Danny and I just got back from a quick "weekend" (which is Tuesday / Wednesday for me) run to Redlands, CA for some freelance work.  Danny was my driver / casual observer and I played the part of the show control programmer.

The job(s) are for a new building in the final construction phase for a company called ESRI and it is pretty spectacular.  The facility features over 20-something conference rooms and presentation centers all with slick room automation and some crazy projection systems.  In the room I worked mostly on, there are 2 digital projectors, edge-blended and back projected (via mirrors) onto a 12' wide custom, frosted glass wall.  FOR EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETINGS!!!  Several of the other rooms also have multiple edge-blended wall projections as well.  This place is a glass and concrete maze of cool architecture (green, of course) and high tech corporate toys.

I'm actually really excited to be a part of this despite my growing overall boredom with corporate presentation programming.  This site is pretty cool.  I am currently slated to program control systems for 9 of the rooms with more probably being added later.

Unfortunately, things are off to a rocky start.  The picture above was my life today and most of yesterday.  I was attempting to program a quick demo setup for one of the rooms to present to the client but ran into some MAJOR hardware drama right at the start.  The hardware was sold as being capable of a particular configuration around which the system design was created.  What Sales should have noted in BOLD but didn't even mention in fine print is that said configuration is not fully functioning or supported yet.  As such, I spent most of the day on the phone with tech support while recieving e-mails of unreleased firmware intended to make this somewhat untested feature work.  And by the time I left, it still didn't.  I got things as close and as stable as I could before I turned over everything to one of my bosses.  Not how I wanted that to go.  But we'll make it work.

Those problems aside, I did have a fun time.  I had really hoped to meet up with some friends from the surrounding parts but the unexpectedly long hours and some internet connectivity issues (stupid webmail) prevented that from working out.  I was given the impression I'll be coming back again so maybe I can better plan some side social time.

Now back to my regular work schedule...

I have stupid hair... but apparently not for much longer.

Somewhere in my 20's, I got completely sick of fighting the mess of cowlicks my head is entirely comprised of.  Since then, I shave my head military style (about once every month or two because I'm lazy and forgetful) and just let it fall however it wants.  For the record, it grows straight forward on the top and one side, straight back on the other side, and just for fun... UP in the back.  I've made professional stylists cry with this permanent swirly of mine.  But none of that is important.

What is important is that tonight, when I shaved it again, BOOM - I was clearly going bald.  I've always said this wouldn't bother me.  I'd just shave it all off and be fine with it.  After all, I've never been happy with it anyway.  But wait.  Now that I'm faced with this scenario for real, several things bother me.  Let me splain.

1.  NOBODY in either side of my family going back to the days when we first made fire appears to be bald.  There is no genetic basis for this that I can find.  I've decided to blame this on having jobs that involve wearing headsets for long periods of time.  And don't bother me with your logic.  I blame the headsets - end of discussion.

2.  Beneath the Forest of Frustration that decorates Planet Mike, there are some seriously messed up land masses.  Analogy too weird?  I have a strangely shaped head.  On top, there are several odd bumps and dips.  You can actually see them a bit when my hair is short and you can definitely feel them.  I'm afraid if I actually went dome style, I'd look less like Picard and more like Quark.

3.  I only said I wouldn't mind losing all my hair because I didn't think it would actually happen.  See #1 above.  Damn it.

So, do I feel old now?  Actually no.  Thanks to my rather unique perception of time, I have literally felt like I'm still in my mid-20s for the past decade or so.  I think that's a good thing and I'm rather thankful for it.  I'm also happy that people tend to think I'm younger than I really am based on my looks.  That frustrated me early in my professional career but it's nice now.  I still feel the age that I think I look.  For the record, I'm 37.  But how is that going to play when my head goes all barren wasteland?  I have no idea. 

