Happy Belated Easter!

Sorry for the long delay between the last post and this one. When I started this blog I had resolved to keep it updated much more consistently and frequently than I had managed to do with my other blogs. Guess that hasn't happened recently, has it? But as most of youu can imagine, a lot of stuff has been going on in my life recently, and keeping this thing updated hasn't been on my mind too much. However, thanks to a few friendly nudges from Travis, who's also started keeping a blog on here, I was shaken back to reality. On to the updates!

First and foremost, happy belated Easter to everyone! I hope the day found you well and you were able to spend it with loved ones. Of almost equal importance in my book is the fact that I am now a fully certified call analyst for J. Lodge! The training took a month and I've been "on the job" for two weeks now. Let me say that the difference between working for J. Lodge and working for Alpine Access as a customer service agent for 1-800-FLOWERS has been like the difference between night and day. The work may get a little monotonous and humdrum, but there's something appealing and empowering about helping people improve themselves.

It's been almost a year since I switched from using a PC to a Mac. Once I found out that Apple had developed Boot Camp to allow users to install Windows alongside the Mac OS, I jumped at the chance to switch. Boot Camp proved indispensable during my stint with Alpine. Likewise, J. Lodge uses Windows. However, the software we use there doesn't currently support Windows Vista, so a few of my co-workers have to use Virtual PC to install Windows XP on top of Vista in a so-called "virtual machine."

I just bought Vista off eBay after hearing of a program called Parallels Desktop, which essentially does the same thing for Intel Macs that VPC does for Windows. I've downloaded a trial edition and am pleased to report that it works perfectly. It even has a so-called "coherence mode" that makes Windows programs share the same space on your desktop as the Mac stuff.

To show you what I mean, here's a screenshot of yours truly's desktop.

On to something else. Many of you know that I have cerebral palsy and have a Medtronic implantable pump that delivers a drug called baclofen (a muscle relaxant) into the area around my spinal cord, much like a woman getting an epidural in labor. I've had one since 1996, and I'm on my second (implanted 5 years later). Here's a drawing showing where the pump--about the size of a hockey puck--is located in my body, and how it's connected to my spine.Anyway, I have to get the pump refilled about once every 2 months, by a simple injection into a port under my skin, and I went in last Thursday. The nurse who refilled it immediately started talking about the fact that I might need to get the device replaced soon--as early as this summer. Something didn't seem right, especially since the expected service life of the pump is about 6 years, and I've had this one for just over 5. I had to go to the hospital again the day before yesterday to get my dose adjusted, but wasn't able to talk to another nurse until today.

To be perfeclty honest, Shaye--the nurse who refilled the pump--isn't nearly as "with it" as is Tricia, the nurse who normally does it. In speaking with Tricia, most of my fears were put to rest. She said that some patients have been reporting that their pumps don't work as well or as accurately as they should as they age, and that I should just watch my symptoms to see if I notice any changes. However, she said I should be good until at least fall, and more than likely January or so. Phew.

That's much more like it. I have a busy summer planned including a cruise to Bermuda in July, and I even have some stuff I'm looking at doing in the fall. So, it's nice not to have surgery looming in my head.

There's some more I wanted to update everyone on, but I must be off for now. Travis, hold me to doing another minor update by the end of the week so I can fill in the missing info. Until then!

Training Continued! Leon Ho!

After being in training for J. Lodge for quite a while now, I can officially say I truly am happy to be there. True, I'll be earning about a dollar less per hour (at least initially) than I did at Alpine Access (but with opportunities for raises a year from now, or sooner if I move to full-time before then, but I doubt I will). However, you have to weigh the slightly lower pay against the greatly reduced stress and opportunity for greater productivity and possible promotion in the future.

Anyway, today was the first day my co-workers (some of them, anyway) and I were able to access the database of calls we work from and practice navigating the system. Seems loads easier than Alpine. 'Course, that's not to say J. Lodge will be a walk in the park--far from it actually--but I have an overwhelming feeling of "I can do this" that just wasn't there a few months back. The people who couldn't access the call system happened to be running Windows Vista, which someone in J. Lodge's IT department called "one giant firewall." I told the team I would talk to my friend Scott, who until recently worked for Microsoft but just got a job at a small game company in Minnesota. Anyway, Scott couldn't offer any suggestions once I explained the problem. It was a longshot, but I'm sure J. Lodge's IT people will be able to figure it out. In any case, I'm glad I've got XP (and Mac OS X, of course, but that's another story).

My parents recently suggested that I start to look into government housing assistance programs for low-income people. I don't think this is really a subliminal message aimed at kicking me out, especially since the little research I've done so far seems to indicate that people can spend as long as 5 years on a waiting list for that kind of assistance. I still have some places to call to find out more, because the research I've done up to now has been on my own I'll be sure to keep everyone posted.

