall see.

after today, all i can say is that i am really happy. good conversation and good coffee has a tendancy to do that to me. of course, i really think that it is the connections that i have made with people over the last 4 days that is the real culprit. i really believe that it is possible to know in a moment if the people that you meet are compatible with you just by the energy that they give off. i am not necessarily talking metaphysics here so don't read too much into that. call it what you want, people give off a vibe and sometime you just resonate with that vibe and it can be spooky, but really cool.

oh well, off to ride this natural high into the evening... take care all.

vague comment of the day
"sometimes it is in the words that you say and the thoughts that you leave unfinished that you leave me comfortably hanging..."

update 3:22am
the rain did indeed stop and it was clear when i headed out. came back home after a movie with bob for another 3 hours of e-mail. 7 hours today, pages upon pages of ideas expressed through text. i have so much to think about but my wrists scream and my brain demands time to integrate without my rational self mucking the process up.

"butterfiles reverse the pull of gravity"

enough said.

and i was unfortunatly right. i find myself in a "different place, different time" situation where i am confused about what i can and cannot say, what is right and wrong to do. all i know for sure is a part of me that i have not noticed for over 3 years is awake again, and i missed that part of myself horribly. i will not have any regrets, although i doubt that i will get what i want. called my own bluff, trying to not have any expectations, trying not to hurt anyone around me.

i think that i am going to go out and get new glasses tomorrow. my eyes kind of hurt. off for wednesday night at bodhisatva's. after i grab some dinner that is.

well i get my perscription and they boost the magnification on my near sight. i still have 20/20 vision, but my near vision is getting worse. so the paper reads (+0.75 +0.75 -0.25x140) and i am thinking, "what is theis -0.25x140?" well, you guessed it, i have developed an astigmatism in my left eye. i can pretty much count on it going downhill from here. oh well, at least i can pull off wearing glasses (which i don't have to do all the time right now). i am what you would call a astigmatic hyperopne. heh, i have been called worse.

i really, REALLY like my new space. the desk is smaller, and not as deep as i would like it to be, but it is really a desk not a cube. i have plenty of shelf and drawer space, and i have a window in front of me. although all i have is a scenic view of the parking garage, i can see the sky and i am a sucker for the natural light (minus the UV's thanks to the coating on the glass). i think that i will be really happy in my new space. i think that i am in for an amazing year.

today is a grey day, very much matching my mood. at least i got a good deal of work done, and am in training for the rest of the afternoon. i am not sure that i have a whole lot left in me today. the nights find me tired around 10:00 but up until 2 or 3:00. but then again, during the grey times, i often find my insomnia visiting me quite a bit.

some interesting quotes were to be had this sunday from angel.
"my husband and i normally leave around 8 or 9 o'clock when amateur hour starts."
"... the place was full of beefcake boys..."

certainly her wit throughout the afternoon was one of the two brightest points to my sunday. take a visit to jax in orlando if you ever are in the area. if angel is working you are certain to be entertained with wit and other good stuff.

i have to wonder how many days are going to be like today. ride out the lows and really appreciate the highs.

the weekend was an interesting one. friday was booty shakage at a.k.a. lounge to some decent to good house, saturday was more than a few red bull and vodka at cory's party where i met some cool new people, sunday was just a touch of the going downtown.

last night actually would have been an amazing letdown if i had anticipated anything at all. the crowds were out in full force fucking shit up. the a/c at the last place we were at barely could keep the place not warm. i headed home early, read some and got a wonderful nights sleep.

today was an adventure in making order out of the chaos that has been my office since i moved here over 18 months ago. for the first time this room is really nice and clean. i am reinstalling my desktop machine right now, and imagine that if i wanted to, i could entertain a group of about 10 people comfortably. cory's party really makes me want to do this, it was a really good time.

during cleaning i came across all of the pictures that i have from over the years. there were several in there of me and brandi, which kind of melted the heart a bit. then there were all of the pictures of me and the old norman crew. i think i know why i don't like to have my picture taken.

pictures are much more present than our memories. a couple of years away from people and they have almost completely faded from your mind. they are still there, but they are much less accessible. a picture brings all of that back into focus. all of the sudden you remember everything that was good and bad about the people you once knew. a picture is a means by which we remember, and in remembering sometimes visit emotions that we may not want to feel anymore.

i never want a picture of me to make people sad. better to be forgotten than to be a small sadness over the years.

my mom is becoming a computer tech. cool...

this weekend, both friday and saturday night, i got to be the responsible one. i got to drive people home to keep them from driving. saturday was particularly anoying as a couple of people who were supposed to be where we were got lost downtown in an attempt to find their car. just a long night was all...

