Things I See When Running At Night

• The parked yellow Corvette that reminds me I’m close to home. It once seemed so far away.
• Teenagers gathered in a circle, up to no good behind a fence. They are as startled by me as I am of them. They thought they were alone, as did I.
• Stone, chiseled monolithic signs for neighborhoods that are all crafted in the same fashion. My mind flashes to Pleasantville and the Truman Show.
• Are those dogs barking in the song I’m listening to? Sick feeling in my stomach. There are no dogs in this song. A glance across the street and I see a lady holding back her dog as it rears up on it’s hind legs, teeth gnashing.
• Vehicles that drive much faster than they would during the day. I never see the drivers. During the day, they wave. I imagine the night drivers do the same.
• A couple taking a walk alone. I’ve only ever seen them once.
• My breath. Always my breath.
• An older, classic, gutted car along a remote trail. The doors are open while rain pours down hard. It makes me run faster as I go by.
• The expanse of lake. It’s ringed by lights, but no light exists on it’s surface. The large mass of water might as well be a black hole.
• Another group of teenagers. I run up from behind, around, then past them. They smell like cheap deodorant. They could probably catch me if they wanted to, but maybe not.
• The light from by headlamp reflecting off the fog hanging in the air. I can’t see more than 15 feet in front of me.
• Groups of mailboxes that look like people. I become startled for a moment, but realize I’ve just given myself a boost of adrenaline. I can’t feel my legs for the next 45 seconds.
• Multiple people who I almost run into as I simply didn’t see them. On approach I dodge to the left, out into the road. Maybe they thought I was playing chicken with them.
• A wooden bridge that crosses a creek in the woods. It dumps me at the edge of a small, new, and well kept suburban playground. I feel unsettled.
• The stars on a clear night. Lack of streetlights, while dangerous, is an acceptable trade-off for a beautiful sky that is hard to keep my eyes off of.
• Hills. Ooooooh, hills. My calves burn then stop working when going up them, my shins stab with pain when going down them.
• Light, reflecting from large drops of rain. Some of the rain drops pass before me, splashing onto the ground. Others soak into my pants. Others gather in puddles which I step into.
• Pretty snow fall which has collected into large, uneven, icy sheets of death. Five mile run turns into a two mile run because I can’t make it up the hill without traction.

This list was generated bit by bit over the past year. I finally decided to post it as I haven’t seen anything new in a while.

The 2011 Seattle Marathon

Near the starting line of the 2011 Seattle Marathon

The day was like any other. Except I got up at 6 am, ate a quarter cup of blue berries, a half cup of granola and a half cup of yogurt then went back to bed for 45 minutes.

I was worried about weather. Seattle is known as a wet city, and the forecasts had a 56% chance of rain. Upon waking up to eat, it was still dry and 50 degrees out. Warm. Things were looking up.

At 6:45, it started coming down. Then the wind kicked in.

I’ve trained in bad conditions, but never on the long runs. I’ve run in sub-freezing temperatures, but for only for five or so miles. Rain and wind for up to maybe ten.

On with the shorts and the tank top, the standard wear for the 20+ mile runs. Overheating may become an issue, better play it safe.

Phone in armband. Headphones in phone. Shoes on. Chip tracker on. Race number on chest.  Five cliff shot gels in my pocket.

And away we go. Nothing but rain the entire drive to the Seattle Center. Oh man.

Snap decision. After a last minute switch to a long sleeve technical shirt and pounding a Cliff Gel, and I’m out stretching. They’re already calling the Full Marathoners into place. I jump over the barrier and start stretching. Five minutes to start.

I rip my phone out of it’s arm pouch, and with my headphones dangling I snap a photo of the start. I try sending out a tweet, but it takes forever to upload and panic sets in. I still need to get my GPS tracker on, my music going, plus put my armband, head phones and so on back together. Maybe next time.

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And Further More, I’m Working on Halo 4

A while back Halo 4 was announced. As you might have suspected, I’ve been pretty busy working on the game. It turns out the campaign for a Halo game requires a pretty intense amount of effort. Who would have thought. I guess people are pretty into Halo or something.

I was actually the first designer hired at 343 Industries, but at the time the studio didn’t have a name. It was called something generic like “Halo Internal.” Woooo. In any event, I was the first designer to take the plunge (there were other designers that had come and gone, but they were pulled from other parts of Microsoft).

I didn’t start as a lead either. I was just coming off a crazy amount of Treyarch crunch (which if you ask around, is some of the most legendary crunch known to mankind) and was looking to get down on some level building, scripting and prototyping. You know, hitting reset on the ol’ work life balance button. However, after working at 343 for a bit, they asked me to be a lead, and being a lead on a Halo title is not something you tend to turn down. Don’t worry, I like to stay pretty hands-on with the tools in addition to having an outlook calendar full of meetings.

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ASCERNITY

“Six Nineteen. Ascernity Administer on approach.”

“We have you now. All signs read clean. Welcome back, Ripper.”

He waited patiently at the door. For all they had learned and understood about The Universe, they still hadn’t figured out how to create personal teleportation devices.

Doors. Just like us. They always end up making doors of their own.

