12 Sep 2007
Holly and I have been having a stretch of bad luck. It all started with when we ordered our new refrigerator, washer and dryer. It seemed like a good day at the time, but then things went swiftly south.
In regards to the appliances, they still aren’t all here; only the refrigerator so far. I received a call from our salesman at Trail Appliances (don’t shop there) telling me that all of the appliances were in and it was time to schedule the delivery. He wanted to have them delivered the day after my vacation ended. Well, that wasn’t an option. So it ended up that we could only get them delivered a week after that.
Then the warehouse called to confirm that they would only be delivering the refrigerator. I argued with them. I almost canceled the order all together, but we had already been waiting a month at this point. The warehouse apologized and was sorry that the salespeople had made a mistake (the current working theory is that they just shipped the washer and dryer to the next people in line who could accept the delivery earlier than us).
The refrigerator is wonderful. It is amazing how much more useful it is to have the freezer on the bottom. In ways that I didn’t even think about when first looking at it. For example, the cats can’t just walk right into it every time you open it. I can only imagine how nice that would be with kids around.
The washer and dryer are still two weeks away…
We also had a problem when we went to get our wedding bands. The woman who told us that she would give us her employee discount on them wasn’t there, and apparently doesn’t work at that location any more. She also didn’t put any notes on our file (as she said she would) about the discount. Eventually the new store manager agreed to give us the discount and we ordered the bands we liked. We didn’t have to pay everything up front and he said he would put a note on the file about the discount so that we could just come in, pay, and leave next time.
A couple of weeks later we went back to pick up the bands; again, no note on our file. So we had to wait and wait for the manager to be available. He recognized us, and agreed we were supposed to get the discount.
We received an early wedding present from Holly’s parents in the form of a portable air conditioner. We hooked it up, and lo and behold it didn’t generate any cold air. It was broken. So we ended up having to return it for an exchange. Thankfully the second one works, and it works wonderfully. It was 18°C in our room last night. I’ve been sleeping almost too well since we got it setup.
I’ve been working toward buying a car. I initially knew exactly what I wanted, and what I was willing to compromise toward. We went to the dealership, said we want X and they said they would look around for it if I left a $500 deposit. So I left the deposit and they “looked”. At one point I had left messages with the salesman for two days in a row waiting for a call back with a status report on the search. The report was always “Oh yes, I’m just waiting to talk to my manager and I’ll have any update for you in a few minutes”. Of course, then he would never bother to call back, as he never actually had an update. The days stretched into weeks, and this “search” which they said would take a couple of days took nearly two weeks.
At the end of the two weeks they said that there weren’t any of X available, but they would be happy to sell me a car that would cost an extra $70 a month. I told them I wasn’t interested in a payment above what we had worked out for the previous car. All along they just didn’t listen when I kept saying that I didn’t want that particular offer unless they could give me a huge discount, but cause all of the extra options it had didn’t have any real value to me; especially the leather seats (Yes. I know. I’m a freak. I hate leather seats.)
They then also told me that they couldn’t refund me the $500 without me going to the dealership in person. This seems ridiculous to me. They should be able to just reverse the charge on my credit card. I suspect that it is a last ditch effort to put the pressure on in person and try to sell me a car. We’re going to go take a look at a different dealership on Sunday. Honestly though, at this point I am considering just not getting a car. The hassle doesn’t seem worth it. We could certainly use the money that would be saved for other things.
I just really, really, really, really, really, really dislike public transit. It takes almost twice as long to get to work if I use it. To add to that, over the last little while it has been pretty consistent that at least once every two weeks it ends up taking me an extra 20-30 minutes to get to work or home because of the Sky Train stopping for prolonged periods, or because of busses just not showing up at all sometimes.
After all of that, my Xbox 360 finally gave up the ghost. It put up a good fight. There was some serious gaming in some very hot weather. I’ve started the RMA process. Hopefully it will be fixed in the next couple of months. Since I couldn’t actually wait for the repairs I went out and bought another one. Who says money can’t buy happiness? Well, it really can’t, but it can sure sometimes help band aid problems.
We’re hoping that the streak of bad luck is almost over.
Work has been a chore lately. Nothing has been going right. I’ve been assigned to research something for a month that just can’t end well. I’ve really started to lose my passion for this job. I know it’s because of all of the forces of management that push and pull you all over the place. The constant conflict is exhausting, demoralizing and depressing. I finally understand why my buddy Rob left here. The management overhead is ridiculous. Their focus isn’t always on making the best game. People hang you out to dry to help themselves.