and on a funny note, sometimes it is beautiful people who love sci-fi...

my new friend is an amazing person. so together and at the same time so much alive. a wonderful mix of a girl that you want to introduce to your parents and one that you want to show off to your friends. someone who you can watch dance and that you want to hear spin. my damn cell phone needs longer life batteries.

friday, i took the day off work in traditional birthday style. that is how i celebrate my birthday, take the day off of work. people kept asking me what i was planning, and to be honest, nothing. they expect me to have extra fun on my birthday. well the question being, why not have fun all the time? so i did have fun, but nothing super amazingly different than the fun i have any other time.

i received a couple of presents that were quite a suprise. thanks kate for the pistol arrows' cd. i do indeed like it and can see why you are quite the fan. and the wonderfully geeky shirt from ann, i will wear it with pride. of course whoever sent me the mini-RC car didn't mention it, so i have a gift from someone who is being elusive. fess up!

last night was good music and wonderful company and the privilage to watch my new friend dance to her heart's content. went back to mitch and alissa's place after the clubs closed and chilled and listened to more good music. just wish that i had not had to drive to hell and back for the adventure. of course the pad is indeed fly, and it was a cool place to decompress, so who am i to complain.

today, chill and relaxing. paying bills, doing laundry and cleaning up after a week trying to bounce a cold (maybe i finally did?!?). wonderful times all around. the grey cat has adopted me for sure now. i would let him in, but right now i don't have litter and he would need a bath just in case he had flees or whatnot. besides, he seems happy enough with the food and the attention that he gets from me outside. working relationship i would say.

now i try and find a way to spend the rest of my evening to relax and be ready for what looks to be a pretty long week in the office. at least my head is on straight now (cold last week... yuk), and i am ready to finish up with all that i have on my plate in the office. speaking of plates, i need to eat. wonder what would be good on a sunday evening?

so toontown is now in an open sneak preview. MMPORG's seemingly targeted at kids, which we all know means the majority of players will be adults.

good music and company seem to be my mode of operation these days. soon enough i expect to have a really keen and interesting thought, but until then, more life to be lived.

on a more positive note, work and life and everything is great. talked to some old friends tonight. good to hear that the world is still there and that i am not loosing it quite as bad as i once thought.

of course, i cannot form a coherent thought. so sleep.

something kept me up for a bit tonight. i hope that it (insomnia) does not decide that now is the time to stay for an extended visit...

EDIT: forgot to post the damn link...

so instead of going to take care of my body, i stayed up a bit late to do more work here. you may or may not have noticed the continued progress on the web page with the main page sporting the hot new look that is going to be all the rage this winter. trust me on this one kids, i expect all of the web guru's out there to be knocking down my door to get their hands on my special design talents.

i cannot help but wonder if my lack of focus today is in part due to my anticipation about all of the upcoming trips that i have planned. i don't find my mind wandering per-se, as much as i find that i am having a difficult time focusing on the tasks at hand. of course, that may also have to do with the fact that i have reached a point where the changes that i am making are cosmetic on the back-end, as opposed to evident in the game. not to say that it is not work that needs to be done, but more that it needs to be done at some point later, not necessarily for this deadline. the excption to that being that if i do not do it now, it only means more work (in addition to the normal amount of craziness) later.

but for now, i trust myself to get some sleep and then get stuff done tomorrow. baring that, there is always friday, or the weekend before it all needs to be in and working. my love/hate relationship with pressure shown plain in that previous sentence...

i did manage to sleep from 7:00pm until 4:00am on monday morning, just in time to catch my flight to austin. yesterday consisted mostly of sleep catching up and recovering. not too bad though considering. now i am relaxing and taking in the cold and rainy that is austin in the winter. according to my sister it was beautiful up until i decided to come into town. oh well, miami was beautiful enough to make up for in a couple of weeks over.

oh, and bob is a good friend.

i am in crazy get things done before i have to split the country mode. i need to buy some stuff and pack and spend as much time with melissa as possible and clean and a couple of other things before i leave at 10:00pm on friday for amsterdam. the trip is just now becoming real in my mind. after having been so far off for so long, it is kind of strange to have it looming.

christmas was a wonderful visit with melissa's mom and step-dad. i opened my christmas gifts over there and found some wonderful suprises. my mom sent me a seattle's best (my favorite damn good cup of coffee place) coffee mug and some beans to brew for consumption therein. a totally random gift that marks that my mom really pays attention to my interests. my dad and step mom sent me a couple of movies not on my wish list at amazon. i think that as time has gone on, they too have begun to get me.

