nick does valve time.. WUUUUUUT

yeah so pretty much that. since i can not compete with cp_manor_event i will delay my map until after halloween ends. So its something fresh and new. soz!

btw. 2 days of school left! woot

Whow whow whow. its like november already.

YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! its almost december o.o

anyways, some pretty epic things are coming up. thursday is my last day of class for this quarter and things are looking good. wait by your phone also.

friday, new version of promotion comes out with its own neat webpage thingy. id give you the link but it would spoil things :(

THEN, 2 weeks off of school. HECK YES. then i got a drawing class :( i suck at drawing. oh well.

sneaky peaky!

its coming along good...

Things are winding up

So in the upcoming weeks expect some great things.

First off, I will be officially halfway done with college. I am so excited because well, honestly I thought I would never make it this far. Plus I will be going back to some old ways. I havn't forgotten.

Secondly, A new version of promotion is coming out soon and it includes many fixes and tweaks hopefully for your playing pleasure. If you would like to play the recent version, look no further. Here is the server list that plays it. Hopefully you click at the right time that its playing on a server.

In other words, work is going great, I still miss you Chad, my cat is awesome for being here for me on these cold, cold nights. OH YEAH! and it was the first snowfall of the season today :D! too bad the hurricane force winds and rain before that made it not stay or I would have some pictures up. ENOUGH OF THIS BLABERY.

just so you know

im not afraid to talk to you, i just dont think its the right time right now since school is getting into its stressful state and finals are coming. so once schools over, get ready to get your world rocked.

blah

let you know i am still here. if you want to talk, go ahead, i am open words.

WOW

I just had the best 5 minute conversation with you since ever. I could really feel it even though you were scared. ♥ hope we can do it again sometime ♥

School, Portfolio, Life.

So as you may know, my life has been a rough one the last couple of months as school tore me down big time. But good news! I passed! And better news! this was my best quarter yet! I got 2 A's and 2 B's this time around raising my GPA to 3.11 which is way better than my GPA of 2.1 I got in high school. I can't wait till next quarter as we will be put into teams...yay.

Now later in my quarters at Brown College we will be taking a class to put together our portfolios. I can't wait so I might make another blog just to showcase my stuff. I might start that at the end of this week if I can get on that.

And on a serious note, today is our 3rd week together as a couple and I am absolutely thrilled to have her as my partner. I can not describe her in any words on how great she is and how awesome she can be. Today was the first face to face chat and I could not look away. Oh the chills (>_<) Anyways, I love you so much

Dream come true... please?

So just a little backstory of whats going on. If you hadn't of noticed, I have an awesome new addition to my life. With that out of the way, the last couple of nights I have been dreaming some pretty awesome stuff. Like what will happen in the future and how its like to really be with you.

Anyways here it goes:

My dream starts out with me talking to you through steam or skype on airplane tickets to come visit you, I find some and purchase them right away. The time comes to come down and finally get to meet you in real life and when I arrive and we meet up, we automatically fall for one another again. We have a great few days together, doing what normal couples do, and time finally comes for me to leave for a while (sad part ): ). Anyways, you gave me a ride to the airport on the day I leave to come back to St. Paul, and we all hug and kiss goodbye to each other. I then walk into the airport and as I was entering she said "See you soon babe!" and she then got in her car and drove off. As I went into the airport and waited in the little area waiting to board the airplane, she hadn't texted me back for a while. I was either worried or happy that she was still driving and not texting, or something had happened. As I entered the plane I walked toward my seat and sitting right next to my seat was you. You told me that you had enough of your old life and wanted to start something new. I freaked out with enjoyment and gave you a giant hug. We then made it back to St. Paul and lived a normal life. Then my head hurted and I woke up.

Ahhhhhh

Special person.

When the right time comes along in your life you will meet that special someone. A while ago, I thought I had met that someone and I was turned away, not because she doesn't like me, but because of certain restrictions. The recent couple of days have been so far the best days of my life, hands down. The same girl I liked a long time ago is my chosen one. We recently have fallen in love and I am super excited we are finally taking things further. It has been my lifelong dream to find someone like you.

