So I’ve had a lot of interesting things go down lately. Two weeks ago was GenCon, a 5 day game and publishing extravaganza. I pretty much went to talk to friends that I don’t get to see all year, but really wish I had more time to spend with them.

Right after that I flew directly from GenCon to NetApp in Sunnyvale, CA where I spent about four days in fiberoptic training. Some decent learning and good food. On the plane ride over to Cali I just happened to sit next to the CEO (”Derek Liu”) of www.gaiaonline.com, a cute internet anime-inspired community. Pretty cool stuff overall, it’s actually making money: It’s basically a forum where you have an “avatar”, and responding to posts and threads gives you more “gold”, which you can use to spend on items to change the look of your character. Every month, if you donate money, you get these “donation items”. It sounds kinda flaky at first, but when you realize that there’s about 2 million users on that forum, you can see how they can rake it in. Pretty cool idea overall, and it’s getting better by the minute. Very overwhelming, though.

I spent most of my after-training time hanging out with Drew, who was kind enough to drive some 40 miles down from Oakland to visit. On my last day, I went up to stay with him, and we ended up going on top of a mountain overlooking SF, then down into the city for dinner at an all-vegan restaurant called “Millenium” (VERY good stuff, I might add). After that, Drew and I did some roleplaying (a game called Breaking the Ice) and ate some Demon Cookies.

The next day, I came back home, which had me at my doorstep at approx 11:30PM. I worked at 7:00 AM the next day. I’m just coming off of a three-day weekend, and I think I got enough rest in this time around, but my sleep scehedule is still really tweaked. I’ve been going to bed at 3-4 AM recently, which is no good for those 7 AM work shifts. I have one day to get it all in order again. That’s pretty much the bummer about my work schedule, and why I’m going to probably go back to a regular 9-6 schedule next year.

Now, on this last day of my break, I’m relaxing, playing some video games, doing some yoga (lost another 5 pounds, but many more to go), reading some of the games I bought at the Con, and writing in my Livejournal.

-Andy