Since EA gives us vacation from Dec 24 through Jan 2, many people, such as myself, burned 2 days of PTO (Paid Time Off) for Mon and Tues Dec 22+23 in order to have a full 2 weeks off.

I haven't had any real house chores or projects to do. I'm upgrading a computer for a friend, but that's about it.

It's a little hard to not think about work, and at first I had some grandiose ideas on how I could spend my time. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do any of the programming I'd like. Instead, I've been spending my time doing something even better: spending time with Violet and Drake. Mostly we've been driving around Bristow and Gainsville looking at new homes. We're also looking at places closer to Fairfax, but their prices are much higher. Yesterday I had a meeting with a financial rep from Ryan Homes. Given their cheapest house(329k), 5% interest rate, and no options.. the bottom line monthly payment would be around $2,100. I just don't want to spend that much per month on mortgage. Our current rent is 1300, and that's been great for our financial situation. We've gained a little bit of a handle on our bills and debts. Although the loan officer and bank say we're qualified for a lot more than 350k, I'm fairly certain stretching ourselves out that thin is a bad idea. We've sacrificed a lot in order to help reduce our debts, and we're still not outta the red yet. I dislike how dependant our country has become on debt. Credit Cards are the worse offense. A house loan is understandable. A student loan... sure. But credit cards allow you to live beyond your means. This has significantly contributed towards the financial crisis everyone seems to be in. Now, I'm not jumping on some money bandwagon here. I've always felt this way. Part of the reason we're in so much debt is due to my career switch back in 2003 (big student loan) and being laid off twice after getting into the game industry (and selling houses under the price I paid for them, back in 2003 and again in 2005). I'm still happy I made the choice (and had Violet's full support) for my career switch. I'm certainly making a lot more money as a game programmer than I would be had I stayed in the hardware support IT industry. I'm also extremely happy with my job. I look forward to going to work pretty much each and every day. So the student loan was worth it.

So after years of moderate living (buying a few big things here and there, but for the most part doing without "stuff"), our debt has been reduced significantly. We only have 1 outstanding credit card debt, and that's due to the above mentioned loss of selling our house (in Wisconsin). Violet's car is nearly paid off, and mine is within sight. If we become overconfident about our financial status and try to buy a brand new house, which yes would be very nice, we'd be hindering our progress towards debt reduction. Heaven forbid I lose my job again. It's just too much risk. Besides, with the current economy and interest rates getting lower, it's would be better for us to buy a "slightly" used house. Thus far we've seen homes that are under 10 years old, as nice/new as the brand new homes (indeed, some of them were brand new homes, from the same builder), but the owners got foreclosed on. There's a LOT out there. Sucks for the families of those homes. Now is probably the best time to be a buyer. Our lease isn't up until April, so we have a lot of time too. Is buying a (used) house better than renting? Well, I'll leave that that kind of cost analysis to the professionals. Given the incentives, tax deductions, and the "ownership" a purchased house provides, I think its better than renting. Besides, the economy will turn around eventually. I'm thinking 2010 or 2011 at the latest. And while EA is laying off plenty of people right now, and will continue to do so to meet their arbitrary financial profit margins, I am reasonably confidant my job is as secure as it can be these days.

Oh, I've also been playing a lot of the games I've been neglecting. I finished Fallout 3 (I hated the ending). I played some more Half Life 2 Episode 2 and Warhammer Online. I still need to play some more NFS:Undercover and Mass Effect.

Just in case you don't read Violet's Blog, Violet's pregnant again (Yes, I'm the father). That'll teach her to try to diet and lose a bunch of weight again! More news as it unfolds. We're hoping for a girl this time, but we'll still be very happy with another boy.

I think that's enough rambling for now. I hope everyone has a great new year!

This year we all got some holiday chocolates. It was a great selection of mint, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate. I ate about half of [non mint] them, and gave the rest to Violet.

I've just been busy working and babysitting Drake, so I don't really have a lot of updates lately.

