The chapter of that title in Order of the Phoenix will no doubt end up being one of my favorite chapters of the entire Harry Potter series. Sirius Black is hands down my favorite character, and thanks to the movies (and to my wife) I also know where the character is taken in this book and I won't spoil it but I am very much looking forward to what is done with the character above and beyond what I've seen in the movies.
This month's more frequent blog posts marks the most times I've posted to this blog in any given month since May-July of 2008 which was coincidentally when the 4th Edition of D&D was released and when I started running my still ongoing D&D campaign. Back in early 2008 we'd also just bought a house, so it's understandable that I had a good bit to blog about back then. Still, these day this blog is just another form of output for me to continue pushing myself to be productive. It's kind of sad to think of these blog posts as being productive, but after going back and reading the ones I wrote in 2008 I am very happy that I recorded what I did of my life back then and am very much looking forward to that moment in the coming years when I look back to these posts. As the last year should evidence, a hell of a lot of things can change in a relatively short period of time. Even just August of last year I never would have guessed where I would be at the end of 2009, or for the first half of 2010 and then onto the last few months. Life has had its up and downs but I consider myself very fortunate that I see a hell of a lot more ups even considering things like my unemployment and financial situations.
Reading update: If GenCon had not set me back, I would be hitting 50% through the entire Harry Potter series tomorrow. Monday of last week I was a full 7% behind schedule but as of today I am at 48% through the series, and 17% of the way through Order of the Phoenix already (I was only 3% through it yesterday). I am pleased with this progress and will most likely be even further ahead of schedule, like I was originally. The truly exciting part is that once I get through this book and The Half-Blood Prince I will actually be reading stuff that I haven't seen a movie about or have any real idea what happens in.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
Reading Update (Day 48)
I easily finished The Goblet of Fire last night and updated the progress bars to the right just now with over 230 pages read since Friday, and I'm already 30 pages into The Order of the Phoenix. The end of book 4 is when, almost literally, all of the shit hits the fan for the Harry Potter series. If anyone reading this has NOT read the series already, please let me know and I'll refrain from talking about spoilers has I get into the more eventful books. It's odd for me right now because even with the Goblet of Fire movie I wasn't that into the series, it wasn't until the beginning of the Order of the Phoenix movie that I became really hooked on the whole thing. Once I was sold on that, and all of the awesome things that happen in the fifth movie and then The Half-Blood Prince movie, I had a desire to go back and read through all of the books. It wasn't until Becky decided she wanted me to read Deathly Hallows before seeing the movie that I was inspired to do this whirlwind marathon of reading.
Again I'll say it, this isn't a lot of reading for most people (people who read a lot, that is), but for me reading the 1800+ pages that I've read since early July has got to be a continuously growing record for me.
Random note: The newest Massive Attack CD - Heligoland, which came out in February of this year I believe, is really good. Thanks to Andrew the O who was the one that tipped me off they had a new album, even though I don't think he listens to them he knew they were a band I love and pointed it out to me.
My reading progress at the moment is 3% of the way through Order of the Phoenix (the longest book) and 45% through the entire series. If I had continued with my post GenCon delayed schedule I would only be at 41% so I've made up 4% extra in the last week but still need to reach 50% in the next two days to catch up to my pre-GenCon reading schedule of 1% per day. I don't think that's going to be very difficult, because the fifth book is very engrossing as major events and turning points are starting to occur and things are breaking out of the "school year" format that the first two books stuck so rigidly to.
Again I'll say it, this isn't a lot of reading for most people (people who read a lot, that is), but for me reading the 1800+ pages that I've read since early July has got to be a continuously growing record for me.
Random note: The newest Massive Attack CD - Heligoland, which came out in February of this year I believe, is really good. Thanks to Andrew the O who was the one that tipped me off they had a new album, even though I don't think he listens to them he knew they were a band I love and pointed it out to me.
My reading progress at the moment is 3% of the way through Order of the Phoenix (the longest book) and 45% through the entire series. If I had continued with my post GenCon delayed schedule I would only be at 41% so I've made up 4% extra in the last week but still need to reach 50% in the next two days to catch up to my pre-GenCon reading schedule of 1% per day. I don't think that's going to be very difficult, because the fifth book is very engrossing as major events and turning points are starting to occur and things are breaking out of the "school year" format that the first two books stuck so rigidly to.
Friday, August 20, 2010
RPG Mash Up
What started as a joke between Dave and myself, about the several RPGs we'd like to play at the moment or once our ongoing D&D games have wrapped up - Mouse Guard, Dark Sun D&D, and Legend of the 5 Rings - became a hilarious and oddly intriguing mash up of ideas. We dubbed it Legend of the Dark Mouse Sun Five Rings Guard (the RPG), and it's basically Mouse Guard but with the "Guard" being a lot more like Samurai (and having clans as in L5R) and taking place in a desert environment very much like Athas. As a result three days ago I was inspired and drew this:
Certainly some of the majesty of the idea has worn off now, a few days later, but I still think it'd be a great game to run. Most likely I'll start it in the Mouse Guard system but am also interested in trying it out in the latest L5R rules and perhaps even 4th Edition D&D just to see how they all play out differently. Certainly one cool feature of doing it in 4E D&D would be designing the Mouse "race" and also some kind of Samurai class.
As for the Harry Potter Reading: I am now 69% through Goblet of Fire (I was 43% through it 4 days ago so that's some pretty good progress) and I'm 39% through the entire Harry Potter series. 4 days ago I was only 34% through the series, so I'm doing a decent job of actually reading more than 1% per day lately. If I hadn't stalled for the week of GenCon, I would be hitting 50% by next Wednesday so my goal at the moment is to get as close to that as I can. This seems possibly only because that would mean finishing Goblet of Fire in the next week which is a very clear goal I think I can force myself to get to.
If I were going with my original schedule of 1% per day, and aiming to finished right before the last movie comes out (Nov. 19th) then I'd need to be 8% through the series right now. Therefore the way I see it I am actually 31% ahead of schedule and that's a pretty damn good buffer for me to work with!
Certainly some of the majesty of the idea has worn off now, a few days later, but I still think it'd be a great game to run. Most likely I'll start it in the Mouse Guard system but am also interested in trying it out in the latest L5R rules and perhaps even 4th Edition D&D just to see how they all play out differently. Certainly one cool feature of doing it in 4E D&D would be designing the Mouse "race" and also some kind of Samurai class.
As for the Harry Potter Reading: I am now 69% through Goblet of Fire (I was 43% through it 4 days ago so that's some pretty good progress) and I'm 39% through the entire Harry Potter series. 4 days ago I was only 34% through the series, so I'm doing a decent job of actually reading more than 1% per day lately. If I hadn't stalled for the week of GenCon, I would be hitting 50% by next Wednesday so my goal at the moment is to get as close to that as I can. This seems possibly only because that would mean finishing Goblet of Fire in the next week which is a very clear goal I think I can force myself to get to.
If I were going with my original schedule of 1% per day, and aiming to finished right before the last movie comes out (Nov. 19th) then I'd need to be 8% through the series right now. Therefore the way I see it I am actually 31% ahead of schedule and that's a pretty damn good buffer for me to work with!
Monday, August 16, 2010
New Drawings
My friend Quinn (who runs the At-Will blog about awesome 4th Edition D&D stuff) has asked me for artwork a few times, also I've bugged him to ask me for artwork, but in the past as usually happens with me I didn't get any of them done in time. Last night I resolved to change that, here is the result.
What Quinn asked me for was a corrupted purple dragon, named Etherkai, that is nicknamed the "Nightmare Dragon". Here's what I produced in a little under 2 hours last night.
Black & White - pencil on drawing paper, done in about 30 minutes.
Colored Pencils on drawing paper, done in about 20 minutes.
Some Photoshop work to get rid of the texture I wasn't a fan of (especially in the sky).
More Photoshop work to make it darker and to make the dragon appear more "scarred", at Quinn's request but I was planning on doing something like this anyway.