Danny (the same one who took that flattering picture up above - nice legs, Tony) has given me some "hair growth stimulation" elixir to use.  It is currently burning and itching follicles into my skin as we speak.  Maybe it'll help - maybe it won't - maybe I'll end up bald with 1st degree burns from this stuff's active ingredients.  It doesn't matter.  Tonight is my one chance to obsess about it and then it just becomes another minor mental hurdle to overcome on my timeless journey into my 40's.  Goodbye hair, we hardly knew ye.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go pick out a new hat.

I'm a little behind in reporting this but Danny and I just got back from a 9-day vacation to visit family and friends in Spring, TX, a suburb in North Houston. 

It was a fun and relaxing trip and it came just in time.  The week before we left was an endless string of technical hell at work.  Something major (usually several somethings) went wrong in ALL 10 SHOWS THAT WEEK.  It felt like Automation Boot Camp.  Anyway...

We stayed at my parents' house the whole vacation along with my 3 Nephews; Cade, Quinn, and Kyson.  We met Kyson for the first time on this trip.  My Sister, Nikki (or whatever she goes by these days) and her husband, George, stayed at his parents' house and hung out with us during most of the days.  We were also joined by our friend, Rosario.  There were many evenings of board, card and Wii games as well as 2 years of story swapping to catch up on.

We also made a few quick trips to local fun spots including multiple trips to the malls so the kids could terrorize the playgrounds.  Danny and I also managed to eat about a years worth of Chik-fil-A in a week.  Why doesn't Vegas have these!?  It's only CALLED Sin City.  You can still close on Sundays and put thinly veiled religious propaganda in the kids meal.  Just open a store here, dammit (preferably in the Southwest part of town).  I digress.

Among the activities we engaged in was a trip to an indoor, glow-in-the-dark mini-golf course.  That establishment was closed and had an eviction notice on the door.  Oooops!  So we went next door and played pool (badly, on my part) at Dave and Busters.  And then there was Old McDonald's Farm Petting Zoo.  Check out my Facebook Pictures of that adventure.  It's worth it if you find the idea of seeing me being attacked by a small herd of Pigmy Goats funny.  We did.

Oh yeah, I can also now say that I've driven a Corvette.  My Dad took Danny and I out for test drives.  I'm not used to having that kind of engine power in my hands.  It was fun but I think I'd be terrified to do that in Vegas.  We also took a trip to see my Dad's computer room at work.  It's an impressive facility and the scope of what those machines do (processing power and storage) is amazing.  Conveniently, we were visiting right after my Dad was having a week quite similar to the awful one I had just left.  Everything was working harmoniously by the time our tour happened though.

I have more pictures from all the other parts of the trip here.

Finally, my Mom brought me a couple of boxes of old papers to go through.  I wanted to bring them home with me but it wasn't practical.  That was a strange experience.  They ranged in time period from Middle School through my first job after High School.  All kinds of memories flooded back to me as I looked through them but there was more to it than that.  It gave me a very vivid picture of who I was back then - a VERY different person than I am now.  I was manicly prolific about drawing, writing, and designing things.  Most of my notes to myself were written in a code I can still read almost like a secret diary.  I can tell and partly remember that the lines between fantasy and reality for me were very blurred back then.  Maybe they still are but I like to think my creative output these days is a little less "crazy person".  It was fun to look through though.

OK, that's about it I think.  Now back to a significantly better work week than the one before I left.

At long last, the project I've been writing music for the last few months is released and out there on the Internet. This video is an 18 minute documentary about the beginnings of a small video / board game company I'm a part of called Tinderbox Entertainment. The video mostly shows the company's 2008 trip to the Pennie Arcade Expo (PAX) to present their first games.

