"Billions...and Billions..."

So I just finished watching "Contact" again for the billionth time. I do love that movie. I think because it makes people question their own beliefs in their pursuits for truth and how religion does play some role in this pursuit. Be it your total non belief in anything secular and that religion is what rules our known universe or that your scientific beliefs and evidence of truth could have a world impact causing the pillars of heaven to shake, so to speak.

I think it represents both of these spectrum's fairly evenly without prejudice.

Where do I lie? Good question. I believe that everyone has their own personal right to believe in what they wish. Be it a vengeful god with a flowing white beard, or a giant ball of noodles, or even some sort of celestial being. Whatever your beliefs are, every individual has a right to believe in them, even the atheists (believe it or not guys, it is a belief that you follow).

However, I do have my own personal views on "religion". So without getting into a huge debate about religion, which this post is NOT about and we'll get to that, I think that following anything blindly, without questioning it's purpose or existence can be dangerous. I also believe that as long as your faith and your pursuit in this faith does no harm to anyone or ones self, emotionally, physically or mentally, then you have the right to pursue it.

I personally do not believe in a God by most religious definitions. I believe in a law. I believe in a law in the universe and the harmony that bonds the universe to our known natures, human, animal, botanical, etc. I believe that the force that engineered these laws, the architect responsible for initiating and maintaining these forces falls within my own definition of what God is, just as Carl Sagan would say. It's less scientific I know, and most scientists would argue since their one basic law is to concede to existing evidence and nothing more. As for me, there are far too many questions than there are answers, and within these questions I find proof in the unexplained.

It isn't a hope, to me it is a proof, because the force and process of "life" existed before we ever came to be. We didn't create life, we fell into it's existence.

So with that, brings me to what this post is truly about. Life and existence beyond our own. I believe that without a doubt, we are not alone in this vast darkness we call the universe. For someone to say that we are, I believe to be a very arrogant statement. We still can't cure the common cold, we can't even decide if Pluto is a planet or not (I'm sure that Plutonians are probably kinda pissed about this). So to say that without a doubt that we are the only known existence of life as we know it in the universe, is arrogant.

I believe in other civilizations. It doesn't matter if they are microbes frozen in some inter galactic space ice, or a free thinking population of people with their own political struggles. I believe it's out there.

Why?

Because in July of 1989, I saw proof. Undeniable, unequivocal, "Holy shit what did I just see?!", proof.

Back in the summer of 89, my mother who was pregnant and about to burst with my youngest brother, Kaelan, had taken up a paper route to earn extra cash while being on maternity leave. This wasn't an ordinary paper route that a grade schooler takes up to save money to buy comic books and a cheap necklace for his first girlfriend. This paper route took 4-5 hours every morning to complete.

We had a ritual for this. We would wake up at about 1am or so and head down to this lot where we would get our daily delivery. We had to roll each newspaper, rubber band them, add any and all inserts for the latest coupons and local deals and load them into the car.

I remember my parents buying and old 1978 Ford Fairmont specifically for this job. My mom and I would load all the newspapers in the back and begin delivering newspapers for the next few hours. Before we started our route though we would stop at a local Texaco off of 15th and Market st. in Ballard, WA and gas up, get something to drink and something to snack on. We did this every day for 3 months. The only real redeeming thing about it as that my mom would let me drive sometimes while we took turns hurling newspapers at peoples screen doors and porches.

One clear July morning around 2am, we had completed our load into the car and were heading to the local Texaco again for some Diet Cokes, Gas and munchies like we always did. It wasn't cold at all actually, I remember a warm breeze flowing through the air...I remember it being rather comfortable and tranquil.

We usually took 65th street from 24th to 15th and would take a right down onto 15th to hit Market st. Anyone who has ever been on this flat stretch of road knows exactly where it goes. If you were to continue forward on 65th you would see straight ahead of you a very large and steep incline going up a larger hill into Greenwood. If you continued down it would take you straight to Greenlake.

It was really clear that night, not a cloud in the sky. Ballard was less developed then so after 1am everything was closed down and you could see every bright star in the sky.

In fact, once we reached the intersection of 15th and 65th, we stopped at a 4 way intersection and admired the clear sky and how brilliant it really was. It was so quite you could hear a pin drop as we were the only car in that intersection at the time.

As my mom and I both gazed at the stars and admiring the beauty of the clearest of skies...there it was.

