Category Archives: Personal Life

The Title is Often the Hardest Part

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It’s true. Coming up with a reasonable title is far more of a pain in the ass than just rambling on about my life. Mostly because I generally don’t really know what I’ll be writing about when I sit down, just a general sense of things and a vague notion that writing something might be a good idea. Today, I’m going to open by saying my nice shiny new replacement keyboard, the third on this less-than-a-year-old laptop, has a borked ‘B’ key. It’s not unusable, but I do have to pay attention to my writing to make sure it registers, and have to hit the key pretty hard. For the record, this laptop has given me more troubles than all my other computers combined (my 15″ 800MHz Powerbook might give it a run for its money, but that was also across 3-4 years of HARD use). I still recommend the line, I know this is just a string of bad luck, and they’ve been very responsive to my issues, but damn is it frustrating.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about what I’m doing for the next few days, concerning New Years and all that. Without getting too cryptic nor too personal, what I would like to have happen isn’t going to happen (I’d give it about a .0001% chance), and so I’m very much of the sentiment of going wandering for a few days to a week. I don’t know where I’d go, maybe south, maybe west. I’ve been feeling the wanderlust incredibly badly for a while now, and in fact was strongly considering wandering off back when I broke up with Erica at the beginning of September. I was asked not to go, and so I stuck around, because I’m a sap and like to feel wanted. I don’t really have that motivation anymore (unlucky at cards, unlucky at other things), and so the wanderlust is back in full force (it even brought reinforcements). If I were in a slightly better situation for doing so, the idea of taking off for an extended period and working as a freelance writer/photographer is immensely appealing. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to disappear off the radar, if only temporarily.

I still haven’t really decided whether I’m taking off tomorrow or not, but if I do, I may miss a few days, or have only some short posts, or have them delayed (or conversely, I may find wireless and muses wherever I end up going, and start writing profound, beautiful, lengthy entries every day). Just fair warning, since I really would like to keep up this regular posting thing, and would like to build a level of trust with the readers I have that they can expect a new entry from me on a regular basis. (For the record, if anyone is curious as to how many readers I actually have, Google Analytics records an average of roughly 30 unique visitors a day, with a total of roughly 300 uniques a month. Broken down a bit more, this means I have maybe 20-25 regular readers, and then a chunk of people who get referred by search engines or a link in a comment or forum post or by another post linking to me, but don’t really stick around. This doesn’t touch AT ALL on people reading via feeds, but still, I am what would be called small potatoes.) Regardless of whether I post much or not, I do still plan on finding a way to launch my new project on the 1st, so I’ll at least be making a quick post about that. If the 1st is the first time I get to post though, let me say in advance, Happy New Years! I hope it’s a great time for everyone, and heralds a new year full of love, growth, and happiness.

The Half Moon Hung Low Tonight

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I spent the evening out with Mike and Mariah, driving around and chatting. They were both pretty tired, so it was a pretty mellow chat. Still, it was nice to see them, as it’s been a while since I really went and hung out. The holidays are an excuse, since nothing is open and/or it’s absolutely crazy in the commercial districts, but mostly I’ve just been hiding out at home. Sometimes it’s good to do that. And sometimes it just makes you insane.

After dropping my two cohorts off, I wandered into Hanover and hung out in my car, leeching bandwidth in front of the closed-for-the-holidays Hopkins Center to get some work done that really properly needed bandwidth to complete with any semblance of speed. I finally got around to catching some videoblogs I’d been meaning to catch, notably Sexerati’s Future of Sex video blog, put together by the lovely Melissa Gira (who, upon reading, sounds like an incredibly interesting and cool person that I’d love to sit and talk with). I first found Sexerati through Warren Ellis’s blog, and have been pleased with the posts on it thus far… for the sex nerds among you, I’d definitely suggest checking it out. (And if you’re curious but worried of being scandalized, don’t be: it’s geeking out about sex, not sex itself, ie there’s no porn or anything.)

Now I’m back home, because my battery was low and I didn’t want to dig out the inverter just to sit in my car and browse the internet, though I’ve been known to do similar before. I’ve actually been thinking a lot about finding a way to essentially live out of my car for a while, and just take off wandering. Realistically at this point there are very few places you can go where you can’t find a wireless network within a reasonable distance (if you know where to look), so I could even continue to work on things and stay in touch and just roam around for a while, do some writing and some photography. The main issue is that I can’t really afford to do that right now, because of already existing bills. Still, think positively and a way will open itself up. I know there are a lot of freelance photographers and writers who do exactly this, the question is how to get into that loop.

