For the past few days, I've been spending my evening free time playing through Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light on the 360. The game really grabbed me with its visual style and game mechanics. I really enjoy the platforming elements as well as the nearly twin-stick shooter combat mechanic. The mix of combat, platforming and puzzle-solving keeps things interesting, and the constant carrot of finding or earning some new weapon, relic or artifact has maintained my attention to this downloadable game, even when Read Dead Redemption showed up in the mail recently (thanks, Goozex!).
One element that I really enjoy is the challenge rooms in each level, allowing you to attempt a completely optional puzzle to earn a reward of an item, artifact or weapon. Another aspect I enjoy are the goals set for each level, which also reward you with a power-up or item. The goal may be "Destroy all the vases," or "Cross the river without touching the water." These add spice to the game and have made me change my playstyle to achieve the rewards. Little touches such as this add depth and replayability to a relatively inexpensive downloadable title.
Here's some footage of the game in action, in case you're interested:
Work has been rather busy lately, to the point where I've been struggling with the proper home/work balance. There are times when it would be far too easy to let everything I need to accomplish at work overwhelm my family time and free time, which isn't healthy. There's a wonderful wife and three amazing kids waiting for me every day when I come home, and they are the ones that keep me grounded and centered. To lose sight of that would be unhealthy, and to miss this time with the kids as they grow and develop would (in my opinion) be tragic, as there is no second chance. Finding special time to spend with my wife, that doesn't involve herding young 'uns, cleaning up the living room when it looks like Toys 'R Us has exploded in there, or wrestling with bedtime, is a challenge but one that I need to keep working on. Our connection is a special one, and even though it takes a conscious effort to maintain the 'spark', it's worth it.
My kids become more and more amazing each passing day. Isabelle has an infectious smile and boundless energy. She's the whirling dervish dancing around the house, her imagination running wild. Nick is the quiet one, content to play with his cars, but never ceases to surprise me with his gentleness as he entertains Emily with shared toys. Emily, on the verge of walking, putters around the house, never stopping, but content to entertain herself or join into whatever mischief her bigger siblings are causing. She is a mix of both her brother and sister, rarely stopping like Isabelle but able to happily entertain herself like Nick. The joy they bring to my life is something I can't put into words.
Showing posts with label Work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Work. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Random Thoughts, Sunday Edition
I figured I'd drop in for the annual update of this blog. It would be disingenuous to try to come up with a bunch of excuses, so let's just skip that part and move on, shall we? :)
- Really enjoyed watching the first game of the Patriots season this afternoon. All 3 facets of the team (offense, defense, special teams) contributed to the 38-24 win over the supposedly ferocious Bengals. It was great to see Brady throwing to Welker again, and I'm excited and nervous at the same time to watch the young defenders grow up on the field. The youth movement on defense is something that's been needed for a few years now, but with youth comes growing pains. All in all, I expect the offense to be fantastic and the defense to show flashes of greatness. Should be an entertaining season if nothing else.
- Also really enjoyed spending a fun and stressful weekend with the family. We transitioned the twins to toddler beds on Saturday night, and the best way to describe what's transpired is an adventure. It's tough to keep them in bed, and also to convince them to sleep. I foresee a bunch of rough nights over the next week as we work with them to understand they need to both stay in the bed and actually sleep. Come to think of it, I probably should stop at the store on the way home after work and pick up some more coffee; we're gonna need it.
The baby (she's not really a baby anymore, but I don't want her to grow up too fast) starting really crawling and pulling herself up on things last weekend, so she spent this weekend practicing all over the living room. Gone are the days when we could sit her on the floor with some toys and go do chores in the kitchen. Now we really have to pay attention or we'll come back to the living room and she'll be gone. :) It's a lot of fun to watch her explore her surrounding and discuss them with us. We're going to have our hands full with that one, I'm sure of it.
- My free time has been spent playing a lot of Torchlight. Though I bought the game shortly after its release last year, the arrival of the baby distracted me from really putting time into it. On a whim I went back to it last week, and have put 10-12 hours into it. As all of the glowing reviews said back at its release, the game is a fun Diablo-clone, made by a group of developers who made the first Diablo. The game has a certain spirit and atmosphere that makes it fun, and the character development, skill trees and (most of all) loot collecting have me coming back time and again. Since this game is resource light, I have it installed on both my home and work computers, which allows me the ability to sneak a level or two in during my lunch breaks. The fact that my character progress is saved in the Steam Cloud lets me play the same character both at work and home, making it even easier to progress in the quest. Definitely a must buy for Diablo fans.
- Work has been incredibly busy the past couple of months. I've stepped into an interim management position, overseeing three other colleagues, as well as stepping up to begin training as a project manager in earnest. In addition, the technical oversight of multiple projects for an incredibly challenging client has been given to me. Long story short, there's no shortage of things for me to do when I get to work in the morning. Honestly though, it's a welcome change as I felt a bit stagnant before seizing these opportunities. The biggest thing to look out for with the new responsibilities is to not bite off more than I can chew and start missing deadlines. That's the worst possible thing I could do at this point. I'm working on learning the strengths and weaknesses of the people I oversee and how best to work with them, so that they are busy and doing what they want to do without overloading them.
Well, that's enough of a brain dump for tonight. Hopefully I'll be back soon to do this again, as I really enjoy it. Sleep and free time willing, I'll see you all soon!
- Really enjoyed watching the first game of the Patriots season this afternoon. All 3 facets of the team (offense, defense, special teams) contributed to the 38-24 win over the supposedly ferocious Bengals. It was great to see Brady throwing to Welker again, and I'm excited and nervous at the same time to watch the young defenders grow up on the field. The youth movement on defense is something that's been needed for a few years now, but with youth comes growing pains. All in all, I expect the offense to be fantastic and the defense to show flashes of greatness. Should be an entertaining season if nothing else.
- Also really enjoyed spending a fun and stressful weekend with the family. We transitioned the twins to toddler beds on Saturday night, and the best way to describe what's transpired is an adventure. It's tough to keep them in bed, and also to convince them to sleep. I foresee a bunch of rough nights over the next week as we work with them to understand they need to both stay in the bed and actually sleep. Come to think of it, I probably should stop at the store on the way home after work and pick up some more coffee; we're gonna need it.
The baby (she's not really a baby anymore, but I don't want her to grow up too fast) starting really crawling and pulling herself up on things last weekend, so she spent this weekend practicing all over the living room. Gone are the days when we could sit her on the floor with some toys and go do chores in the kitchen. Now we really have to pay attention or we'll come back to the living room and she'll be gone. :) It's a lot of fun to watch her explore her surrounding and discuss them with us. We're going to have our hands full with that one, I'm sure of it.
- My free time has been spent playing a lot of Torchlight. Though I bought the game shortly after its release last year, the arrival of the baby distracted me from really putting time into it. On a whim I went back to it last week, and have put 10-12 hours into it. As all of the glowing reviews said back at its release, the game is a fun Diablo-clone, made by a group of developers who made the first Diablo. The game has a certain spirit and atmosphere that makes it fun, and the character development, skill trees and (most of all) loot collecting have me coming back time and again. Since this game is resource light, I have it installed on both my home and work computers, which allows me the ability to sneak a level or two in during my lunch breaks. The fact that my character progress is saved in the Steam Cloud lets me play the same character both at work and home, making it even easier to progress in the quest. Definitely a must buy for Diablo fans.