Literally out of no where, appeared a large circular object in the distance, and what I could say may have been about 400-500 feet away. It was was a perfect circle with a bright green hue to it. It was brilliant as it just hovered there. It was so large, the only thing I could describe is if you were to take a baseball and hold it up against the inside of your windshield, that's how big it was.

It sat there for maybe 5-7 seconds while my mom and I just watched, entirely speechless. It then began to travel East...first very slowly and then almost immediately very very rapidly.

I could only tell how far and quickly it traveled for one reason.

Remember that hill I told you about? The one that if you were to continue traveling East on 65th? It's a very high and steep hill and from where we were sitting it was over a mile away from us. This thing went from 0-500mph in mere nanoseconds, you could see the distance it traveled as it grew smaller and smaller as it jetted away from us in just a matter of milliseconds.

Just like that...it was gone.

I've only told a few people this story as when I initially shared this story it was met with pure skepticism and considered silly malarkey. But I know what I saw and without a doubt I knew what it was. There was no question. There were no blinking lights, no blurry weird lights in the distance. It was a clear sky lit brightly from just the moon and stars. It was in fact July, but it wasn't fireworks. There was no smoke trail and it wasn't any kind of firework I've ever seen in my lifetime.

What I saw I can only gather was a moment where I was shown proof of existence outside of our own. I don't know if they had somehow taken a wrong turn somewhere and realized they were way off course, or it was simply observing.

Does this further my belief in what I may define as God. Yes and No. It has proven to me that no, we are not alone in this universe. Does it make me believe that extra terrestrial beings will come and visit us and share their knowledge with us? No. Personally...I dont think our world in its infancy is ready for that...which is why religion today plays such a large role in this. Even if we had irrefutable proof, tangible in my hand kind of proof, would we share it? Would we want to?

Personally, I would be afraid to. I would fear the ever growing and powerful religious ramifications that would and could be inflicted upon me as a result. Our nation amongst others would see a massive religious hysteria and a possible collapse in the stability of our people. It is disheartening, but fact.

However my memory remains and all I can do is share my story. I will never forget that morning. I can't remember the names of all of my high school teachers, or the names of all the skate boarding tricks I knew at the time, but I remember that morning as clearly now as I did when I first saw it.

I've never seen one since though, and I keep looking up at the night sky every time I am stopped anywhere just hoping I can see them again.

Maybe next time, they will stop long enough so I can give them directions.

Watch the weather change...

So some time has past by since I've last update my blog. Lifes been pretty hectic at work and my social life consists mainly of dog kisses and waiting for my next Netflix shipment.

However a great deal has changed since I've updated my blog.

I now live in a 2 bedroom 2 bath apartment, sans room mate. That's right, she's moved out. There were some events, some I am not happy about and some I am, that lead up to this event either way it was necessary in the end.

I will reserve any ill thoughts or words against my old room mate, but I will say that I think she really needs to open her eyes when it comes to her actions in life and those around her. She isn't a very responsible person and I only fear that her constant avoidance of her responsibilities will only result in being overwhelmed and eventually drown in a sea of "I should haves".

It's been nice though. I'm back to my routine of sitting around by myself with Chino in my underwear and carrying on conversations with him. I can only imagine he can understand very few words I am saying that aren't "Food", "Dinner" or "Treats". It has been nice though...for both of us.

Now summer has come and gone, and this year I plan on using some extra cash to put towards making my place a little "warmer". Right now my walls are blank and I want to put some art up. I want to get a new couch or two and a table for the living room with lots of throw rugs. I suspect I will be spending a good amount of time indoors as most of us Seattlelites do doing the winter time, so I want it to feel as warm and inviting as possible.

My birthday came one went with a whimper. I am now 23+10 years old now. I didn't really do much honestly, I just wasn't into it much this year. I've just been too busy to care.

I am really looking forward to the Fall though. I do love Summer more than anything, but I'm ready for comfort food, hot chocolate and watching the leaves change. It also means I will finally be done working on this huge project my group is involved in and the world can enjoy it.

In the meantime, watch the weather change...

Sent from my iPhone

As the world turns...

It's been a few weeks since I've update, and I have good reason. I have been SLAMMED at work. I've been pulling 12 hour days for the last month or so and it's been mentally exhausting. I literally go to work in the AM and go home to eat, feed the dog and sleep. I did take a little mini vacation to sort of decompress but it definitely was not long enough.

I can finally talk a bit about what I've been working on and those with a 360 can possibly imagine the amount of work that is involved. Here's a video showing off what I am helping build for the Xbox 360.



