So hey, I got a job!
I was being a bit of a slack-ass last night at about 8pm, playing halo while waiting for some software to install, I get a phone call about a development position and whether or not I'd be interested in non-game development. So I say sure, I'll hear it out, he describes the position a bit and proceeds to give me 8 phone-screen development questions. Appearantly I did well, so we scheduled an interview for today at 10am.
So I get to the interview and discuss my background a bit. Next is the interview questions, there were 2 moderately involved but straight forward programming questions, a brain-teaser type question, and then he presented me with a problem and asked me what my approach would be. Then we broke off so I could speak with one of their Project Managers.
She had to deliver some discs to microsoft, so it was a bit of a walking interview. We talked more about my background, the development process and what I would do in a problematic situation, working relationships, schedule conflicts, deadlines, etc. Upon return the two who had intervied me had a little pow-wow, then I was given a product demo of the software I'll be working on.
Next I was called back in to speak with the original interviewer. He asked what I thought and if I was still interested. Then what kind of salary I'm looking for. I wasn't really aware of what entry salary for business software development is, so I simply had to ask waht a typical salary is for the position. It turns out that its rather signifigantly higher than the entry level in games
And while it maybe won't be as fun, it will certainly pay the bills. Plus, my contract doesn't disallow me from doing independant game projects the way that most game dev contracts do for fear of an employee stealing code and technology. Its also good to have Business software on the resume if in the future I look for non-game development positions elsewhere. Business sometimes has a tendancy to not take game developers seriously, but they can't ignore experience and certifications. Basically its a good position now, great pay and benefits, bi-yearly merit promotions and bonuses, plus theres another 5 pay scales to advance too, and it has the effect of broadening my employment options in the future if I ever need to excersize my resume again.
I was being a bit of a slack-ass last night at about 8pm, playing halo while waiting for some software to install, I get a phone call about a development position and whether or not I'd be interested in non-game development. So I say sure, I'll hear it out, he describes the position a bit and proceeds to give me 8 phone-screen development questions. Appearantly I did well, so we scheduled an interview for today at 10am.
So I get to the interview and discuss my background a bit. Next is the interview questions, there were 2 moderately involved but straight forward programming questions, a brain-teaser type question, and then he presented me with a problem and asked me what my approach would be. Then we broke off so I could speak with one of their Project Managers.
She had to deliver some discs to microsoft, so it was a bit of a walking interview. We talked more about my background, the development process and what I would do in a problematic situation, working relationships, schedule conflicts, deadlines, etc. Upon return the two who had intervied me had a little pow-wow, then I was given a product demo of the software I'll be working on.
Next I was called back in to speak with the original interviewer. He asked what I thought and if I was still interested. Then what kind of salary I'm looking for. I wasn't really aware of what entry salary for business software development is, so I simply had to ask waht a typical salary is for the position. It turns out that its rather signifigantly higher than the entry level in games
And while it maybe won't be as fun, it will certainly pay the bills. Plus, my contract doesn't disallow me from doing independant game projects the way that most game dev contracts do for fear of an employee stealing code and technology. Its also good to have Business software on the resume if in the future I look for non-game development positions elsewhere. Business sometimes has a tendancy to not take game developers seriously, but they can't ignore experience and certifications. Basically its a good position now, great pay and benefits, bi-yearly merit promotions and bonuses, plus theres another 5 pay scales to advance too, and it has the effect of broadening my employment options in the future if I ever need to excersize my resume again.In keeping with my theme of updating sporadically whenever I've got a big head about something, I'd just like to announce that I made my girlfriend cum 8, yes eight, times in the course of an hour the other night.
Thank you, that is all.
Thank you, that is all.
Since I seem to only update over major life events I figured I should hop in and revamp my journal entry.
Finally, after too many years, I'm done with school. I've not recieved my Diploma yet, but my (passing) grades have come in. I Interviewed with Amaze Entertainment, a fairly large game studio, on Tuesday and I think that went pretty well. I'm told that they're shopping my resume around to their internal teams now, and that I can expect to interview with them after the holiday break. Hopefully that works out, I feel pretty confident about it, I just need to start pulling in some money, I'm already living off credit for the time being.
Finally, after too many years, I'm done with school. I've not recieved my Diploma yet, but my (passing) grades have come in. I Interviewed with Amaze Entertainment, a fairly large game studio, on Tuesday and I think that went pretty well. I'm told that they're shopping my resume around to their internal teams now, and that I can expect to interview with them after the holiday break. Hopefully that works out, I feel pretty confident about it, I just need to start pulling in some money, I'm already living off credit for the time being.