- Work has been incredibly busy the past couple of months. I've stepped into an interim management position, overseeing three other colleagues, as well as stepping up to begin training as a project manager in earnest. In addition, the technical oversight of multiple projects for an incredibly challenging client has been given to me. Long story short, there's no shortage of things for me to do when I get to work in the morning. Honestly though, it's a welcome change as I felt a bit stagnant before seizing these opportunities. The biggest thing to look out for with the new responsibilities is to not bite off more than I can chew and start missing deadlines. That's the worst possible thing I could do at this point. I'm working on learning the strengths and weaknesses of the people I oversee and how best to work with them, so that they are busy and doing what they want to do without overloading them.
Well, that's enough of a brain dump for tonight. Hopefully I'll be back soon to do this again, as I really enjoy it. Sleep and free time willing, I'll see you all soon!
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Self Doubt
Ever since the events of last Friday, which to be completely honest most likely wouldn't amount to a hill of beans to anyone else but me, I've been suffering from a terrible case of self doubt. When I'm working, every time a call comes in, or the 'new e-mail' reminder pops up on my desktop, or someone stops by my cube, inevitably the first thought that races through my head is, "Oh no, what have I done wrong now?" As you can imagine, this is not the optimal way to be a happy and productive member of society. I'm constantly queasy, worrying what will happen next, and nervous about my perception among my peers. Confidence is the key to almost all aspects of life, and right now I'm going through a severe lack of confidence in my work.
It wasn't that long ago that I felt as if I produced a quality product, that my efforts and performance met a standard of quality acceptable for the company where I work. Unfortunately now, because of this doubt that eats away at me, I'm never sure if what I'm doing is good enough. It's pretty obvious, even to me as I try desperately not to wallow in self-pity, that something needs to be done to right the course of my career and confidence. But what? That's the million dollar question, and one that I wrestle with constantly these days, because I don't want to feel this way.
One of the biggest issues I deal with regarding my lack of confidence is insuring that it doesn't bleed over into the rest of my life. I have a wife and three amazing children who deserve a husband and father who is happy, upbeat and completely devoted to making sure their needs are met and that I'm supporting them in every possible way. That's a tall order when I feel essentially useless at work. Fortunately, I've had no problem coming home and helping out with the chores, chasing the twins around, and rocking my infant daughter to sleep every night. They are my solace, the oasis where I can be myself each evening. The unconditional love I feel and reciprocate every time I walk through the door is the motivation that allows me to get up each morning and face the prospect of 8+ hours of work.
Sorry for the 'pity party for one' and the general down nature of the blog these past few days, not to mention my absence. If you're still reading, thank you for your perseverance and know that the overall mood will lighten soon. Just being able to spend some time putting how I feel into words on the screen has been a cathartic experience, one that I hope will help me stay on the path to overcoming the start of mind that currently occupies my day. Soon I'll be back to the lighthearted discussion about video games and other silly topics that come to mind, but for now this blog can act as an amateur shrink. Until next time, thanks again and be safe...
It wasn't that long ago that I felt as if I produced a quality product, that my efforts and performance met a standard of quality acceptable for the company where I work. Unfortunately now, because of this doubt that eats away at me, I'm never sure if what I'm doing is good enough. It's pretty obvious, even to me as I try desperately not to wallow in self-pity, that something needs to be done to right the course of my career and confidence. But what? That's the million dollar question, and one that I wrestle with constantly these days, because I don't want to feel this way.
One of the biggest issues I deal with regarding my lack of confidence is insuring that it doesn't bleed over into the rest of my life. I have a wife and three amazing children who deserve a husband and father who is happy, upbeat and completely devoted to making sure their needs are met and that I'm supporting them in every possible way. That's a tall order when I feel essentially useless at work. Fortunately, I've had no problem coming home and helping out with the chores, chasing the twins around, and rocking my infant daughter to sleep every night. They are my solace, the oasis where I can be myself each evening. The unconditional love I feel and reciprocate every time I walk through the door is the motivation that allows me to get up each morning and face the prospect of 8+ hours of work.
Sorry for the 'pity party for one' and the general down nature of the blog these past few days, not to mention my absence. If you're still reading, thank you for your perseverance and know that the overall mood will lighten soon. Just being able to spend some time putting how I feel into words on the screen has been a cathartic experience, one that I hope will help me stay on the path to overcoming the start of mind that currently occupies my day. Soon I'll be back to the lighthearted discussion about video games and other silly topics that come to mind, but for now this blog can act as an amateur shrink. Until next time, thanks again and be safe...
Friday, February 5, 2010
One of THOSE Days
Overall, today was not a bad day. The vast majority of what transpired was good to great. The kids were happy to see me when I came home, and I spent a fair amount of time chasing them around the house. The littlest daughter had some cozy time in my arms, as we chatted and wandered the first floor, trying to get her tired little eyes to close. For the most part, work was bearable and, considering this was my group's monthly meeting day, I even managed to be productive for most of the afternoon.
I'm not going to rehash it here, but I had a conversation with a person in another office that was incredibly disappointing. Even now, just thinking about it sends a fresh wave of depressing feelings over me. At some point I may talk about it in more depth, but as there's still a lot of personal sorting out of the actual meaning and ramifications of the conversation that needs to occur, I'll leave it at this brief mention.
One other upside from the day is that my wife and I watched Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog together tonight. I'll be the first to sheepishly admit that this was the first time I've seen it completely. For some reason, I watched the first act and part of the second, had to stop and just never went back. It was a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining experience, and it's not hard to see why the Internet went crazy over it when it first hit the scene back in 2008. Neil Patrick Harris is incredible and truly steals the show, Felicia Day is perfect for her role, and Nathan Fillion plays the 'I'm a hero and a douchebag' to a T. The music and lyrics are fantastic, and even my wife (not immersed in the Internet culture) laughed all the way through. If you, like me, somehow missed this when it first made the rounds, you owe it to yourself to catch up now. You won't be disappointed.
As I'm working on this post, I have Beyond Good and Evil downloading and installing in the background. I've decided this will be the second game in the Game Project. This is a game I've heard nothing but great things about, but for some reason just haven't sat down to give it a try. I'll post my initial impressions after giving it a shot later tonight or over the weekend.
I should also mention that I finally worked my way through Mass Effect Galaxy on the iPhone. While the story was mildly interesting, the control and combat were a bit difficult to really get a feel for, and I never truly felt in control. The narrative was incredibly linear, but it did serve to introduce some characters and backstory for Mass Effect 2. All in all, I'm not disappointed that I spent the money for it ($1.99), and as an added bonus, I will log in with my EA.com account to get whatever special DLC is available for finishing the game.
That's all for tonight. The events of the day have left me a bit uninspired, so I'm off to find some good feelings and get my mind off everything. Take care and have a great Friday!
I'm not going to rehash it here, but I had a conversation with a person in another office that was incredibly disappointing. Even now, just thinking about it sends a fresh wave of depressing feelings over me. At some point I may talk about it in more depth, but as there's still a lot of personal sorting out of the actual meaning and ramifications of the conversation that needs to occur, I'll leave it at this brief mention.
One other upside from the day is that my wife and I watched Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog together tonight. I'll be the first to sheepishly admit that this was the first time I've seen it completely. For some reason, I watched the first act and part of the second, had to stop and just never went back. It was a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining experience, and it's not hard to see why the Internet went crazy over it when it first hit the scene back in 2008. Neil Patrick Harris is incredible and truly steals the show, Felicia Day is perfect for her role, and Nathan Fillion plays the 'I'm a hero and a douchebag' to a T. The music and lyrics are fantastic, and even my wife (not immersed in the Internet culture) laughed all the way through. If you, like me, somehow missed this when it first made the rounds, you owe it to yourself to catch up now. You won't be disappointed.
