A Typical Day

Another day has drawn to a close, and I'm sitting here reflecting on what I did and didn't achieve today. I woke up this morning all bright eyed and bushy tailed, full of good intentions and a small todo list. Ok, that's actually a bit of a lie. I actually woke up bleary eyed and hardly able to form an intelligable sentence, pretty much like every morning. I did have a list of stuff to do though, and mostly (mostly), I got through it.

The first thing on my list was to get myself to work without getting killed in the maelstrom of lunatic drivers that is my daily commute. Mission accomplished! I actually carpooled today with my buddy Bob, so at least I had something/one to entertain me and distract me from the misery of the Los Angeles commute.

The next thing on my list was to simply get through my work day without tripping over something or walking into someone. This is a fairy common occurence at the office I work, as it is a dimly lit, warren of cubes and obstacles. Oh yeah, I also had some work to do, which I did. I had to add some logging into the scold/autoban system in one of our server flavors. Basicaly, if someone says "fuck" or "ass", or some other profane ad shocking word, they get warned and then banned if they continue to abuse the system. Just think of the Children! All very glamorous.

As an aside, I did have to file a police report today, which was marginally exciting. A Mac Mini got boosted out of my cube at work sometime last weekend, so I had to file several hundred reports with various departments. The police report was one of the final steps in a looong process. The female officer was very nice, if not a little stern and official. It was a little awkward standing in the main lobby, talking to a cop, while people walked in and out, staring at me like I was a child rapist or something. I tried flirting with her a little to lighten the mood, and got tasered and handcuffed (which isn't that bad, by the way). Actually, just kidding. I didn't, but I did manage to coax a smile or two from her.

Then I had lunch. Alone :( Because I am very popular here. Actually, the truth is, I'm too cheap to buy my lunch and go out with people, so I bring a packed lunch and eat it on the patio. I usually have lunch with my equally cheap friend, Bob (yes the very same carpool Bob), and the odd PUG, foolish enough to wander by and pull up a chair.

More work broke out in the afternoon, which was a little dissapointing.

My list finally got interesting (to me at least) when I got home. I'm a creature of habit, so I usually have a routine I follow. Sometimes I mix it up and do something random just to keep myself on my toes, but mostly I don't. So, I watched the news, then I exercised for 1 hour, doing treadmill and rowing. Then I practiced piano, because I'm trying to learn piano. Then I finally got to sit down and do some work.

I tend to do a lot of work at home. It's a problem I have.

Recently, I've been doing a lot of web dev stuff with a friend, but we decided it was a mugs game and we didn't want to do it anymore. So we're winding it all down and calling it quits. Unfortunately, I still have a couple of websites that just wont go away, and so I have to put in an hour or so on those every night. I hate the work. I'll be glad when it's all done and dusted.

At around 9:00pm, I eat dinner (or tea in England), which always strikes me as a litte late to eat. After spending some quality time with my Wife, discussing our scintellating days, and eating delicious Korea food, I go back to work.

Next up, and FINALLY, I get to play with my indie dev stuff. I had planned on finishing up stripping down the last game I wrote, to a bare framework, ready for the next game. I've done most of it, but there's still more to be done. The framework is built around something called "The Atomic Engine", which is a 2D game engine I wrote and continue to maintain. It has formed the foundation to both indie games I've created and had published, and it is a very useable and nice environment to work in. It's built on DirectX and has just about everything you need to make a 2D sprite based game. Even though it is supremely usable, I have a fairly extensive list of features I'd like to add, which I will, and most likely blog about it too.

Then around 10:30pm I down tools and play some WoW :) I have to get a quick Heroic or some PvP in before I go to bed, you see. It's an illness.

So there you have it, a typical day, and a run down of my daily todo list. Pretty damn cool, huh?