Green means GO!

I see the road I'm on... Yesterday morning I wrote my last blog post before I went off to an early meeting with Amanda and the CIMIT team and then eventually to our group EMC meetings where each group gets to present what we've been working on. This ended up being another heart warming event for me, hearing my producer talk about our map (mainly using my words, which is ok) and what steps we took with this new direction, was pretty cool. Hearing it come from someone else was just sort of neat and for some reason sounded better haha. "It looks 100 times better," Ray remarked during the meeting. I was about to jump out of my skin! I couldn't be more happy that people really think the map is interesting now, and the funny thing is... I didn't change the mechanics of game flow, just certain aesthetic decisions and the layout seemed to make all of the difference. Fallowing this was a presentation on our CIMIT project, another project which I've felt that I've had an intimate connection with. Ann arrived part of the way through the meeting, this really excited me, hoping that she'd bring news on the UN project! She did bring us some at the point, she officially announced that Heather Kelly would be working with us on the project. Here's her website http://www.moboid.com/portfolio/ and here's an interview of her that's interesting http://gamedev.sessions.edu/design-interviews/heather-kelley-game-designer-moboid/. Also that two business professors will be joining the marketing level of the project, all very exciting but there was still no news of who exactly was on the project. The end of the meeting I rushed out, with other plans in mind...

(This is a quick screen shot of our map, it looks a lot better in game with the area fog... but you get the idea)

I rushed out because I had plans of driving home to surprise my Mom! Mom was still home alone, as Dad was off on a fishing trip but would be returning at mid-night. So I wanted to surprise my Mom at home, my Dad coming home, and some of my family is actually coming over again because my cousin's baseball tournament is continuing and so I wanted to be here for them as well! I really like surprising people you might say =)

Although something I didn't expect happened on the drive home... I got a phone call from Ann, instructing me to pull over my car because I was in on a conference call and they had something they wanted to talk to me about. Ray began by saying that I forgot to sign my time sheet, which confused me and they got a laugh, and then Ann started to say the real reason why they were calling. "I want to officially ask you if you'd be interested in joining us on the UN project." I tried to keep my cool... by replying "YES YES YES YES!!" hahaha I was so ecstatic! Yet I then had to ask if this meant I'd be apart of the team heading to Africa, in which they replied that I would indeed head to Africa by the end of August!! HOLY CRAP!!! I just can't believe the life I'm living right now and just couldn't be any happier. I now had two surprises for my family... both me and another amazing opportunity.

The rest of the drive home I started to reflect back upon this year once again and specifically to a conversation Lauren and I had at the end of Learning 2007. We had such an amazing time at our first conference and felt at a loss returning to the normalcy of school. We then started to talk about how we didn't want this ride to end. Thinking back now it's almost as if Lauren and I got the green light at Learning 2007, we sped ahead and took every advantage of opportunities in the road, yet as this summer came I was sad to see we took off at different exits and went our own roads for a while. These roads being mainly filled with those flashing yellow lights, yet now I see that the lights have turned green again, and Lauren and I can meet up at the next exit and be on the same road once more. It's going to be a terribly exciting year, I can just feel it. That green light I was talking about in my last post, really did mean GO for everything else along with it=)

I don't know if Ann reads this blog or not, but I'm going to risk saying how thankful I am to her. She's truly an amazing individual who inspires greatness in those around her. She's accomplished so much and continues to bring amazing things to others. I really don't know how she does it. Thanks for talking to me before Champlain, thanks for creating my major, and thank you for these amazing opportunities... I don't know quite what to say because thank you just doesn't quite feel like it's enough. It occurred to me a while back that she reminds me of Ti'Anna sometimes, from the Myst series... Anyone who's a Myst geek may get my meaning, but after re-reading the book of Atrus, Ti'Anna is the reason why I address all my posts with "I see." Anyways I'm off to enjoy time with my family before I have to head back to Burlington to pretend to be, as my cousin Bryan calls me, "Mr. Important" again =)