As I'm working on this post, I have Beyond Good and Evil downloading and installing in the background. I've decided this will be the second game in the Game Project. This is a game I've heard nothing but great things about, but for some reason just haven't sat down to give it a try. I'll post my initial impressions after giving it a shot later tonight or over the weekend.
I should also mention that I finally worked my way through Mass Effect Galaxy on the iPhone. While the story was mildly interesting, the control and combat were a bit difficult to really get a feel for, and I never truly felt in control. The narrative was incredibly linear, but it did serve to introduce some characters and backstory for Mass Effect 2. All in all, I'm not disappointed that I spent the money for it ($1.99), and as an added bonus, I will log in with my EA.com account to get whatever special DLC is available for finishing the game.
That's all for tonight. The events of the day have left me a bit uninspired, so I'm off to find some good feelings and get my mind off everything. Take care and have a great Friday!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Unconnected Thoughts
Post number 100. I'll leave it at that...
Yet again, the hectic schedule of my family thwarts my attempt to start the gaming project. Fighting fatigue, being a bit discouraged from work and tasked with making dinner, cleaning up from dinner, picking up the house, bathing and putting the kids to bed, and then keeping baby Emily entertained and quiet while Mommy runs errands, I don't feel motivated to cull the list of games that will make up my personal challenge. However, some progress was made, as I stayed up rather late (at least for me) last night installing Red Faction: Guerrilla. The entire process took the better part of an hour, far longer than I anticipated. At least it's there and waiting for me to carve out an hour's free window to fire it up and play.
Update: After posting this entry, I decided to make myself a bit more tired than I already will be and started up Red Faction. It looks like it would be a lot of fun, unfortunately, it seems to grind my PC into dust with its complex physics. Going through the training mission and destroying the two small buildings required, it looked as if I were watching a slow moving slide show. Hopefully someday I'll have a machine that can run this, or I'll tweak the settings down to the minimum. That may help; regardless, I keep updating progress here.
On another note, I had an interesting reaction to a simple comment on Facebook. Sometime before going to bed, my Twitter feed was completely inundated with tweets from people either (a) on the West Coast complaining that friends on the East Coast were spoiling details about Lost, (b) announcing their intentions to leave or ignore the Internet, so as not to have Lost spoiled for them, or (c) raving that Lost was, in fact, starting. Later in the evening, after reading the 40th tweet along one of these veins, I posted that I felt like the only person in America that wasn't caught up in the Lost phenomenon. To my surprise, this comment spurred 16 comments from people who feel the same as I do. Considering how disconnected I currently feel from pop culture since the kids arrived, it was nice to see there are others in the same situation, and are proud of it.
Work today was a story of ups and downs. I spent the majority of the day buried in nerdy technical details, trying to chase down and wrap up the loose ends for a 90% design review due in a week or so. During that entire time, while it was not particularly interesting and sometimes frustrating, I packed up at the end of the day feeling really good about the progress I made and the focus I maintained, avoiding the temptation of the Internet almost all day. On my way out the door, I ran into a manager who made an offhand comment that a project manager I enjoy working with apparently has concerns or complaints about my work. Now the impression I take home from a 'good' day at work is negative, and I spent the rest of the evening with a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Hopefully tomorrow will bring a resolution to this issue, so I don't have to agonize over it anymore.
Yet again, the hectic schedule of my family thwarts my attempt to start the gaming project. Fighting fatigue, being a bit discouraged from work and tasked with making dinner, cleaning up from dinner, picking up the house, bathing and putting the kids to bed, and then keeping baby Emily entertained and quiet while Mommy runs errands, I don't feel motivated to cull the list of games that will make up my personal challenge. However, some progress was made, as I stayed up rather late (at least for me) last night installing Red Faction: Guerrilla. The entire process took the better part of an hour, far longer than I anticipated. At least it's there and waiting for me to carve out an hour's free window to fire it up and play.
Update: After posting this entry, I decided to make myself a bit more tired than I already will be and started up Red Faction. It looks like it would be a lot of fun, unfortunately, it seems to grind my PC into dust with its complex physics. Going through the training mission and destroying the two small buildings required, it looked as if I were watching a slow moving slide show. Hopefully someday I'll have a machine that can run this, or I'll tweak the settings down to the minimum. That may help; regardless, I keep updating progress here.
On another note, I had an interesting reaction to a simple comment on Facebook. Sometime before going to bed, my Twitter feed was completely inundated with tweets from people either (a) on the West Coast complaining that friends on the East Coast were spoiling details about Lost, (b) announcing their intentions to leave or ignore the Internet, so as not to have Lost spoiled for them, or (c) raving that Lost was, in fact, starting. Later in the evening, after reading the 40th tweet along one of these veins, I posted that I felt like the only person in America that wasn't caught up in the Lost phenomenon. To my surprise, this comment spurred 16 comments from people who feel the same as I do. Considering how disconnected I currently feel from pop culture since the kids arrived, it was nice to see there are others in the same situation, and are proud of it.
Work today was a story of ups and downs. I spent the majority of the day buried in nerdy technical details, trying to chase down and wrap up the loose ends for a 90% design review due in a week or so. During that entire time, while it was not particularly interesting and sometimes frustrating, I packed up at the end of the day feeling really good about the progress I made and the focus I maintained, avoiding the temptation of the Internet almost all day. On my way out the door, I ran into a manager who made an offhand comment that a project manager I enjoy working with apparently has concerns or complaints about my work. Now the impression I take home from a 'good' day at work is negative, and I spent the rest of the evening with a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Hopefully tomorrow will bring a resolution to this issue, so I don't have to agonize over it anymore.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Lost for Thoughts
Once again, today's blog update is a whole lotta nuthin'...but I'm not sure anyone is even reading. If you are, I applaud you, as you're truly a warrior, struggling through my drivel.
Not much is really happening in my world these days. Work has settled back into the usual routine after the holidays, while I'm struggling with a project that just won't seem to go away. Today was particularly troublesome, because for some reason I was experiencing difficulty getting my head around exactly all of the little outstanding details that need to be nailed down before Feburary 12th. I think I have my head around what needs to occur, and tomorrow should go more smoothly. Also, the number of projects that I am assigned to work on has certainly increased, which bodes for a productive spring.
After a couple of weeks away, I dug back into Trine for about an hour or so tonight. There's a lot to enjoy about the game, and the more I play it, the better it gets. The physics engine is quite good, and the ability to bounce back and forth between the three distinct characters creates so many options for solving the myriad of environmental puzzles thrown at you that there's probably no way to play it the same as anyone else. For the level I completed tonight, I started to utilize the Magician and his ability to create planks and crates, and teaming that with the Thief's ability to jump and grapple. The Knight is always handy for cleaning out the skeletons.
Lately, I've also been trying to take more pictures and video with the iPhone and publish them to my Twitter feed with Twitpic and Twitvid, respectively. Understanding that I'm an engineer, which severely cripples my creative ability from the start, it should be obvious that these forays into visual media are quite stiff, crude and rudimentary. It still feels like such a novelty to be able to take a picture, and within a couple of minutes have it posted to Twitter and Facebook. Given the right opportunities and vision, these could be great tools to build or expand your online presence. While I know the stuff I'm producing now isn't great, I'd like to think that with some time and practice I'll learn a few more things and find some interesting subjects for the pictures and video. Once again I'm amazed at our ability today to broadcast ourselves to the world, and in the right hands amazing results can be had.
Tomorrow I think I'll discuss something that's bothered me for some time, option paralysis. It affects me most in my game playing habits, but it manifests itself in such a way that really is aggravating. Most likely it won't be incredibly interesting, but it may be cathartic for me to explore and discuss it in the open. Until then, take care and have a great night!
