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.