Considering the total time invested, about 2 hours last night though I did a bit of sketching over the course of last week to get a pose and layout I liked, I'm pretty damn happy with this. I'd love for the dragon to have more action to it, and to add a bit more interest into everything, but it was do THIS or not do it at all and I've promised myself I'd get more things done like this even if I'm not 100% happy with how they turn out.
Reading update: I'm 43% of the way through Goblet of Fire, putting me at 34% of the way through the entire Harry Potter series. Still "behind" where I was originally in my reading schedule but very much ahead of schedule to finish before the first Deathly Hallows movie.
What Quinn asked me for was a corrupted purple dragon, named Etherkai, that is nicknamed the "Nightmare Dragon". Here's what I produced in a little under 2 hours last night.
Black & White - pencil on drawing paper, done in about 30 minutes.
Colored Pencils on drawing paper, done in about 20 minutes.
Some Photoshop work to get rid of the texture I wasn't a fan of (especially in the sky).
More Photoshop work to make it darker and to make the dragon appear more "scarred", at Quinn's request but I was planning on doing something like this anyway.
Considering the total time invested, about 2 hours last night though I did a bit of sketching over the course of last week to get a pose and layout I liked, I'm pretty damn happy with this. I'd love for the dragon to have more action to it, and to add a bit more interest into everything, but it was do THIS or not do it at all and I've promised myself I'd get more things done like this even if I'm not 100% happy with how they turn out.
Reading update: I'm 43% of the way through Goblet of Fire, putting me at 34% of the way through the entire Harry Potter series. Still "behind" where I was originally in my reading schedule but very much ahead of schedule to finish before the first Deathly Hallows movie.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Post GenCon-itus
Dave, E, and I traveled together to GenCon this year from Wednesday morning of last week through Sunday evening. We flew in earlier than usual and flew out later, which was a huge help though I still can't help but feel like staying through Monday would make things even better (sorry Becky!), but my plans for next year will be interesting as I imagine Becky will be coming along with us.
I had a LOT of fun at GenCon this year, even more than the previous two years. One contributing factor was that many of our high school friends came along also which added a more personal and comfortable feel to being in Indy. Also, they are hilarious people and there always end up being some ridiculous stories. Another big factor was the people who live around the country/world that we know through RPG blogs or who work at WotC that we get to see in person only once or twice a year.
I didn't end up buying all that much this year, which is a good thing, and I could not find a suitable present for Becky which is a problem I'm still dealing with. :D I did buy the latest issue of Kobold Quarterly, an excellent magazine that we also have an ad in. It's always incredible to see something relating to Critical Hits in a physical print format. I hope some people see the ad and check us out! I also bought the Mouse Guard RPG book, which I've wanted for a while now and was convinced by the fact that they only had 5 copies left and those were the LAST of the first printing of the book (excluding those that may be in game stores, but still). Adding on to that is the fact that I got to play the Mouse Guard RPG for the first time when Phil ran it there, and I enjoyed it even more than I expected.
I bought a copy of Mike Shea's DM Tips book with artwork by our friend Jared, great writing and good tips combined with cool artwork is a huge success in my book! Lastly I made a quick decision and bought the D&D "miniature" for Orcus, the demon prince of undeath. I'm really glad I did, because it's pretty damn cool to just have around and to look at, plus I'll end up using it as much as possible in my D&D game now! I ended up spending a lot of my free time at the con hanging out with Trevor from Wizards of the Coast, which resulted in some hilarious moments and I hope we get to hang out even more at future conventions. As if he weren't cool enough, he also sent me two prints (on canvas) of D&D artwork that I still need to hang up in our house, but one of the is a painting by Wayne Reynolds and is SIGNED by him. It's beyond kickass!
The last thing I need to mention about GenCon is my chance encounters with celebrities. It started on Thursday or Friday night when I was walking down the street and walked right by Felicia Day and then Wil Wheaton (about 30 feet apart from each other), very glad I was paying attention at that moment. Then on the last day there, Sunday, I was having a late lunch in Noodles & Co. with Trevor and Chuck (also an amazingly cool guy) and Wil Wheaton came in and had lunch there. It was very hard trying not to stare but also to not be staring somewhere else in an awkward way. Flying casual is what I should have done. Those are only the first two parts of my chance encounters with Wil, as Dave, E, and myself were looking for food in the Indianapolis airport and found two tables where we could eat, then E and I were floored to realize we had just sat down right next to none other than Wil Wheaton! Thankfully Dave had just talked to him at the convention that morning, and apparently Wil loves our website (awesome.) so we chatted with him for a little while. Then Wil offered us half of his pizza because he wasn't feeling well, so yea we totally got to finish Wil Wheaton's pizza. I know it's a weird ass thing to essentially brag about, but I think overall it makes for a good story!
Now on to the necessary reading update:
Day 33 of my Harry Potter reading marathon, but thanks to GenCon last week / weekend I'm a little bit behind my 1% per day pace, with 30% complete at the moment and 20% of the way through The Goblet of Fire. I'll be attempting to catch up this evening and over the next few days to get back ahead of the daily allotment. However even if I don't catch up, but still read 1% per day from here on out, I'll still be finishing the last book by mid October, which is an entire month before the first part of Deathly Hallows comes out in theaters. This goal looks very readily achievable at this point, and I have already read WAY more pages within a single month than I've ever read before.
The exact number of pages read so far is 1,235 (out of 4,100 total over all seven books). For me this is pretty incredible, though the word count is lower than the books I've been reading lately (Wheel of Time mostly), if I can continue at a pace like this or even better then I have some hope that I can actually get through my "must read" list and even onto some old and new D&D novels. I'll probably check out Bruce Cordell's first, then some books by James Wyatt / Keith Baker (since I know all of these guys now), but I'm also considering going back and checking out the classic D&D books I never read like the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms books.
I had a LOT of fun at GenCon this year, even more than the previous two years. One contributing factor was that many of our high school friends came along also which added a more personal and comfortable feel to being in Indy. Also, they are hilarious people and there always end up being some ridiculous stories. Another big factor was the people who live around the country/world that we know through RPG blogs or who work at WotC that we get to see in person only once or twice a year.
I didn't end up buying all that much this year, which is a good thing, and I could not find a suitable present for Becky which is a problem I'm still dealing with. :D I did buy the latest issue of Kobold Quarterly, an excellent magazine that we also have an ad in. It's always incredible to see something relating to Critical Hits in a physical print format. I hope some people see the ad and check us out! I also bought the Mouse Guard RPG book, which I've wanted for a while now and was convinced by the fact that they only had 5 copies left and those were the LAST of the first printing of the book (excluding those that may be in game stores, but still). Adding on to that is the fact that I got to play the Mouse Guard RPG for the first time when Phil ran it there, and I enjoyed it even more than I expected.
I bought a copy of Mike Shea's DM Tips book with artwork by our friend Jared, great writing and good tips combined with cool artwork is a huge success in my book! Lastly I made a quick decision and bought the D&D "miniature" for Orcus, the demon prince of undeath. I'm really glad I did, because it's pretty damn cool to just have around and to look at, plus I'll end up using it as much as possible in my D&D game now! I ended up spending a lot of my free time at the con hanging out with Trevor from Wizards of the Coast, which resulted in some hilarious moments and I hope we get to hang out even more at future conventions. As if he weren't cool enough, he also sent me two prints (on canvas) of D&D artwork that I still need to hang up in our house, but one of the is a painting by Wayne Reynolds and is SIGNED by him. It's beyond kickass!
The last thing I need to mention about GenCon is my chance encounters with celebrities. It started on Thursday or Friday night when I was walking down the street and walked right by Felicia Day and then Wil Wheaton (about 30 feet apart from each other), very glad I was paying attention at that moment. Then on the last day there, Sunday, I was having a late lunch in Noodles & Co. with Trevor and Chuck (also an amazingly cool guy) and Wil Wheaton came in and had lunch there. It was very hard trying not to stare but also to not be staring somewhere else in an awkward way. Flying casual is what I should have done. Those are only the first two parts of my chance encounters with Wil, as Dave, E, and myself were looking for food in the Indianapolis airport and found two tables where we could eat, then E and I were floored to realize we had just sat down right next to none other than Wil Wheaton! Thankfully Dave had just talked to him at the convention that morning, and apparently Wil loves our website (awesome.) so we chatted with him for a little while. Then Wil offered us half of his pizza because he wasn't feeling well, so yea we totally got to finish Wil Wheaton's pizza. I know it's a weird ass thing to essentially brag about, but I think overall it makes for a good story!