I love you.

~Nick

who does blogs anymore?

well I have been missing out. ohh what to say, school has been really tough lately. I need to have something or someone to pull me through. My parents are no good anymore as they say the same things over and over. Thats why I have you. Pulling me through the thick days of sweat and anger, cheering me up at days end when I need it the most. And I thank you for this. Without you, I would be crying from all the work.

On the other note: My tf2 map is in beta! yaay

Vlog #4

might as well tell you this

but its obvious i havnt updated this in a long while. i dont know why, meh lost interest and knowing people dont read these. ah well, ill try and continue to do more. bug me to do more.

Vlog #3

EENCOOMING!

Weelp, I havn't gotten to doing any new vlogs yet but recently, out of nowhere I got a bug up my butt to continue to work on my mod. I don't know if my programmer is still here and paying attention or not but I will continue anyways. I'm almost done with the thing that stopped me before. Its amazing to be honest. I'll get a new vlog this week.

Vlog #2

Sorry

I havn't made a blog post in a long while. I have had one of the worst weeks last week and I am still trying to recover from what happen. I will get a video blog done tomorrow after school about what happened. For now, it will just have to wait.

Vlog #1

yay :3 its me! hot sexy me..

New changes

As you know, school and work has taken over my life. My work has been laying more people off as there profits rise 17% in the last quarter. School has picked up and I am creating MANY textures as well as a Panzer in 3ds max. I am remaking ctf_turf (for team fortress 2) and making it for Unreal 3.

ANYWAYS... changes.. I am thinking on instead of writing normal boring text like this, getting another youtube account and posting vlogs up instead. easier for me since i dont have to write PLUS i can show you stuff without you having to download. cool eh? yeah! ill record some video on saturday at my airsoft brawl with my friends...

Forever young.

In cold reality, everything has to come to an end at some point in life. As I am writing this I am totally stressed out because of whats going to happen soon in the future. My cat is about 14 years old now and has been my right hand man for all of my life. I am not sure how to express how to feel right now about him because I simply don't know what is going to happen to me. He is getting old, His eyes are getting dusty, and his fur coat is getting gray. As I struggle to write this I know for a fact that soon, he will pass away. As I try to calm myself down, I think to myself that where he is going will have all the food he wants. But thats nice for him, now what about me? Who will be my buddy? I have no clue. He gets me through rough times and since my boss at work is threatening my job since I don't have any hours, I am forced to pick up hours with school is going to be rough. I will need someone there for me, and he was it. Knowing soon that it won't I can't keep my mind off it. I know I will progress in life, find a job, meet a nice girl, have a family, but always will he be in the back of my mind for some help. For now, this is just a warning.

Weather!

So recently our weather guys have been bragging over whats coming to us. We are hitting the 70's this week which is AWESOME!!!! Last time we had this great of weather was last fall around october. Today when I got in my car to go to work, it was so hot in there. I was like "hold on... its actually hot??!" I have not felt this kind of warmth for a long long time. So its officially grilling season. Get your pork chops, steaks, hot dogs, and burgers ready because I WILL BE THERE. If you havn't noticed I am a meat-a-tarrean, I don't like vegies all that much and don't eat really that many fruits. I however love my steaks and hotdogs. Can't wait till my dad dusts off the grill for some mean chicken! graaahhahhahahaha :P

My first weeks work.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

so yet again..

i havnt felt like posting anything until now. this quarter of school is total win. i thought to myself "oh whats Game Design 1 and Digital Media 1" and it turns out it is 3ds max class and photoshop class. i instantly jizzed my pants as i did not think it was coming that fast! :O but then today was the funnest day of them all. my teacher for enviromental design waltzed in with a box full of ethernet cords and passed them out to each other. we got to play the teacher and students in a game of UT3 and i rocked them all... pssh tooooo easssyyy xD so here is my photoshops first assignment due tomorrow lolol.

