Jacob’s Escalator

…okay, so, Easter was kinda lax this year for us. Not that I mind terribly much, nor is there much we could have done about it; we just finished moving (…really, we’ve hardly finished…) and J’Neil is still back in the Tri-Cities for school. She won’t be back for another week or so. It would hardly work to have any Easter celebrations around here, which are mainly catered to the children, without both of the children available.

Dinner persists, though, which is good, because I could use some ham.

Shelby dropped back to Benton City for her own Easter weekend; she could use the relaxation, really, the quarter has been a little frightening so far. Her family apparently has quite a lot of Easter enthusiasm, which shouldn’t really surprise me because their family has an awful lot of enthusiasm in general. Perhaps what should be surprising me is that they wait until holidays to show it. Well, actually, maybe they don’t do that, maybe that’s just when I take note of it… the Johansons are rather insane, but we like them that way, don’t worry.

Meanwhile, I start Physics 3 tomorrow, the class of electrical nightmares. Awesome. Apparently the math gets absolutely horrifying, which is okay with me, I loved physics math: it was actually pretty easy, all you needed to do was memorize which formula went where and the class became a piece of cake. The concepts are a bit harder though. (Which is bad, because that’s how you figure out which formula goes where!) The basics we went over at the end of last quarter didn’t seem so bad, really, it was just like gravity except the forces are pushing you away instead of pulling you. And the numbers were always way smaller, which we like.

I’m considering picking up a Gamefly subscription after the quarter starts and I get an idea what my work schedule will be like. Gamefly, for those who haven’t heard or seen ads for it, is a video game service that works exactly like Netflix: you put together a wish list of video games, they’ll send them to you, you play, then you send them back and they’ll get you the next one on your list. I THINK I will have the time to devote to video games - definitely here and there over an extended period - but I certainly don’t have money to buy every game everyone recommends to me. If I can play through them quickly enough with Gamefly, though, I’ll be saving a lot of money by just sending them back as soon as I’m done. It seems theoretically like a good plan, so, I’ll be trying it.

I’ll probably post reviews/thoughts on the games I get, if I choose to subscribe… mostly because it amuses me, and I need something to post about. Besides, I’m a video game designer, I’m entitled to look a little more obsessed than I have.

Speaking of video game design, I’m back in spriting mode. Maybe I’ll show off the three main characters’ sprites when I get the kinks all worked out. The basics are done, they look pretty sweet, just need to animate them a bit more…

I think that’s all that’s really on my mind for the moment. Really, this is just me trying to get my head wrapped around the idea of consistent updates. x.x

Happy Easter, everyone!

And I think I’ll start here.

http://thisiswherewestart.blogspot.com/

WOW, so much has happened… Rather than try to recap all that has happened, let’s try to summarize your life, Samwise!

- The most spectacular person ever - that is, Shelby Johanson, for those of you who are not well-informed of my opinions - now openly adores me and I openly adore her in return. And the first two lines of this post, pathetic as they are, are partially dedicated to her and her amazingness. Go. Bask in her awesome hyperness blog. Please? <3
As you should have noted, there is now a category specifically for her. I’ll only use it for plans/pictures/posts that are primarily dedicated to her, though, so it’s okay.

- I now live in Bellingham, Washington (as of TODAY!) rather than Kennewick. It has been quite a horrific moving process, but it’s over now, and I’m a lot closer to the most spectacular person ever than I have been for the last several painful months. It shall only improve from there.

- New category - Fierzra. That is the name of a video game Eric Claybrook and I are putting together. We are finally out of the design phase and into the implementation - well, rather, he’s working on environmental spriting and effects, and I’m going to start working out the game mechanics and formulas, while I continue to study C++ and its glorious Allegro library for video game graphics handling. Expect to see some Fierzra material in the near future. Actually, expect to see a lot of Fierzra material. I don’t think I could keep it to myself if I tried.

- I am hoping to work as a web designer while I am in Bellingham. That may or may not work out depending on how able I am to go out and talk to potential customers, but, I will certainly give it a shot. If you know of any small businesses or similar groups that want a web page and are willing to pay for it, please give me a shout!

- Next year I will be attending Western Washington University. So exciting. Maybe if I can get myself posting semi-actively again, I’ll rage about the computer science program. To summarize: if you want a computer science degree, don’t waste your time at a community college: go straight to the 4-year university. You’ll thank yourself.

I am being horribly vague because that is how you summarize a ridiculously long period of time: vaguely. There will be more later if I can be convinced to write it! Maybe another this week, I’m sure to be quite bored.

Sorry about the hiatus!

[[This is long. It damn well better be, considering how long it was since I posted last.]]

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Coming up with 25 random things about yourself - unimportant, things you wouldn’t expect everyone to know - is a lot harder than one might think.

But I have other excuses, including finals, Pokemon tournaments, SATs, school in general, and college.

This is little more than a quick update; I need to be packing and showering for an unexpected trip to Oregon, where I will be taking a second shot at a state championships title with a new and improved deck and strategy. Who knows if it’ll actually work, but hey, it’ll probably be better!

