Master Lock 0, Bolt Cutters 1

What I learned today:

• Bolt cutters need about 100x more force than you might expect to cut through hardened steel. Even though you've got leverage, you need to put your whole body into it, and shove REALLY hard.
• Online combination lock guides for breaking don't necessarily always work (I tried both the "find the sticking points" method and using a beer can shim; looks like my lock was shim proof).
• The "Burn Notice" method doesn't work on Master Lock Rotary Combination Locks. (That's where you use canned air to freeze the lock and then smash it off with a hammer... all I managed to do was jam the lock case to the dial).
• Don't lose your combination lock combination. It's a PITA to get it off.

The Disturbance in the Force was...

For those of you who I've not told in person what's going on yet... there was a huge disturbance in the force on July 11th for me. A shift sideways, if you will.

The planet Alderaan. This is obviously an "after" pic.

I left Surreal Software.

That's a big huge enormous step for me... I'd been there for 3 and a half years, and because of that have worked with some of the most amazing people I've ever worked with. And I mean ever. These guys were awesome - almost like family. They honestly care about the people who work for them, and even though the company is getting quite large these days (its doubled in size since I started there), everyone there is a rockstar. That's rare.

Before you start wondering... no, I didn't leave because of the project I was working on, or problems with co-workers or anything else you might be imagining which is untoward. In fact, I'd have loved to have stayed and seen This Is Vegas all the way through to completion, because it's one of those projects which has the potential to just completely rock the gaming world. I've got faith that those guys will come out with an excellent game.

This Is Vegas: It's like someone took GTA 4 and gave it several large dirty martinis and a backstage pass to a Frank Sinatra concert

Nah, I left because working with your fiancee blows goats for both you and your fiancee. It removes that safety valve that everyone needs to vent about what's going on at work, because if you work together, often times you'll both be venting about the same thing - and from two different sides. Not good. That, and absence (even for a few hours each day) makes the heart grow fonder.

So where did I end up going? (And please, if your name is Andrew K, Pete I or Sean Ph, forgive me - I'm totally slammed right now, and this whole thing has been a bit of a roller-coaster. Emails are about to fly your way explaining what's going on).

The New Hotness...

XRK: You only think you've not heard of us because you've not been paying enough attention... yet

I've just started a new gig with the incredibly talented bunch X-Ray Kid Studios. Did you heard of Google Lively which hit beta about 3 weeks ago? Well, notice all that art and animation goodness? That's us.

I've come on board as Director of Engineering, which is a position I've been itching to sink my teeth into for a few years now.

We're working on our own IP right now. I can't tell you any more details, just please, rest assured that I've never seen a group of people so... well... synchronized. Everyone is on the same page as to what we want to create, and that's making the early stages mindblowingly smooth.

(BTW: I will be looking for at least 3 senior guys to join me on the team in the areas of general engine/tools tech, graphics and gameplay, and probably 2 or 3 mid to junior ones before the end of the year... although the details right now aren't fully figured out. If you know anyone in the games industry who's looking, let me know).

My Job So Far...

So far, over the past two weeks, I've been down to our Newport Beach offices in Orange County, California, and met the rest of the team in person. (All of whom are great... I spent a good part of my first week in complete and total utter fanboyish shell shock regarding the caliber and credentials some of the people I work with).

We get our offices up in Seattle on August 1st (X-Ray Kid North is the Video Game hub; X-Ray Kid South is the 2D/Animation/Cartoon/Comic Book/TV/Movie hub). The offices are right across the street from Surreal Software which is great (and means that I can still carpool to work), and literally right across the corridor from FXville - a group of mostly ex-Surreal Video Game FX and Character artists, whom I consider to be the absolute best in the business. (And if this all sounds rather incestuous and sparks your conspiracy theory neurons... that office complex is probably the best creative space for the price available right now).

I went to Gamefest 2008 last week and met up with some old friends, and made some new ones, did some networking, attended a number of talks, and discovered that - weirdly - about 75% of the attendees this year appeared to be Microsoft employees.

O Rly?

Meanwhile, the rest of my co-workers ended up at the San Diego Comicon. Unlike most people who go to the Comicon, they're the kind of people who actually go there and sign autographs and stuff, instead of lining up to get them. (Going to Comicon as superstars vs. listening to talks about how to compress data for streaming on the XBOX 360 at the exceptionally nerdy Gamefest 2008? I think they got the better end of the deal).

The embarassing thing tho? Last comic books I read was ... ok, well, strictly it was Absolute Watchmen. But before that? Er... that'd be my friend Aron Dittbrenner's one that he was working on. OK, so, anything commercial that anyone else would have read or heard of? Ummmm.. yeah... that'd be the Spiderman/Venom arc way back when. Like, 1985 or so. Before that, I did read my Uncle's entire Marvel comicbook collection which comprised of nearly everything Marvel published from about 1968 to about 1978. That was, I read it before my cousins decided they were coloring books and my aunt unfortunately didn't disavow them of this knowledge. God knows how much those would be worth today.