Not much is really happening in my world these days. Work has settled back into the usual routine after the holidays, while I'm struggling with a project that just won't seem to go away. Today was particularly troublesome, because for some reason I was experiencing difficulty getting my head around exactly all of the little outstanding details that need to be nailed down before Feburary 12th. I think I have my head around what needs to occur, and tomorrow should go more smoothly. Also, the number of projects that I am assigned to work on has certainly increased, which bodes for a productive spring.
After a couple of weeks away, I dug back into Trine for about an hour or so tonight. There's a lot to enjoy about the game, and the more I play it, the better it gets. The physics engine is quite good, and the ability to bounce back and forth between the three distinct characters creates so many options for solving the myriad of environmental puzzles thrown at you that there's probably no way to play it the same as anyone else. For the level I completed tonight, I started to utilize the Magician and his ability to create planks and crates, and teaming that with the Thief's ability to jump and grapple. The Knight is always handy for cleaning out the skeletons.
Lately, I've also been trying to take more pictures and video with the iPhone and publish them to my Twitter feed with Twitpic and Twitvid, respectively. Understanding that I'm an engineer, which severely cripples my creative ability from the start, it should be obvious that these forays into visual media are quite stiff, crude and rudimentary. It still feels like such a novelty to be able to take a picture, and within a couple of minutes have it posted to Twitter and Facebook. Given the right opportunities and vision, these could be great tools to build or expand your online presence. While I know the stuff I'm producing now isn't great, I'd like to think that with some time and practice I'll learn a few more things and find some interesting subjects for the pictures and video. Once again I'm amazed at our ability today to broadcast ourselves to the world, and in the right hands amazing results can be had.
Tomorrow I think I'll discuss something that's bothered me for some time, option paralysis. It affects me most in my game playing habits, but it manifests itself in such a way that really is aggravating. Most likely it won't be incredibly interesting, but it may be cathartic for me to explore and discuss it in the open. Until then, take care and have a great night!
Monday, January 25, 2010
Just a Monday, But Better Than Most
The month of January marches on, and as there has been for the preceding 24 days, the 25th day finds me posting about...nothing, as usual.
For a Monday, today wasn't too bad. Arriving at work, I managed to take care of all the niggling little tasks that had been haunting me over the weekend. This involved making 6-8 phone calls, sending multiple e-mails, checking in with some coworkers, and generally getting back into the flow of the office, after working at a remote office for the preceding week. Just the simple act of knocking so many individual entries off the work to-do list gave me a feeling of accomplishment that carried through the rest of the day.
Upon returning home this evening, I was able to make dinner for the kids and myself, entertain them, get them ready and put them to bed, clean up the first floor of the house (including the kitchen and living room), clean out the first floor closet, and start our taxes. My poor wife, who had been under siege all day from the three little ones, took our infant upstairs where the two of them got some much-needed rest in the relative peace and quiet of our room. While it wasn't the first choice on my list, I had a great time doing all of these things, again feeding off that feeling of accomplishment which started earlier in the day.
Starting the taxes brought the only disappointment. Considering that my wife was unable to work this year and we added our newest daughter to the fold, we were hoping to get more back this year than last. Unfortunately that doesn't appear to be the case. The best I can figure is that, with the amount of overtime I worked during the middle part of the year, my salary must have crossed some threshold to move into a higher tax bracket. As it stands, we will receive somewhere near $300-500 less than in 2009. Considering we are getting a refund at all, there's not much to complain about, but since every little bit helps, it's somewhat disappointing.
All of this activity left little time for gaming, which I sadly miss. Tomorrow is the release of Mass Effect 2, and I won't be partaking in the sequel to one of my favorite games of all time. There's not enough time and not enough money to justify the outlay of $50 or more, but so be it. I still haven't been able to get to any of the games I was really looking forward to over the past year, which leaves me with a healthy backlog to work through before I could even think about a new game. Of course, three great kids and a wife deserve my attention anyway, so I can't complain. On the upside, I've been able to find time to write every evening, and that is something of an accomplishment for me. Until tomorrow, and another serving of my mind in text, take care and enjoy!
For a Monday, today wasn't too bad. Arriving at work, I managed to take care of all the niggling little tasks that had been haunting me over the weekend. This involved making 6-8 phone calls, sending multiple e-mails, checking in with some coworkers, and generally getting back into the flow of the office, after working at a remote office for the preceding week. Just the simple act of knocking so many individual entries off the work to-do list gave me a feeling of accomplishment that carried through the rest of the day.
Upon returning home this evening, I was able to make dinner for the kids and myself, entertain them, get them ready and put them to bed, clean up the first floor of the house (including the kitchen and living room), clean out the first floor closet, and start our taxes. My poor wife, who had been under siege all day from the three little ones, took our infant upstairs where the two of them got some much-needed rest in the relative peace and quiet of our room. While it wasn't the first choice on my list, I had a great time doing all of these things, again feeding off that feeling of accomplishment which started earlier in the day.
Starting the taxes brought the only disappointment. Considering that my wife was unable to work this year and we added our newest daughter to the fold, we were hoping to get more back this year than last. Unfortunately that doesn't appear to be the case. The best I can figure is that, with the amount of overtime I worked during the middle part of the year, my salary must have crossed some threshold to move into a higher tax bracket. As it stands, we will receive somewhere near $300-500 less than in 2009. Considering we are getting a refund at all, there's not much to complain about, but since every little bit helps, it's somewhat disappointing.
All of this activity left little time for gaming, which I sadly miss. Tomorrow is the release of Mass Effect 2, and I won't be partaking in the sequel to one of my favorite games of all time. There's not enough time and not enough money to justify the outlay of $50 or more, but so be it. I still haven't been able to get to any of the games I was really looking forward to over the past year, which leaves me with a healthy backlog to work through before I could even think about a new game. Of course, three great kids and a wife deserve my attention anyway, so I can't complain. On the upside, I've been able to find time to write every evening, and that is something of an accomplishment for me. Until tomorrow, and another serving of my mind in text, take care and enjoy!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Increased Professional Dedication
Yet another day in the life of NaBloPoMo, the 17th in fact, finds me discussing work and my level of dedication to that endeavor. One of the things I've learned about trying to post every day is that, unless there is a plan for the content and schedule of the posts, topics jump all over the place. My strategy of posting about something that's occurred or I've thought over the course of the preceding twenty-four hours has topics either clustering for a bit, or veering wildly all over the map. Another kernel of wisdom to carry forward.
I work for a living. That revelation is probably a huge shock, I know, but it has to be said. The occupation that keeps a roof over our heads, food on the table, and clothes on our backs (I ran out of cliched terms to put in this sentence) happens to be instrumentation and control engineering, mostly in the municipal wastewater arena. Arriving at this job after almost seven years working in the semiconductor industry, I started almost from the bottom and have had to do an awful lot of learning the craft on the fly. There have been many good days, when I feel , if only for a moment that I really 'get it'. These days are often immediately followed by a violent coming back to earth, when an inadvertent error or missed facet of a project comes back to haunt me. In between all of this are the days spent struggling to keep my head above water. Now this might sound familiar to many of you, and I could happily continue in this pattern and be a valuable and happy employee.
But I choose not to continue this cycle. During a bit of sleeplessness last night, I came to the conclusion that this wasn't what I wanted to do or the person I wanted to be. As this point in my career and my family life, I owe it to myself, my employer and my family to improve my work performance and achieve the success in business that I feel I've achieved in my personal life. This is not going to be a quick fix, and it will most certainly not be easy.
