Good morning and happy Monday! Wait that is not right…Happy Tuesday! Hopefully everyone had a great holiday weekend and used that time off to get some much needed relaxation in, or if you are like me, perused another hobby. Regardless I hope the time was spent doing some sort of activity that you enjoy.

I figured since this is where I do a lot of my own ramblings about what is seemingly my life, I will talk a bit about my weekend.

All things considered it went really well. Back into the work out full swing, this from what others have told me is doing wonders for me. I think the best one that I heard in regards to a lot of my physical change was “You have really matured and it looks good one you”, or something along those lines.

Past that and of course some of the little household chores that help keep the place clean and stocked with food, I started up my stream again. Nothing to serious just something to do in the evenings before clocking out for the night. So far it has been really fun and a huge thanks to all of the people who has stopped out and watched me get scared as well as wrecked in Bloodborne.

But the reason I started that stream up was not so that I could just play games in front of an audience. But as a way of generating money to give to a charity. I am in a really good place in life, and I honestly do not need much to be happy, so I am able to live comfortably with my current job. This stream will just serve as a nice project of 3-4 hours a night gaming and if any type of donations come in, goes to a charity.

What I plan to do regardless of if I get donations or not, is to donate about one-hundred a month to a charity.

The only problem here is that I do not know of any charities at all or have done much research into it. If you my readers are in the know of any charities please share and I will look into them.

So anyways, yeah! Streaming will be a bit of a thing going forward. At least for about a month, to see how it goes or if it affects my sleep (read: four hours a night) schedule.

Other then all that fun, I continued to work through the Mistborn series that I have been reading. Man, this has so many twists and turns, but is such a great read. Also deceptively long, by that I mean it seems like it would be a short book but it really is not. This is always a good thing for a good book!

And it dawns on me that in two weeks I am throwing myself out of a plane. Why did I sign up for sky diving again?

Alright everyone, have a wonderful day.

Good afternoon!

Hope that the day has been a lovely one so far and that the morning was relaxed. I can easily say that mine was, albeit five days with out working out and then jumping back into it…that was kind of rough this morning. Past that though, I am currently writing this post up as a nerf gun war is breaking out in my office.

Have I mentioned how much I enjoy this job?

Well this weekend is a holiday, so hopefully everyone has some fun things planned! I am to finish up a book series that I have been reading (Mistborn) and to get a little bit further in Monster Hunter. I can’t really place why, but I have been enjoying mobile gaming a lot more to the traditional sitting at a computer.

I think it mostly comes from the mindset that I set all day at a desk that I don’t want be going home to do the exact same thing for another few hours.

I had discussed at one point, or maybe I had just thought it, but I did plan to start streaming again. Still totally in the works and a thought that I am having right now is just the best type of schedule as well as my whole brand. Not to mention platform and everything else under the umbrella that is streaming.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. Talk with you next week.

Good afternoon!

Yep, I am back! Took a wonderful little vacation. Well, it was not really a vacation as much as it was working. But I will get into that here in a moment. Before that I just want to say that I hope all of you are doing well. And with this upcoming holiday weekend I hope that there are fun plans in the works.

So for those just tuning in and wondering where I was the past week, I journeyed out to Seattle for a convention known as PAX Prime. A brief explanation about what the convention is all about would be that it is a place where gamers from all over can come together and play some of the new hit titles that had been announced or that will be coming out soon. Not to mention just be surrounded by like minded community. Chances are very high that you will find someone who plays a game that you enjoy as well. The opportunity to make new friends is pretty great!

So that is a short version of what the convention is for attendees. I take it up another notch. I am an enforcer for PAX, what that means is that I volunteer my time to help oversee the convention to make sure that it is running smoothly. The past two years I was one of the voices for PC entertainment, where I was on the microphone and playing some really nice tunes. This year however I stepped up and became an exhibitor assistant, XA for short. I was assigned as spare board but then assigned as a floater for all of the streaming exhibitors, so that would be Twitch, YouTube, MSI, Maker Polaris, and a few other ones in between. I was a bit skeptical at first for the position because I was really hoping to be assigned to one booth but I really ended up enjoying doing what I did for spare board. However next year I would enjoy working just for twitch, they did seem to like me a lot there so I have a pretty good report going with them at least.

So let’s get more to the interesting part of what made this PAX different then the ones in the past.

In the past I approached the convention with the goals of working in the industry one day, and that this was one of the many places where I would be able to network, make a name for myself, and possibly get a chance at a decent job out of the whole trip. This time however, I went with a completely different mindset and I was testing myself to see that the changes I have made in my personal life are ones that I am happy with, to give myself more of a certainty to the actions. I can report that, I am happy with the way my life is now and the direction that it is going. Sure I met a lot of cool people this past weekend, I even got a few different job opportunities at some pretty nice names in the industry, however I kindly turned them down.

I was worried that I would not have been able to enjoy PAX with out that motive of trying to get into the industry, and I had discovered that I was wrong. Boy was I wrong!