I wrote 9 pieces of music for the video's soundtrack. The results are different than what I expected but I'm still pleased to say I was a part of it. They used 6 of my pieces in the end. I wrote the music on Cakewalk Music Creator 2 and the original versions were recorded from a Roland U-220 Sound Module. 4 of the tracks were "re-recorded" by the Video Editor giving my MIDI files new instruments in Garage Band. The rest of the pieces were written by another composer. My parts are at these points:

2:11 Bainbridge Island
5:54 Friday
8:25 Ethereal
9:59 Sushi
11:07 Cutthroats
12:17 Booth Setup

If you're interested, you can hear all the original and unused pieces HERE. This page also has some other tracks I wrote for my own amusement back in the early 1990's. The site uses a simple flash player but for whatever reason, they don't always play on the 1st or 2nd click of the play button. I'm working on it...

So I was digging around online for family genealogy stuff when I ran across this little interesting (to me anyway) bit of history.  This is the Destroyer Escort USS Brister DE 327 (later changed to DER 327).  It was a part of the US Navy from 1943 to 1968 and was named after Robert Earl Brister (who disappeared along with his ship, the Cytera, in the Atlantic in 1942).  I don't know if Robert is related to my family.

The reason why I found this interesting is that my Father served in the Navy aboard a Destroyer called the USS Sarsfield DD 837.  It's not the same kind of ship but the words "Destroyer" and "Brister" caught my attention.  I thought it was neat.

And this concludes today's obscure Brister history lesson...

I was working on some resume stuff yesterday and discovered something a little disturbing.  My resume is rapidly filling up with unverifiable entries.  I suppose it's mostly due to the somewhat temporary nature of the Entertainment industry but I'm starting to feel a little bit like a "company killer" or a man with no past. 

Behold my career carnage:

Splashtown USA - sold to a new company
Pet Store - shut down by the SPCA (I helped make that happen)
Sid and Marty Krofft's Blast 92 - seasonal show, closed
Six Flags Astroworld - demolished
Hobby Airport Characters - temporary project now long gone
MGM Grand Adventures Theme Park - demolished
Excalibur Hotel Strolling Performers - department deleted
Debbie Reynolds Hotel - closed for bankruptcy
Maxim - sold to a new company, renovated, and name changed
WDW Hunchback Show - closed, turned into storage
WDW Mulan Parade - closed and replaced
WDW Millionaire Show - closed, turned into Midway Madness
WDW Fantasmic - changed to seasonal schedule, my old job deleted
WDI FL Show Lighting - downsized

I am happy to say that at least I was not the direct cause of these untimely deaths (with the possible exceptions of the Pet Store and Debbie Reynolds Hotel).  But, this does mean I might get to have this conversation in the future:

POTENTIAL NEW BOSS:  "May we contact your former employers?"
ME:  "Um... sure, knock yourself out.  Wanna borrow my Ouija Board?"

I must admit that this snuck up on me and was a total surprise.  Today, I learned that Nevada (where I live) has become the 17th state to recognize gay partnerships in one way or another.  This version is "a domestic partnership registry" and it gives gays most of the same state-level rights as straights.  Nevada has one of those awful anti-gay marriage laws so State Senator David R. Parks (the only openly gay elected official in NV) had to obtain "legal opinions from legislative lawyers stating that the domestic partnership registry was not the equivalent of marriage" [NY Times] in order to make this happen.  I had to think about that for a minute to completely understand.

Gays had to prove that the domestic partnership registry was NOT equal to marriage in order to achieve mostly equal rights.  That being the case, the next person that tells me civil unions / domestic partnerships don't qualify as "separate but equal" is going to get bitch slapped.

On the other hand, we've achieved a measure of equality DESPITE ignorance and intolerance on the law books.  I see it as a sign of things to come.  I see it as a sign that prejudice is losing its power.  Take that, Jim Gibbons!

So am I unhappy about this?  I know I must sound like it.  But no, I'm very happy about this.  This means that just over 1/3 of the states are making steps in the right direction.  That is good.  This law passed and was vetoed by Gov. Jim Gibbons only to be overturned by 2/3rds vote of the state legislature.  That is very good.  Technically, it represents the will of the people.  There shouldn't be any frustrating court cases about this.  Finally, this is my current home state.  This means the new law affects me directly.  Whoa...

