E3 starts on Tuesday, but the first press conferences are tomorrow (including Microsoft’s). E3 has always been one of those things that I would love to go to, but the fact that it’s held in LA has always been a minor problem. Then, there’s the even bigger issue that it’s a “trade event” that is closed to the public, so you have to be a member of the gaming industry in order to even get in to begin with. Starting to work for Microsoft is definitely a step in the right direction as far as that goes; since Microsoft is involved with the game industry (even if that isn’t where I’ll be working), maybe I can be considered like a half-insider. Hey, if it would get me in, I’d settle for even a quarter-insider.
I should probably start giving myself a goal for each week that involves something I need to do as far as getting ready for my move to Seattle. If I needed to pick something for this week, I’d go with finishing up the CD wallets for each of the computers around our house in the event of a catastrophic failure. Speaking of, I fortunately didn’t require the use of the recovery one that I took on our trip to Seattle, so it can just sit on the shelf for a while and go unused (as one would hope it always would be).
Personal - Dallas
Remember my ideal summer schedule that I outlined a couple days ago? Well, that’s exactly what today was like, and I must say, it was a pretty good day. I followed it almost perfectly, and seeing as how it’s not a schedule that needs much tweaking, I wouldn’t remind repeating it over and over again. Say, for the next 45 days approximately?
Even though Up came out this weekend, it’ll probably be another week or two before I get around to seeing it. Since it (like all Pixar movies) are geared toward a younger audience, I’ve discovered that if you wait a couple of weeks to go see it, there aren’t nearly as many kids around. There are actually quite a few movies coming out in the near future that I want to see, so some bi-weekly movie excursions might be in order so that I can see all of them.
Personal - Dallas
Today was one of those days that I both did and didn’t want to come at the same time. Now that I’ve finally reached 80 with my hunter in WoW, I have many options on what I can do. I can work towards raiding again (while socially fun, a huge sink of time), I can do all the dailies and grind reputation (quite profitable, but also somewhat boring), or I can stop playing my hunter all together and just go work on one of my alts. Whatever I choose to do, there won’t be any numerical increase to my character’s level until the next expansion comes out.
All of my friends from HP are now finally out of school also, so they get to be just as relaxed during the day as I am. I don’t expect that there will be that many more ultimate games than normal (although knowing Jack, I wouldn’t put it past him to have one every day), but seeing as how virtually all of my UTD friends are gone, my primary source of social interaction will be with them. Once again we come back to the fact that my life would be so much easier if we only still lived in HP…
Personal - Dallas
Today could be used as a very good example of what an ideal summer day would be like for me. Wake up around 11:00, go do a little bit of stuff away from our house (in this case, going to pick up something at HP and then going to the store for Andrew), and then come home to play on my computer and watch TV. I have about another six weeks or so of getting to repeat this over and over, and then I guess we can argue that my summer is over. Hey, it’s more of a summer than I’ve had the past couple of years (although I will admit, I liked my schedule last summer also).
I still haven’t (re)started the DVD ripping process to our server, but maybe the more I blog about it, the more likely I’ll be to actually go do something. While it would be nice for me to have a copy of all my movies in file form, the real benefit will be for my parents when I leave and take my DVDs with me. Before I get too far with that process, though, working out a better organization system than all the files being in one directory might be a nice thing to do.
Personal - Dallas
Entirely unlike my last trip to Seattle, it didn’t rain on us once during the whole time we were there. Quite the impressive feat given Seattle’s reputation (even if somewhat inaccurate, but the fact there was no precipitation still stands). One thing I did learn about the area, though, is that whoever designed Seattle’s highways obviously hated the concept of service roads. If you don’t try to get on at the exact right side street or if you go one exit too far, attempting to recover can be a very complicated process. I guess this further justifies the purchase of a GPS device before or soon after I move up there.