Honestly, there are a lot of things that I would love to say about PAX and the trip as a whole, however I think one thing does stand amongst the others that is just glaring.

It is okay to change.

It is okay to change your own lifestyle and find something that makes you happy. So many events in our life happen so quickly that sometimes it feels as if we are pressured to lock in some sort of plan for the future. To know what we are going to college for or where we want to work. While I was speaking with attendee’s this weekend, I asked them where they would love to be in the industry, or what are some of the areas they enjoy about the industry as apposed to what are you going to school for. Why pigeon hold yourself to something that you may not even like?

For the money?

If you answer yes to that then I think that you should sit down and really think about what it is that you are doing. If you are going to school because you are passionate about say Nursing and helping people, then by god you are saint among us. On the flip side if you are going through medical school just because you know being nurse is good money, well then you may not like what you are getting into at all.

Take chances, try out new opportunities!

I would have never known I had a knack for blacksmithing if I had never tried it, or that camping and stargazing are an amazing way to spend a weekend had I just stay inside the whole time. That is not to say that that sitting inside is bad. Would you say that you love playing video games and have a strong opinion on mechanics? Try starting up a YouTube channel or even a stream on Twitch. Start a blog about cooking or baking, take some fancy photos and edit them with another program other than instagram.

After this trip and slight vacation I honestly have come to the realization that so many people lock themselves into the same pattern and don’t want to change. Do not want to try for that happiness. I honestly thought that working in the industry would have been amazing, my dream job, I would have been so happy and ecstatic. I think now, that it is a wonderful place to work sure, however I don’t enjoy it as much that I was hoping for. I would rather work on my tan laying on beach in a hammock (read: I burn rather than tan), then stuck being cooped up all day inside.

Take that chance, go chase that happiness. Just do it for yourself, because no one else is going to help you.

It is wonderful to be back and I will talk with you all tomorrow.

Morning and what a wonderful Wednesday.

Today is going to be short and sweet. Well shorter than most I suppose.

So as I have mentioned before, I am flying out to Seattle for PAX Prime. Great convention that is all about video games and the communities surrounding them. So first and for most I will not be posting the rest of this week as well as a few days next week. Mostly due to traveling and not having the time to sit down and fully write something up. However there will be a decent write up when I get back.

As to what I want to mention today, is in relation to PAX. I have said before that I have mostly drifted away from game development and the gaming industry. Just not who I really am anymore. I enjoy the quick games where I do not have to sit down at a desk and commit a few hours into said game. To keep the topic on hand and not going into the reasons underneath, I did not make the choices I have to date, only to turn around and throw all of the hard work that I have done away.

This to me, not only will be a great experience for me to meet new people which I do so much enjoy, but also allows me to test myself and help put into perspective the choices that I have made. Not just that though, but it will also allow me to refine and strengthen those choices.

I like who I am now and who I am becoming, it is going to be simply interesting looking and participating at PAX with a new perspective on the event as a whole.

Have a wonderful week, and I promise that my next post will be a lengthy one.

Safe travels.

Happy Tuesday! Or to some whom I work with second Monday. I don’t see why all the hate for Tuesdays, or Mondays for that matter. Regardless, I started my day off right with a peanut butter and jelly…pop tart. Yeah, that is right, a pop tart. Mostly this was due to science and wanting to see if it tasted good.

The pop tart was alright.

Anyways on to my random thoughts of the day.

I watch a lot of TED talks. In fact I have one to share today at the end of this blog. However it was yesterday that I was watching a few that related to “Working Smarter”. Really great playlist over at TED that I encourage everyone to check out. There were a lot of great talks that really resonated with me. Ones that went over meetings and managers, leadership, the formula of success just to hit the spectrum a bit.

One that stood out to me the most was a talk where the presenter asked “Where do you go to get work done?”. Well? I bet you didn’t answer the office. Because I did not nor did most other people in the world who he also asked that exact question. Lots of people said places such as kitchen, starbucks, basement, den, the deck, living room, the assortment was large and not one of them said or mentioned the office.

Which in itself is strange right? Thousands and thousands of dollars get spent to make a place where employees are able to get work done yet that is the last place someone wants to be. I think that has something to do with one the environment, and two the distractions that happen while working.

I get a majority of my work done early in the morning, barely anyone in the office and when the distractions are hardly there. No crazy last minute meetings or managers breathing down my neck. Nice, quiet and further more distraction free. Now I want to go out and say that a vast majority of the time, which is like 99%, that everything runs smoothly here where I work. The only time I have ever felt that I was wasting my time was partaking in meetings that have little to no value or that was something that could have been E-mailed, IM’ed or what I prefer just stopping next to my desk and giving me an update. No real reason to pull me away for an hour for something that takes five to ten minutes to explain it in a quick one on one.

I do not know, maybe I am just weird.

But I want to end this post today with a question and a TED talk.

Where do you get the most work done?

Talk to you guys tomorrow.