So now it's back to the grind. I didn't get to do much over my vacation. I finally had a good amount of extra spending cash for trips and such but I had to take Chino to the vet and it was very expensive. I can afford it just fine but it just left me without a lot to take a trip with. So I pretty much just spent the weekend hanging out, cleaning and taking care of things I needed to.

I am also finally coming out of the black and into the green financially. If you read any of my previous posts you'd remember how financially raped I was due to my room mate not paying rent for 2 months and having to take care of my own bills on top of that.

Good news is my credit is finally back up since the divorce and I got an offer to buy back my car from the dealership to finance a newer model (with better gas mileage than my 2006 Grand Prix) at a much lower interest rate.

Things are now on the up and up and come September I get my big ass bonus. Part of that is going to be used to take a trip, maybe Italy or Spain...or just Vegas, who knows.

I'm also joining a work out program at the Gym I go to, to tone up some more. Lately I've been kicking my own ass at the gym and I'm a sexy fuck. Girls, watch out.

I'll be updating more regularly as things start to slow down here in a bit, but in the mean time feel free to comment or just drop a line to say "Hi".

Oh and I almost forgot...my little project. Things are coming a long nicely actually. Recently my old buddy had linked some old work that Riot Software (an indy game company I started back in 1997) had done. Someday I will share the story, but yes I ran my own game company for about 5 years. After talking with him I had remembered about this intro video 3 of us had worked on in 99. Essentially it was a simple company intro video that would execute when one of our games would launch, specifically this was for GvT. Just a simple 30 second intro. Check it out!



Also a link to the GvT wallpaper that was made by the talented Jesse Justice based on my concepts.


I think the hardest thing to accomplish was designing a Riot Software logo that actually spelled the word "Riot" *and* looked cool. After many nights and attempts, I finally drew a concept on a napkin on a cafe somewhere. I then went home and redrew it and polished it...I think I still have the original copy.

Mo money, mo problems...

How was everyones 4th of July weekend? Do anything fun or exciting? Mine was pretty low key. Honestly I wasn't all that into it this year. Actually I was hoping to have been hanging out with my dad and family in Missouri over the 4th weekend, however I couldn't afford to go.

It appears my room mate could not come up with her rent at all this month which put me in a pretty crappy financial situation and I'm pretty damn irritated by it. In fact having her tell me how wonderful and great her 4th celebration was, while she went out of town, just pissed me off more. I couldn't really do much myself, didn't have the money to really do much...why? Because I had to pay all the rent and bills on my own.

I'm glad she had such a great time, while I sat around broke. I'm glad she shared this with me also. I love hearing about skirting any real responsibility while I take the brunt of the shit allowed her to have such a great time.

uggh rant over.

Anyone looking for a place to live?

Though I did go out with Natalie and saw Hancock, I really enjoyed it actually. Then we went and got happy hour drinks at this new bowling alley at Lincoln Square in Bellevue. This place was actually really cool. I's not your typical bowling alley that wreaks of old shoes and grease. Tis place is damn classy. Reminds me of a place you'd see in Vegas. Any of you that read this, really need to check this place out. They even had Bud Light bottled in Bowling Pin shaped bottles. Lucky Strike

How awesome is that.

I dedicate this to my room mate:

What?!

Ok, the fucking internet just won.

"The sanctity of this blog has been fouled..."

After 8 years of wondering, confusion, wishing, dreaming and endless nights of weeping in the fetal position of my bathtub...it has finally come.

Diablo 3.

Back in 1996 when I began to take my first step into a long journey of working in the game industry, there was one game that took a hold of me and would never let go, even 10 years later. This game had me enchanted, bewildered and under a long dark spell that resulted in endless nights of amazement and carpal tunnel.

The game was a masterpiece. This was Diablo.

From the dark gothic undertones and fables of a strange enchanted world overcome by a menacing evil, to the beautiful soundtrack provided by the talented Matt Uelmen, the game was a masterpiece. I was lucky enough to have been accepted into the very limited beta program for this game. I was stunned at the quality of the game for its time, the online coop modes and the depth of simple gameplay it had offered, was nothing short of fantastic.

This was the first game I ever worked on and I was hooked.

I then landed the arduous task of working officially on the add on pack, Hellfire for Diablo 1. Unfortunately I was not a fan of this add on. It was not an officially sanctioned add on from Blizzard Entertainment. It was simply a hack job that Sierra had put together using existing assets from Blizzard. This was done through the sister partnership that Sierra had with Blizzard as they were both owned by Davidson and Associates, which was later bought out by CUC International.

