Heartbeat

Okay, okay, I realize I have been terrible at updating this. Mea culpa.

This is just a brief message to let people know I am alive. Life continues apace. Truth be told, there is really precious little to report. I like to think of myself as an intelligent person, and sometimes even a creative one. The problem, if it can be deemed such, is that programming usually entails working with other programmers. Except for the truly gifted, among whose number I do not count myself, this means a perverse, Monkey's Paw style fulfillment of the young nerd's schoolyard wish: to be in an environment where the most important thing is how smart you are. I'm sure part of it is being "the new guy", part of it is being insecure, and part of it certainly has to do with having set my initial goal in university to "get out and get a slack-ass government job". Well, experience is something you can only get from killing orcs and learning from your mistakes, and there are precious few orcs around here, let me tell you. So life has largely consisted of knuckling down the way I probably should have when I was too busy indulging my extracurricular interests in school.

I'm lucky in that I at least put on a show of dilligence and purchased a ton of books on the topic of programming, so I've been working through those with a "back to basics" kind of approach. I'm also lucky to be on "outside life" friendlier schedule than at EA, which permits me to go home and unwind with a warm cup of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I just bought the entire series on DVD, and I'm still in the mini-skirt episodes - yum) and brush up on the 'skillz', as the kids are saying. And I'm at least smart enough where it counts (that is, with money) not to have blown my massive windfalls from earlier this year on magic beans (or more distractions). So for now I am ramping the computer nerditude up to the next level. It's kinda dull, but at least it's honest.

Two Weeks Notice

First of all, I'd like to apologize for the delay. I said I'd update my blog this time and damn it, that's what I plan to do.

That said, things have been going swimmingly since starting my new job at Radical. The place is busy, the environment is friendly and professional, and the work is challenging, but not insurmountably so. I think I'm really going to enjoy it there. The whole organization seems much more conscious of health, which is apparent in things like the number of people on bikes, the number of people in the gym, the presence of (free!) organic food in the kitchen. The sense that everything being done today should have been done weeks ago is completely absent, and this creates a sense that, rather than attempting to turn back the oncoming tide, we are progressing and improving with each passing day. The only difference is the collective state of mind, but it is nonetheless both omnipresent and tangible.

The subject of "the mind" is one of the things that has been preoccupying mine of late. This can probably be traced back to an interview that the CBC conducted with Jon Kabat-Zinn, a professor of medicine at the University of Massacchusetts Medical School. He promotes a concept he refers to as "mindfulness", the practice of being aware of one's thoughts and feelings in the present, rather than reflecting on the past or worrying about the future, two vices that I am particularly prone to indulge in. I had experimented with meditation before, but I tended to either fall asleep or become concerned that I was doing it wrong. This concern is one of the things that Kabat-Zinn addresses, in that as long as one is mindful of one's current mental state (including worrying about medidating incorrectly) one is still practicing mindfulness. This isn't to say that worrying about meditating correctly is a good thing, but being aware that it's at least a natural step along the path is probably worthwhile. The idea of meditation has been built up in our culture as something exotic, mysterious and transcendent, most likely because the Western tradition of meditation is not viewed as a gestalt, but is scattered throughout a variety of traditions and practices, most of them associated with religious practices that are no longer widespread, if they ever were. We're led to believe that meditation comes to us from "exotic" places in Asia, that it's something practiced by shaven headed monks and that it's not accessible to ordinary people. Maybe all of this is just stating the obvious, but it was a revelation to me.

The second area of preoccupation concerning the mind has been my use of the "brain training" tool/game Brain Age. This is a game on the Nintendo DS that was developed with the help of a Japanese neurologist. The thesis of this doctor's work is that the brain requires exercise, just like a muscle, in order to develop. Whether this is true or not I'll leave to the neuroscientists, but I think it's a concept that we all accept on an intuitive level. The game/tool consists of a number of exercises such as simple mathematical calculations, memory tests, the Stroop test, et cetera. It's fun, and it takes about five minutes in the morning. It's at least worth it for the effect it has on "waking up" my brain, and I've noticed my short term memory is somewhat better.

In other news, I've received a rather substantial tax refund. I've invested a portion of it, but I'm going to go out and be a good little consumer for a change. I've been meaning to buy a bicycle, since I could easily travel most of the route to work along the Seawall, a path of bicycles and pedestrians that encircles downtown Vancouver and is free of cars. Some new clothes are probably also in order, as well as a few others odds and ends for around the apartment. Finally, I've noticed a return of my allergies in Vancouver, something that I was free of while living in Halifax and Toronto, and of course last summer was spent confined at the EA offices with precious little contact with the outside world. My working theory is that some pollutant in the air in those urban centers was counteracting the effect, or that whatever brought them on just couldn't live in that environment, since they'd kick back in after any length of time spent outside the city proper.I suppose their return probably bodes well for Vancouver's green, growing things, but for me, it will be a return to medicating myself with Claritan.

Once More Into The Breach, Dear Friends

This marks the beginning of my second attempt at life as a West Coast game developer. In honor of this momentous occasion I have started again from the beginning. The remnants of my old, mad, bad life at EA are being swept away to make room for the fresh growth that I hope will occur at Radical. It is fitting, in a way, that confirmation of these changes took place over the Easter weekend, which marks an auspicious date for events that involve rebirth, resurrection and unmitigated acts of gluttonous chocoholism.

Upon returning to Vancouver I was quick to locate new digs and reconnect with old friends. The former involved viewing a variety of pricey single bedroom units in downtown Vancouver. Perhaps it is madness to pay through one's nose for five or six hundred square feet of downtown rental real estate, but as I am rapidly becoming a genuine grup (though happily without the trendy "Infant" accessory), I decided not to buck the tide. The clean lines and shiney Newness^TM of it all appeals to me, and after enduring the unique sort of isolation that belongs to the carless in suburbia, I am pleased beyond words to find myself in a central location. My new apartment is located on Robson Street, in the very heart of downtown Vancouver, and so such ammenities as grocery stores (both Western, in the form of Choices market, and Asian, in the form of H Mart), hair stylists, restaurants (Thai, Indian, Japanese, the list goes on...) and of course shopping are all within easy reach. Returning for a moment to the latter subject of the introduction, that being the "old friends", I was happy to meet up with Dan Stovell and Will Chen once again. We enjoyed a lunch at the Black Frog, the now traditional Gastown haunt of the EA Blackbox programmers. The food and drink was, as always, excellent. I was happy to learn that Dan and his remarkably aptly named feline companion, Chaos, have also relocated to downtown Vancouver, not four blocks away from my own residence. This bodes well for social activity in the near future.

On Sunday I reconnected with gamer friend, and now co-worker, Shawn Wowk, as well as the rest of the Warhammer FRPG crew. Game was fun and appropriately grim and Warhammer-y. Hannah also completed the paperwork on her new place in Kitsilano, where I suspect she will also find happiness given the proximity to Drexoll's (the best game store in Vancouver), UBC and numerous friendly cats. While it is somewhat sad to mark the end of our relationship, we are both ready to move on and I know she will also be happier following this new path.

Today was market by number of move related errands, as well as the purchase of a shiney new cell phone. I found myself looking every inch the indie-rock urban hipster as I strolled down Davie to the Seawall with my iPod, my vintage Alfa Romeo sunglasses and Urban Behaviour couteur. Little did my fellow West Coast yupsters suspect East Coast nerd lurking in their midst! The beautiful weather matched my personal sentiments: everything is bright and cheery, and the immediate future holds the promise of more of the same.