I had noticed on Xavier's shampoo bottle that it says "No Tears." Thats great, as having a baby cry for any reason is bad, and if they learn that bathtime = pain, that leads towards a baby always covered with mud who sticks to everything.

I am starting my last semester at MATC, and I am going out with a light load. The only class I have that I have to do work for is Relational Database Design. Shouldn't be too tough. I did have an Internship class, but all that was required for that was a form completed by my employer showing I had worked there for more then 216 hours. Easy. Hopefully I can work it out so I don't have to pay $300 for filling out a form.

This weekend we had Geek.Kon here in Madison. It is the first annual gathering of nerds from all walks of oddness, from people dressed up as their favorite anime characters, to board gamers, artists, and the crew from Chad Vader. We also ran a LAN party. WKOW, the local TV station, came by to cover the event, and even though the LAN was a small part of the event, it got a lot of video coverage, including lots of footage of yours truely! Check it out!

I haven't really had time to post new updates, either for blog entries or school content. I've started classes again three nights a week, and combined with wrapping up things at AmFam and helping with Xavier, I hardly have a spare minute for myself, let alone the honey-do list. Or even the me-do list.

I hope to dedicate more time, however brief, to do more updates. I realize I've been really bad about it and there is benefit in doing them. I also hope to post things that people might actually care about, like code snippets or amusing stories.

I'm starting a new job on Monday, September 17th! I am leaving American Family after working there for seven years as a contractor through Spherion. While it has been a pleasant experience, after that long of a time as a contractor at essentially the same position it's clear that it would be very unlikely I'd get hired on as a full time employee.

I've begun planning a new online game called Fire Aura. Much in the same bent as Cyber Nations, players will have a fixed number of actions they can do in a single day, rather then continuous play like traditional MMOS like World of Warcraft.

That frantic specter of Time is creeping up behind me again. As with the end of every semester, the tasks we put off until the end are coming due. Of course this semester I have the added pressure of having my son's birth scheduled for any time between now and the first week of June. I feel like I should be wearing a street sign saying "The end is near!" like a crazed doom sayer. At times like this, its hard to make sure that the quality of the work doesn't suffer due to the crunch in time.

For those of us already working in the tech field, the following will come as no surprise. Nearly all projects go through the following stages in their lifespan:

1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. Searching for the Guilty
5. Punishing the Innocent
6. Rewarding the Uninvolved

Its amazing how long steps 3 and 5 can last.

A fire broke out at the building housing Human Head Studios, makers of fine games such as Prey, early the morning of Friday the 20th. This also happens to be the same building that houses the parent company that my fiancée works for. I drove by the building on Commercial Ave in Madison and snapped some pictures of the damage, which looks pretty extensive. Damage estimates are probably going to be at least $750K to over $1 million once everything is tallied.

I moved last weekend, a process involving a week and a half of prep work, about 6 hours of lifting and actual moving, and another week to actually get unpacked. Of course, the process of getting everything where we want it will continue for months.