Let me do a quick follow up on the last post and then write a bit about what is going to happen now…

Extra work

In March I wrote that I would not be taking any extra work on; well, that’s was true until now :-) I’ll get back to this in an upcoming blog entry. (I’m rather excited about this). It involves iPhone & Unity 3D ;-)

Poker

I have not had much success with poker the last few months; sure I got some payouts but not enough. It also happens that I leave a game been unhappy about how I played. So I sure have enough to work on there. Other Poker opened at a new location, so now both in Basel and Kaiseraugst and I will surely continue to play there when I have the change (and the time). During the last few months I also did a good few games online but again, not with enough positive results but I will continue to play of course. I will be playing less than before, both due to bankroll and the extra work I will be doing.

Fitness

I paid for continuing the training at the fitness studio but never got around to go again. So I finally cancelled my membership. Nothing wrong with the place or the people there but I’m just able to find the time to go there. Hope this will change one day…

So… what comes next?

This kick start is NOT about goals, aims and so forth. Had enough of that :-)

• I will be approving all comments in the queue that is not spam (of course) and do some comments on them; some of the comments are rather old :-(
• Then check if some small tweaks are needed for the blog, updates of plugins and so forth.
• Cleanup in links

Thereafter it will be time to start blogging again, it is SO simple.

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I have decided (Did earlier this year) not to set any specific goals for 2009, nothing specific I want to achieve this year but rather things I want to improve. So nothing about X number of blog entries, X number of poker games and so forth.

Early this year I had a talk with a good friend of min; she also had one thing in mind for 2009, same as I have: More time for ourselves. This does not mean more time we can spend home looking TV but rather time that can be spend on things we like to do (Including to relax).

Extra work

I took on some extra work in 2008 which was great in several ways: Fun, Game, Working with good friends and extra income. At the same time it had some side effects, some worse than expected: Time. I have a long working day, then 2 hours drive and then days where I have my kids at my place; on these days I would be total wasted before I could even think about getting started on the other projects. This did also result in some delays and me been unmotivated and generally not happy.

Right now I would say that I will not be taking on any new projects in my spare time for 2009, exceptions are: Helping out on projects (short term) and projects that are without real deadline (own projects!)

Poker

My great passion is playing poker. I’m not only talking about online poker but also about ‘live’ poker. Here in Switzerland it is legal to have “poker clubs” as long as they get allowance. So on any given day there will be 20-30 (or more) tournaments around the country. I have so far just played at a few places, mainly OtherPoker in Basel. I can feel I’m getting better (and the results also show that) but there is still a long way to go… I’m often planning my spare time based on tournaments but I’m not addicted (yet.. Hmm, some might say otherwise).

I’m going to continue playing poker, might even check tournaments out at some of the casinos and other poker clubs (OtherPoker is starting up a second location, just 5 minutes walk from here). I don’t see my self playing any cash games this year as I’m not experienced in that and I feel that tournaments are right for me.

Fitness

I have total failed with fitness this year; sure I paid for my membership to the fitness studio but what good is it when I’m not going there! I have been considering to cancel my membership but decided against it yesterday evening. If I can just go once a week to the fitness studio then it is an improvement. So the weekends where I don’t have the kids here, then I could go for an hour or 2. The few days where I don’t go to play poker and have time for myself, then why not do some fitness! One of the reasons why I also decided to continue is that a good friend of mine have started a blog where he blogs about his training (for triathlon), been a good inspiration. (Reminds me, I better get my bike fixed)

Social

One very nice side effect of poker and fitness compared to ‘working from home in my spare time’ is that I get out among people. This is something that I really enjoy and probably also why I prefer to play live poker compared to online poker. The social part of it. Of course a lot of the talk at poker is about poker but we do from time to time go beyond that subject.

Friends and kids/family

I have the last few month not seen much to my very good friends in Basel but that will be changing, need to meet up for dinner/movies soon again. This was something I did a lot early this year and last year, something I enjoyed a lot. Been able to combine that with the time I have with my kids is perfect. I will here in 2009 also do something I didn’t do for awhile, visit my family in Denmark. First time will be next weekend where I will be going to visit my sister, then again in May and if all goes well then also a summer holiday. The summer holiday will be with the kids so that will be very special and something we all look forward to.

