Monday I had Nima, Caryn, Ryan, and Liana over for dinner and smores. They came over and we had some shakshuka that I had made with the peppers from our garden. It was very tasty and just the right amount. We then played a game Nima had brought that involved knocking over wooden blocks with short, thick wooden dowels. Ryan and I won all three games, but the second game was very close. We then sat around the fire and had a few smores, and chatted about life. Once it got a little too cool, we went inside and they tried out the VR game. It went over well, and I figured out a few ways that I can upgrade it. Stephanie wasn’t able to join, as she had to work late and see Riley.
I came to Vegas to meet up with two groups of people. Former coworkers, and our games group.
I got in Thursday night a little after midnight, and just grabbed a hotel near the airport. The next morning I spent working out of a Starbucks, and then went to meet up with Brian, his wife Albe, Darren, and his wife Grace. We went to an escape room, and crushed it! Albe and Brian are escape room designers, so they meta gamed it a lot. I was helpful with the pattern recognition as I usually am, but didn’t do much past that. I did cheat on the final puzzle, but we fixed that really quickly.
We then went to meet up with the rest of the Rocket crew at a sports bar so they could watch the last of the basketball game. I met the new Rocket folks, but the new artist left pretty quickly. I had a great time talking to Kate the new engineer.
We went to the Hofbrauhaus, and got drinks and food. It was a good time, but I had a little too much. They do the liters of beer there, and I had two, plus a shot and a spanking.
Many of the Rocket people went out to gamble and party afterwards, but Myk and I went back to the house and went to sleep.
The next morning I showed them what I had been working on, and they thought it was going in a good direction.
I went to hang out with the other friend group, but they were playing poker. I ended up reading a good bit of Stephan’s book while waiting for them to finish, so the time was decently well spent.
Adam, Debby, and I grabbed a drink. I got a call from Steph, so I went to meet her at the MGM, so we could check in and drop our bags off. We joined back up with Adam and Chebby. The others came down, and Andrew finished poker, so we got dinner at Five 50 pizza. It was pretty tasty. Andrew and Chebby called it a night, but the rest of us went to the Cosmopolitan to see about a speak easy. They turned Kevin away for flip flops, but he didn’t miss out on much. That had to be the loudest speak easy, and not from music. The acoustics of the place were horrific, and the chatter noise made it hard to hear the person next to you. After that we went back for the evening.
The next day we met up with Adam, Andrew, and Debby at the Wicked Spoon for brunch. Most of the dishes were good, but some were lackluster. I really enjoyed the crab and avocado, and the beat and arugula. Unfortunately those were the last dishes I found, so I only had one of each. We then went to the Venetian for a spa day. The spa was impossible to find, but with some help from a nice security guy we found it. Steph and I got a couples massage, and decided to hang out in the spa until we needed to leave for the airport.
We randomly ran into Lindsay and Kevin, and had a chat with them before their flight took off. All in all it was a pretty great trip.
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:
For 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.
Today is my 30th birthday, and to celebrate I took 13 of my friends, and a +1 to hang out in a cabin near north lake Tahoe for the weekend.
We got up there around 6pm on Friday, with a 5.5 hour drive. We expected it to be a lot faster, but I vastly underestimated the amount of traffic that would be around Sacramento. The cabin was nearly perfect for the 16 of us to hang out and sleep comfortably. The only issues were that the downstairs was figid, and the bunk room had two people that snored/sniffled on Friday. Thankfully the snorer moved to the downstairs room and the sniffler took a bunch of antihistamines, so Saturday people got better sleep.
We did a MTG draft Friday evening, as well as a round of Terraforming Mars. Others did karaoke on the system George brought, and did a puzzle of a puppy and kitty. There was also a hot tub on the back balcony that overlooked Sugar Bowl. It was a really nice view, and Jeremy was kind enough to offer drink service of a mixed fruit daiquiri from the fruit Lindsay brought. I wish I had written down the proportions because it was phenomenal.
For the draft Kevin ended up winning when we finished up Saturday morning. Andrew had a hard time with the draft based on position and the decks he opened. It is hard to do well when you open off color and land rares. I got a lot of really amazing cards, but didn’t have the deck come together for a consistent strategy. Saturday morning Kevin and I also did a one on one sealed. I got insanely lucky and opened two planeswalkers (Chandra and Nissa). I won the first and third games with him scooping as soon as the second one came out.
Saturday morning was a great morning. George did a phenomenal job on the eggs, and Tina cooked the bacon. It was a lot of fun to have everyone together, chatting, and relaxing.
A dozen of us left at 12:30 for some whitewater rafting. We didn’t get on the river until around 2:30, and then got off around 3:45. It was a lot of fun, and even though it wasn’t challenging it was exciting. Jeremy was the only one to fall in, but it was for a matter for seconds, as the guide had him in the raft before he even registered what happened. I was in the front of one of the rafts, with Steph, Riley, Rong, Andrew, and Debby.
While we were on the river, Lindsay and Kevin took a walk along Donner Lake, and Irene and George went into Truckee.
When we got back it was time for some hot tubbing, and we relaxed for a bit while people trickled in from their coffee stops on the way back from rafting. Lindsay and Kevin had done a great job with the potato and leek soup. Lindsay even was kind enough to grab extra potatoes when the ones I brought turned out to be green. Andrew was kind enough to take over as grill master, and Debby ran logistics for the meats. I was really happy that the two of them helped out so much with that.
After dinner Brian got out the cheesecake that he had brought for me.
I was really glad everyone who was able to join for the weekend. It was a great time, drama free, and a memory I will not soon forget!
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.
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.
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.
The kitties have been so happy since we’ve gotten back. They were also really happy with the nice presents my parents got them.
It's an Exciting World 