When things are tough, what are your sources for coping? Here’s a brief list of mine. My wife My kids My sister-in-law The people I work with Learning new “Tech” Internet Communities Learning new things Helping others Passing on skills to others Reading a good book.

I’m trying to get some hobbies. I’ve focused on my job for so long that I haven’t really developed a sort of “normal” life. There is no home life. Only work at office and work from home. But this sabbatical I’m on has been helpful. Today my boys and I explored the woods around our house and saw a lot of deer. I’ve been researching a bit on deer habitat and it’s really interesting to find out how deer live.  Since learning more about “Deer beds” I’ve been able to spot them all over the ...

So much going on this year. 2010 is THE year. 2009…ugh. For our family, 2009 was awful.  My wife’s closest friend since childhood died of cancer. It is something that we are still coming to terms with. Few people have close friends from the time they’re small children all the way through their adult lives consistently.  And professionally 2009 was rough. Demigod’s launch was a very difficult time.  When it came out, the network libraries we had licensed just didn...

As I type this, I'm outside. It's October 7th and yet the weather in northern Michigan is quite warm (70 degres right now at 11:30pm).  I'm not just outside though. I'm outside at the cottage at the lake.  Above me it is totally clear. I can see the milky way (the literal cloud of stars) which I can't see from home due to light pollution. The waves are gently reaching shore about 10 meters in front of me.  There's no bugs,it's just quite (other than the waves) and peacefu...

I've taken vacations in the past but never anything like the vacation I'm on.  It's pure duration.  Even when I've gone to Disney World, it's been a 5 or so day trip with 2 of those days traveling. But this year, for the first time since I've had a company, I've taken a serious vacation -- 10 straight days (2 of them traveling).  What a difference a few extra days can make.  I don't know about you, but for me, the first 72 hours of a vacation are spend decompressi...

Just got back from up north at our new cottage. With pictures to prove it! Ashely and daddy Paddle boat on the beach. Main room at the cottage View from back door of cottage

I've taken up beekeeping as some of you know. And I'm realy enjoying it. The gotcha is that you're not supposed to mess with the bees very often. I find myself going out there and opening up the hive nearly every day which is a big no no (because it really disturbs them apparently) but what kind of hobby is one that you only go out there every few weeks? I've tried to get into cars a bit. Ever since I got my Jaguar S-Type R, I've started appreciating cars more. But it's hard to find a dece...

Maybe I'm starting to get old or something but I'm ready for a vacation.  Since last Summer, I've only had a scattering of days off (all pre-determined holidays).  This Winter we finished up GalCiv II: Dark Avatar which involved a couple of all-nighters and massive hours.  So I definitely have the time. I have 13 personal days (I used 2 to go up North a couple weeks ago) plus around 10 make up days from weekends and extra hours put in.  I'll never end up using them al...

Hour 29: By 3pm on Friday, I was definitely starting to feel some fatigue.  Part of that was that my eating schedule had been messed up. I didn't really have a normal breakfast and lunch I walked over to McDonalds and had a burger and coke. I had a ton of meetings late afternoon on Friday and was able to function at relative full capacity. Hour 33: By 7pm I was ready to come home. Having gotten home and had dinner, I found myself abruptly starting to nod off. It came pretty ...

The joke at Stardock is that in the summer we might as well  be in the landscaping business. Things get so easy going. But the Winter gets different. That's our busy season and this year is especially busy with Windows Vista on the way, the need to get Galactic Civilizations Gold Edition (GalCiv + Dark Avatar) put together for manufacturing for Walmart and elsewhere, and just the company's rapid growth has shown that our company structure hasn't scaled very well. To that end, I have ...

A couple of years ago I wrote this blog about my own personal origins . In various debates on JU I know I come across as a total jerk. And there is a reason for that -- I am a jerk.  I'm not proud of being a jerk, it's just something I've come to realize over the years.  There are worse things than being a jerk though. But what exactly is a jerk? A jerk, like most epitaphs, is someone who is not conforming to some rule of our society.  As a society, we have an unwritten set ...

It is always at night when the darkness comes..

Every day is a battle. A battle between fight or flight. A battle between positive and negative interpretation. One of the things I've learned over the years is that happiness and unhappiness are largely chemical states in the brain.  Things like money and material wealth don't help with happiness. They can, at best, limit the number of negative vectors. That is, decrease the number of things that can cause stress. But the clever mind can always find new things to work with.  ...

  Draginol is a character in a series of unpublished stories I've been writing for the past 20 years. Draginol is the main villain in the stories he's in. My first job was taking out the garbage for my neighbors in the apartment complex we lived in for 10 cents per bag. I was 5 years old when I started the trash service. I will tend to lose my equilibrium on airline flights unless I take a prescribed drug. I was 33 the first time I got a cold serious enough to require m...

It's been another long week.  I went to bed at 6:30am this morning, got up at around 10am and worked until around 11pm.  My schedule is pretty screwed up at this point.  But I think we've turned the corner in terms of work.  GalCiv stuff... We got Galactic Civilizations II 1.0X out the door.  I certainly hope it's "good enough".  It's really difficult to tell on so many different systems. I always get worried that we'll put something out and there will be s...