A Programmer's Meanderings

As time passes...I realize I miss your warmth

2008-08-06T12:21:00.002-04:00

Well...life has changed...a bit.

It's flat out stagnating at the moment.

Sigh. Well to recap, since I've been gone since I graduated from college.

June and July were a bit hectic. Mainly because of the company that I'm applying for. Then, the day after my birthday, Elo left for France until the 30th of August. It hits me every now and then how much I took for granted when she was here.

I've hit level 22, and I don't feel very different for it either.

I haven't played drums in a very long time, and I'm starting to feel antiquated with the thought that the next time I'll be able to play it will probably be in our capital, away from anyone I want to play with. Sigh.

And I'm sorry to anyone who ever checked this blog and expected anything from it. I'm a habitual do-tomorrow-er. I never get around to really accomplishing much I guess.

I should really get around to reviewing and getting pictures up of progress etc.

Or I don't know. Maybe I'd like to have a goal set out for me by someone else. It always worked in College.

So my not-so-many readers, what would you like to see my do for you all on here? Because I realize that all of my blog updates have been...mainly...about my life.

And that's not what I wanted it to become, but there it is. Ah well.

If you have any ideas, email me or leave messages here and I'll get on it as quickly as possible. Other people motivate me more than I motivate myself.

Take care,

Clay

Clay made a game =0

2008-04-20T22:53:00.002-04:00

Well, the semester is in its closing stages, and thus the culmination of my work for the semester is revealed:

Clay made a game.

Alright, it's a crappy game, and it's not really a game as much as it is you walk your sprite to an NPC and hit enter and the sprite says "I'M A BRAINLESS NPC!!" But HEY! I did that. I'm really proud of doing that actually!

So, recap of what's been going on. The car is bought! It's a 2003 Oldsmobile Alero, and it's dead sexy. Terry's class is finally over, the presentations done with, everything submitted...Wow. We sucked hard. But it's over with! And we've finished the final things in ET, with only a presentation and a small test left. Customer service, is once again, a joke. I gave in an "essay" that was worth 25% of my mark, that was written in 25 minutes. I received 99% on that essay! And a test that I studied for the night before I received 91.7% on it.

I just did a bonus assignment in 10 minutes that is a guaranteed 6 marks on the final test, which is not that many marks to begin with!

And so, the only class I really have to worry about....is Java. Oh Java, we have such a love/hate relationship don't we. It's funny, I understand how many of the things work in the Java course, but I can't do lab 7 or lab 9 at all, but I'm able to do lab 8 and lab 10. Hrm. I think there's a problem with that logic somewhere!!!

On another note.... Epical Studios (myself included) are working on something a little special, and I'm acquiring some things to be able to do that!

In any case, that's about it for today. Wow, a short post! Ha!

Ah well.

Till next time!

Take care,

Clay

life.explode = true

2008-04-08T16:38:00.003-04:00

I believe I'm going to use one of the many terms that I love to use from the Internet.

Oh. Em. Gee.

The reason for the above pronounced acronym is the following: I just had my interview with one of the companies I really want to get into!!. Wow. That was an amazing feeling. I really think it went well!

The salary is amazing to say the least, and I find out next week how I did and if they are going to pursue everything with me!!

In other Clay news, the database project is coming along nicely. We hammered out every single thing so far that we've set out to accomplish, and Terry (Database teacher) won't be able to say a word to us about not being good enough.

Well, he probably will, but to be completely honest, I don't care.

I've already set up the final meeting with Brian for Emerging Technology, and thus guaranteeing me more grades by doing so. Woo! Go me!

Things on the love life are a bit iffy, but on the car side, I might be getting the car even quicker than previously stated! WOO! And paying eight thousand less for it! GO ME!

Man, it's all up for the Clayster here.

OH! OH!

News!

I'm going to be reviewing my first game very shortly.

The game title will be..........

Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core!

Yes, I've beaten it, and yes, it has new game +. It's that awesome!

So I'm playing it again starting at level 37, currently at level 38 and pushing out those missions like no tomorrow! My goal now? Finish all 100 missions!

Anyways, that should be a fairly good summation of everything going on now.

Tidbit of thought: Higher education really does pay off.

Take care!!

Clay

New month, new things...sort of

2008-04-04T23:00:00.005-04:00

It's a new month, and it brings about new things....a little.

I'm still away from my editing, but for a good reason this time!

I AM SO SWAMPED!