The add on really took away from the story and changed the feel of the game, I was not a fan of this. I still have my copy sitting on my shelf where it will remain though I hear it's pretty hard to come by these days.

A few years later I was salivating for more and Diablo 2 was unleashed onto the world. This meant I was again slapping my arm to find a vein to inject liquid hot Diablo into my body for years to come. Girlfriends and jobs came and went, but Diablo 2 remained. My addiction had worsened when the Lord of Destruction add on came out for Diablo 2.

However, after my long Diablo 2 career was over I was left wanting more. Where is 3? There were no hints, no suggestions by Blizzard that Diablo 3 was even a possibility. This went on for 8 long years. Yes, 8. I worked on the original over 10 years ago, in fact I still have my original copy from then, including the beta.

After one of the heads of Blizzard, Bill Roper, departed Blizzard it seemed that Diablo 3 was going to be a long wait...and this worsened when the original team, Blizzard North was essentially disintegrated. It seemed that Diablo 3 would never happen.

Until...

Two weeks ago, Blizzard started displaying teaser images on their homepage. It was an evolving image that would change every 24 hours to reveal something else within the image. There was a great deal of speculation in regards to what the reveal was going to be. Websites sprang up all over the place, dedicated to unraveling yet another Blizzard mystery.

On July 28th in Paris, France during the World Wide Invitational held by Blizzard, the final image was revealed, and it showed us that Diablo 3 is indeed coming.

Diablo 3 has apparently been in development since 2004. In fact the game has gone under 3 strong revisions to get it right, which is something Blizzard is notoriously known for.

Now I wouldn't normally make such a long and involved post about a video game. However Diablo holds a very special place in my heart. It was the first game I ever worked on. It was the game that made me want to work in the industry, it was my inspiration of things to come.

And now, I get to endure endless, sleepless nights and carpal tunnel for the 3rd time.

say what?

Commenting is now fixed. Originally it was setup so that only people with Google accounts could log in and comment. This block has been removed so now anyone can comment. Just click the "comments" link at the bottom of any post, type whatever you want and submit.

Voila!

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Well I was finally able to get my brother an interview at the big company I happen to work at. Actually it wasn't all that difficult considering I know he has the skills and the aptitude for the position.

In fact it was rather quick. I had already helped him out with his resume to add some polish and organize it a bit. I had a couple of friends that I forwarded his resume to that happen to work for headhunting services helping to supply jobs for people in this industry. It had been a week and I was growing impatient. Yesterday I sent his resume to another rep and within 5 minutes he got a phone call and an interview scheduled for the next day.

Well so far so good. He showed up early to the interview and from what I gathered from him, it seems he did a pretty damn good job. I really really want this for him too. Granted he's going to have to start from the ground up just a tad, we all did. But the truth is time is getting shorter for him, he's at a point where he should be thinking about a career and his future...as a lot of us know...know one is going to do it for us. Well at least, not all of us are fortunate enough to have that novelty.

We met up for a smoke outside and chatted, showed him my office and such and he seems really excited. In fact I am really excited for him. I really believe in him and I know that if he does this and excels he can do a lot of good for himself and be a happier person for it.

He's a smart guy and he goes for what he wants. I admire his unnerved, and even somewhat cocky approach to life. I once used to have this myself to some degree. I think being shot from the heavens so many times helps develop a healthy fear of flying...and well yeah this is something I need to personally work on.

I want to see him revel in his success in whatever capacity that may be. But I want to see him be proud of himself, see his self worth grow and mature. I think honestly this will be something that will bring us closer together which I believe is long over due.

I try to stay close to my brothers, but I have my own reasons that I have initiated my own personal transgressions with portions of my family. It's a long history and one I will hint at, but does not belong in this post.

He has a great deal of potential I just wish he saw this also. I know it's difficult and people say the same thing about me, and well it's hard for me to see it also. I think that just comes down to us being our own worst critics and it's hard to really see beyond that. I just try to focus on my accomplishments for which most I had acquired on my own the hard way. And with that I wave in complete admiration and appreciation to the giants in the distance on which shoulders I stood to reach my own success.

Now it's my turn to be a giant, and let my brother ride high on my shoulders so he can get a clear view of his own future in the distance.

You've made me proud man, you really have.

Update: yep even more...

So soon I am going to setup a simple alias for my friends and family within this blog. Basically it will be a simple email address, and as long as your phone can send txt and sms messages you can use it.

Basically as part of a personal project I am putting together, it will allow you to share your own pictures with me and everyone else. This pictures will be made public so lets keep them PG rated (or R rated is fine too) and make you it is something you want to send before hitting "send".

