28 posts tagged “neumont”
Greetings, world. I know, it has been ages since I graced Vox. There is much to explain.
For starters, I no longer call Salt Lake City my home. Matt and I decided that it was time to get out in the world and make a name for ourselves, so we have relocated to Portland, Oregon to found Systepic LLC. Our focus is industry-based penetration software, a method of development where we research what a business lacks in terms of software, and provide a solution to fill that need. I have written a much more detailed summary of what our company is about on the actual company website so if you are so inclined, feel free to check it out.
This of course means that I am no longer an active student at Neumont University. This is not the end, by any stretch; I fully intend on completing my degree. I just don't feel I need to do so right now. I have not 'dropped out' of college! To 'drop out' implies a general disinterest in the major, and a shift away from anything to do with it. Quite the opposite, I'm diving into the industry head first.
It has not been an easy run, getting settled out here. Initially we had a more stable source of funding and thought we would have a place in downtown Portland within two weeks of arrival. Now, it looks as though we'll be residing in Beaverton. It's not far from downtown, as Google Maps will show you. Also, there are a number of public transit options available that can land you right in Pioneer Courthouse Square for only a few dollars. This saves us hundreds on living expenses, as well. Still, I would have liked to be closer. The University District, ideally (good god is it expensive around there).
Portland has changed somewhat since I last frequented it, and not really for the better. Much of downtown is torn to hell due to construction for a new MAX Line. That's fine, but the crime rate in north Portland has spiked quite a bit because of it. There is a lot less car/walking traffic around Union Station, which has led to open air drug dealing, among other things. On 5th and Hoyt, where I used to hop a shuttle to and from Saint Helens back in my PCC days, one cannot cross the street without being...solicited. I truly hope that the situation improves once the construction is complete, but I'm no expert on how effective that will be.
A lengthy conversation with a Portland PD Sergeant revealed that a good deal of the trouble has something in common with irony. Apparently, whenever there is a spike in crime in an area, there is at first an equivilent spike in police reports called in by residents. However, as time goes on people stop reporting crimes, because they see them so frequently that it moves from extraordinary to commonplace. This doesn't help the local PD much, because their statistics show a drop, and less resources are allocated to help. It sounds like a pretty vicious cycle.
That's all for now, my laptop is running low and my steak soft taco is getting cold. By the way, the Yucatan Grill in Pioneer Shopping Center's food court is surprisingly tasty, for mall food.
There are two general factors that determine the frequency of entries to this blog.
The first is free time, or as has been recently, the lack thereof. I've been chin-deep in eBay stuff for well over a month now (what the hell happened to April?). Things are going well. The project (can't talk about it on here, sorry) is coming along nicely, and eBay has been very impressed thus far. I foresee a lengthy relationship forming with them and Neumont, assuming I don't accidentally raze their product development department before I'm done. My other classes are going well, no complaints. The house remains in one piece and is relatively peaceful.
The second I will tell you when I figure out...what it is.
Over the years, I've determined that my brain seems to imitate what I'm doing at that particular moment. The other day Matt and I ran into Charles while shopping and, long story short, we now have a Ping Pong table residing in the garage. My long dormant skill at whacking a 40mm ball over a 9 foot table has been revitalized, along with the 'zone.'
All that matters in this world is the little white ball, speeding toward the left end of the table, my side. Did Kruzy spin it? I think he did; That bastard. I'll have to counter it. Oh, it's bouncing a little high, I might have a spiking opportunity here. Raise the arm, angle the wrist. This ball is going to have topspin from hell. Little point dispenser, thataway! Does he have time no I've caught him off balance. Score!
What just happened? What's the score, Tom?
I lose a great deal of cognitive capacity, here. My short term memory isn't exactly up to snuff, either. It fascinates me how flexible, how malleable the mind can be. It understands that reaction time, dexterity, and hand-eye coordination are king here, and does everything possible to suit that need, cognition be damned. In those intense moments, I am the dumbest person alive. Not a single intellectual thought bounces through my mind. Everything.
Stops.
...
And then it's back. A torrent of thoughts and images surge through my synapses, as though making up for lost time. I need to do my FAFSA. My watch is still broken. When does GameStop open tomorrow? Why aren't deaths in games more meaningful? Damage models suck in games. I'm thirsty. Where's my tea? Did I do my team report? Theta should have Modest Mouse in it. I could fix YouTube's bandwidth problems. I haven't blogged in a while.