The next six weeks or so though will strictly be a Dallas affair for me. My days are pretty open, giving me plenty of time to finish getting everything organized for what stays here and what goes with me up to Seattle. I’ll have Andrew as a source for virtually all of that time period as a source of information for what being as Microsoft during the day is like, so hopefully by the time I start, I’ll at least have a basic idea of what to expect.
Personal - Dallas
Seattle, 6:45 PM: After having driven around the vast majority of Seattle today, I think I can accurately state that I am much more familiar with the area now. My parents and I looked at probably six or seven apartment complexes, none of which were perfect in my mind, but each one contributed to an overall idea of what an ideal location would be for when I start having the Microsoft relocation people help me search for one. I’m glad that we only really did this on the last day as I’m already pretty tired of it. Two more days of apartment looking would not make this trip nearly as enjoyable as it has been.
We’re about to go to dinner with a friend we have who lives here, and that should just about do it for what’s on our agenda for the trip. Tomorrow morning we’ll be leaving our hotel close to 10:30 to head to the airport, and then our noon flight will get to DFW around 6:00 (not a 6 hour flight, just a +2 hour time zone jump). It’ll be sort of strange to be heading back to Dallas just so that I can start getting ready to come back here again.
Personal - Dallas, Seattle
Seattle, 9:30 PM: For the second time in two nights, my parents and I went to go see a movie. They maybe actually go see a movie once a year, and here we’ve gone twice in just over 24 hours. We have plans for dinner tomorrow night so there isn’t going to be a third consecutive night of movie going; if that happened, I fear there might be some sort of universe ending consequence.
The movie of choice tonight was Angels and Demons, and it was just as exciting as Star Trek (both times). Personally, I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code, so the fact that I liked this one also wasn’t that surprising. Although it’s a 2+ hour movie (and yes, it is noticeably long), it stays entertaining throughout the whole movie. Another movie to purchase when it comes out. My score: 9/10.
Personal - Dallas, Seattle
Seattle, 9:20 PM: I think that checking into a hotel and then checking out about an hour later might just be yet another first for me. However, we switched to one that’s downtown right on the waterfront and much more in the middle of things. My sunburn hasn’t really been a problem except for being in direct sunlight when we were out walking around earlier, so that’s been a nice non-issue to not have to deal with.
For dinner we went to one of the downtown shopping centers that also had a movie theater in it, so after eating we went to go see Star Trek. My parents both liked it, and I thought it was just as good the second time. I don’t think going to see it for a third time before it comes out on DVD is really necessary, but it’s still purchase-worthy.
Personal - Dallas, Seattle
Of all the places that I’ve been sunburned before, I’m not sure that my legs have ever had that pleasure until now. This was due to the fact that I was sitting for the vast majority of my time spent outside today, so I’ll at least have a nice tan going into summer. The fun part should be my four hour plane trip to Seattle in approximately eight hours; I think that might be a first for me also.
From my typical collection of gadgets that I take on trips, I haven’t quite yet decided what will make the packing list aside from the obvious (those being my laptop and Zune). At this point in time I’m thinking just my DS (sorry, PSP, but I never have liked you as much), and then those things plus a couple books should do very well as far as my entertainment is concerned I would think. If not, well…I guess I’ll just have to live with being bored for a couple days.
Personal - Dallas
Well, a 1-5 loss at home isn’t exactly the best way to end a season, but it’s somewhat less depressing than a close one run loss like we’ve had way too many times this year. With that, I’m finally done being a trainer at HP. Hey, out of eight sport seasons (four football, four basketball baseball), at least I came away with a state ring (funnily enough, the very first season right after I graduated).
Tomorrow the HP ultimate frisbee team is playing at a tournament about 10 minutes away from my house, so I figure that I’ll go over there and hang out at least for a little while. I also need to pack tomorrow because I’ll be waking up far too early on Sunday morning (probably around 6:00 or 6:30) to go to DFW for our flight to Seattle. This will also be a good test for my new laptop to see whether I’m happy using OS X or if I’m going to need to put a Windows installation on it (thereby committing some sort of both loyalty and heresy at the same time).
Personal - Dallas