im soo tired

last night my friend came over and well we played god of war 3 till the end. we started around 4pm and finished around 4:30am the next morning. didnt get to sleep till 5am. (which is when i think you wake up xD [6am there]). so as tired as i am i found out we will be using the UE3 for our classes now. which is amazing because well, many good games came from it.

so today my parents got back from vacation and well.. i missed them. i mean cmon, you gotta love your mom and dad no matter how mean they get sometimes.. for goodness sakes they let you live in there house and feed you.

bah

so i havnt made a blog post in a while. reason being is that well... battlefield and work have consumed my life. in other words, school has ended for now and will be starting back up on the 22nd. my grades for this quarter:

Concept Design: A
English Composition: A
Economics: B
Object-Oriented Programming: C

my teacher caught us cheating in programming so thats why the C.
next quarter i have level design and photoshop. fun. see you in a bit!

btw: this week i will be working on various projects such as the mod and promotion.

bloging ftw

i had 10 freewrites due today and well... i just took them from my blog. epic win. thanks blog :D

yay new stuff!

so yesterday i bought myself an ipod touch (32 gb) and i love it sooo much. im thinking on getting the sdk and trying out some stuff in designing. i mean ive heard a group of people from my school created there own iphone game company and is making good money.. so why not me? meh

anyways! my new pc parts came today and i hooked them up. OMMMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG i just want to say.. HOLY SHIT! going from 70fps in tf2 to 300fps is amaziinngg!! going from 20fps in bad company 2 to 120 is so kick ass. i can play it again. now we just need EA to stop fucking the servers up.

only problem i have with my new computer is that the processor isn't cooled enough and is hitting temps of 80C +. right now i have my summer fan directly on the mobo itself and its working like a charm but yet my computer sounds like a B-17. along with this, i need a new cd-drive since the new mobo doesn't support the ribbon cord. i have a portable one around here...

this next week is my of the quarter. then i have a week off and then start UE2 level design. But for that week i might be working on a few of my projects. also during my week off, my parents are leaving for arizona so WOO PARTY AT MY PLACE!! lol jk but im gonna hang with the friends.

i feel

i feel like i did something wrong... can you tell me what it is? i mean it seems like youve already planned your life out and such.. and me.. who cares about me..

$1,072.96

well since my computer is more than 3 years old and is running some hardware older than my niece... i think its time for me to get an upgrade. I recently got my federal taxes in the mail and has boosted me up about 1000$. so i decided to go ahead and get me some new parts.

now when i built my computer it cost me about 1100$. this purchase is only half the amount of parts and yet it costs the same. technology these days. heres is what i bought!

ASUS P6X58D Premium LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131614


Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115211

CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145222

random

this is...

Long day

as i slept in english today i was thinking of what to do when i got home.
i worked on promotion for a while and thought id try out autotunes. as i restarted my computer the internet wouldnt work and i was like wtf!!! so i booted up windows vista and the internet work and i knew something was up. i then looked on a news site and they did it, released the anti-piracy update. i was bummed. but good thing i had a free legal copy of 7 from my school im using. so im downgrading to that but in the mean time, im on my laptop and im hungry. for now, see you later!

so you may be wondering?

i havnt died no.. im not crying anymore.. i just was kinda sick and didnt feel like posting anything. as i missed work yesterday i found myself working on promotion. i got much done and is closing closer and closer to release. yet i havnt tested it out yet im going to show some pics. NOTE THESE PICS ARE IN HAMMER EDITOR!! NOT INGAME!!




so recently i learned a lot of things. im not going into great detail but i think its going to be a while before i made my decision. as everything normalizes im trying to cope with it still. its kind of hard to get over it but it helps to know its not you thats restricting it happening.. anyways..