So?

So will this result in more time and better time for myself? Yes, I’m sure about it. Not getting stressed with work, spending time on what I do, get more quality time with the kids. Sounds about right I would say. Now, if I could just get my hands on a warp/beam machine, so I didn’t have to spend up to 2.5 hours pr day on the highway… Winning the lottery would also help of course.

Edit 23rd of March: Added link to Better late than never in the fitness section.

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Goodbye to 2008 and Happy New Year to everybody out there.

Oh dear, yet another year passed. At the start of 2008 I made a post here on the blog about my goals for 2008 (click here to read it), still makes me smile that I called it 2007 and the link does say 2007, but it was for 2008, really.

Do I plan to set new goals for 2009? Of course but before I write about those it might be an idea to review the goals for 2008, so here goes.

2008 – Living

The goals I sent for 2008 where to get more out of life and attend courses. The years before 2008 I spend most of my time here in the home office; I do still spend a lot of time here but a lot have changed here, mainly due to new friends, new work and poker. I had less time the last few month for friends and poker due to extra work I took on but I hope that early this year that I then will have time for more cinema sessions here in Basel.

I didn’t attend a single course 2008 and will probably not attend any in 2009 either. Lack of time is the main reason.

2008 – Health

Goals where to get back to fitness training and loose some weight (15kg), get more active with walking and cycling. This total failed, sure I did go to fitness a few times but it was not more than a few times. Weight did drop a bit and went back up, so no real change. Rather disappointing I have to say :-(

I did buy Wii Fit and I did renew my membership at the fitness studio but since I’m not using Wii Fit and not going to the studio, then it does not help much. Saying I’m a member of a fitness studio might sound good but you sure can’t tell by looking at me that I’m a member.

2008 – Work

The year resulted in some big changes in my work, I went from been self employed to be an employee. I wrote about what happened here and here. It turned out to be a larger change that I expected. Suddenly I was away from home a LOT more than earlier, around 9 hours at work and 1.5 to 2 hours driving each day. At the start the driving back and forth didn’t bother me, I was actually enjoying it. I still don’t have an issue with the driving but what annoys me a bit is that I do spend 1.5 to 2 hours on the road and that every day. The prices for petrol also went up a lot during the year but have now dropped to less than when I started.

The social part of work is great; we have 1 to 2 coffee breaks where most of us go over to the local ‘bistro’ for a coffee and we also go together for lunch. Sure this does cost (no free lunch here!) but it is very enjoyable.

At work I’m almost only talking German, just a few people I speak English with and of course sometimes when I can’t find the words in German. So my German have improved a good bit I would say (I still make a lot of mistakes).

I have also been involved with a few other projects together with a good friend of mine; so I didn’t leave the games business yet ;-) The side effect of this have been that I had less time for going to the cinema with my friends and also less time for poker.

2008 – Holidays & visiting friends

I had hoped to visit family and friends in Denmark as well as friends in various European countries and of course to see more of Switzerland. Only the last part happened and to be honest, not a lot. My sister came to visit me together with her two kids. So we went on a 2 day trip to Luzern which we all enjoyed VERY much, definitely a place I want to go and visit again.

I only left Denmark Switzerland once in 2008 and that was on a business trip to Graz, Austria, we had a chance to see the town and that is also a place I would like to go for a long weekend at some stage, very beautiful city.

2008 – Finance

Got a few goals sorted here, got my old notebook paid off, VISA card and MasterCard was also paid almost off. Sad thing was that all this was done with a new loan, which I took to gather all credits up in one place. I’m still convinced that this was the right thing to do, but I still have more to pay off. It also hurt to be without job for some month. My savings and pension stayed very close to zero; except the pension that is paid automatic now with my new work.

