16 Aug 2006
So this whole staying under the radar thing really isn’t working very well for me it seems. It looks like I’m probably going to get loaned out to another team to help them along while we are in preproduction on the next NHL title.
I had my every other week review meeting with my manager today and it went sort of like this:
(Paraphrased of course)
Manager: How was your day off?
Me: It was great. It’s always nice to sleep in and relax.
Manager: So how would you feel about going to help out game name? Name of head of all software engineers was wondering if you would be able to help them out.
Me: Uhhh… I guess it could be interesting… as long as they aren’t finaling. I don’t want to go from finaling one game to finaling another.
Manager: Good, I’ll let them know you can help out then.
Me: …
So now I’m slowly starting to rethink things in sort of a “If you can’t beat them, join them”-esque manner.
NHL is almost out of the woods. It’s just wandering through the thick razor grass at the moment on the edge of the forest. Hopefully soon it will all be done and gone and we can start next year’s version. As it stands the office is sort of a ghost town anyway. Lots of people are on 2,3, and more week vacations (lucky bastards).
Holly and I both have our time off booked for a trip home for Thanksgiving. Fly out on Friday, October 6th. Fly back on Tuesday, October 10th. Recuperate on Wednesday, October 11th. I might even tack on a couple of my vacation days and take the rest of that week off.
This Sunday is dinner with her family… that should prove interesting. Hopefully I can come up with something to talk about. I’ve never been that good at talking to strangers when there is a huge age gap, and an assumption that we really don’t have much in common other than their wonderful daughter.
I raided last night for the first time in a couple of months. On the one hand, it was nice to be back and raiding again. On the other hand, not being the main tank makes for very boring warrioring. I guess I just sort of expected the MT position to be handed back when I returned. It was good to see a lot of the crew again though.
I can’t wait until the expansion and the new dungeons that are built around only needing 25 people instead of 40!
29 Jul 2006
Sometimes, work really sucks. I wish I knew how I ended up back in a position of responsibility at work again. Even though I was trying so hard not to fall into an importan role, here I am again.
With responsibility comes suckage. Apparently I’m a “lead of my area”, but I’m not a lead. Apparently my role is too crucial to be able to take some time off and go on a trip with Holly, but 95% of the rest of the team can get time off. I don’t want the responsibility. I want to spend time with the woman I love.
In my next review I’m going to ask about how come I don’t have the title of a lead, or the pay of a lead, but I have the responsibility of being a lead.
Last night while Holly and I were out at dinner celebrating our anniversary, work called… twice… Needless to say, I wasn’t too pleased about that. Even our waitress seemed upset about it.
With that behind us we finised our wonderful Greek dinner and headed out to the movies to see Lady in the Water. An excellent movie on all accounts. A little humour, a little terror, a great story. It’s a story about someone named Story.
And now, I’m at work. As far as I can tell it’s because QA tends to be useless. They must have bad test plans. It’s our third demo submission to them and they are just starting to test certain things. Everything should be tested on every submission I would think. It seems like common sense to me.
Hopefully all of this unpleasantness inside will fade away before I head home.
28 Jul 2006
Today, Holly and I are celebrating our one month anniversary. Half of me can hardly believe that we have been together for a full month, the other half can hardly believe that we have only been together for one month.
Hopefully the weather will cooperate with us and we can head back to the same beach we went to on our first date. Right now it is looking pretty grey outside though. The clouds seem heavy with rain.
I’m looking forward to everyone getting to meet Holly over Thanksgiving. Tentatively looking to fly in on October 6th and fly back out on the 9th or 10th.
17 Jul 2006
Yesterday was just a wonderful day. They really don’t get much better.
Holly and I woke up relatively early. We lazed around for a while. She cooked up yet another wonderful breakfast of hashbrowns and turkey sausage. It is always so nice to start the day with home made breakfast.
We headed out to Pitt Lake to do some canoeing. Along the way we went past the library where she works and then she showed me the highlights of the little town that it is in.
When we finally arrived at the lake we rented a canoe, “The Mighty” Ashley, and headed out on the water. It was quite a slow and meandering journey up to the hiking trail. It took us just about two hours. Holly started to get frustrated and upset at our progress until she saw how humorous I found it all to be. I just couldn’t help but laugh at it all. There we were, two experienced canoers, unable to steer. Haha.
The scenery was amazing. Canoeing along the bases of the mountains was breathtaking. Although, I don’t really care for tiny little 16 foot canoes…
Once we finally got to the hiking trail we went for a short walk. Just about an hour. We wanted to be sure to be back in time to return the canoe before the shop closed. On the way back we decided to switch things up and I took the back seat in the canoe. Things went much more smoothly. I assume we just had a poor weight distribution when I was in the front. Holly claims I’m just a stronger paddler.
So we made it back in about 30 minutes. We weren’t sure what to do with all of that extra time so we did the best possible thing, we stopped for ice cream at Dairy Queen. In no time at all we were back at her place sitting out on her balcony, taking in her very own great view of the mountains, and eating ice cream.
After a quick shower we headed out to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Deadman’s Chest. It was the second time for me, but Holly gets so into movies that it was even more fun for the me the second time. She was jumping around in her seat and even let out a scream or two at some of the scarier parts of the movie.
We capped the evening with a side trip to Boston Pizza for dinner. I highly recommend the Cactus Nachos.
We definitely need to go canoeing again. At the end of the hiking trail there is a camping spot (about a 5km walk). We’re going to go camp out for a weekend sometime. Although the next big adventure will probably be when we go on vacation in August. We are still trying to decide when (mostly influenced by my work schedule) and where.
The crashed wooden plane (okay, so it is just a pile of logs…)
“The Mighty” Ashley
12 Jul 2006
My development setup at work is seriously starting to get out of hand. I’m now up to two Xbox 360s, two 23” widescreen HDTVs, two 19” monitors, and miscellaneous other wired contraptions running all over the place. It’s chaos I tell you! Chaos!
I wish I could take a picture of it to show everyone. There’s barely enough room on my desk to set down my book when I’m not reading.
I know it won’t be long and I’ll probably have a PS3 devkit or two wedged in here somewhere with another tv or two as well…