This line of thinking came about partially because of an impromptu meeting between my 'boss' and I late last week. He and I discussed my career path and where I saw myself going within the company and the group, and as I stated my desire to transition from the primarily engineering ranks into the world of project management, it dawned on me that changes need to be made for this to happen and be successful. While lying awake thinking last night, mulling over how to accomplish this task, I created a bit of a checklist of things to work on or do to make the process go more smoothly and to increase my professional success and standing, regardless of what lies in store.
Putting the above details into print is the easy part. The difficult part is yet to come. Over the next week, my intent is to develop a plan or schedule on how to achieve each of these items, and create tangible goals and schedules to make the entire exercise more 'real.' I will share these as I make progress, and hopefully the use of this blog to record milestones will encourage me to keep true to the task. This doesn't mean that I won't be writing about games or my family any more, but it will mean that you'll see weekly updates on the tasks I've undertaken.
Well, now that I've completed the brain dump, it's time to get some rest. A long day lies ahead, along with some serious brainstorming before sleep. Of course, I may sneak in some iPhone gaming time in there somewhere, but not too much...:)
I work for a living. That revelation is probably a huge shock, I know, but it has to be said. The occupation that keeps a roof over our heads, food on the table, and clothes on our backs (I ran out of cliched terms to put in this sentence) happens to be instrumentation and control engineering, mostly in the municipal wastewater arena. Arriving at this job after almost seven years working in the semiconductor industry, I started almost from the bottom and have had to do an awful lot of learning the craft on the fly. There have been many good days, when I feel , if only for a moment that I really 'get it'. These days are often immediately followed by a violent coming back to earth, when an inadvertent error or missed facet of a project comes back to haunt me. In between all of this are the days spent struggling to keep my head above water. Now this might sound familiar to many of you, and I could happily continue in this pattern and be a valuable and happy employee.
But I choose not to continue this cycle. During a bit of sleeplessness last night, I came to the conclusion that this wasn't what I wanted to do or the person I wanted to be. As this point in my career and my family life, I owe it to myself, my employer and my family to improve my work performance and achieve the success in business that I feel I've achieved in my personal life. This is not going to be a quick fix, and it will most certainly not be easy.
This line of thinking came about partially because of an impromptu meeting between my 'boss' and I late last week. He and I discussed my career path and where I saw myself going within the company and the group, and as I stated my desire to transition from the primarily engineering ranks into the world of project management, it dawned on me that changes need to be made for this to happen and be successful. While lying awake thinking last night, mulling over how to accomplish this task, I created a bit of a checklist of things to work on or do to make the process go more smoothly and to increase my professional success and standing, regardless of what lies in store.
- Lose some weight. This will be a difficult bullet to cross off this list, but it will serve many purposes. I will gain more self-confidence, look better in both personal and professional settings, improve my health, and be around longer for my family.
- Get more regular haircuts. My hair often is longer than it should be, as I loathe to spend the money to get it trimmed at an interval where it would still look good (for me, probably every three weeks). There's also the factor that it's become far more difficult to budget the time to take care of this annoying task.
- Shave more promptly. I'll be the first to admit that I don't budget my time in the mornings efficiently, and I often choose a few more minutes of sleep or time with the kids over shaving. As I currently sport a beard, the effect is not as striking as if I were without facial hair, but it is unprofessional nonetheless. I will improve my efforts to shave regularly and improve my professional appearance.
- Dress more professionally. As I am overweight, I don't look good in many types of clothes, and khakis are one of those types of clothes. These are my best option for the business casual attire required for my line of work, and yet I wear jeans to work every day. This needs to change and, combined with my proposed weight loss, would greatly improve my appearance in the workplace.
- Become more focused while at work. Like many in the workplace today, I find it difficult to resist the call of the Internet and the information and entertainment it offers. While it is a required tool in my job, I need to reduce the amount of time I find myself lured away from productive work and better focus on the task at hand. This should improve my productivity and whittle down the 'to-do list' that's been accumulating in my brain.
- Develop a delivery system for my portion of the projects, that allows for a consistently accurate and repeatable product more efficiently. The foundation of this idea, at this point, is a design manual, containing useful sheets, formulas, articles and information, arranged in such a way that it can be easily accessed and followed throughout the course of each project. I've been gathering this information since I started work, including jotting down notes on particularly tricky items, and keeping little pearls of wisdom gained only by previous failures. By collecting, cataloging and arranging all of these things, I hope to put together a road map to follow in the future that will help not only myself, but my entire department.
Putting the above details into print is the easy part. The difficult part is yet to come. Over the next week, my intent is to develop a plan or schedule on how to achieve each of these items, and create tangible goals and schedules to make the entire exercise more 'real.' I will share these as I make progress, and hopefully the use of this blog to record milestones will encourage me to keep true to the task. This doesn't mean that I won't be writing about games or my family any more, but it will mean that you'll see weekly updates on the tasks I've undertaken.
Well, now that I've completed the brain dump, it's time to get some rest. A long day lies ahead, along with some serious brainstorming before sleep. Of course, I may sneak in some iPhone gaming time in there somewhere, but not too much...:)
Thursday, January 14, 2010
The One Where I Talk Too Much About Myself
NaBloPoMo, Day 14. Fighting off exhaustion and lack of a good topic, a cluttered mess falls out of my head into the blog. I truly apologize to anyone reading this, as the recent posts have veered off from the original mission, to discuss all things video games. Bear with me as I try to get back on track.
For the past few weeks, a lot of my head space (that not wholly consumed with the acquisition and enjoyment of the iPhone) has been preoccupied with rather heavy topics. Even though the product may not bear up to it, I've really enjoyed putting time into writing and posting to the blog, so much so that there's a tickle in the back of my mind which would have me explore the possibilities of using writing to somehow earn some extra money on the side. That would be great: doing something I like to do and get paid for it! Sadly, the big problem lies in the fact that many, many people aspire to the same thing, and most of those people have the education (let's just say that possessing an engineering degree and trying to break into a writing or journalism field isn't the best angle of attack), experience and talent which I lack. Understanding all of that, my little daydream of using an outlet like this to generate an income will have to wait.
A bit of my head space has also been directed to ways to improve my current craft, as an instrumentation and controls engineer for an environmental engineering firm. I've been mulling around a lot of ways to improve the design process and delivery standards, and there are a lot of half-formed ideas bouncing around. To create a list of these would benefit only me, and would drive the rest of you to click away from this page in boredom. Rest assured that it's a great list and, if implemented properly, would revolutionize the I&C design team. There might be some hyperbole in that last statement, but probably only a dab.
The problem I have, and one that's plagued me for as long as I can remember, is that I can't seem to keep my brain focused on one task long enough to complete it, before it careens off in another direction. You would figure that this would be frustrating and annoying, to go through life like this, and you would be right. This blog, for instance, probably does a great job at illustrating my point. If you were to go back and look at all of the things I've set out to do, and how many of them I actually do, you'd be appalled at the completion percentage. In a single, concise statement, I can sum up most of my adult life: I Lack Followthrough. Hopefully this isn't going to come out sounding too pretentious, but if I could train my brain to focus on one task or project at a time, see it through to completion with attention to detail and proper review each one deserves, I would be a far more successful person than I am today.
What do I do about this? There's the rub...I just don't know. If anyone reading this has any ideas, I'm all ears. Clearly, this behavior demonstrates a shocking lack of discipline on my part, and maybe that's where I need to start. It will require further research to understand my options, which isn't going to happen tonight. My eyes are starting to blur, and I'm going to be driving back to my hometown tomorrow night, starting around 9pm. We should reach our destination around 3am or so, which tells me I need to get some sleep. This post, though, will serve as my reminder to actually take the time to figure out what I can do about the issues that haunt me.
