Life/Serious Posts have a new tag

All serious posts before November 16, 2014 are placed here.

Redirect

Took a Mountain Stroll

My friend left her bag in the studio so I agreed to meet her halfway between the studio and her house in the high desert to get her bag back to her. Instead of taking the freeway back home, I decided to take a rarely traveled mountain road back to my house, quite the scenic route.

It was far different than what I'm used to doing, but I wanted to go on a small real life adventure

Yoshinoya coming back to San Bernardino

Yoshinoya is finally re-opening in the San Bernardino area - It has to have been at least 10 years or so since there was one in the area - Made my weekend to see that news

I'm happy I can get my awesome Beef Bowl fix now without having to drive 20 minutes to Riverside.

The bad news is that it's in Redlands. I don't like the city but I can put up with it if that means I get great tasting beef bowls.

A life guide

Something I found on Reddit, it sums up my views on life, at least how I see it.

http://i.imgur.com/DZjUK.png

Thanks, Robin Williams

From August 11:

I battled a depression of my own in 2009, and there was a certain Robin Williams movie that helped me get through that relatively tough time. Because of this, my close friends and I joked around to this day that he was the greatest actor in existence because of it.

Rest in peace, Robin Williams. And thank you.

(The movie was 'What Dreams May Come')

Another Ramble

I ended up getting the job offer with SQA Squared! I start next Tuesday. I won't disclose the exact details of the package they offered me or the starting pay, but it's certainly enough to live reasonably as a 20's something single person.

I can't argue with that. I want to use the full-time employment revenue as means to really work on my indie game design passion. The studio needs a lot of infrastructure improvements. New lighting, better voice recording equipment and software. Licenses, sound card for our studio work station...

There's lots to do, and I'm heading out tomorrow to get some work clothes. It's a requirement for the company, I can't say wearing business casual attire is something I like doing, but I'll have my normal clothes worn underneath... or maybe in the car to change at the end. I haven't decided.

I'm also heading to Las Vegas twice. Once this weekend to meet up with Viva peoples at Main Street Casino and again in October for the FFXIV Fan Festival. I'll probably head out late Friday after work and stay Saturday and Sunday and return in the evening. All while reporting back to work on that Monday afterward. I'll be sure to invest in some energy drinks. My real life friend Azu La (Chster in FFXI) and Holo Foxblood will be carpooling with me to the XIV Fan Festival. It's going to be tons of fun.

I have to get back to video editing Selatria's Kickstarter movie. I said I'd do that...

Life Update for August 2014

Hello, blog! It's been a little while since I posted. Almost a month, perhaps. A lot of things have changed, and I haven't had too much time to post about all of what's going on.

For Selatria, we're currently working on the Kickstarter campaign. Amazon Payments seems to insist that I'm not a real person, no matter what legal documentation and EINs I send them to prove my identity and the identity of the business, it gets rejected and the account shutdown. I've been talking to them on the phone almost every other day hoping to get the issue sorted out. It's a mess, but at least it gives us time to continue working on the video and getting it as smooth as possible. I hope I can get it sorted out soon.

I also may have full-time employment with a quality assurance company called SQA Squared. I had an interview with them on Monday and I thought it went well, they were going through a background check and are going to get back to me on Wednesday to see whether or not I got the job. I'm excited to be able to have a stable career to build on and grow within as well.

If plans go accordingly, here's what my life schedule will be like going towards the future if these plans go into fruition.

Monday-Friday 8AM-5PM - Work at SQA
Tuesday-Wednesday 8PM - Coil Static with Viva on FFXIV
Thursday-Friday 6:30PM-8PM - Selatria Development at the Studio
Saturday 10AM-4PM - Selatria Development at the Studio
Sunday - OFF

Because of the shift in scheduling, I will be semi-retiring from leading Viva Eorzea west coast events. I will probably be making the announcement on the Facebook group if I do get the job offer. I love leading all of these things, but personal growth in the real world takes precedence, and I'll be sure to find a good replacement to lead west coast events as well as I could.

That's about it for now. I'm not dead! I miss blogging, and I realize I need to do it a bit more.

Love, peace, and chicken grease.



.

I felt brave today.

I was working at my studio when I heard crying and screaming outside. Apparently this guy was beating up this lady against the wall. I yelled at the guy threatening to call the police. I'm not sure if it was my tone or what but he backed away and ran.

No one deserves to be hit or abused. Ever.

I felt pretty brave about the ordeal he could have easily come my way and caused a confrontation, but he didn't.

Great-Great Grandfather

A congratulations goes out to my grandfather (the second Grover) who recently found out that he's a great-great-grandfather -

I know plenty who live to become great-grandparents, but to become a great-great-grandparent, I can't say I've heard of that happening to anyone I know until now, and that's a really awesome title.