Sure, they could teleport planets across systems and use asteroids as their own personal weapons against would-be invaders, but small scale objects? Impossible. Well, at least until someone figured it out. It was only a matter of time, but the lack of personal teleportation was getting annoying.

And time was still a one way street. A tough nut to crack.

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The Door

He sat at his desk, sifting as usual.

Data, data and more data. Nothing but piles of code to sift through, stacks of people’s personal lives that at one point he thought would be interesting and exciting. Two straight years or seeing that everyone else was just an human as he was. Two straight years of peeking behind the curtain to see a naked overweight fifty year old woman with serious allergies to whey, an addiction to QVC and an unhealthy obsession for Dancing with the Stars.

The sifter was the lowest of the low on the digital totem pole. Associates sat squarely on top of them, pushing and hounding them for certain patterns and asking out-of-left-field questions.

“Any spikes in the apple market today?”

“Do you mean Apple Computers or apple, like in… apples you eat?”

“Apples you eat!”

Questions like this were common. He had to sit and think back on the Record, truly considering if he had really seen what the Associates were looking for.

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GDC2011: A Fabulous Drift, Part 3

Part 2, found here in case you missed it.

Thursday morning was all about recharging the batteries. With some sweet sessions lined up and some awesome parties later in the evening, it was time to take ‘er easy.

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No Cliffy!

Industry Lessons Learned and Applying Them to the Road Ahead presented by Cliff Bleszinski of Epic games was first up on the docket.

CliffyB gets a bad rap with the haters, of which there are plenty. When I walked in, a group of 40-something media types were already starting with the negativity, sitting in the back corner of the room as I walked in.

“Oh, what’s he wearing? His hair looks douched up.”

And so on. Everyone all aboard the CliffyB hate train, right guys? Cause that’s cool!

Anyway, I thought Bleszinski gave a really great talk, one of my favorites from the entire conference, actually. I felt like he was being honest and just speaking from the heart, and really that’s what I want to hear from people at GDC.

In essence, his talk was all about being a “Power Creative” and how to create and control your IPs. He basically said all the things I wanted to hear from someone in his position, and I think also confirmed in my mind why I think he’s as successful as he is (see: speaking being honest and speaking from the heart, above).

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GDC2011: A Fabulous Drift, Part 2

Mr. Iwata makes me sleepy after a night of heavy drinking.

GDC2011: A Fabulous Drift, Part 1, found here.

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The previous day put the hurt on me. The thick drapes were drawn tightly and not a single photon passed through my 25th floor window. All the better, because any amount of noise of light would have made me throw up anyway.

8:45 am. Time to roll out of bed and see what Nintendo has to offer.

Clothes on and I’m out the door, my roommate whom is equally hungover is stumbling along with me. I vaguely recall telling him the keynotes are generally skipable, but he really wants to go as it’s his first GDC, and I decide to prove to myself, and him, that I am capable of doing this.

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GDC2011: A Fabulous Drift, Part 1

Pixel Wall at GDC

The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is one of those events in life I look forward to every year. When people ask me “What is GDC?” I always tell them the same thing:

“GDC is a lot like college. You pay a bunch of money to learn a bunch of stuff, you meet a bunch of awesome people, then you go to parties at night.”

My love for thinking and talking about games, meeting other people in the games industry and having a good time with them afterward has no bounds.

After GDC, I make sure to spend time exploring the city. San Fran is a fabulous place with so much to offer and so many great adventures to partake in. For me, GDC and enjoying SF go hand in hand. My advice to all would be game developers (and everyone, really) is something you’ll hear often, and not just from me: Don’t draw the inspiration for your craft only within your craft itself. Why? Because your medium becomes derivative and lacks innovation. People need to inject creativity and be inspired from outside sources to keep things fresh.

My solution? Go create your own real life adventures! Have fun. Put your self in places and situations you wouldn’t normally go into. Go people watching and explore all the city has to offer. Study the world at large and at the very least, you’ll have a good time and see something new.

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Time Statue

He had traveled across ten galaxies and had finally came to the end of his quest. He found it. He had finally found it.

The Time Statue.

He approached the two story, stone oracle, located on a remote, but seemingly habitable world. The planet was strangely devoid of life, although he was unphased by this.

The traveler opened his mouth to speak, but the Time Statue’s eyes opened and stared down at the traveler. The Time Statue’s mouth began to move. A booming voice cut through the thin air.

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Zero to Half-Marathon in Under Two Months

I don’t consider myself to be an athlete. I’m not an athletic person. I’m not in great shape, even now. I play a lot of video games. I’m 30 years old. I sit at a desk all day.

So how is it that I can run 13.1 miles is under two hours? How is it I can run a half marathon and post a decent time, when less than two months ago I nearly passed out after running a single mile?

I did almost no research before deciding to run. I’ve never read a book about running (until over a month after starting anyway). I just decided to go for broke, and learn as I went along.

I get a lot of questions on how this is possible at all. I’ve been called “weird” for attempting long distances without “proper training.” So I figure it’s time to give away all my secrets.

I’ll describe my unconventional methods. Try these at home, or not. Maybe they’ll work for you, but I’m not promising anything.

However, I think anyone has the ability to do what I did. I don’t consider myself to be special at all.

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