To those of you who've made it this far, through all of this navel-gazing and introspection, thanks for continuing to read. My hope is to get back to other topics, starting tomorrow. Until then, stay safe and be well!
For the past few weeks, a lot of my head space (that not wholly consumed with the acquisition and enjoyment of the iPhone) has been preoccupied with rather heavy topics. Even though the product may not bear up to it, I've really enjoyed putting time into writing and posting to the blog, so much so that there's a tickle in the back of my mind which would have me explore the possibilities of using writing to somehow earn some extra money on the side. That would be great: doing something I like to do and get paid for it! Sadly, the big problem lies in the fact that many, many people aspire to the same thing, and most of those people have the education (let's just say that possessing an engineering degree and trying to break into a writing or journalism field isn't the best angle of attack), experience and talent which I lack. Understanding all of that, my little daydream of using an outlet like this to generate an income will have to wait.
A bit of my head space has also been directed to ways to improve my current craft, as an instrumentation and controls engineer for an environmental engineering firm. I've been mulling around a lot of ways to improve the design process and delivery standards, and there are a lot of half-formed ideas bouncing around. To create a list of these would benefit only me, and would drive the rest of you to click away from this page in boredom. Rest assured that it's a great list and, if implemented properly, would revolutionize the I&C design team. There might be some hyperbole in that last statement, but probably only a dab.
The problem I have, and one that's plagued me for as long as I can remember, is that I can't seem to keep my brain focused on one task long enough to complete it, before it careens off in another direction. You would figure that this would be frustrating and annoying, to go through life like this, and you would be right. This blog, for instance, probably does a great job at illustrating my point. If you were to go back and look at all of the things I've set out to do, and how many of them I actually do, you'd be appalled at the completion percentage. In a single, concise statement, I can sum up most of my adult life: I Lack Followthrough. Hopefully this isn't going to come out sounding too pretentious, but if I could train my brain to focus on one task or project at a time, see it through to completion with attention to detail and proper review each one deserves, I would be a far more successful person than I am today.
What do I do about this? There's the rub...I just don't know. If anyone reading this has any ideas, I'm all ears. Clearly, this behavior demonstrates a shocking lack of discipline on my part, and maybe that's where I need to start. It will require further research to understand my options, which isn't going to happen tonight. My eyes are starting to blur, and I'm going to be driving back to my hometown tomorrow night, starting around 9pm. We should reach our destination around 3am or so, which tells me I need to get some sleep. This post, though, will serve as my reminder to actually take the time to figure out what I can do about the issues that haunt me.
To those of you who've made it this far, through all of this navel-gazing and introspection, thanks for continuing to read. My hope is to get back to other topics, starting tomorrow. Until then, stay safe and be well!
Friday, January 8, 2010
Could Be a Rough Weekend
Day 8 of NaBloPoMo...Wow, have I really made it this far? I'm quite certain that there's never been a time in my existence that I've blogged for 8 consecutive days. Too bad it feels like I'm running out of things to say. This turns out to be a hodge-podge of unrelated topics that just jumped out of my head onto the screen.
After a rather uneventful but tiring day at work, which included multiple morning meetings followed by a trip to a job site that was over an hour each way, I arrived home to find my poor wife in the early throes of a cold. Normally this would be a simple inconvenience, but in a household with two adults and three young children, it becomes an emergency. The primary caregiver (let's face it, I'm borderline useless without her) could be out of commission soon, leaving me to hold down the fort. This is analogous to the Hans Brinker story, where the little Dutch boy plugged up the dyke with his finger, averting a catastrophe? Now imagine, in the Grant family, the little boy represents me, while the dyke is the relative balance and operation of our family unit, and hole to be plugged, representing the chaos that will ensue if Mom goes down with a cold, instead of being finger-sized is something large enough for a semi to pass through. Yea, it could get ugly...
On the upside, there's the chance that we'll bundle up this family of ours, throw them into the minivan, and troop them to my office sometime this weekend. It may seem strange to say that, or even be something to get excited about, but the twins have been there a few time and have an absolute ball there. There are so many new things to explore and look at, and what must seem to them to be endless hallways to run up and down. One area of our office hasn't been built out yet, and might as well be considered an arena for their antics. Here's to hoping we don't disturb any people there trying to do some real work.
The first of the final three episodes of Dollhouse just ended, and the only question I have is this: Why did they save writing and drama like this for the series as it ends? If only the writers had been able to pull together some story lines with the impact of the type we're seeing now, maybe the series wouldn't be ending. Hopefully my frustration comes through when talking about this, because the series had such potential, with a cast and characters that I cared about, and a premise that offered such promise. It's just too bad to see it end, but at least it's going out with a bang.
I'm somewhat ashamed to admit this, but it was difficult for me to sleep last night thinking about the fact that I would soon own an iPhone. It's been easy to downplay how much not having this shiny little technological bauble bothered me, when there was no real possibility of having one (due to financial reasons). Now that the dream is about to become a reality, I'm like the little boy waiting for Christmas day to finally arrive. The e-mail confirming my order and the shipment of the unit came this afternoon, indicating that the iPhone shipped from Texas today. With any luck, it should be here by Monday. You know what? Having been primarily around toddlers for the past couple of years, and seeing the unbridled and guilt-free joy they experience, I've vowed to try to grab onto feelings like that as much as I possibly can, because (as we all know) once you become an adult with real responsibilities, those feelings and moments can be hard to come by.
One last item of note, as least for me anyway. While packing up to leave the office and come home, my mind was humming away about how to approach the creation of standardized design documents, a task I've been wrestling with for a while. Just as I was walking out of the office, an epiphany hit me, one that I hope to follow up on. It has the potential to be just what we've needed for some time, and I'm ashamed that it hadn't come to me before this. The reason why I'm writing about it here is that it felt so good to come up with it, after agonizing over the same issues for so long, I just had to share it with someone else.
Well, there you have it, a veritable brain dump of the scary mess that floats around in my oversized dome. Feel free to leave a comment about anything you've read here, and hope to see you here again soon.
After a rather uneventful but tiring day at work, which included multiple morning meetings followed by a trip to a job site that was over an hour each way, I arrived home to find my poor wife in the early throes of a cold. Normally this would be a simple inconvenience, but in a household with two adults and three young children, it becomes an emergency. The primary caregiver (let's face it, I'm borderline useless without her) could be out of commission soon, leaving me to hold down the fort. This is analogous to the Hans Brinker story, where the little Dutch boy plugged up the dyke with his finger, averting a catastrophe? Now imagine, in the Grant family, the little boy represents me, while the dyke is the relative balance and operation of our family unit, and hole to be plugged, representing the chaos that will ensue if Mom goes down with a cold, instead of being finger-sized is something large enough for a semi to pass through. Yea, it could get ugly...
On the upside, there's the chance that we'll bundle up this family of ours, throw them into the minivan, and troop them to my office sometime this weekend. It may seem strange to say that, or even be something to get excited about, but the twins have been there a few time and have an absolute ball there. There are so many new things to explore and look at, and what must seem to them to be endless hallways to run up and down. One area of our office hasn't been built out yet, and might as well be considered an arena for their antics. Here's to hoping we don't disturb any people there trying to do some real work.
The first of the final three episodes of Dollhouse just ended, and the only question I have is this: Why did they save writing and drama like this for the series as it ends? If only the writers had been able to pull together some story lines with the impact of the type we're seeing now, maybe the series wouldn't be ending. Hopefully my frustration comes through when talking about this, because the series had such potential, with a cast and characters that I cared about, and a premise that offered such promise. It's just too bad to see it end, but at least it's going out with a bang.