I’ve missed my goal of posting today, but only by maybe half an hour, so let’s all pretend this was posted on the 27th, shall we? I don’t feel like modding the timestamp for something as silly as that. (Really, the only time I modify timestamps is when I’m using it as a method to write posts in advance… which doesn’t happen often, but may in the future.) As I’m sure some of you might have guessed, I’m trying to do the whole “post every day” thing, but I don’t want to jinx it by calling it a goal or a resolution or anything. It’s not an exercise or a project, it just is what it is.

Wrapping things up, a few other things I wanted to point out: 1) my friend Dano has a new site up: http://www.thedano.net, so go check it out when you have a chance; 2) a Battlestar Galactica pen’n’paper RPG game was just announced, done by the same folks who did the Serenity RPG, for those who might find that nifty; 3) in the tidal wave of social networking sites (I’m on linkedin, facebook, myspace, friendster, orkut, okcupid, gdconnect… *thinks*), I just added yet another, called Consumating, found through Sexerati, because it sounded like a neat idea (if higher maintenance than some of the others). I’m still not entirely sure what I’m going to do with it, since (barring a very small select few) I’m not really looking for a relationship (or casual flings) right now. (If you’re wondering if you’re that small select few, you’re probably not, since I’m pretty sure the ones I’m interested in already know I’m interested in them. I’m not one to beat around the bush, for better or worse.)

That offer of heading to wherever I’m invited for New Years still stands, though we’re fast approaching the cutoff date for heading to the west coast and still making it in time (it’s already kinda pushing it). Failing that, I may just go wandering and see where I end up. (And before you say “Hey, I thought you were broke,” I am broke, however if you’re willing to camp or sleep in your car, you can travel for remarkably little money. I find it’s also a productive time for me, in terms of resetting myself and having time to process ideas, feelings, stress, etc… the wander down to the Cape was remarkably cathartic on a really low level that I’m only starting to become aware of now.)

Television as an Update

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The television is on at the moment, and Carlos Mencia is on, doing his shtick. He promised to answer any woman’s question about guys honestly… he was asked “Why are guys dicks?” His response was: “Because you only f*ck dicks.” He goes on to explain that the nice guys, the ones who’ll stick by you forever and are devoted and loving, get dropped and ignored. I wouldn’t go so far as to say always, but I do agree that it happens that way a hell of a lot. I’m not really going anywhere with this, it was just on.

I meant to post yesterday, but I ended up finding myself thoroughly engrossed studying the fabricated mythos developed for the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. I’m a latecomer to the show (some have even said they’ve already jumped the shark), but I’ve been enjoying what I’ve caught so far. Sooner or later, I’d like to pick up the DVD sets, but I can’t quite justify it yet. That whole “spend money once you’ve got some rather than before” thing.

I’ve also caught a few episodes of Scrubs lately, pretty fun stuff. As a random sort of “six degrees”: the actress who plays Elliot in the show also played Becky in Roseanne. The other actress who played Becky on Roseanne went to school with my ex-wife. And thus, connections! Or something. Guess what that means? Absolutely nothing! Which is sort of the point. I’ve been watching a bit more television over the past few weeks, and my opinion of it hasn’t really changed: it’s largely meaningless cruft, but sometimes entertaining or engaging. My general rule of thumb is that if it’s on, I’ll watch, but I’m not really inclined to turn it on myself. If I want to watch something, I’ll grab a DVD, or (when I have broadband available) find what random niftiness is happening with YouTube, or Homestar Runner, or Red vs Blue, or Weebl.

I’m still on track for a launch on the 1st. Other than that, another non-day. I’m more than a little stircrazy… if someone invited me to come visit for New Years, I’d probably take them up on it… and I don’t mean around here. C’mon west coasters, southerners, mid-westers, give me an excuse to get the heck out of Dodge.

Of Web Design and Writing

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Let me say for the record that web design and writing copy don’t mix. Maybe they do for other people, but for me, it’s totally a change of gears and a derailment. This is, of course, my way of saying that I spent this afternoon and evening working on the website for this “undisclosed project” of mine. I’m keeping the design as braindead simple as possible… small footprint, easy design. But the text in it is just filler cruft. Tomorrow, hopefully I’ll be up for sitting and writing some snappy copy for this thing.

