A Long December

And in Las Vegas they say, the UATeam partied hard that day

Call this an abridgement of June to January.  A few trivial and fun things left out, but the important things covered.  Among them is the reason for my neglect and a damn good one.

See, what I should have done is make a big fun post recapping the bitchin' weekend I had at our annual Vegas trip the first week in August. 
...But I didn't, and shortly after I got back I didn't want to do much else except spend time with my family which it turns out was a good idea. 
 

So I did, then went back out as usual. And on the 24th I was spending the night in Gary when my sister called and in a matter of seconds I felt like I got hit by well... a truck.

8/25/13 - The sun still came up

I can't even begin to describe my dad's father, and for those of you who where standing there next to me those 2 days, I don't have to.  Now sitting here for 15 minutes staring at the screen I can at least say I tried but I simply can't do justice in words here.  Let's just say his loss was one we all could have done without. 

Same with my aunt that very week, and my mom's mother in November.

I lost 3 people I loved this year.  Within 77 days of each other.  Needless to say despite the high praise I constantly get for my musings here, I really could give a shit whether I sign on more than once in 6 months so long as come out here, do this damn job, and come home to see my family when I'm not.

Leaving you with that to kick around, you're right.  It is time to move on from here.  And as luck would have it, I'm way ahead of ya.

2014

What can I say about 2014?  The plan to resign from Roehl and fall back on a local driving job that affords me some more time home is still solid on the back burner.

At the forefront, and in between those two steps is a whole lot of something I have grown to hate since leaving Arizona, but something that 2013 has inspired me to embrace again.  Risk and uncertainty.

Most of the team in 2011

I got an email the other day informing me that I was accepted as a Conference Associate at the Game Developers Conference this year, and being accepted into that group's ranks is no small task. I have done it a total of 3 times since 2008, most recently in 2011.  I missed out on GDC the last 2 years and have regretted the hell out of it.  While I don't expect to be walking away with a job this time, at the very least I'll be on the up-and-up with the industry.  My knowledge has been stagnating the last 2 years and it's time to put an end to the blackout I've put myself in.  This should get me some damn good motivation for phase 2 of 2014.



Back in late November I accepted a summer job with a company I worked for in 2011 called iD Tech.  They run summer computer camps for kids ages 13-18 on college campuses across the country. I'll be instructing campers in the use of many video game development tools I have used since college.  I was a last minute fill-in for 3 weeks at Villanova University back then, but this time I'm all in for the full 8 week program at Stanford.  Yes, I'm coming home to spend time with the family.  ...then flying to California for 2 months.

Yes, I mean these friends

I had a blast doing this the first time, although I had no experience working with kids or even attending a single summer camp myself.  What I did still have imprinted on my mind was level design, and the desire to make entertaining games.  I felt that burning back in 2006 when I signed on to UAT, and loved it.  When I looked at those kids, I saw myself.  I saw my friends from college.  Instilling them with the knowledge I picked up was absolutely exhilarating.  As their projects grew more and more towards completion everyone got more and more excited, and when it was all over and we said our goodbyes I literally had a couple tears in my eyes.

At the very core of why I want to make video games, I can boil it down to 2 things.  Firstly I want to be part of a team that makes something great and amazing.  I don't need to be in the spotlight, I just want to have the pride and satisfaction of knowing we did something people will remember.  Second and something I can trace back to when I first picked up Legos and K'nex, is my desire to entertain; albeit behind the scenes.  If I can see the enjoyment people get out of something that I made, I'm happy.  iD Tech and sharing time with like-minded campers will be a damn good way to get to that nirvana.

This will afford me the opportunity to get back in the swing of things by learning the ins and outs of the software I've been parted from for so long.  At least to a sufficient level where I can teach a good amount of it.  I'm going to leave a decent gap between turning in my keys and the first day of camp to do just that.  While we're out there I'll also have the opportunity to network with others in various capacities of the industry.  Same goes with GDC in March.