melissa really pulled of quite a coup. she got me a new minidisc player, something that i have been contemplating buying for quite a while. not only that, she got me the perfect one, one that supports transfer from the PC, rock. she said that i needed one for my trip to amsterdam. i had resigned myself to not really worrying about it, but i know that ever moment that i need some escape into my music, i will think of her.

and the week apart is going to be tough. i have recently noticed how i don't like going a day without at least a little time in her presence. for a while i though that the reason that we were doing so well was because i didn't go into the relationship with any expectations of anything coming out of it. bob pointed out that the expectation thing was just the reason that i hadn't screwed it up. the reason that the relationship is working is because she is an amazing person.

and he is completely right.

and if you need to send me e-mail please send it to this address since i will not be able to check my main account while i am over here.

we are still trying to decide if we are going to stay in amsterdam tomorrow to take in a bit more of the local cultrure and such, or if we are going to split town and try to find more fun before we return here.

sleep came easily enough and today found us at the airport catching a flight for england. london feels really different then amsterdam. more pretention in the air. more things that i recognize. definitly faster paced. dinner was good (if expensive) but considering the food in amsterdam, a nice change.

attmepting now to finalize plans for new years, trying to figure out where on earth we are going to go. tomorrow is going to be an attempt to take in some of the tourist stuff and get a good selection of pictures. i have been remembering to take them, but most of them are turning out to be buildings. since amsterdam will be visited again, i will attempt to get some photos of the more interesting parts (like the red light district) before we leave town.

phone number is the same, the europeans definatly have that part right.

oh and my phone number is different again. 044 7876326397.

the other day i was taking care of a ticket that i got last month for turning left where there was a sign saying that i shouldn't and saw a pretty interesting sign at the orange county courthouse. it read "this building is dedicated to the use of the citizens of orange county." while i know what they are trying to say here, i could not help but laugh.

amsterdam was a really interesting stop on the trip. yes, smoking pot is legal in the city. yes prostitution is legal. no, the clubs are not any good (at least the two we visited on the night we went out). essentially, "natural" drugs are legal. this essentially means pot, hash, and mushrooms. harder drugs are quite illegal as are club drugs. the coffee houses varied in decor from places that look like friday's to places that look like coffee shops. i guess people like different things.

the red light district turned out to be a bit more of a let down than i thought it would be. it was interesting to see though. walking through alleys with sliding glass doors with women in bras and panties. the areas of the red light district seemed to be laid out based on taste. you like older women, this area, asian women, that one. strange all the same.

i liked amsterdam. the feel of it reminded me of seattle and the weather was no objection to that similar feeling. chill, laid back. a good place to start a trip.

more later...

EDIT: i lied. put up a picture of me that marek took while in paris. call me vain.

the other night i was talking to marek and i told him that i was nostolgic for insomnia. to which he noted that i was probably thinking about the state where i want to stay up late at night working on something interesting. the state of being interested. given the kind of things that i was working on the last couple of weeks at work, it is no suprise that i felt that way. fortunatly for me, work is now back to being interesting, which is a very good thing.

stress comes from multiple angles right now. work is taxing, but not eating up that many hours of the day. we are crunching a bit here and there, but overall, something has certainly changed this year and thus far things are really going quite well.

the majority of my stress comes from what everyday is looking less and less like a house hunt and more like a loft hunt. right now, melissa and i are considering a loft apartment near downtown. the concept is aluring, i mean, i have wanted to live in a loft-style dwelling for years. i was looking for them when i moved here, and couldn't find anything. well, this company has renovated a building into 20 units across the second and third floors. they are not all that large, but the units on the third floor sport 15-20 foot ceilings, more than enough to accomidate a loft-within-loft for the bedroom (or bedspace) as it were. one of the more interesting parts of this idea is the fact that we would be designing and having the space built out to our spec, and the floors are concrete.

so this is adult-type stress, something that i don't really like. it makes me feel older than i feel most of the other times in my life. i mean my work is making games, and i will always be as a kid in how i deal with other people (declaring "i'm a ninja" despite evidence to the contrary). and of course, my fixating personality does nothing to aid in this, but i know that it is the right time and with the right person to be making these kinds of decisions. now to make it all come together.

step 1: get the details worked out.
step 2: all the rest.