So...

i know its been a rough weekend but it all turned out in the end. i have asked around about religion and its mysteries and stuff and now im (i dont know how to say this) just back to normalized kind of feel. yeah things are back to normal, me and you are just friends now like it always has been and i dont know if we can take it further unless i change. but we will have to wait and see about that. i have good friends that could help me change anytime but i dont know if its the time yet. right now im not that religious even in my own religion so who knows what could happen. ive been dieing to try something new to change up my boring lifestyle and i was always interested in others. but we will have to wait and see. after saying that im gonna go to bed at 8:30 pm tonight which is the first time in a long time i have gone to bed before 9 since i was like in grade school. love does crazy things to you doesnt it.

after that just happened.

i feel like theres no point in living. i know i just said that but this has happened to me way to many times in my life. god i hate this world some points. im sorry all, ill go cry in the corner for the week.

So...

you may be wondering what had happened recently. well i told her and she seemed to accept it but i guess we are just gonna have to wait on that.. lets see how this turns out!

its over.

the guessing games are done! im through with it. im alone AGAIN...

ice test

today i worked on making ice in tf2 look like ice. so much time and this is what i got. its going in promotion stage 3 so look for it soon.

so..

your wondering who it is.
keep on guessing. ;)
it might be someone you know.. ;D

heart

can you fall in these?

Work today, makes me rethink on people. pt2

Well today wasn't that bad of a day as yesterday but I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be worse. This is not how I wanted to spend valentines!! Id rather be sitting at home eating ice cream.. But anyways here is story #2. Just be caution, it might ramble a bit as I am just telling the story from my head.

So another funny thing happened to me today at work. As I was on the 15 items or less I had a black younger female about in her 30's (code name marsha) have about 24 items. While I was bagging her groceries another white female in her 60's (code name peanut) came up to her and started to yell at her for having too many items. She said something like "Do you know that it is so rude for you to have more that 15 items in an express lane?" and marsha replied "you know how rude it is to lash out at me like that??" and then it escalated from there. Marsha kept saying "lets take this outside" after everything Peanut said and she replied "do I have to call the police?? my boyfriend is a cop" and I just sat there doing my job. It kept going on and on and until I got to her order of only 2 items they started to say sorry. And while Marsha left she said to Peanut that she will meet her out in the parking lot. And after that, She left and Peanut started to lash at me saying "why didn't you stop this from happening" and I replied, "ma'am its not my job to stop a fight". so she left in anger and the day was fine the rest of the night. I was a bit shaken up because I get kind of nervous in them situations.

And just a update on the story from yesterday, it may have not seemed all so bad but the daughter was pregnant. In minnesota more babies == more money on foodstamps. That's what angers me. Teenagers getting pregnant just for more government cheese.

oh it feels so good to get that off my chest. valentines day tomorrow!!!!!! and i have to work... this year is the 18th straight year of me being alone. hurray!.. now that i am older it feels kind of bad now.. all the girls i like have a barrier that keeps me from getting to them like shyness and well.. marriage.

mmk C U LATE ERR

Work today, makes me rethink on people.

Now I just need to rant this out. I mean is this really how society is getting today? Okay so today at work I was on the express lane (15 items or less) and what really, really, REALLY makes me mad is when people buy a bunch of candy and stuff THEY DON'T NEED with there foodstamps. What really angers me is that WHAT THERE BUYING WITH. FOODSTAMPS is for people who can't make it through because of money issues. Foodstamps is a card full of money only to be used on food, this money is given out from the government from the tax payers money. AND WHAT DO I PAY 50$ A PAYCHECK? TAX! It just boils me to see my hard earned money go to waste.

Anyways a couple of stories tonight, one being of a sad sad foodstamps story and another a quiet interesting one. Then some good news! :D But first, what saddens me the most is seeing young people use foodstamps. BY YOUNG I mean like lets say 14,15 year old kids. Today a black female came in with her black daughter and was buying some food (good stuff, no junk) and what ripped me to shreds is that the mother was teaching her daughter how to use foodstamps. I MEAN CMON!! TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN THAT THEY WILL BE SLUTS AND LIVE OFF OF TAXPAYERS MONEY??!? This is exactly why I want to move out of minnesota. No Joke, they give it to easy to people. Now why I almost freaked out is because I have seen this before, and it aint pretty.

