ah geez!

Well, as expected, I forgot about this blog... :-P

Actually, that's not entirely true... I just got really busy and didn't have a lot to write about for a while... at least not regarding me.

I have been writing a lot lately, but it's all for a "secret project" and also for documentation for a project at work... which brings me back to the being busy thing...

For the past 4 months or so I had been working on an unannounced project at the studio, but the studio has gone through some changes and I have now been bumped to a new, also unannounced, project. I am making a straight lateral jump onto the new project. Moving from the QA Design Lead title on my previous project to the same position on the new project.

This is actually a pretty exciting development for me. While I was getting a lot of stuff ready on the previous project, this new team is more established, I am pretty familiar with most of the team, and I am also working with more QA Design Analysts right away instead of waiting for the team to ramp up. The best part for me though is part of my personal goals for joining this project is to see the project through to release as the QA Design Lead, and train up and prepare one of the QA Design Analysts to be able to officially take this role on the next project, while I hopefully make either another lateral or possibly forward jump to a new position on an upcoming project down the road.

The Analyst I am working with to "mentor" is actually someone I have a tremendous amount of respect for. He constantly is trying to learn more about the projects we work on, the industry as a whole, and improving process. So my role working him will be more guidance than true teaching. He's got a tremendous foundation already laid out for his career. He actually reminds me of myself quite a bit, as far as work ethic, eagerness to learn and excel at new tasks and challenges... overall, couldn't be happier about this opportunity, for myself and for him. It's going to be awesome to have someone to talk game design and theories with, and our skills actually look like they will compliment each other really well. An opportunity for both of us to learn and grow our skill sets over the course of the next year or so.

I've also been keeping very busy with creating some documentation, previously for the old team and now for the new team. I'm actually hoping it's something we can use for the department as as whole as well. I have been learning a tremendous amount of new stuff over the past 2 years since I joined the BioWare family. That new knowledge continues to grow on what seems to be a minute by minute basis... and I LOVE my job for that exact reason.

As for the personal/home front... it's been a busy time there too...

The house is finally starting to come together, and just in time too... my younger cousin is set to move into our home in the next couple of weeks when he takes a job as a term tester at BioWare. It should be pretty cool having him here... hopefully this experience will show him a career path he may not have considered or been fully aware of previously. Plus, now I'll have someone to help me tackle the co-op modes in a ton of the games I keep telling myself I want to finish :-)

Tia and I are busy as always, her with work and school, and me with work and side projects, and I'm back to playing hockey on a team again. Of course both of us are always doing work in the house as well.

Been trying to get caught up on my ever growing backlog of games to play while at the same time trying to get some concept art and level design learning work done, and let's not forget learning more and more about the various design theories out there... all this leads to a lack of sleep... but it's all worth it :-)

Anyway, that is enough for me today... but I hope to make posting to this blog more of a regular thing... I even made it one of my starting tabs in Firefox, so that should serve as a reminder going forward :-P