Andy Kopciuch's Blog
Monday, June 20, 2005
Time, New Features & Poker
It has been ages since I last wrote. I found myself feeling very unmotivated for quite some time. I arrived back in Calgary after my last stint on the coast. There were some progression issues with the project, but nothing that is earth shattering if you have ever worked in the industry before. :( I found myself really burned out when I arrived home. I basically took 10 days off to try and find my energy again. It didn't go so well. I did manage to watch almost all of the 40+ DVDs that I had replaced from my break-in a few months ago. I truly was a couch potato for a couple of weeks. I honestly was not feeling that good. All I wanted to do was sleep. I didn't go out, I didn't talk to anyone. I became quite reclusive. It was just that time where I needed a break from _everything_.
I took a short hiatus back in Saskatchewan. The pipe band went down for the competitions. The band got 3 seconds, and a third overall. My drum corps had the same results. It was a great, and tiring weekend. The band returned to Calgary for performances in front of the queen. I had stayed in SK to visit family and what not. I got back and it was time to pull the socks up and get to work. Enough of just doing the bare minimum to get by!
Recently I have been bombarded with "new features" for the L&Y Toolkit. It has actually been exciting to see this system finally growing into a very useful product for them. It has been a long time coming. It's pretty impressive that it is all my baby. Well cudos to Aaron Seigo for his part in the phpfwk2, but it's still my baby! When some of the staff make comments to AJ like "I couldn't even do my job anymore without the toolkit", it brings some satisfaction to my heart.
Just tonight I completely redid the user interface. I decided to make it stupid-friendly. I used the KDE 128x128 icons for a lot of things. It actually looks really cool, and fun to use. My hope is that it makes the learning curve, and training go much smoother than before. Jordan is excited, AJ is excited, and I'm really excited. I love it when a plan comes together.
I'm pushing to get a few more features in there before I leave again. I'm planning to do a double band contest on the 25, 26 of June and then drive to Victoria on the 27. Stay for 2 weeks, fly back to Calgary for Stampede. My sister (Diana) is coming into town so I want to see her, and then fly back a week later for a few more weeks. Things are going to get really crazy for a while!
On a cool personal note. I've really been getting into playing poker. Iactually placed 6th in an online tournament. $5 + $0.50 buy-in. I went out in 6th place of 278 entrants. that's pretty impressive I'd say. I won $70 so it was pretty cool! I did spend it all back in other tournaments over the next few days. I'm keeping myself busy working instead of playing poker all day / night now. I miss those days ;) ΒΆ 3:53:00 AM 0 comments
I took a short hiatus back in Saskatchewan. The pipe band went down for the competitions. The band got 3 seconds, and a third overall. My drum corps had the same results. It was a great, and tiring weekend. The band returned to Calgary for performances in front of the queen. I had stayed in SK to visit family and what not. I got back and it was time to pull the socks up and get to work. Enough of just doing the bare minimum to get by!
Recently I have been bombarded with "new features" for the L&Y Toolkit. It has actually been exciting to see this system finally growing into a very useful product for them. It has been a long time coming. It's pretty impressive that it is all my baby. Well cudos to Aaron Seigo for his part in the phpfwk2, but it's still my baby! When some of the staff make comments to AJ like "I couldn't even do my job anymore without the toolkit", it brings some satisfaction to my heart.
Just tonight I completely redid the user interface. I decided to make it stupid-friendly. I used the KDE 128x128 icons for a lot of things. It actually looks really cool, and fun to use. My hope is that it makes the learning curve, and training go much smoother than before. Jordan is excited, AJ is excited, and I'm really excited. I love it when a plan comes together.
I'm pushing to get a few more features in there before I leave again. I'm planning to do a double band contest on the 25, 26 of June and then drive to Victoria on the 27. Stay for 2 weeks, fly back to Calgary for Stampede. My sister (Diana) is coming into town so I want to see her, and then fly back a week later for a few more weeks. Things are going to get really crazy for a while!
On a cool personal note. I've really been getting into playing poker. Iactually placed 6th in an online tournament. $5 + $0.50 buy-in. I went out in 6th place of 278 entrants. that's pretty impressive I'd say. I won $70 so it was pretty cool! I did spend it all back in other tournaments over the next few days. I'm keeping myself busy working instead of playing poker all day / night now. I miss those days ;) ΒΆ 3:53:00 AM 0 comments
