Next Chapters

The first Slice of Life! These notes will be pretty informal and more about my hobbies, and life stuff.

Here's a bit of what I got going on this week:

1. Interviews!

I'm steady searching for the next chapter in my career as a software engineer. I've applied to a lot of great opportunities, and I've had some great colleagues in the field refer me to folks in their network. One of the reasons I've made this site is for professional purposes. The goal is to showcase that I'm motivated, a self-starter, and eager to learn new things. My first and most recent Tech Talk on AWS for IoT was to prepare for an upcoming interview.

I'm mainly looking for opportunities around the West Michigan area, and remote opportunities across the U.S. Just recently I interviewed with Sony Interactive Entertainment, for a SWE position on a Playstation team no less! Unfortunately I had to turn it down, as the opportunity requires a on-site presence at their office location in another State. It was a bummer, as that was a unicorn of a opportunity for someone who has been playing videogames since before I could tie my shoes. However, if my work experience is impressive enough for Playstation to be interested, then I am confident that the right opportunity for me will come around sooner than later.

2. My Wedding Anniversary!

My wife and I have been together for 10 years now, and we'll be married for 3 of those years this upcoming Thursday. We met in 2016 when we both started college, and have been inseparable ever since. She is my best friend, my rock, and my lifeboat. Our big plans for the occasion? Steaks at Butcher's Union, and likely watching Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord.

3. Being Glued to my Desk

I've got this site deployed, now I need to populate it with cool stuff! I've got some Pico-8 games I've made with Lua, and will be working to embed them onto the site for people to try out. I'm also interested in getting some experience with the Microsoft tech stack, so I've got a nice webapp idea planned out that I'll likely start chipping away on this week. The source code will be accessible on the projects page in due time if you're curious and want to keep up with progress.

I've recently started being a supporting developer for a niche indie roleplaying game that I'm fond of called trace/ALTER. The game is built using Dream Maker, a language that is comparable to C/C++ and Python, and runs on the BYOND game engine. I've been getting my feet wet by auditing the source code for skill trees, and making small changes that resolve issues reported by the community of players. BYOND is old as hell. It's been interesting trying to understand the limitations of the single-threaded engine, while seeing the ambition the game creator has already implemented in the game's existing systems. The game itself is a great outlet for creative writing. I particularly enjoy the magic system, and the world-building that has created the foundation of the game's events. I look forward to the upcoming season and experiencing the creativity that comes from the community.

That's about all I can think of for now. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading my ramblings. I've got some ideas in the pipeline that I'll be working towards soon, like setting up a salsa garden on my patio, completing a stained glass artwork with my wife, and getting back to learning how to play the banjo I built last year.

Take care of yourself!