I’ve been thinking about trying to get into some online writing courses. The last time I looked at them I didn’t have a schedule that allowed me to make the classes. I’m still not sure I do. I think it would be nice to tap into that part of me that has been left unused for a while. I’d like to try my hand at writing the great action epic that my brother-in-law and I have always talked about. I have some ideas floating around in my head. Then I just need to get Michael Bay to direct it and all will be well.
There is one other thing that I feel I should mention; NHL 08 is the greatest hockey game ever made.
That is all.
23 Aug 2007
I can still remember my first day of work here at EA.
I walked into the lobby downstairs and had a seat near security. Rob came by and chatted with me for a while (the friend who got me the job out here) and then as we finished catching up the franchise head of NHL came along and took me up to see the work area.
I remember in great detail seeing my cubicle for the first time. My own two and a half almost walls; a name plate on one of them. It all sounds silly, I know, but coming from where I had come from and the way my life had been going it was a huge moment. Touching even.
There was no expense spared. I had my own TV, devkits, dual monitors, multiple keyboards, a shelf, some drawers and the most amazingly comfortable chair in the entire world to sit in. All quite a step up from everything previous in that regard.
It was the first step toward fulfilling, no living a dream. I had always wanted to make hockey title since I had played the immortal classic Ice Hockey. I love hockey. I always have.
So here I am now. I have lived the dream. I have shipped two of the greatest hockey games ever made. I hope that all of the friends, family and critics alike will agree that 08 is simply fantastic.
I have an unending thirst for challenges though. No matter how much I try to downplay it and pretend that I am happy just maintaining the status quo, that just isn’t the truth.
I know there is another challenge in my professional life that I have to take on at some point. I need to be part of a start up again. One that has a chance. One that works hard and goes far. I know so many amazing programmers, almost all of whom would love to work with each other again, that I am not the least bit worried about finding the programming talent. The trick is the business end, as it always has been. I need to find a company willing to give us a contract.
If that little bit could get kick started somehow, I already have a 10 year business plan. I know the life cycles I would put on the projects. I know the projects that I would do. I know what order they would be done in, how many people it would take, how they would overlap. That’s all figured out. That initial investment of money is the part that always eludes me.
I, am not a schmoozer. Although everyone agrees that if I could ever get schmoozed into a business meeting with someone who had some money that I could convince them of anything. That if they heard the passion and the thought that has gone into this whole idea that they would shower us with money.
Ultimately I want to start a company of about 20 people at first. Then over the course of the first five years it would slowly staff up to about 120 people. Three teams working three separate games. From the 5th to the 8th year we would staff up to around 150 as people shift onto our fourth and last team.
That would be the end of the growth. That would be as far as I wanted it to go. I’ve seen too many huge companies and teams that become disconnected at some level. I work in a building that has a higher population than many of the small towns I grew up in.
In no way is working here a bad thing. It is quite the opposite. This is a great place to work, surrounded by bright people and beautiful scenery. After having worked so hard to build this foundation though, I’m loathe to just coast along, tweaking things here and there, adding slight improvements to the parts of the game I work on. There is no more room, now that we have a solid base, to do radical and crazy things.
When will it all happen? That’s hard to say. It could be five or ten years before everything works out to where I could branch out and do my own thing. It could be in a year.
Maybe it will never happen. Life is a crazy thing.
13 Aug 2007
This weekend was a very full weekend.
I took Friday off to make it a three day weekend. I need to use up that comp(ensation) time some where. I’m hoping to take a week off at the end of the month, as well as a few days here and there.
So Friday consisted of doing very, very little. I have to admit that this was very, very nice. It was good to unwind. I played some video games and re-watched 300. You simply can’t go wrong with that movie (at least I can’t). After Holly got home we turned around and headed out to one of her best friend’s birthday parties.
It was interesting to hang out with some people who are bigger geeks than I am. It was nice to talk about Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness and a few other campy movies. It was nice to talk about comic books and video games. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it was nice to “geek out”.
We didn’t get home until pretty late, and I hadn’t been feeling very well all night, so I didn’t make it to bed until around 2:30am.
The next day I slept in until about 11:30am. That was a rare treat. My body wasn’t going to let me do anything else though. I apparently slept through the alarm. After that sluggish start to the day we headed out refrigerator hunting.
This was our second recon mission for a refrigerator. Previously we had taken a look at Sears to see what they had. We found a few that were interesting, but we didn’t make any final decisions that day. For the second mission we decided to scout out a place called Trail Appliances. I have to say that this place was a breath of fresh air. At Sears we got a salesman who didn’t know anything about what he was selling. At Trail, we got someone who know the ins and the outs and what would be good for us.