I have spent my entire adult life feeling that I would never see anything like this happen.  I expected to be in the closet and lonely my whole life.  But Danny has made me whole and my life full.  Good friends and great role models have helped me leave the closet behind.  Via pictures online, I saw two good men that I met in California get legally married before Proposition 8 took affect.  It was beautiful and inspiring.  And now I have the option to legally become a partner to Danny (I already consider us married for 12 years).  This is so new and strange to me that I don't even know how to think.  But I'm happy about it.  Very happy.  We're waiting to find out the full scope of this change and how we can become a part of it.  More on that as I know it.

Today is a good day.  Today was another step in the right direction.  It's not perfect but it's good.  Today, the snowball rolled a little further downhill.  It's only a matter of time now. 

Thank you Nevada Legislature.

I'm not happy about the California Supreme Court decision today regarding Proposition 8.  I'm also not surprised.  Ultimately, the decision was about the process more than the proposition's contents but it still sucks and it still pisses me off.  I don't live in CA but Vegas might as well be annexed geographically, my hope is to move there in the next couple of years, and I have a handful of new friends there who are directly affected.

I've been wanting to write about this for some time now but I wasn't sure what I wanted to say exactly.  This event has given me some motivation.  I don't plan on being friendly or politically correct here so if you're easily offended, you SHOULD read this and feel the same things that I am.

I've got myself (mostly unintentionally) into a couple of minor debates about the "gay marriage" issue over the past few weeks and I was diplomatic and open to other opinions in the process.  However, the more I think about it, the more "the other side" angers me.  I'm so tired of this being a matter of opinion or personal beliefs.  This isn't some academic exercise!  This is the lives of millions of Americans who are now and always have been treated as lesser humans or second class citizens.  This kind of inequality and prejudice flies in the face of our constitutional ideals.  Every religion, every race, both genders, every ethnicity and origin is protected by law.  Prejudice still exists for these groups and things are far from perfect but at least they are recognized as full citizens with some kind of legal protection to their pursuits of life, liberty and happiness.  Why is it so hard to treat us the same!?

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REAL ADVERSE AFFECT OF TREATING US LIKE PEOPLE!!!  Allowing gay people to enjoy a basic and fundamental aspect of life does not diminish it or steal it from those that already have it.  We only want to achieve marriage in a legal sense.  We want the over 1000 legal rights and benefits that every other married couple gets.  It is strictly a government thing.  It does not affect the religious elements of marriage.  Despite what fear-mongers claim, this would not force churches to perform ceremonies for gays.  Who in their right mind would want to get married in a prejudiced institution anyway!?  This would also not be a "gateway drug" to legalized incest or bestiality or child molestation.  I've heard those same stupid arguments in so many confused and ignorant forums and it sickens me.  It is simple bigotry.

And I've about had it with the public declarations of prejudice that are DECORATED to sound like they are friendly debate, mere personal opinion or a right to choose who can and cannot be equal.  Let me demonstrate what these ignorant statements sound like to me.  And I must apologize for how cruel and inappropriate some of these comparisons may sound.  I don't know a better way to show this:

OK:  "I was raised to believe that marriage is a sacred institution only between one man and one woman."
NOT OK:  "I was raised to believe that marriage is a sacred institution only between two people of the same race."

OK:  "I believe that the issue of gay marriage must be decided by the citizens of each state."
NOT OK:  "I believe that the issue of slavery must be decided by the citizens of each state."

OK:  "Civil unions are a perfect compromise.  Gays should be happy that they would have all the same rights as heterosexuals."
NOT OK:  "Separate water fountains are a perfect compromise.  Blacks should be happy that they would have all the same rights as whites."

OK:  "I do not believe in allowing gays to get married.  It's my opinion and I'm just expressing my 1st Amendment rights."
NOT OK:  "I do not believe my private school should have to accept Jews.  It's my opinion and I'm just expressing my 1st Amendment rights."