Sure I’m earning a steady income now (Not been paid in USD any more) but at the same time I have new expenses due to work (car & food), but I still manage but it would be nice to put more money aside for taxes, holidays and savings.

2008 – Poker

My poker time in 2008 changed a lot; I had some month where I played regular online but never enough to become SilverStar (PokerStars). My online bankroll didn’t improve as much as I planned but still I would say my poker improved a great deal. This is probably mainly due to that I now play live poker as often as I have time. I have so far only played at one place (OtherPoker) but have thought about visiting a few other poker clubs here in Switzerland. My only time in the casino in 2008 was for a freeroll tournament, I didn’t get beyond the first round but I still had a great time. I played 29 live tournaments (SNG and planned tournaments) and reached ITM 5 times, this is not giving me any profit yet. If I consider how many hours I spend playing poker and how much (little) it cost me, then I’m very happy (way cheaper than going out for dinner and cinema).

Some people said I should be careful and not play all my money away (This most be the people who have no or little clue about poker), I track every game I play in Excel files, so I know exactly what I spend and what I won. I’m also staying away from live cash games so with just playing tournaments it is very easy to control. Oh, one thing that was very positive for me in connection with poker was that my mother approved it; she actually said I had an eye for it and should do something about it. How often do you hear about mothers that support their sons in playing poker? :-)

2008 – Blogging

In 2007 I had 66 posts which I wanted to triple with this blog and two new blogs. Well, first of all I didn’t start the two other blogs (Still considering it) and I total failed in blogging regularly. So in 2008 I only blogged 19 times. To be honest, I really don’t know why this was the case. I often had good subjects to blog about, often got started on blog entries but just never got around to finish them.

2009 ????

So what is going to happen with goals for 2009? Let me write about that another day; A promise: I will do that.

I mentioned one book when I wrote the goals for 2008, Time Management from the Inside Out guess what, I didn’t get around to read it yet, just no time (Or I spend the time on other subjects). Maybe in 2009…

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Anyway, let me recap how it went with the rules and goals set early August and also have a look at October and the month to come.

Looking back

No more sweets

Summary: Eat fewer sweets, not buying snacks at work or for the time driving back and forth to work

Fact: This worked out very well for August but I failed a bit in September. In August I stayed almost ‘clean’ of sweets for the whole month; I did eat more fruits and felt pretty good about it. September was a bit more like ‘normal’, so some M&Ms and some chocolate and small snacks at work when I felt tired. But even September was better than the month before this rule. Funny thing I noticed was that I actually felt bad about eating sweets, thinking “I should not be eating this really”.

Future: I definitely want to get back to follow this rule. I also lost a bit weight in August which was a great motivation factor. So back to “No sweets”

Fitness

Summary: Do more fitness in the studio but also at home. Do push-ups and sit-ups every evening.

Fact: One word: FAIL. I did go to the fitness studio a few times but it was just a few times. For home fitness I total failed, just the first few days and that was it.

Future: I NEED to get in better shape. I received the next bill for the fitness studio and yes, I will pay it. So for once more: More fitness training, both at the studio and also at home.

Mindless time wasting

Summary: Don’t spend time with mindless TV watching. Not stopping watching TV but don’t sit down at the TV without knowing ‘why’ and then just spend hours looking for something interesting.

Fact: Very close to a success. I do still watch TV but less than before but I still catch myself from time to time. A good example was the other day, sat down at the TV as the PC was doing a quick backup. Checked the channels and saw they showed “Blade: Trinity“. My thought was: Great movie, seen it a few times, so who cares that I missed the start. Watched 15 minutes and then just turned off with the thought: This is crazy, seen it many times, so no need to see it again when I got other important things to do.

Future: 100% sure I will continue with this rule, I will even be stricter with it. Sure I will still watch a movie or two, might even take some hours from time to time and just relax (recreation) with some talk show. I did find one interesting article the other day by Steve Pavlina (8 Changes I Experienced After Giving Up TV) where he describes the changes in his life after he said goodbye to TV. This is a very good motivation for keeping up with this rule.

