Yep, I graduated. Considering that the first time I took a college level course was in the Fall of 1995, thats pretty impressive. Twelve years of working on the degree on and off and finally finishing the damned thing. Back in the mid nineties, as my friend Jason over and elluzion.net can attest to, I simply was not ready to be a college student. I was an energetic high school graduate, ready to experience life out on my own, for better or worse.

I believe that my College education has only benefited from it. Had I tried to stay in school back then, I would have scraped by, just like I did in high school. (My GPA was a solid 3.53 overall with a 3.76 in CS courses … not bad for a straight C high school student) By taking the time to waste some time, fall on my ass, and experience the working life without a college education, I found my motivation and some much needed direction for actually earning that degree.

Just like everything else in my life, I had to find out the hard way rather than just taking peoples word for it. Sure it would have been nice to have graduated much earlier, but then again I would not be the same person had I done it that way. I guess I am just the type of person who sticks the fork in the electrical outlet, gets his ass shocked off, and from then on KNOWS not to do that, rather than simply taking the advice of everyone around me.

Anyway, yay me.

My life has been utter chaos for the past couple months. I knew that the april/may 2007 time period would be rough because of all the things due to happen then. I knew that I would finally be graduating from college. I knew I would have final projects and final exams leading up to said graduation. I knew that work was going to really start ramping up in May and that I would be a lot busier as we left the design phases of the project and entered into implementation. I also knew that I had a baby on the way and that she would be here sometime in May. However, I DID not know that I would lose my Father on April 9th of 2007.

I am writing this post some 51 days after actually losing him and in all this time I have thought about and failed at coming up with a good way to write about it on my blog. I generally like to use my blog to rant on about any inane little thing that comes to mind. How could I put up a blog post tribute to my father and potentially sandwich it between comments about windows vista quirks and the latest video game developments? It just didn’t seem right.

Then there is the challenge of putting everything I want to say into actual words. I thought about it a lot, but never could quite come up with a good start. I simply wasn’t ready. Some two months later, I still am not totally ready, but I am going to try anyway.

I am very close to my dad. I have been very fortunate to have been raised in a family that was filled with love and understanding. Both my mother and father have put every ounce of themselves into providing a good life for me and my brother. That is one of the traits of my father that stands out the most to me. He was so very giving, not only to my brother and I, but to everyone he ever met.

As a new father myself, I think about growing up with my dad and the things we did together. Family was very important to him and I have many memories of him playing with my brother and I, taking us out to ball games, and teaching us about all sorts of things. He involved himself in all aspects of our lives helping us understand the world around us without forcing his own beliefs on us. I can only hope that 30 years from now, my daughter will think about how I raised her with similar love and respect.

I could go on about the man my father was for pages and pages of text and still only scratch the surface. All of it boils down to the fact that he was my dad and I loved him with all my soul. I will miss him. Whatever the nature of our spiritual side is, I know that he is looking in on me. I know that he looked on with pride when I was finally handed my diploma. And I just know that he is watching over the granddaughter that he never got to meet. I am not normally one to go on and on about the religious/spiritual side of things, but believing that there is SOMETHING beyond the veil of death has actually helped me a lot in getting through this time. Whether you believe in it or not, you cannot deny that his influence in my life with undoubtedly affect the influence I will have on my daughter. In that way, we live forever. With that in mind, why don’t we take the time to do the right things in life. Why don’t we go out of our way to try and make the world a better place, not just for our own sake, but because in a very real sense, we are what we do and what we do has real meaning and value beyond immediate, tangible result.

Dad, I love you and miss you very much.

When you let me fall, I grew my own wings
now I’m as tall as the skies.

When you let me drown, I grew gills and fins
now I’m as deep as the seas.

When you let me die, my spirits free
there is nothing challenging me.

Some of the biggest news in the computer world recently was the release of windows Vista.  Likely you have heard the myriad stories out there about how vista will chew through your system resources, annoy the piss out of you, and generally provide nothing of worth for the cost and trouble of upgrading.  I am here to say that the stories are only partly true … at least for me anyway.

First off, why did I upgrade to vista?  A mere week before actually getting vista I had been telling friends and family how I wanted to skip vista all together and get a new mac machine.  What made me change my mind?  Well, ultimately it was Vanguard.  I wanted to play vanguard, but to really enjoy that game I knew I needed some beefier hardware.  I purchased a new video card ( Radeon X1950 512MB VRAM ) and got everything ready for the day when I would buy the game.