Now on to the necessary reading update:
Day 33 of my Harry Potter reading marathon, but thanks to GenCon last week / weekend I'm a little bit behind my 1% per day pace, with 30% complete at the moment and 20% of the way through The Goblet of Fire. I'll be attempting to catch up this evening and over the next few days to get back ahead of the daily allotment. However even if I don't catch up, but still read 1% per day from here on out, I'll still be finishing the last book by mid October, which is an entire month before the first part of Deathly Hallows comes out in theaters. This goal looks very readily achievable at this point, and I have already read WAY more pages within a single month than I've ever read before.
The exact number of pages read so far is 1,235 (out of 4,100 total over all seven books). For me this is pretty incredible, though the word count is lower than the books I've been reading lately (Wheel of Time mostly), if I can continue at a pace like this or even better then I have some hope that I can actually get through my "must read" list and even onto some old and new D&D novels. I'll probably check out Bruce Cordell's first, then some books by James Wyatt / Keith Baker (since I know all of these guys now), but I'm also considering going back and checking out the classic D&D books I never read like the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms books.
Monday, August 02, 2010
August is Here! Already?
25 days since I started reading the first Harry Potter book, and now I've just started the fourth - The Goblet of Fire. This puts me 27% through the entire series, so I'm still slightly above a 1% per day rate which is good. I've definitely slowed down over the last few days, and hitting the first 700+ page book (over twice the size of the first two on its own) hasn't helped. Thankfully with Prisoner of Azkaban the overarching plot has started rolling along even faster so I should be able to blast through the larger books with more ease. I really can't believe how much of the content of these books was either left out of the movies or only barely hinted at so that you'd never know anything about it if you hadn't read the books.
This week, Wednesday morning to be exact, GenCon starts and it should be an incredibly fun time! I need to run out to Kinkos (yes it's not called that anymore, I'm sticking it to the man or something...) and get a small number of business cards printed because I didn't get my act together early enough to get a larger number printed beforehand.
That brings me to a different issue / story, Becky and I moved into this house two years ago and I made one of the upstairs bedrooms my "office". During the summer our upper level is consistently 5-10 degrees warmer than the rest of our house. Our bedroom has always had a ceiling fan so that solves the problem, but my office would get uncomfortably hot during the summer and fall so that it was tough for me to be at my computer for any significant period of time. On top of that, when we got our puppy Freyja the office was still inside of "cat territory" so I couldn't keep an eye on the dog and be on my computer at the same time. This resulted in me not being on the computer at home very much, which wasn't a huge problem but it definitely cut into my work on Critical Hits, playing games online, and working in Photoshop (among other things). All of this to get to the point that earlier this year I decided to move my personal computer and desk down to our basement, which is effectively one big gaming room - it has our TV, two sofas, lots of chairs, game consoles, movies, board games, video games, RPG books, and a big table for gaming all accented by a Rohan flag we got several years ago for our apartment hanging on the wall. So as of early this year it also contained my computer, which has been very handy for running D&D (and using Character Builder pre/mid game) but it also allowed Becky and I to spend time together while one of us plays a game on the TV and the other on my computer. Yes, this is how my wife and I spend time together quite often. We love it. :D
So this left us with an empty bedroom upstairs, that in my unemployment remained pretty much as it had been just without my computer and a few more things stored in it. Then in mid June, I got my awesomely awesome job where I'm working from home and needed to set up a home office. Seems pretty damn convenient doesn't it? I'm glad it was! Okay so the point of this story is that then I had to set up a home office upstairs where my old "office" was, this time with a ceiling fan installed to make it bearable (and thank god for that, it's fantastic!) - this meant my "office" environment was moved downstairs, then moved upstairs again, and in that move a LOT of things have gone missing.
So a lot of my time these days is spent trying to find stuff, and I'm not just talking about physical things even though there are a ton of them, but computer files also. See, even worse is that my home computer got some really nasty spyware and viruses on it shortly after I moved it downstairs (basement herp?) and so I had to reformat it. This has led to even MORE shifting around of folders, files, and now I've been trying to get everything back to some semblance of organization again. All of that explains why I didn't get my business cards sent off to be printed before this week. Good story, right?
Oh and then I found $5. Okay, now it's a good story. (If you don't get it, ask and I'll explain. :D)
This week, Wednesday morning to be exact, GenCon starts and it should be an incredibly fun time! I need to run out to Kinkos (yes it's not called that anymore, I'm sticking it to the man or something...) and get a small number of business cards printed because I didn't get my act together early enough to get a larger number printed beforehand.
That brings me to a different issue / story, Becky and I moved into this house two years ago and I made one of the upstairs bedrooms my "office". During the summer our upper level is consistently 5-10 degrees warmer than the rest of our house. Our bedroom has always had a ceiling fan so that solves the problem, but my office would get uncomfortably hot during the summer and fall so that it was tough for me to be at my computer for any significant period of time. On top of that, when we got our puppy Freyja the office was still inside of "cat territory" so I couldn't keep an eye on the dog and be on my computer at the same time. This resulted in me not being on the computer at home very much, which wasn't a huge problem but it definitely cut into my work on Critical Hits, playing games online, and working in Photoshop (among other things). All of this to get to the point that earlier this year I decided to move my personal computer and desk down to our basement, which is effectively one big gaming room - it has our TV, two sofas, lots of chairs, game consoles, movies, board games, video games, RPG books, and a big table for gaming all accented by a Rohan flag we got several years ago for our apartment hanging on the wall. So as of early this year it also contained my computer, which has been very handy for running D&D (and using Character Builder pre/mid game) but it also allowed Becky and I to spend time together while one of us plays a game on the TV and the other on my computer. Yes, this is how my wife and I spend time together quite often. We love it. :D
So this left us with an empty bedroom upstairs, that in my unemployment remained pretty much as it had been just without my computer and a few more things stored in it. Then in mid June, I got my awesomely awesome job where I'm working from home and needed to set up a home office. Seems pretty damn convenient doesn't it? I'm glad it was! Okay so the point of this story is that then I had to set up a home office upstairs where my old "office" was, this time with a ceiling fan installed to make it bearable (and thank god for that, it's fantastic!) - this meant my "office" environment was moved downstairs, then moved upstairs again, and in that move a LOT of things have gone missing.
So a lot of my time these days is spent trying to find stuff, and I'm not just talking about physical things even though there are a ton of them, but computer files also. See, even worse is that my home computer got some really nasty spyware and viruses on it shortly after I moved it downstairs (basement herp?) and so I had to reformat it. This has led to even MORE shifting around of folders, files, and now I've been trying to get everything back to some semblance of organization again. All of that explains why I didn't get my business cards sent off to be printed before this week. Good story, right?
Oh and then I found $5. Okay, now it's a good story. (If you don't get it, ask and I'll explain. :D)
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
12 Days of Reading Down
Twelve days of reading Harry Potter and I'm 19% of the way through the entire series, which is 780 pages and probably the most pages I've ever read in nearly two weeks. I'm using these posts to help keep track of my reading progress along the way, so I'll also say that I'm 30% of the way through Azkaban right now. Although the HP books are relatively low word counts per page, that's still something I'm pretty proud of - then again Becky or many of my friends could read all seven books in the course of two weeks, but I've found over the last few years that I retain a LOT more of what I read than Becky does.
I am hoping that one result of this goal is that I'll not only get back into reading regularly, but also that I'll be a faster reader by the end of it. I'd love to go back and re-read some of my favorite books - they're also some of the first books I read for recreational because I wanted to start with the classics: Dracula, Frankenstein, and then there's Dune which I'm dying to read again sometime soon. The problem is that there are so many other books that I want to read that I haven't even read yet, like the rest of Wheel of Time, the Game of Thrones, Dark Tower, and I'm sure there are tons more that I can't even think of right now.