-=grins=-

but man, no lawn work? c'mon!

step 2: finish the finance paperwork.
step 3: get a contract that allows us to do what we want with the space and come in under what we want to spend.

beware olde town brokers in orlando. i have never left a negotiation with such a distaste for the way it was handled.

i am very excited.

when we entered the theatre i was suprised. 2 people had out laptops, one watching another movie, the other was doing some modeling in max (i think). we ended up sitting near the top of the theatre and looking down i saw no fewer than 2 gameboys and 30 celphones all playing games, surfing the internet and doing other tech/geek things.

this probably should come as no suprise to me, opening night for a movie like X2 was bound to bring out the people who love their tech, but i was a bit suprised all the same. we love our gadgets and they are becoming more and more a part of our lives.

this week is going to be killer at work, but at least the stress of moving is over. now the stress of finishing settling in and getting used to all of the stuff that homeowners deal with is on my agenda.

the house is coming along nicely. one of the major sticking points right now is getting together the money to do the decorating. melissa started a new job yesterday which should help to expedite the process, but the two weeks off for the move (a wonderful thing in all respects), set up back a little on that plan. not any major issue though, we are taking our time, and things will come together as they do.

the house has provided me with endless distraction. i think that at this point, the newness of always having a project that you can work on is still working my my advantage. i like painting and mowing and hanging shelves in the garage. i am not sure that i will enjoy any of these things come mid-alpha when it has been a month since i had a day that didn't include more that 12 hours at my desk at work.

i like working with my hands, and the new living situation is providing that in spades in all respects.

not that it mattered to me, i like pain.

the other day, the conversation went something like this:
riding mopeds to work.
2-stroke engines.
oil changes on 2-stroke engines.
scented oil for 2-stroke engines.
riding around on a powder blue moped that has exaust smelling like flowers.
being run off the road for just being too damn silly.

did you see what i have been working on for the last year? i don't like sports games. i don't really like sports, but i like this game. grab a couple of friends and some beers and play some ball, or at least get out there in january and buy it. do it, you know you want to. well, probably not, but it would make me happy.

the car remains an issue. this week should be when i eather get resolution on it, or that i get to get a lawyer. i don't want to get a lawyer. i just want to be happy.

i checked the other day, and it would appear that all of my underwear are still made in china.

so back in the day, i had given up on the first person shooter (FPS) genre of video games. too much of the same, new graphics, but nothing at all revolutionary. then tribes came out and i was sucked back in. well tribes 2 sucked. period, let me down sucked. then one of the tribes producers went out and worked on this game called planetside. tribes as it was meant to be massively multiplayer FPS. yummy big as hell fights, vehicles and the like. of course like all games, we will see if this one can continue to hold my interest. it has already begun to fade in my mind.

and i will post again soon. or maybe not. whatever.

so i started getting a bit anxious to get back into the swing of things at work. i have another week off, however. not that i am complaning a bit. i need the break, and when i get back i know that i will be very, VERY ready to start up again.

in my free time around the house, i have been playing a couple of games that i got for christmas. final fantasy tactics advance is wonderful on my new gba sp. and uru has made me fall in love with the myst universe all over again. while surfing around the uru website forums, i can across a reference to something that i had not heard of before, geocaching.

back in 2000 when clinton made GPS technology available to the public, people started using it for backpacking and general land navigation. in celebration, the first cache was placed, and within 3 days visited by 2 different people. the sport of geocaching has its roots in an activity called letterboxing. letterboxing worked by placing stamps in special boxes. people sought out the boxes and placed the stamp on their own logbook, and in the logbook in the box indicating that they had been there.

geocaching works very much the same except the contents of the cache are not limited to stamps. in addition the the fun of finding hidden boxes based solely on GPS coordinates, some caches contain items for the finder to take. the only provision for taking an item is leaving an item. sometimes these items are not trinkets, but special travel bugs with identification information that allows them to be tracked as they travel from cache to cache.

so melissa and i are going to go out tomorrow and try to find a cache or two. i went out today to get the hang of using the GPS itself and found it really a pleasure to use. so much in fact that i spent a little over an hour walking around playing with it. i covered a little over 2 miles and had a wonderful time. my legs hurt a little bit, need to remember to stretch. if you are at all interested in geocaching, check out the geocaching web site. very cool stuff IMO.

i intened to get some sleep early today, and figured that i would considering how much exercise i got today, but alas it is now past 3:00 and i am just about to crash. i need to get my sleep cycle moved back around before i start back at work in a week. alas, my silly body.

i have gotten old. one of the more exciting things that i have going on is the quality of my front lawn. it is lush and green and very much alive. i take care of it, and like walking around it in. the house has extended my perspective. being in my relationship with melissa has extended my perspective. i think on the order of years these days. five years is not that far off. it is off.

the invader zim (flash required) dvds are on their way out. very good stuff, very funny.

if you have not gone out and purchased the firefly dvds, you must go and do so now. for those of you in the dark about this series, take joss wheadon (creator of tv series buffy, angel) and let him go make a show merging the old west and space. incredible writing, outstanding acting, beautiful sets and wonderful camera work. wonderful stuff that was cut off after only 13 episodes. they are working on getting a movie together my only hope is that the movie makes the series come back to tv. there are so many stories yet to tell.