Busy with school, well, I should probably be bussier with that than I usually am, but its pretty much my only "responsibility" now, at least until I get my hands on Andre' LaMothe's new prototype game console (I'll share more about that another time if any one is interested, at least as much as my NDA contract allows.)
I've realized that I need to concentrate more on my school work, I studied my calc for 5 hours yesterday and Intend to put in another 15-20 before my midterm on monday morning. Calc is kinda brutal, never did like it, too many formulas to remember. I suck at memorizing things. The new guy likes to do drop quizes only, so they're sporadic and you never know quite what they'll cover. I guess I'll just have to spend a lot more time with it to be prepared at all times. As long as I do ok on the midterm I'm not screwed yet.
I may go grey for a couple days, depending on when my membership gets billed and when my new check card arrives. For some reason my bank was dragging ass and they let my old one expire.
(I'll share more about that another time if any one is interested, at least as much as my NDA contract allows.)I've realized that I need to concentrate more on my school work, I studied my calc for 5 hours yesterday and Intend to put in another 15-20 before my midterm on monday morning. Calc is kinda brutal, never did like it, too many formulas to remember. I suck at memorizing things. The new guy likes to do drop quizes only, so they're sporadic and you never know quite what they'll cover. I guess I'll just have to spend a lot more time with it to be prepared at all times. As long as I do ok on the midterm I'm not screwed yet.
I may go grey for a couple days, depending on when my membership gets billed and when my new check card arrives. For some reason my bank was dragging ass and they let my old one expire.
Ok, so at the behest of Beatdrop I am finally updating my profile. Included is a pic of my shiney new red hair, which I really need to get cut, bleached and re-dyed this weekend. Think I'll cut it a wee bit shorter than usuall so it lasts longer.
The pic was taken on my new webcam, the color isn't so great because there is absolutely no light in this room. Is this a Northwest thing where bedrooms just don't come with overhead lighting or what? Anyhow, I'm pale, but not THAT pale. And while I'm at it, the lighter colors tend towards being a bit pink and the darks a bit blue.
What else, what else... Just been working on stuff that is semi-school related. Trying to get something done in time for the open-house/job-fair at school. I suppose that gives me about 6-8 weeks to get a half-decent computer game up and running. Fairly reasonable, since I have a lot of the groundwork up and running. Just need a concept. Also I'll maybe do some quick versions of Tetris and breakout to pad things out a little more, in addition to a more original idea. It would be nice if I could have the original game under OpenGL too, The fact that I don't know a mainstream graphics api yet is sure to be detrimental to my employment, since even some new cell phones have 3D acceleration. Sheesh! A nice gui tool or two would be great too since, lets face it, everyone does tools for their first year or two.
I'm also kind of saddened by the realization that 2D games as we know them are slowly fading away. Everyone wants 3D, very few people will even give a 2D game a second look at the store. Even the last bastion of 2D goodness, the GBA, will soon be out of steam and nintendo will introduce their next successor to the Gameboy line (They say the DS isn't it), likely with lots and lots of 3D acceleration to compete with Sony's PSP. My bet is that they can have it ready to go by christmas this year, and it will be released if the PSP does well enough to be a threat. It the PSP does not do well, Nintendo is perfectly happy to sit back and soak up revenue from the highly profitable GBA. Anyhow, my point in all this is that sometimes I feel like I was born just a little too late. I started writing games for fun as a teenager, text games, then small 2D graphical ones, little final-fantasy style RPG engines and the like. It was fun and challenging withought being as mind-numbingly complex as today's whiz-bang 3D engines have become. Jumping right into the deep-end so to speak doesn't sound very fun. I would have loved to have had the opporitunity to catch the 32-bit wave with the Playstation, Saturn and later the 64bit N64. Enough power to go around, still many 2D projects and less-complex 3D ones, and it was the first time where most of the game was written in high-level C code. I just think that it would have been a really good time to jump in, but alas that time has come and passed.
I guess I'll just adapt and enjoy it or find a job programming databases somewhere
The pic was taken on my new webcam, the color isn't so great because there is absolutely no light in this room. Is this a Northwest thing where bedrooms just don't come with overhead lighting or what? Anyhow, I'm pale, but not THAT pale. And while I'm at it, the lighter colors tend towards being a bit pink and the darks a bit blue.