Well, that day came and after installing vanguard I was prompted to install an updated version of directX.  Normally this wouldnt be a problem, however, I couldnt do it.  Every time I ran the installer it would fail with a vaguely worded “Visual C++ Runtime Error.”  The reason the installer was failing was not because I had a bad disc or anything so mundane, it was because I had hosed my version of windows installer following some instructions to modify XP media center so that I could share media center with my xbox 360.  The kicker is this, the instructions I followed, and programs I ran in an attempt to set this up were all official microsoft instructions.  I dont fully recall what all the steps were, however, they involved uninstalling the 1.1 version of the .NET framework, running a cleaner utility, and reinstalling.  Sounds easy.  The first two steps were, however, upon reinstalling I noticed that I not got runtime errors for every windows installer program I tried to run.  I tried to fix it and nothing worked … even official microsoft advice.  Sounds like it would be time for an XP reinstall, right?  Thats correct … if I had an XP install disk.  You see, I used to have a non-legit windows install.  Then one day MS wised up and released their genuine advantage software that could detect that my copy was not legit and it barred me from downloading updates.  At the time this happened, I worked for a company with an MSDN subscription.  So, from their site I downloaded a legit copy of windows, as I didnt want to be developing software for them with a busted copy of windows.  The problem with this is that I failed to back up and keep my install DVD.  So I had a legit install without media to reinstall.

So, with a busted XP install and a new copy of vanguard waiting to be played, I had had enough.  I decided to bite the bullet and buy a legit copy of windows.  Not wanting to pay $99 for an old ass version of XP, I went for the full on Vista home professional upgrade, to the tune of $170.  Ouch.  Still, it would be nice to stop bothering with trying to find cracks and work around for my OS software on my PC.  I did the install and while most things seemed alright, not ALL was well.

I had no sound.  This is the main problem with ANYONE out there who wants to upgrade to Vista.  Microsoft has removed ALL HAL support for sound cards from direct X in vista.  Thats right, no HAL ( Hardware Abstraction Layer ) support for sound cards anymore.  This has benefits that I wont get into here, but suffice it to say that its not ALL bad.  However, it does mean that you WILL need vista drivers for your sound card.  If, like me, you have an 8 year old sound blaster live card, there simply are no drivers for it.  Whats worse is that not all sound card functionality works under vista because hardware companies had come to rely on directX to drive these effects.  I solved this problem by buying a new $30 sound blaster audigy SE card, the cheapest I could find.  I wouldnt have minded getting a beefier card, but I didnt want to pay $100 for extra features listed on the box that might not even work in vista.  So, to all my friends reading this … if you value the audio functionality of your current PC and you are considering an XP upgrade, DO YOUR RESEARCH FIRST.  The sound driver situation is getting better through the use of openAL to replace the hole that directX left, however, its not 100% yet.  Make sure that your sound editing/recording software works not only with vista, but with the sound hardware you have before upgrading (Jason, I am looking at you ).

Other than that, vista has been really nice to me.  I dont notice any slowness due to it eating up resources, nor do I have trouble running many apps at once.  A lot of the bad press aimed at it was either unfounded, or was fixed right away by MS.  I am actually enjoying vista, to be honest.  It IS prettier than XP, and to the nerd in me it is fun exploring this new OS.  Once Windows Live for Games drops on May 8th, I will be much happier that I upgraded.

That being said, would I recommend upgrading to vista?  Not really.  Its not that there are glaring issues with vista that will keep you from doing what you want with it, the problem is that there is simply no reason to upgrade to vista.  It is pretty, but it has no redeeming qualities that make it worth the hefty price tag.  If you are a serious gamer, you WILL eventually upgrade as directX 10 games start coming out, as directX 10 is vista only, however, I dont see this happening all that soon.  You will also need vista if you want to take advantage of the windows for games live service, but there are only a select few people out there who will really want that at first.  Other than that, the rest is cosmetic.  It looks pretty, but it doesnt look as pretty as OSX.  You just dont need vista for anything, plus the hardware support is only now catching up.  I dont know who the market was for MS when they thought that vista would WOW us all, but it is not me.

I guess my main point in this rant is that vista is not worth the money to upgrade.  However, if you have to upgrade for some reason, or you just want to explore the latest OS offering from Microsoft, then vista probably wont be the horrible beast people make it out to be.