I've been experiencing some really bad feelings when I'm working here at home and am not immediately busy, my mind wanders back to unemployment and I get extremely worried. It's going to take quite a bit of time, probably at least equal to the 7 months that I was unemployed, for me to get completely comfortable again. There are some very dark places that my mind wanders to, and that's something I'm not accustomed to at all.
In my moonlighting as a game designer, which really just means that I randomly think of game ideas and mechanics throughout the day (most of which are terrible), I've been brainstorming some rules mods or changes for 4E. I'm not sure if anything will come of them, but I am hoping to get my Githyanki racial rules completed soon and also post a bunch of helpful things for 4E that I've been working on for quite a while (years really) that I am soon going to reopen and complete. They will almost certainly end up on Critical Hits, but I may talk about some of the process and other thoughts here once they go up!
I am hoping that one result of this goal is that I'll not only get back into reading regularly, but also that I'll be a faster reader by the end of it. I'd love to go back and re-read some of my favorite books - they're also some of the first books I read for recreational because I wanted to start with the classics: Dracula, Frankenstein, and then there's Dune which I'm dying to read again sometime soon. The problem is that there are so many other books that I want to read that I haven't even read yet, like the rest of Wheel of Time, the Game of Thrones, Dark Tower, and I'm sure there are tons more that I can't even think of right now.
I've been experiencing some really bad feelings when I'm working here at home and am not immediately busy, my mind wanders back to unemployment and I get extremely worried. It's going to take quite a bit of time, probably at least equal to the 7 months that I was unemployed, for me to get completely comfortable again. There are some very dark places that my mind wanders to, and that's something I'm not accustomed to at all.
In my moonlighting as a game designer, which really just means that I randomly think of game ideas and mechanics throughout the day (most of which are terrible), I've been brainstorming some rules mods or changes for 4E. I'm not sure if anything will come of them, but I am hoping to get my Githyanki racial rules completed soon and also post a bunch of helpful things for 4E that I've been working on for quite a while (years really) that I am soon going to reopen and complete. They will almost certainly end up on Critical Hits, but I may talk about some of the process and other thoughts here once they go up!
Friday, July 16, 2010
Heat Waves and Hot Pages
The pages are hot because I've been tearing through them...get it? Hot pages! Ah nevermind...
On July 8th I was only 1% into the entire Harry Potter series, which was ~40 pages into the 1st book. Four days later I was 70% through the 1st book and 5% into the whole series. Now I've been reading them for 8 days total and I'm 210 pages into the second book (62%) and 519 pages into the series or 13% of the way through. That's well over the 1% a day that I need even after July 19th so I'm fairly confident with my goal of getting through the series in time for the last movie. I was wondering if the 1st book was such light reading because I'd already read it a year or two ago, but the second book is going just as easily and I'm really enjoying it. There are a lot of complexities to the characters that are only hinted at in the movies but come across a lot stronger in the writing, which is probably the part I'm most enjoying. It also helps that I don't remember much from the first two movies because I hated them so much and only watched them once all the way through.
At this rate I should be done with the books sometime in October, but I may also get burnt out on the specific style of writing / topics at some point in the middle. If I get significantly along I may take a break to finally finish The Shadow Rising since I'm on a kick of reading so much lately.
On July 8th I was only 1% into the entire Harry Potter series, which was ~40 pages into the 1st book. Four days later I was 70% through the 1st book and 5% into the whole series. Now I've been reading them for 8 days total and I'm 210 pages into the second book (62%) and 519 pages into the series or 13% of the way through. That's well over the 1% a day that I need even after July 19th so I'm fairly confident with my goal of getting through the series in time for the last movie. I was wondering if the 1st book was such light reading because I'd already read it a year or two ago, but the second book is going just as easily and I'm really enjoying it. There are a lot of complexities to the characters that are only hinted at in the movies but come across a lot stronger in the writing, which is probably the part I'm most enjoying. It also helps that I don't remember much from the first two movies because I hated them so much and only watched them once all the way through.
At this rate I should be done with the books sometime in October, but I may also get burnt out on the specific style of writing / topics at some point in the middle. If I get significantly along I may take a break to finally finish The Shadow Rising since I'm on a kick of reading so much lately.
Monday, July 12, 2010
1 Month of Employment
Things are going incredibly, no actually I'd say insanely, well for us lately. My new job has done quite a bit, but I think the root of everything is that despite all the stress, pain, and anguish that being unemployed caused us - Becky and I were still pretty damn happy during that time. We spent 7 months pretty much the entire time being together 24/7, and we enjoyed it a hell of a lot. Possibly the most fun was in the beginning of the year when the 2010 Winter Olympics were on and we both were home all day. We watched nearly all of the events and it was awesome! So after that 7 months, despite the job and money concerns, we were happy and I think that is the root of why things are going so incredibly well right now. We were happy, and then a large amount of stress was relieved for us and I feel like we're finally able to use all that positive momentum we were building up over the first half of the year.
It really doesn't feel like that was half a year, and it's very nice to have so many good things that happened (with Becky for the most part) to look back on and not have that period of my life be a tarnish on things. A few other things that I enjoyed during that period of time:
Nerd-time: One of the things I'm really enjoying right now is running my D&D campaign more often since Becky has gotten a lot more into it and doesn't mind (or even encourages) me to run more often now. Just a year ago she was considering quitting the game, but now she's such an enjoyable part of the game for me when I run and an incredibly talented role player. With her and Dave in my party, it's clear everyone else is quickly improving in their roleplaying as a result. I started this campaign on July 4th, 2008 and after two years it's a treat to see how things have changed and relish a bit in the world Dave and I have built. His party (in the past of my game) is in the upper paragon tier and he will probably wrap his game up by summer or fall of next year. My party is just hitting level 14/15/16 but I'm hoping to speed things up and run more regularly so that it doesn't take another two years to wrap everything up in my campaign. Then again, if it keeps going strong and everyone is enjoying it - what's the problem with it running for 2 more years? We'll have to see how it goes...
Onto the reading front, you can see that things are going well because I'm 70% of the way through the first Harry Potter book and 5% through the entire series. Everything I do before July 19th is a buffer, once that date hits I'll need to have 25% of the entire series read by August 19th which evens out to just under 1% or 41 pages a day. Getting through the first book before that date seems reasonable, which would bring my requirement down to 38 pages a day which isn't much but it helps. The only reason this is even possible for me is that the books are easy to read and each page is relatively short on words, otherwise I'd be doomed because I like to read slow and enjoy my books (at least that's the excuse I use).
It really doesn't feel like that was half a year, and it's very nice to have so many good things that happened (with Becky for the most part) to look back on and not have that period of my life be a tarnish on things. A few other things that I enjoyed during that period of time:
- hanging out with Matt on random week days while everyone else worked
- Hanging out with our friends Andrew & Amber, and the birth of their baby boy Maddox on May 31st - also being free to spend a lot of time at the hospital and keep them company / bring them food during those stressful few days
- getting to play a few times in Dave's D&D game
- the last season of Lost
- working with our friend Ben on random house jobs for his home improvement company - installing insulation, doing (badly) drywall, painting - I quickly became comfortable walking around in attic spaces, which is a useful skill and helped with installing the ceiling fan for my home office
- working for Becky's dad the last month of my unemployment - doing drywall plan take-offs - it got me back into the idea of working every day of the week (haha)
Nerd-time: One of the things I'm really enjoying right now is running my D&D campaign more often since Becky has gotten a lot more into it and doesn't mind (or even encourages) me to run more often now. Just a year ago she was considering quitting the game, but now she's such an enjoyable part of the game for me when I run and an incredibly talented role player. With her and Dave in my party, it's clear everyone else is quickly improving in their roleplaying as a result. I started this campaign on July 4th, 2008 and after two years it's a treat to see how things have changed and relish a bit in the world Dave and I have built. His party (in the past of my game) is in the upper paragon tier and he will probably wrap his game up by summer or fall of next year. My party is just hitting level 14/15/16 but I'm hoping to speed things up and run more regularly so that it doesn't take another two years to wrap everything up in my campaign. Then again, if it keeps going strong and everyone is enjoying it - what's the problem with it running for 2 more years? We'll have to see how it goes...