All in all, a pretty mellow Christmas Eve. Had brunch at Shryl’s Diner, and then dinner at home… about the extent of activity I’ve really done today is taking a walk with the dog. I’m not feeling too badly about that… I must admit, mucking with html and css is a guilty pleasure of mine, and can happily sit and fardle with it for hours at a time. It’s when I have to start fiddling with javascript or php et al that I start having conniptions.

Happy Humbug to everyone!

Caution: Contents Under Pressure

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There are currently 375 posts, 303 comments, contained within 13 categories. If I’d been writing daily, that would mean I’d started a little over a year ago. The reality is that I started writing a blog back in 2002ish, so we’re fast approaching year five. How novel would it be to actually post SOMETHING every day? Would readership increase, or would it drop off from people getting bored with what would inevitably be a lot of “neat link!” posts. I’m not going to set it as a goal… yet. Need to think about things some more. I went back through and reread all the posts a little while ago. A lot of the links need fixing, but the non-link posts (ie the ones with actual writing) are still reasonable. Not sure how many people have actually read the whole blog… I imagine it’s a relatively small percentage. I know I’m guilty of picking up on a blog basically from when I find it onwards and not hitting up the archives as often as I should. I’ve started slowly going through the blogs and journals I read regularly and starting from the beginning, so those of you who’ve bothered letting me know about your sites, you’ve been warned. It’s going to take a while though, dialup is le suck.

I’ve got a new project that I aim to have up and running by Jan 1, 2007. I’m not saying what it is quite yet, though some of you that I’ve chatted with recently probably already know what I’m talking about. But yes, it goes live with the new year. That gives me… well, essentially 7 days to get everything ready for it. Plenty of time, I’m sure, as long as I keep motivated on it.

That really is the hingepoint of most of the things in my life right now: if I keep motivated, it’ll work out. I won’t say all things in my life, of course. When it comes to romance, it takes two to tango, after all. Trying to remain positive about everything, though. There’s this undisclosed project I mentioned, and then it turns out my timing for the approach about the game design major was good, and so something may still come of that (not in a “hold your breath” sort of way, but in the “still worth pursuing that avenue of inquiry” sort of way). I’ll be attending the Apple Leopard Tech Talk in January in Boston, which I’m really looking forward to, and it also has given me a firm “not leaving the area until at least” date to base any other plans on, which is good. I’m sending out resumes again, following a brief “what the heck am I doing with myself” period where I wasn’t. So, yeah, thinking positively.

Doing some digging around for information for a friend of mine, I found out my college alma mater is going to be listed in the US News and World Reports 2007 best schools, so that’s cool. Nice to know it’s getting some recognition, considering how often I have to explain it to people. “Yes, it’s off campus. No, it’s not a correspondence course. Yes, it IS accredited. Yes, you DO design your own coursework. It’s based off a Socratic pedagogy. No, I’m NOT making this up.” Grargh. It’s the sort of program that I think would be a lot more popular if a) more people knew about it, and b) if there was an easy way to actually explain the program to people. Once you do it even once, you say “Oh, neat, now I get it!” but until then, you just have to “trust the process” as they say, and that’s not exactly an easy way to get people to enroll and spend money with your school.

Christmas is in two days. This doesn’t mean much to me, other than it might be hard finding a place to eat lunch (I think the plan is chinese buffet). I’m really hoping 2007 turns out to be an amazing year for everyone (myself included). The past few years really kicked my ass, and I’m hoping this is the year I make a comeback. Methinks sometime between now and New Years, I should actually make some (clear, measurable) goals/resolutions for myself for the coming year, and post them. Helps keep you honest when there are others out there who can pipe up and say “Hey, wait a minute, what about your goals?”

Oh, and one of the bright sides of not celebrating Christmas is that I don’t have any buying moratoriums. On that note, I picked up volume 1 of Animaniacs the other day. It’s been a few years since I last saw them, and I must say: really quality stuff, totally a worthwhile purchase.

Roaming

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I packed a bag, and told my folks that I’ll be back sometime tomorrow. Got in my car, and started driving… wandered north on 91 until I hit 93, and then followed 93 South through Boston, until I ended up in Providence. I found myself on autopilot, getting off the same exit I always did, and wandering around town before ending up in the Apple Store at the mall. The mall is full of christmas shoppers, and I’m walking around thinking to myself that I’m coming slowly unraveled. It’s been the theme of the trip, really. I had Modest Mouse on for most of the trip, and kept on picking out the recurring themes of drifting and wandering and walking a hairy hairy edge on losing your mind. “The World at Large” continues to resonate strongly with me, with its followup, “Float On” a resounding mantra for me to keep in mind, that even if things end up a bit too heavy, we’ll all float on alright.