Oh!  One last thing.  The UAC ( User Access Control ) system in vista is the most horribly designed pseudo-security piece of bullshit I have ever seen.  What it amounts to is that windows doesnt allow anything access to areas of your disks, and it doesnt allow programs to run without your permission.  From a user interface standpoint it means that for everything you try to run you have two or three dialogs popping up asking for your permission to do mundane things like run a game, or launch a web browser.  While you can tune UAC off, it warns you that you are increasing your risk by doing so.  I think it proves one of two things:

1.  MS does not actually run the code they test to see if it is feasible from a usability standpoint.

2.  MS simply doesnt CARE that it makes the OS incredibly annoying to use, so long as it allows them to claim that it is more “secure.”  You know, it would be a lot safer if all cars were limited to a 10mph speed limit.  However, who would want to drive one?

Having not posted in a while, I thought I would just come up with something to write in here to not let this prime piece of interweb go completely to waste.

Lately … I have been busy.  School is in full swing, and work is really picking up.  Also, every Sunday in March, Heather and I are going to Lamaze classes to learn ancient ninja breathing technique to make delivering a baby a more reasonable ordeal.  So far it has been interesting to learn about the whole process.  Honestly, I didn’t know much about how the insides of a woman worked during pregnancy.  Well, I know now.  I wont go into any gross details, but I will say rats off to ya women.  You do some amazing stuff with your body and it makes me feel completely useless as a man during this whole process.

I cant believe that there are only two months left to go until our baby is here.  Whats more, in that two months I will have completed school and graduated, this work spiral will be winding down, and we will have moved out of our apartment and into a house ( rented ).  How can all of that happen in two months?  I have no clue, but like it or not, I am about to find out.

Aside from real life stuff, I kind of slowed down on my gaming as of late.  I have been sinking myself into the new WoW expansion, having convinced some friends to come back and give the game a try.  I also have given the new MMO Vanguard: saga of heroes a shot.  So far, vanguard is an amazing … but unfinished game.  Sigil ( the company who made the game ) has been very honest with everyone that they HAD to release the game now or never because the money simply dried up.  Being a software developer, I can understand that.  However, right now it means that we are paying to play a game that is full of bugs and incomplete content.  Well, I shouldnt say FULL of it because the game is far from unplayable.  In fact it is a tremendous amount of fun.  If you read up on vanguard youll likely hear people talk about how huge the virtual world is.  Its true.  I am having a blast just exploring the lands and leveling as much as I can stand to without forcing myself to grind.

There is a story behind what I went through to be able to run Vanguard, but I will save it for its own blog post.  Lets just say that it culminated in me upgrading my PC to vista … yeah.  Vanguard IS a total resource hog and requires a beefy machine to run it with many of the graphical options turned on.  However, I am finding that it runs great on both my PC and my laptop at lower settings.  Yeah, it chugs in places, but overall I am surprised at how well it does run, given the stories I heard before buying it.

My biggest complaint about vanguard is not that the game is buggy or incomplete, or that it has fairly steep hardware requirements.  Sigil has been making concerted efforts to fix all of this and it is showing.  No, my main problem is that you have this incredible looking landscape, and the character models for most human looking guys are pretty lame.  The armor, swords, and other accoutrements in the game look great, but the actual character models look bad to me.  Some of them are alright, but most of them just look odd compared with the beautiful trees, buildings, and other things around them.  Further diving into this, I think that the hair is the main problem with the models.  For males I have a choice between short hair that looks alright, a bit longer hair that looks a bit more stupid, short hair with a Elvis-like doo-wop wave along the front that looks dumb, and long hair that makes me look completely 100% gay.  Other races from different continents in the game DO have different hair models, but they all look meh to me too.  Im waiting for a future patch where they add new hair styles, or alternate character models to the game, but until then I will just tolerate it and not let it get in the way of me enjoying the game.

Well, thats about it for this post.  Sorry it wasn’t better planned out.  I just kinda wanted to do a brain dump into the blog to put SOME content up.