Since we were also in the market for a new washer and dryer, Holly asked if they could get us a good deal if we were to buy all three appliances. I had been very keen on getting the top of the line LG washer/dryer combo (when do I not want the top of the line?). When talking about the benefits of the steaming capabilities of the washer Holly interjected that we do almost all of our laundry in cold water.
The salesman then talked us down to the entry level LG models. So we got all of the core features that we were looking for, without the costly bells and whistles. He probably saved us a thousand dollars. This guy had a lot of good things going for him at that point. When it finally came time to get down to the nitty-gritty details he told us that he wouldn’t recommend the extended warranties (which are way overrated according to Consumer Reports research).
At this point, he had pretty much hit a home run in my eyes. A salesman who is honest is hard to find. A salesman looking to save you money is even harder to find. So hopefully in the next couple of weeks we will be getting our appliances delivered (the washer and dryer were on backorder).
In the evening we headed over to Holly’s parents’ so that I could meet another of her Aunt and Uncle pairs. Overall I have to say that the evening was a success. I talked more than normal. I made a good effort. I didn’t even need to drink to loosen up. It turned out that this was not the Aunt and Uncle that I had thought I would be meeting, but they seemed nice enough.
On Sunday we went to do some grocery and week to week upkeep shopping. It involved stops at Costco, Save-On Foods, The Real Canadian Superstore, Grocery Store B, Canadian Tire, A&W (yummy Chubby Chicken burgers) and the Butcher.
Three hours later we got home. We watched the end of the second season of Battlestar Galactica. Then we started to do some around the house things, and that’s when it all started to go downhill. All day we had both been feeling a little bit woozy. I think it was a culmination of a dehydration, lack of food and lack of sleep all coming together at once.
I disappeared into the the laundry room to put away the new soap that we had bought. When I placed it on the shelf, the shelf ripped out of the wall and fell on me, along with everything else that was on and in the shelf. The drill beaned me in the face and knocked my glasses to the side. Holly came rushing into see if I was okay, which I was and still am. She helped to get the shelf and miscellaneous off me. Then when she went to the fridge and opened the door, part of the inside of the door fell off (can’t wait for that new refrigerator to arrive).
At that point we decided to throw in the towel for the day rather than continue breaking things, including ourselves. We ordered in some pizza instead of cooking the nice juicy steaks because we felt that neither of us, based on how the day was going, should be anywhere near propane and fire.
Now, for a nice relaxing week at work to recover from the weekend.
26 Jul 2007
Just two more sleeps and Holly will be back! Hopefully then I’ll start sleeping again. It has been so strange not having her around that I’m not even sure I could truly capture it with words.
I just don’t go to bed any more. It is like I don’t know when bed time is or something. I also can’t seem to get out of bed in the morning. I can only equate it to something as monumentally odd as waking up one day and the sun being gone, but the rest of the world hasn’t noticed.
I find myself completely losing track of time. I wake up what feels like a hundred times a night and toss and turn. The cats are acting strangely. They’ll sit looking at the door, or sometimes wander from room to room meowing; looking for Holly.
While she’s away I no longer have something to look forward to every day. I normally always look forward to going home and seeing her. Just that is enough to make every day better, worthwhile. It seems like now I just go home and sit there listlessly while I play video games or slip into a vegetative state while the images on the TV screen flicker by. Before I know it it’s 2am and nothing has happened.
I miss my Holly.
20 Jul 2007
Chore Wars is just too funny as a concept. Yet, I can completely see how it would work.
Essentially everyone in your household creates a character and you form a group. Then as chores are done it logs them and assigns XP to the character that did it. Every 200 XP you level up.
Now, initially when I heard about it I thought that it was completely ridiculous. Then when I thought about it, if Holly and I were to do this (admittedly she does way more housework than I do), and her character got ahead of mine; I would feel the pressure to “level”. After my years of WoW, I can completely see me putting in a few minutes here and there, grinding vacuuming to increase my strength, etc.
The game preys on the hard core gamer mentality that you are letting your team down because you aren’t keeping up the leveling pace. It also gives you a measure to see that you are letting the group down. That is the key. The ability to track a metric.
As a general rule of thumb when you create what the chores are and how much XP they give, they say you should reward 1 XP for each minute the task should take.
I think one thing it should add, that it doesn’t have yet, is the ability to make a task worth more for some people. As an example, I loathe cleaning the cats’ litter box. It would be nice if I could get double XP for that. Holly hates folding laundry, it would be cool if she could get double XP for that.
When Holly gets back from her trip, I’m tempted to set this up and see how it goes…