We got a new dog last weekend, mainly as a companion for our current dog, Owen. His name is Leon (recently changed from "Noah," a name he only had for the past 6 weeks, after he was found as a stray in Abeline. Like Owen, he's a Corgi, but he's a Pembroke, whereas Owen is a Cardigan. Until Monday, we were unsure we were going to keep him because we discovered he might have hip dysplasia, essentially an arthritic condition in the hind legs caused by malformed hip joints. My mom took him to our vet on Monday, and he said he couldn't be certain whether Leon has it or not. He put him on an anti-inflammatory drug, which will hopefully help. I'll try to remember to include a shot of the dogs with my next post.

As far as the video goes, I just stumbled on it randomly; I don't even think I opened the page I found it on myself, but I watched it anyway. Given my forward-thinking, tolerant attitude to religion (few can deny that I like to make fun of religious beliefs sometimes, as long as it's in good taste) and the fact that Al Emmo And the Lost Dutchman's Mine features a wombat, I thought it'd be worth posting. I know it's a bit of a stretch, but stretches can be fun.

Rick and I haven't been able to get together yet, and we haven't seen each other since sometime in January, but we hope to see each other again either this weekend or next. Whenever it happens, we'll have a lot to work on and discuss; the story for "Project WAMM" is finally starting to come together in my head. It took coming up with a pivotal event in the middle of the game, and there are still a lot of gaps. Even so, it's much more cohesive and complete than it was even several days ago. I finally feel it's going somewhere. My entire life is going somewhere, it seems.

Training Underway!

I've spent the past four weekday mornings in training for my job with J. Lodge. Suffice it to say that even though I've only started, I can't even compare the two; I'm getting "good vibes" from J. Lodge that simply weren't there with Alpine. It's hard to explain, but I feel like I matter there, as opposed to being some nameless, robotic lackey who bore the brunt of customer frustration.

I was wrong about which client I'd be analyzing calls for; it's not Road Runner. While I can't say which company I've been assigned to, I guess I can say it's a technology company, much more up my alley than "peddling pansies," as one of the 1-800-FLOWERS supervisors at Alpine used to say. The training is not only significantly more extensive than Alpine's was, but it's also self-paced and very relaxed.

The whole thing even reminds me, in a very broad sense, of how my favorite software company, Sierra, used to operate "Used to" is the key phrase here, unfortunately, since the company doesn't truly exist anymore. Anyway, Siera was a "mom-and-pop" company, as is J. Lodge (to the point that the CEO was the one who hired me). I can't explain it, but it's also obvious that J. Lodge cares about its employees and its business in a way that Alpine did not.

It's also quite nice that the company whose calls I'll be analyzing has much more realistic and flexible guidelines for its agents to follow. For instance, FLOWERS agents had to follow the (poorly-worded and unnatural) scripting in their terminal programs verbatim. They also had to explicitly verify customer information for customer service calls, even if the customer already told the agent a required piece of information wthout having been asked. In the words of the woman who's training me now, "That's unfair." Oh, well.

Getting back to J. Lodge reminding me of Sierra, I finished Gabriel Knight 1yesterday. In one word: AMAZING. It definitely gives King's Quest VI a run for its money. I see "Project WAMM" in GK1 all over, albeit indirectly, of course. It's inspired me and given me ideas where there were once few or none. Rick has the game, but has never played it. In short, guess who's going to be pressured to play it now? Hehehe... I'm embedding the "Making of Gabriel Knight" video included on the game CD for everyone to see. I know I included it in my MySpace blog a while back, but the video is so cool and inspiring that I thought I'd include it again here. I can really see myself doing this, especially with someone like Rick. He's most likely going to visit again soon and probably spend the night, so we'll have plenty of time to truly start planning this story out and getting it into a "tellable" form.

Hired!

First of all, I come bearing welcome news: I have a job!

I just received and accepted an offer from J. Lodge, a New Jersey-based company. I applied for a position with them in October, but didn't hear anything from them until the day before Thanksgiving. To make a long story short, nothing came of those initial discussions and I didn't hear from them again until I sent in my résumé a second time. In the interim, I began to think J. Lodge was bogus and wasn't very hopeful.

To make a long story short, this wasn't the case, and one thing led to another fast; I have been offered a position, which I (obviously) accepted, and training should start on Wednesday.

Most of you remember that in December and January, I worked for Alpine Access, a call center outsourcing company in Colorado, taking calls for 1-800-FLOWERS to help with their holiday overload. I thought that would be a great job for me, but such was not the case. In general, I simply couldn't make my body move and react to situations fast enough to meet Alpine's standards; my disability got in the way, and I discovered that the need to think, listen, type, and speak--simultaneously--was simply too much.

J. Lodge essentially works "on the other end" of companies like Alpine; they provide quality assurance and monitoring for other companies' phone, e-mail, and chat support and sales services. In the first place, this means that I will only have to listen to calls and fill out needed forms based on those calls, which should significantly increase my speed and comfort level with the job. Secondly, it looks like I'll be auditing for Time Warner's cable Internet service, Road Runner, which is right up my alley expertise-wise.