Okay I will continue to write the other one tomorrow, it will be funnier. But in the mean time, zeeky if you are reading this, I HAVE STARTED BACK WORK ON THE MOD!!!! YAYY!!!! be hoping to get contacted soon!! im just finishing up UVW unwrapping the model and is coming with some concepts.

C U 2 MAR ROW

A promotion on promotion!

no im not done yet, nor i havnt even started the work on the map itself. Ive been spending my few days creating a layout suitable for the epicness for the map. if you can read this, congrats! but if you can not, look harder.

The time has come!!

It's official!! Tomorrow we are releasing a Beta of our board game at school. We have worked so hard the past 6 weeks on getting things the way we would like it. If you want to have a try at it contact me on facebook or e-mail me at NGD91@aol.com and you might get chosen to try it out for yourself. Please note that in 4 weeks we are going to publicly release the final version and wont be touching it after then. I just need clearance from my lead to let us download it.

The snow has taken a toll on people here. Clogging traffic for a good 2 days and now its finally settled down. Get back to you soon!!

Frozen Hell Hole

Purple Frozen Hair

That is the theme for todays post. just some pictures!!

Blogging

I am sorta slowing down on this page since i have nothing really to talk about. However, I have been caught up recently with school and work therefor not enough time to play/work on any mods. Ive come here to say that my blog posts will not be as frequent anymore so do not get worried.

Today I found a very interesting video of what we have to do for school. HERE is the video.



Now here is the problem. I have to turn that simulation into a desktop board/card game. How hard is that??? At first it was painful to think about, but as we worked on it it got really more easy and for surely more understandable. Once our project is done I will upload the files here so you all can download and play free of charge*.


*maybe, if ours gets accepted into this museum it might cost ya.

Programming!!!

So in order to make games, you need to know a lot of programming. I mean a lot. So recently one of our assignments was to make a little shooting games with labels. And it turns out that it was really fun to play! Also hard. So I am releasing it to the public. So here it is!

DOWNLOAD!!

On the other note. Today no letter from giggles, but im gathering things together to send to her. My parents would probably be wondering why I am sending a random girl in florida items. HMM. But yes! tomorrow is bad company 2 beta day and I am looking forwards to that.

PEACE OUT! LOVE MINNESOTA!!!

Sick

Today at around 11am, i have been getting these great pains in my head. Yes, a headache, but this time it was so much worse. It HURT. I mean, so bad i was pulling my hair out. So I got home, took some tylenol and talked to my mom. She told me to call in to work and go to bed. So I did, and when I woke up I felt so much better, but not totally. So tonight ill get sleep and as tomorrow I will sleep some more.

The weather here just got worse. We had rain, which is over 32F, and today it froze over. Also to add on to it, snow and 40+mph winds. Gah. Driving was a bitch but I made it because of my sweet aerodynamic car. PFFT that puny thing.

anyways see you tomorrow giggles!

Okay so...

For the past few days, I havn't been feeling that grand. It was a virus that was going around I guess that I got from my mom. Well anyways its sunday and I havn't got much done on anything over the weekend. Tonight I'm going to bed early for school in the morning. Today at work, it was really busy and sucked because our retarded manager did not schedule any people. So, as I am sitting here typing this I will be thinking on some longer posts. I am waiting on that letter giggles, Id better get a return address because I do plan on sending something back. :P

dueces!

blog

today i have none. thank you ;). ill be waiting for that letter giggles.

Promotion! NEW AND IMPROVED!

DOWNLOAD

Yesterday

Was not that great of a day for me. I woke up feeling not so good and stayed up late that night. So sitting in school I couldn't pay attention to my photoshopping and couldn't get that much done. So when I got home I took a tylenol and it didn't feel any better. So I had to work on my payload map for tf2 and I might have gotten that done. So when it came time for me to go to work, my mom was like "if you don't feel good don't go to work" but it was already to late to call in. So I showed up and told them I am not feeling so good and they didn't seem to care. So I worked, and it was so shitty (excuse my french) I wanted to explode. So when I got home I had some waffles for dinner and went to bed. I woke up today feeling the same, but I don't have to work. I will do a new post later tonight, maybe promotion? ;)

dear blogger

Today I have nothing to write about. Except that I have a headache, finished a new version of my map, and stayed 3 hours after school working on my teams board game. Tomorrow is presentations and I have the hope in my lead to do well.