Sometimes, I miss cognition-zero.
It appears I have a tendency to promise to post things. More accurately, promise to do so and then...not. I have a clear solution to this: I won't promise anything anymore. That way I don't set myself up for failure, see? It's called alleviating cognitive dissonance, which is a fancy term meaning "conflicting thoughts." Dissonance of the cognitive kind occurs when you do, or don't do, an action that goes against your core beliefs.
For example: chief among my tendencies (as far as Neumont is concerned) is a particularly troublesome habit of turning in assignments late. Ironically, this is usually because I tinkered with the concepts related to the paper/lab/whatever too long.
I'm one of the best around here at Managed DirectX/XNA, yet I received a D+ in the class. Why? Because I ignored submitting a couple of the labs. I was too busy scribbling ideas on my whiteboard, building complex and elegant ways to implement the various pieces of the puzzle, while most others in the class were turning in solutions that were 'good enough.' Their submissions were buggy, crash prone, impossible to reuse, inexcusably demanding on system resources...but they met the requirements of the assignment. That's fine, I can't argue with that. If the assignment doesn't demand elegance, it's perfectly acceptable to focus on simply meeting the requirements.
I can't do that. I would rather do it my way, regardless of how many times it's burned me in the past. I prefer this path because I can look back on what I've done and be proud of it. This is how I handle the dissonance. As long as I know that I understand the material at hand, I don't care what grade I get.
To a point, at least. Failing out of Neumont would be an expensive irony.
Okay, so I didn't post any Java articles...or any follow up XNA articles. No matter. I passed the Java exam, and with that finally became eligible for Enterprise Projects (basically an internship).
Next term I will be doing a 30 hour per week internship with eBay's Customer Service development team. No, I won't be doing customer service. I'll be helping develop the software that runs customer service. The stuff I'll be working on is slated for use in North America and Europe. Needless to say, I'm pretty happy where I landed.
Among other things, a major requirement for Enterprise Projects eligibility here at Neumont is a demonstrated mastery of Java. I have a test to take Thursday, which goes over a load of stuff. Generics, Threading, Listeners, and GUI's (who the hell actually uses Swing?) are the most glaring gaps in my general Java knowledge. The full study guide is listed here. So, as part of my studies (and motivation; it's easier to get something done when you have an audience) I will be posting an article or two a day about one of these facets. I'll be using Eclipse 3.2.1 and the new JSE6 release.
Oh, and to compensate for the impending technical articles about stuff with fruity names (why does everything in Java have to sound like something I could find at a Trader Joe's?), I'll be posting at least one or two XNA articles next week.
In other news, I want this cat.
I got up at midnight. Everybody should do this; the peaceful atmosphere of my living room at the witching hour is something all should behold.
In their own living rooms, anyway. Get out of mine.
Class is going well. This whole two-classes-a-term thing is a vacation compared to my credit load before. It's really cool, since I'm able to take my time on most of the coursework instead of frantically trying to get it all done last minute. I also now have plenty of time to get some other things done. Like get a car. I have a job, working for Thomas' dad. I won't say much, but I will say that it's pretty fun, and allows me to flex my mind's creative muscle.
Also, Theta has been haunting my brain. It's an idea sparked about a year ago while talking with Matt about game design. Unfortunately, explaining the premise ruins the entire effect I want to convey. It's a psychological mind fuck, though, and has the potential to be an amazing story for a game. That said, Theta has been on the back burner for a long time now, constantly at a lower priority than other happenings. Since I returned from break, however, it has resurfaced. Whenever I hear a moving song, I start imagining a random moment within it. I want to make the thing so damn bad.
What I need to do is write a 'bible.' A bible, in this sense, is a compendium of knowledge about the universe a story is to take place in. Generally, an author will create one if an idea is expandable enough to tell multiple tales. J.K. Rowling, for example, keeps a file cabinet of random ideas that pop into her head. I've begun doing the same, except I use Microsoft OneNote. Same idea, only geek'd. My hope is that at some point I'll have enough ideas to build a coherent world around; confirming whether this approach works or not will only take time. I'm debating building a private Wiki at some point to house it.
Anyway, time will tell how much Theta develops. In the meantime, I've got class.
I tore a contact this morning. The right one.
Normally, this wouldn't be an issue. However, in my infinite wisdom, I never bothered to get another box of the little vision-giving discs of plastic. In other words, I get to walk around all day today with one good eye. I envy those with proper depth perception right about now.
