Digital Dave

Well, that was a fun trip, to say the least.

We were in Oklahoma, just a few hours after we left, and realized that we were going to get into California too early.  So, the girl and I were thinking that we could detour to Las Vegas to push our arrival back a few hours.  We debated the thought and when we were driving through the first part of Arizona we figured, ‘what the hell’.

I got to see the Hoover Dam for the first time.  That thing was really cool.

I got to lose $40 playing slots. Megan made $10, so I ended up losing $30. Minus all of the smoke in the casino, it was pretty fun.

Coming into California was a nightmare.  We ran into rain, and then heavy snow, and then more rain, and then very thick fog… It was pretty nasty.

But, I’m here. Megan left today, so she got to see a little of the Glendale/LA area.  We went to a comedy club last night that was really funny.  The best skit was when two people got into a knife fight.  They were all talk and no action, which made it really funny.  At the end one guy said, “I’m going to cut you’re fucking internet,” then said, “there! I cut it!”  The other guy was like, “What the hell? I have WIFI bitch!”

So, yeah. Now it’s time to find a Job. With my feet on the ground.

I was just poking around on the athletics website and noticed that we brought in our 13th university president.  Our prior president, John Wefald, spent 23 years in his position, which is the second longest KSU presidency tenure.  The first spent 25 years there as president.

Anyway, it just got me thinking about missing that place.  For being at the top of my game as a Marine, I was released from active duty 3 months early to attend Kansas State University.   When I got to the campus, I immediately had a rush of excitement which I don’t typically get very often.  I was eager to learn and to accomplish a feat that I had my eye on for a long, long time.

The time ended up flying incredibly fast.  I’m still eager to learn, and I’m definitely not done with the university scene.

I think I would attribute the passion for education from having a really bad educational upbringing, surprisingly.  It was not something stressed in my household due to how much my mom had to work just to support myself and my brother/sister.  A lot of what I did back then was all on self-initiative, which wasn’t very high.  Kid’s need guidence in school or it’s only a matter of time before they fall back.  Sure enough, I fell back.  I struggled finding a purpose of everything because I didn’t have anybody to turn to.  Nobody in my family finished high school.

That’s just a glimpse of my struggle coming up in the educational bracket.

My next goal is to get into USC’s Masters program. It’s a very, very high bar, but I feel like I can do it.  Why USC?  It’s one of the best universities and I like their specialization options.

Eventually, I would like to return to Manhattan to teach.  This is far later in life when I have years of experience to bring to the table.  I spent time in the Marines teaching and trying to help/mentor younger Marines.  There is just something about teaching that I enjoy.  And if I could teach anywhere, Manhattan would definitely be the place. The place has an outstanding atmosphere and extremely friendly people.

I wonder how much of that is going to change in ~20 years?

I wonder how I will feel in ~20 years?

I guess that’s why I blog and backup my database. Time will tell.

Called up my card company and dropped my rate from 12.9% to 3.98% until August (10.9% after).  That’ll be helpful considering how much money I don’t have to move to California.  I’ve acquired a pretty nice amount of credit due to my superior payment skills.

Speaking of rates. You should call your company. Go for it. What are they going to say? “Nope, can’t do it for you at this time. Sorry.”  You’ll at least get a sorry!

I don’t use this thing a lot. I mainly used it while I was in the Corps, and during school for minor things.  I hate debt, but in this world, you need to have the ability to borrow to survive.   Unless you happen to be born into a family of wealth, which I am not.

Thursday is the day.

I took my car in this morning to get some work done on it.  Tune-up and some brake work.  Everything else should be good to go considering I fixed up the beast when I left the corps in 2005.  I’ve only done highway driving since then.

I figured my brake pads needed changed due to some consistent squealing when I come to a stop.  But apparently the pads are fine… Which is good, saves me $160.  But what the hell is causing the squealing?  I guess when you change your pads, your rotors could actually be the problem due to old pad material.  So I’ll try turning the rotors to see if that fixes it.   No promises there, though.

I like my car to be quiet.  I should only hear exhaust.  Nothing disturbs me more than listening to a car squeal to a stop, or rattle like it’s going to fall apart when music is playing.

I’ve been rocking this ’99 Mustang since ’99 with zero problems.  My luck may have begun to turn south with the beast.  These issues are minor at least.

Update:

Car is acting much, much better.  Sadly, the cost was a downer.  Oh well.

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.

“Somewhere something incredible is waiting to be known” – Carl Sagan

In my previous post, I reflected on the goals that I set out on through the year. I figure I’ll do the same thing for 2009.

