And now for something completely different

This is a rambly, what’s-going-on-in-Dave’s-life sort of post with very little content of interest who don’t know me and/or are stalking me.  You have been forewarned.

I have a habit of jumping around between jobs.  I find that I’m rarely satisfied for long in a position as the thrill of learning a bunch of new stuff wears off, the grind sets in and the drudgery of doing real work is all that’s left.  To many, this penchant for flittery is a big fat check mark in the negatives column while evaluating me as an employee candidate.  Then again I probably don’t want to work for people who care about such things.  This is not to say I never stay put.  I spent 2 years running my own company and there was plenty of drudgery amongst the fun (and terrifying) learning activities such a job afforded.  So, when it seemed the end was drawing near for my time as a failed entrepreneur I made a pledge to myself.  I didn’t want to get stuck right back into those boring jobs I had fled several years back.

Since there wasn’t a lot of excitement for me in the types of jobs I was likely to be offered I started wondering, where can I go?  I had been teaching at the Art Institue of Phoenix for 2.5 years at that point and I knew that I enjoyed my work there.  It was peripherally related to software development (which I still love) but conveniently avoided all those pesky issues like customers and deadlines and software that actually has to work.  It also afforded me much more opportunity to play with and develop game technology, the very thing I had gone to college for all those years ago.  Perfect!

I was all set to move over to the Art Institue when the next surprise came along.  I had written a rather lengthy letter expressing my concerns and dissatisfaction with various elements of the adult hockey league at Oceanside Ice Arena.  I expected to get back something stating “Your concerns have been noted, now buzz off”.  What I got back was “Those are some really great points, this is what I’m going to do to address them, oh and by the way do you want a job as assistant adult hockey director?”.

…?

That’s the first time I’ve ever been offered a job by complaining.  So I met with the rink’s manager and in the next few weeks I’ll begin to take on duties as assistant adult hockey director.  Check mark in the “try something new” category.  Luckily the hockey gig is mostly evenings and the Art Institute is mostly daytime so they’re quite compatible.

So, I leave a full time software engineering job, go to teaching and managing a hockey league.  Sounds like a pretty good career shake-up to me.

Ye olde home towne

Today I got linked an article about Phil Spector’s arrival at Corcoran prison in CA.  It’s mostly about him and playing music, blah, blah, blah.  The interesting bit is at the end of the article.

Spector was previously held in the Los Angeles County jail and then an intake center in Kern County, where corrections officials evaluated him and assigned him to the Corcoran facility.

Spector’s wife, Rachelle, welcomed the transfer and said it would be an improvement from the Kern County prison where, she said, she was unable to visit her husband or speak to him by phone. “Anywhere is better than that place,” she said.

I was born and grew up in Bakersfield which is the seat of Kern County.  Damn I’m still glad to be out of that place, even after all these years.

Further thoughts on the end of the (MTG) world

I’ve been surprised by the immense amount of anger expressed over the forthcoming M10 rules changes, slated to go into effect next month.  I gave my initial impressions here, but since then I’ve been trying to figure out why combat damage not using the stack has been quite as motivating as it has been for complaints and declarations that Magic is being dumbed down.  I think the big deal with combat damage not using the stack anymore is that it is

1. totally unexpected
2. going into effect really damn soon now

So the change creates a very emotional state of mind in which Wizards is taking away something many Magic fans love suddenly and without warning for seemingly no good reason (for the people complaining) and their options are:

• stop playing competitively
• shut up and put up with it

That’s a rather bad position to be in as a customer and doubly so as a customer of a product that depends on a base of “lifelong” customers.  It doesn’t help that I continually see people misinterpreting how the new assignment of blockers works.  Clearly WotC is not doing a particularly good job in communicating some of these changes although I think the initial article was 80% really well written.

The (MTG) end is nigh!

Ok, so perhaps that was just the reaction from THE ENTIRE INTERNET over today’s article regarding rules changes in the forthcoming M10 expansion in June.

I was fine with everything in the article, a bit annoyed at times, but generally ok with everything until I got to this:

5) Combat Damage No Longer Uses the Stack

O M G !

Now it may just be that I have a podcast called Damage on the Stack. It could be that Mogg Fanatic is one of my favorite cards or that I love combat trickery, but this one change seemed a bit too much. From the 34 pages of forum comments regarding the post that went up less than 12 hours ago, THE INTERNET would seem to agree. Removing combat damage does seem to be the most ill-received change. I have many times on the podcast stated that I think R&D is doing a really good job in tightening up the game and making it better with each set, so I’m going to hold off on much wailing about the end of the (MTG) world. Perhaps after the M10 release we’ll see that Magic is the same game and has all/most/some of the great interactions that make it so much fun to play.