Which means that ... um... it's quite embarrassing to realize that nearly everyone I work with is a comic-book legend to those who follow them.

Jeff Matsuda gets his Batman on

Best thing about this job so far? Everyone's huge on collaboration, so I get to dabble with my more creative side instead of just pushing da onez and zeroez.

This week, I'm back down in the Irvine area, meeting up with potential Engine partners for a console game. *cracks knuckles* Time to get stuck in! (Although getting up at 4am for a flight... meh... goes with the territory).

Big leagues. Small massively agile company. This is going to be fun.

I'm planning on interviewing the guys I work with for either my blog or the X-Ray Kid website soon, so you can get a taste of what we're all about (the usual disclaimer: if I have time). More news as it happens. Keep 'em peeled.

A disturbance in the Force...

A shift... I can feel it... big things are afoot... No, I don't mean bigfoot... or that there's something wrong with my feet. Something is... different.

It's almost as if the date July 11th will have some kind of crazy significance to my life... the end of an era, maybe? A conjunction of all the major planets, and a few of the more eccentric asteroids for good measure, leading to apocalyptic earthquakes the likes of which the Pacific Northwest have never seen? Will the sun set and fail to rise? Or perhaps a plague of locusts will blot it out...

And then... some kind of strange crackling energy rippling through the dark corners of the cosmos. A new frontier awaits, sitting in the shadows, waiting... breathing.

Of course, that new frontier's going to open up on July 15th, and then spring like a viper on a ... er ... tree-mounted spring.

A new chapter of my life.

Should be fun :)

Finding Balance

Name of the game right now?

Finding balance.

Yep, I know, everyone's on the search for balance, aligning their chi, making sure their karma's net positive, looking after themselves, etc etc etc. Sure, it's old hat, it's cliche and it's boring. But frankly, that's what I'm trying to do with my life right now.

I think I'm getting there. On the whole I'm feeling better than I've felt in ages. My brain has started working again. If anything, it was running at about 20% capacity for the past year... if not longer. Now? I'm back up to about 70%.

How?

The old chestnuts of exercise and diet are helping a lot in that regard. (Exercise: Lots of walking and cycling, at least 8 hours a week. Diet: lots of greens, oddly, seems to be helping. Limiting my alcohol consumption is helping too. Marianna's by the Market has a lentil soup and a thing they call "Horta" which is frankly fantastic).

Not on any drugs any more - other than strattera, which seems to help with sleep and my sinuses, and gives my system a bit of a bump - which was surprising.

Lots of supplements - Omega 3, L-Tyrosine, L-Lysine, 5-HTP, and a couple of really good multivitamins, sublingual B12, and B6 before I go to bed.

I've nearly eliminated High Fructose Corn Syrup from my life too.

Net effect? I seem to be feeling a lot better than I have in ages. There's another part of this puzzle though, and that's just plain old listening to yourself.

I've started listening to myself. When I feel tired, I go to sleep. When I feel like staying at home, I stay at home. I always used to listen to the big emergency signals of "I feel restless", and "I wanna play" - but now I'm listening to the other ones. I don't stay at a bar until 2am just to close it out any more - I leave when I'm done. (Even then, most of the time all I'm doing is drinking cranberry juice).

All in all, I feel much better now than I have in ages. Are all of these changes necessary? Well, the diet and exercise ones were mandated by my doctor for high cholesterol and high fasting blood sugar, so while I don't know whether they make a damn bit of difference, they're getting done anyway. I think that the listening to myself ones are the most important ones right now.

Big changes at work too. I've managed teams of people on and off for about 6 years total, and general consensus is that I'm really good at it. But with everything else going on in my life right now, I've just been dropping the ball in too many ways. Fortunately, the people I work with are really really ultra cool. They saw this happening, and decided that the best way to deal with it was to lighten my burden (even though I'm already through the worst of it and coming out the other side). So instead of leading a team now (bye bye, Lead Gameplay Programmer!), I'm going to be exercising my mental muscles a bit more, and have become a Principal Gameplay Programmer (hello, Principal Gameplay Programmer!).

Basically, it means that I can stop worrying about intrapersonal dynamics, and start worrying about the technology. Most importantly, it means that I should be able to tailor the amount of multitasking I do to the amount I've actually got enough bandwidth for right now.

I'm not 100% sure about this change... in some ways, it bruises my ego... I've been on the manager track for a long time now, and I have a lot of my identity tied up in the fact that I was able to steer the careers of the guys on my team, and be someone they could depend on to fight for them when they needed it, and shelter them from randomness.

Although frankly, sheltering from randomness has become more and more difficult since we switched to an "agile development" model at work. I'm still not convinced that this method actually works for software development except on ultra small teams.

Either way, my load's lighter, and I'm thankful for that. It'll help me while I'm balancing myself out.

I live in interesting times :)