Onto the reading front, you can see that things are going well because I'm 70% of the way through the first Harry Potter book and 5% through the entire series. Everything I do before July 19th is a buffer, once that date hits I'll need to have 25% of the entire series read by August 19th which evens out to just under 1% or 41 pages a day. Getting through the first book before that date seems reasonable, which would bring my requirement down to 38 pages a day which isn't much but it helps. The only reason this is even possible for me is that the books are easy to read and each page is relatively short on words, otherwise I'd be doomed because I like to read slow and enjoy my books (at least that's the excuse I use).
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Harry Potter and the Deathly Reading Schedule
You may have noticed on the right side here, I've added the first Harry Potter book to my reading progress bar list. This is strange for me because I have never before gone on to read something while not finished with my current book. Wheel of Time stalled for me for no particular reason, but because the last Harry Potter movie(s) are coming out starting in November Becky has encouraged me to read through all of the books before seeing them. I've already read the Sorcerer's Stone but I can't remember very much of it and so I started reading through it again. If I'm going to get through all 7 books before November 19th, then I need to finish pretty much 2 books a month. I'm already 15% through the first book so I'm hoping to give myself a good head start and crank through all of these in pretty good time (for me, that is). I'm a slow reader, I know!
I will be finishing The Shadow Rising as well, but I'm hoping plowing through the HP books gets me back in the habit of reading regularly and then I can actually get through the Wheel of Time books as well.
The first 3-4 Harry Potter movies were interesting but ultimately I hated them, the plot twists in the first three especially were (in my opinion) horridly done as far as cinema goes. It wasn't until the later movies and the more epic wizard stuff started happening that I got sold on the franchise, however I do admit that the first book reads a hell of a lot better than the first movie was to experience. Plus having Gary Oldman as a friendly but mysterious character would sell me on pretty much anything.
Edit: All seven books = 4,100 pages - because the later books are 600-900 pages long vs. the first few being 300 each, I'll definitely need to speed through this but I'm still trying! Entire progress can be seen on the right along with a series total at the bottom. 1% down so far!
I will be finishing The Shadow Rising as well, but I'm hoping plowing through the HP books gets me back in the habit of reading regularly and then I can actually get through the Wheel of Time books as well.
The first 3-4 Harry Potter movies were interesting but ultimately I hated them, the plot twists in the first three especially were (in my opinion) horridly done as far as cinema goes. It wasn't until the later movies and the more epic wizard stuff started happening that I got sold on the franchise, however I do admit that the first book reads a hell of a lot better than the first movie was to experience. Plus having Gary Oldman as a friendly but mysterious character would sell me on pretty much anything.
Edit: All seven books = 4,100 pages - because the later books are 600-900 pages long vs. the first few being 300 each, I'll definitely need to speed through this but I'm still trying! Entire progress can be seen on the right along with a series total at the bottom. 1% down so far!
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
The Complete 180
Frankly I'm surprised that I haven't gone into shock or something with how much things have turned around in the last 3 weeks. Just thinking about it is weird for me, but three weeks ago I was unsure of how long unemployment benefits would last but I knew at one point they only lasted for 6 months and I was coming within a week or two of reaching that 6 month mark. My biggest concern was, in addition to getting a job ASAP, figuring out how we would survive with our house, pets, and any of our stuff if my unemployment benefits ran out.
I pretty much still cannot believe that I got a job right at that pivotal moment. In all likelihood, with all of the legislation passed in the last two years with regards to unemployment, the benefits would have lasted for a total of 9 months (into mid September), but it's not spelled out clearly and it was a pain trying to find out. Was I going to sit on the phone for an hour or two trying to find this out, or just hope for the best because one way or another there was really nothing I could do except mentally prepare for the worst.
Now the absolutely ridiculous part of it is that I have a really awesome job, and the fact that I work at home and have no commute is incredible and a lot of people are asking how they could get the same kind of job. Thankfully my company is probably hiring more people soon, so if you have experience in Architecture, are an Analyst, Statistician, or Technical Writer then let me know!
Also it sounds like in mid-July I will start traveling for short periods of time around all of the US, which I'm hoping in addition to getting to see more of my home country will also allow me to visit many of the friends I have made through blogging and other online interactions. I will most likely be posting on here about my travels and such, so let me know if it sounds like I'll be in your area!
Really, right now it feels like I could not possibly have a better job and that's a damn good feeling. Trust me, I'm enjoying it! Also I'm going to play in E's Eberron D&D game this evening, so that will be super fun and I'm looking forward to the vegetable lasagna before hand (she's an awesome cook from what I hear)!
I pretty much still cannot believe that I got a job right at that pivotal moment. In all likelihood, with all of the legislation passed in the last two years with regards to unemployment, the benefits would have lasted for a total of 9 months (into mid September), but it's not spelled out clearly and it was a pain trying to find out. Was I going to sit on the phone for an hour or two trying to find this out, or just hope for the best because one way or another there was really nothing I could do except mentally prepare for the worst.
Now the absolutely ridiculous part of it is that I have a really awesome job, and the fact that I work at home and have no commute is incredible and a lot of people are asking how they could get the same kind of job. Thankfully my company is probably hiring more people soon, so if you have experience in Architecture, are an Analyst, Statistician, or Technical Writer then let me know!
Also it sounds like in mid-July I will start traveling for short periods of time around all of the US, which I'm hoping in addition to getting to see more of my home country will also allow me to visit many of the friends I have made through blogging and other online interactions. I will most likely be posting on here about my travels and such, so let me know if it sounds like I'll be in your area!
Really, right now it feels like I could not possibly have a better job and that's a damn good feeling. Trust me, I'm enjoying it! Also I'm going to play in E's Eberron D&D game this evening, so that will be super fun and I'm looking forward to the vegetable lasagna before hand (she's an awesome cook from what I hear)!
Thursday, June 17, 2010
The Insidious Nature of Unemployment
I'm going to start this post off with a link, bad idea I know but it's a great post and a good set up to what I'm writing about. If you're looking for a good read on why some people are sticklers for having limited andf exact inventory in their RPGs (or any game really) then read Rob Donoghue's post about fitting square pegs into round holes (not as kinky as it sounds, really).
He ends the post with a reinforcement of an excellent saying, "constraints breed creativity".
I couldn't agree more with this statement, and then something clicked for me and I realized that this philosophy applies in so many more ways than I'd previously realized. A lot of people know that being unemployed means you have a lot more free time than when you're working. Most people think that you should be spending the majority of that time searching for a new job. In a perfect world this would be true, but in reality there are so many factors at work it is very tough to accomplish that.
For starters, at least to me, it seems like there was really only so much time you could spend searching for a job. I'd read an article about being unemployed a year or two before I was laid off, and it very wisely suggested that instead of drowning in job applications that you instead dedicate yourself to doing what you really love. It very cleverly professed that if you dedicated all of your efforts to doing what you love, you would eventually catch people's attention and hopefully be able to get a job doing exactly what you love (and getting paid for it more importantly). This is especially true when it comes to artists and other non-office job professions, if you can dive in at full steam then you're much more likely to make a living at it than someone who approaches it casually.
The problem for me was that I had a lot of free time, so procrastinating became even easier because I knew I'd have time to do anything later in the day/week/month. Worse than this is the looming thought that no matter what you're doing, you should probably be looking for a job instead. Thoughts like these led to an incredibly unproductive Danny during most of the time that I was unemployed.
What I'm finding now, however, is that with the more restricted free time I have now that I am working I have become a lot more creative and productive with my free time. This is a different angle to view the "constraints breed creativity" thought, but I find it equally as relevant for myself at the moment. There are a lot of other factors, of course, because this is real life and very high up on that list is the ability to relax a hell of a lot more and (hopefully) not worry about losing our house/pets/sanity/independence anymore.