And now the update continues the next morning. Shortly after starting this post, I got a case of the shakes, and had to go find some food, fast. It’s something that happens sometimes. After eating a delicious chicken primavera (and subsequently handing my leftovers to a homeless man on the street), I climbed back into my car, and continued to drive. I’d been thinking of staying in Providence to photograph the streets late at night, but I found myself wanting to get wandering again. There’s still a lot of pent up frustration and hurt left over from the pseudo-exile that’s been imposed by the folks down there.

I ended up wandering east down 195, until I reached Cape Cod. I wandered up the Cape, until I ended up in Provincetown, at Race Point, where I stopped for the night. I wandered around the beach in the dark for a while, and then curled up in my car until morning. I was hoping to get some sunrise shots, but it was a remarkably grey dawn, with no color to speak of. Now I’m at the Rockingham Park Apple Store, again blogging. The free wireless access is truly a godsend for the itinerant blogger.

I have commitments back home tonight, and tomorrow, and again on the 21st. It’s probably for the best that I do. Otherwise, I don’t know where I’d stop.

It’s December Again

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I have, for all intensive purposes, disappeared for the past month, notwithstanding a one liner expounding the virtues of my dog. I’m not sure who exactly is interested in what’s been going on, but I figure it’s time to get back into the swing of things nevertheless. When we last left our adventures, our intrepid explorer was about to embark on a trip southward… well, that happened. I sauntered down to Silver Spring, where I spent a few days crashing with my brother and our friend Shane, and seeing several people in the DC area. Missed Hawk, missed Katy, managed to catch up (briefly) with Scott, Kevin, Andrea, Kyle, and Elizabeth, and in general had a good time. After that, I meandered further south down to Colonial Williamsburg, VA, where I spent Thanksgiving weekend with my friend Claire and her family, who were all simply fantastic. I had a really good time wandering around them, and getting to spend time with Claire was, well, like rain in the desert: cherished and far too rare. To any of you who happen to read this: thank you for letting me tag along.

My plans to continue southward were modified a bit, and I ended up heading back north after the weekend. I spent the week at home, and for the life of me, I can’t remember anything in particular about it, which is kind of unfortunate — anyone who has talked with me for more than 20 minutes knows how much I recount little esoteric minutiae, so having gaps kind of annoys me. I do know that the week was mostly in anticipation and planning for heading south again, this time down to South Carolina with Mike, Uri, and Kyle, to attend our friend Mariah’s graduation from Basic. Perhaps it seems a little odd to drive 2000 miles for essentially 2 hours of hanging out and a 45 minute ceremony, but the point was to show our support, and get out of the area for a while at the same time, so all in all, I’d say it was well worth it.

As ever, I drove the whole way. We had several very capable drivers in the car, they even offered, but I didn’t really ever feel ready to relinquish the wheel… I enjoy the act of driving and travel too much, I suppose. Which sort of segues into my next tidbit of information: I’ll likely be moving back to Seattle sometime in early January. I don’t know precisely when, but my current idea is to leave towards the end of the first week or beginning of the second. I still don’t have a job, nor have I lined up a place to live, but sometimes a leap of faith is necessary for progress to be made.

I say that it’s “likely” because there’s another idea that I’m working on at the moment. Without getting into too many details, I’m approaching a few schools that I think would benefit from it about designing a game design major for them. The first one I’m approaching is RISD, because I feel it’s the most obvious choice, and would benefit most directly from offering such a program. If they shoot it down, I have a few others I’m considering (including home turf, Dartmouth). There are a variety of reasons I’m looking into this, a lot of which stems from feeling confident that I could put together a strong game design curriculum that would make it genuinely competitive with other programs out there. I’ve also realized that as much as I despise the politics and hoop jumping of academia, I like to learn, and I like to share that learning with others… I’ve been giving some serious thought to applying to a masters program and becoming a professor somewhere. I’ll be putting together some basic information to send to the folks at RISD sometime in the next day or two, so hopefully we’ll see what sort of response they give soon enough.

