Thank an Engineer

Here it is, past midnight on Sat, April 18th. The move began about a month ago, and yet I haven't had time to blog about it. I'm going to have to break it into pieces simply to post it all since I don't have time or energy to make one big long blog. As I type this I'm on hold for the insurance company because I've been needing to do that for over a week now. I also needed to go to bed an hour ago in order to get enough sleep for if Drake wakes up. But I'm gonna post something darn it, so here goes...

I think I'll just outline the event for now, and provide more details as I can.

Wed, Feb 4th, 2009, I was laid off from Mythic Entertainment (an EA company). After some intensive job searching, exactly 1 month later on March 4th, I received an offer from Buzz Monkey. I accepted the offer on March 6, 2009. Then things got really busy.

First order of business was finding a place to live. Fortunately, while I was there interviewing, I decided to explore around and look for places to live. I found a few promising ones, but not much, and I didn't have too much time. I was lucky to have a friend drive me around though. So I had a vague idea of what to look for, and I had a list of homes via the internet that I wanted to drive by. But the real question was how to best coordinate the move. Having a very limited relocation budget, and time, I planned the move like this (in 10 EASY steps!!)

1. Drive Violet's Xterra from Manassas, Virgina to Eugene, Oregon.
2. Find a place to live.
3. Fly back to Manassas, VA.
4. Pack and load.
5. Fly Violet and Drake to Nebraska so she could visit family, and so Drake wouldn't have to endure 1,500 miles in a car seat.
6. Drive my car (with a loaded trailer) with Sebastian, our 2nd dog, to Nebraska.
7. Pick up Drake and Violet in NE and all of us then drive to Oregon.
8. Wait a day or two for the movers to arrive around Wed April 1.
   
9. Unpack.
10. Start work on Monday, April 6th, 2009.

That's it in a nutshell. I'll go into more detail on various steps later. Things mostly went as planned, but it was easily the worst move I've ever done.

P.S. I was on hold for the insurance company for about 20+mins, so I hung up. I'll have to deal with that another time. And soon.

Its very difficult to pack and watch Drake at the same time. That's all I'll say on that matter.
I got 2 ABF trailers. I get the whole 28' in one and 14' in the other one. These are pretty much rig trailers. I'm charged by linear foot, not by weight, which is nice. A friend used them and recommend them. Much cheaper than professional movers and I just can't move myself this time. So this seemed the best solution. They delivered the trailers today and man are they big. They are also fairly high off the ground. I'm not sure I can load the pool table. Maybe if I had 6-8 fairly strong people helping me, but I don't. Maybe I can rig some kinda pulley system. Maybe I can ask my neighbors. Maybe I can post an ad on craigslist. Not sure how this is gonna work, but I get 3 business days (and the weekend) to figure it out.

My mom and I drove Violet's car across the country from Virginia to Oregon. It was a lot cheaper than the 1k-1.2k a mover wanted. It took us about 2.5 days. It was nearly 3k miles.

I don't have a lot of time to look, but with the use of hotpads.com, craigslist, and the local paper, along with several of the property management website's, I've had a few dozen listings. Of those, I drove by about a dozen of them, and of those, I did a walk through of about 6 of them. Tomorrow I'll start filling out applications as I wait for Violet to see the choices and provide feedback. Bottom line is for the house we need (3+bedroom, 1.5+ bath, fenced backpack, pets allowed, <= 1300), we won't be saving a lot of money compared to our current $1,300 rent, which sucks because I'll be taking a 20k-ish salary cut. This is due to many factors, the main one being that Eugene, OR has a much lower "cost of living" than Fairfax, VA. Supposedly. Most house that meet our spec are 1,000 - 1,300. I saw some pretty great houses too but they were well over 1,300, unfortunately.

The last few days we've driven over 200 miles and consumed 3/4 tank of gas. Now that house looking is done, its time to fill out some apps and discuss options with Violet.

I'm very happy that Carl's Jr. is here, and for lunch Friday I had their yummy Sante Fe chicken Sandwich. Its awesome.