Excoriation Disorder

This is long, and may be a little graphic. Please be warned.


From Trich:

Skin Picking Disorder (also known as Excoriation Disorder or SPD) is a serious and poorly understood problem. People who suffer from SPD repetitively touch, rub, scratch, pick at, or dig into their skin, often in an attempt to remove small irregularities or perceived imperfections. This behavior may result in skin discoloration or scarring. In more serious cases, severe tissue damage and visible disfigurement can result.

SPD is thought of as one of many Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRBs) in which a person can cause harm or damage to themselves or their appearance. Other BFRBs include hair pulling disorder (trichotillomania), biting the insides of the cheeks, and severe nail biting.

Skin picking or other BFRBs can occur when a person experiences feelings such as anxiety, fear, excitement or boredom. Some people report that the act of repetitively picking at their skin is pleasurable. Many hours can be spent picking the skin, and this repetitive behavior can negatively impact a person's social, work, and family relationships.

Though skin picking often occurs on its own-unconnected to other physical or mental disorders-it is important to identify whether or not skin picking is a symptom of another problem that needs treatment. For example, skin picking could be a symptom of illnesses such as dermatological disorders, autoimmune problems, body dysmorphic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, substance abuse disorders (such as opiate withdrawal), developmental disorders (like autism), and psychosis. Establishing whether skin picking is an independent problem or a symptom of another disorder is an important first step in creating an appropriate treatment plan.

I don't really talk about this much and for the eight or so years that I've had this, I've been pretty ashamed of my hands. For those who don't know me too well, my hands are very callousy and bruised/cut from having this problem. When people would ask about why my hands always looked so beat up, I would lie and say it was from playing too many video games and typing too often. I take frequent showers in order for my skin to loosen up and become peely in order to have this sense of release. It took me until I started peeling and picking to the center of my palms and a trail of blood to realize I have a serious problem.


Starting last year (May 2013, according to my prescription) I began to see a doctor about my problem, and he prescribed me two sets of medicine to counter this and see if it's a form of eczema. The medicine, though my hands started to look better, still remained hard, red, and borderline crusty. I assumed it wasn't working then I stopped using the medicine and resumed my habit.

When I peeled to the center of my palms, I had a realization that this needs to stop. Now. I got my old medicine and began using it again and I started wearing gloves to sleep and if I'm feeling stressed to immediately stop any sensation from damaging my hands even further.

That being said, I'm stopping my biting habit today. I am going to find a better way to release my stress, anger, and frustration in a way that's not self-destructive to my health, my well-being, and my self-esteem.

For starters, I'm semi-retiring myself from leading Viva Eorzea events every night. I'm going to use Friday nights to cool off a little bit and have me time. For game development, I'm going to be going to work on my own terms. I feel like I'm more productive if I had a full meal for breakfast and not worried about money and eating out at restaurants. Also, the additional sleep and lack of a rush will do me some good.

I hope this post helps someone that's reading and is in the same problem as I am.



.

Sleep Deprivation

I was knocked out for five hours today. That's never happened before. I have been way overexerting myself to try to get things done and started burning both ends.

It's better to have a few productive hours than a lot of slow ones.


.

Something to think about...

Nothing against current parents or parents-to-be, or the way they decide to parent, but do consider this:

We're in the social media age, kids are going to grow up knowing their classmates and friends they grow up with have their baby pictures and videos publicized for all to see. And even ultrasounds...

Be careful with what you post online.

2014 Valentine's Day Post

Usually I come up with a sappy Valentine's Day post. It's normally a tradition. But I think I'll just leave my feelings about the day up into one post.

"Maybe your first love is the one that sticks with you because it's the only person who will ever receive all of you. After that, you learn better. But, most of all, no matter what, a piece of you forever remains left behind in the heart of the one you loved - a piece no future lover could ever get, no matter what. That piece holds innocence - the belief that love really can last forever. It holds friendship and pain, trial and error, that one kiss you’ll never forget and that night under the stars you can never get back. It holds youth and everything you thought love would be. Everything that was proven wrong." - Unknown

Resentment and Cynicism

Today marks eight years since I've started blogging, and the reason why I made a blog in the first place was out of me being angry about the life situation I was in at the time and how I was treated.

I find now that it is time for me to be less resentful and cynical and put that energy into more positive thoughts and feelings!

I feel like I'm wasting too much energy worrying and wallowing in what was and what used to be rather than looking forward to where I can be. Though I will always understand and accept what has happened, I've learned from my mistakes and missteps and know how to deal with these problems that will arise, but there's no reason to have negative feelings about them any more.

