Been busy as heck recently. I'm getting deeper into work, and admittedly enjoying the resposibilities being heaped upon me. It's fun to matter.
Lately, some friends at work, myself included, have been on a ping-pong craze. None of us smoke, so for "smoke breaks" we go down to the second floor and play ping pong, usually once or twice a day. Recently, I've kind of had a ping-pong breakthrough of sorts. First, I dropped my reverse-style grip ("Chinese style", as this is the style the Chinese became famous for using), as it just wasn't working that well. I had a major breakthrough this week when I realized that all this time I've had the paddle held too tight, thus my returns end up spiraling off the table, about a foot off the opponent's side. My strategy up until now has been "hit the ball back as best you can and pray the opponent screws up", but now I'm able to aim and place better. Weird.
Outside of work, I'm trying to improve my Japanese skills and web design/coding skills more. I've been majorly delving into PHP, basically a kind of HTML that looks like PERL/CGI, if that makes any sense. It's the hotness, to be sure, and with it I've been able to do some really cool stuff. Mainly, though, I'm working on boning up on Japanese. I'm at that stasis level, where I can TOTALLY get by wherever I go. I just need to put more effort into enhancing my vocabulary and kanji, primarily. I want to get up to the highest testable level ("ikkyu", or "Level 1" of 4 levels) within 5 years. Gonna be tough, though, with Job and House and all the other stuff. Oh, and games, can't forget games.
Speaking of games, translation is pushing onward with the Tenra Bansho Zero project. For those of you not in the know, I got a contract to translate and release a Japanese-made RPG (table-top role playing game, kinda like Dungeons and Dragons but with sliiiiiightly less "nerd"). Anyway, I'm translating in my spare time about 300 pages in 4 months. It's kinda fun, but also getting tough. I love this game, though, and that's helping.
Last, there's a small possibility that Orie may score a full-time job. I won't hold my breath, but it will be VERY nice if it happens. Basically, a buddy of mine works in Raleigh, and his small company just had an opening for a web/visual designer. Orie and I scrambled to get an updated resume for her together, plus cover letter, plus working out the nits and updating her site. As I was going over her experience, I was like, "hot damn, she's pretty much the most qualified graphic designer I've ever known". It was scary. She's got a better lock on graphic design than I have on computers or routing technology. That's a lot.
Shout out to the Mikes: Mike Slivka, who has been waiting for me to update this site forever; Mike Stanislowsky, who is busy over in Washington state getting a Master's Degree in Something or Other Awesome to Help Other People; Mike Montesa, steadily going crazy finding work yet cutting ties in Japan, looking to dive out and come back to the US. Good luck, Mikes!
Hey everyone, after seeing some friends get on with some decent weblogging/diary work, I decided to pick up the pace on my site a little. One update every 2 months is a little... meh. So, to that end, I'm trying out w.bloggarr, a nifty little tool that resides on your desktop and helps you manage and maintain your online weblog.
Let's see how this thing works.