As usual
It's been forever since I've posted. Not much worth saying, but a few notable events have taken place.
There's been an assload of trouble of up work. For a while there it looked like I would be jumping ship and came very close to taking an offer for another job doing VB.NET programming around here, but I'm still with Sophcom for the time being, stupidly enough, mainly out of loyalty and respect for people who don't even work here anymore. The organization has been sliced into thirds and everything's different now. Many people are gone, and most of those remaining are working on a project that has little to do with the original spirit of the organization. My work ethic has gone down the drain from too much time spent idle and that had me itching to go even before the changes took effect. I'm trying to rebuild it but it may prove difficult.
I've taken a couple of trips in the past month. Tara, James, Megan and I went to Destin to play on the beach for a couple of days. I don't really like the beach, but I went with the spirit of things and tried to have the best time I could and managed to get the worst sunburn I've ever experienced or even seen. It had me physically ill for a day and half of my body covered in strange blisters. I still have a nice tan from it though, something you'll never see on my pale ass otherwise. The trip was okay, but the main point of interest was the badass tube ride they had at the hotel. Got kinda pissed off when they decided to extend the trip without even asking if I wanted to and instead asking to borrow the money so they could. Needless to say, after that, they weren't about to get it from me. There were plenty of good aspects of the trip though, and it was kinda nice, although disorienting, to actually get out into the sun for once.
I just got back from my latest trip to Vegas on Monday. I went out there for three days with Megan and my parents. I had a great time getting to show her around the town since she hadn't been there for 10 years and had therefore not really seen anything. We didn't have nearly enough time, and I got to see more new and unique games than I expected including Typing of the Dead: very difficult, only got to the second level since it was in Japanese, but very fun still; Virtua Cop 3: same gameplay with a slowdown pedal, but looked absolutely gorgeous. Blew away Time Crisis 3; Time Crisis 3: Cross between Time Crisis 2 and Crisis Zone, not nearly as fun as I was hoping but still a good game; Photo Battle: Not that fun a game but acceptable because the controller was a very realistic and expensive looking camera, but basically just a photo hunt game; Gun Survivor: Sucked, but it was cool to finally play; IIDX 6th Style: Played the hell out of it of course, but unfortunately the screen wasn't nearly as nice as I figured it would be and I had to stand way back to see anything. Would have been better on a CRT monitor, strangely enough; ParaPara 2nd Mix: Nice new song selection, but they didn't display difficulties anymore so I failed my two attempts at hard mode while normal mode was way too easy; Mambo a Gogo: Insanely fun, probably my favorite new game played on the trip. Good difficulty scaling but very hard playing the 9 panel mode and being accurate. Also played plenty of other games I'd played before like Beatmania III. Only played two rounds of DDR the whole time there, one on a Disney Mix just to have played it, and one round of Extreme with Laura who came out to Circus Circus to hang out with us for too short a period of time (baaaah!).
I played about three and a half hours worth of blackjack while I was out there and did pretty well. I was up $130 at one table, but my dad cashed in another $100 just as I was saying "Okay, this is my last hand" so I played for a good while longer. Total down was only $75 which is pretty good for the amount of time I played and the fact that we quit when it was getting late and needed to catch a plane in the morning instead of at an opportune time. Main thing was I had so much fun doing it. We had a great dealer and some really cool people at the table at NYNY, but the experience at MGM was meh (especially since that's where I was losing money). My dad plays on gut, which is what they want you to do. I play on memorized basic strategy based on mathematical statistics. I scream "I hate probability!" while I hit on 16 against dealer 17. I got rather inspired from it and bought a couple books on basic strategy variations, betting strategy, tournaments and session rating that I'm almost done with already and plan on writing a little basic strategy practice game with lots of different rule variations. Strangely enough for me, I plan on writing it in VB.NET using the managed DirectX exentions just to get some more practice in that language just in case...
Megan and I had our six month anniversary last Tuesday. The Vegas trip was the main part of her present. We're doing pretty well, and things are primarily positive, but of course there's still a few things just not right. I won't bother to state it here, but I'd put down the incident on the flight from Vegas to Houston as best/worst moment to define one of those problems. I got rather pissed off there. She's a great person though and makes me happy most of the time :).
