Cleaning and Visitors

Hello everyone!

I hope you all have had a good week so far. My week was pretty busy but relaxing. I had my phone screening on Tuesday. I think it went pretty well, but I’m still waiting to hear back. Hopefully, they want to move forward, but if not it is what it is. I have other opportunities coming up that could keep me more local. I was also able to take my driving test this week. I passed and now I can get my license. It’s been a long time coming, but I’m ready to start driving. The rest of my week was spent cleaning. I was able to move everything from the rooms I needed to and now I can focus on actually cleaning the rooms to get them ready. So that’ll be one of my other projects during the week.

My aunt also flew up to Seattle and has been hanging out. It’s been fun to chat with her and help her out as I can. It’s been a long time since I last saw her so it’s been nice to be around her. We also planned a movie night to have while she’s here so that she can see people. I’m happy that she was able to make it up here even with covid. Slowly travel might get better and easier, but it all depends on how people treat covid. Currently it feels as though some people have forgotten what covid has already done to us. I’m happy that we’ve made progress, but that doesn’t mean we can relax.

Well till next week you guys! I hope you have a good week and that I have more info for you next week.

Prepping for Change

Hello everyone!

I hope you all have had a great week. My last week was pretty busy. I’m slowly making progress on job hunting and side projects. I’m making great progress on my latest Twine game. I need to try and be better about sticking to my schedule. I have made some excellent time on my various projects. The D&D game I’m running in Curse of Strahd had another player character die. So that’s 2 in 6 sessions both belonged to the same player. I have some plans to deal with that and I’m looking forward to their next character. We’ve been playing using Discord without cameras, so I also surprised them by using my camera to perform a Tarokka reading. In Curse of Strahd Tarokka is effectively Tarot. It has a built-in function with the campaign, so what I pulled for them makes a difference in the game. Hearing their reaction when I turned on the cam was awesome. I’m super excited for the next session.

I’ve also been cleaning out part of my grandparents’ house. My best friend from college will be moving up here relatively soon so I’m making sure he has a space. It’s been interesting moving stuff around the house and making space. I’m excited for him to join me up here, but also a bit stressed by it as I still am lacking in the job department. Speaking of which, I do have a phone screening coming up. I’m very excited for it and I’m hopeful in my chances. If I got this job it would be my first full time job in the industry and that would be really cool.

Well till next week you guys! I’ll, hopefully, have some good news for you next week. Have a good week you all.

Post Digital GDC

Hello everyone!

I hope you all have been doing well. These past few weeks have been really busy for me and have kept me active. Two weeks ago, I served as a Conference Associate at GDC (Game Developer’s Conference). I was also able to spend the last week working on finishing various projects, including a short project that I started at GDC. I made this short project in Twine as part of a writing exercise. It was a lot of fun to be a part of this exercise. I love seeing how different writers work and discussing their techniques is a lot of fun. This week I was also able to continue my run through of Curse of Strahd. The players all seemed to have a lot of fun last week so I’m looking forward to our next session. We’ll be doing one of my favorite aspects of the campaign in the next session.

GDC this year was a lot of fun. It was all online this year which meant my job was all about monitoring chats and zoom calls. This was also the first year that I was able to do the job of a floater. At a normal GDC floaters monitor and check in on other CA’s. This is to help make sure that they have everything they need and if things get too uncomfortable, they have someone to get help. In the digital format the floater served in this way still, but it was much easier. We were able to have multiple windows open at once allowing us to monitor the sessions directly. It was also nice to be back at GDC with the other Conference Associates, even if it wasn’t in person. It was a blast to just talk with them and play some games together. I look forward to the next GDC.

Well till next time you guys. I hope you have a wonderful week and that I have some exciting news soon.

Trip to Redding

Hello everyone!

