Digital Dave

So we finally got Spin & Shoot submitted to Apple over the weekend.  Let’s hope the review process goes well and we can get it on the store.  Megan and I are pretty excited to have a completed project under our belt.

I’ve created a launch website if you’d like to check it out here.

As for the next project, I’ve been designing away for the last few weeks on paper on a couple of projects, and I finally put together a prototype of one of them, Project Void (tentatively named), on Sunday.  It feels really good in my opinion.  I showed it off to somebody at work and they had seemingly good feelings about it by way of giving me ideas on what to do and praising the look and feel.  I’m going to shoot for a very clean and slick interface with this game.  And yes, this will be game – a casual puzzle game.  I’m excited.

Spin & Shoot took nearly 1-2 months to complete over a span of 6 months.  I had a LOT going on through the development and I am hoping that I can just crunch on Project Void and get it out of the door in 1 month (optimistic).  It’ll likely take 2 months.  I’m getting married next week, Megan is going to be out here, so I’m going to have to be very crafty with my development time while she adjusts to her new environment.

Oh, yeah. Marriage… Here we come! (Yes, I’m pretty excited).  Megan still hasn’t even seen Northern California!

I’m pretty excited about this event that is going on in 77 days.  If you’re not aware, I asked Megan to marry me December of 2007, and time has finally come up on us to get the party started.  Most of everything is set and planned, side from just a couple of things.  It felt like yesterday that I said we had 100 days.  Time is flying.

So what have I been up to? Work. Which is probably reason #1 as to why my week goes by so damn quick.

And an independent iPhone project. I’m at the point where I need to get it into some peoples hands so I can come down to a final decision on if I’ll post it on iTunes for free, or sell it for, likely, $0.99.  It’s a drinking game that is designed to be played at a bar with friends.  You can consider it a catalog of drinks like the cocktails application, but with a slight variation to it – namely, the game/competition factor. And no, I don’t worry about the history of the drinks…

In other news.

The campaign to promote the movie is going to get on the road, err, tracks soon.  Read the buzz here: Train

Not that it wasn’t expected.

So this is my fourth week with IMD.  I’ve had my hands on all kinds of things, from the build system to an array of tools and systems.  I’ve written some integration testing scripts, learned all kinds of linux tricks, read a lot of information, sat through a few classes, messed around with some broken C++ and Python code, fixed some Python code, watched pieces of the movie, and… The list goes on and on.  They’ve kept me relatively busy.

The clips that I’ve seen look phenomenal.  But I guess I hold a bias now?  Bleh. It’s sweet.

Working from 8:30 A.M to 6:30 P.M sure doesn’t give me a lot of time to tinker with any hobby projects. I normally crash out at 10:00 P.M, so I’m sure I could wake up 5:30 or so to work on something.

This past weekend I put PyQt on my system and began writing a pathfinding application.   That happens to be a weakness at the moment that I need to tackle (PyQt).  Hopefully I can get some work done on it and post my results/source.

I also spent some time brushing up on some linear algebra.  In college I only took Calculus and another math class that gave me a slight introduction to linear algebra.  If I have any hope to get over to help the R&D side of IMD, this is a critical element.  Luckily I work with a bunch of geeks now, so I can’t imagine that one of them wouldn’t like to share some knowledge.

I’ve been wanting to watch some of MIT’s opencourseware videos since last year, but things were understandably busy.  Now I actually have weekends and nights to focus on these things.

This also brings up another point of interest… I’ve been thinking about what university I could possibly attend for my masters degree and what kind of topic I would like to research here in NorCal.  Both are at a stand-still.  I just don’t know.  Berkeley would be sexy but I doubt that I have a chance there.

But that brings up another issue that I’m still debating.  Do I want to go the MSE route or MS route?  My mind is all around a MS.  I have a year until I gain my California residency, so I have some time.  Hopefully I can spend some time exposing myself to some of the 3D technology.  I’m sure there are a ton of problems revolving graphics.  This school dilemma could be a post in itself.

Well that was an exciting week.  Not that the prior sentence alone could justify my excitement.  I am extremely happy and fortunate that I was blessed with this opportunity.  In a California economy with 10.5% unemployment, and 1.95 million people unemployed, I find this unbelievable.

So the week involved a lot of training on Disney, IMD, and the union.  I also spent a lot of time learning about a few of the many, many systems that make up IMD’s pipeline.  So far things are going great.