What else, what else... Just been working on stuff that is semi-school related. Trying to get something done in time for the open-house/job-fair at school. I suppose that gives me about 6-8 weeks to get a half-decent computer game up and running. Fairly reasonable, since I have a lot of the groundwork up and running. Just need a concept. Also I'll maybe do some quick versions of Tetris and breakout to pad things out a little more, in addition to a more original idea. It would be nice if I could have the original game under OpenGL too, The fact that I don't know a mainstream graphics api yet is sure to be detrimental to my employment, since even some new cell phones have 3D acceleration. Sheesh! A nice gui tool or two would be great too since, lets face it, everyone does tools for their first year or two.
I'm also kind of saddened by the realization that 2D games as we know them are slowly fading away. Everyone wants 3D, very few people will even give a 2D game a second look at the store. Even the last bastion of 2D goodness, the GBA, will soon be out of steam and nintendo will introduce their next successor to the Gameboy line (They say the DS isn't it), likely with lots and lots of 3D acceleration to compete with Sony's PSP. My bet is that they can have it ready to go by christmas this year, and it will be released if the PSP does well enough to be a threat. It the PSP does not do well, Nintendo is perfectly happy to sit back and soak up revenue from the highly profitable GBA. Anyhow, my point in all this is that sometimes I feel like I was born just a little too late. I started writing games for fun as a teenager, text games, then small 2D graphical ones, little final-fantasy style RPG engines and the like. It was fun and challenging withought being as mind-numbingly complex as today's whiz-bang 3D engines have become. Jumping right into the deep-end so to speak doesn't sound very fun. I would have loved to have had the opporitunity to catch the 32-bit wave with the Playstation, Saturn and later the 64bit N64. Enough power to go around, still many 2D projects and less-complex 3D ones, and it was the first time where most of the game was written in high-level C code. I just think that it would have been a really good time to jump in, but alas that time has come and passed.
I guess I'll just adapt and enjoy it or find a job programming databases somewhere
So bush got re-elected, which sucks. He even won the popular vote this time around which supprised the shit out of me... Actually I was kind of hoping he would win popular but loose in the electoral college: firstly so that they might actually get rid of the electoral college and secondl for turn-abouts from 2000,
All these anti-gay-marriage bills got passed, which kind of depresses me that appearantly its OK if gay people aren't given the same rights as everyone else. The even more fucked up part is that 8 of the bills basically banned benefits for any type of civil union, common-law marriage for instance, not just same-sex marriages to my understanding. Also, it has been said that the republicans pushed it onto the ticked to draw out more conservative voters to the polls and vote for bush since they were in the neighborhood so to speak. At least these bills were passed at the state level though, rather than that constitutional ammendment they're pushing for. This is a pretty fucked up country right now. Hopefully it will pass over the coming years.
In other new, I was taking a couple pics today (16 attempts, 2-3 passable results) so I posted one up in my pics.
All these anti-gay-marriage bills got passed, which kind of depresses me that appearantly its OK if gay people aren't given the same rights as everyone else. The even more fucked up part is that 8 of the bills basically banned benefits for any type of civil union, common-law marriage for instance, not just same-sex marriages to my understanding. Also, it has been said that the republicans pushed it onto the ticked to draw out more conservative voters to the polls and vote for bush since they were in the neighborhood so to speak. At least these bills were passed at the state level though, rather than that constitutional ammendment they're pushing for. This is a pretty fucked up country right now. Hopefully it will pass over the coming years.
In other new, I was taking a couple pics today (16 attempts, 2-3 passable results) so I posted one up in my pics.
Ok! So about time for a fucking update isn't it? After all, I wouldn't want anyone thinking I died or something.
Lets see, whats going on with me?
Well, I'm back in school for year 3, finishing up what should have been year 2, but I guess its my fault for spending too much time chasing women. I'm still quite single, but I dated a girl for 3 months this summer while I was home in Minnesota. Didn't want to do the distance thing though, so we're just friends now. I've turned 21 since my last update, although I still have yet to go to a bar, I should do that one of these days. I did have a party last weekend and bought booze though. It was kinda wierd, I was nervous for some reason going to the liquor store. They guy kinda gave me a funny look when I nervously handed him my out of state liscense, but he took it anyways. People are kind of ID nazi's out here, I got told I should get a WA liscense over purchasing the uncut American Pie 2 the first year I was out here... oh well.