I will supply directions for setting this up, it's super easy. Just remember that your standard data plan for txt'ing and charges apply.

Ruby

enjoying the champagne of beers.

Monday

it's been a long one

Flickr feed added...

To the right below the Twitter feed is the new Flickr feed. I've already added a good deal of pictures to it already. Just click on one of the pictures and it will display in a new window within your browser. If you have any technical issues feel free to comment and I will take a look.

The feed is also set to grab pics I send to it with my phone while I'm out.

more to come...

So for those who actually come to visit this blog will notice I've slowly been integrating more features into the blog. Most of these features are being pulled from other social networking site to which I belong.

One example is Twitter. Twitter is essentially a real time (or as close as it can be) widget just to the right (your right, meaning over there ----->) that will be pulling updates I can send from my phone, anywhere. Usually they are fairly pointless, but if you are interested, they are there.

I've also setup the blog to receive pics and videos from my phone. Since I am fairly mobile, I found this was the best way for everyone to keep track of what I am doing and where I am going. Soon I will be adding my Facebook and Flickr account to the blog so you'll be able to see more of my pictures and such.

This has definitely been a bit of a learning process as most of the other features I am adding aren't necessarily designed to work with blogger and mobile devices, but I've been doing alright so far.

So aside from the page updates...

Life's been good, if not somewhat boring. I don't go out all that much anymore really. When I do it's usually with other single guys I know from work. We all work in different groups in the company, but we all share the same experiences for the most part. Most of my close friends are either in serious relationships, married, or married with children. I am happy for all of them really. However being this, I don't really get invited out to many activities with them, and I fully understand this. Although I'm not technically single, I do live on my own and probably will remain doing so for many many years to come. That's just how it is.

Unfortunately Chino isn't a great conversationalist. I love my buddy more than anything, but he isn't very good at golf, and isn't big on bars.

Either way I am planning some trips here soon. I am hoping to visit my dad in MO sometime soon. I was hoping for the weekend of the 4th but that's not looking likely. I have about 2 weeks of paid vacation to use up here soon. What do you think I should do with it.

See the little comment icon down there? Yeah you can leave me comments and suggestions down there...feel free to use it.

:Kris

A young schizophrenic named Struther,
When told of the death of his brother,
Said: "Yes, it's too bad,
But I can't feel too sad –
After all, I still have each other."

– Anonymous

spring is here...

Yep, Spring is finally here. After a long dreary, cold and wet Winter here in Washington, the sun has finally come out of hibernation. I am really looking forward to this Spring/Summer. I am going to be looking at taking my first vacation...ever, as an adult. I am going to be looking at homes to buy and I look forward to many good times with Chino and I going out for walks.

As far as the single life is going. I'm having a great time with it honestly. However I will say it's had it's ups and downs, with that, I am definitely done with this internet dating crap. Trough, kaput, adios, dasvidana.

Granted I dont have much of an issue meeting women at all, this has never been the problem. Meeting decent women? That's a different story.

With my recent experience I had one girl sleeping in my bath tub after going into a huge crying fit because she couldn't sleep due me and Chino's snoring...wtf? Another women I met seemed nice enough, but apparently thought we were in a relationship after only talking for 30minutes on the phone.

The next day I received 7 text messages on my cell, and about 10 emails. Each getting progressively more needy and dysfunctional as the next. They went from "Hey how was your morning, was great talking to you!" to "Hey me again, just wondering what's up?!" to "Wow, you are kind of a jerk, why are you ignoring me?" Now had we actually been dating, this would have been the shortest relationship in history. We literally dated, moved in together, got married and divorced in a period of 14 hours...worst of it is we never even met.

She can keep the potholders and CD's ;)

Anyhow...I look forward to a nice relaxing summer, boating on Lake Union, walks with the dog and a cubic ass load of work ;)

I promise to update this more often. I also apologize for the resolution on the pics I post. I am actually capturing them from my phone and send them via MMS message to my blog, which then posts them automagically.

take is easy internets.

WUT?

yes these actually exist.

They had these in our snack machine at work. Never seeing them before I had to buy them and at least try one.

First of all this bag is about 300 calories...yes 300! And a serving size is what, 8 chips? And let me tell you they taste like fart. Seriously these things taste like the inside of a prosthetic leg.

DO NOT WANT!

Avoid these if you see them, I still cant get the taste of old foot out of my mouth.

Who does this?

Sleepy boy.

Meet Chino.