Enthusiasm

And so begins the joy of grinding out gear, rep, money, etc. Thanks to a short term loan from Baldun and Boddler I was able to acquire my blue windrider as well. Flying is pretty fun and I’m looking forward to just plain exploring for a while. I’m especially thankful for Hoofy, Boddler, and Baldun in their help banging out the last few levels. Now I can sit back and help others level without worrying about pressuring myself to level anymore.

Today is just plain weird. I’m getting a lot of “Grats!”, “Good for you”, “I’m happy for you”, “I’m proud of you”, “Good luck”, and after all that I also got “You suck” or “Damn you”. Some people were shocked. Some people weren’t surprised at all. Some people were just surprised about the timing. Jacob took it better than I expected, but I think the fact that I’m being flexible with them is why he’s not pissed as hell, though I’m sure he was last night when he heard the news from Brian.

Tonight I get to pee in a cup and I faxed in my signed offer letter and authorization for a background check. I also got in the last of my paperwork for school which is great. I’m pretty excited about all these life changes. The guild is really starting to stabilize now too after the BC instability that all guilds are dealing with.

Software Engineer: 50,000 full benefits, fully paid for including health, dental (have to pay for this one), vision, short term, long term, flex spending, 401K… etc, etc. Working on a team of developers for enterprise level software. School reimbursement. Flexible hours. 4 miles from home. The list goes on and on.

I put in my resignation today to Jacob and told Brian in person. Tomorrow’s going to be an interesting day. I will be celebrating this evening with my family.

Yes his name is french, but he’s Irish (long story).

Anyhow met with Tim finally after my 2 other Dolphin lunches with Mark and the other 2 coders (can’t remember their names). Tim was exciting to meet with because he and I geeked out about a lot of things that I thought were just a me thing but it’s things other coders do. One thing he told me was that he looks for extroverted geeks more than introverted. He likes people who can communicate, have a good time, and aren’t just total nerds. I like that considering a I’m a hardcore coder but I’m not a total nerd. Again half the lunch was him telling me his life story and selling me on the company. I’m really getting excited and damnit I’m not getting an offer letter today. Oh well, I’ll have to wait till tomorrow.

Sat back today and chilled with Ray doing some console gaming. We played a lot of PS3 because that’s what he’s addicted to right now and I must admit the one game were Russia developed an alien super race during World War II is ummmm creative. It has good controls and though completely unbelievable, a well presented storyline. Overall I still think the Xbox360 is a superior system and Gears of War graphically puts this other to shame. The big thing is that Graphics are graphics. Innovation in game play is what is key in the gaming world these days. Gears of war adds a lot of elements to game play that noone else has done which is what makes it a better game. Even with that at the same time it’s graphics are superior. I can’t wait for Halo 3…

Today was not only Portland HSD (Hybrid Synergy Drive) Meetup, but they were also doing a big hybrid event downtown at Pioneer Courthouse Square. The meetup was cool because we talked a lot about different things like features, compared cars, configurations, etc. There was even a Camry owner there so we got to see that one. The event downtown was neat because not only was it fact filled and entertaining but I got a flashlight that is human powered (it charges with momentum across a coil) and Kerrie got a tree planted in her name. Overall it was a fun day and I learned that there’s no real reason I should be jealous about 2007’s after talking with some of the toyota people there.

Something I didn’t write about on Wednesday and I probably should have was that I interviewed with Dolphin Software at lunch. The interview went really well and they asked me to come back for a 2nd interview today. The interview was actually at Dolphin this time (previously it was at Applebees) and I met with one of the programming leads and 2 of the developers I’d be working with if I got the job. They spent more than half the time selling me on the company and telling me about the software they make and their clients (Intel, HP, Philip Morris, 3M, you know the little guys). It was amazign to geek out with other developers for once and this is something that I’ve really been missing in my career. I will probably have another interview again on Monday or this weekend with the COO / Co-founder.

Worked more on Victor Laurence.com and I think I finally have the structure I want and have it laid out how I want it. I’ve removed a lot of the “news” parts and incorporated all of that into my “Projects” area I have setup now. I’m pretty excited about this site and I want to start getting some good content in there.

Today I launched http://www.victorlaurence.com. For those who read this blog, don’t worry I will continue to keep this up to date. My plan is for this site to be more of a personal nature and the other site to be more of a professional nature. Not emo on the other site, though as you know sometimes I’m a bit emo on this one. The other site is more about my projects, what I’m doing, progress I’m making, this site is more about my inner mind and expressing my life on a day to day basis. The other site of course won’t be updated daily were as this one I’ll continue to update daily. Sometimes the same subject matter might be discussed in both places, through I’ll put more technical details on the other site and more personal details on this one.

Did some more reading on the Garage Games Forums on Inde development and the industry as a whole. It’s kinda of neat because they have a whole section on “Game in a Day” which is dedicated to games people have written in a day. Makes me think of what kind of GID’s I want to develop to showcase my skills. I dunno, I think I might be more interested in coding some adventure game. It might take longer to code, but something longer term, something DND style. Something that takes me back to the 286 days of DND dungeons that were all about the adventure not the graphics. My brain is so filled with ideas I could sit back all day and just run the code through my head and not code anything at all and still feel like I’ve been productive. I think I might want to start putting my ideas on paper.