• Move to California and find a job within 1 – 2 months
  • And help Megan find a good job too!
• Complete 2 iPhone applications or games to sell on the apple store
• Complete my plug-in based RPG toolset
• Join a open source or independent game project
• Pay 50% of my student loans off (~7k)
• Work on learning/refining math concepts related to game development
• Invest in the beaten stock market while the opportunity is there
• Get back to the gym. The Marine days are long gone. Get back in that mode!

What a year 2008 has been.  Time has flown by faster than ever, and blessed me with some great moments.  From attending my first Game Developers Conference in February to being the first in my family to Graduate with a Bachelors this December – it was a busy year.

So, how did my first time writing out new years resolutions fair?

• [FAIL] Increase Stock Portfolio 25 – 50% from $10,519.97
  • This has been one of the worst years ever for the stock market. If you’ve invested, you took a massive hit. I believe the market has lost an average of, close to, 50% to 55%. I didn’t end up beating the market, but there are some great things that I might be able to rebound off of once I get a job. The worst thing I could possibly do is not invest money right now. There are deep discounts all around.
• [PASS] Read 2 to 5 books
  • I didn’t read any “books”, however, I read a LOT of short stories.   Around 50.  In my mind, that felt like reading 2 books.
• [EVEN] Complete 2 small independent game projects
  • I used Python and wrote an XML Based Adventure game.
  • I used XNA and completely rewrote a map editor that put emphasis on Plug-in Architecture. Not even close to being finished. The editor looks good, but the architecture does not.
• [PASS] Write 1 or 2 short stories
  • I wrote “The Midnight Dilemma”
• [FAIL] Improve Modeling skills with Maya
  • I did not spend any time with Maya this year. Sad, but had a LOT of other things on the plate.
• [PASS] Find Internship
  • While, technically, I did find a unpaid programming internship, it did not work out for a few reasons that all revolve around the lack of planning on the start-up side.
• [FAIL] Find Job
  • This has been brutal. I want to work in California. I’ve applied to several places (50 to 60) with custom cover letters, tweaked resume, and a lot of time and energy. I only received 2 bites.
  • I’ve applied to several places in Kansas, and received several bites. One of them nearly turned into a job offer, but they had a hiring freeze.  Another company offered me a job, but it wasn’t feasible for the girl and I.
  • Based on the response that I’ve got from having my feet on the ground in Kansas, I feel that I should easily be able to get a job if I can get my feet on the ground in California. So, in January, I’ll be heading over to stay with a friend.
• [FAIL] Play More Board Games
  • I played a couple, but nothing like I wanted to.  School really drained my time.
• [EVEN] Improve Mathematical and Logic Aptitude
  • Throughout the year I worked on this. Through just programming and solving puzzles in books. I spent some time with math, but not nearly as much as I wanted.
• [PASS] Network the GDC
  • I took ~100 business cards to the GDC and came out of my bubble for awhile. Thanks in large part by the inspiration that Darius wrote on his website in regard to networking. I ended up handing out a majority of the cards, and I still keep in touch with a couple of the contacts.  I’m really going to miss not being able to go this year.

Keeping to these things are tough.  Tomorrow, I’ll be bringing in the new year with a new set of goals for the years.

I cracked open my fortune cookie today, ate each half, as I normally do before I read what the mysterious little gem that was once tightly cramped inside of it says.

“Money and luck are favorable next month”

Employment?! Gasp! The cookie Gods are toying with my mind? Or not? We’ll find out, I suppose.

Bye 25. It was nice spending a year with you…

Hellooooooo 26. Thanks for already making me feel old.

Dreams and Goals

We all have them, and we all live them on a day-to-day basis. Some people put an extreme amount of effort, while some people glide by in life not caring what happens. Pushing yourself on a daily basis might be considered, by some, “being too serious.” But to those folks that do it on a daily basis, really do, enjoy what they are doing.

But the issue is the challenge; the challenge of doing what needs to be done in order to reach a milestone on your list. You really want to do something with your life.  You want to make a difference, I hope.  Life is too short to not try and leave your mark on the world.  You have as many chances in life to change your direction, but only 4 or 5 of them could potentially be the superstar decision. Making those decisions, however, is a mind twisting bonanza.  Did you set yourself up for failure due to one of the decisions you made in the past? Are you being confused with what you really want to? Are you unaware that the direction you are heading might not even be possible? Do you really understand who you are, and what strengths you can take advantage of?

Only time will tell where life will take us all seems to be a popular response.

But all that really matters is that you continue to life a happy life, doing what you want to do, and pushing yourself toward those goals – pushing through the rocky time to achieve something greater than yourself. Dwelling on the past is no way to push toward successful future. Learn. Grow. And live. No life is perfect, but you make your life exactly what you want it to be. The number one goal, that we all should have, is to never give up on yourself. You can make a difference.