When its all over, on my birthday we make our annual hike to Vegas with a damn good reason for me to party hard.  After that, I see one of 2 things happening.
1) My portfolio output going into iD Tech will be a good amount that I can find myself in an industry job with help from some networking.
2) While I might make the hike back to Massachusetts empty handed, I hang onto my CDL and get a local driving job that offers the home time necessary to continue my portfolio work, and I go back to my resume spewing a-la 2009 albeit a little older and a LOT wiser.

While the latter is less desirable and represents a likely pay cut, the way I see it, it's better than where I stand now.  I spent the last third of my life gunning for this.  Spent a lot of time, a lot of money, and gained countless life experiences as a result.  Most good, a handful not so good.   I won't be satisfied until I'm standing there with my name in the credits.  I'm not giving up on this.

For everybody who told me to just go for it and never give up, I miss you all every day.  Gene Kirchner, Frank and Betty Caires, Peter Bogdan, Jim, Lita, and Mary Guzofski.

One Week

...from today will be my one year anniversary with Sheila 2.0.  I would celebrate her actual birthday (6/26/12) but obviously I already missed it.  Might actually be off on hometime next Tuesday so I may be partying without her anyway.

Market Basket in Andover

Time for a PM check-up and coincidentally there is a recall on the ProStar's fuel pumps.  Given the dealership next to HQ probably ran out of them 5 minutes after Navistar made the call, I'm at the much smaller dealership about 20min north on WI-13.  Hopefully my 14 won't run out before I can get back to HQ, so I can at least get the ball rolling with the non-warranty crap.  Ala- power window on passenger side being toast, STILL a slow air leak, and all the hardcore rain I've been hitting everywhere has revealed a drip coming from the top of the windshield just left of the steering wheel.  Couldn't have been anywhere else on it.  Had to be there.  At least the A/C is running smoothly.  Been pushing that thing to the max the last couple of weeks. 

Terminal Velocity

Only 109° out

I got to visit Phoenix a few weeks ago again, this time grabbing a few more colleagues and going out for some nostalgia bombing.  I was also happy to take advantage of the now completed terminal there, although there are no bunk rooms and still only one (spacious) shower you access from outside the building, its pretty homey.  The only break room has Dish TV, laundry, a vending machine that does ice cream, and a straight-up ice machine. 

This little special run of course threw off my weekend-weekend schedule and I ended up taking a Tuesday-Thursday hometime. Also coincidentially said days happened to encompass the 4th of July which was cool because I had a bitchin' good time with friends and family.

And it was almost cooler in Phoenix.



Gary on the other hand, is officially behind schedule.  At least it's half-open, the only things left are the new service bays, showers/bunk rooms, the permanent driver lounge, and the cafeteria/kitchen.  A lot is still roped off but hopefully within the next few weeks it will be 100%. Which is about a 100,000% improvement from this time last year.

Not to mention the new storm drain plan.

Kitchenette all done

Showers and bunk rooms have a long way to go

Spent another night in Winslow on the way home

10001110101

Case in point

So upon looking at this blank page for going on 10 minutes and wondering where I'm going to go with this, I think we're finally at that terminus we knew would come eventually.  The day when posts to FTF become ridiculously infrequent because the job isn't new anymore.  Well, I often said I enjoy the predictability of the refrigerated fleet, and now its showing here.  I hit 100k with Sheila 2.0, and since snapping that I'm at 110k now.  This of course doesn't include the 75k-ish I clocked on Sheila 1.0 from January to July of last year. Well here are the most recent things going on.

So a driver vehicle inspection report (DVIR) is an email I have to send in at the end of each day to verify that I found nothing wrong with Sheila or any of the trailers I used.  It includes the date, Sheila's number, and all the trailers we had.  Usually I have no more than 3 trailers in a day, but sometimes I'll go a week with the same one.