BTW this is so funny. watch all his vids

See you tomorrow if I have something to write aboot!

arf arf!

Today is MLK day which means no school and I don't have work. So I am doing homework and thinking.. Today I went with my mom to a mall where there was a pet store she liked and soon she was holding this little puppy. That thing was so freekin cute, my mom wanted it so bad I felt bad not giving it to her. I told her I would share my cat with her but she didn't seem to want it. So now here I am feeling bad not lending her the money for the dog.

Anyways I tested promotion last night with the gang at CalculatedChaos and had lots of fun. Going to make some changes to that map and then some. I will try to get a new version of turf out by tomorrow. If not, the day after that.

Right now I am listening to the tony hawk pro skater soundtracks on youtube. yea..

Son day

Many things made me happy today. One, the vikings killed dallas! woooo! Second, my team lead FINALLY uploaded pictures I have to photoshop. So now I have something to do. On the other note, last night I got turf tested and good news, Its working out. A few minor bugs set back some stuff such as doors and lack of a defense, but other than that, the new middle was a huge success to stop sniping.

A few problems I noticed was the water. When I added the water back in the older version it was because players had a really hard time dealing with sentries on the over head catwalk. So I added it as a anti-pyro/ obstacle / pathway on both sides to the map. It was working with the older version but not so much with the new version with the added raised catwalk at the top. Players could go from capture point to capture point without peeking outside. So I removed it from going to the point area to the courtyard on both sides.

I also refined the Flag point so players have to "weave" around a glass wall which will help them with sentries. This also will help with better sentry placements as I added two sentry platforms on each side of the point up against the wall and added more cover around the point.

Thats it for today. cya tomorrow!

Explaining Turf.

When I started making tf2 maps I have always wanted to do every gameplay of maps there are. So ctf_turf was what my variation of capture the flag was. Now I always want to do something to switch up the game so that it doesn't seem just like any other map. For turf I wanted to do a reverse 1 Flag CTF on a small map. So I made it and released it. First impressions were none, the map crashed because servers couldn't handle the map that well. So I released a second version that tried to fix, it worked but the game would end real quick and the map would be over in 3 captures. So I decided to have a 2 Flag Reverse CTF and it worked out! But the map had some flaws so I fixed them. It worked but there were still flaws, at that point I thought this maps gone to hell and bleh.

Until now I brought it back for the TF2maps.net tournament because of its smallness and its hope I still have for it. I then fixed a few bugs, added a middle building and switched it back to the old style CTF.

Why is it now different than any other map? Its small. The time it takes you to run from flag to CP is way different than 2fort. Plus this map has a lot more vertical spaces and ledges than any other valve map. Thanks for reading, tommorrow will be a longer post on my life again. BOOORRRINNNG

Time fo battoll

IT IS HERE!

I will post the stuff tomorrow.

TURF 1-15-10

Since I have no drawing this quarter and got that really annoying 6 page paper done I've had some free time. During that time TF2maps.net came out with yet again another mapping competition. I have only entered one contest they started and that was the Swamp Contest. I didn't do that good on it but the contest was rigged anyways. So with a new contest coming up I decided to start up an old map I thought had potential. CTF_TURF was the map I brought back to work on. So here I present, Ctf_Turf alpha 1.



Tomorrow is release. I will discuss to you why this map is different than any other.

Presentations

Today in concept design, we had our presentations. Yesterday after school our group of 5 team members including me got together in the library to discuss our game. As waiting for 2 other teams to present, we found their flaws and took advantage. Finally it was our turn to present. I am telling you it was the best one of our class. I am so proud of our team and how they did. Now we need to get a pre-alpha by next week.

