Month: January 2011

Begin Again

January 13, 2011
Uncategorized
2 Comments

I would like to apologize for the vitriol in my last couple of posts. I think it was something that needed to come out, but it’s not how I really feel. At least, not all the time.

And I would like to thank everyone who commented and sent emails and IMs telling me that things are going to get better. I believe they will. I’m due a good year, and I expect 2011 to be it.

Thank you all again.

So what am I doing to move forward? Well, my job situation has been resolved – I start a new job at GM on February 1. And I’ve redoubled my work on both the official Viridian Games site and Inaria, the first game that will be for sale through it. I’m hoping to have all that set up by March 6, which will be my 40th birthday.

So, thanks for sticking with me. Thanks for listening. I’m glad I have you all around.

PTFSD Update, 1-12-11

January 12, 2011
PTFSDUncategorized
0 Comment

Previous weight: 356.4
Current weight: 356.8
Delta: + 4 ounces

My personal assessment of the past week: Poor. And I’m forbidden from doing any real exercise until I get some more amiodarone in my bloodstream. I really, really would like to get into the 340s…dunno if it’s going to happen anytime soon. Unless I go to the hospital again!

Rest In Peace, Major Winters.

January 10, 2011
Cool PeopleUncategorized
0 Comment

PSRD Breach. Yadda yadda.

On January 2nd, Major Richard “Dick” Winters passed away at the age of 93.

If you’ve read the book Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose or seen the associated (excellent) HBO-produced miniseries, then you know exactly who this man was. He was the leader of Easy Company, whose exploits in World War II are now legendary. After getting his men through training from a near-psychotic drill sergeant, Winters went on to personally lead Easy Company through their paradrop on D-Day, their advance through France, the spectacular failure of Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge. He led from the front until his superiors ordered him to the rear, considering him too valuable to place on the front lines. He led them as they entered Germany, found Nazi concentration camps and finally stormed the (then empty) Eagle’s Nest.

Once the European campaign was over, he even volunteered to fight in the Pacific, believing that doing so would end the war faster and thus get his boys home quicker. His request was denied; his superiors telling him that he had done enough.

But the end of World War II wasn’t the end of his military career. He was called back into service during the Korean War. He was assigned to train new officers, but this was a different army than the one he encountered in World War II – he found the officers undisciplined, sometimes even failing to show up for his classes. Finally, on the verge of his deployment to Korea, he was allowed to resign.

This post actually has a video game angle. Seriously, it does. For the most famous statement Winters made after the war was, “I was not a hero. But I served in the company of heroes.”

Rest in peace, Major Winters. And I hope one day that someone like Mr. Ambrose (who is sadly deceased) will chronicle the heroism of the soldiers who currently fight in Afghanistan and Iraq.

PTFSD Update, 1-7-11

January 7, 2011
PTFSDUncategorized
3 Comments

Previous weight: 361.6
Current weight: 356.4
Delta: -5.2 pounds

My personal assessment of the past week: Weight loss? Excellent. Otherwise? Awful.

The reason I lost so much weight was because I was in the hospital yet again. I went into arrhythmia and needed my medication adjusted.

About six months ago my cardiologist tried to get me off my main heart-regulating drug, amiodarone. Amiodarone works damn good, but it’s got terrible side effects over the long term. We tried three different medications (multaq, verapimil and most recently propafenone) and every time I’ve had some sort of episode. I had one at Stardock, which was terribly embarassing, and one here at Somanetics, which was also terribly embarrassing.

So at 6 AM Monday morning, my pacemaker shocked me while I was asleep. Go to the hospital. Find out my heart rate is running wild and I’m having arrhythmia all over the damn place. So they put me back on amiodarone. Unfortunately, they had to keep me in the hospital to load me up with the stuff and get my heart rate down.

I’m out of the hospital now and taking rather large doses of amiodarone to build it back up in my system. The good news is that my heart rate finally seems like its under control again. My cardiologist agrees that I should get some weight off before we try changing my medication again.

The bad news…anxiety. It’s not terrible but it’s worse than it was before this happened, naturally.

As I look back over this blog…I’m really not the same person I was before October 2008 and it’s all due to the anxiety. And for god’s sake, it seems like every time I get a little better, get back to myself, something happens and all I want to do is distract myself (usually with World of Warcraft). I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to work, I don’t want to work on my own projects. Such extroverted things, difficult enough for an introvert like me, become impossible when I’m anxious. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to write this damn web post about it. I don’t want to do an episode of Let’s Play Starflight. I don’t want to work on Inaria. I don’t want to work on Planitia. I don’t want to set up my web store. What’s the point?

I might die soon.

Soon after everything that happened in October 2008, I voiced the opinion that I wished it were a year from then, because things would be back to normal.

It’s three years now, and they aren’t. I’ve done a lot of brave things…moving to Michigan knowing I was cutting ties with the cardiologist who best understood what I was going through was difficult. Weathering the layoff from Stardock and managing to get right back on my feet with another job. But I don’t feel brave. I feel crazy scared, all the time, unless I’m being distracted by a computer game.

I guess I should just come to grips with the fact that I’m never going to be the person I was again. I’m never going to be able to forget about the fact that hey, guess what? I’ve got a completely bum ticker and if it weren’t for modern medicine I’d be in the ground already.

Where do you go from there? Is there anywhere to go?

I don’t know. All I can do is keep plugging; my wife needs me, my kids need me.

But will I ever wake up happy ever again?

(Oh, and why the hell did my damn pacemaker have to go off while I was asleep? I haven’t slept well since, and frankly, sleeping is one of the few things I really like to do. I swear, it’s like some sort of Pavlovian thing. “Let’s shock him until he’s got nothing left to enjoy!”)

My Six-Year-Old…

January 2, 2011
Family
0 Comment

…came up to me a few days ago and said, “Daddy, can I play Volcano?”

‘Volcano’ is her name for Planitia. Guess what her favorite thing to do is.

Now, when I moved my blog I accidentally deleted some files. One of those files was the most recent version of Planitia.

Plus, with my switch from DirectX to OpenGL, my Planitia project is currently completely borked.

So I had to tell her no.

She pouted.

Guess what my personal project is this week.