Im going to come right out and admit it right here and now that I adore pokemon. It is a craze that is heavily berated by the portion of the gaming public that is over the age of 10, however, I don’t get that sentiment at all. A lot of my fascination with it has to do with my other fascination with all things Japanese. Back before I actually started studying the Japanese language, I was hungry for Japanese culture, largely through import video games. It was at this time ( circa 1996 ) that I learned about the pokemon craze sweeping across Japan. For those not in the know, pokemon is essentially a bug collecting RPG game. However, rather than bugs you are collecting little beasties known as pokemon. After you have caught a new pokemon, it is added to your collection and you can raise it, making it stronger and teaching it new skills. In a brilliant move, there were multiple versions of the game released, each containing certain pokemon that the other did not. In order to “catch them all” you had to network your gameboy with friends and trade pokemon through different versions. This is every marketing departments wet dream.

Earlier today I was reading this blog about an English speaking game artist living in Japan and how he stumbled upon a Wii. Lucky bastard. The post is good reading, but it sparked a thought in my head. With a child on the way, I am suddenly going to have to be thoughtful of the kinda of games they play. I certainly dont want them watching me cave in a hookers skull with a baseball bat in grand theft auto, however, I do want to encourage them to play video games because I honestly believe there is value in the coordination and developmental value that the interaction can have on a child. Sure, there are many great xbox 360 and playstation games out there, but it is also obvious that those companies cater to a much more mature crowd. Then it hit me, not only is the Wii family friendly, but I feel that the innovative control scheme that makes it so damned fun looking, would also be that much more helpful for a developing child. Shortly after that it dawned on me that there is a chance that my kids will like pokemon too and that I will finally have someone to share that love with

I know that there is a good chance that either my kids will hate pokemon, pokemon will be a passing fad by the time they are old enough to play, and/or they will just not like video games at all. Thats fine. However, a future dad can hope, cant he?

In the meantime, I will be fully prepared with my new black DS lite and future copies of whatever pokemon games there are to be had.

Today Heather had her first big sonogram. We have known for weeks that Jan 3rd 2007 was likely to be the day we found out the sex of the baby ( and therefore could begin using one of the names we had picked out ), however, nothing could have prepared me for the mental shock of seeing my child up on the monitor for the first time. Thats not entirely true, I have seen the baby before, but whereas before it was a small dot, or a tadpole looking blob, this time there was a face, and hands, and feet. I tell you here and now that no matter how ready you think you are, your heart will melt when you see your unborn child actually yawn for the first time.

I must point out that it is not 100% certain to be a girl. However, the nurse got the best look she could get and said it was 70% likely to be a girl. On top of that professional assessment nearly everyone we know had just “felt” like it was going to be a girl. Heather’s first dream of the baby had the child being a girl ( if you discount the initial dream where the baby was a hamster ). However, there is still a chance that it will end up being a boy, in which case I will post new images and introduce the baby again with proper gender and name.

Anyway, without further adieu, here is Kaylee Jane McDonnell:

all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arrive

Yesterday I noticed on Amazon.com that the final harry potter book had been finally given a title.

I cant believe this book series is coming to an end. I remember years ago, picking up the book ( as a curious adult of 23 years of age ), and falling in love with the characters and the setting and just the britishy-ness of it all. Since then, I have infected my wife and turned her into a harry potter addict as well. The day this final book comes out we fully plan on buying two copies and reading the hell out of it at the same time.

I remember the day book 5 ( The Order of the Phoenix ) came out because that was the day Heather and I set out on our road trip to Vegas for our honeymoon. On the radio before we left that day I listened to a parenting show that was all about the masses of kids lining up for the midnight release of the book. It was so cool to think of the hordes of children across the world getting so excited about a book. And those later harry potter books are not thin reading. I believe book 4 and 5 clock in at over 500 pages.

Anyway, I cant wait for the final chapter in this long running saga. Then again, I know that I wont want it to end when the time comes.

Well, another Christmas and new years has come and gone. I cant believe what a blur 2006 was, however, I welcome 2007 with open arms.

Remember in one of my early posts when I ranted about how much I wanted an xbox 360? Well, my family must have listened because they all banded together to get me an xbox 360 and a slew of accessories and games. This is obvious, but I LOVE the thing. Just as promised, within minutes of setting the thing up, I was online and downloading Geometry Wars and Doom.

Having played with it for a week now, I am convinced that Sony needs to get off their ass with the PS3’s online plan. If the PS3 doesnt support the same kinds of features that xbox live does, I will be very disappointed.