been playing eve online. interesting MMORPG that does space so much better than earth and beyond ever did. and EB is an EA game, so i should say that i support it. nice slow gameplay. good economy model.

i was hoping that uru had legs as an online game, alas no. if you played the myst games it is wonderfuly done. read the myst books and play the games. very well executed universe.

if you feel like some anime, hit up the fullmetal alchemist episodes availible via bittorrent. i recomend azureus as it is my client of choice.

enough links, not enough sleep.

last year, magic money was part of the downpayment on melissa's and my wonderful house. this year, part of it went to a little more "recreational" expense.

i have been building my own computers since i was in college. back then the pickings for high performance and affordable machines was pretty much, well... no one had what we wanted. being an AMD guy, the pickings were even smaller. couple all of that with working in a department (and for a boss) who pinched every penny and you built your own stuff.

after my last experience building my own machine (there is a ton of stuff about it in the archives), i have pretty much decided that i am tired of it. back in school, i had an office with a bench and tons of spare parts. now, i don't and i certainly don't have the time anymore to mess around trying to figure out driver conflicts or best configuration for performance.

don't get me wrong, i still do my research. i still look at the numbers and try and understand if i should or should not be an early adopter of technology. i just don't want to have to deal with the crap of putting it all together. i want my computer to be like a sports car, fast and fun, but with a contract that makes someone else fix it when it breaks.

to that end, i spent too much money the other day on one of these. and this time, i decided to be patent and wait on the new NVIDIA 6800 video card. so i will be bleeding edge for about a week and then i should be good for another couple of years.

the lead time on this is something like 30 days. bah, i want my new toy now.

for the last two weeks i have been sporting a sore shoulder. i thought that it was a pinched nerve, but at this point i have no idea. when i wake up in the morning i can barely move my arm. by the end of the day it is better, but still really sore. i can type and mouse and drive, but the rotation of my arm hurts like hell. i have a doctors appointment on wednesday to have someone look at it (and get my first physical in some years).

but i didn't post that to bitch. i posted that so that i could talk about how much being in pain (and having to adjust to not using your primary arm) can mess with you. my father was in a car accident a few months ago and broke his collarbone. his arm was immobalized for several weeks and he talked about how that drove him crazy. i am already favoring my arm, my posture has changed to take stress of that side of my body. i am already using my left hand more. it is strange how quickly your body adjusts to things like this.

last weekend we painted the living room. i am going to get on getting some new pictures up in the images section of the webpage.

it is interesting to come in the office (or to still be in the office more accurately) at night after almost everyone has left. the place is very quiet, and appreciably cooler than during the day. this is due in no small part to the amount of equipment that obidently goes to sleep, like its operator, for the night. i waver in these nightime hours between incredibly productive and distracted by the lack of distractions. alas, i get a ton of work done all the same at night.

learning some of the things necessary to complete the current task i am working on at work has done quite a bit to calm my nerves about being unprepared for changes in my job. despite the fact that i am working on a good deal of code that is quite foreign to me, i am figuring it out rather quickly and making progress (still behind for the milestone, but in good shape). a long week this week and next should leave me in a position not to explode. which is a nice change.

and i was quite serious about trying to write more. posting to this forum is a thereputic experience for me, that and i miss the people in my mind that read it.

these are crazy days with my mind wondering (worrying?) about the future and just how i intend to implement a color quanitization algorithm.

having just finished an interview of this type, i have to say that it can be a little overwelming. i was unsure on some of my answers, sure about others and left not knowing at all how it went. fortunatly, in the next 24-48 hours (it is always 24-48 hours) i will know if i did well, or if i managed to land flat on my face. given the studio that i talked to, i can honestly say that i have absolutly no idea.

and someone seems to be spamming my blog lately. easy if not annoying to remove. if i posted more often, i might implement some kind of login system, but i really don't care all that much.

and work stress, ick.

alive, well, no power.

monday started me back to work. i am behind, but at least home is back to normal. talk about perspective.

i have had a wonderful year the last year, but in my dream the prospect of having to do it all again was quite disturbing. i thought about how i was not happy at all with the prospect of having to final street, and deal with house stuff again. i am not sure why this bothers me so much, but i think that i will have to give more consideration as to why each day seems more like work and less like something that i would gladly do over again.

i imagine that some of it has to do with the fact that i am busy going alpha at work and a 16 hour day has a tendency to take a good deal more out of you than you expect. maybe i will have more to say about this when i have time to give it more thought.

