11-1-99 Past the End of the Earth

Sure has been a while since the last update, huh? Wow, sorry 'bout that, I've just been so busy with school and all that I haven't had time to update lately. Oh yeah, I'm goin' to college now, imagine that, I'm actually doin' something productive for a change. Yup, goin' to Michigan Technological University now, way up Houghton, Michigan. Currently in General Engineering, after 2 changes of major, but I'll probably go into Materials Engineering within the next year or so. Classes are tough and I have lots of homework all the time, but it's still really fun up here. I've met tons of people and have a whole slew of new friends, so it's cool and all. The freedom I have here as compared to at home sure is a plus, but I do miss my family still. I'm only two and a half hours from home, so it's not too bad, I miss my friends from home too, but they come up every now and then and I've been home a few times too. I don't talk to them as much as I'd like to, but I suppose there's not really much time to, since they all work as well as go to school. In particular, I haven't talked much to that girl I dedicated my last map to. I wish I could more, but she works all the time and goes to college to so there's never really time to. Plus she takes riding lessons, which is really cool, so it's probably better she's not wastin' her on the computer talkin' to me. Anyway, term is up in two and a half weeks so I'll be home for a while then, giving me a chance to see everyone again.

In other news, I got a new computer for life up here, and I don't mean to brag but it's a sweet machine! It's a Dell, PIII 550, 128 megs of RAM, 13 gig hard drive, 16 meg Voodoo3 3000, 40x cd rom, zip drive, and a networking card(LAN rules!). That combined with the T3 connection gives me some nice online gaming and net browsing. I must say that Quake3 on the LAN is mighty fun. A clan's started up recently up here and I've been lucky enough to get a spot on the roster. We're pretty decent I think and once we start playin' together more our skills should really pick up.

Ahh yes, last but not least, I've released a new Quake2 deathmatch map, titled The Gruf. It's by far my smallest map yet, quite a contrast from my last map. Small and done in the style of the Lava Tomb, it's a very fast, intense map for 2-6 players. There's a review of it over at QIC, which was very positive to say the least. No dedication on this one, though, sorry everyone. I'm workin' on 2 base style maps right now, hopefully they'll both get finished, I like the way they're both turning out. So until next time, have a good one.

Here's 2 pics of The Gruf.

Oh yeah, just remembered, I uploaded some drawings, want to check them out? Go right ahead.

7-19-99 Back in the swing of things

It's great to be back!!! Finally released a new Quake2 deathmatch map, titled Inner Thunder, dedicated to a very good friend. It's the first level I've finished in over seven months and it's a step above all my previous work. Done up in the base textures, it's a fairly large map consisting of 3 main rooms with 2 smaller rooms and several hallways connecting them. Each of the three main rooms has an elevator allowing for upward mobility. The top is where you'll want to be to control the weapons, but the bottom is the place to go for ammo. Not much else to say about it really, play it and let it speak for itself. Here's a couple of pics to occupy you while you download it, and you should go to The Edge for comprehensive info. As always, drop me a line and tell me what you think, good or bad, alright?

7-16-99 PC Gamer

Hello all you loyal fans or websurfers who've gotten lost. Well, I have some cool news for ya all. Two magazines will be carrying maps of mine on their cds that are shipped with them. First, PC Gamer UK will be carrying Isolation Therapy(bugdm7) on an upcoming monthly cd. Secondly, good ol' PC Gamer will be carrying The Septic Tank(bugdm4) along with many other awesome maps on a cd given as incentive to new subscribers. I'm excited about this turn of events and it's really nice to finally get some recognition for my work.

In other news, my latest map is nearing completion, with only weapon placement remaining. Look for it here this weekend along with some site updates. As far as real life goes, I've been doing some camping(not the Quake kind) with friends. I spent last weekend up by Lake Superior. Of course it rained the first 2 days, but it was still fun. I've been talkin' with the girl I went to prom with. We talk almost everyday about all kinds of stuff, her babysitting, what our future plans are, everything. I haven't seen her since her graduation party, though, so it's kinda weird. Well, I better get back to the map so I can get it done tonight, hopefully post it tomorrow or late tonight.

6-12-99 Summer

Wow, it's been a while since an update, hasn't it? I'll try to fill ya in as best I can on what's been going on for the last 2 months. Well, when I last updated it was just about prom time, a week before, to be exact. Prom was great, just really great. It didn't start out that way though, it seemed at first that things weren't going to go very smoothly. You see, I'm not that used to tuxes, so it took me longer than I had planned to get into mine and that started me thinking that everything would go wrong all night. It didn't help that when my friend came to pick me up so we could go get our dates for the evening, he realized that he had left his coursage at home. Going back to get it added 15 minutes to how late I thought we would end up being. Luckily though we somehow managed to make up for all the lost time and arrived at dinner almost on time. From then on things went great. After eating we went to the dance where we mingled with friends and danced a bit. Then came time for them to announce Prince and Princess. From the time we had decided to run I had been thinking it over in my head endlessly. I mean, I was already going to prom with the coolest girl in school, heck, the coolest girl, period, and now here we are running for Prom court. I've never been one of the real social people, the kind that go to all the dances and everything, but here I was. I just couldn't believe it. Then they announced our names and I was in total shock. I had a weird feeling before that that we would win, but I thought it was just that, a feeling. We were both so happy, it was great. I just stood there in shock, looking dumb and she happily tried not to cry too much while she got congratulated by all her friends. We had our pictures taken by just about everyone and danced our dance. I still don't believe it. All in all it was a perfect ending for my years at school.