Well, the planets were oddly aligned on 5/25, because not only did I have more trailers than I ever had before, as I punched in the numbers I saw something rather creepy.
(All company reefer trailers follow a 20xxx pattern, so that's not part of the oddity)

Pieces

Irony time- shortly after the trip back from hell my bunk heater stopped working.  And behold, overnight lows everywhere can't top 40.  So any other driver on the planet could just idle the truck to stay warm, except that SOME guys who have trucks that turn off after 3 minutes if the clutch doesn't get attention.  No way in hell was I going to miss home time this past weekend, so I sucked it up and dressed warm.  Just when I thought the worst was over coming down from the camping trip.  I discovered something about waking up cold.  I wake up inherently pissed off, and the mood doesn't improve trying to make a decent bowl of cereal with mostly frozen milk.

Fast forward to this day 11 with no heat, I made it to Appleton where they were expecting me.  After checking in I'm watching marathons of Storage Wars, Rules of Engagement, and Friends all while making plans for the annual UAT reunion trip to Vegas. After a few hours I got a call from the front desk asking if I wanted to take the company car and go on a solo field trip.  I only agreed because one of the things on the shopping list was my bunk heater blower.

Yes, that's my custom anti-scuff packaging

A full 2 piece windshield, 2 amber markers with brackets, a handful of gaskets, and most importantly, 2 Webasto fuel heater blowers.  55 miles, 90 minutes, and no speed governor.

We're not in Gary anymore, a little teamwork goes a long way here.  Skip to the front of the repair line?  No, thank YOU my friends.

Sandstorm

Somewhere in Texas I broke out the shorts

Funny thing about driving like hell and only stopping as needed, most of the time I can get near a customer the night (in this case, afternoon) before an appointment and do stuff.  Things get especially interesting when the destination is in a town I spent the 3 best years of my life- Tempe, Arizona.

Better than an espresso machine.

Though GDC was going on and most of the crew was out of town, I did get to hit some dinner with a few friends I hadn't seen in years and then a quick once-over on campus to see what was new.  Not a lot of stuff I didn't already know was in the works when I left, but there were a few surprises.  The hour or so on campus was spent nostalgia bombing and shooting the shit about the old days, going through 7 year old albums on facebook and laughing our asses off. It was kind of surreal, like it hasn't really been almost 4 years since I last set foot in that city but it was so embedded in my mind it felt like I was only gone a few hours.

If I don't stop, nobody can tell me to get the hell out, right?

As for the ride out there, I had a fun time spending about 2/3 of the trip on US highways 50 and 54, obviously a way I hadn't gone before but a good one to note for the future  Amazing how I did an 1800 mile ride mostly on cruise control and didn't go through a single toll booth.  

The return trip was going from Tempe to a town right next to HQ, so it was almost a perfect double back. 
Turns out this particular cycle is just as typical as the ones I take east from WI to PA from the same shipper, it's just that I never get assigned to these.  The reason for that is they prefer sending guys on that stretch with a full 70hrs to burn, which is something I will pretty much never have because it takes 25 of my 70 just to get from home to Wisconsin.  We actually had to push the Thursday afternoon appointment to Friday morning, which was no big deal because we knew by Monday afternoon when I was loaded to come back that it wasn't happening.  Still pretty lame that if only it was a 73 hour rule I would have made the original appointment.  3 hours.  That was all I needed.

Sheila wouldn't fit on the corner

And in July the rules regarding how the 70 resets are going to get tougher.  I don't think even commercial airline pilots have as many complex hour restrictions as we do.  As I've preached before, the 70 is the only rule I have to abide by that I fail to see logic in.

I had been to Winslow twice before, but never actually got the chance to walk around town.  Enjoying the weather before it got dark I did some exploring.  Ironically, something you don't see if you never get off the interstate are all the towns they killed.  Driving on state and US highways you see them a lot.  Its just mind blowing how everything is still there; stores, motels, nothing gets demolished- it all just sits there and crumbles.  I-80 runs about as closely parallel to route 66 in New Mexico and Arizona as anywhere else along its old corridor, so you can take any exit and literally be in the towns that used to thrive on it.  Winslow is a great example.

Best.  Thing.  Ever.