I even got my first coding assignment (started on Friday)!  I knocked out the first task and nearly finished up the rest of the tasks (will finish those up on Monday).  It involved writing some integration tests for a new tool we will be releasing.  Linux and the shell are still very new to me,  but I didn’t let that get in the way and knocked it out.  The good thing is that I learn very fast when I’m hands on, which they’ve taken notice to.

So I’m the second ATD to join the team.  What makes this cooler is that they are looking for a third.  Why is that cool?  A few reasons, but primarily I won’t be the lowbie anymore.

None of this is new information, but if you’re not aware, our first feature is A Christmas Carol.  Jim Carey plays a ton of roles in the feature, and by all accounts it looks like it’s going to rock (seeing some of the renderings, and clips which blow my mind).

So!  Our work area is extremely intriguing.  If you were not aware we occupy two old aircraft hangars on the old Hamilton Air Force Base (decommissioned in ‘74).  This is beyond awesome due to my history with the military.

This is what the hangars look like.  We actually have the hangar with the flight tower, which is epic.

This is the hangar (7) where all the artists and animators hang out at.  Why I didn’t take a picture of hangar 9 (where I’m at), I don’t know… But you can see it in the reflection at least!

Guess who our next door neighbor is? Ok, I’ll tell.

2K Games! *peeks into the windows*  ;p

But yeah, the area is rich with history.  Hit up Wikipedia or Google and look at some of the old images of this place.  It’s pretty sweet.

Social networking has taken a huge leap forward.  No longer are we dealing with seemingly static pages like LinkedIn and any job searching site, but we now have a newer and brighter tool – a miniature chat room in our face – Twitter.  News rooms are already adapting live streaming into their broadcasting.  Live stream of what your friends are doing just went live on Facebook.  It looks like this live-streaming concept is really catching on.

If you haven’t seen Twitter yet, I highly recommend you visit http://twitter.com and tinker around.  You’re sure to find it engaging to follow people with similar interests as yourself, which is exactly what got me into it.

I was in the depth of my job search when I joined Twitter; my goal was to make myself visible beyond Dice, LinkedIn, Facebook and my blog/portfolio (Monster and Career Builder were useless).  I was trying to open as many platforms as I could, knowing that it was going to be a rough ride to find a job due to a.) the economic slump, and b.) wanting to get out of Kansas. The direct nature of Twitter makes networking much easier to accomplish.

One day I saw a random tweet from an individual claiming that they LOVED their work at Six Apart in San Francisco. I was familiar with the company from my career research on them in the past.  Jokingly (but seriously), I sent out this tweet:

Not long after I sent that message I received a few DMs from another follower in my network.

Later that night I also got a DM from the individual that I initially sent my tweet to, asking for my resume.

I jumped on the IMD website and began looking at the careers page.  The follower from my network and I passed a few e-mails between each other.  He gave me some more information about IMD, like what they do and what kind of work he has done there.  Needless to say I was hooked and I sent out my resume for him to pass along.

After several conversations with IMD’s recruiter, a phone interview with one of the production engineers and an on-site interview with 4 members of the team, I was contacted on March 6th with a formal offer.  I announced my epic win to the follower who helped me and he threw this back:

and…

“I just got you in the door.” With that I was able to take advantage of the opportunity provided this time.

This train is moving, and without a doubt it helped me get to the next level of my life.  Through the last 6 months of job searching, I did not find one individual that was in my network that did not try and get me employed when they saw I needed help, but those positions didn’t match up as well as this most recent.  People are generous and they want to help, but they can’t help if they don’t know you are there and in need.

These doors are all over the place if you are willing to search for them and to use them.

Take this for example. I just recently found a new Twitter page called Job Angles (http://twitter.com/jobangels) that I was going to abuse if this opportunity fell through.  Their purpose is to find people who are searching for jobs or people who are aiding others in their job search, and to make them visible to the 3000+ followers. A grass roots movement!

So challenge yourself and say hello to a random person on Twitter, or graciously lurk around and make yourself visible by presenting your thoughts like I did.  Regardless, Twitter is a powerful median to express yourself and to easily be found by others. Take advantage of it.

I am still determining the start date start March 23rd; but I am now a… *drumroll*

Production Engineering Assistant Technical Director

at

ImageMovers Digital

a

Disney Company

How wild is that?  Words can’t express how excited I am about this opportunity.

What opened the door to this opportunity?  Twitter. Believe that.

Well, my feet have been on the ground for 2 weeks now.  Things are going awfully slow, but they are moving.  I’ve had a few opportunities, one being a perfect one in my mind.  It will allow me to program in Python and C++ (!), and learn/do a LOT. As they put it, they need a “Front-Line Fire Fighter.”  Ironically enough, I’ve been pretty close some wild front lines, and this place is on an old military base.

