I have finally scheduled the date for my thesis defence, meaning there is finally a tangible end in sight to my education. When I was a kid and of course hating being cooped up in school, I couldn’t believe that I would have to go through a whole 12 grades before I got to do whatever I wanted. Little did I know that when this day came, what I wanted was to go to University to major in Computer Science.
I don’t think I’ve ever really explained why I chose this career path. So many people end up going to University with no clear idea of what they want to do with the rest of their life, so I felt lucky to be so certain of what I wanted to do.
My dad is an engineer, and when I was even younger, he was probably the first person on our block to get a Tandy 1000 personal computer, which he used to do mathematical calculations for his work. He custom made a number of programs to help him with these calculations, using a programming language called Basic. He encouraged me to play around with it, and gave me a book with instructions on how to enter a few simple programs to do various things. The novelty wore off pretty fast, and I really didn’t get back into it until I was playing a very poorly designed computer game and thought that I could do better. So I got my dad to sit down with me and teach me all the programming commands that he knew. One day my dad brought home a reference book and, within a month, I had exceeded anything that he knew how to do. I was programming my own simple video games before I hit Junior High. In Junior High, I had the beginnings to games that rivalled that clunky old game I had vowed to surpass.
Pretty soon I started hitting the ceiling with Basic – my programs were getting too big for it to load into memory. I upgraded to a more sophisticated version of the language called Q-Basic, which carried me into High School…until I started hitting the ceiling with that too. My last year before University, I spent my time trying to get around these problems, but things got a little complicated for me this time and I had to give up.
In University however, everyone started with a clean slate. They assumed you knew nothing about programming, and built upward from there. My first two years in the program were full of dull programming tasks like file operations and data structures, mixed in with some very nasty math courses to test my resolve. I discovered that I was, by far, no longer the biggest computer nerd in the room. I hated using the Unix and Linnux operating systems with a passion, unlike the hardcore programmers around me.
It was not until I took the senior level Human Computer Interaction course that I really got a chance to apply myself the way I wanted to. The assignments were fun and left room for creativity, like “Design a button that represents your personality.” I got so lost in the enjoyment of finally getting away from text and back into graphics and sound that left many of the other students in awe. This only happened because I was having so much fun, I forgot I was working. I got 100% in the course with one other student, and this was how my supervisor hand-picked me to go on for my Master’s after I graduated.
Still, now that there’s a prospect of some more free time once I no longer have school to juggle, I really want to get back into programming games even if it’s only something I do in my spare time. I think it would be really neat to finally have a few gay characters in them, and I’ve often wondered if there is anyone else here in Calgary interested in the same goal. Role Playing Games are my genre of choice, and from what I’ve seen, they are all blatantly heterosexual. I can still enjoy them, and stoop to obeying the main character’s pre-decided sexuality. I’m tired of saving the damn princess! And make the main character choose between two busty girl characters, he’ll end up wooing the loyal side kick instead!
Last Month
January was really pretty slow in the way of events. Steve phoned each one of the bars up in Edmonton near the start of the month to assess when the best time would be for him to go up for photographs. He usually likes to pick weekends where he can kill multiple birds with one stone. With the Roost now gone, there was an auction for their business assets, and an only chance to claim things of sentimental value. Otherwise there were birthday parties for the owners of Boots and Buddys. Unfortunately all three events were spread out on different weekends, with no other events happening around them. To pay bus fare and lodging for a single event is not cost effective, and even to choose only one wouldn’t be fair either. So that unfortunately meant no photographs were taken in Edmonton this month. In fact, there weren’t terribly many events happening in Calgary this month either, but we were able to cover them by the convenience of proximity. We’d call it a slow month all around – a breather after New Year’s, and before things start to pick up again in February. There is plenty to keep Steve busy up in Edmonton this February!
Online Photo Gallery
Even though we have no new photos for Edmonton this month, past photos are finally starting to make their way online after I finished fixing our photo management software. Actually, I took the chance to make other improvements to it at the same time, which is why it took a whole month of concentration.
Many of these newly posted photos have not yet been categorized, but they can be looked up by the date that they were taken. There’s still a lot of work to be done on the side of sorting and categorizing, but it has already been a chance for us to take a trip down memory lane. It is particularly poignant to see images of those that have since passed away, or that we don’t get to see anymore because they have moved away to other cities. But the great part is that we finally get to share it with everyone else that has been photographed for the magazine in the past.
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