A form of mental hibernation.

The beginning of the fall semester is nearly upon me…thankfully, barring a complete and total mental breakdown (which I’m not ruling out, just using as a metric) I should be out of here at the end of the school year. Exciting, I suppose, or at least it would be if I wasn’t already a year overdue for this graduation thing.

I continue to excel in all aspects of life.

This also means that fall itself is here. Yes, I know it’s still August but when you live at roughly the same latitude as polar bears autumn tends to arrive a bit earlier than most of you are used to. I don’t see this as a distressing or even disappointing development; you see, I’m rather fond of fall, a fact I think I’ve mentioned a few times before. I like summer, and Houghton summers are definitely something to behold, but nothing beats autumn in the Upper Peninsula.

It’s not just the beautiful leaves either…though they’re wonderful to look at (and a great excuse to go on pointless drives with friends) they really don’t stay on the branches all that long. No, I most look forward to the weather – that brisk chill with just the right kind of breeze, especially at night. The sort of weather that’s not actually cold but cool enough that you can wear a second layer, be it a hoodie or a jacket. For reasons I’ve never quite understood, this kind of weather puts me in the mood to do things.

The problem, of course, it that winter often arrives hot (or cold – I kill me!) on the heals of fall, at which point whatever motivation I’ve stored up has to last me through the lean months. In years past I’ve not been a diligent little rodent and my supply has dwindled to dangerous levels very quickly. We’ll see if I can do a better job of collecting this time around.

In totally unrelated news: ten reasons why you should never accept (or buy) diamonds. Nothing you didn’t already know, probably, but it never hurts to be reminded.

It’s cold out here, and we may die.

Summer was so nice that I forgot how crappy fall is in Houghton.

I mean, yeah, the leaves turn all kinds of pretty colors for a few weeks, the air is crisp and the waves on the Portage are soothing. Then this two-week period ends and it starts to rain. Not normal rain, where you get a bad day or two and then it goes back to normal. It just kind of starts to rain and never really stops until it eventually turns into snow.

With the exception of the weather, though, things are going pretty well. My new team for Husky Game Development seems to be motivated and genuinely interested in our project this time around. We have a new executive board that supports us and, for reasons I can’t quite figure out, supports me in particular. Everything I’ve asked for has been accepted thus far, and I’ve definitely been a bit of a dick when it comes to some of the things they want us to do that I’m not fond of.

I suppose it might be a management technique, and if so it’s working. Now that management is finally working with me rather than against me I feel compelled to do something spectacular that can put us on the map once and for all. I’m currently in talks with my Sound Design professor to get a special series of e-mails and ads directed at the Fine Arts department…we need artists of all kinds, and we need them bad. The enterprise was already swamped with programmers before we moved to the CS department; I can only imagine how terrible it will be soon.

Speaking of not updating (which I wasn’t doing, but this is my site and I can lie as I please) it’s possible that I’ll be running a “developer diary” throughout the course of this project. I have to look at the NDA and see what, if anything, I can post publicly, but I figure that at least those of you peripherally interested in games and the industry might find it entertaining. At the very least it’ll serve as case study material for future HGD teams.

Stop it.

It is 12:15am on Thursday. As of five minutes ago, I can now hear the sound of water being whipped against my window. This marks the twelfth consecutive day of rain.

That is all.