I hope this week has been good for all of you. My week was pretty easy. I went on vacation to Redding, California. It’s the first vacation I’ve been on in a long time. For a while the idea of taking time off has been very stressful for me. While working, I never liked taking time off as I was worried, I’d waste my PTO, I’d miss some important work, or it would reflect badly on me. This vacation stressed me out as I have no job, so this would be taking time from me looking for a job or working on my portfolio. I was able to relax on the vacation though and have fun with my family. It reminded me that everyone needs to take time and unwind periodically. You shouldn’t go at 100% constantly and you should take the time you can to relax. It’s all about finding the balance and that is often my issue.

The vacation itself though was very fun. It had some bumps but ultimately it was a good time. I was down in Redding checking out a new property my dad and stepmom are investing in. We were able to spend the week there with my siblings appearing at various points. It was the first vacation in a while that I had been able to join them on and it was a bit nostalgic of our past vacations for me. For the most part we stayed at the house and in the pool, but one day we went to Lake Shasta. It was my first time ever to the lake and it was very dried up. However, we were still able to go jet skiing on the lake. It was my first time ever going jet skiing and it was a lot of fun. I was probably a bit more cautious than I needed to be, but it was fun to go 40+ mph on the lake and explore around. I’ve always loved boating, so this was just boating by yourself.

Well till next time you guys. I hope you guys have a good week and that I have some exciting news for you next week.

Moving Forward

Hello everybody!

I hope this past week has been good for all of you. My week was very busy. I’ve been making progress with job hunting. This week was also a good week for me to expand my skill set. I spent a good amount of time on learning code. Currently my lessons have me learning Java which has been interesting so far. I still have a lot to learn, but I’m looking forward to it. The rest of my week was spent on working on my portfolio. I’m currently working on a new Twine game so hopefully I can put these coding skills to work.

This weekend was also really busy. On Saturday, I hosted a movie night. It’s the first event I’ve hosted in a long time, and it was a lot of fun. It took a lot of work though to get it set up. We had to clean up around the house and do a lot of yard work, but once it was all done it was really nice. While the movie night itself had some hiccups, ultimately, we had a good time. For Sunday, we celebrated Father’s Day. That was a lot of fun and we ended up going to a restaurant named Crab Pot in downtown Seattle. It was lovely to spend time with my dad and celebrate Father’s Day with the family at a restaurant we love. While it might not have been the perfect day, we had some good times.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a wonderful week and I hope that I’ll have some exciting news next week.

The Return

Hello everybody!

It’s been quiet awhile since I last made a post. I apologize for not posting, but as you all are aware this past year has been a bit hectic. When we last spoke I was beginning a job at Bungie as a Contract Generalist Tester. My contract has now ended and I am on the hunt for the next job. During this time I also moved into my grand parents as we clean it and prep it to sell. We are now so close to selling it and I’m so very excited to see it in a great spot. I’ve also been able to help with some side projects. All in all the last year has been eventful.

Some brief insight into my time at Bungie. As stated I functioned as a Contract Generalist Tester for Destiny 2. The initial part of my contract was focused on the Beyond Light expansion. Namely, I worked on the Deep Stone Crypt raid. It was really exciting and fun to be a part of this team working on the next pinnacle activity in Destiny. I was also able to assist with other parts of the expansion. With it’s release I transitioned into working on the Vault of Glass reprise in Season of the Splicer. Now that was extremely weird for me. I remember playing a lot of Vault of Glass in Destiny when it first released and now I worked on it in Destiny 2. I really enjoyed being able to take my player experience to help remake the raid. All in all it was an amazing learning experience and I met some amazing people.

Well till next time you guys. I’ll try to return to my weekly schedule of posting, but life is still a bit hectic. I hope you all are making the best of the current situation.

A Busy Time

Hello everyone,

I hope you all have been staying safe in these crazy times. I apologize for not posting in awhile, it’s been a bit crazy as of late. Life for me has been going well, a bit stressful at times but good. My new job treats me well and I work with some great people. However, as with everything, anxiety worms it’s way in. I face fear of failure and impostor syndrome. These feelings aren’t uncommon for me, but are things I’ve learned to fight through. I’m confident in myself if only to spite my own anxiety. I’m hoping that as my life continues I grow to be more confident and sure of myself.