I have 3 current personal projects and 2 of which is for the game team fortress 2. 1 of my projects is pl_promotion. It is a payload type map that is bigger than most valve maps. It will be a 3 stage map with advancing spawns unlike valve payload maps. Another project is for the contest on TF2maps.net's Competition ctf maps. I am reviving my map ctf_turf and turning it into a real ctf map and adding more paths and a new middle area. It should begin testing soon.

And for my most dedicated project is a mod for half life 2 orange box engine. Right now we arn't showing any information as we are trying to get all the code and concepts into the game for testing. Once we start testing we will release some media. But for now we giving any info for you.

This leads me to tf2. I don't have much to do tonight and hopefully going to work on ctf_turf, then playing a lot of tf2. see ya tomorrow!

Illiterate People, Retarded Managers, and Waffles

The title is pretty much how my monday was. A lady couldn't write a check so I had to write it for her. I don't get how people sometimes think. After that my manager was fighting with people because we were so busy. She said we didn't have any back up cashiers on hand and we had to deal with 40+ orders with only 3 people cashiering and 1 bagger.

Bah, I need to stomp complaining and look at the good things in life. When I got home I poped some waffles in the toaster and had some pretty tasty waffles for dinner. Then I went to go study this board game for class. While doing that I was talking to giggles and watching this, after I was tuckered out. When the show was over I talked to giggles some more and went to bed. I woke up with my cat at my feet and went to the living room and continued my day.

Today I seen that TF2maps.net is having a Competitive CTF TF2 mapping contest. This is a game mode that has a class limit of 1 medic and 1 demo and only 2 of everything else. There is only 6 players allowed on a team. I was thinking on plans today when I remember my ctf map "Turf" which was a reverse capture map. I am deciding to switch a few things up, making it a normal map, and adding some detail.

Thats it for today. Ill be on tonight, gonna stay after school to work on my game with my dev team.

The 11th of January in the 201'st decade.

As school started back up last week I recently had that paper due. I was wanting to get 5 pages done to get a worthy paper but as I found this one site that had a lot of information. I ended up with 6 pages of text single spaced and I was very happy. Right now I am sitting in concept design class and we picked out groups. I got a great and dedicated group that seems they will work very hard. I have to work tonight even though I tired as mess. Next class is english which is zZzZ time.

I just got my paper back, I got 61 out of 100. Not bad, many people failed.

The paper from hell..

It wont take me that long, I got all the data I need to write it but I'm just not in any mood to write it. Ive always been a great procrastinator in doing stuff, only because I know that there is something funner than doing the paper.

Recently Ive been getting dizzy in rl. I found out that its because of my new glasses I got on friday. I can see again which is amazing but I'm still getting used to it. Driving is a lot easier now because of the new glasses (now i can actually see the signs lol). I find it hard at work because the check out screen is right in front of me and I have to twist a lot because I have to bag the grocery's as well. This gets me more dizzy because of the new glasses have a more strength in numbers (its more stronger) and the vision now wraps around the corners a bit.

And as promised my storyboarding final:



So yeah, Got a C in that class. 24 Panels with as much detail 6 hours does for you :P

Saturday

Why can it be? A 6 page paper due monday and I havn't started it yet. But I did study somewhat. After work today I plan to work on it so I don't have that much to do. But you know as always ill stumble upon youtube or facebook and get side tracked.

I am not much of a focused reader as we are to read like 3 pdf's from this website on B-17 Bombers. While I prep myself for that, I have been watching youtube videos of them because I seem to learn better by videos (WITH NO NOTES!!). Gah work, see yall tomorrow

Modding

After a year or so when I got counter strike I noticed a really fun looking game that I seen on steam. Turns out it was a mod for half-life 2 and I thought to myself "Gee, I have half-life 2, lets give it a try". Sooner or later I was pumping maps out for that mod. THEN, This guy contacted me and asked if me and him wanted to start a mod of our very own. So we tried and things were going okay on the mapping end, but that's all we had. So after of my partner's inactivity for about a month I started a mod of own and had a few guys help me out and got a little further. Then my programmer suddenly quit and no one was up to help out so we had to shut the doors to that mod. So I started another one (your wondering "why do it again" the answer is "I don't know") and it got even further and more was done and again, the programmer quit half-way during the mod and it died.