I've been twice now to see a psychiatrist to help with my sleeping problems. He decided that I have a problem with anxiety and gave me two different drugs which I was rather opposed to taking, but have given a try to help with it to at least find out if his ideas have any validity. First was BuSpar which did nothing more than make me extremely dizzy and nauseous for about three hours after taking it. I took it for a month, bearing with the absolute crap that it made me feel because I swore I'd give it a shot. Since it did nothing beneficial, I went back and he instead gave me Paxil, which does nothing but make me feel slightly more alert, unable to concentrate on anything, and yawn like every 20 seconds. I stopped taking that one after less than a week instead of putting up with the shit I did last time. I have another appointment with him in a couple of weeks, but I'm not sure if I'm gonna go. I may give him one more attempt, or I may put off the search for help indefinitely, or I may try to find another sleep specialist. I'm once again deciding against the ambien because it's having adverse effects on my life, primarily making me sleep way too long and have less time than I should in life. I'm afraid if I get off of it and start having to spend four hours getting to sleep every night again I'll fall back into a depressive cycle, so the main idea needs to be minimizing the amount of time I'm spending idle in bed, while adding stability with somewhat more of a schedule.
I've been trying to read a good bit more lately, but it seems I only read chump books. I like the chump books though. Basically I can't stand to read through 1200 page fantasy books or anything like that. Just don't have the time nor inclination to make it through them. 200-350 pages is about ideal so I don't get fed up with it and can move on to other stuff. I read too slow and after a couple days of reading I just want to do something else, but then feel trapped in whatever I've got. Maybe as I build up my reading tolerance a little more again I'll get back up there. I can enjoy a good night of combination DAOC (24 Nightshade on Hib/Tristan currently playing in BG1) and reading since there's so much waiting time involved in that game. I can't read programming books like I used to, so I dabble with them instead of going cover to cover in a few days, but I'm trying to get that back up again. Basically, I'm trying to get my educational merits up a notch in total because I've been rather lazy lately and have been trying to start learning and studying more.
I guess that's all I've got for the moment. Maybe I'll make another entry before two or so months pass by again!
There's been an assload of trouble of up work. For a while there it looked like I would be jumping ship and came very close to taking an offer for another job doing VB.NET programming around here, but I'm still with Sophcom for the time being, stupidly enough, mainly out of loyalty and respect for people who don't even work here anymore. The organization has been sliced into thirds and everything's different now. Many people are gone, and most of those remaining are working on a project that has little to do with the original spirit of the organization. My work ethic has gone down the drain from too much time spent idle and that had me itching to go even before the changes took effect. I'm trying to rebuild it but it may prove difficult.
I've taken a couple of trips in the past month. Tara, James, Megan and I went to Destin to play on the beach for a couple of days. I don't really like the beach, but I went with the spirit of things and tried to have the best time I could and managed to get the worst sunburn I've ever experienced or even seen. It had me physically ill for a day and half of my body covered in strange blisters. I still have a nice tan from it though, something you'll never see on my pale ass otherwise. The trip was okay, but the main point of interest was the badass tube ride they had at the hotel. Got kinda pissed off when they decided to extend the trip without even asking if I wanted to and instead asking to borrow the money so they could. Needless to say, after that, they weren't about to get it from me. There were plenty of good aspects of the trip though, and it was kinda nice, although disorienting, to actually get out into the sun for once.
I just got back from my latest trip to Vegas on Monday. I went out there for three days with Megan and my parents. I had a great time getting to show her around the town since she hadn't been there for 10 years and had therefore not really seen anything. We didn't have nearly enough time, and I got to see more new and unique games than I expected including Typing of the Dead: very difficult, only got to the second level since it was in Japanese, but very fun still; Virtua Cop 3: same gameplay with a slowdown pedal, but looked absolutely gorgeous. Blew away Time Crisis 3; Time Crisis 3: Cross between Time Crisis 2 and Crisis Zone, not nearly as fun as I was hoping but still a good game; Photo Battle: Not that fun a game but acceptable because the controller was a very realistic and expensive looking camera, but basically just a photo hunt game; Gun Survivor: Sucked, but it was cool to finally play; IIDX 6th Style: Played the hell out of it of course, but unfortunately the screen wasn't nearly as nice as I figured it would be and I had to stand way back to see anything. Would have been better on a CRT monitor, strangely enough; ParaPara 2nd Mix: Nice new song selection, but they didn't display difficulties anymore so I failed my two attempts at hard mode while normal mode was way too easy; Mambo a Gogo: Insanely fun, probably my favorite new game played on the trip. Good difficulty scaling but very hard playing the 9 panel mode and being accurate. Also played plenty of other games I'd played before like Beatmania III. Only played two rounds of DDR the whole time there, one on a Disney Mix just to have played it, and one round of Extreme with Laura who came out to Circus Circus to hang out with us for too short a period of time (baaaah!).