With everything going on as well right now my life feels to both be busy but also not. I’m waiting for the day when it will be safe to be around friends and family. For whatever reason I feel that when Covid is done my life will calm down a bit. I’d love to go to the office and meet my coworkers in person. I feel that Covid makes life for me feel both busy and slow due to how much life has been thrown out of wack. I now have more time to work on my side projects, but also feel I have so much to do. Slowly but surely making my schedule a bit more steady.

Well til next time you guys. I hope you have a good week and stay safe.

New Job and the Time Between

Hello Everyone.

I hope you all had a good past few weeks. I’ve been doing well lately. Today was my first day with Bungie and I’ve begun the training process and have already been able to meet cool people. I’m very excited to see how this job progresses and who all I meet. I will say as with any major change I’m dealing with anxiety. I’m worried about messing up and not making a good impression. However, I’m trying to counter this by reminding myself that I can do it and that it will get better. Soon enough my anxiety will calm down hopefully. I’m also hoping that I’ll be able to meet them all in person safely.

The last week I took off between my two jobs. It was nice to have that break and be able to relax a bit. I was able to paint more figures and print a lot. I also got to spend time with my friends more. I never really understood mental health days as I never felt I needed one. This last week though helped show me how helpful just taking time to relax can be. I would love to say people should try to take the time during this quarantine to relax and focus on themselves. However, I know how stressful this entire situation is and how hard it can be for people to relax. I will always say do what is best for you and your family but remember take a moment to breathe and relax. Try to forget your problems for a moment so that you can heal. It is easier said than done.

Well till next time you guys. I hope you have a good week and are staying safe. I hope to have more news for you in the future.

Experimenting and Learning

Hello Everybody,

This last week has been pretty interesting. I’ve been working from home which has been very interesting. I’m having to learn better ways to make sure people are on track while also focusing on improving communication and time tracking. I’ve been lucky with working from home. I have all sorts of tools at my disposal and my work translates easily to working from home. I think it will also help me when we return to the office. Every day this quarantine persists it allows us more opportunities to grow and build our skills. Sadly, it also means more and more people will be met with consequences. I both am ready for the quarantine to end and enjoying it.

I’ve been using this quarantine to experiment with some of my hobbies. I’ve learned a lot about 3D printing namely and some of the work that goes into it. I just wish I knew more people that printed so I could ask for their help in maintaining a printer. For instance, I felt my prints were coming out with issues and was worried about the belts that drive the printer. The only problem is I don’t know how tight the belts should be. So, I’ve been experimenting and learning more about how the printers work. I’ve also been painting more of the models I’ve printed. I need to get more decorations for the landscapes, but I’m getting better and better.

Well till next week you guys. I hope to have some exciting stuff to discuss for next week.

Working from Home

Hello Everybody,

I apologize for not posting the last few weeks, but everything kind of exploded. These past few weeks have been both stressful and nice. With everything that’s been going on with me health wise I was almost forced to quit my job. Luckily, they declared we would be working from home. So then that began, and my life changed again. I gained the benefits of working from home and being able to hang out with my family more. However, I also gained the stress of work at home and now it was harder to separate work and home. I feel this quarantine has been hard on a lot of us. I’m lucky where I can work from home and have different hobbies I like to do at home. I’m also perfectly fine not socializing with people in person. I know many people who are not that lucky. I have close friends and family with no jobs now or have been hit hard by pandemic. I’m hoping to find some more ways to hang out with friends and family during this pandemic.

This pandemic has also allowed me to spend more time on my favorite pass times. I’ve been working on my models and painting. I made some lovely looking wells and then also made some less lovely bandits. I also have caught up on my shows. I watched all of Star Trek the Next Generation and the Star Trek Nemesis movie. I’ve been wanting to watch Picard, so I had to get a bit of the backstory as I had never watched the entire series. I’m also going to be working on some review’s as I haven’t done one of those in so long. I’m trying to get better of putting more time into writing and creating.

Well til next time you guys. Stay safe, and I hope to have some good stories for you.