Seriously, these last two weeks, and the next two weeks, are retarded! It's ridiculous!!

A small recap of the last few weeks:

Emerging Technology report due last Wednesday. I crammed for 2 days straight to create this report! Report size : 55 pages.

Then, the Thursday OF THAT WEEK! was Walkthrough # 2 for advanced database. Basically, we had to get the entire code/forms part of the application done. Right before the presentation, we're thinking : Well damn, we're good! We've got it pretty much all done!!!

Wow. Were we wrong or what.

Apparently, while in school, we have to be up to industry standards already. None of this "I don't know it all" stuff. No no, that doesn't work. We have to know it all.

I think the grades you get in school are directly proportional to how much of a dick your teacher/prof is. Honestly.

Apart from that, I'm getting a car in the next few weeks, so I'll be able to drive places!

So...not much going on.

Clay is a very tired bishnu (random word). Heh.

Oh, one small thing I wish to tell everyone who actually reads this.

I WILL be doing game reviews and I will always tag them a certain way. they will be "game, review, name of game reviewed" So you can search by those tags and find it quickly!

I might do Anime reviews, but I'd have to see some major comments on the video game reviews to do any anime reviews.

So far, the posts are...well, slim to none.

Posts make Clay happy and make him feel like people actually do read the things that I write.

One thing I might do is also use the blog to post up things I've written as well...Maybe you should all check it out, or POST A COMMENT letting me know if you'd like that, instead of telling me on some IM or another.

Yeah.

Well then,

I should get some sleep, seeing as how I'm usually running on very low amounts of the aforementioned sleep.

I bid you all (whoever reads this) a good night,

Take care,

Clay

One month left, oh my!

2008-03-18T16:32:00.002-04:00

Another installment by me, for whoever is reading this :)

So, life for me is going to change drastically after the next 4 and a half weeks. I will be graduating, and going out into the *ahem* "real world".

Future plans? Well, I'm already starting to find a job in the industry, but man is it ever hard to find a job that doesn't either 1: require a University degree and/or 2: require 3-5 or 5+ years of experience.

Well, how are you to get 3-5 or 5+ years of experience when every job requires that amount of experience?!

In any case....I've applied to a company called KineticIS here in the Sudbury region (Copper Cliff, actually). They deal with financial application development. Not really "I'm making games!" material, but hopefully it will get me that much needed work experience. We will see.

On the school side of things, I firmly believe I've passed one course with a C (hopefully), and the rest of the courses I'm doing fairly well in. I also have the highest GPA in my class, so that's a bonus.

Game Development with XNA Game Studio 2.0 is ridiculously easy, and a lot of fun!

Onto the Internet. Oh the Internet and all the wonderful treasures you hold. One of which I found yesterday!

I stumbled (yes, the Stumble application, not the figure of speech) onto www.onesentence.org . Wow. What a site. I've actually submitted a small "story" of my own and hopefully it gets accepted. Look for it in the next few days. I won't tell you the pen name, but for those of you who REALLY know me and know everything that's been going on with me, you might pick this one up. It has a keyword in it ;)

Life news...I'm probably buying my dad's car, and he's taking my late-grandfather's truck. That's how it should pan out. Other life news...Nothing much really. I want College to be over, because I'm getting very tired of going into class all the time and doing work that I don't get paid for.

To be quite honest, there probably are some things I want to say to this blog, mainly just to simply say what they are, but because of people who might inadvertently read things into what I say, or read things that I'd rather not have them hear, I keep them to myself and my mind.

Have you ever really realized how much you ponder on things, and how many times you can't say those things that you think on so much for fear of someone either finding out, or taking it the wrong way?

I don't know because I'm not at that stage, but I wonder if, with all the things that we keep in our minds, if that's one of the reasons senility disappears. We cover so many things in our lives from what people might hear or think that we start disillusioning ourselves to what is really going on and by the end of our lives we really don't have a clue what to think anymore.

Interesting food for thought.

In any case, I'm going since I really have nothing more to say, or rather, I have things to say that you all can't read.

Cheers,

Clay

Thoughts on the Departed

2008-02-26T17:14:00.002-05:00

For anyone that actually pays attention to this blog at all, I'm sorry that I haven't kept updated in the last 2-3 months. Life has been extremely hectic, and lately, very sad.

A small recap:

December was the normal festiveness. Christmas, like last year, was held 4 times: once with my mother, another with my father, again another with my girlfriend's parents, and finally when my girlfriend's sister came to the house. Needless to say, this was an exhausting period of time for me.