I’m still waiting to hear back from them.

Is when I plan to leave Kansas.  It’ll be a rough 21 hours, and hopefully I don’t have to make the 21 hours back to Kansas at the end of this evolution.  I’m going to go over to Glendale, CA to stay for 2 weeks, and then going to San Diego, CA for a month.   While I’m there, I plan to aggressively pound every bit of job juice from my network.

If I have no leads by then, I’ll see if I can head back to Burbank, CA for 2 more weeks.  The rules on apartments out there blow.  I basically get 12 days to stay with a friend and her roommate as a “Guest”.   I’ll decide then if I want to head back to Kansas or rent out an apartment with somebody.

Hopefully it will not take 2 months to lock on a job.  In a stretch of 2 to 3 weeks here in Kansas I had one job offer and another offer revoked due to a hiring freeze.  Considering that I applied to about 5 companies, that’s not too bad.  I’m hoping that having my feet on the ground in California will help tremendously.

That’s the plan for now.

And if you’re hiring and reading this… I am a super-master-epic-licious toilet cleaner.  A product of the Midwest, formed by the Corps.  I know how to work my ass off doing all kinds of crazy things.  Let’s talk.

Well, the holiday’s are officially over.  I can hardly remember that they even started…

It’s troubling to think that I could be starting a new job today…  But, instead, I’ll be heading out west 1,500 miles.

The plan is to hang out here for two weeks while I get things in order with my new living situation out in California.  I’ll be taking a road trip over to Glendale, CA to find a job somewhere in California.  Laptop.  Suitcase.  Suit… That’s basically it.  This will be my second 21 hour road trip for me, with one more coming this year when I get married in July and have to drive all of my stuff from Kansas over to California.

While I wait around for the next couple of weeks I plan to do some programming.  A local business needs a new website, so I’ve been contracted to whip something together.   I finished the majority of it over the holiday.  Other than that, I plan to do some other things with the iPhone and the plug-in toolset.

The last couple of days I’ve been reading Beginning iPhone Development – Exploring the iPhone SDK. I’m pretty happy with it so far.  Clearly written, and really thorough.  What they don’t cover in the book, they give some good references outside.  They don’t write much about Objective-C, only things that are new to Obj-C 2.0.

I also started and finished Bioshock within the last week… Phenomenal story.  I actually listened to Ken Levine during the GDC.  What a mind. I tried the game out on the PC when it came out, but never had the chance to really play it due to school and the girl. I’m really interested to see what they do with Bioshock 2.

So I have been incredibly busy recently.  Not only with school projects, but with this daunting challenge of finding a job.  The process is not only time consuming, but mentally draining (much more so if it’s a programming related interview, for obvious reasons).  The build-up toward an interview, and the come-down after the interview wears me out, and in the past few weeks I had 4 companies interviewing me, sometimes on the same day.

One of the companies spoke with me for nearly 2 hours and I just realized I wasn’t going to be able to fit the position.  They really needed an experienced candidate, not an entry-level candidate.  Or, they needed a super-genius-magical-abnormal-code-monkey entry level candidate, that, I am not.  So I turned down their second interview request.

Another company ran me through the grinder in two on-site interviews to end up telling me that they are not in a position to hire anybody right now.  Ok, fair enough, the economy sucks and I couldn’t imagine that consulting isn’t getting hit hard by it.

A small company in southern cal interviewed me a couple times, and really liked me, but decided to go with somebody else.  This one was a bummer, but I understand the crutch that small businesses have.   I’m sure I left a great impression on them, and we’ll see if something can happen in the future.

The final company in the Kansas City region interviewed me a couple of times, and offered me a position.

Now, part of me feels like I’m crazy.

But the other part feels like I really had little choice.   Financially, it wouldn’t have made any sense for me to take it, and for Megan to move up there, jobless, in an area that is not hiring in her discipline.  We would essentially reverse positions, I would have a job, and she wouldn’t.  The job didn’t pay very much more than hers.  I applied to a different position with the company back in August, so it’s not like I knowingly applied this month and got the interview.  A lot has changed in these 3 months.

So I’m just going to go on with my plan to move out to California.  I’ve applied to a lot of places in California, with little bites.  So far in Kansas, I’ve interviewed with everybody I applied to, and have been approached by companies.  Obviously, having your feet on the ground helps.  Luckily, I have the luxury of having someone to fall back on if things don’t work out.