4 days late, 1,700 miles short.

Little known fact about UAT road trips, whenever they included trips north of town we usually made a point to stop in Camp Verde, about half way between Phoenix and Flagstaff.  Much to my dismay, the A&W/KFC that we often visited was closed down.  No root beer float for me- at least not right away.  I manged to wait until it was convenient to stop at the one in Oak Creek, WI.

Side note on massive catastrophes

In 2008 I went on a UAT field trip to see Cloverfield, and after my brain matter had found gravity again I posed a question to the rest of the group:  "How come all the bad stuff in the sci fi world happens in either New York or LA?  Why not like, Boston or Phoenix?
(Boston got it's piece in Knowing (2009) but I meant *good* sci fi)

Four years later we find via Halo 4, that Phoenix's luck finally runs out (in 2557) when most of the population is vaporized and their consciousnesses digitized and emailed to a fake planet on the other side of the galaxy.

Meet the "New Phoenix"- same as the old Phoenix.

Turn The Page

There was a political rant here about why I'm losing interest in my usual talk radio programs lately, but it speaks volumes to instead spam backspace and spare you.  Let's just say that in between all the bullshit on SiriusXM there have been a lot of ads for Amazon's audio book store, Audible.com.  Meet the newest edition of my channel 19 plugs.

Last time I listened to an audio book I’m pretty sure it was The Bernstein Bears and needless to say it was on a tape deck.  Wasn’t even sure I’d like it now but the price was right.  1 free each month and half off any I want to buy in the meantime.  I decided to get the audio version of the Halo book that’s traveled over a hundred thousand miles with me but has never been cracked once.  Time seems to fly by now, not quite as fast as listening to my radio shows but still faster than music alone.

It was long ago, it was far away- so much better than it is today

Long time since we met at 322

Going the distance?  Yea Sheila 2.0 and I have been places.  A lot of the same ground, but a distance nonetheless.  The trip we're on now is like none we've done before.



Well, done with Roehl, that is.  Actually I've done this several times

Shit just got real.

Real anticlimactic, that is.  Basically I'm doing a 5am delivery, an 11am live load, then hightailing it straight back to Wisconsin.  In some sense, it's a GOOD thing that the Game Developers Conference is going on in San Francisco this week, thus most of my colleagues are out of town anyway.  Maybe if these loads get more frequent I might get a chance for a proper [on location] college reunion.

I guess there was going to be more blog here but... yea.  I forgot just how much of nothing there is out here.  That sprawling nothing between Toledo and Gary feels like a Dunks run next to this

Twilight Zone

The above and beyond things we do for our employers.  As much as it sucks for miles I don’t mind doing a delivery in Tewksbury my first day out.  Have to pick it up in Springfield?  Ok fine.

Wait, delivery time is what, now?   0600?  Now you owe me one.  Nobody likes starting their 9-5 job at 2am.

That started a chain reaction that lasted 3 straight days of starting at 0200-0300 and done by 1600-1700.

I finally broke it with a push for customer service to get an appointment time changed from 0600 to 0900 on day 4.  I said there was no way in hell I was going to get up at midnight.  That cycle wreaks havoc on my energy level.  As soon as the drive time runs out in the early afternoon I pass out, lethargically wake up at 7pm, eat, go back to sleep, get up at 0200 and do it again.  Doesn’t do well for my already sluggish interpretation of how productive I am in my free time.  They didn’t put up a fight.

Kentucky SWAG

The only upshot of that night-rider finale was that it was headed for southwestern Virginia by way of Kentucky.  Yay!  Blazing new trails…. Except for that part where its 200 miles on a can-of-worms/malaria-germs state road through the heart of the Appalachians.  Find an interstate between Lexington, KY and Wytheville, VA.  You won’t.  Wish I didn’t have to do most of it before the sun came up, not only was it a pitch black ride over mountains and mining towns, fog limited my sight to ½ mile or less most of the time.  Maybe next time it will be a little more picturesque.  I made bank this week so ha.