The Epic

That's the longest break from blogging I've ever taken. It wasn't an "on-purpose" thing--it was more of an "I really don't have time to do any blogging" thing. I'll recap the last month or so.

I went to Vegas at the end of April for the GAMA Trade Show. It was very good and we received some great feedback from people about the new games we're making.

Money for the company is not yet here, but things are looking good. So, maybe we'll be able to really get a lot done in the next handful of weeks. That's the hope at least.

I've spent most of my time looking for stopgap work and succeeding in getting some freelance work from WizKids (which was a great time) and some editing for Green Ronin for their upcoming Paragons setting. Those two projects coincided, so all of my days and nights were taken up with work for a few weeks there. It was bad timing in terms of deadlines, but I need the money to live, so I'll take it.

Just in case the money for the new company doesn't come through, I'm looking for full-time work as well. I've been successful in finding some interesting positions and really wouldn't mind getting a regular paycheck. The only thing I really need to figure out if/when I get a job, is what that means for my involvement in Red Juggernaut.

I picked up some freelance work yesterday with my old boss from WizKids, Jordan, but I don't know what I'll be doing and probably can't talk about it anyway. We're meeting on Friday to discuss details.

A couple of weeks ago I had dinner with Shane Hensley and a couple of other guys (most of whom I hadn't met before). It was nice to see Shane while he was in town. I had a nice lunch last week on Thursday with Wolfgang Bauer who gave me some good tips on pursuing work with Microsoft. He's a good guy and I really enjoyed talking with him. And, I may get some freelance work from him, too. Friday I had lunch with Chris Pramas and toured the Flying Labs offices. They're up on Queen Anne and the area looked really nice. They certainly have a lot of options for lunch.

I finally listed some of my WizKids stuff on eBay a couple of weeks ago. That went well and the sales are helping to keep Julia and I afloat while money comes in sporadically. It's a little painful to sell off some of the sets I've worked on, but paying my mortgage certainly takes precedence over wanting to keep them. I'll be listing more stuff soon. I just have to get the pictures cleaned up a bit first.

My car was having issues for a while; the CHECK ENGINE light kept coming on for no apparent reason and then turning off again at random. Well, finally about two weeks ago (yes, everything came to a head about two weeks ago, no joke) the light started flashing at me and the engine sputtered a bit whenever I gave it some gas, so I decided to get it looked at. Julia's brother-in-law works over at Nix Auto in Ballard, so we had the car towed there. Turns out it was some connections to the spark plugs. So, they replaced those and gave me new spark plugs and the car purrs like a kitten again . . . a Subaru Outback kitten. And they washed it! Woohoo!

Also about two weeks ago (exactly two weeks ago as of Wednesday) Julia had her gall bladder removed. She'd been having some really painful episodes and the doctors couldn't pinpoint anything, so they suggested removing her gall bladder. She was laid up for a few days, so I was taking care of her, but now she's up and around and things are good. She has four little incisions that are healing nicely, and although she's a little sleepy still, she's feeling much better. We just had the follow-up visit with the doctor today and he said she came through perfectly and he seemed very pleased that she was off the painkillers already.

And my watch broke sometime in the last couple of weeks. Yes, Julia and I have joked about how everything hit at once.

I've continued to run my Sunday D&D game. That's actually been going well for quite a while now. The players are all 5th level now. In case you're curious, the group is: Grace, a warforged fighter; Quae'Ror, a human artificer; Molly, a human wizard (necromancer); and Gan, a changeling rogue (with one level of fighter). It seems like they're rocketing up in level, but I think we've been playing the game for six or seven months now, so I guess it's taking an appropriate amount of time.

The Tuesday game is also going well. The last session of Warhammer was a blast and the characters are moving quickly into their second career--something that none of the players have ever done in previous Warhammer games they've played, so that's pretty cool. Alternating with that is a Spirit of the Century game. I'm really enjoying that (and not just because it's the only game I get to play in), but I still don't quite grok some of the parts of the game system. I have to sit down and read more of the rules. Regardless, it's a lot of fun.

I have an interview tomorrow and another lined up for sometime next week. I'll let you know how those go.

Okay, I'm pretty sure that's everything.

I'll update soon.