I've been out of college for a while now. As some of you know I lived in Florida for a few months last year and hated it so moved back north. Went on trips to Australia and Israel this summer. Doing some temp work while I wait for my South Korean English teaching job to begin. I'm moving to Seoul for a year in November on my first contract.

What's everyone else been up to?

Having had a couple of fairly quiet weekends (Sharon and Cass going to Butlins, followed by Sharon and Cass going to Ireland for a wedding) I am back in my usual routine.

Work is keeping me fairly busy (releases flying everywhere) and I am ingrossed in complex database cloning operations. This sounds exciting until you realise it is mostly copying database files to and from external drives, compressing and uncompressing them, and persuading the databases that they do want to work even if they are somewhere else now. Since the file sets are about 300GB in size this is booooring.

That, and the company is introducing a new pension scheme. It is sooo good that I am taking independent financial advice.

(sigh)

Life's not that bad. I just don't have much free time.

For those unaware, I'm the art director on an X-box 360/PS3 video game.

We (re)launched into full-scale production on the game in July, with an extremely compressed schedule for completing it that includes a big delivery of a working level to the publisher next month. This meant that all of our art teams suddenly ramped up from zero to overtime in order to get enough completed that early... especially since art needs to be done first before most anything else.

As a result, I've been working most of my nights and weekends all summer. On the plus side, the we get further along, the less art will remain, and so when all the people on the programming side of things hit their crunch time, I'll be getting more sleep.

Well, I moved back to my hometown last month to take a term position as Acting Recreation Director for the town. Come February I will either carry on or have to find another job, depending on if the Rec Director on maternity leave comes back or not. Word around town is she probably won't come back, which is my sincere hope.

Sarah and I will have been dating 11 months on October 1st. I know live 3 miles from her as opposed to an hour and three quarter drive, so we get to spend a lot of evenings together. I'm also not complaining about coming home from work to usually find supper ready on the table (being the modern man that I am I always do the dishes if she cooks).

I'm volunteering at the high school in town as well, right now as a volleyball coach. I'll probably do badminton and curling for the school as well, and coach community soccer as well. I also referee in town, for volleyball and soccer.

Other than not having everything available within a short drive (I could not find a clipboard for sale in town yesterday!) and the lack of high speed internet at home, I'm enjoying small town life again. Respone to my returning to the community has been very positive, with most people saying "Oh thank god" when they here I've taken over the Rec Director position (apparently the last few have been pretty spotty).

Oh, and I live in a cow pasture. Good times.

~Hat~

Been working almost every day for the past week. Yesterday I worked from 6 am to 6:30 pm. I work later today, tomorrow & I think everyday in the Weekend, too.

Then I think I work everyday next week, sucks having to 2 jobs.

... Which is a nicer place than the old one, except that the increased commute time means I'm spending $28 every six days to refuel my gas tank. It's yet another clean and sober house, so no drugs or drinking, but that doesn't impact my lifestyle in any way, and after my last place, I'm honestly kind of happy to live somewhere that requires its residents not to use. Unfortunately, between the move, the recent repairs to my car and my increased consumption of fuel, I'm living off my credit card and have made zero progress the past few months in saving any money. As it is, I'm going to have to be even more economical with food for the next week and a half, to avoid being overdrawn before my next paycheck.

On the plus side, I've downloaded the final three episodes of Doctor Who Season 3 onto my computer, as well as The Sarah Jane Adventures Christmas special and first episode (both parts), so I'll be able to show those to my folks when I visit them this weekend.

After the delivery in October, the publisher will decide what kind of marketing budget they want to put behind the game, and then after that they'll start bringing up awareness. So I expect by the end of the year there will be the announcement of the game and some various bits about it online. I'll let people know when this stuff starts happening.

The game itself isn't scheduled to be completed until next August, for sale holiday season '08. So there's still a year to go.

But yes... Bioshock was very, very cool.

> For those unaware, I'm the art director on an X-box 360/PS3 video game. >

I just finished Halo 3 in about 12 hours (and survived the Red Ring of Death to boot..) which leads me to my comment.

I watched a documentary in the Halo 3 CE covering the making of Halo 3 and the delicate balance between the artists (it needs to look better!) and the engineers (no, it needs to work better!). I thought of you when they were interviewing the artists, hence my dropping in here while I was online (Gods and Monsters is only about a paragraph long and I'm too scatterbrained to find the story among the ideas at the moment) and I'm glad to see you're on another project

I hope it's a big one...now that the Halo hype has died (it was ok, but it was no 10 out of 10) maybe people will start looking elsewhere for thier graphical-interface entertainment hit (Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls V, whatever it is you're working on..)


Be sure and let us know what the game is when you can. And keep your fingers crossed. With any luck Annie will hear back about a job she applied for this week and I'll be married to an EB Games store manager before too long (yes, they're both the same thing.)

Wow Andrew, you get around. What do you do for a living?
I missed your response earlier but didn’t you live in Australia when you first posted here, then moved to New York, then wanted to join the military on 911? As you can see, I’m way behind.

I’m doing well at my job. I’m still drafting, this time for a contractor to the US Government. They destroy chemical weapons out here in Utah and I draft up plans and fix plans for the machinery, piping and electronics for that task. I have to take a gas mask everywhere I go.

They sent me to Huntington Beach, California recently for training in the CAD software I use. That’s a part of LA. I learned some stuff and enjoyed the class. During the day I went to class and during the night I went to the beach, Downtown Disney and did some editing on the novel. I also read the second book in the “His Dark Materials” trilogy by Phillip Pullman. There is more on my trip at my blog but I know it’s not a popular place to go.