I've also uploaded a pic of my tattoo. The more I look at it the more I think the guy that did it wasn't very good. I dunno, I wasn't expecting it to be perfect, but its pretty clearly messed up IMO. What do you guys think?
Lets see, whats going on with me?
Well, I'm back in school for year 3, finishing up what should have been year 2, but I guess its my fault for spending too much time chasing women. I'm still quite single, but I dated a girl for 3 months this summer while I was home in Minnesota. Didn't want to do the distance thing though, so we're just friends now. I've turned 21 since my last update, although I still have yet to go to a bar, I should do that one of these days. I did have a party last weekend and bought booze though. It was kinda wierd, I was nervous for some reason going to the liquor store. They guy kinda gave me a funny look when I nervously handed him my out of state liscense, but he took it anyways. People are kind of ID nazi's out here, I got told I should get a WA liscense over purchasing the uncut American Pie 2 the first year I was out here... oh well.
I've also uploaded a pic of my tattoo. The more I look at it the more I think the guy that did it wasn't very good. I dunno, I wasn't expecting it to be perfect, but its pretty clearly messed up IMO. What do you guys think?
Oh what can I say? About damn time I updated this thing...
So last weekend I finally got this girl's number, I always see her when I'm out in seattle. I had been trying to get it for a month, always chickening out or not having a good opporitunity, so this time it was gonna be different. She walks past me on the way out of sunset bowl (seattle people?) and I stop her and ask her name. Then, after her reply, I say "cool. Look I'm just gonna be really bold or whatever. Could I get your number?" To my amazement this ACTUALLY WORKED! So now that I had the digits I called her the other day and talked about 45 minutes or so, I thought it was a really fun conversation, we made plans to meet up this saturday(which is now today I suppose.)
But she IMed me friday night and asked if I wanted to meet her at Leilani for awhile. A mutual friend also wanted to check out leilani so we rolled out there from Bellevue. We met there, had a good time, played some DDR, talked a bit. It was cool. I think she's great. cute, funny, nice, all the good stuff. At the end of the night I walked her out and she said "So we'll keep in touch." (I've been assured this is a good sign by a female friend) I told her I'd call later this week and we could make plans. Even though it was just a short "hang-out" date I had a great time so I'm looking forward to spending more time with her and having some "real" dates
...so basically what I'm saying is: Yay me!
So last weekend I finally got this girl's number, I always see her when I'm out in seattle. I had been trying to get it for a month, always chickening out or not having a good opporitunity, so this time it was gonna be different. She walks past me on the way out of sunset bowl (seattle people?) and I stop her and ask her name. Then, after her reply, I say "cool. Look I'm just gonna be really bold or whatever. Could I get your number?" To my amazement this ACTUALLY WORKED! So now that I had the digits I called her the other day and talked about 45 minutes or so, I thought it was a really fun conversation, we made plans to meet up this saturday(which is now today I suppose.)
But she IMed me friday night and asked if I wanted to meet her at Leilani for awhile. A mutual friend also wanted to check out leilani so we rolled out there from Bellevue. We met there, had a good time, played some DDR, talked a bit. It was cool. I think she's great. cute, funny, nice, all the good stuff. At the end of the night I walked her out and she said "So we'll keep in touch." (I've been assured this is a good sign by a female friend) I told her I'd call later this week and we could make plans. Even though it was just a short "hang-out" date I had a great time so I'm looking forward to spending more time with her and having some "real" dates
...so basically what I'm saying is: Yay me!
Well, OK, I've been sorta away from here for awhile. Checked up on the boards a few times. made a couple posts... I guess I'll try be more active on here, I like the site. Although now I'm just plain busy.
About the
that's been up for a month... I broke up with my girl (10 minutes into my birthday no-less) Which sucked A LOT. She's a really great girl, and although we're still friends and talk almost every day, I miss the thought that she was more. I guess that's life though. And now that I'm past the post-breakup want-to-get-piss-drunk-and-laid phase(which also didn't pan out ) I'm pretty much back to my normal, single self.
About the
that's been up for a month... I broke up with my girl (10 minutes into my birthday no-less) Which sucked A LOT. She's a really great girl, and although we're still friends and talk almost every day, I miss the thought that she was more. I guess that's life though. And now that I'm past the post-breakup want-to-get-piss-drunk-and-laid phase(which also didn't pan out ) I'm pretty much back to my normal, single self.