New rules for October and month to come

Reduce drinking

This can of course be total misunderstood but nope, I’m not having issues with drinking alcohol at all. I do have a beer or glass of wine from time to time with my dinner or when I watch a good movie. I’m going to continue doing so but just not often. If I think back on my time in Ireland I have to say that I have a lot fewer pints pr week.

This rule has been in place just before August but I just forgot to mention it when I wrote my old rules. So less beer but also less energy drinks (Red Bull and the clones). I had times where I had at least one energy drink every day, sometimes more than one. I August I had a total of 1 or 2, a few more in September but so far none in October.

Update: I total forgot this part, thanks to Thomas and his comments. Soft drinks such as Coca Cola (and clones) have already been reduced a lot. Since my daughter used to love cola we decided very early only to buy Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi, so no calories and no caffeine. I got into a habit of drinking that also (does taste okay) but it does happen that I buy a real coke. So I don’t consider soft drinks to be something to cut down on, just keep an eye on. Regarding kids and drinking Coca Cola (or Pepsi), just wanted to add that my daughter and her brother don’t drink cola any more, they prefer water. She does drink a bit Fanta from time to time, but my son often wants milk (How often do you hear a kid ask for milk for their Happy Meal at McDonald).

That’s about it for October, just one more rule to follow and of course keeping the old rules in mind. The only one I will have issues with is fitness but let’s see in a month time how that went.

Edit: I update the “Reduce drinking” part to include soft drinks.

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Anyway, in the game I’m able to craft things and I have selected tailoring as my main profession. So I can make lots of fancy cloth, armour and so forth. Due to me been tailor I’m not able to create metal armour so just leather armour. This suits me fine as thats the only kind of armour I can use in the game.

My sister is also playing the game and I often help her with armour but she (One of her characters only) can actually use metal armour. So there I’m no help.

So my sister has to shop for the items and guess what, she just bought THE pair of gloves. Do check the picture.

(click image for large image in better quality)

Yes, I’m NOT kidding, she bought those. The gloves are 30 by 18 cm, weight 2 times 1.5 kg. THAT IS MADNESS :-)

So some women buy makeup and some buys armour. Guess people will not mess with my sister.

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Play more
Fail. Sure I had days/weeks where I played a good number of games but I also had weeks/month almost without any game.

Qualify for tournaments
Fail. I didn’t really try nor do I have the bankroll to play the satellites.

Become SilverStar on PokerStars.
Total fail also. To become SilverStar I would have to play a lot more than I did and at higher amounts than I feel comfortable with.

So this leaves us with just ONE goal left in the poker section

Play some live poker
I have not completed this goal yet but that should be an easy one. I didn’t play any live poker until a week ago but this is all changing now.

I have from time to time been checking some Swiss poker sites and looked at different live possibilities. So possibilities was at the casinos and it was tempting but the buy-in for their sit’n'go tournaments are beyond what I feel comfortable with now. Also keep in mind that I never played poker with cards before, only online. So I wanted to start out in a more relaxed way. So I did some searches for “Poker Basel” and to my big surprised I found a place not far from me. Let me do a quick introduction.

OtherPoker

The poker club OtherPoker is located in Basel, just about 15 to 20 minutes drive, so rather perfect for me. I spend a good bit of time on their site (That was noted by the people running the site when I showed up at their club). I checked their rules, terms and so on and had a good feeling about it all. The club is a 100% legal club with license for doing SNG and tournaments but they do not offer cash games, which suits me fine.

So I decided last Saturday to give them a visit; I even signed up for a small tournament before leaving. I wasn’t sure what to expect really, sure I had an idea about how it looked from the pictures from their web site (Some in rather bad quality). All was a positive experience. I got signed up as member and then let loose.

The main game room is rather big, got 8 tables (with space for 11 people), good space between the tables and they also have a bar. They serve a bit of everything at the bar, soft drinks, beer and food/snacks. Maybe not the cheapest but somehow they have to get some money in, so fine with me. They also have two VIP rooms (It is possible to rent these for private SNGs) and also a room for the smokers. YES, the main room is SMOKE FREE :-)

The main room also got 3 projectors showing the progress of the games been played, this included: Blind level, time before next blind level, players left, time for pause and payout structure. I was unlucky to sit with the bag to the nearest screen so lots of turning around to check the blinds.

