sketches - February

022008
Had a restful nights sleep the other night and had a really great dream, but like all dreams, the details are slipping through the fingers of my mind. All that's left are small flashes of interesting events and the overall feeling, oh well.

We had an art review yesterday over the internet through this program call WebEx, which is really helping out on the communication side of this whole "outsourcing" move in the games industry. The reviewer is now in Beijing and will be here next week. WebEx allows the connection of many computers through a broadband connection where one can share ones desktop for all participants to see, and also have direct "annotation" abilities for people to make marks on documents or pictures without being in one location - very cool! Where was this six months ago? Maybe I would not need to be away from home? Probably not! I miss painting and working on boxes and driving at night to relax my mind during stressful times. I'm such a whiner

This weekend is supposed to be the end of the Chinese New Years celebrations from what people are telling me, there should be a lot of fireworks and celebratory activities going on. The coworker in Beijing was awestruck by the amount of fireworks going on last night as that city seems to be celebrations early. His comments over the phone were about how loud the fire crackers were and how long it's been going on, and how he was a little scared because it sounded like a war zone outside his hotel

As always, I can only update the blog and not able to see it - this is reduclous!

021708
Friday was a major milestone that this studio had to hit, but didn't. Now everyone is scrambling to meet it by Monday, meaning my ass is sitting here in the office with everyone else to answer questions, trouble shoot build errors, give art direction, etc, etc, etc. I think I will need to hit a local bar and get pissed, but not too pissed for tomorrow is a work day. As for my own work, obviously, I'm not too into it for the moment, otherwise I would not be blogging in the middle of a "work" day:p

The weather here for the past two days has been very nice. I was able to walk to work today without zipping up my jacket - I'm guessing the humidity must be pretty high, but it's also pretty cold for there are still small piles of ice left over from the snow storm a few weeks ago. Today is also the day that a friend fly back to SF after cutting his trip short. This was due to an unexpected break-up of his relationship here, and there was no point in staying any longer. I feel kind of bad for him because he thought this might be the one.

021508
The flight back to the country that's not my own was actually not too bad. With the plane only three quarters full, I had the middle seat empty next to me - thank goodness, I actually had elbow room! The ride back into the city from the airport was also quite interesting. Every so often, amateur wireworks could be seen at the sides of the freeway, and the roads were noticeably clearer of the usual traffic congestion at the city limits. Within the city, one could hear bangs and rattles from people setting off fireworks for the New Year. Unlike the US where the New Years festivities only last for one day, here it's a whole week! Every day, on my way to work, I can hear and see people setting off fireworks on the streets of Shanghai. I am totally amused and amazed to see long bandoliers of fire crackers, a hundred or so feet long, exploding six feet into the air and sounding like a machine gun as the sounds echo through the streets. It must have been crazy on that first day of celebrations with the streets covered in a blanket of red firecracker confetti!

As for work, well, it's work. I'm getting extra crispy. Enough said.

020808
Tomorrow I leave for another tour of duty at the office across the sea, so I've only been back a week, and let me tell you, it was a good week - I miss home! I am finally able to, actually, get some quality sleep, and a whole weeks worth at that. I guess I just don't feel comfortable sleeping far away from home. Then again, on the down side, I was not able to make the progress on the area of the game that I wanted to finish up this week. Oh, well, I guess it is going to be a lot of overtime to get it all done by end of this month. So, until next time - be seeing you.

020308
It's good to be back home again after another month on foreign soil. It appears that I have missed a huge storm that caused all kinds of power and water supply problems in the region, hopefully it'll be straightened out when I fly back next week. In the meantime, I have been throughly enjoying sleeping in my own, comfy bed - it has been a while since I really had a good nights sleep. Also, it ws great to get together with the goobers for a night of BBQ and RPG fun.