Speaking of online features, the xbox really does go beyond simply allowing for playing your games online. First off there is the whole concept of the “gamertag.” Basically this is your online ID, or persona if you will. Attached to it are all the details of what games you have played, what achievements you have accomplished in them, and how you are ranked against others out in the world. Here is mine:

That image will dynamically update with all the latest info as I accomplish feats in games. I love this feature. I can always see what my friends are playing and how well they are doing. It builds a community between gamers, something that Sony’s “let the other people handle it” approach to online, while less restrictive, cant offer.

Whats more, I was able to easily network my 360 with my home PC. I can display videos and pictures and play music residing on my PCs hard drive through my xbox 360. That is pretty damned cool to me. So now when we have friends over and I want to pump some music through the house, I dont have to hook up my laptop to the TV. I can simply turn on my xbox and point it at my music repository.

Then there are the games. For Christmas I got both gears of war and dead rising. Both are incredibly stellar games for entirely different reasons. Gears of war probably needs no introduction, however, for those not in the know, the big thing about gears of war is that rather than being a running and jumping style shooter, the game is centered around the idea of taking cover and choosing your shots wisely. The entire system of taking cover and popping out to take pot shots at the enemy could not be simpler and it is the matter of a few button presses. It is difficult to explain, but believe me, if you veer play it you will know instantly what I am talking about.

Dead rising is basically one giant zombie slaughtering spree, which of course makes it the perfect game for Heather and I. The premise is pretty standard. You are a freelance reported trapped in a mall during a zombie outbreak. You are on a mission to uncover the truth behind the zombie attack and rescue any survivors you find along the way. The twist is that the game is designed to be impossible to 100% beat in the first play through. If you die you are given the option to load from your last save, or save your progress for a new game. If you save and begin anew, you start from the beginning of the story, but you retain all your experience and progress from the previous save. Given that the game is entirely open ended, this style of play actually works. Rather than becoming overly tedious, it really helps to alleviate the stress of a tough boss battle. If you die, no biggie, you can just do better next time ( at a higher level ).

Aside from these two games we have recently purchased an embarrassing number of titles for the new system:

Lego Star Wars II
Final Fantasy XI
Rainbow Six: Vegas
Top Spin 2
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Dead or Alive 4
Ninety-nine nights
Oblivion

Way too many games to buy at one time, but thats OK. After this semester, I really just wanted to blow some extra cash on some toys and so I did. Now I just need an HDTV.

Well, its been a long long time since I have posted anything. I underestimated this semester. Taking OS and compilers was rough. Taking them along with a game development class that has us developing an actual game was downright foolhardy. When I was laid off from my job during the early part of the semester I was annoyed, but thought that I would at least have some free time. It was not to be. Call it luck or call it proof of a higher power having a hand in life, but I honestly think that there is no way I would have survived this semester with my job and sanity intact had I not been laid off.

However, despite all the stress and agony, things have ended up all right. I managed to make straight As this semester, something I have gotten close to, but not quite pulled off since starting school at UCCS. On top of that, I think that compilers is responsible for my new job. The company I have been an intern at recently decided that I was worthy of being promoted to being an actual employee. We were in a meeting one day and the topic of natural language processing came up. My boss was talking about having to create a grammar for the language we need to parse, and being in the midst of compilers class, I raised my hand and said that I could do that. Well, I think this worked because a week later I was fully employed. I am going to become the departments “natural language processing guru.”

Everything has happened so fast, but its as if karma realized that they owed me back taxes or something because my life has been going incredibly well lately. Not only am I full time and salaried now, but I accrue vacation time at a damned good pace, the company is paying me a salary as if I were already graduated even though I am not ( and … its a LOT of money. I wont go into specifics, but they nearly doubled what I have made at past jobs. ), lastly, the company has a tuition reimbursement program meaning that they will be paying for this last semester of mine as well as any grad level stuff I decide to take in the future.

All of this fell into my lap just because I paid attention in compilers class. I think it is kinda funny because compilers class is one of those classes where the students like to question the value of the class since hardly anyone goes into the field and actually works on compilers. I guess I will be one of those exceptions. Thanks Mr. Budjen, if you are reading this.

little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting

My first attempt at higher education began and ended way back in 1995. For the young ones in the crowd, that might as well be back during the Nixon administration. Here are a few things about 1995 that might drive home how long ago that was:

• The whole OJ Simpson trial circus began
• No one had any idea about the “support” president Clinton was getting from his interns
• Terrorists struck at the heart of the U.S. … homegrown ‘merkin terr’ists, and I’m talking about Oklahoma.
• The first Americans allowed onto spacestation Mir ( happened on my birthday, June 27th )
• Cheryl Crow won a grammy for “All I wanna do” … yes her debut.