Now I’m home and enjoying family. I get involved in the homework my kids are doing and spend as much time with my wife as I can. At lunch at work I have been continuing the edits on my novel as well as submitting five query letters a week. I still believe in this novel will all my heart. I will be speaking to Jeff’s newest class of 6th graders (including my daughter Katie) sometime this school year.

I’m all done with the movies I planned on seeing this year, but now I desperately want to see “The Golden Compass” which is the first book in Phillip Pullman’s series mentioned above.

Like a lot of people, I’m hooked on Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series of books. I’m on her second (New Moon). I’m hoping the giant wave of popularity that she has giving the vampires (like Rice before her) will help spark interest in agents for Annabelle.

Beside my constant viewership of Doctor Who, Heroes, Eureka, Ghost Hunters and Smallville, I’ve added Journeyman and Moonlight to my TV viewing list. I’m also checking out Cavemen.

So that’s the busy life. Sorry I’ve been away from the board. I owe you stories, but I really don’t feel in the mood anymore. Maybe it’s all the hard changes the board is doing (I still can’t get my Name to default). Maybe it’s the fact that I haven’t finished anything here and I’ve lost my feel for my characters. I find all my characters shallow, one sided and badly written. Maybe it’s just that life has me going in so many directions that something had to drop? Maybe it’s that any idea that interests me drives others into doubt with good reason because the idea leads to bad writing.

I’ll keep watch on the place and read and reply. I’ll still caption here for you guys cause you’re my friends, even if it just gets one or two captions here. Don’t worry, I’m still here.

> For those unaware, I'm the art director on an X-box 360/PS3 video game. > > We (re)launched into full-scale production on the game in July, with an extremely compressed schedule for completing it that includes a big delivery of a working level to the publisher next month. This meant that all of our art teams suddenly ramped up from zero to overtime in order to get enough completed that early... especially since art needs to be done first before most anything else. > > As a result, I've been working most of my nights and weekends all summer. On the plus side, the we get further along, the less art will remain, and so when all the people on the programming side of things hit their crunch time, I'll be getting more sleep.

> Well, I moved back to my hometown last month to take a term position as Acting Recreation Director for the town. Come February I will either carry on or have to find another job, depending on if the Rec Director on maternity leave comes back or not. Word around town is she probably won't come back, which is my sincere hope. > > Sarah and I will have been dating 11 months on October 1st. I know live 3 miles from her as opposed to an hour and three quarter drive, so we get to spend a lot of evenings together. I'm also not complaining about coming home from work to usually find supper ready on the table (being the modern man that I am I always do the dishes if she cooks). > > I'm volunteering at the high school in town as well, right now as a volleyball coach. I'll probably do badminton and curling for the school as well, and coach community soccer as well. I also referee in town, for volleyball and soccer. > > Other than not having everything available within a short drive (I could not find a clipboard for sale in town yesterday!) and the lack of high speed internet at home, I'm enjoying small town life again. Respone to my returning to the community has been very positive, with most people saying "Oh thank god" when they here I've taken over the Rec Director position (apparently the last few have been pretty spotty). > > Oh, and I live in a cow pasture. Good times. > > ~Hat~ > >

I've been working my butt off and finally got another raise (yay). We're fixing up some stuff around the house and have two of James' actual employees living with us, one in the guestroom and one in the basement. I am surrounded by testosterone. I found a new therapist who does not attribute all my problems to spouse abuse (good thing, cause I don't have any - spouse abuse, that is, not problems) and a cute little Russian psychiatrist. I'm sorting out all the financial red tape so I can go back to classes in January. How are y'all?

The news from Daily Trombone-land is fairly good. After five years of unemployment and temping, I got a permanent position as a lawyer at a very large Japanese investment bank. Wife and kids celebrated with me on a trip to Hawaii (a friend lent us a vacation house, and we had frequent flyer miles, so it actually didn't cost much). Just finished two weeks on the job and am floating on air, even though I just spent three days writing a tax memo that would qualify as a weapon of mass soporifics. I'm just praying that some economic downturn doesn't make the job evaporate.

Problem is that full time work and taking the kids to the train at 6 a.m. every day for their trip to day school leaves very little for PVB participation. But yes, it may take forever and then some, but something is out there for almost all of us. I hope it's sooner rather than later for all of us.

JJJ

> > > > > Well, I moved back to my hometown last month to take a term position as Acting Recreation Director for the town. Come February I will either carry on or have to find another job, depending on if the Rec Director on maternity leave comes back or not. Word around town is she probably won't come back, which is my sincere hope. > > > > > > Sarah and I will have been dating 11 months on October 1st. I know live 3 miles from her as opposed to an hour and three quarter drive, so we get to spend a lot of evenings together. I'm also not complaining about coming home from work to usually find supper ready on the table (being the modern man that I am I always do the dishes if she cooks). > > > > > > I'm volunteering at the high school in town as well, right now as a volleyball coach. I'll probably do badminton and curling for the school as well, and coach community soccer as well. I also referee in town, for volleyball and soccer. > > > > > > Other than not having everything available within a short drive (I could not find a clipboard for sale in town yesterday!) and the lack of high speed internet at home, I'm enjoying small town life again. Respone to my returning to the community has been very positive, with most people saying "Oh thank god" when they here I've taken over the Rec Director position (apparently the last few have been pretty spotty). > > > > > > Oh, and I live in a cow pasture. Good times. > > > > > > ~Hat~ > > > > > > > >