The Power of Networking

Hello Everybody,

I hope you all had a good week. Mine was hectic, but good. One of the other managers was out of town for the week. This meant another manager and I had to step in and take care of his team. It made my life a lot busier, but in a good way. I enjoy working with different people and seeing how they react to different management styles. It was also interesting to see how that manager handled his team and kept them moving. Each team and person is like a puzzle. I love to figure out how to solve puzzle to increase productivity and get to know each member.

This brings us to the act of networking and its importance. If you aren’t familiar with the term “networking” it’s the act of meeting new people and connecting with them. However, to truly network with someone you have to do more than exchange names and business cards. You want to leave a lasting good impression on them. This can be done in many ways. For example, the last two years I worked at GDC as a part of the Conference Associates. This meant I met a lot of people and we worked together. My goal was to show my work ethic and then also connect with people and be friends. I met so many amazing people and each one has improved or helped me in some way. This is why networking is so important and necessary to your life in the industry.

Well till next time you guys. I hope you have a good week, and I hope to have a good story for you next week.

A Good Work Life Balance

Hello Everybody,

I hope you all have had a good week; my week went fairly well. During the week I had to figure out more of my balance between work, hobbies, and relaxing. Work takes up so much of my time that it can be difficult to find much time for anything else. Even on the weekends my days will get filled with different things for me to work on. I’ve been printing and painting miniatures, working on stories, doing chores, etc. This makes it difficult to find time to just relax. I’ve been managing to keep to my goal so far though. The only thing I haven’t made much progress on is getting my license. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to get out and practice driving. Hopefully, I’ll get back into the swing of driving and then take the test so I can get a car. Then maybe I’ll have more time to perfect the balance.

One of the most important things that anyone can do is have a good work life balance, at least in my opinion. You should never let work become your life as I think it can cause resentment and unhappiness. If you do let work become your life, I think it will also cause your productivity and effectiveness to drop at work. That’s why the balance is important. You need that time to relax and step away from work. You need a hobby or two outside of work. To be your best self you need to be able to spend time with friends and family. These better your life and work so much. On different projects I’ve struggled with the balance and found if I focused too much on one the other aspects of my life suffered. There are days where your motivation for a project spikes and that’s good. Those are the days where you can make the most progress on that project and I think that when your work life balance is good you have more moments like that.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a good week and that I have something fun to talk about.

Changing Things Up

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys had a good week. With the new year and new feedback, I’m going to be editing this website. I’m going to update the pages and flow of the site to make it look cleaner. This will also update the content a bit and provide more updates on my current work in addition to my previous work. I’m also going to be changing how this blog works. I’m going to try and make it where I reflect on things I’ve learned and try to give more lessons on the industry. I’ll be sure to still include updates on my life, but they won’t be the centerpiece of my blog posts anymore. I want to try and help people with these lessons as well as provide a look into my life. Hopefully, with these changes it will lead to discussion and maybe critique.

All that being said I’m also trying to change up how I’m currently spending my spare time. I want to spend more time on hobbies. I’m starting to learn how to paint models and miniatures. I’ve been 3D printing more which helps me with giving me things to paint. With this I’ll also hopefully get my license and a car soon so that I can get around easier and actually use the things I’m working on. That will take away from my ability to work while on the bus though. So, I’ll have to spend more time at home writing. Also, once I get more settled into this new routine I want to see if I can fit in being more active and maybe get back into working out. All of these changes will make my life busier, but for the better. I spend a lot of time not doing a lot. So, with these changes I’ll have to work on a new schedule and how to balance my work life, social life, hobbies, and game time. I want to be better about bettering myself and my work. We’ll see how long I last at this.

Well till next time you guys. Keep an eye on my website as I change things up over time.

Exciting Week of Progress

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys had a good week. My week was really exciting. It started off a bit slow, but towards the end of the week it became a whole lot more exciting. I’ve been enjoying my role as a manager so far and I’ve enjoyed the chaos that I deal with on a day-to-day. It brings an extra challenge almost like a puzzle which is pretty fun. The only time it’s annoying is when it makes it difficult to do some of the other work I have to do as a manager. However, it makes my days go by so much faster. I’m excited to see how my work develops and what the rest of it entails.