I played about three and a half hours worth of blackjack while I was out there and did pretty well. I was up $130 at one table, but my dad cashed in another $100 just as I was saying "Okay, this is my last hand" so I played for a good while longer. Total down was only $75 which is pretty good for the amount of time I played and the fact that we quit when it was getting late and needed to catch a plane in the morning instead of at an opportune time. Main thing was I had so much fun doing it. We had a great dealer and some really cool people at the table at NYNY, but the experience at MGM was meh (especially since that's where I was losing money). My dad plays on gut, which is what they want you to do. I play on memorized basic strategy based on mathematical statistics. I scream "I hate probability!" while I hit on 16 against dealer 17. I got rather inspired from it and bought a couple books on basic strategy variations, betting strategy, tournaments and session rating that I'm almost done with already and plan on writing a little basic strategy practice game with lots of different rule variations. Strangely enough for me, I plan on writing it in VB.NET using the managed DirectX exentions just to get some more practice in that language just in case...
Megan and I had our six month anniversary last Tuesday. The Vegas trip was the main part of her present. We're doing pretty well, and things are primarily positive, but of course there's still a few things just not right. I won't bother to state it here, but I'd put down the incident on the flight from Vegas to Houston as best/worst moment to define one of those problems. I got rather pissed off there. She's a great person though and makes me happy most of the time :).
I've been twice now to see a psychiatrist to help with my sleeping problems. He decided that I have a problem with anxiety and gave me two different drugs which I was rather opposed to taking, but have given a try to help with it to at least find out if his ideas have any validity. First was BuSpar which did nothing more than make me extremely dizzy and nauseous for about three hours after taking it. I took it for a month, bearing with the absolute crap that it made me feel because I swore I'd give it a shot. Since it did nothing beneficial, I went back and he instead gave me Paxil, which does nothing but make me feel slightly more alert, unable to concentrate on anything, and yawn like every 20 seconds. I stopped taking that one after less than a week instead of putting up with the shit I did last time. I have another appointment with him in a couple of weeks, but I'm not sure if I'm gonna go. I may give him one more attempt, or I may put off the search for help indefinitely, or I may try to find another sleep specialist. I'm once again deciding against the ambien because it's having adverse effects on my life, primarily making me sleep way too long and have less time than I should in life. I'm afraid if I get off of it and start having to spend four hours getting to sleep every night again I'll fall back into a depressive cycle, so the main idea needs to be minimizing the amount of time I'm spending idle in bed, while adding stability with somewhat more of a schedule.
I've been trying to read a good bit more lately, but it seems I only read chump books. I like the chump books though. Basically I can't stand to read through 1200 page fantasy books or anything like that. Just don't have the time nor inclination to make it through them. 200-350 pages is about ideal so I don't get fed up with it and can move on to other stuff. I read too slow and after a couple days of reading I just want to do something else, but then feel trapped in whatever I've got. Maybe as I build up my reading tolerance a little more again I'll get back up there. I can enjoy a good night of combination DAOC (24 Nightshade on Hib/Tristan currently playing in BG1) and reading since there's so much waiting time involved in that game. I can't read programming books like I used to, so I dabble with them instead of going cover to cover in a few days, but I'm trying to get that back up again. Basically, I'm trying to get my educational merits up a notch in total because I've been rather lazy lately and have been trying to start learning and studying more.
I guess that's all I've got for the moment. Maybe I'll make another entry before two or so months pass by again!