My SAT scores came in a while back. I don’t remember them off the top of my head, but where 2400 is the highest possible score, I scored 2100. Apparently that’s very good, because my CBC counselor says she has never seen scores so high. It wasn’t like the test was all that hard, either - a few questions that had me confused and the writing section was difficult to really put effort into, but otherwise, not that bad.

Armed with those scores and some other information about my wants, last weekend Craig and I took a field trip to Seattle to talk to an admissions officer at Digipen. I wish I had more time to describe the place (I will quite soon), but the very idea of it is simply fascinating. One of the most well-known and famous games of our current video game culture, called Portal, was designed by Digipen students. Not graduates - students. They designed it in school. It will be exciting to go there in a few years!

And finally, a little more elaboration about my status as a Pokemon player.  I’m ranked somewhere in the top… 60…? of players in Washington in my age bracket (out of a couple hundred, I think). Trying to go for higher.

States championships aren’t too important, although they are very fun. It gets important at the Regional level (April). In Regionals, the top finishers get a travel award and invite to Nationals - and the top finishers at Nationals get invites and travel awards to Worlds, in San Diego. Winners at Nationals and Worlds also get scholarships; last year the top finishers won between $2000 and $5000 in scholarships.

Anyway, that’s my status. I need to hurry and pack so we can go, so, bye, viewers!

Okay, I’ll be straight up honest with you: I am way too excited about this for my own good.

In six days’ time, I will be enjoying a bit of BK lunch in Richland while people around me, including myself, open six booster packs of Pokemon Cards from a set that hasn’t come out yet - then we’ll make a small deck out of those cards and play a tournament for fun. For you guys, this doesn’t make a whole lot of set, so I figured that while I’m thinking about prereleases, I’ll “prerelease” a little bit of information from my Thunderlight post for the Trading Card Game. Read More »

Freerice.com is a wonderful little site for pretty much anyone.

It’s a very simple concept - it includes a vocabulary game in which it gives you a word, and you must select another word whose definition is close to it. For each answer you get right, you earn enough money for the site to buy ten grains of rice, which it then donates to the UN’s efforts to end world hunger. As you answer more and more of their questions correctly the vocabulary gets extremely advanced; they have sixty levels of English vocabulary. They say it is very rare to get above level 50, and I myself haven’t passed level 35.

I’m going to be donating about 2000 grains a day to help study for the SAT, which is coming up this Saturday. I encourage everyone to try it, just for 100 grains or so a day, just for fun.  According to the statistics on their site, FreeRice has - since its creation in 2007 - donated enough rice to feed 100,000 people for a month. That’s pretty cool. In actual distribution FreeRice has fed just over a million people for, in some cases, up to two months.  It feels nice to be a part of that.

So begins 2009 - awake half-an-hour from noon, and still waiting on my sister and her friend; the Gator Bowl (?) is playing downstairs amid the sea of confetti from last night. It doesn’t feel like January, or winter at all for that matter; I’m quite comfortable in a loose shirt and shorts at home. There is probably snow left, but it looks and feels out of place; the world looks more like a chilly November morning than a cold January afternoon. Read More »

Isn’t it strange how we take things and warp their original meaning or significance? I mean, look at Christmas if Thanksgiving isn’t enough proof - Christmas has ceased to be about ‘Christ’ in about 80% of all cases. Whether or not this is bad, of course, is entirely up to you.

Thanksgiving, I think, was originally intended to honor and celebrate the Native Americans’ kindness in helping us found this nation. Although I’m a little less inclined to like our country some than people think I should be, I’m certainly all for Thanksgiving’s patriotic little theme (if only because I’m there for the food, followin’ behind Dad over there). Either way, though, I think our current definition for Thanksgiving, while entirely unrelated to its original, is a little better, a little more realistic and more relevant; it’s a day to remind ourselves that we have so much, and that it can be reduced to so little in a heartbeat. So savor it, and be appreciative! Read More »

Dumblaws.com is beautiful for a laugh and for ‘comedic inspiration’ because you can’t help but wonder not only why on earth these laws came to be, but what kind of wacky event transpired that caused the law to even be considered. Here I wish to share twenty-five random laws, and a few that I remember from previous visits. Thanks to Mom for the post idea. Note that many of these are state laws and the “Random Laws” link, unfortunately, won’t tell you where they’re from - but it’s all good.

“You can’t shoot any game other than whales from a moving automobile.”
…You can shoot whales from a moving automobile? Are you sure about that one?

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Ahead was a… thing. It wasn’t going up with the Escalator; it was simply sitting… on a perch of cloud near the rail… I looked, curious and a little anxious. My heart rose to see what it was.

It was my notebook.

I snatched it from its forsaken perch and dove through the pages. Not a one was lost; each was pristine and untouched. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief and fumbled through my backpack for a pen.

Dear Notebook, and Readers:

I am sorry! My notebook was taken from me in the midst of writing! It was horrid, and terrible; many were substituted but none could truly replace this. But, now, the Notebook has returned to my possession (as some of you may know, it has been with me for quite some time). Creative spark will strike again, surely, and the Escalator will resume its full function.

Again I apologize. Sometimes the vicious winds along the Escalator’s path will rip things away, and sometimes they will return things - or present you with new ones. It’s beyond my control to say.

- Samwise