I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions, so I don't consider it one. I am human, I am bound to let feelings get the better of me, but instead of bottling up negative feelings, I won't let them get in my way of judgement in the first place any more.

Also: Just because I rant about things, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's out of an angry tirade. I just want to talk about things that are really on my mind and really drive said reasons for posting. I just think the reason behind my posts have changed from me ranting about the past to me ranting about my goals and what I'm going to get there. And in that, I already think that this is a start of a great change.

And that'll be the end of that. :)

No reason for jealousy

I don't get jealous of anyone. If someone I like/adore and appreciate is happy, then I would like them to remain happy as they are. It makes me happy to see them happy, and that's all I'll ever need.

Why ruin a good thing? There's no reason to.

Some things are better left unsaid.

My stance on the expression "[I/they] have no life".

I don't like it when someone says to another person or referring to themselves as "having no life" when referring their passions/interests. To me, that's the equivalent of saying that being dead is better than doing something you love, and I think that's a nasty thing to say about someone/yourself.

You're reading this, you're a living, breathing human being (unless you're a program that's parsing this blog entry to send to marketing) so spend it doing things you love doing and not waste time throwing it away on people who don't respect what you do and disregard it.

Computer Science graduate job-hunting

While I'm working on the small indie game studio, I've been eyeing more entry-level full-time positions that will pay a salary while I focus on getting Whim Independent Studios up and running.

I'm starting to see a catch-22 on a lot of open entry-level positions. They want 2-3 years of experience in multiple languages for an entry-level position.

I don't understand. The university I came from primarily taught just C++ for its courses, and I had a one-quarter course in Java and a one-quarter course in Python. How or where do they expect us to get the experience for the entry-level position?

I get it, technology is continually evolving and the standards for what languages are in and out are constantly changing, but how does one expect to constantly stay on top of everything? If I pick up a new language to learn in my spare time, I am not going to magically get awesome at it enough to get an entry level job.

So, Computer Science graduates, when you got your job, how exactly did you become good at programming? Any guides or books that you recommend I read in order to pick up or get efficient at languages a little better or faster than my current rate?

I'm getting better at handling rejection!

Today I had a talk with a girl that I went to college with that we've been casually flirting back and forth online over the past couple of months.

After some back and forth conversation about some other topics, she outright brought up that she thinks that I was attracted to her. After admitting to her that I was, she calmly said that she wasn't ready for a relationship at this time and flirting was really as far as it was going to go.

I don't know whether or not she was just saying she wasn't ready, or if it was a nice way to say that she wasn't interested in me, and maybe I don't want to know. But I'm glad that she brought some closure to the subject.

And you know what? I'm not bitter or angry, or even upset. In all reality, I'm really happy that she was honest and told me up front that she had no intention of taking things further. Some people would be very malicious and lead them on thinking that they have a chance when in reality there's no way in hell things would work out.

I just wasn't the type of guy she's interested in, and that's OK! Just gotta keep moving on until I find someone I can click with and they can click back? (Click back? How cheesy!)

I do really enjoy the fact that both of us were able to handle it in a very mature up-front honest fashion.

And I feel fine!


Until next post.



.

Taxee

I don't post about my personal life all too often, but here's an exception:

I love my labrador dog, and she's reaching her super-senior almost 16 years of age. I came home and learned that her back legs completely gave out and she can't walk, and it really hit me like a ton of bricks.

We will be going to the vet tomorrow, and I really don't know what can happen out of it. I am mentally prepared to handle any possibility, given her very advanced age, but it just all came very suddenly. One day she's acting like a puppy and then this...

However..






I feel that she's had a very fun-filled (albeit spoiled!) life of 16 years, and hopefully we can make the best of the time she has left, however long that may be.


.

My Romantic Situations/Ramblings - July 2013

It's been a while since I wrote a personal blog post.

I've been spending my time the last week trying to break some nervous repetitive habits that I have, and getting a little out of my comfort zone. I've been going through drive-thrus, talking on the phone more often, ordering food that I'm not used to, and trying to do things without a mental script. (Yes, that includes talking to women!)

However, it seems that there's really something stopping me from letting go of the past. For the past five years, whenever I see or meet any woman that seems like they show an interest in me or shows any more interest than being friends, I deliberately stand back from getting any further and hold at arm's length.

I'll be nice and play it off as a joke, or if they text message me, I will hold off on responding.

I try and reason it out in my head: People will only risk into going in a relationship with someone they don't really care about so when they leave, not much loss is felt. It's better to be friends with someone so you'll always be cool with them and there never really has to be a goodbye.

Part of me wants to take things further, though it would be nice to be in a relationship again, I really don't think I'm ready yet, and I still need some healing time.


.