Work wise, I seem to be as stable as I can be regarding job security. I know there's a lot of bad news in the game industry (and every other industry) lately, as for a while I was worried. Currently, however, I am strangely optimistic. It must be the subliminal messages in the lights. I'm on loan to the internationalization team (non-English game support). While I myself only speak English, that doesn't really matter when it comes to fixing translation or regional related bugs. The bug reports have screen shots and my PC is setup for Chinese (both traditional and simplified), Japanese, English, Russian, and German. German and Russian translations seem to have the longest words for some reason. Anyway, Most of the work is UI (German word doesn't fit in the space allocated for the English word) or client (code assumes English alphabet or connection to English server). All in all, its a lot of bug fixing, which isn't what I enjoy doing. I prefer creating new and enhanced features. Ah well.

On the homefront, Drake hasn't been going to sleep very well. Poor little guy has had some night terrors too. Tis Boo. As a result I don't get much accomplished around the house in the evening. I pretty much try to watch a TV show or two and then its bedtime already. I get a two week vacation starting tomorrow though so hopefully I'll be able to catch up on some of my game playing. Violet and I went Xmas shopping last weekend though. We didn't get much, but at least we got out of the house for a few hours. Its been kinda rainy and cold lately, and I've been a little sick with some light congestion so we haven't gone out and done much.

I've been trying to sell our old computers on Craigslist. One person was somewhat interested but then backed out. I'm going to give one of them away to one of Violet's friends. What I should be doing is selling a bunch of stuff to try and make some money. I really have no use for a pool table right now, and I haven't had a chance to play it really. Maybe our next house will better accommodate it, but I doubt it. It was a great deal at the time, but in hindsight wasn't worth the cost. We have a lot of gaming books, games, furniture, and generally just "stuff" that we don't need or don't use. When we move early next year, I'm going to have to try really hard and downsize even more. Fortunately, we haven't needed to tighten our belts too much due to the current economy, but I think it would be wise to lower our cost of living (again) just in case. Our major expense is rent though, and I don't see that getting any lower, ever, so long as we stay in Northern Virginia/Greater DC Metro area.

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished me to the Third Level of Hell!
Here is how I matched up against all the levels:

We went to Washington, D.C. to visit some museums. Violet wanted to see the Georgia O' Keefe / Ansel Adams exhibit before it expired in early Jan. It was cold, windy, and well, cold. We had to park over a mile away (and walk). Our first stop however was The National Museum of American History because it closed before The American Art Museum. There was saw the original Flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star Spangled Banner. We also saw the Gettysburg Address, Science in American Life (Which I liked a lot), and Thanks for the Memories Exhibit,which featured The famous Ruby Red slippers. There was a lot more stuff too. The science section had so much stuff in it that I didn't get a chance to see it all.

The portrait gallery was huge. We spent a good 2 or 3 hours looking at the exhibits in the American Art Museum and we didn't come close to seeing everything.

Yes I know I'm behind my blog updates.

I actually had a 4 day weekend since I had Thurs + Fri off work.
Most of my time off was spent babysitting or playing games.

On the PC, I played some more Fallout 3 and Warhammer Online, I also rearranged the frootroom so I could plug my PC into the 50" HD Plasma. I found and dusted off my MS Force Feedback wheel. I had a great time playing Need For Speed: Undercover with this setup. I've been wanting to play a good, recent driving game for a while now. I look forward to playing more.

I also played a bunch of demos on the Xbox 360. I liked Iron Man pretty well. The controls took some getting used to though. Fatal Inertia was too hard to play. Burnout Paradise was pretty good. Armored Core 4 was great if you like arcade style mech games. (I prefer less arcade-ish mech games like the Mech Warrrior series). Undertow was a great little underwater platformer with lots of good graphics and gameplay. I didn't care for Jetpac Refueled. Clever name though. Novadrome was OK, not quite my genre though. One game I played that wasn't a demo was Mirror's Edge. So far I've made it past the prologue and first few scenes. Looks like an interesting game. Apparently, I'm not very good at it.

We went to Friday's for Thanksgiving Dinner. Overall the weekend was nice and relaxing for a change. No work, no trips, no shopping, and no chores (including blog updates). In other news, here's a new webcomic about games I just found out about.