DealNews Day 1

12.10.2014

Today was day 1 of employment at DealNews, my first job with a commercial (non-government contracted) job since 2003. I was ready for a non-government contracted job, at least in spirit. Today was not a typical sit around filling out paperwork and reading day. Today was instead a hands-on, this is how things work day. The job description advertises that you'll likely roll out code to the production site on your first day, and that's just what happened. Granted, the code consisted of 2 lines that I basically copied from another file, but the meat of this was learning the process by which to to make the change, commit the file(s), and have everything smoothly go live.

Smoothly may not have been the best word choice, but nothing broke on the live site!

The hard part of this job, at least from my first-day perspective, will be getting used to navigating using a Mac and running command line Linux again. For the first time since 1997 I ran vi to edit a file and after a couple of foggy attempts at how to enable editing the text file and saving changes, I slowly remembered a couple of commands. Granted, I'll seldom use vi, but I had to edit a 4-line file on a server that I'm not real sure how I was connected, so my gui options for getting to the file were limited.

I'll most likely forget a lot of what I learned today by the time I wake up. Instead of taking the detailed notes that I enjoy referring back to, I was instead following along and blindly typing to keep up most of the time. near the end of the afternoon things slowed down enough I could ask my stupid questions about how some things worked, and those answers will likely keep a little longer. Still, I took in a whooooole lot of info today.

I liked today though. It was a long day (I haven't worked a 8-9 hour work day in a long time!), but I enjoyed it. More importantly, I'm looking forward to going back in the morning.

I've gotta fit in some note taking so I can remember more of this stuff though.


programming/interweb

The Return of Joe Frag

12.05.2014

After a long lull I've been thinking of board game design again, specifically the much thought about Joe Frag rules that I can never feel like I'm making any real progress on. This past week my brain finally got on a little but of a creative streak and I was able to organize my thoughts about a few logic puzzles in my rules.

In my past notes for this little tactical skirmish game with a GI Joe flavor, I had scribbled a handful of characteristics and traits for the players to have. The problem was I had these attributes ripe with flavor for the game but I didn't know what purpose they were really serving other than, being many months removed from originally making them up, to overly complicate the game.

This was bad. My goal here was to make a simple game, unlike the slightly convoluted and parts rich Zombie Mall. Simple. Simple is important. I looked at the chart shown above with weapons. My goal with this chart was to make combat dependent on the weapon being used. Ok, that sounds simple enough. To give the weapons a variety, to where no one weapon was overall superior to another, each weapon (type) has a sweet spot as far as range is concerned where it is most useful. In this way a player can customize, within reason, how far away they want to be when they attack. The range titles (Short, Med, etc) are for modifiers that may be available later in the game, so that Medium Range for a Pistol vs a Heavy Machine Gun isn't the same, but an add-on that modifies a weapon for Medium Range could be applicable for both.

Once again I'm using a 10-sided die, with 0 equating to zero instead of 10. When a player rolls, they're trying to roll the To Hit number or higher. Most weapons have a higher chance of hitting at Melee Range than Extreme Range, which is to be expected. The Sniper Rifle is different, though. I'm still playing with those stats.

After I looked again at the weapon chart I found I liked the way it worked. I think it was the last thing I put a lot of thought into. But now I had player stats and no real idea what to use them for. I starting paring down what I had been scribbling off and on, then tossing around ideas of what these stats would equate to within the game. On my first pass I had an attacker rolling dice and the defender rolling dice. This didn't work, as it felt like the attacker was being penalized by having to first see if they hit the target (using the weapon's To Hit stat as the minimum to roll) then somehow beat a defensive die roll by the target to see how much damage was being dealt. This was not simple. This was convoluted. Instead I needed simple. A simple player, for now, has 5 stats:

Fairly simple. There are modifiers for attacking and defending, the intricate details are still being figured out but I've got a good handle on how they work.

Player turns will be based on a player normally controlling multiple units with a pool of actions available for those units. Ideally a player should be able to manage 3-9 units (I'm targeting 5 while fiddling with these rules). A lot of how this works I'm borrowing from Dust but dumbing it down a whole lot.

The key now is to keep this simmering in the back of my head and keep making progress.


game dev

Job Search 2014

12.03.2014

For 4 months I was unemployed. Oddly enough, I guessed I would be unemployed for 4 months, which sounded about the average from what I've heard as far as what I do and the experience I have in doing it. I loved working for Spiritus, the company. I had a great boss that took care of everybody, I got to work with my best friend (who technically was my supervisor in the org chart, which we both made fun of). The drawback was that I hated my day-to-day job of going out on the Arsenal and the work environment that came with it. After almost 3 years of driving out there, plus around 7 of working on the same project that had evolved into a completely different project, I was ready for a change. When the project was transferred to another contract and company I decided to not pursue the position I held - it might be too easy to stick with what I was doing out of security and try to overlook that I no longer liked what I was doing. Instead I depended on Gina and the good people that pay Alabama taxes to support me while I tried to find something else.