Since I had 20 minutes before the game was starting I spend the time checking the other tournament that already was running. The age of the players there rang from younger than me and a few older but all in all, younger than me. All people there seemed to be in a good mood (okay, later there where a few cases of unhappy people but that didn’t last long) and very friendly; lots of talking at the tables.

The small tournaments and SNG’s are without a dealer (The more expensive tournaments are with dealer) so all self-dealing, this was something new for me and of course I was seated at table 1 position 1, meaning I was the first dealer. I wasn’t nervous (due to the relaxed people) and of course I made some mistakes and had to re-deal but no one said anything negative about it, I was also not the only new one there, so not the only one that did mistakes. Anyway, 15 too late the game started…

The Game

The game I took part in was a 33 player tournament, with a buy-in of CHF 20+5. There were payouts for 5 people, ranging from 55 CHF up to 264 CHF. The game was played at 3 tables and it was a bit crowded with 11 people at each table. I took it easy and played the cards pretty well (I think), sure I had some very lucky hands (JJJJ as the best) and a few small bluffs also worked (Not giving any details here, never know who is reading this). Maybe I didn’t play aggressive enough, maybe it was too tight but I had decided that I didn’t want to be one of the first to leave the tournament.

Every hour we had a short break, so time for a small snack and a soft drink. Some had a beer but I avoid that when playing poker but I’m VERY fine with the others drinking :-)

People got played out of our table and later new joined from the other tables and suddenly we had the final table with 10 players. Well, that took around 3 hours to get to that point. On my left side I had the chip leader; who at that stage had more than half of all chips in the game. Just a bit after he got 3 players out of the tournament and then he had more the 2/3 of all chips.

When the game started I didn’t know what to expect, how far I would come, how well the players where. So I was a bit surprised to find myself between the 5 who got paid. Actually, I ended as number 2, cashing out CHF 154, not bad for my first real game I have to say. Some might say beginners luck and who knows, maybe they are right!!

What’s next

I know that just because the first game went very well that it does not mean that it will be like that next time, it might be that I don’t get any payouts for the next 10 games but I feel positive about it. Since the whole evening was a good experience I have to say that: I will be back.

And I will be back on Wednesday, as I just signed up for another 33 player tournament with a buy-in of CHF 20+5. They also have a multi day tournament the weekend after they have a multi day tournament. 3 days with first rounds where they played to a specific blinds level and then the final on Sunday. This is a CHF 40+7 tournament, so lets see how it goes on Wednesday, if I still feel good about it and if I got time then I will join this one also. I do think I will wait awhile with the 100+15 tournaments (They do count as Swiss Ranking Event); they have a special event where Rino Mathis (Swiss Pro Player) is joining but all 80 places are already taken.

So expect more posts in the future regarding Real Life Poker.

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So in case you are interested in reading about the project I’m working on at ETHZ then do go over to “80days – around an inspiring virtual learning world in eighty days”

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So what is the idea with this? I will each month set some small rules/goals for myself; nothing major such as “I need to blog 30 times this month”. As we all know, I will just fail then.

I will then at the start of the next month do a quick review of how the previous month went. But why should I write about it? Should you care? Well, the main reason to write about it is to document it and also to put some pressure on myself. Who knows maybe someone will find it inspiring and do the same. So maybe you care or maybe you don’t but in any case you might borrow some ideas.

The rules/goals are not “Live and Die By the Rule”; they may be broken and there will be exceptions but they should be followed as much as possible.

So let’s get started…

August 2008

No more sweets

Now this sounds as if I’m eating a lot of sweets normally; which I don’t do. Just from time to time. So in August I will not buy M&M’s, cake/deserts at work, no snack for when I drive to and from work.