The rest of my week has been pretty fun, working on side projects and getting back into the flow of trying to improve myself. The side project I’m working on currently is pretty exciting. I want to spend more time on these projects and I’m trying to be better about working on them when I’m home. One of my other goals is to get my license so that I can get a car. If I get a car it will make my life a lot easier and will allow me to spend more time on things other than work and sleep. It should be pretty nice to have my own transportation.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a good week and I have some good stories next week.

The Week before Thanksgiving

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys have had a good week. My week was pretty normal and nothing super exciting happened. Work went well and I got jump around a bit more. I’ve also been helping out my manager more with various tasks and planning. It’s been nice to get back into a bit more of that role. I always loved doing that in BTS and Daily tours. Hopefully, I can help out more and learn more about that role. It’ll be interesting to see how the job changes as we get into winter. The snow will make it hard for me to get to work and I’ll probably be forced to miss work. I like to see how work is changing and progressing.

I’m also excited as I should be able to start working on personal projects more next week. This upcoming week is going to be a lot more fun. I have concepts I want to start working on and Thanksgiving celebrations. For one of my family Thanksgiving events I’ll be making a pseudo-ice cream cake. It’s a creamsicle cake that I found the recipe on Facebook. It should be a lot of fun to try and make this cake. I think it’ll be really good, but I’m a little worried it’ll be like a cheesecake. It calls for cream cheese which might make it more like a cheesecake and I’m not a fan of cheesecake. I’m still excited to make it and try it though.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a good week, and I look forward to letting you know about how the cake goes.

Packed Week of New Experiences

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys have had a good week. My week was pretty exciting and fun. Work went amazingly well also. I’ve learned a lot and will only continue to learn more. This week was also the week of Disney+ being released. So far, I’ve really enjoyed the service, but it does have some quirks that are annoying. The watch list you make for yourself is hidden away, but the download function is very useful. However, the smart download function is seemingly not functional. I will say it’s allowed me to find a bunch of old Disney products and more I haven’t seen before, or in a long time. The new content I’ve seen is also very good. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying The Mandalorian while The World According to Jeff Goldblum is a silly informative show. I’m excited to see how the service develops and grows.

Friday was also a lot of fun because I had two things going on. I was invited by a friend out to 343 Industries for a tour. It was a lot of fun to chat with her and explore the common areas of the office. Halo was one of my biggest inspirations for getting into the gaming industry. It was really cool to see all of the memorabilia they had set up. The other exciting thing that happened on Friday was the new Pokémon game was released. I’ve been playing the game a lot and they’ve added a lot of great ways to play with friends. The raid system and online features of the game are great. I’m excited to explore the game more and see what else I can find. I’m still figuring out my team as well, but it’s been good. I’m loving the game so far.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a great week and I hope to have more to talk about next week.

Beginner D&D and Family in Town

Hello Everybody,

I hope you all had a good week. My week was pretty easy and nice. Work went pretty easy and I’ve been able to figure out a good route to take to take home. This new route sometimes helps me get home at least a half hour earlier than my normal route. I also had a half day on Friday as the lab had been closed in the morning. It was nice to just hang out with my coworkers a bit and chat. Then the second half of the day was fairly easy and chill, at least for me. Earlier in the week my Grandpa from Texas came up to visit and hangout with us, so on Tuesday I went to my Dad’s house to have dinner with them. There were a lot of people there that I hadn’t seen in a long time, so I had fun chatting with them and getting caught up with them. I sadly didn’t chat with my Grandpa much, but he seemed busy chatting with everyone else. It was still nice to see him and eat food he had spent so much time on.

This weekend I also had a little tutorial session in D&D for a player that had never played before. It was kind of interesting to plan out. I’m happy I had come up with some backup plans as well as people had cancelled on us. The interesting part for me as well was I had to figure out a simple thing that would teach the basics as well as be entertaining. I think it came out well and the player at least now has the basics down. I had also made to guides for them as they are a level 1 Warlock and it would be difficult for them to kind of learn the basics without having someone with them. My main goals were to teach them combat and exploration. They learned the basics of combat with some of the fights I had set up, this included a pseudo-boss battle. The exploration aspect was given by the secrets and traps I had left hidden around including: Hidden doors, traps, and loot. The third important aspect that they would learn is communication. This one I didn’t have a lot of, but I still gave them opportunities to learn through communicating with their foes. In future they’ll have to rely more on it, but for now it wasn’t a big thing I need to teach.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a good week and that I have some good stories to share.