So now this takes me to where I am sort of now. I took a few months off and started mapping for team fortress 2 and improved my modeling/skinning/animation skills in 3ds max. Then when I decided to join a mod team I set some limits of the mod that needed help. I went by these rules:

1st. Did the mod have a dedicated team?
2nd. Did the mod need my skill as a game designer?
3rd. Did the mod have a unique concept idea?
4th. Can I relate to the mod without having to study the subject first?

Then some of my own question I asked myself:

1st. Does the mod have programming done enough to be able to finish it?
2nd. Are the members fun and enjoy what they do?

So I searched and searched and stumbled upon Snowball: Source. I worked with them for a while then the main programmer fell ill and the programming crawled. I lost some hope then...An angel appeared. His name was Zeeky and had a very good background in programming and helped us a lot to get things done. But it then took a turn for the worst. Motivation is hard to keep on a project that the leader just sits there and does nothing.

Zeeky and I became really good buds and decided to leave the development team to start our own project. Right now its a secrete project that I can't give anymore details than "bigastni".

Stay tuned!

Continued

A little more about my history of developing games.
When I was in the 2nd or 3rd grade (around 7 to 8 years old) my good friend Tu showed me a great game that intrigued me for what I am today. Well the game was Starcraft and after me seeing him play it with his older brother (who was a computer hacker) I fell in love with it right away. So I went out and bought the battlechest at Target and went home and played it. Then one night we wanted to play over the phone lines (oh yeah, dial up fun) and he asked me what kind of map I wanted to have made. So we came up with Bionicles (legos) and he made it in front of me and I guess that is where I got hooked.

So I practiced and practiced but was very limited on my parents Windows 98/ME computer and when they bought there XP about 6 years ago I was open to many new programs which made everything easier to do. A couple years of experience and I had joined one of the best map making clans Operation Onslaught (Oo.oO) and grew up in the later ranks. Until one of my clan mates showed me Half-Life 2 my thoughts changed forever.

Soon I got Half-Life 2 and downloaded Counter-Strike: Source on dial-up. It took me a good 2 weeks downloading 24/7 to complete the download. Comparing my speed from then to now is a giant leap that even Micheal Jordan wouldn't be able to jump. (5kb/s to 4.2MB/s[~4300kb/s] 860x faster) He told me to download source sdk and follow this tutorial and it sprang off from there making CS:S maps.

Keep a watch! more to come on how I got into the modding scene!

New beginnings.

Alright so my last blog idea I had didn't really work out as I planned it too. So I am starting fresh and just going to tell you all about my daily life.

A little about me, I live here with my parents in awesome St. Paul, Minnesota where I am attending school at Brown College and majoring in game design. I am 18 years old and find it that life isn't what it used to be like in high school. College is a great way to expand your life as a human being and to further your knowledge and help society tomorrow. Now why game design you may ask? Well, as soon as I turned 1 year old my parents loved heading up north to my grandparents cabin near Duluth, Minnesota. For them it was vacation and well, me being 1, I didn't really care since I don't remember anything back then. Well anyways, my dad loved to video tape home videos on a ginormous camcorder that he still has and sometimes uses, but this particular video he took was of me and my sister (didn't know the age at the time but I would say she is around 10 or 11) on the couch, both nintendo controllers in our hands and playing super mario bros. Now I'm not saying I was playing it but, I was pretending and I guess it was then, I fell in love with games.

Now today, I have a bit of experience on working on games and with people as well as some industry help that should help me out in the future. I will post more of my memoir in the future but right now I'm pretty tired and need sleep for class in the morning. Rock on central!