Ok, thats enough. Yes, I am getting old. My point is that while all of those things were happening, I was just setting out on the trek to obtain a degree … something I STILL have yet to accomplish. This first attempt would be short lived. I would be back at home trying to get my shit together by early 1996. I simply was not ready for college when I first tried to pull it off. I was an artist – a musician, who foolishly thought he could jump into the world of mathematics and computer science and get by without putting much effort into it. I probably could have pulled off a passing grade if I had tried, but those early years were a time of partying and exploring previously unknown freedoms suddenly bestowed upon me.

For YEARS after that, I lived with this feeling of failure. I was supposed to be earning my degree and the well roundedness that comes from such a struggle. However, I had blown it. After flunking out, I spent a lot of time just working for a living and self-teaching myself the tao of the computer. I would eventually get back into school in 1997, however, I quickly left again in order to seek out what was I was missing – a personal life.

It was in 2000 that I moved to Colorado. I moved in with a group of friends and found a lot that was previously missing in my life. I needed a fresh start. I never forgave myself for my initial failure, and for years to come it would still haunt me a little, however, by forcing myself to sturggle to make my own way in the world I would learn to appreciate what I had and what I earned because it would be mine…bought with my own blood sweat and gnawed off fingernails.

During this time I experienced more “real life” than I had from the entire 1995 – 2000 span. There is a lot to be said about finally leaving the nest and living your own life. After moving to Colorado, I had to wait a year before going back to school because I needed to pay in state tuition prices. During that year, I was sought out for a QA position at Hewlett Packard because I had skills with unix/linux. This was a job posted on a CSU campus message board, and I was chosen because of skills that I had learned only because I had a long time off from school to teach myself. I would continue working for a number of start up companies for the next few years. The money was OK. The experience was tremendous. However, one poorly run start up after another led me back to a personal crisis. I was wasting my time with these start ups that went nowhere, and I was no closer to graduation.

When I made the decision to go back to school, I was working for what has to be the worst manager in the history of managers. I was in a real toxic relationship with my boss. He didnt want to spend a PENNY more on us than he had to because the project we were working on had been in development for years longer than he had originally anticipated. However, he never saw that the reason we were so behind was because he kept on adding one pointless feature after another. I can remember entire sections that were written, only to be rewritten for no good reason later. I got sick of the pointlessness of it all. It is a little sad because me and the other developer on that job ( who is a monkey-genius coder who, like me, has no degree) pulled off some really great stuff considering our complete lack of real prior experience working on large scale web apps. Anyway, one day I had had enough and I decided to let the sinking ship drop where it would, while in the meantime I would get my education.

Two years later and here I am, less than a semester and a half away from graduation. As for the old regrets that haunted me, they are gone. All of my experiences since 1995 have been wirth the trouble. Hell, I managed to find the love of my life during this time. Only now can I see that this is just how I needed things to work out. I like the scenic route, and I like to learn things on my own good time. So, it is safe to say that I am finally content with how I have gotten to where I am today.

That being said, leave it to me to throw a monkeywrench into the works. No, I am not moving again. I am re-working my final semester to allow myself to earn a minor in game design and development on top of my major in computer science. It was originally my desire to develop games that led me into computer science in the first place. Well, UCCS has begun offering a minor in game design, and I feel that I owe it to myself to seek it out and try to reach for my dream, no matter how buried and forgotten it has been over the past 11 years.

I am taking the intro to game development course this semester. Rather than taking graphics, and advanced game development next semester, I am going to take only graphics next semester, and advanced game development in the Fall of 2007. This will allow me time to complete the game development capstone project which will earn me the minor.

This means that by the time I graduate I will have 7+ years of real life ( not self taught ) experience in the field, a BS in computer science, a minor in game development, and THREE games I will have made to pad out my portfolio. On top of this, I am sitting on top of a 3.7 GPA. Considering that 11 years ago I was a naive musician who couldnt even pass college algebra, I cant help but feel proud of what I have accomplished. I guess that sometimes the long road is the only way to go.

I’ve been a long time gone now
Maybe someday, someday I’m gonna settle down
But I’ve always found my way somehow
By taking the long way