for the last couple of days it looked like it was going to be incredibly bad for us (even inland here in orlando). the newest models are weakening the storm considerably, and the major concern for most people now is flooding as it looks like we are going to have major rain for the next 48 hours. of course, charlie was supposed to miss us altogether so we are not out of the water yet, but i am feeling a lot more prepared.

this time we have secured a generator to keep the fridge running (no $200 outlay to restock) and we are really ready for this one both in terms of supplies, and in spirit. if i loose power again, i will not be able to post to this webpage, but i will once i get back with power.

i hope that everyone has a wonderful labor day weekend. i know that i am likely to be laboring out in the lawn on monday. -=smiles=-

it is interesting all of the weather news that we get locally, all kinds of coverage. some amazing people doing good work to keep everyone in the loop as to what is going on.

the feeder bands that come through being tons of rain and bursts of wind. then they leave. every time one comes through, we count on power going out. we have had 4 little spikes so far, but we are running pretty stable for now. we are counting on loosing it sooner rather than later although we hope that we don't (of course).

if we keep power, i will post again soon.

not sure how much sleep i am going to get tonight and into tomorrow. i imagine that if the power manages to stay on, i will be up all night and will post again (in a much more amusing state of mind). if the power goes out, well, i doubt that i will get much sleep if that happens, but i won't be able to post.

melissa and i have been making pretty heavy use of the split screen on the tv, with news on both screens, or news on one and panel de pon (tetris attack) on the other, or adult swim or something else on to take our minds off the weather while waiting for the next feeder band to come through.

it is a waiting game more than anything else at this point. i am not really worried about my house flooding or about the winds doing any direct damage. i have concerns over my neighbor's tree (one that was damaged by charlie), but thus far it has stayed intact, and the winds favorable to not hitting our house if decides to come down.

but for now the waiting is killing me more than anything else. my internal clock is set by the national weather service. major updates are at 5 and 11 both am and pm, with suplementary updates at 8 and 2. not that it really matters much anymore with the eye coming on shore, everything i need comes from the local weather.

i need a nap, i have been up for a while and i didn't sleep well last night. go figure.

not sure if anyone is trying to keep up with me right now, but power permitting, i will probably post sometime around 2:30-3:00.

the weather forcast is for more rain today. so it looks like another day around the house. i don't idle well. at least the wind is down today. i am not constantly looking outside the window to see if the neighbor's tree is making plans to visit my roof.

as of this morning, ivan is a beast. it is a cat 5 hurricane (big as hell) with winds estimated at a sustained 160mph. some recon data indicated packets of wind in excess of 200mph (essentially a borderline F4 tornado). if a storm this size was to make landfall it could easily scour the land much like the larger tornados do. the bright side of the current intensity is that storms have a very difficult time sustaining themselves at this strength, so weakening is likely. also, the interaction with the landmass of cuba and the cooler waters that it would go through before hitting florida could shave some strength off this monster.

jamacca is in a very bad place right now and if it even takes a glancing blow, it is likely to have some major cleanup to do. my thoughts go out to all of the people down there as they brace for a hit.

update 1: on september 25 melissa and i got engaged.
update 2: melissa had 2 plates and 11 pins removed from her arm after 17 years.
update 3: NFL Street 2 is done and is shipping on december 26th.
update 4: i am 2 weeks into a 6 week vacation.

other than that i am doing stuff around the house, taking care of melissa while she recovers from her surgery and playing world of warcraft. vacation is wonderful.

i was ready for my return to the office and am glad to be back at work, despite the fact that i really don't have any work to do right now. i am going through and talking to people and talking about high-level concepts and designs, but other than that not a whole lot.

so much is new, but so much is just as it was when i left, which i guess is a good thing. too many changes would drive me crazy anyway.

i have to say that this is a major step up in terms of driving performance and fun. naturally asperated V6 delevering 240HP and 230'ish FP of torque to an all wheel drive platform that is practical is pretty fun. the car drives and sounds amazing. i cannot wait to get it tinted and do a couple more things to it.

Since 2000, California labor law has exempted some professionals in the software industry from overtime regulations. Companies do not have to pay workers overtime if they make more than $41 an hour and engage in advanced work that is creative or intellectual in nature.

