San Francisco Musings

On the train listening to John Denver; he channels the voices of angels in the heavens. GDC was certainly a wonderful week. I think I enjoyed myself even more because I went in with no expectations what so ever. Did I think I was going to hike the hill in Berkeley or check out Alcatraz? No chance, but was that only the beginning of a great week? Most definitely.

There’s a funny story about that hike. Alex, my partner in crime, and I had gotten off the trail and were making our way through a fairly unused path to this paved road that we felt would’ve taken us down if we hadn’t come back the way we went up. We’re climbing through what we expect is rather poisonous brush. The final leg before hitting the road becomes practically vertical. We take separate paths and are making our way up downed trees and brush and thorny leaves. We finally make it to the top and meet this jogger and SVU owner who are both laughing. The jogger jokes about the fact that they expected zombies to pop out of the brush. She only heard loud rattling and had no idea what was there. Did I expect to ever be mistaken for a zombie? No chance. Even funnier was the fact that I dressed up as a zombie for the last Halloween.

It was a busy week after that, filled with lunches and dinners and drinking with friends that I haven’t seen in a long time. The first day of lectures was great. If there is anything to be taken from GDC, it’s inspiration to try and work on the latest and greatest technology available. Recent advancements can always motivate you.

I just remembered a dream from last night but I have no idea what it is. I remember it being something to do with my basement and looking for things. For some reason, someone gave all of their stuff up for grabs. I knew where a couple of caches were and already know I was going to miss the main cache so I went straight for the second one. I remember getting some things that I wanted but I still wasn’t too satisfied. So I went for the primary cache to see what I could get. The person there had said they had gone through it and got everything they wanted but to my surprise there were still piles of stuff left over that I wanted to sort through to see if there was anything in particular that I’d like. I want to say that all these things were toys but I’m not really sure. What’s interesting is the fact that this strategy is my usual one. I tend to take the road less traveled to get where I want if the main road seems too congested.

John Denver just told me that he’d really like to grow old. It’s unfortunate that he didn’t get the chance to do so, but it made me think about it. My immediate reaction is that once I’ve reached a certain age, perhaps my midlife crisis, I won’t want to go back to being young; I would actually just want to be old at that point. And I thought about what it would take for me to feel that content with my life that I’d be fine with being old when I’ve only hit my 40s. My goal is really to impact the industry that I’m in. I know that I’m smart enough to make a difference, but I might fall into a trap of the unsung hero; there are many of them. An important thing to note is the fact that those who go down in a blaze of gunfire, and get all the glory that goes with it, do so on their own terms. They aren’t cogs in a wheel at a massive corporation. However, it is also important to note that those who do things on their own terms can just as easily end up in a life of supreme mediocrity and may actually end up being pushed around because they couldn’t prove that their own terms were worth investing in.