Since the last time I was unemployed, all job listings for what I do are only listed online, so no more looking through newspapers for want-ads. Now it's a daily grind through job search engines. I had 16 bookmarks for job searches, although some were duplicates to differentiate between "php developer" and "web developer". Most sites listed the same jobs but there were enough differences to keep me looking at them all.

In the beginning my goal was to find a job in a work environment I liked with people I enjoyed working with (mark the Arsenal off the list) along with a programming language I'm comfortable enough with that I think I'm actually good (enter PHP web development, vs the C# I've been hacking away at for 3 years). I knew I would have to take a cut in salary from what I was used to making, but that's due mostly to Spiritus taking extremely good care of everyone. My goal was to try and not take more than a 31% cut, but I was realistically able to accept a 40% hit for something I liked and still be able to pay my bills.

I started out applying for the jobs that sounded good and for which I thought I was qualified. I heard nothing back. In the second month I got called in for 1 interview doing PHP development for a company that does streaming video conferencing. After the 30 minute interview that they said they would get back to me I never heard anything from them again.

I applied for lots of jobs. After 4 months I started applying for the government contractor jobs I didn't really want - the ones I really only felt marginally qualified for, but my resume showed my experience. I had phone screenings/interviews, some of which I could tell that I was in no way really a match for. In the fourth month I had my second face-to-face interview, this time for a job doing government sub-contracting where I only matched half the skills they were looking for. I nice enough interview, but I could tell at the end I didn't have enough of what they were looking for.

I applied at Dealnews, where Keith works. This was the best match of them all. Thanks to gaming with some of the Dealnews crew I had a good idea of the environment as well as the people. It's a PHP shop, albeit with more advanced programming techniques than I'm used to (mainly because my PHP experience has been me, Google, and Jerry's brain). It took some time, but I eventually had a phone interview with them.

Then things got interesting.

On a Friday morning I got a call from a company that had gotten my resume from the person I talked to at Interview #2. This company supported the one I interviewed with and in talking together they thought I would be a great fit for this position. The guy on the phone goes on and asks me a couple of questions.
Do you program in Java? No.
Do you have any Android Mobile Development experience? I've made websites that are mobile compatible, but not anything native to Android.
Have you made test plans?
At this point I've noticed I've been basically answering no to all of his questions. In addition, he's gotten my resume from someone who I interviewed with and he's hitting the key points I was lacking in that interview. Instead of saying no again, I decide to stretch the truth and fall back on Google tutorials later if it comes to it.
I've made test plan documentation, but not written code to automatically test code modules. Sounds like I know what I'm talking about, doesn't it?

He asked a few more questions and told me someone from HR would call later. He stressed how they were looking to fill this position immediately, and that seemed to be a big deal. 15 minutes later, a girl from HR called. She asked some HR questions and asked me to go onto their website and fill out an application. That's fine, I've got a version on my resume that's copy/paste friendly for most places and how they want their input formatted. I went and filled it out, surprised it was as easy as 4 steps and just needed me to upload my resume.

Around 3:30 Friday afternoon I get a phone call from the HR girl that my application isn't complete, which seems to happen a lot. It seems the application process changes after uploading your resume to where it's not intuitive that there's still 7 more steps. Ok, fair enough, I can copy and paste stuff like I was expecting. The HR girl tells me to finish that, but that the person that will look it over probably won't get to it until Monday. Hopefully things will go fast and they'll get an offer letter out to me the first part of the week.

After getting off the phone it hit me she said offer letter where I was expecting set up an interview. Plus, I didn't really know what this job that I applied for entailed, since I basically answered no to 75% of the questions I was asked on the phone. Oh well, we'll see what happens.

Come the following Monday I got a call from Vanderbilt in Nashville. Thanks to Dr Blondie moving and taking a job there, I applied for a PHP position mostly for fun and partially as an extreme backup (it's a heck of a commute). They wanted to interview me, so I set up and interview for Friday afternoon, the next day. Mainly this was my excuse to visit Dr Blondie and her new digs. It would also get me my 3rd face-to-face interview and if nothing else I thought I needed the practice.