If I’m visiting people and they offer a piece of cake then sure, I’m allowed to have one piece. If I go to the cinema then it is fine if I have a bit candy, just not a lot.
All this should be rather easy to handle; I seldom have cake/candy at work and I’m almost not buying M&M’s any more. Actually, last time I was in the cinema (Hancock) I didn’t even finish my M&M’s.

I just have to be sure that I always have fresh apples or other fruits at home as a replacement for snacks.

Fitness

I have for the last one year done VERY little fitness; nothing organized at all. Sure I went to a fitness studio earlier but for the last year I just paid and didn’t go (Talk about wasting money…).

So now it is time to change that and I will do it very simple for myself: I will each evening do 2 times 20 push ups and 2 times sit ups. This is not much but I have to start out slowly, especially with sit ups as after 15 of them my back hurts but I know that I will soon get over that point.

The MAIN exception to this rule is that I finally started going to the fitness studio again, so far just once but damn it was great to be there again. So I will be going there 2 to 3 times a week.

Next exception will not happen this month but who knows; maybe next month and the exception will be “Wii Fit”. More about that when/if it happens.

Mindless time wasting

It happens from time to time that I don’t feel like doing anything, so I end up sitting at the TV. Nothing wrong in watching a movie, checking the news and such, but it often happens that I sit and zap between the channels thinking “Oh, there must be something new interesting now”. Two hours later I then go to bed, a bit annoyed that I wasted the time doing nothing; at the same time it happens that it gets too late and then I will be tired the day after.

So no more of this, sure I will still check if there is something in TV but if I don’t find something then I MUST get away from the TV. There is always something else I can do: Go to bed early, play poker, read a book or even write a bit on the blog.

I’m not going to list playing games or playing online poker as mindless time wasting, mainly because I don’t play much any more and I don’t find it a waste of time. Well, playing Lord of the Rings Online might be a bit of a waste but I never feel bad about it (as I do with TV). Playing poker is something I will do from time to time because I really enjoy it.

That’s all for August 2008

Not a lot of rules to follow but it should be a good start; waste less time and get fitter. This sounds pretty perfect for me. I will get back to it early September and then we will see how it all went.

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The new job

My new job is at the Institute of Cartography at ETH Zürich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich = Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich). I would categorize this as a technical university. This is my first time ever at a university; well beyond been a visitor; so a total new environment for me.

Let me show the job description that I found while using Google to do some searches for game developer positions here in Switzerland

You will be working within the European project #Around an Inspiring Virtual Learning World in Eighty Days# (acronym 80Days), with the goal of creating the next generation of educational 3D games.
You will be involved mainly with the implementation of the envisioned 3D game demonstrator following given specifications of the game design and learning design requirements.
Main tasks:
- Game development: This task starts with in-depth specifications of the technological approaches for a given game design. In the second part, the implementation of the game is performed (game engine, scripting engine, sound system, GUI system, input and output modules, physics engine, etc#). An implementation focus lies in the generation of 3D Virtual Environments from prepared geo-spatial data sources (Digital Terrain Models, satellite/aerial images, various topographic and thematic data sources).
- Game asset production: Together with contents coming from given sources (e.g. geographical material), different types of game assets will be developed including 3D graphics, 2D graphics, sound effects, background music, texts, etc

You will be part of a small, motivated team at the Institute of Cartography, ETH Zürich. Possibility of obtaining a PhD degree.

I have to admit that first time I read this description I had to re-read it a few time; just sounded too good, such a job in Switzerland. Amazing :-) That it is a game that involves teaching just makes it more interesting, not long ago I was had talks with a guy about e-learning but I never imagined it would happen so fast and on this scale.

This is of course not ‘normal’ game development and especially not compared to the mobile games I worked on in the past. The whole development of the game will also be handled in a very different way compared to what I’m used to (more about that in a bit).