He ends the post with a reinforcement of an excellent saying, "constraints breed creativity".
I couldn't agree more with this statement, and then something clicked for me and I realized that this philosophy applies in so many more ways than I'd previously realized. A lot of people know that being unemployed means you have a lot more free time than when you're working. Most people think that you should be spending the majority of that time searching for a new job. In a perfect world this would be true, but in reality there are so many factors at work it is very tough to accomplish that.
For starters, at least to me, it seems like there was really only so much time you could spend searching for a job. I'd read an article about being unemployed a year or two before I was laid off, and it very wisely suggested that instead of drowning in job applications that you instead dedicate yourself to doing what you really love. It very cleverly professed that if you dedicated all of your efforts to doing what you love, you would eventually catch people's attention and hopefully be able to get a job doing exactly what you love (and getting paid for it more importantly). This is especially true when it comes to artists and other non-office job professions, if you can dive in at full steam then you're much more likely to make a living at it than someone who approaches it casually.
The problem for me was that I had a lot of free time, so procrastinating became even easier because I knew I'd have time to do anything later in the day/week/month. Worse than this is the looming thought that no matter what you're doing, you should probably be looking for a job instead. Thoughts like these led to an incredibly unproductive Danny during most of the time that I was unemployed.
What I'm finding now, however, is that with the more restricted free time I have now that I am working I have become a lot more creative and productive with my free time. This is a different angle to view the "constraints breed creativity" thought, but I find it equally as relevant for myself at the moment. There are a lot of other factors, of course, because this is real life and very high up on that list is the ability to relax a hell of a lot more and (hopefully) not worry about losing our house/pets/sanity/independence anymore.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
June, Five Years Later
In June of 2005 I was a recent college graduate and luckily managed to get hired at one of the 4-5 jobs that I interviewed with. Now it's June of 2010 and I've managed to get a job with the one company I interviewed with in the last five months. The amount of people in America right now that are unemployed is insanely large, not to mention people who have been unemployed for what is considered an extreme amount of time such as one year or more. The amount of Architects (or people with degrees/job in architecture) that are unemployed is an equivalently insane amount.
Hell, I just did a quick google search for some actual information and this March 2009 article was in the top for "unemployment by profession" - http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/mar/20/recession-unemployment-and-employment-statistics
Architects are at the top of the building trades list but with a staggering 760% increase in numbers claiming unemployment benefits from Feb 2008 to the time of that report. The funny thing is that March of 2009 is when my job cut me down to 30 hours a week, but I was still "full-time" so my salary was the same I was just working less hours for it. I lived with the reduced hours until in June I was fortunate and took a part-time job with the surveying company my friend Jacob works for where I could pick up 8-12 hours a week as needed and make up for some of the missing pay. The bigger problem was that, as everyone does, we expected my career to continue to grow and as you can see from that study 2008 was a rough year and most of us didn't get the same raises we expected. A LOT of trades didn't get what they expected, I know that, but Architects appear to be the worst hit of the construction industry and even as recent as May of 2010 this study (http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/) of employment change by trade shows Manufacturing and Education growing a small amount while Construction still decreased by a larger amount than any of those grew. Government jobs grew a ludicrous amount because of the temporary employees hired for the census, so we can write that off for that month. So the construction industry has been in a job-losing spiral since 2008, which led up to late November of 2009 when I was laid off for a complete lack of work for me to do at the company. I understood it entirely, it was just a crappy situation for everyone and the company provided us with as much as they could to transition.
I didn't expect to change jobs when I got that job five years ago in June. I didn't expect a lot of things though, and the sheer volume of information and knowledge that I acquired at that job is staggering for me to think about still. I learned that the (unfortunate) best way to get a big raise is to switch jobs. I learned it through the normal means but also because the principal at the firm that hired me left a few months later after 25 years there, and then another project architect above me left within the next year and I heard the money amounts being thrown around at the time. I worked with people who had been at the firm for 10, 15, 30, and even 50 years and I saw what not switching jobs would lead to and what changing jobs could provide. I casually tossed around the idea but by then it was already 2008 and the time had passed, I was worried if I got a new job I'd be "the new guy" and if a crash did hit (which it definitely did) I'd be the first layer trimmed off.
The firm I was with had begun lay offs a lot later than most other Architectural firms, doing the first round in March of 2009 where we lost three people and several people were cut back to fewer hours including myself. The tone was set and we all knew it would almost definitely continue before the end of the year. I dusted off my old resume and put together a whole new portfolio in April, I'm not a COMPLETE fool it seems. I applied to some gov't related jobs but nothing came through, and then interviewed for an Industrial Designer position at none-other-than ThinkGeek in August. I was off-the-walls excited about it for obvious reasons, but they ended up getting people for the job that literally built computers and monitors in their spare time, which was something I could not compete with at all in the field of industrial design. That was my first interview since early 2005 when I was still in college, thankfully it was with TG and I could just wear my TMNT t-shirt to it and everything was very chill.
Then it came to November 2009, just before Thanksgiving, and I pretty much knew what was coming - I was without a job but still working part-time for the Surveying company. Unfortunately their work had also slowed down and I decided to focus more on trying to get a job. For the first month I applied to hundreds of jobs - architecture, design, graphics, websites, anything that I had any experience even closely related to. I heard back from none of them. Finally in late January I heard back from one of the biggest architecture firms in the country (probably the world too), but they were looking for a marketing person, literally someone who trolls around and works with government bids and proposals and does the grunt work of bringing in the jobs for the architects to design. I interviewed but they knew and I knew it wasn't a great fit or even close to what I was looking for. I thought THEN that I was desperate and hopefully nearing the end of unemployment.
Fast forward to April and May and I had spent a few months only applying to two, three, or a handful of jobs a week. Thankfully there was a steady stream of new job postings, but doing ten or twenty more than what was required for unemployment was a tough thing to rationalize, when the job listings might stop coming and then what would I do to meet the quota? It was a rough time. Thankfully one of those jobs I applied to called me in early May and wanted to set up an interview. Three interviews later (one on the phone, two in person), 2-3 weeks of insanely stressful waiting, and today I have a job offer in hand, signed, and returned. I'm set to go in on Friday and pick up the equipment I need to work from home (it's a Virtual Company, so everyone works from home) and begin working on Monday. Barring some insane or unfortunate mess up with the background check or references, I'm set to go!
It was a hell of a ride, and I hope that I never have to go through it again. I'll be posting some more thoughts and musings from my time as unemployed profession (read: bum), but I do have to say that I'm sad I didn't meet any of my 5 goals I set in late January for February. I'm going t be setting some new goals now and we'll see how I do. I'm okay with not meeting goals, as long as I set new ones (possibly easier ones) and see where I stand on my ability to meet the goals I want to achieve. Getting a job should have been my #1 on that list in January, and in all honesty it really was and being mentally, emotionally, and physically hung up on that is why I believe I never got to anything else on the list. Now that one seems to be completed, so I hope I can move on.
Oh, and thank you to the Starcraft 2 beta that opened in March. That certainly made the last three months more than bearable. :D
Hell, I just did a quick google search for some actual information and this March 2009 article was in the top for "unemployment by profession" - http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/mar/20/recession-unemployment-and-employment-statistics
Architects are at the top of the building trades list but with a staggering 760% increase in numbers claiming unemployment benefits from Feb 2008 to the time of that report. The funny thing is that March of 2009 is when my job cut me down to 30 hours a week, but I was still "full-time" so my salary was the same I was just working less hours for it. I lived with the reduced hours until in June I was fortunate and took a part-time job with the surveying company my friend Jacob works for where I could pick up 8-12 hours a week as needed and make up for some of the missing pay. The bigger problem was that, as everyone does, we expected my career to continue to grow and as you can see from that study 2008 was a rough year and most of us didn't get the same raises we expected. A LOT of trades didn't get what they expected, I know that, but Architects appear to be the worst hit of the construction industry and even as recent as May of 2010 this study (http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/) of employment change by trade shows Manufacturing and Education growing a small amount while Construction still decreased by a larger amount than any of those grew. Government jobs grew a ludicrous amount because of the temporary employees hired for the census, so we can write that off for that month. So the construction industry has been in a job-losing spiral since 2008, which led up to late November of 2009 when I was laid off for a complete lack of work for me to do at the company. I understood it entirely, it was just a crappy situation for everyone and the company provided us with as much as they could to transition.