Busy Halloween Week

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys have had a good two weeks. I apologize for not posting last week but I was very busy. I got to spend a lot of time with my Aunt as she wrapped up her time up here in Seattle. Last Saturday we had a get together with a bunch of our family friends. It was a lot of fun to hang out and eat good food. We had all sorts of snacks. It was a lot of fun to hang out and chat with them. Then on Sunday we spent time getting prepped for her to leave. It was nice having her in town. I look forward to seeing her next time and hopefully, spend more time with the rest of her family.

The rest of this week was strange. It went both fast and slow. Every day at work it was slow and while at the end of each day I’d look back and it was surprising what day it was. It was also fun because we were preparing for Halloween at work. We had a costume contest at work which was also a lot of fun. There were some amazing costumes we had someone dressed as Carmen SanDiego, a female Pennywise, an Officer Jenny, and more! I look forward to more events like this and hopefully we’ll get around to doing more office events. Maybe have an ugly sweater party or something. I love trying office events and things to improve office morale.

Well till next time you guys. I hope you have an amazing week and I hope to have good stories for you next week.

Slow week at work

Hello Everybody!

I hope you guys had a good week. My week was very slow. On Monday I had the day off which was nice. It was a good day to get caught up on shows and personal projects. I’ve missed working on my own stuff so I’m excited about that. Hopefully, I’ll be able to work more on my side projects soon. All I need is to get a good laptop for working on projects while on the bus. I’m saving up to get something around Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Once I have that I’ll be able to make progress and start working on my side projects. I also put together a tutorial D&D game to help teach some new players. It has to be polished, but I think it will help teach the new players. Hopefully, I can compound this with my knowledge and teach them well.

My work week was really slow and was interesting. It was interesting, as my work is constantly growing and changing. I’m hoping to continue to see how the work will change and grow. This week may have been slow, but it was still a good way to learn workflow in the office. I also got to help train a new employee on our process and how we actually test. It was fun to train this new employee and show him how it all works. I also got to work on some of our documentation aspects and flex my writing background. Which was nice especially because I’m dumb and new to testing, so I made it simple and hopefully easy to follow. I’m looking forward to the upcoming week.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you guys have a good week and I hope to give you guys a good update next time.

Return of the Sickness

Hello Everybody,

I hope you all have had a good week. My week has been fairly interesting. Work was fun and I’ve enjoyed meeting my new coworkers. This weekend has been good as well and I spent most of it in family birthday parties. I had a lot of fun prepping for these family parties including a second attempt at a mirror glaze cake. The second attempt came out really well. The mousse layer froze perfectly making a smooth surface and the glaze was able cover the cake beautifully. I had separated the glaze into four parts in order to color them differently. When I mixed the colors together and poured them over the cake it gave it a nice marble-esque appearance. The only part that didn’t turn out well was the frozen jam layer. The jam hadn’t frozen quite fully so the jam was falling off. Otherwise the cake turned out beautifully.

The rest of my week I spent sick. On Monday I had attempted to go to work despite feeling not great and after two hours at work I went home. I was unable to focus and wasn’t wanting to spread my sickness. I then stayed home for the next two days before returning to work on Thursday. I don’t know how I got sick whether it was from a coworker or due to my mom being sick as well. I just know I couldn’t go to work and when I came back, I found out that sickness had spread across my office like a plague. I returned to hear that the two days I had been out the office had been practically a ghost town. It’s amazing how much a sickness can spread in an office, but luckily, I healed quickly and only missed a few days. My mom, however, was sick practically the whole week. She at least has benefit of being able to work from home unlike me.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a great week and I hope to have some good stories for next week.