Sharan Volin

I guess the luck I've had ever since I moved out here is still holding, since it looks like I start work on Monday at the same place that made me an offer before I started the last job. I got the paperwork yesterday. I'll be working part time as a contractor, which makes a lot more sense for me right now. I need to focus on my classes and since I'm hourly I won't have to feel guilty when I have to cut back my hours for finals and things like that. I'm just going to do a big push and graduate in May like I planned and it'll finally be over with! Who would have thought a 2nd bachelors would take FIVE YEARS to finish?

And yes, I can actually say I got this job through this LiveJournal! It all started with an anonymous post here from their CEO. So I guess that permanent account has paid for itself now:).

It's official - I just faxed over a signed offer letter to work for Universal again:). I'm really happy since I really enjoyed working there (other than the commute, of course) so this will be nice! I start on Tuesday.

No, this doesn't mean my roommate's company is shut down or anything like that (he actually did get some money out of the client), we just realized that with the company a startup and things a little unstable right now it's better if one of us has a separate source of income. I'll still do some side work for him and hopefully in 90-120 days (which is how long this is supposed to last) he'll have more contracts and things will be a little more stable.

More news later after I survive the paper I have due on Friday.;)

Damn, I still have so much I want to do this summer and there are only about 6 weeks left before it all starts over again with the classes! And the next few weeks will be busy, since I'm seeing Rush at the Hollywood Bowl on Monday, Dream Theater at the Gibson Amphitheater on Friday, heading to either Las Vegas or Comicon for the weekend (I'm not sure which yet), seeing Symphony X the following Tuesday (maybe Monday too if we're back and I feel up to the trek down to Anaheim. EDIT: apparently the Anaheim show just got moved to Santa Ana), and then I head to NY on Thursday the 2nd for 9 days. I'm exhausted just thinking about it!

In other news, when I head off to NY I'll also be headed back to only occasional work status at the current job as I go back to work for my roommate's company. He just signed a 6 month contract for a website with a 3d game component that should be interesting! If you know any good programmers in the L.A. area (or are one) let me know, since he's going to be hiring!

There's also news on the Rockers Online front. I finally got fed up with my old web host screwing up my site and my e-mail and switched to a new one. Then I fixed a few bugs (including my rss feed, which I had no idea was down for so long, and my forum activation, which the old host broke by changing the server on me). Last weekend I finally added the first new band in years, Queensryche (and damn, do they have a lot of sites devoted to them!). I think it's probably safe to say I now have the most comprehensive list of links on the band on the net:). Also my roommate decided as a test to pay someone to write up news for my site for a month to see if it increases traffic, and I'm on the 3rd day of that (so there will actually be things posted to rockersonline).

Of all my goals for the summer, the one I was most on track for (at least until I blew it last week and I'm hoping to make up the difference this week) is reading at least 1 book a week. I finally finished "The Harlequin" By Laurell K. Hamilton this morning and will be working on the new Demon Hunting Soccer Mom book by Julie Kenner next. Now those are fun books! They really are like if Buffy retired and got married and had kids and suddenly started getting attacked by vampires again. It should be a quick read so maybe I'll make 2 books this week:).

I think I finally figured out what the problem is with the new Laurell K. Hamilton books. ( My opinions here... )

Well, apparently it's not a 404 page anymore:

http://www.shrekthethirdgame.com/

Well, I finally survived finals, and have 3 whole months of no classes to look forward to, so I may finally have time to post/read here again so I figured I'd post an update. I still don't have most of my grades (although I did get an A- in my Electrical Engineering class), but once I do I'll post them here again. I'm just glad it's over, because I was getting pretty burned out after 2 years of no real break (that summer Calculus class was a mistake I WON'T be making again!).

This week is also E3, and I kind of got a taste of what an E3 deadline is for my Mobile Game Programming class, since I had to finish my Nintendo DS game in time for the Monday deadline, and wound up pulling an all-nighter to get it done. But I'm really happy with the results, and if you want to see it in action the site for it is here. Unfortunately I never did get it working on the DS hardware (just an emulator), but I'll probably get my own hardware to be able to do that and see if I can get it working sometime this summer while I still have time. I also volunteered at E3 today, but didn't think to bring suntan lotion, and after being out in the sunlight for 5 hours straight without a break I got pretty badly sunburnt. My roommate met me there for lunch, and after that he brought me over to the people in charge and got them to let me go early because of that. I would have been happy with some suntan lotion, but it was nice to be able to go home and relax, and I wound up staying home and watching a lot of TV instead of heading back for a party I was supposed to go to tonight. I did go to the IGDA party last night, which was fun and good networking.

In other news, a lot happened that I just didn't have time to post about here over the past couple of months. My car got rear ended a few weeks ago and was almost totaled by the insurance company, but fortunately they fixed it. I was fine, at least. We also added another cat to the household. And in reference to a certain other situation I mentioned previously I've already had a few promising leads that might get me out of a sticky situation.;)

I'm actually waiting to hear if there's any fallout from an e-mail sent yesterday at work basically refusing to take a 50% pay cut. I'm going in there tomorrow so I suspect I'll know more then. If I do wind up only working for them part time at my regular rate it'll at least give me time to find other contract work and work on Rockers Online. But we'll see what happens, since everything is up in the air right now.

Friday I'm taking off to actually GO to E3, which is why I volunteered for it.

The site I've been working on since July finally went live!

http://themeparks.universalstudios.com/hollywood/website/

It's so good to finally see it live! I originally built most of the HTML and DHTML programming, cut up the images, etc. while other people worked on the old site, and as it came closer to launch they helped out (including punkalicia). I'm sure she's happy it's finally live too!

BTW, at some point later I need to post about the serious Week+ From Hell I just had!