Hasty's lawyers contend that Electronic Arts' software engineers should be eligible for overtime because they "do not perform work that is original or creative," have no management responsibilities and are seldom allowed to use their own judgment.

wow, this guy has a crappy job. my work everyday is creative and original. i am counted on to use my own judgement. i hope this guy realizes that it is these lawsuits that are going to do more damage than good as we try as a company to improve work-life balance.

san fransisco was a pretty amazing place to get to visit though. i cannot wait to go back there and spend more time exploring the city and seeing the sights. i am sure that melissa can't wait to hit up all of the stores there, the amount of shopping near the convention was a bit mind boggling. of course, if she had been with me this time, she would have ended up laid up in the hotel most of the time sporting her particular variety of walking pneumonia.

went to see batman begins tonight with the company. i enjoyed it and would say that it is worth checking out. the serenity trailer was on before it. i am going to get a sneak peek of that one next week. if it is 10% of what the show was, it will be one of the best sci-fi movies ever made.

updating the old resume is always interesting. i have reached the point in my experience where i am having to pull things off the page and consolidate my work on the various projects i have shipped. it is always interesting to think that there are millions of people out there who have had their consoles run my code.

in my mind the thought that more time is spent playing madden on the first day it is out there is greater than the time that was spent making it (by a lot) is funny. we are an industry that encourages entropy. a more angsty me would find that really appropriate.

i treated myself to a bit of a treat for the trip. i finally own a good camera. i purchased a nikon d50 digital SLR. it is really amazing and i am already excited about learning how to use it to take real photographs instead of just taking pictures.

in preperation for the number of pictures that i am going to take on the trip, and my laziness for updating photos on the webpage, i found a cool little program called JAlbum that is a little java application for creating photo galleries. i used to to update the seattle 1999 photos that were on the site before i updated. i plan to go back through and update the other pages when i get back, but i will be updating the site with photos while i am on the trip, or at least that is the plan.

and that is all there is to say about all of that.

my father made a funny at the rehersal dinner and said some wonderful things. both of them did an outstanding job with the arrangements for today.

melissa meanwhile has been amazing. this day is going to be really special and wonderful for the both of us. in fact, i am pretty sure that this day is enough to make me eat the words of the first paragraph.

i would still take the latter.

so it has been a really long time since i posted and there are always good reasons surrounding that happening. the first reason was melissa and i were off to san francisco, having just gotten married. the second reason was, well, more complicated.

back in may of last year, i started looking for a new job. things at EA had reached a point where i just couldn't feel happy with staying there. this really tore me up inside since those people i worked with there were as much my family anyone in my traditional family.

i was slated to leave orlando and move to austin to start work at midway studios working on central tools and technology for them. about 2 weeks before i was scheduled to start, i get a call from retro studios based on a referal they were conducting. they mentioned that they would like to talk to me, to which i answered that i had already accepted another offer, to which they said, well would you talk to us anyway?

since i was relocating to austin (retro is in austin) i didn't figure that there was any real harm in talking to them. it is always good to have a name with the face in case the situation were to change. so, one day before i am supposed to be starting my new job with midway, i am out at retro doing an onsite. this led to "an offer that i couldn't refuse" and my starting at retro on the day that i was scheduled to start at midway.

needless to say this situation has been a bit stressful. what i can say about what i am working on is, "I am working on Metroid Prime 3 for the launch of the Nintendo Revolution console." this is really exciting stuff.

after having been away from tiburon for a little while, i think that i realized something about my drift from game development into tools development. i really wasn't interested in the games i was working on so tools were a good chalange and fit for me. when i started here at retro, they were exited to have someone else interested in working on tools. after a couple of days of work on my first task, i think that i could really get a kick out of staying working on game code. go figure.

like i mentioned in the first line of this post, the worst part about all of this is being away from melissa. that part of all of this tears me up. i don't sleep well, and i feel generally depressed about things outside of work. i will be returning to orlando a week from friday for the christmas break. which will be wonderful and nice and i cannot wait to be with my love again.

1.) melissa and i got married on October 14th.
2.) I quit EA.
3.) i accepted an offer at midway.
4.) got snaked by retro studios the day before i was to start at midway.
5.) moved to austin, melissa stayed in florida with the house and cats and stuffs.
6.) found a house in austin.
7.) sold the house in florida.
8.) melissa moved to austin with cats and stuffs.

that is the important stuff. out.

when i get around to running for public office i will take it as my responsibility to provide justification for all of my votes, so that there are not so many people (like me right now) sitting watching what i do and wondering why i am doing it.

now i just hope that the stability is there.

so i went out to play disc golf with danny, patrick and lance this weekend and had a great time. i intend to make it a weekend thing, just walking around the park throwing synthetics at metal baskets. nice.

i also found out that they play kickball in the park near my house every sunday afternoon. next weekend i want to go and take some pictures.