I never worked with geo-spatial data sources or GIS systems and the 3D games I have been involved in were rather limited compared to this project. All this was no problem with the guys at ETH, my experience with game development (design, producing, programming…) counted a lot more. The new things such as handling geo data and advance 3D rendering can be taught, it is after all just new technology and new data sets, things I always had it easy to adapt to. There are SO many information and tutorial on the internet, so if you are a person like me that have it easy with learning (and having been through several technologies before just makes it a lot easier) then it there are no reason to worry.

So I take this as a great challenge and a way to learn a lot of new materials; not only things that can be used for game development but for a lot of other applications, just look at Google Earth and how they use rendering together with geo data.

We will be working as a very small and close team in Zürich, just me and a specialist in geo data but the whole project is of course to big to handle by a few persons. The game is a European wide project with partners in UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy and Austria and of course Switzerland. Some of the partners have experience in game development and some are experts in other areas. So the whole project will be managed and handled different from normal game development. That people are spread over several offices (countries) is no issue for me as I’m used to communicate with various instant messenger programs.

The whole project will take 30 month and not a day longer. You often see ‘normal’ games been delayed but this can’t be the case for us as the project is EU funded.

For me there are still a lot of unclear things but since we are at a very early stage it is okay (Hey, I didn’t even start the new job yet) and we will be having a kick-off meeting in Austria next month. None of this worries me at all; I’m just excited about the whole project and how it will be to work together with the various partners.

Changes in work and life

For the last 10 years I have been working from a home office; the work has been on single game projects or as technical director for a German mobile game publisher/developer, so I was not working alone but I was always alone in my office. This is going to change a LOT now; the place where I will be working have around 30 people working there at the moment. I will be sharing office with 1-3 people but will have contact with lots of people during the day.

This is a change that I welcome, sometimes it does get a bit lonely here in the home office and I have felt from time to time that I was ’stalling’ in my own development. This was both personally but also professional; working directly with people will improve a lot of things; it will give good chances for discussions and talks about all kinds of subjects. At the same time the people I will be working close with will have a total different background. I have tried this once before in Ireland (Working with a programmer who came from the French Space Agency, so VERY different background) and I profited a lot from that.

Having to work in a office also brings other changes; such as more fixed working hours, this is no issue of course but something that I have to get used to. So no more sleeping long and been able to just walk from one room to the next to get to work. The new place is around one hours drive from my place, that’s if I take the car. I will be checking the trains as that will be way cheaper but then we are talking around 1 hour and 45 minutes for one way trip. A good advantage of taking the train is that I can relax; read some books, listen to podcasts or even bring the notebook with me.

Since I will be away the whole day the kids will not be able to come over when ever they like it. Right now they often pass by my place when they return from school or kindergarten (They live most of the time with their mom, but that is almost next door). The kids did mention that they where not happy about this but they understand. It will also be a challenge to get early up enough to send them off in the morning and be back in time for the days where I pick them up, but I’m sure we will manage.

Next challenge for me and my ex-wife will be doing the schedule for the kids and who takes care of them and when; in the past it was pretty easy as I was always home but now we have to have more strict rules for it, this might mean I have to leave one hour earlier from work some days and then do the work in the evening. I have often been doing work in the evenings so no change for me really and the people at ETH also got no issue with me doing this; as long as I do my hours and get the work done. I’m pretty sure that after spending some time getting used to the change and to adapt; that I and my ex-wife will sort it all out without problems (We always did in the past).

I wrote a good bit about changes and challenges but there is one thing that will be easy to get used to. That is holidays, for the last few years I didn’t take many days off at all but now I will be having a total of 25 days pr year. This was one thing the kids liked a lot about the new job :-)

Conclusion

So after going from a great job to been unemployed, then getting to panic mode, then it seems the whole situation will change to something great. This is what I hope and more important what I’m convinced it will be. Sure there will be some big changes in our lives but nothing dramatic; I mean, I see people everyday that have to commute to work and have little time home and they do manage :-)

There will be a lot of new things for me to learn at the new job and this suit me VERY well. Having worked on such a project will be great, especially considering that the position is limited to 30 month. So in 30 month I will probably be looking for a new job but I will be at a better position to do so. So this does not worry me at all, I will wait 2 years with the worry :-)

So what happens from now and until I start the new job, I will be doing some study to improve my knowledge, especially regarding GIS (So I at least have an idea about what they are talking about); this will be through the learning system found on GITTA (Geographic Information Technology Training Alliance).