I'm extremely grateful to our friends T & H for housing me and for pet sitting Gwen and our two cats for a few weeks. I'm also grateful to my step-dad's brother and his wife for housing my mom and helping with the search. I cannot express how helpful their help has been.

Mom and I fly back Tuesday. Then I'll have a few days to pack before ABF arrives with a trailer. I load it and then they haul it and then I unload. Much cheaper than an actual professional mover. I'm gonna need help loading though, but I haven't had a chance to resolve that issue yet
:(

Last night I finished Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Xbox 360). I enjoyed the game overall. Some of it was over the top, even for Star Wars (I used the Force to bring down a Star Destroyer, and I defeated/killed Darth Vader). I enjoyed the premise of being Darth Vader's secret apprentice and the twisting plots throughout the game. Most of the levels were well designed and quite varied in locations. I thought that the secondary objectives were confusing to complete though. The control scheme was good and using the varied force powers was fairly natural, though I didn't really do a lot of complicated combos. The save points were a weak spot since I couldn't seem to save the game anywhere I wanted.. I always restarted at the beginning of a save checkpoint. I liked the leveling up and the variety of force powers and combat techniques available, though admittedly I didn't take advantage of many of them. There were lots of lightsaber upgrades I didn't acquire, and changing the color crystal or the power crystal didn't seem to do much.

Overall the game was fun and perhaps a bit too short. I reccommend it.

I just realized I failed to post anything for my Bday on Feb 16. Ah well. I was busy job hunting anyway. I think we went out to dinner, but only because I had a coupon. Special thanks to my mom for getting me the book: Order of the Stick: War and XPs.

My programmer personality type is:

DLTC
You're a Doer.
You are very quick at getting tasks done. You believe the outcome is the most important part of a task and the faster you can reach that outcome the better. After all, time is money.

You like coding at a Low level.
You're from the old school of programming and believe that you should have an intimate relationship with the computer. You don't mind juggling registers around and spending hours getting a 5% performance increase in an algorithm.

You work best in a Team.
A good group is better than the sum of it's parts. The only thing better than a genius programmer is a cohesive group of genius programmers.

You are a Conservative programmer.
The less code you write, the less chance there is of it containing a bug. You write short and to the point code that gets the job done efficiently.

I was laid off from Mythic Entertainment (an EA Studio) Wed, along with a bunch of other people (the rumor says 60-130... to be honest, I don't know how many. They kept us seperated into small groups and issued appointments to come back another day to collect our personal belongings).

I don't know why I was chosen. I can't explain it. I worked very hard, did a lot of great work, had a great review, and I was in a tug of war between 2 team leads who wanted me for my talent and skills. Heck, they had 5 or 6 people working on the Guild Window when I used to (before I was reassigned) do the whole thing myself! Why they picked me to be laid off and not some of the other people I really don't know. One would think that a company would keep the better people and lose the not so great people, but that didn't seem to be the case here. A lot of great people were let go. The leads didn't even know who was being laid off. Wouldn't you consult your team leads as to the performance of their employees so that you could wisely chose who stayed and who got the boot? Wouldn't it be better to layoff the one, probably younger, dude with no ties, no family, and had a better chance to move on than the person with family, a house, and had determined to plant his roots there? (Of course not.. that would be prejudice, and illegal) Wouldn't it be better to lay off the people who spent 3 or 4 months working on a single feature that ended up late and bug ridden? Wouldn't it be better to layoff the people who didn't contribute as much to the game or got a poor review? Wouldn't it be better to layoff the people who didn't earn a bonus as a result of their hard work and dedication? Wouldn't it be better to layoff the people who didn't impress the top brass, including EA execs, with a feature so revolutionary that they asked it to be removed for the E3 demo so its competitors wouldn't copy it? Wouldn't it be better to layoff the people who didn't actually do much actual work on the game itself and instead were simply PR fluff? Wouldn't it be better to layoff the people that were responsible for the major systems that caused the game to be redesigned over and over and over and over again (and that many users still complain about)? Wouldn't it be better to layoff yourself for the poor mis-management that contributed towards the lackluster subscriptions to begin with?