I'm somewhat ashamed to admit this, but it was difficult for me to sleep last night thinking about the fact that I would soon own an iPhone. It's been easy to downplay how much not having this shiny little technological bauble bothered me, when there was no real possibility of having one (due to financial reasons). Now that the dream is about to become a reality, I'm like the little boy waiting for Christmas day to finally arrive. The e-mail confirming my order and the shipment of the unit came this afternoon, indicating that the iPhone shipped from Texas today. With any luck, it should be here by Monday. You know what? Having been primarily around toddlers for the past couple of years, and seeing the unbridled and guilt-free joy they experience, I've vowed to try to grab onto feelings like that as much as I possibly can, because (as we all know) once you become an adult with real responsibilities, those feelings and moments can be hard to come by.
One last item of note, as least for me anyway. While packing up to leave the office and come home, my mind was humming away about how to approach the creation of standardized design documents, a task I've been wrestling with for a while. Just as I was walking out of the office, an epiphany hit me, one that I hope to follow up on. It has the potential to be just what we've needed for some time, and I'm ashamed that it hadn't come to me before this. The reason why I'm writing about it here is that it felt so good to come up with it, after agonizing over the same issues for so long, I just had to share it with someone else.
Well, there you have it, a veritable brain dump of the scary mess that floats around in my oversized dome. Feel free to leave a comment about anything you've read here, and hope to see you here again soon.
Friday, September 11, 2009
TGI Flippin' F
This week couldn't have ended soon enough. Several nights of working until 10, my lovely daughter deciding that sleep was optional for her, and the fact that I suffered with a random night of complete insomnia makes me hope, nay pray, that this weekend is quiet and restful.
Oh wait, I have 19-month old twins. Scratch that. Let the chaos begin! :)
There will hopefully be a moment or two where I can get back to fighting crime in Arkham Asylum. I'm itching to beat a bunch of anonymous thugs senseless, or string them up from a gargoyle, or something like that. You get the picture. It's been hard working so much, knowing that the game is just sitting, lonely and unloved, in my 360. Soon we will be together again, just a few more hours...
On the upside, at least the large amount of time devoted to work allowed me to 'make some hay' in the large backlog of billable project work staring at me. It also seems that I'll be transitioning into more of a project lead, while supervising the work of at least one or two other people. Could be interesting, could be terrifying. Only time will tell, but it feels like the right move considering the direction my career is going.
Hope you all have a great weekend!
Oh wait, I have 19-month old twins. Scratch that. Let the chaos begin! :)
There will hopefully be a moment or two where I can get back to fighting crime in Arkham Asylum. I'm itching to beat a bunch of anonymous thugs senseless, or string them up from a gargoyle, or something like that. You get the picture. It's been hard working so much, knowing that the game is just sitting, lonely and unloved, in my 360. Soon we will be together again, just a few more hours...
On the upside, at least the large amount of time devoted to work allowed me to 'make some hay' in the large backlog of billable project work staring at me. It also seems that I'll be transitioning into more of a project lead, while supervising the work of at least one or two other people. Could be interesting, could be terrifying. Only time will tell, but it feels like the right move considering the direction my career is going.
Hope you all have a great weekend!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Gamespite Quarterly Issue #2
Just received my copy of Gamespite Quarterly Issue #2 from FedEx today. I've only gotten through the first couple of games so far, but it's clear I'll be reading this until it's finished. Not sure what I'm more interested in: their comments on games I'm familiar with, or learning about games I've never tried before.
It was a decent end to a long day. It seems like every day I go to work, a new project is dropped on my plate. While I really look forward to working on all of these different jobs, I'm running out of work time in the day to get everything done. All in all, it's shaping up to be an extremely busy September. On the upside, the fact I'm busy translates to job security (I think).
It was a decent end to a long day. It seems like every day I go to work, a new project is dropped on my plate. While I really look forward to working on all of these different jobs, I'm running out of work time in the day to get everything done. All in all, it's shaping up to be an extremely busy September. On the upside, the fact I'm busy translates to job security (I think).
Thursday, August 6, 2009
What DO I Do?
Today I had the opportunity to talk with a college sophomore who was spending time in our office, learning about what each of the different areas of our company really does. He was brought to my cube, we were introduced, and he sat down, waiting expectantly for me to impart my wisdom.
And then it hit me: What the hell do I do anyway? I like what I do, I think I do it pretty well, but for the life of me I couldn't explain to this young man what I do for a living. As I tried to explain to him what I do, I felt like Lawrence from Office Space explaining his job to the consultants. It sounded hollow and useless, and at that moment I wanted to curl up and cry.
Well, it wasn't quite that bad, but unlike Lawrence I don't have my very own "Jump to Conclusions Mat" to fall back on. :)
And then it hit me: What the hell do I do anyway? I like what I do, I think I do it pretty well, but for the life of me I couldn't explain to this young man what I do for a living. As I tried to explain to him what I do, I felt like Lawrence from Office Space explaining his job to the consultants. It sounded hollow and useless, and at that moment I wanted to curl up and cry.
Well, it wasn't quite that bad, but unlike Lawrence I don't have my very own "Jump to Conclusions Mat" to fall back on. :)
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Blast from the Past
Today's theme at work is: let's have you do something you haven't thought about since college. For me, this consisted of calculating the heat loss of sodium hydroxide out of a storage vessel, and then attempting to design an insulation and heat trace system to compensate for these losses. Just for the record, I graduated from college 11 years ago. Digging up and dusting off that knowledge from the inner workings of my twisted brain was painful to say the least.
None of the answers to the equations I worked through turned out to be 42. What a bummer...
Talk about headache inducing, but the masochistic thing is that I've enjoyed the exercise. I know...weird, huh?
Back to your regularly scheduled lives.
None of the answers to the equations I worked through turned out to be 42. What a bummer...
Talk about headache inducing, but the masochistic thing is that I've enjoyed the exercise. I know...weird, huh?
Back to your regularly scheduled lives.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Week in Review - Less than Stellar Edition
What a week it's been! The week started off alright, with work going relatively smoothly on Monday, but quickly made a downward turn when it was discovered that we had no hot water at our house. Before our kids, this would be an inconvenience, as two professional adults could make do, and deal with the hassle until we could find proper help. With two kids, and the mountains of clothes they go through, the bottles and dishes that need to be washed, the baths that need to be taken, and so forth, this is a big problem. I went down to investigate the issue. If you were to know anything about me, it's that I'm not very handy around the house, so me looking at the water heater is like a first-grader looking at a rocket. Sure, it looks shiny and cool, but I couldn't tell you the first thing about how it works or where to start troubleshooting the problem. I eventually made my way to the bottom of the unit (the heat in this case is provided by natural gas as opposed to electricity), and found that the pilot was out. Using the directions conveniently placed on the side of the tank, I was able to get the heater working again. My mind registered the dried up trail of what clearly was water leading away from the bottom of the unit, brushing it aside as an old leak...
About an hour later, I went back down into the basement to check to see how the heater was doing, and lo and behold, the bottom of the unit was surrounded with water. Clearly, this is why the pilot went out. That will teach me to ignore the warning signs in the future. To make a long story short, I stayed home from work the next day, and $925 later my problem was solved. The new heater works well, too well in fact. The old unit was becoming less and less able to heat the water, so we've been living with cooler and cooler water. This new unit, even at the factory preset of what should be around 115 degrees, provides water hot enough to cook meat on the bone. I've since turned it down twice just to make it tolerable.