January was the beginning of my final college semester. Classes involve Emerging Technology, where my project is delving into Microsoft's XNA Game Studio 2.0 to create a classic 2d rpg with all the goodies, Advanced Database Design, which, pardon my language, is another term for scholarly rape, Abstract Data Structures and Design, aka abstract programming with Java, Fundamentals of Network Security, aka Hacking 101, and finally, Customer Service, the bird course of the semester. Normally, the beginning of a semester is usually pretty light.

Wrong.

Again, pardon the language, but I now have a pretty good idea of just what getting fisted is like. From the very first day, every single class, apart from Customer Service, shoved material down your throat faster than you could mentally disassemble and store the given information. It was mayhem in 4 weeks.

Another thing that roughed up the situation was the fact that, from February 15th to February 22nd, I was on a trip to Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic (which was, needless to say, amazing). This meant that I had to do a week of work ahead of time, because, nice as I am, I had decided in July that this trip would take place, not on my reading week, but on my girlfriend's reading week, to make it easier on her. I'm nice, aren't I? *pats self on back*

So January/3/4 of February were ridiculously hectic for me.

Then the trip. I won't go into a lot of detail on the trip, since I may save that for another post, or simply not speak of it at all, since there is just too much information, and it would be wasted without pictures. We have 490+ pictures. You see how this would be ridiculous for a blog post.

However, as I returned from my vacation, beaming with happiness (and a nice tan), I was informed of the fact that my grandfather had passed away while I was gone. Not only had he passed away, but that the family had held his funeral while I was gone as well.

Under normal circumstance, people expect an elderly person to die, usually when they're sickly or up in years. My grandfather's death, however sick he was, caught me like a blow to the stomach. I was floored, and still am.

George Evert Grant was my grandfather's full name. He served in the army during WWII, and was given a soldier's farewell. He died quickly at the age of 84 at the hand of a stomach tumor. He was my idol.

I can't even begin to describe my pain, or what his loss is doing to me inside.

The only way I have found to cope with this right now, is to bury myself in the work that needs to be done for me to succeed in my studies, and to program, and video edit. These things keep my mind occupied.

As to the editing part. In my previous post, I mentioned Rough Hands. That died, quite quickly, mainly because of a lack of video quality, and because of time. However, last night I began work on a video that I have had in mind for a very long time. I don't know the exact details of the lyrics, nor do they really matter for this video. A few lyrics do matter, but the main part is the flow of the video, and I have a strong feeling that I'm conveying it well. The current time stamp is 0 minutes, 42 seconds. Wish me luck.

I don't know if anyone really reads this blog on a regular basis, or checks up on it, but I'll be going ahead with the video game reviews, regardless of whether people really read this or not. It will 1: give me something to do. 2: give me much needed practice in analytical writing and reviewing and 3: hopefully benefit any new readers.

In any case, this is all I have for you today, and for the last 2 months.

For those of you that do read, thank you for reading and please be patient with me. Normally I don't keep up with these side projects (blog) and I often need encouragement to keep doing it.

Take care,

Clay

breaths

2007-11-21T14:41:00.000-05:00

Now this is nice.

I finally have some free time after 2-3 weeks of solid code grinding. Damn it feels good.

Updates on Clay's life:

I've gotten a new job; one doing Tier 2 Tech Support for HP at 15$ an hour. For a student in College, that is extremely good.

Go me.

I'm into the last month of this semester, thank god. I don't have any assignments due for two weeks (-happy-) and everything with the missus seems peachy.

Sad thing is however, my editing is going downhill.

I don't have much time to edit, really, and yet I see vast improvements in either people younger, or older than me, who possibly have as much, if not more, time than I do to perfect the skill of editing.

I also greatly lack in resources, and ambition. I have a tendency to come up with an idea for a few lines, try it, and get discouraged because it doesn't come out the way I want and then let it fall.

This happens a lot.

Hopefully this won't happen with Rough Hands, but we will see. Editing starts today at 2:54 pm, and we will see how the process pans out. I might have an update later on in the week to show how far along I am, or to say that I've canned the project once again.

Also, I have a small neat idea that if I get a few comments on wanting the idea, I'll do it.

I'm thinking of doing game reviews for the mass of games I've played/am playing/will play.