I didn't expect to change jobs when I got that job five years ago in June. I didn't expect a lot of things though, and the sheer volume of information and knowledge that I acquired at that job is staggering for me to think about still. I learned that the (unfortunate) best way to get a big raise is to switch jobs. I learned it through the normal means but also because the principal at the firm that hired me left a few months later after 25 years there, and then another project architect above me left within the next year and I heard the money amounts being thrown around at the time. I worked with people who had been at the firm for 10, 15, 30, and even 50 years and I saw what not switching jobs would lead to and what changing jobs could provide. I casually tossed around the idea but by then it was already 2008 and the time had passed, I was worried if I got a new job I'd be "the new guy" and if a crash did hit (which it definitely did) I'd be the first layer trimmed off.
The firm I was with had begun lay offs a lot later than most other Architectural firms, doing the first round in March of 2009 where we lost three people and several people were cut back to fewer hours including myself. The tone was set and we all knew it would almost definitely continue before the end of the year. I dusted off my old resume and put together a whole new portfolio in April, I'm not a COMPLETE fool it seems. I applied to some gov't related jobs but nothing came through, and then interviewed for an Industrial Designer position at none-other-than ThinkGeek in August. I was off-the-walls excited about it for obvious reasons, but they ended up getting people for the job that literally built computers and monitors in their spare time, which was something I could not compete with at all in the field of industrial design. That was my first interview since early 2005 when I was still in college, thankfully it was with TG and I could just wear my TMNT t-shirt to it and everything was very chill.
Then it came to November 2009, just before Thanksgiving, and I pretty much knew what was coming - I was without a job but still working part-time for the Surveying company. Unfortunately their work had also slowed down and I decided to focus more on trying to get a job. For the first month I applied to hundreds of jobs - architecture, design, graphics, websites, anything that I had any experience even closely related to. I heard back from none of them. Finally in late January I heard back from one of the biggest architecture firms in the country (probably the world too), but they were looking for a marketing person, literally someone who trolls around and works with government bids and proposals and does the grunt work of bringing in the jobs for the architects to design. I interviewed but they knew and I knew it wasn't a great fit or even close to what I was looking for. I thought THEN that I was desperate and hopefully nearing the end of unemployment.
Fast forward to April and May and I had spent a few months only applying to two, three, or a handful of jobs a week. Thankfully there was a steady stream of new job postings, but doing ten or twenty more than what was required for unemployment was a tough thing to rationalize, when the job listings might stop coming and then what would I do to meet the quota? It was a rough time. Thankfully one of those jobs I applied to called me in early May and wanted to set up an interview. Three interviews later (one on the phone, two in person), 2-3 weeks of insanely stressful waiting, and today I have a job offer in hand, signed, and returned. I'm set to go in on Friday and pick up the equipment I need to work from home (it's a Virtual Company, so everyone works from home) and begin working on Monday. Barring some insane or unfortunate mess up with the background check or references, I'm set to go!
It was a hell of a ride, and I hope that I never have to go through it again. I'll be posting some more thoughts and musings from my time as unemployed profession (read: bum), but I do have to say that I'm sad I didn't meet any of my 5 goals I set in late January for February. I'm going t be setting some new goals now and we'll see how I do. I'm okay with not meeting goals, as long as I set new ones (possibly easier ones) and see where I stand on my ability to meet the goals I want to achieve. Getting a job should have been my #1 on that list in January, and in all honesty it really was and being mentally, emotionally, and physically hung up on that is why I believe I never got to anything else on the list. Now that one seems to be completed, so I hope I can move on.
Oh, and thank you to the Starcraft 2 beta that opened in March. That certainly made the last three months more than bearable. :D
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Artwork - Campaign Banner
I sat down yesterday afternoon to create a banner for my D&D campaign's website, this was the quick and dirty (B&W) version I whipped up just to lay things out:
Now that circle on the right I really wanted to appear like a black, oily liquid sphere, and the left is a horizon of stars, so I continued to work on a more finished version but in the end I think the black and white is still more evocative and interesting to look at. Here's the progress on the more detailed / color version:
I'm pretty happy with how the left side has turned out, though I may add some more haze in the blue areas, but I just don't think it has the same interest and feel to it as the B&W version.
Now that circle on the right I really wanted to appear like a black, oily liquid sphere, and the left is a horizon of stars, so I continued to work on a more finished version but in the end I think the black and white is still more evocative and interesting to look at. Here's the progress on the more detailed / color version:
I'm pretty happy with how the left side has turned out, though I may add some more haze in the blue areas, but I just don't think it has the same interest and feel to it as the B&W version.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
The Course of Life Recently
It's ironic that I recently wrote a guest blog article about getting a D&D campaign that has strayed back on track when my life has seemingly done the exact same thing. Unfortunately, it's not as easy and in my control as to how quickly I can get my life back "on track".
So I graduated from college, got a job in the career I wanted to have, got married, bought two cats and a dog, then last November got laid off because the construction industry (and the firm I was working for in particular) hit the crapper. Part of me is extremely relieved, because there were people who graduated and then worked at that firm for the next 25 years and that's never really a good career choice. All of that is behind me now, and I find myself with an overabundance of spare time and a plethora of hobbies which I'm slowly getting back into. The best hobby, which is also essentially a job (I put it on my resume) is writing for Critical Hits, which I have to say I'm very happy I'm getting back into. It helps that we have a handful of excellent new guest writers that just came on board and so if I don't contribute then I'd be lost in the crowd.
So I'm unemployed and even still having trouble getting my ass in gear with producing artwork. I need some solid goals, some discipline, and something that I still don't know what it is to get going. The good news is that I've drawn some things in the last couple of days, and I'm hoping to keep that going. So enough bullshit:
Goal #1 - Draw something and post it here every other day.
Goal #2 - Keep writing for CH at least once a week, but preferably 2-3 times a week (going well so far)
Goal #3 - Organize my art supplies to help with the drawing and to get into painting again
Goal #4 - Create one painting in February
Goal #5 - Read the books I want to read, finish Shadow Rising in February
There are some goals, we'll see how I accomplish them and what needs to change with me or my life to get my goals done.
So I graduated from college, got a job in the career I wanted to have, got married, bought two cats and a dog, then last November got laid off because the construction industry (and the firm I was working for in particular) hit the crapper. Part of me is extremely relieved, because there were people who graduated and then worked at that firm for the next 25 years and that's never really a good career choice. All of that is behind me now, and I find myself with an overabundance of spare time and a plethora of hobbies which I'm slowly getting back into. The best hobby, which is also essentially a job (I put it on my resume) is writing for Critical Hits, which I have to say I'm very happy I'm getting back into. It helps that we have a handful of excellent new guest writers that just came on board and so if I don't contribute then I'd be lost in the crowd.
So I'm unemployed and even still having trouble getting my ass in gear with producing artwork. I need some solid goals, some discipline, and something that I still don't know what it is to get going. The good news is that I've drawn some things in the last couple of days, and I'm hoping to keep that going. So enough bullshit:
Goal #1 - Draw something and post it here every other day.
Goal #2 - Keep writing for CH at least once a week, but preferably 2-3 times a week (going well so far)
Goal #3 - Organize my art supplies to help with the drawing and to get into painting again
Goal #4 - Create one painting in February
Goal #5 - Read the books I want to read, finish Shadow Rising in February
There are some goals, we'll see how I accomplish them and what needs to change with me or my life to get my goals done.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Autumn in Maryland
Autumn is definitely my favorite season of the year, I was a bit hesitant about it this year because Winter, Spring, and then Summer seemed so awesome but late September and October so far have really sealed the deal. Of course now it's gotten to the point where it's starting to get "OMFG Cold" by most MD resident's standards, it's fine because we all started complaining about the cold a month ago when it was actually super nice out.