Since things were moving on the job front I decided to bug Keith about Dealnews. The following week was Thanksgiving, so I figured nothing would happen until after the holiday - probably nothing until after Christmas. Keith told me he heard they were planning on setting up interviews early in the week before Thanksgiving. Well that was a surprise! I wonder if I'll get called in? I sure hope so.

Tuesday and Wednesday go by without interest, and on Thursday I start thinking about my trip to Nashville the next day. Then the phone rings and it's the HR girl from last week. Sorry it's taken this long to get back to you. We're getting the final 2 signatures on your offer letter and then I'll get it sent out to you.. Offer letter? From a phone interview. Really? Ok.

A couple of hours later I get the offer letter emailed to me. It's a nice salary - only a 20% cut from what I used to make. The letter only states position title (Engineer/Scientist IV) and bi-weekly salary. No mention of what I'll be doing. Or where. Also they want an answer by Monday.

Even though I have no idea what this job really is, it's the first offer I've had in 4 months. 4 months was my "oh shit I've got to start looking for any job" start point. I called the HR girl and asked about a start date. Since next week was Thanksgiving I was expecting her to say the following Monday. Oh these guys wanted you to start last Sunday so the sooner the better. Really? How about Monday, before Thanksgiving, would that be ok?

It was. We set everything up to start on Monday. But before then, I took a trip to Nashville to see Dr Blondie. And have an interview.

On the trip to Nashville Friday morning I got 3 calls from the job I just accepted and was starting on Monday. There were confirmations that paperwork was going back and forth along with setting up times and places for me to be Monday morning. As I was pulling into the Vandy parking garage I got a different phone call. From Dealnews. To set up an interview on Tuesday.

I smiled. I smiled big.

We set up the interview for Tuesday and I went to my interview at Vandy. The Vandy guys are nice and the interview went well, but I could tell I'm too old-fashioned for them in my programming mentality. Best of all I got to hang out with Dr Blondie afterwards, and I managed not to embarrass her at work like she was afraid I would do.

Come Monday I started the new job and did paperwork and reviewed documentation all day. At the end of the day I still didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. The next day I went to work, then in the afternoon I went to Dealnews and had my interview. I think it was an interview. Mainly I felt like I was hanging out and telling a couple of guys, 2/3 of which I had never met before, about some of the stuff I had done and people I had known. Then I went back to work and read more paperwork.

After the first week of work I felt like I was once again in a government contracting job, and it was just a 3-day week thanks to Thanksgiving! The people were better than the batch I was stuck with on the Arsenal. The daily environment wasn't as depressing as the Arsenal. Good lord but there's a bunch of politics going on within this project though. There are 2 sub-contractors that it seems secretly don't get along, and they have to share resources. That's the short version. From what I had heard about the contract I had a bad feeling long term. Maybe it was because I've gotten laid off twice due to government contract changes? I could be contract gun- shy!

Monday after Thanksgiving I get back to the grind. More documentation. 3 meetings amongst the 2 companies I'm involved with. In the morning I get a call from Dealnews HR that they're going to call my references in case I want to warn them (that's exactly how she said it!). Well I guess they wouldn't go to this trouble if they weren't going to go forward with me. Call away! I quickly txt all my references to warn them of the glowing recommendations they're about to have to make up, which they all do.

At this point I get a txt from Jerry who asks what I'm going to do if they make me an offer. This is the place that I feel I want to work at, that's a good fit. I'm not sure if I've been intentionally picking out the negatives of the job I started last Monday to make it easier to switch in case the offer is substantially less. But I tell him unless the offer it below X (which is $15K below the new job), I'll take it and not think twice. He then asks me when I think I'll hear back about an offer and what I think it'll be.

I smile again, which he doesn't know because we're texting. When everything happened at once with all the interviews and original job offer I got the feeling that Mom was behind it all. She's been gone almost 7 years but I still admit she looks after me. At this point Tuesday, the next day, would be the 6th anniversary of the day she died. "They're going to make me an offer tomorrow for Y (I picked $10K below the new job)" He asked if I would take that? Yep, without thinking twice.

Tuesday, the next day, at 9:30 in the morning, I got the phone call telling me the offer. It was for $10K more than the new job I just started, which was only 12% less than I used to make at Spiritus. Mom's still looking after me, and I start Dec. 10!

Now I've got a job to go quit.


