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It's an Exciting World

The life and times of David Geisert

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The End of an Era (for me)

As of about a week ago, I’m no longer employed.  I’m not going to get into details here, but thought I’d record that.  As anyone who reads this blog, you’ll know I don’t talk about work very often on it.  This is an exception to that stance.

I was thankful to have worked with the people at Rocket Games/ Rocket Speed.  It was an exciting experience, and I plan to stay friend with all of them.  I also look forward to working with any of them again in the future.  They are all absurdly good at what they do.

For me, I’ll be going off into VR land.  I’ve been tinkering in VR for over a year, but it is time to get serious.  I have a multiplayer FPS stood up, but it still needs a lot of work before it is ready to release.  Here are some small gifs of what I’ve got so far:

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Paint Nite and Fire Pit

18582015_733048330200543_5558899488449252946_nFor my actual birthday I wanted to do a paint nite.  I chose a more advanced one and invited a few people that had gone with us before.  Irene was the only one able to make it.  We were doing a hummingbird painting.  The example and walkthrough were of a highly stylized hummingbird, but Steph and I went way off script.  Steph did a style of her own, and based it closely on a real hummingbird.  I decided to make it as real looking as I could, and got pretty close.  Irene’s looked like a hummingbird made of fire and silk.  All of them were very different and pretty.  We had Irene back to our place to see if we could get the fire pit to work (the previous attempts had failed).  We managed to get it working and had a great conversation for nearly two hours just sitting around the fire.  We roasted some marshmallows and warmed our feet when it started to get chilly.  I really enjoyed the evening and would love to have more like it.2002685245482076502-account_id=1

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Wednesday in Yosemite

Stephanie and I had a great mini-vacation.  We drove to Yosemite Tuesday evening and stayed in the Majestic/Ahwanee/Historic Hotel.  It is a gorgeous place.  As we arrived at the valley, the moon was out and full.  The valley shone with a gorgeous light, and I really wish we weren’t so tired, or we could have pulled off to the side and taken it in more.  I may have to go back on another full moon.  We met up with my uncle Fred and aunt Karin.  They were great fun to talk with in the morning.  We then went to the Vernal falls hike together.  Stephanie and I continued on past to the top of Nevada Falls, then back down the John Muir trail.

There was an amazing amount of water flowing, and the hike up to Vernal falls was soaked with the spray coming off the falls.  All that spray, mixed with a nice sunny day, made for some spectacular rainbows.

Close to Nevada falls was a small waterfall coming down directly on the path.  We walked along the railing for a few hundred feet, right next to a drop of a few hundred feet.  It was exciting, but not something that was terribly safe.

We met up with Fred and Karin to go to the lower Yosemite falls, then hiked back to the Majestic Hotel for drinks and dinner.  It was a delicious dinner and the conversation was excellent.  Stephanie and I wanted to stay until the moon came out, but that would have meant getting home around 4am.  Instead we started the drive back and got home at around 11:30.

It was a good trip and I’ll post pictures when I get them.

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Parents Visit

My mom and dad came to visit from Atlanta.  They enjoyed spending time with me, and I got to go to some of the local attractions that I wouldn’t otherwise go to.  The San Mateo County museum was particularly interesting.  It had exhibits on ‘The California Dream,’ the gold rush, the great estates, the shipping along the coast, WWII and Japanese interment, surfing, and a mishmash exhibit of different cultures that had moved to the area.

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Uncle Fred’s and Karin’s Visit

I had a great time with Fred and Karin.  We got to eat at all the places I loved, and they enjoyed them as well.  They lamented that there was no Burmese place in Birmingham, because they liked Rangoon Ruby so much.  I have to admit that Rangoon Ruby is my favorite restaurant, so I can understand their lamentations.

We went on a great hike in Rancho San Antonio, and got a great view of the bay.

We also went to Oakland and got a good look at the bonsai garden there with Karin giving us a guided tour of what all the techniques were that were being used and a good bit about the history of the garden.

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Happy Kitties!

The kitties have been so happy since we’ve gotten back.  They were also really happy with the nice presents my parents got them.