And now something that I did back in May/June and am just now getting around to:
A blogger that I know through RPG blogging, Darvin, posted this "Random Music Album Cover meme" back in May and I thought it was a very interesting idea so I did it back then, and with my typical lazy nature I didn't post it but the results amused me so much I had to save them in my e-mail somewhere. So I present to you now, the results and the instructions for the meme! I'd love to see others if you do it for yourself.
1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random... Read More”
or click en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 - Go to Quotations Page and select "random quotations"
or click www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.
3 - Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.
---
I think the fact that my random wikipedia page ended up being "Fecal Fat Test" was amazing, and knew that I had to post this sooner or later. The absolutely stunning photo, which I unfortunately had to Photoshop the word "Fecal" onto was found randomly on Flickr and belongs entirely to Flickr user jennyBunz, I hope she doesn't mind because that photo would actually makes a really kickass album cover!
Other news: updated my slow as hell progress through Wheel of Time book 4, from 31% to 37% complete. The group just got into the Aeil Wastes so now I'll probably pick up the speed and hopefully be finished the book before the end of the year. Yes, again, I read incredibly and horrifyingly slow. I know this.
Also a week ago I posted a quick photoshop sketch I did on Parallax Perspectives, and I hope to be doing at least one of those a week as I start picking up more freelance art jobs that require me to keep in practice.
And now something that I did back in May/June and am just now getting around to:
A blogger that I know through RPG blogging, Darvin, posted this "Random Music Album Cover meme" back in May and I thought it was a very interesting idea so I did it back then, and with my typical lazy nature I didn't post it but the results amused me so much I had to save them in my e-mail somewhere. So I present to you now, the results and the instructions for the meme! I'd love to see others if you do it for yourself.
1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random... Read More”or click en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 - Go to Quotations Page and select "random quotations"
or click www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.
3 - Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.
---
I think the fact that my random wikipedia page ended up being "Fecal Fat Test" was amazing, and knew that I had to post this sooner or later. The absolutely stunning photo, which I unfortunately had to Photoshop the word "Fecal" onto was found randomly on Flickr and belongs entirely to Flickr user jennyBunz, I hope she doesn't mind because that photo would actually makes a really kickass album cover!
Other news: updated my slow as hell progress through Wheel of Time book 4, from 31% to 37% complete. The group just got into the Aeil Wastes so now I'll probably pick up the speed and hopefully be finished the book before the end of the year. Yes, again, I read incredibly and horrifyingly slow. I know this.
Also a week ago I posted a quick photoshop sketch I did on Parallax Perspectives, and I hope to be doing at least one of those a week as I start picking up more freelance art jobs that require me to keep in practice.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Random Thoughts
Now that my hair has gotten longer, it's horribly apparent how much hair I lose every time I take a shower or brush my hair. I can't help but feel like after a few days, or at most a few months, of this practice I could easily go bald. Warning: this could easily be the most boring thing in the world to some of you, but these are some of the randomly stupid things I think about in life.
Looking at the actual numbers is interesting, or maybe I just have some bizarre (diagnosable) part-time obsession with math. The average human head, at least scientists believe, has between 100,000 and 150,000 hairs on it. What's surprising is that some claim the color of hair determines how many there are, that blondes have more hairs than brunettes and so on. So let's look at how much hair I lose on the average day. During a shower I'd venture a guess that I end up losing about 20-30 hairs, but let's take that to an extreme and say 50 a day, plus brushing I'll go way out on a limb and say that I end up pulling out ~100 hairs in any given day.
If this is the case, and I think the actual number is much smaller, then it would take me 1,250 days to pull out all of my hair. That's 3.43 years! Considering my hair is about down to my shoulders now, and I've been letting it grow for under two years still, I don't think I'm at much risk of going bald with my regular day-to-day practices! I'm quite relieved by this, and honestly I expected (and hoped) to find out just as much, but really when you see how freaking much hair comes off of my head you have to be amazed that I'm not bald already! (I have had a widow's peak since I was a baby, however)
Looking at the actual numbers is interesting, or maybe I just have some bizarre (diagnosable) part-time obsession with math. The average human head, at least scientists believe, has between 100,000 and 150,000 hairs on it. What's surprising is that some claim the color of hair determines how many there are, that blondes have more hairs than brunettes and so on. So let's look at how much hair I lose on the average day. During a shower I'd venture a guess that I end up losing about 20-30 hairs, but let's take that to an extreme and say 50 a day, plus brushing I'll go way out on a limb and say that I end up pulling out ~100 hairs in any given day.
If this is the case, and I think the actual number is much smaller, then it would take me 1,250 days to pull out all of my hair. That's 3.43 years! Considering my hair is about down to my shoulders now, and I've been letting it grow for under two years still, I don't think I'm at much risk of going bald with my regular day-to-day practices! I'm quite relieved by this, and honestly I expected (and hoped) to find out just as much, but really when you see how freaking much hair comes off of my head you have to be amazed that I'm not bald already! (I have had a widow's peak since I was a baby, however)
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Puppy Pictures
Some of you may not know yet, but Becky and I got a puppy (my first ever!) back in mid-march and I can't believe it's been 2 months already. I'll be uploading a bunch of photos of her, and more of the cats, as regularly as I can. You can see them here: Freyja's Flickr Set
She's now 4 1/2 months old, we stopped counting in weeks pretty quickly because it's an archaic practice that dog owners seem to be obsessed with. If you're not going to count in weeks their whole life, why not stop after 2-3 months? Once the weeks exceed 15 and the months are finally to a significant digit (2+) you should switch over. Why? Because when you say your puppy is 23 weeks old, no one REALLY knows exactly how old that is without doing math first. Said math is inaccurate also, as a month varies in the number of weeks it contains.
Josh said yesterday that my math discussions clearly define me as a huge nerd. I think he's right...
Other news, I'm attempting some motivation to get myself drawing regularly again. Parallax Perspectives had a great boost back in Feb/March thanks to an RPG blogging friend (Chgowiz), but I let him down and that died out. There must be some way to prevent this revival/death cycle my drawing seems to be in.
Oh also, you may notice on the right, I finally decided to join Twitter. My soul hasn't died yet, and it's actually a pretty fun thing to use. I do actually have a whole different set of problems with it than I thought I would, but I'll go into those later.
She's now 4 1/2 months old, we stopped counting in weeks pretty quickly because it's an archaic practice that dog owners seem to be obsessed with. If you're not going to count in weeks their whole life, why not stop after 2-3 months? Once the weeks exceed 15 and the months are finally to a significant digit (2+) you should switch over. Why? Because when you say your puppy is 23 weeks old, no one REALLY knows exactly how old that is without doing math first. Said math is inaccurate also, as a month varies in the number of weeks it contains.
Josh said yesterday that my math discussions clearly define me as a huge nerd. I think he's right...
Other news, I'm attempting some motivation to get myself drawing regularly again. Parallax Perspectives had a great boost back in Feb/March thanks to an RPG blogging friend (Chgowiz), but I let him down and that died out. There must be some way to prevent this revival/death cycle my drawing seems to be in.
Oh also, you may notice on the right, I finally decided to join Twitter. My soul hasn't died yet, and it's actually a pretty fun thing to use. I do actually have a whole different set of problems with it than I thought I would, but I'll go into those later.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Readings
You might notice the new reading progress bar I added on the right side, this is to aid my effort to read more. I'm currently 177ish pages through the 981 page long Shadows Rising, the 4th book in the Wheel of Time series. It's funny, but four books into a series is more than I've ever read, and I have no doubts that WoT will be one of the few long series of books that I ever read. The only other one I've read more than 3 books of is Dune, which I liked all 4 of the books that I read in that series too. Right now the progress bar is a % out of 100, but if I can figure out how to make it pages/total pages I will change it to that because then I don't have to do any math to get the %!
Is that a new level of lazy?
Is that a new level of lazy?
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