I understand financial woes. Believe me. A reduction in force isn't good. I understand that hard sacrifices need to be made. But it confuses me when such sacrifices are seemingly random dice rolls and I was laid off for no other apparent reason than because some upper exec who didn't even know about my importance to the team failed my saving throw.

While I like Blogspot a lot, Facebook seems to be easier to post quick notes, and they're more likely to get read by more people. I'm spending more time updating my facebook status and playing Dragon Wars + Vampire Wars. I downloaded the SDK for facebook apps, but I havent had time to mess around with it yet. Violet hasn't been feeling too well lately, so I've had to take care of Drake a bit more than usual.. plus I have a looming deadline for a really cool feature that I've been working on (even from home). I'll still ramble here, but I'll be less inclined to blog about small, daily, or trivial stuff.

Saturday the family spent the afternoon driving around and looking at houses again. We're getting a good feeling for where we want to live and what kinds of houses fit our budget. We found some pretty good choices. A lot of the homes we've been seeing are in the process of being foreclosed on, so the price is really cheap but its owned by the bank and the owner. Usually it gets put up on auction to the highest bidder. If the house doesn't meet a minimum amount, the bank doesn't sell it. All in all, its a long and painful process... and there's no guarantee you'll get the house in the end. We're trying to stay away from such deals, but it's difficult... there are some great houses in foreclosure right now. I feel sorry for all the owners who got suckered into buying a house they couldn't afford. Often they will try to sell the house before the foreclosure is complete. That's called a short sale. But again, the sale also requires approval of the bank/lender.
I'm very close to finishing Mass Effect. Just like in Fallout 3, I decided to stop doing all the side quests and just go through the main story line. Although I enjoyed all the side quests I did, there's just too much game for what time I have. I've had a lot of problems with the game lately. The sound has been dropping out, hissing, and/or crackling. Several times the game just crashes. Last night I could hear the music going but the screen went blank, as if there was suddenly no video signal.

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:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Moderate
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Moderate
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

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.

If you were a fan of any Origin Systems product (Ultima, Wing Commander, etc), or are simply interested in gaming nostalgia, read on...

When EA acquired Mythic Entertainment, Mythic inherited Ultima Online. As a result, Mythic got a whole bunch of stuff. Well the guys from WCNews were invited to come document it all. I personally think this is a pretty cool thing.

This is easily one of the strangest videos I have ever seen. Not only is there A MERMAID SKELETON in it, the owners are trying to teach their cats to not mess with it.

I picked up Fallout 3 (CE of course) two weeks ago or so. Nearly all my free time is spent playing it. I just reached level 6. It's a great game and I am enthusiastic about continuing it. I haven't even tried Red Alert 3 yet. I'll get to that game eventually. Heck, I haven't even finished Oblivion (which this game resembles in so much as it uses the same engine and is made by the same company, Bethesda). I highly reccommend Fallout 3. It might become one of my all-time favorite games. Ratings and reviews are very high. Sales are through a very high roof. I'm happy my new system runs it like a charm.

I just found out that Amazon is offering a "Survival Edition". Same as the CE, but includes a life size Pipboy 3000. GAH! Now I wish I had known that prior to getting the CE. Tis Boo.

Well, I guess I know why we didn't get many trick or treaters.
Apparently, it's ILLEGAL in the commonwealth of Virginia. How do stupid laws like these still exist? Do the people who are elected/appointed to do this stuff just sit around plotting how to get more political power instead of doing their jobs? (See stupid law #1)

http://www.dumblaws.com/laws/united-states/virginia

Check out some of these winners:

• There is a state law prohibiting “corrupt practices of bribery by any person other than candidates.
• You may not engage in business on Sundays, with the exception of almost every industry.
• Citizens must honk their horn while passing other cars.
• Children are not to go trick-or-treating on Halloween.
• It is illegal to tickle women.

Some of the city laws are even dumber...

• The city of Culpepper, VA:
  A person of color may not be outside or within the city limits after 7 pm.
• Norfolk, VA
  Spitting on a sea gull is not tolerated.
  A man may face 60 days in jail for patting a woman’s derriere.
  Women must wear a corsette after sundown and be in the company of male chaperone.