That was May 1st, so I still had a little bit of schooling left. Three more weeks and it was graduation. One of my friends was co-valedictorian with me and that super cool girl I went to prom with was salutatorian. We all gave speeches during commencement and received our diplomas. Hers was the best and I was really nervous during mine so I stuttered a bit. Hehe, when I was handed my diploma I accidentally congratulated the guy giving it to me instead of thanking him. Like I said, I was nervous the whole time. But all went well and we celebrated at our lock-in at the school that night. I got a pretty cool scanner there so I'll have to figure it out and start scanning some junk to put up here.

It's been three weeks since then and not much has been going on. Not much that would interest you, the public, that is. Just day to day life for me. Been talking a lot with the girl I went to prom with on ICQ, watching Star Wars a few times (4), and hanging around the house. Yeah, gettin' a job soon, and yeah, I'm still making maps. Almost done with one, hehe, you've heard that one before. One room left in the structure and then just item placement. No word on a completion date yet, that seems to be a jinx for me. But it will be done. Also been working on a new page, The Edge. Kinda an anything goes place, see for yourself. Oh yeah, one last thing, the Finish the Sentence contest is done over at Planetquake, pretty interesting results. There sure are some weirdos out there, go check it out.

4-25-99 Chicago

Just returned from my senior class trip to Chicago yesterday. Man, it was awesome, we were there for 2 days of seeing the city and screwin' around. We left early Thursday morning, stopping only at Gurnee Mills to do some shopping before heading on to the Windy City. We arrived at our hotel, the Days Inn, around 3 or 4 and got checked in before splitting up into small groups to explore the downtown area. We only had 2 chaperones, so we were allowed to go by ourselves, which was pretty cool. My group, which consisted of most of my friends, set out to find the large sporting goods store we had seen on the way to the hotel. The store was a few blocks away, and as we walked we saw interesting buildings such as the Hard Rock Cafe and Planet Hollywood. The store was an awesome 7 stories of every kind of sporting good a person could want. After looking around for a while, we trotted over to the Rock 'n Roll McDonalds across the street to grab a bite to eat (pretty expensive for a McDonalds). By then it was time to meet back at our chaperones' room to prepare for our walk to the Sears Tower, though we all thought the thick fog rolling through the city would end up preventing us from going. We were right, our chaperones called the trip off and told us to instead find something to do on our own and we would go there the next day. This was a nice break because of how tired we all were from the bus ride. We sat in our rooms for a while playing Nintendo and watching tv until deciding that we should use the opportunity to see more of the city and get some food into us. A groupd of my friends and I assembled and headed back downtown to see what we could and hopefully find some dinner. Walking in Chicago at night was great, seeing all the lit buildings and the reflected light against the low fog was very memorable. We took a quick look inside the Hard Rock Cafe, which is an amazingly cool place although we didn't get a chance to eat there. Next on our plan was a meal at the nearby Hooters restaurant. It was a pretty cool place too, with really good food. It was getting late by the time left there so we decided we only had time to take a quick look inside Planet Hollywood before going back the hotel to meet our 10 o'clock curfew. My friends and I spent the rest of the night playing Nintendo, watching tv, ordering movies in other ppl's rooms to avoid getting billed, and fighting over my pillow(which we got complaints about from the front desk).

The next morning we assembled in the chaperones' room to receive our food money and to get ready for our walk to the aquarium and Natural History Museum. The fog had lifted some, but was still hanging on to the city despite the incredibly strong and cold wind that was gusting through the streets that morning. We walked down State Street until we arrived at the aquarium, where we saw all sorts of marine life. Next we went over to the Natural History Museum for a couple of hours. I thought there was a lot of cool stuff there, but some of my friends said they would've prefferred doing something else instead. Afterward, we headed over to the Sears Tower and shot up the elevator to the 103rd floor from which we could see sooooo much. It was amazing how small everything looked from up there; cars were tiny, buildings were small, and you could see for miles. The class split up at that point, with small groups heading to different places like the Museum of Science and Industry, shopping, or back to the hotel. My friends and I took a cab (expensive) to the museum, which was closing and quickly ran through it just to get an idea of what was there. After sitting around at the hotel for an hour, our class met to go over the plan for the White Sox game. We were handed our money and left the hotel, walking several blocks to the subway station. We rode the subway for about 15 minutes to the stadium, that was an interesting experience, lots of weird ppl down on the subway. Sitting at the game was VERY cold, especially with a strong wind blowing across us, so after 5 innings the class voted to leave. A few of us resisted, but were forced to go back with them. Sitting at the hotel it became apparent that some "not good" stuff was going take place in one of the other rooms, "not good" stuff involving lots of alcohol, so my friends and I decided it would be best to avoid that room and those ppl. We split up, 3 of us in one room playing Nintendo, and the others in another room watching tv. Eventually we all ended up in a third room watching tv. The other ppl weren't noisy at least and no one got in trouble, so everything was pretty much ok.

After 4 hours of sleep, it was time to get up and get on the bus for the long ride back home. The ride home is always faster and was this time, even with a stop at the Fox River Mall in Appleton, WI. We did a little shopping there, saw some ppl we knew from school(weird coinsidence), and then headed back. We watched The Relic on the way back, kinda weird since it took place in the museum we had been in only a day earlier. All in all, a great time was had by everyone. Wish we could do it again.

In map-related news, I'm almost done with bugdm8 and should have it released sometime this week, hopefully before Q3test, so ppl may actually play it. If it's not out this week, it won't be out for another week, since prom is this coming Saturday and I won't work on any maps all weekend. Can't wait for prom, gonna be cool.