To add to the fun of that day, I then had to attend a planning board hearing in one of the towns I'm working with, to present information in defense of a special permit application. The residents in the area got the wrong impression of what the hearing was being held to accomplish, and 30 or 40 people came in very angry and misinformed. That's a really bad combination. What should have taken less than 20 minutes and been an open and shut issue turned into an hour of unpleasant questions and people ignorant of the issue at hand spouting off about unrelated topics and generally making trouble. That's New England town government for you...
On the upside, I did have the opportunity at some point during the week (it was Wednesday evening, if I remember correctly) to catch an episode of UFC Unleashed, chronicling the fight between Wanderlei Silva and Chuck Liddell. Being a relative novice to the UFC scene, this was definitely one of the better fights I'd seen, from the level of intensity of both participants and the skill displayed by both men. It was also my first experience seeing Liddell fight, after having read about him in magazines and such. I have to admit, the more I watch MMA, the more I enjoy the whole experience, and it's clear that this has supplanted the WWE for people's entertainment dollar. I could be wrong on this, but the buzz around MMA seems to be far greater than around professional wrestling these days. That's another topic, though, to be discussed another day.
The Red Sox pulled off a huge comeback last night to force Game 6 in Tampa on Saturday. I'll admit that I was long asleep when the rally came, and I had fully expected to wake up today to the eulogy of the 2008 season, but live to fight another day. This could end up being just like last year, where the Sox were down to the Indians 3-1, then came back to take the ALCS and then sweep the World Series, but even to force a Game 7 is a tall order. James Shields has been a nightmare for Sox hitters, and who knows which Josh Beckett will show up on Saturday. If any team can do it, though, it's this one, so hope is never lost.
Also during this week, I've made progress in Half Life 2. I currently stand near the beginning of the antlion area in the 'Sandtraps' stage, where I've helped the Resistance forces fight off the attack at the lighthouse and traveled down the cliff path to the beach. The poor schmuck acting as lookout has been killed by the antlions, and I've jumped on a few rocks to get to the beach. It was there I saved and shut down for the night. I'm rapidly approaching where I stopped playing the last time, just after entering Nova Prospekt. If I'm not mistaken, that area of the game is after working through the antlion area. I'm still just as bad at shooters as I always was, but the story and experience are worth working through this game.
It has been written many times about the characters in Half Life 2, and how well they are brought to life and voiced in such a way as to make the player care about them. One example that really stuck out for me during this playthrough was the character of Father Gregori, the hermit who helps you through the Ravenholm area. The voice acting was great, and I really started to care for the guy, so much so in fact that I didn't want to leave him when he held the gate open to the mine for me. As the gate closed behind me, he yelled something about his congregation and laughed. Turning back at the entrance to the mine area, the steams of headcrab zombies could be seen making their way toward him, so many that it was clear he wasn't going to make it. Even though it was just a game, and a scripted event within that game, I turned quickly and entered the mine area, because I didn't want to see what happened. For a brief moment, I had the sinking feeling in my stomach that I couldn't do anything to save him. That moment made me realize just how well-crafted the story and characters are in this game, and gave me a newfound appreciation for the fine art of storytelling in this medium.
So, what are you going to be playing this weekend? I intend to make my way through Half Life 2, and also to finish up Portal, which I started earlier in the week. After that, I'm thinking about a change of pace to something a more lighthearted and fun. This is probably a good opportunity to check out some of the free games on the Internet, as some of them show real promise. I also am looking to 'cleanse the palette,' if you will, with the release of Fallout 3 only a little over a week away. Any suggestions?
About an hour later, I went back down into the basement to check to see how the heater was doing, and lo and behold, the bottom of the unit was surrounded with water. Clearly, this is why the pilot went out. That will teach me to ignore the warning signs in the future. To make a long story short, I stayed home from work the next day, and $925 later my problem was solved. The new heater works well, too well in fact. The old unit was becoming less and less able to heat the water, so we've been living with cooler and cooler water. This new unit, even at the factory preset of what should be around 115 degrees, provides water hot enough to cook meat on the bone. I've since turned it down twice just to make it tolerable.
To add to the fun of that day, I then had to attend a planning board hearing in one of the towns I'm working with, to present information in defense of a special permit application. The residents in the area got the wrong impression of what the hearing was being held to accomplish, and 30 or 40 people came in very angry and misinformed. That's a really bad combination. What should have taken less than 20 minutes and been an open and shut issue turned into an hour of unpleasant questions and people ignorant of the issue at hand spouting off about unrelated topics and generally making trouble. That's New England town government for you...
On the upside, I did have the opportunity at some point during the week (it was Wednesday evening, if I remember correctly) to catch an episode of UFC Unleashed, chronicling the fight between Wanderlei Silva and Chuck Liddell. Being a relative novice to the UFC scene, this was definitely one of the better fights I'd seen, from the level of intensity of both participants and the skill displayed by both men. It was also my first experience seeing Liddell fight, after having read about him in magazines and such. I have to admit, the more I watch MMA, the more I enjoy the whole experience, and it's clear that this has supplanted the WWE for people's entertainment dollar. I could be wrong on this, but the buzz around MMA seems to be far greater than around professional wrestling these days. That's another topic, though, to be discussed another day.
The Red Sox pulled off a huge comeback last night to force Game 6 in Tampa on Saturday. I'll admit that I was long asleep when the rally came, and I had fully expected to wake up today to the eulogy of the 2008 season, but live to fight another day. This could end up being just like last year, where the Sox were down to the Indians 3-1, then came back to take the ALCS and then sweep the World Series, but even to force a Game 7 is a tall order. James Shields has been a nightmare for Sox hitters, and who knows which Josh Beckett will show up on Saturday. If any team can do it, though, it's this one, so hope is never lost.
Also during this week, I've made progress in Half Life 2. I currently stand near the beginning of the antlion area in the 'Sandtraps' stage, where I've helped the Resistance forces fight off the attack at the lighthouse and traveled down the cliff path to the beach. The poor schmuck acting as lookout has been killed by the antlions, and I've jumped on a few rocks to get to the beach. It was there I saved and shut down for the night. I'm rapidly approaching where I stopped playing the last time, just after entering Nova Prospekt. If I'm not mistaken, that area of the game is after working through the antlion area. I'm still just as bad at shooters as I always was, but the story and experience are worth working through this game.
It has been written many times about the characters in Half Life 2, and how well they are brought to life and voiced in such a way as to make the player care about them. One example that really stuck out for me during this playthrough was the character of Father Gregori, the hermit who helps you through the Ravenholm area. The voice acting was great, and I really started to care for the guy, so much so in fact that I didn't want to leave him when he held the gate open to the mine for me. As the gate closed behind me, he yelled something about his congregation and laughed. Turning back at the entrance to the mine area, the steams of headcrab zombies could be seen making their way toward him, so many that it was clear he wasn't going to make it. Even though it was just a game, and a scripted event within that game, I turned quickly and entered the mine area, because I didn't want to see what happened. For a brief moment, I had the sinking feeling in my stomach that I couldn't do anything to save him. That moment made me realize just how well-crafted the story and characters are in this game, and gave me a newfound appreciation for the fine art of storytelling in this medium.
So, what are you going to be playing this weekend? I intend to make my way through Half Life 2, and also to finish up Portal, which I started earlier in the week. After that, I'm thinking about a change of pace to something a more lighthearted and fun. This is probably a good opportunity to check out some of the free games on the Internet, as some of them show real promise. I also am looking to 'cleanse the palette,' if you will, with the release of Fallout 3 only a little over a week away. Any suggestions?
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