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Cuba

Steph and I took a few days in Cuba after the Mexico trip since we were so close.  It turned out pretty well, and I’m really glad we got to see it before a lot of the new construction completed.  The city was an interesting mix of semi-new and old things.  There was also a huge mix of well kept vs. not, and little of the kept state had to do with age.

The place where we stayed was very nice, Casa Densil.  The owner Ezio, was nice and helpful.  The rooms he had were full of what I would consider antiques, but they were the kinds of thing that people there were used to using everyday since they hadn’t been getting many imports.  The cars were somewhat as we expected, with the 50’s taxis.  There were also a number of newer cars going around from the 80’s and 90’s.  Most of those cars were European or Asian, none from the US of course.  The food was pretty good.  We went to a Swedish Cuban Fusion place for the first two nights called Casa Miglis.  The second night we tried to get into the top restaurants, but they were fully booked.  The second rated restaurant was in an interesting building.  It was an old shopping mall that had the bottom two floors completely empty.  It was clear by the nice marble everywhere that it at one point had been upscale.  The restaurant was on the third floor, but there was no signage for it.  The only thing that gave it away was a guy standing out front that said we were in the right place when we looked confused.  I don’t think he worked there, just hanging out.  Many of the streets had people and families just hanging out on the sidewalks.  There wasn’t really internet or TV so that is the primary pass time, sitting around and talking.  The communities seemed pretty strong.  We noticed one night there squares where buildings had been torn down and park benches installed on the concrete slabs.  They were full of people on tables, which we found odd since there wasn’t internet.  We didn’t ask but I’m pretty sure they were setting up local networks for file sharing.

The flight back was rough.  The flight from Cuba to Cancun was delayed by 3 hours, and then the flight from Cancun to SFO was delayed by 15 hours.  Not the longest I’ve had to wait for a flight, but still rough.  The kitties were so happy to have us home.

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Mexico 2016

Steph and I joined a Diver Dan’s trip to Mexico.  There were two locations for the trip: Xcalak, close to Belize, and Puerto Aventuras.

Xcalak was a really nice beach area, and the dive shop was pretty, but we got there at the same time as a group of new interns.  The DM’s were trying to get everything ready and teach the interns at the same time.  We had a great guide Mathias, and he was able to keep things going mostly smoothly for us.  The first day Steph got sick after the first dive and we went back in.  The second day we did a nice first dive, then tried to exit the barrier reef.  During the exit the boat was hit by a massive wave that washed over the deck.  Most people were knocked from their seats, and much of the boat gear was knocked overboard.  Steph and I were hit hard by the wave, and we kept our seats, but to our detriment.  Steph got cuts on her hand from holding hard to the bench, and I got cuts on my leg from hitting against the same bench.  We circled back to pick up the first aid kit from the waves, and got a bit patched up.  Steph went diving with a rubber glove on, filled with antiseptic.  I stayed on the boat and helped pull things out of the water.  Steph’s dive computer was gone for good, but its depth sensor had just broken anyway.  Not a huge loss.

The place we stayed, Casa Paraiso, was really nice.  I liked the view, and they had clearly put a lot of effort into making it really nice, despite not being able to get all the best materials.

We then trecked up to Puerto Aventuras and got situated.  The next day we got to start the cavern diving with Under the Jungle.  Our guide was the owner Natalie.  This was the real reason Steph and I had come, and it was amazing.  The first day we didn’t get the good light effects, since it was cloudy.  We did get nice light effects for a few days we were there.  During the cavern dives we were paired with Pej, the 6’5″ guy and his wife Lili.  They were a fun couple to talk to, and Pej might listen to more audiobooks than I do.

We had a great time on the beach, and found a swim up bar.  I love swim up bars, disproportionate to how fun they actually are.  We ended up there two nights of the time we were in Puerto Aventuras.

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American Gods

I found this somewhat derivative of Small Gods, but it had enough of a twist that it was good unto itself.  I really liked it.  The end was a good twist, and I do wonder where the world goes after the end of that book, so it could be interesting.

Audible Link

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