-=EDIT=- Fixed spelling.

i am doing better i have to say. my last project at work was rough on my mind and body, to say nothing of my family and my health. it took me a long while to have my head become clear and leave me feeling like i was anything close to normal.

i quit smoking 16 days ago. this did nothing to encourage my brain or body to feel good. i suffered little in terms of physical symptoms, i didn't really develop a cough, my head did not ache or any of that. i did get depressed, and to some extent am still a bit depressed, but i made it though the weekend despite some insanity and i am feeling pretty good about things in general. i am hoping that i am starting to turn the corner. this is one of the most difficult things that i have ever done.

for what seems like one time too many, but at least one more time, i hearby declare myself not-dead.

so Ryan signed up to take a motorcycle training class and mentioned it to me. this instigated me finally getting off of my ass and signing up to take the class too. i have wanted to learn to ride for a really long time and so now i am finally taking the first steps to do that.

my idea as to what me riding a motorcycle means has been evolving over the last couple of weeks. one of the driving forces encouraging me to get a bike is the cost of operating a motor vehicle these days. the $50 tank of gas in my small car now is a $55 tank with no indication of this changing any time soon. even with me doing things like turning off my car at lights and everything else to get better fuel economy, i am still only averaging 20-22 miles per gallon. there are days now that i really miss my 1.8 liter engine, much less how much i miss my 1.9 liter diesel.

so i was supposed to start my motorcycle training class today, but that got messed up due to a computer scheduling glitch. then i was supposed to start next week, but that got messed up due to some function taking over the parking lot where they do the class. now i am all signed up for the 12th of June, but that seems so far away. i guess i am impatient to start my class so i can find out that i love riding (which seems inevitable based on talking to people) and find a bike of my own and start riding.

oh well, i guess it just leaves me more time to do more research.

i managed to get as much sleep as i wanted on sunday night. i was dozing off on the couch around 9:00 and really didn't make it out of the bed until around 8:30 on monday. the dark rings under my eyes indicated a good amount of rest. i felt much better.

memorial day had melissa and i out to see iron man which was very enjoyable. afterwards we ran a few errands before i headed over to ryan's house to check out his new motorcycle (BMW F650GS). he is a very generous friend as he allowed me to ride around in his condo complex. i was worried about how hard it would be to get in gear and how comfortable I would feel on it. but i have to say that i am completely hooked.

it was a lot easier to perform the basics on the bike than i thought prior to riding. but i must be clear here and say that it is by no means easy. keeping straight the gear, clutch, breaking, signals, other cars around you, balance in the turn, all of it is very different than even riding a bicycle. it compels you to stay focused and stay safe. i cannot wait until my class, although that too may have to wait a bit longer. i had planned to spend father's day with my father (makes sense) which is when i am scheduled for class. i should know what is going on today and we shall go from there.

turns out my dad has a camping trip that will keep him busy father's day weekend. so we will celebrate the next weekend. i get to go to class and learn more about motorcycling. i am very excited.

melissa and i are off to atlanta for a wedding and familial visitation. yea atlanta in june...

so a few weeks ago i attended a Motorcycle Safety Foundation course to begin my training on operating a motor vehicle that is missing a couple of wheels. i successfully completed the course (more on that later) and was issues a license to operate a motorcycle a week ago monday. every day since, i have had or made a reason to ride putting on over 200 miles in less than 2 weeks.

in order to ride, one must have one. in my case this is a buell blast, a bike manufactured by Harley-Davidson and the bike used in their Rider's Edge motorcycle instruction program. The Blast is not a fast motorcycle. It is a 500cc single cylinder "thumper" that has an aftermarket "exhaust" which sounds like little more than a can on the end of a straight pipe. i wear ear plugs when i ride.

today i dropped the bike performing a quick stop in a parking lot. my fault, i had not completed rechecking oncoming traffic before starting my turn. i should have had the bike straight before i got on the brakes and as a result the bike went down. even at ~330 pounds, it still was surprisingly hard to get back upright, but i managed, and only a couple of cosmetic scratches on some of the plastic parts that i was planning on painting over the next couple of weeks anyway.

i was happy to have dropped the bike. it happens to everyone. i learned what i did wrong. it was a good experience. no real damage done, lessons learned all around. as most people who i have talked to (or read online) say, "it is not a matter of if you will drop your bike, it is a matter of when." today was my when.

so the MSF class is 6 hours of classroom and 10 hours on bike instruction. the course material is interesting, the instructors were great. it is not enough instruction for new riders. i had read before going into the class that there were some concerns over the last couple of years that the quality of the instruction has become tailored to the lowest common denominator. i am inclined to agree. i needed more time on a bike in an instructional setting. instead i am having to learn more in parking lots and on surface streets. i am careful, but today's experience might have been avoided with a little more instruction.

by the way, i love it.