Throughout the job search I kept up with where I applied to (so I wouldn't apply for the same job over and over) as well as what happened afterward.


mom programming/interweb

Thanksgiving Shopping

11.30.2014

This year, due in large part to watching my spending due to lack of employment in August, I cut back on my DVD purchases. I watch a lot of movies, and over time I tend to watch them multiple times. When a new DVD was released that I could stand to not watch immediately, I would make a note on one of my Amazon wish lists to keep an eye out for a sale at a later date. One such movie on that list was little Tommy Cruise's Edge of Tomorrow. Normally I would have grabbed this movie on release day, but I went to the dollar movie and saw it. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but since I had seen the movie at the time of it's at-home release I could wait and try to catch a good deal - the Blu-Ray was available for $19.99 when it first came out, and normally a disk will stay that price the week of its release, then climb a couple of dollars the following month until eventually dropping below the new release price once random sales hit.

Thanksgiving/Black Friday was to count as one of those sales. Target's Thanksgiving Sale Ad showed the Blu-Ray Edge of Tomorrow for a great sale price of $6. Available in-store only. Starting at 6PM on Thanksgiving.

It had been a while since I put up with holiday shopping crowds, but this was a sale I had been waiting for. There were a hand full of other DVDs shown as being on sale that grabbed my eye - mostly TV shows. I decided I would brave the crowd and if I was able to grab the Cruise DVD I would grab whatever others I could find and make it as quick a trip as possible.

At 5PM Thanksgiving night I was in line at my closest Target in Madison. The line didn't seem too bad.

The line wasn't all the way to the end of the store (my cut-off point for where I was willing to wait in line), and although the line was long everything seemed organized to where it didn't feel too bad. After 20 minutes the line behind me grew.

I struck up conversations with people around me and everybody was after a TV. 1 couple was also there for a vacuum cleaner, while a group behind me was there for an XBox 1 and iPod. Me, I just wanted DVDs.

At 6 the door opened at we were allowed in by random grouping, I'm guessing to give people time to get buggies and get out of the way. I made a bee- line for the DVD section and was greeting by a woman with a buggy containing a vacuum cleaner (not the one the couple I was in line with were after) and a growing pile of DVDs. I quickly found the auxiliary DVDs I was after, but little Tommy Cruise was evading me. I asked Buggy Woman if she had seen Edge of Tomorrow, and she quickly pointed it out to me. There it was, $6 - 3 slots wide worth of display for me to go right by twice! I grabbed a copy and quickly thought about wandering the store to see what else was on sale, but the fervor of people zooming by with TV laden buggies made me rethink this and I just headed to the checkout.

The checkout line was as organized as the line coming in. Had there been people in front of me I would have waited until steered to an open register, instead I was just steered. The girl that checked me out did a good job - I was the first person she had ever checked out unsupervised. I had my stack of DVDs and was in and out of the store in 10 minutes, having gotten what I wanted. The best part was that I spent $90 while saving $162.

I've been using coupons and counting my savings a lot lately (I've had to, I think). I've gotten to where I kind of like it. I'm slowly (re)learning that I don't need immediate gratification, it's ok to wait a little. Especially if waiting a little can save some big bucks.


movies/tv/dvd

Thanks

11.27.2014

This is the day when we're all called upon to reflect back and recognize the things we're thankful for. I generally recognize how good my life is. Even though I've been unemployed for 4 months, that doesn't change that I recognize the goodness.

I've got a great batch of friends. They put up with me and my quirks. Some have been putting up with them for 30 years. Others have less time served, but that just makes the experience of me that more intense. I can be myself around everyone I call a friend, which is the measuring stick I use for that tag. I don't have many friends that I've known less than 10 years. Maybe that makes me picky?

I've got batches of family that I don't see often, which I think is good because most of my family couldn't handle me in large doses. I have a cousin I see every 4-6 weeks to cut my hair and she catches me up on family gossip on that side of the family. I talk to my grandmother less often than I should, but my lifestyle is so far out of her life experience I get the feeling she never really knows what I'm talking about ("I do computers" is mainly what I know she equates with me). That doesn't mean I don't love my family, I do. More than I realize sometimes.

I still talk to Mom. She's been gone almost 6 years, but I'll still walk around the house and talk to her - usually when things are going really, really good. I'm glad I do that.

I have a job again. I'm thankful for that, just to have some income. It's not a job I particularly care for, but that's a story for another day. With any luck I can soon replace it with a job I've been after for the better part of 2 months.

Now I'm about to head out and celebrate a new Thanksgiving tradition with Gina that we've been talking about doing for a while - watching the Friends Thanksgiving episodes (my favorite is the one with Brad Pitt as the formerly fat guy... I'm Brad Pitt in Friends!). That brings me to who I'm most thankful for - Gina. She takes good care of me, puts up with my quirks, and motivates me to take care of myself. She does all this and probably doesn't even know it.


random

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