These game reviews will range from the Nintendo Entertainment System all the way through to the Playstation 3 and Playstation Portable. For all Wii and XBOX owners/lovers: I'm sorry, but I will not be reviewing games for those consoles unless they have a PC counterpart. I just do not have the funds, nor the want, to play with those systems.

Leave comments on here and if I get enough of them I'll deem it worthy of time and will start doing them. The reviews will not follow a chronological order, yet will be whichever I think of. They might jump from PS2 to SNES to PS3 to NES to Gameboy.

Anyways, that's all for today.

Take care,

Clay

Careful Little Update

2007-10-13T13:29:00.000-04:00

Just a small update today!

I have made a decision, quite a big one to myself in fact. If you are at all familiar with my internet persona you would know that I, Clay, am staff and an editor of Epical Studios (www.epicalstudios.net ....shameless plug, I know). The video shown below is my first release with that studio, and I'm quite proud of it.

However, there's a small problem with me. I'm poor.

What does being poor have anything to do with being a video editor? Alot.

See, the main thing an editor uses is...well...footage. Perfect quality footage is not cheap. If you're using Anime footage, it's even less cheap.

So this means that for the next few anime music videos, they will not be the greatest footage quality, but will be me experimenting with a few ideas I have always had. So you might see some unfinished videos because I have a very large track record of not finishing a video, but I will do my best to show you all just what Clay can do with adobe!

Take care all,

Clay

Deadlines should be announced

2007-10-12T14:40:00.000-04:00

I realize it's only been one day since the first post, but I felt I need to actually put this up.

I'm currently a student at Cambrian College in the Software Engineering Technology course, third year. I'm also a wireless customer technical support representative for Rogers at Sitel Sudbury.

I'm a student with a part-time job, in other words.

Time management is one of the key points of every single one of my days. Yet our professors at College seem to forget the fact that 90-95% of their students are in fact students with part-time jobs, and don't realize that planning ahead is a key factor for us.

No, instead it's more along the lines of "Oh, ummm, well the Lab is due on Monday!" (saying this on Friday morning). Thanks guys.

It really helps my mind take a breather on the weekend to know that I have to cram this in...

IN OTHER NEWS!

SQL Lab is a success!! but enough of that...

One of my better attempts at creating wallpapers. I used a stock Anime image and made the background myself using multiple layers. In this post I will also add one very very special thing.

My first video:

Click on the image to download it.

I know it is still fairly linear and easy, but there will be more to come. Yes, there will be MUCH more to come.

Enjoy guys and take care,

Clay

The Beginning of the Beginning

2007-10-11T17:44:00.000-04:00

Well now, this is a positive feeling.

A little about me for a first blog.

I'm 21, and I'm a software developer. That's right. I'm a coder.

I started this all when I was around 14, after starting High School. I had initially become infatuated with computers when I was around the age of 12, with my first delve into the world of mIRC. That was a scary place. At 13 I remade the mIRC script to fit what I wanted the whole window and format to look like.

Pretty simple stuff, actually.

From there my interest sky-rocketed. Computers took the headline of my life and still are my biggest passion. To be able to mold a tiny world with your hands and mind is truly a liberating feeling. In a way, my profession is a genre of escapism to me, where I can shed the shackles of reality and become a tiny God of my own software world, where I make the rules and where things live or die by my thoughts and actions.

This isn't to say that my profession is exactly the easiest thing in the world. Far from it, in fact. Many people believe that being a programmer is some sort of gift given by genetics and birth, because no one can seem to fathom how exactly a coder does what he does, yet, as said by my Programming teacher, coding isn't an art or a god-given gift, it's a discipline.

I wholeheartedly believe this to be one of the absolute truths.

Yes, some people are better at coding than others, only because they have an easier time wrapping their minds around abstract ideas, which are simply pieces in a giant puzzle. However, on the whole, everyone can code. What do you think you do when you write HTML? You code.

And there we have that.

So, back to me and computers and my life.

Aside from me being a coder for the last 7 years of my life, I'm also a drummer and have been for, also, 7 years. I've played in around four bands, the most popular of which was Misguided, a local Sudbury band which had huge potential.

Currently, I'm a drummer without a band, with a desperate need of a band.

I'm taken by Elodie Chivot, and have been for the past 2 years and hopefully for the rest of my life.

Other than that, enjoy my little corner of the World Wide Web, and keep coming back to see some pretty nifty updates as I show off some of the things I can do.

Take care,

Clay.