That’s what I’ve been up to, mostly. I’ve been reading fiction again, which is nice (most recently, Anansi Boys, Stardust, and Good Omens… I also picked up Light, so that’s up next on my list). I’ve been working at pulling myself up by the bootstraps to get out of a really bad funk I’ve been in for the past few months, and while it’s still something of a rollercoaster, I think progress IS being made, slowly but surely. Some people in particular have really helped me, and I hope you know who you are. Several of them (but not all) have already been mentioned in this post, as a hint. One of these days, I hope I wake up and feel good and coherent and passionate again. Waking up and feeling like I’m “back” would be amazing beyond words.

I’ve had seven heart attacks… all imagined.

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I’m not sure how long I’m going to make this post, but I did feel like it was time I gave a general update about what’s happening in my life. The short of it is that I’m at a crossroads, and it’s coming time to make a decision on what path I’m going to take.

Let me explain. As I’m sure the past string of blogposts have made abundantly clear, my job hunting has proven to have less than stellar results, leaving me out of school and unemployed for the past six months. As those of you who’ve been in extended periods of unemployment before are aware, this has been a major source of stress and frustration in my life, and a drain on my finances, which exacerbates the stress. (So I end up talking about it a lot.)

So this lack of success in finding employment has caused me to stop and take stock of what exactly it is that I’m trying to do. I mean, other than get a job because I need the money. What sort of job am I really looking for? The theory goes that I should arguably be looking for something that leads down my chosen career path… which is what, exactly? It’s currently up in the air. I could continue to pursue a career in game design and development. It can be a lucrative and rewarding career (sometimes even both), though even from my peripheral position, it is by no means a bed of roses (what is?).

The other idea that continues to come up in my thoughts again and again is the idea of finding something I can do to pay the bills four days a week, and spend the other three days writing, and pursuing a career of it. There are thousands of people trying to do just this, and it’s not exactly an easy path, with any sort of assurance of financial stability. That said, I keep on coming back to it, and have for years. I come to it, tell myself that there are other things I should focus on first, and table it. Well, maybe it’s time to not table it, but really go forward with it. That’s the crossroads… game design, or writing. There’s no reason I couldn’t switch gears later, or even (arguably) do both, but I feel like I should focus on ONE for right now, if only so I can feel like I have a bit of direction here.

Progress (or the illusion of it) is important for your sanity, I’ve found. I spent most of October in various states of isolation and seclusion, which in hindsight wasn’t the brightest move on my part. Just before starting my seclusion, I got some unneeded drama laid on my head, and all that time with nothing by my own head to live with did some serious damage. A lot of the work I’ve done over the past few years to improve some of my issues (slightly OCD, history of severe depression) has been washed away, and it’s definitely proving an uphill battle to get back to a good spot mentally and emotionally.

I’m heading south in a few days, which I’m hoping will restore some of my equilibrium. I’m heading to DC for a few days, and then will be continuing further south, until I reach… well, who knows. I’m not entirely sure when I’m heading back north. I may end up camping in the Keys for a while — I have a laptop, there’s no reason I can’t work on things while I’m gone, and no reason I can’t continue to send out resumes via coffee shops and other free wireless places down the seaboard. I’ve been going stircrazy looking for an excuse to travel, and this is as good a reason as any.

For the record, I’m not getting a Wii. I’m not getting a PS3. I’m sure they’re very good systems, and sooner or later, I’m sure I’ll make the investment. I’d certainly LIKE to, but it simply doesn’t make sense for right now. Maybe once the holiday crazes die down, and I have a job to pay for it. Best wishes to those of you who are getting them, hope they’re as fun as the hype says.

At this point, I’m kind of bouncing around in terms of topics. I had a more cohesive thought for this when I started it, but a series of variables are making that cohesion highly unlikely. There are so many things I want to say, and I don’t know when I’ll get to say them. I do want to say something, though: Thank you.

I mean it.  To each of you reading this, whether we’ve known each other for years, or have never formally met, lurkers and posters both.  For simply giving enough of a damn to come here and read, I want to thank you.  Whether you’ve just passed through, or gone back to the beginning and read it all, it means something intangible but important.  It says that even the small voice is valuable, even the personal is important, and even strangers can share common bonds.  So… yeah.  Thank you.  Thanks for reading.  Thanks for caring, even a little.  I’ll do my best to make that care well deserved.

Happy Veterans’ Day

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Regardless of whether you agree with the current actions of the military, it’s worth taking a moment to appreciate and pay your respects to those who fought and died fighting for a cause they believed in. Happy Veterans’ Day.