Ice Cavern Studios

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For a whole generatoin of blacks, our parents faught this crap so we wouldn’t have to. Thank you.

Life and Times, Politics, Work

Ok, so once again, I’m having to make another “I’m not dead” blog post. Of course, I really don’t feel bad about any of this. So let me give the rundown of life here over the past couple of weeks.

Work

Work is going very well. It’s been 3 weeks (or so), and I seriously love my job. It’s highly stressful, and there’s a lot of work we’re doing; but man are we having a good time. I have friends at my job, I get along with everyone, and there’s a lot of passion for music, as well as the project. It’s fantastic. I never thought I’d find myself enjoying being in a cubical again, but it fits the atmosphere and personality of my team and Zune as a whole.

Plus, it’s relaly fun to be working in the music industry. At times, I find myself finding it hard to believe, but I’m now in the business of music. Everyone here is. And it’s really cool because I’m getting exposed to music all over the place. Without even really thinking about it, I ended up getting some free Lily Allen tickets for this past Monday. A bunch of us went and heard her(She is amazing live, by the way), and it was cool because we got the tickets through some people we know.

Plus, Zune is just cool. God, I’m looking forward to releasing and being to talk about what we are doing. For now, it’s just cool to know I’m doing it.

Personal Life

As my mother has enjoyed pointing out, I’ve just re-inserted myself back into my old social scene. I’ve resumed climbing like a fiend, I’m hanging out with my east side crew, as well as my west side homies. I’m also hanging out a lot with my friends from work. And not to mention the upcoming craziness with Sakura-con which will promptly begin next thursday. I’m loving it.

The one thing I am a bit worried about is that I haven’t really been looking for an apartment. But I’ll have a good idea about that this weekend after my apartment rental tour. (Yay MS perks) But I think I’m going to be ok there as well.

Oh, and I’m lifting again as well. And I’m doing it with my friend Lowell. So it’ll be easier to stay motivated.

Wow..that’s…yeah. I”m having a good time. Clearly.

Life and Times, Music, Work, Zune

Wow, it’s interesting that I’ve been with Zune for just under a week, and already, the amount of time I spend on things like superfluous web browsing has just dropped. I’m not sure how much of this has to do with the fact that I just have a lot of work to do and a lot of ramping up that needs to be done in a short period of time. But I know that a lot of it has to do with just enjoying my work more.

I like the Zune team. So far, the people on my team seem very cool, and the project we’re working on is…well…really cool. It also helps that the team has a lot of young talent on it, which is nice because I actually have things in common with my coworkers. I didn’t realize how important this was until I went to Groove and I started to have problems with relating to the people on my team.

Plus, I really like the atmosphere that currently exsists. It feels like a start-up, but it’s clearly Microsoft. It’s also fun having open air cubes. I’m thinking as we approach our release (no, I won’t tell you when), I’ll start talking up the features more. Until then, I’m just going to enjoy life.

Life and Times, Work, Zune

I’m going to be on a bit of a gaming hiatus over this next week. I have at least one interview with a team in Redmond within the next 10 days. I’ve told a few people where I’m interviewing, but I want to keep it on the down low for a bit. This whole situation is covered in irony, which I will go into after said interview.

Microsoft, Video Games, Work

So I’m currently crawling my way to the finish line of the release cycle. At this point, I am entirely run down, and I know why I’m feeling this way. The combination of the following is the cause:

• Working through last weekend
• Pushing myself a bit harder in my workouts this week
• My first Kung Fu class
• Getting my flew shot yesterday
• The crazy fluctuations in weather over the past week
• The stress of simaltaniously releasing and doing this bug migration

I so just want to go home and take a nap. But I have some last minute debugging to do. Plus my boss wants me to pick up some testing for next week so that the rest of the team can go to training. God, I’m almost there. I can feel it.

[Edit] I’ve already had my first “second” wind. I have a feeling I’m going to be bursting a lot today. God, I just want to go home and sleep.

Life and Times, Work