Ice Cavern Studios

So, one of the major parts of my life here in Seattle is my involvement with Sakura-Con. I’ve blogged about the con in the past, so I’m not going to go too far into what it is. What I am going to blog about is the fact that I’ve recently taken on a new position with the convention.

For the past two years, I was the Assistant Director of Operations. It was my job to…well…assist the Director of Operations. We were in charge of all the A/V equipment, IT infrastructure, line management, and the hauling of our gear to the con. It was a job that I honestly loved a great deal. It was tiring, stressful, and occasionally made me want to pull my hair out, but I still loved doing it. It was great.

But things have now changed.

Yesterday, I was elected by the voting membership of the convention to become the new Director of Programming. At this point, I’m still in a bit of a state of shock. In some ways, it’s reminiscent of my election as Student Conductor in the band over seven years ago. I have the same feelings of both excitement for the coming term, and absolute terror at the thought of what I’ve just signed myself up to do. I’m not worried that I can do the job, I’m just worried of the ways I could mess things up. The previous director, Jon Bressler, set the bar very high, and the expectations on me, both internally and externally, are equally lofty. What’s nice to know is I have the support of both my fellow board members, as well as my friends, family, and many of the staffers who already made my department (which is now a different one from the one I previously referred to as mine).

So….yeah. I’m making a bit of a shift in my con life. It’s going to be an interesting ride. I’m excited at the possibilities of the next year, and I’m looking forward to seeing where this rabbit hole goes.

Life and Times

A couple of weeks ago, after the wedding of my friends Jim and Jenn, I just decided that I kind of wanted to lay low on the internet.

In this age of connection and digital media and social networking, it seems that people are always…well…there. Even crazier, is the level of publicness of the whole thing. Between Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare and…well, this blog, I have my own little digital existance. I’ve got twitter followers, and facebook friends. There are people I’m connected to on FourSquare and I have both private and locked photos on Flickr.

And all of these things, when combined, make for a rather large digital presence.

I’m not necessarily saying this is a bad thing. Quite the contrary, actually. Given that I work in internet services for Windows Phone; the internet is my passion and my livelihood. It’s how I stay connected to my friends and family across the globe. It’s a very integral part of my life.

At the same time, I was feeling a bit overexposed. I tend to tweet on at least a daily basis, and these tweets filter to my Facebook and Live Journal accounts. I get feedback and comments from my friends on all the networking sites, and for the most part, I love this. Yet I reached a moment a couple of weeks ago where I just wanted to NOT be out there, and by “there,” I mean on the internet. My friend Brad commented how he saw me wanting to “lay low” and assumed I wanted to abstain from social interaction and revert back to my old tee-totaling ways for a bit. Quite the contrary, I wasn’t eschewing all things, I just wanted my life to be a little less announced to everyone.

Which brings us to today…

It’s now 5:22 and it’s been a crazy couple of weeks at the office. I’ve managed to get through it, and it’s looking to be a little less frantic. I’ve calmed down from an intense March and April that included moving (Redmond to Seattle), the Con, work picking up and two weddings. I’m ready to come back and rejoin my digital communities. I’m also, in what is a very strange thing for me, in a mood to do a bit more writing than I normally have. Not really sure why, but the desire to put idea to paper is growing in me. I foresee another period of regular blogging before my life suddenly takes over again.

But yes, I think I’m ready to return.

Life and Times

You know it’s never a good sign when you look over the coming month and think, “oh boy, this one’s going to be long.” This is exactly how the coming month is looking to be right now; not that I’m upset, I just know it’s going to be rather crazy.

The first big thing is that I’m moving back downtown. After two years of living in the suburbs and being close to work, I’m returning to Belltown to live and party and do that whole thing. I’m not going to go into all of the reasons, but it just seems like it’s the right thing to do. I never thought I’d move back to Seattle proper, but then again, I never though I’d move back to Seattle at all. So here I am decided it’s time to make a bit of a change in my life.

The other big thing I have staring me down is preparations for Sakura-con 2010. As has been pointed out to me a few times, we’re a month away from con and we have a lot to get done in time for the show. I also have to make sure I’m in shape for the convention, as there is an absolute crap-ton of walking, lifting, and just generally being active that I will do for the con. Unfortunately, this also means that the con will be all encompassing of my life for the next month. It’s really a second job; not to say I don’t love it. It’s just a lot of work.

Of course, I also have my actual job at MS, which is, thankfully, not SUPER hectic, just mostly busy. I’m currently really enjoying my current job, and the situation is an absolute crapton better than it used to be. It’s just that there’s a bunch to get done.

Oh yeah, I haven’t really mentioned what I’m working on now. I”m not going to go into specifics, but it’s a service related to the new release of Windows Phone.

But yeah, March is going to be a fun one. It’s also just going to have a shit ton to accomplish.

Life and Times

Before I start, no, Sunday was not the best Valentine’s Day because of a lady.

Now, normally, I absolutely HATE Valentine’s Day. It hasn’t helped that I’ve been single for the previous four, but even when I’ve been in a relationship, Valentine’s day tends to just not go well for me. So, this year, instead of lamenting that I am without a special someone; I decided that I’d just do something that makes me stupidly happy.

I went skiing.

There are few things in life that make me happier than skiing, and on a day when a lot of people I know were quite unhappy, I chose to do what I knew would make me happy. Thus, my friends, Ryan and Alex, and I went up to Crystal Mountain for the day. In exchange for getting up at six in the morning, we were rewarded with 4 inches of fresh powder and a virtually empty mountain. Even though one of my boots crapped out on me; it was still amazing.

As for my evening? That was spent enjoying a G&T and watching my favorite Winter Olympic event on TV.

Yeah, best Valentine’s day ever? Just do what you love and forget about the rest. ^_^

Life and Times

So, the title of the post is actually a bit misleading. While it is true, I have recently been involved with an office move, what I’m not fully explaining is to why I had an office move. Last week, I started in a new job at Microsoft. I’m pretty excited about this new job as I wasn’t really meshing well with my old one (no pun intended). This wasn’t really my fault or my old teams fault, it was more just an unfortunate occurrence caused by a reorg. Anyway, it’s kind of over with. I learned a lot, both from about different types of software as well as about myself, but it’s definitely nice to be back in a space I’m more comfortable.

Life and Times, Work