Blogging

This post turn into a WAY longer post than expected (so typical me), so if anyone got to the end then do leave a comment :-) (No prizes to be won). I do plan to blog about working at ETHZ and also about the project. I do not know how much I may blog about; such as technical details but I’m sure there will be things I can write about. I will know more about this after the meeting in Austria.

So consider this to be the start of a series of blog entries…

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• What direction to go?
• Look for new possibilities

These two subjects became serious issues recently for me which will result in some big changes for me (After been through a few changes recently). On the 1st of April (No April jokes, please) I will be starting a new job at a Technical University here in Switzerland. This will be the biggest job change for me during my 10 years here in Switzerland. This change is not only related to work but will go beyond it and result in changes for us all here (the kids, my ex-wife and myself).

Let me tell the story… This will be done in two parts, with the first one today and second tomorrow.

Suddenly no job and the problems…

I recently ended up in a situation that I never been in before really. I was without job, 100% unemployed.

The reason for this suddenly happening was that the project I worked on before was canceled almost from one day to another. I will not go into details why this happened but I fully agree that it had to be done. It had to be said that I have been working with/for a friend for the last 2 years and it was his decision that the project was canceled, this was pure a business decision so we are still friends :-)

Anyway, this meant that from one day to the next I was without any projects to work on; which means no work/money… I got registered as unemployed quickly after, but I’m a special case in the system here in Switzerland. Normally as self-employed you can NOT get unemployment money when you are out of work/projects BUT due to my special case I have been paying unemployment insurance. I did get turned down by the unemployment department but I have appealed the case with some facts. When this will be sorted I don’t know.

This also means that I have been without any income for awhile now and that hurts us all at the moment.

The search

Just after the news about the project been dropped I updated my resume (Thanks to Ian, Jon, Chris, Michael, Daniel & Ole.. and the people I forgot, for giving advise and feedback on the resume).

The resume got uploaded to several job sites and to my big surprise I was contacted by several agencies the day after. A bit unlucky as I had throat problems at that stage so I wasn’t able to speak. During the time I was looking for job I got several calls and emails from many people. One sad part was that a lot of them was from the UK; asking if I was interested in positions as game developer (programmer) at UK companies. Sure the jobs might have been interesting but I was never interested in moving away from here.

I spent many hours daily looking for possible jobs here in Switzerland. I also got in touch with friends from various companies to discuss the possibility for freelance/remote work on their projects and it was close a few times; but at the end nothing came up. During the month before I had been considering to look for work outside of the games business (Switzerland is a bad place for game development; so few companies). I often heard that it should be very easy to get jobs here in Switzerland, especially in the Zurich area when you work as software engineer. This turned out to be true but just not for me. My experience is just very narrow (But damn good if I have to say it); most companies are looking for people with Java EE (Enterprise Edition) experience, together with web application development. This is one area where I have absolutely NO experience.

Anyway, I never gave up and continued searching

Getting close to panic mode…

I was getting to a stage where I REALLY just needed some kind of job; yes, getting a bit close to panic. It hurts when there are no forms of income (and no savings) and the closer to the end of the month I got the more nervous I got. My ex-wife and the kids are also rather depending on me, they where very supporting and understanding all the time but that sure does not pay any of our bills.

Then one day I did another Google for “game developer” here in Switzerland and I came across a rather interesting job; which I applied for RIGHT away and within a very short time I went for an interview and was offered the job the same day. Everything went very fast and after some consideration over the weekend I accepted the job. Some might call this a rushed decision but I do not feel like that AT ALL; the job suits me pretty good and I’m still very excited about it. I actually went to the University today for some talks and that just confirmed that it was the right decision.

To be continued…

So panic turned into something rather exciting which I will write more about tomorrow. I will include some information about the new job and also what kind of changes this will involve.

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