You know people are excited about the Wii when they almost force me to show it off during class. I brought it today to play (and demonstrate) during lunch; it was as though everyone knew what was in the duffel bag. Then again, that might have something to do with me talking about it all the time. Anyway, I set it up for a few minutes in Patterns, and showed off the tennis game in Wii Sports. Darren played around with Golf for a while, grinning happily despite sucking more at hitting the virtual ball than I do here in the real world.
By the way, if you're wondering what a "Flatlander" is, you should watch Imagining the Tenth Dimension. It's a very interesting explanation of things like time and inter-dimensional travel. An explanation that actually makes a lot of sense.
Well, that wasn't too hard. The thing passed 12-0, all in favor. As of about 12:30pm today, the Constitution of the Unified Student Government of Neumont University is officially ratified.
Now everyone that was previously in a position in student government is now out of a job. They're electing senators by the end of next week, with the former student body president Paul Baker and a few others acting as a temporary body to manage things until the new one is in place.
I am considering applying.
Two years ago, I was a student at the Rock Creek campus of the Portland Community College (PCC is the largest community college in the state; they have like seven campus'), taking gen-ed courses with the intention of getting a transfer degree. In other words, I had no idea what it was I wanted to do with my life as far as careers go, so I'd chosen to hang in limbo for the two years it would take to get the transfer degree. At that present time, I was toying with the idea of going into journalism or writing.
Yea, writing. How I went from that to software development I don't exactly know.
Anyway, there was this exercise we did in my Writing 121 class that has always kinda stuck with me. We were sent out to observe someone on campus and write about what we saw. The person I chose was a guy sitting in the dining hall on the first floor; I observed like a stalker from a chair on the 2nd.
I think it would be difficult to work on a english worksheet while listening to music, but Bob here doesn't seem to be having much trouble. A sip of his Aquafina, a thumb roll on his iPod, a glance at his thesaurus and he's ready to roll. Bobbing his head to whatever rhythm the signature white earphones convey, he scribbles down words to fill the blanks. Reminds me of a line from a song: "Adjectives on a type-writer, he moves his words like a prize-fighter."
The inspiration I'd had for that bit was the song by Cake called "Shadow Stabbing," about the mind of a writer on a binge. For some reason, a lot of people in the class loved the passage, commenting on how lyrical it sounded; I was surprised to get the praise, honestly. It sometimes makes me wonder if I could have made a career out of writing. I've always had a certain 'knack' for it. Even now, I have half a dozen changes I want to make to that excerpt to make it sound/flow better. Perhaps my enrollment at Neumont was a horizontal shift, rather than a vertical one?
Nah, gimme that code.
I am loving my Japanese class. Windows includes a cool set of language tools that allows you to convert phonetic Japanese (Romanji) into Hiragana. Hiragana is the most basic form of the Japanese writing system, where each character represents a Romanji vowel or a consonent and a vowel. Funny, I can write Hiragana on the fly with a simple key combo on my keyboard, yet I cannot read it myself. Only in a world like this :).
Anywho, if you haven't already guessed, I am back in Neumont. Have been for almost two weeks now. I didn't end up getting a student loan from my grandparents, and was looking (grimly) at the prospect of having to get a real job. Not that that would have been much of a problem, granted, but I love my university! Turns out, I could have gotten basically the same damn loan without a cosigner; it's called Signature 'Select.' To make me feel special or something, I guess. Why Neumont neglected to tell me about that option, I don't know. It would have saved me about two weeks of dashing around trying to get my loans in order, when it could have just taken me ten frickin minutes.
So, as is the tradtion, my class schedule:
Logic 1 8:00am-8:50am Mon/Wed/Fri
Business Preparation 8:00am-8:50am Tues/Thurs
Patterns 9:00am-9:50am Mon-Fri
Human Computer Interface Design 10:00am-10:50am Mon-Fri
Lunch 11:00am-1:00pm Mon-Fri (duh)
Projects VI 1:00pm-3:50pm
.NET Certification Lab 4:00pm-4:50pm Mon/Fri
Japanese 5:00pm-7:30pm Tues/Thurs
Kinda hefty, but meh. I'm at Neumont till it's dark pretty much every day now. Combine that with my Shaolin Kempo lessons (Mon/Wed/Saturday 1 hour group lessons, make up lessons after the Saturday class for an hour, and another private lesson on Friday), and I don't have a lot of free time. Oh well, who needs a life?
I can socialize in December.