The situation didn't look quite as promising initially, though. When J. Lodge's representatives and I first started to talk, and I told them I had Verizon's FiOS Internet service (essentially DSL delivered over fiber-optic wiring, producing cable-like speeds), I was told I would need cable. Something didn't seem right, particularly after I ran some speed tests and discovered that my throughput was just ans fast as a cable connection. Apparently, J. Lodge's employees with traditional DSL were sapping too much of their corporate bandwidth, forcing them to get another T1 line installed. I asked to have the chance to "test connect" to J. Lodge's systems, but my request was essentially ignored. I resigned myself to accept that I was going to need to spend about $45 a month to get cable access in my room, despite the fact that I knew I didn't truly need it.

Luckily, though, I held out until I got the chance to speak with Mike, J. Lodge's CEO (who made the final decision to hire me). When I explained the situation, he confirmed that all they're interested in is the speed of the connection, not what type it is. Phew.

Anyway, I'll fax back the application and other forms in the morning. As far as I know, training will start on Wednesday. Once I'm trained, I could make about $12 an hour, paid per audit. I'm excited, to say the least!

On to the video at the top of this post. A few days ago, Travis sent me the first two Gabriel Knight games, which I had never played. I have the third, but only because it was Sierra's "last hurrah"--its last adventure game to date, and probably ever. Most of you know that for most of my life, I've been a huge adventure game fan, to the point that my career goal through much of my childhood was to be a designer for them. I resigned myself to accept that it would never happen, particularly after Sierra's lamentable downturn in the late 90's. However, through an interesting and often bizarre series of events, I think the dream is within my reach again. For the past 5 years, I've been working on the story for a fantasy adventure game with Travis and Rick, and have more recently started to develop connections in the gaming industry (with Himalaya Studios and Infamous Adventures). The idea for the game slowly morphed into a novel, but now that I know Rick, it has a chance of becoming a game again. We're not sure whether it'll be just a game, or first a book and then a game, but we're nearly positive it'll be a game at some point or other.

What's this have to do with GK? Well, GK is a deep, heavily-story-driven game series, largely unlike Sierra's flagship games, King's Quest. The story we've got up our sleeves combines the fantasy atmosphere of KQ with the depth of GK. I've really taken a liking to the GK games, and have even begun to feel the wheels of inspiration turning in my head. To whet your appetites, I've embedded the introductory video to the first chapter of the second game.

I was hoping to get together with Rick last week, but the plans fell through for some reason, and hopefully we'll be able to see each other this week instead. I did, however, see Eddie last Saturday, which was certainly a treat. We've resolved never to grow apart again, and something tells me we can truly manage that now.

Pre-Copernican Theory Still Taught In France!

Hi, everybody! Here goes my third (and hopefully final) attempt at starting and keeping a blog. I started with Xanga shortly after my graduation from college, then got a MySpace account last September. I closed down my Xanga page long ago, but I still use MySpace to keep in touch with people. The thing is, I've found MySpace's blogging abilities to be less than impressive, and Blogger is much more capable and versatile. So, here we are!

Both my previous blogs essentially concerned life events and random thoughts. While this will no doubt be the focus of this blog as well, I felt compelled to start things off a little differently this time around, particularly after finding the above video on Google Video yesterday. A lot of interesting stuff has been happening to me lately, and until I saw this, I was inclined to say much of what was going on was "weird," but the video gives "weird" a whole new meaning.

Most of you know I've always been rather interested in all things space-related, to the point that my ulimate career ambition through much of elementary school was to be an astronaut, however unrealistic the goal actually was. I still try to keep well-informed of shuttle launches, the progress of interplanetary probes, and things like that. I also took two semesters of Astronomy in college and enjoyed it a lot. I have, of course, also been keeping abreast of the situation surrounding NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak and her being accused of attempted murder. Weird, right? Not compared to this clip!

Anyone who knows me even remotely well also knows that I speak fluent Spanish, and can also understand other Romance languages to varying degrees. This obviously includes French. The clip, as you can no doubt tell, is from an episode of the French edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Qui veut gagner des millions? ("Who wants to win millions?") which aired last July.

The question reads, "Which revolves around the earth?" Choice "A" reads "the Moon," "B" is "the Sun," and the other two are self-explanatory. Not only does the guy lose, but the audience is evidently so disgusted with his stupidity that 56% of them choose the wrong answer, no doubt on purpose. The expression on his wife's face is priceless. I wish I could understand more of the interaction between host and contestant, both before and after he locks in his final answer. The fact that he won 1,500 euros also makes one wonder, "What were the previous questions like?"

My next entry will be more "normal," but in the meantime, we can be sure that the word "dumb" has a new definition: "Hénri."