OK:  "Gays don't need legalized marriage.  There are already other ways for them to achieve what they are seeking."
NOT OK:  "Women don't need to vote.  There are already other ways for them to achieve what they are seeking."

OK:  "I have gay friends and believe they should be treated equally but I'm still against gay marriage."
NOT OK:  "I have Muslim friends and believe they should be treated equally but I don't want them living next door."

Some of these comparisons are less direct parallels than others but what I'm trying to explain is what it sounds like to us.  The impact for those denying us equality seems minimal to them because they don't see any need for the change.  It is very easy to dress up hate and bigotry with fancy speech but that's still all it is. 

There is only one reason to oppose gay marriage.  You're scared of what you don't understand, you hate us unconditionally, you're a bigot, or you're just plain ignorant.  And before anyone decides to tell me that this post is the same "hate speech" that I oppose so much...

Yes it is.  Spend a few decades as an unpopular minority and see how much you hate it.

I've been a little lazy the last few weeks.  My programming work slowed to a stop (which I was grateful for actually) and I've been spending most of my spare time playing games online.  I'm finally breaking that cycle now.

This week, I finished up the last 2 pieces of music (out of a total of 8) for the perpetually forthcoming Tinderbox video.  It's all in the editor's hands now.  I also got a small chunk of my old early 90's "just for fun" music converted to MP3s.  Both the old and new pieces are now posted on my website.  Putting that all together has made me realize 2 things.  First, I want to start writing music for my own amusement again.  Second, my web programming skills are horrible.  It's really kind of embarrassing.  I know about a dozen show programming languages and have used more serial protocols than you can shake a stick at and yet HTML gives me major grief.

So yesterday, I finally started editing my manuscript again.  I haven't touched it since 2006.  I talked about getting back into it before but, yesterday I skipped the Bejeweled Blitz and now I'm 3 chapters in.  My hope is to maintain a pace of 1 chapter a day so I don't lose momentum and stop for another 3 years.  The last notes that I got from test reader friends and family was that it doesn't have emotional resonance.  Having been away from it for so long, I can see that clearly now.  As such, I'm editing with a new approach: stop worrying about structure and just write it like I talk.  I think it will feel more natural that way.  I'm also trying to add more bits of what the characters are thinking and feeling.  I see that's missing now.  When I was working on it before, I was too close and those things were implied for me (but not to people seeing it for the first time).

Finally, I'm just getting started on designs for a "practice theme park" with a couple of friends.  We're collaborating like erik_moore and I did for the Blizzard Theme Park Contest.  No deadlines or rules this time.  I just want to warm up that part of my brain that thinks up crazy ideas and get some art skills practice.  I'm ready to go!

My programming work is about to pick up again.  The work isn't fun but the money is.  I had a couple of little transitional career schemes I was working on these last couple of weeks but they are now both on hold for various reasons and lengths of time.  Typical.  I'll be patient... mostly.  So overall, things are going well and I'm happy.  Now it's time to get back to work on these things.

I'm going to be THAT kind of nerd today.  Spoilers start almost immediately so if this is recorded and waiting on your Tivo or DVR...  Hello!?  Go watch it already.

I've done some research into Egyptian mythology in the past (not because of the show but for this) and have noticed more and more parallels and obvious elements starting to show up in the show.  Specifically, last night we got to see the front of the statue and it most closely seems to look like the Egyptian goddess, Tawaret (the goddess of fertility).  She's also the protector from evil and she does this by restraining it.  Specifically, she restrains Seth (the Egyptian equivalent of the devil).

A couple of other interesting parallels to the mythology.  Isis is the mother of Horus and she raised him on a floating island called Chemmis to protect him from Seth.  Seth wanted to kill Horus but Isis protected him.  Horus the elder got Sobek to help kill his uncle Seth.  So is the island actually Chemmis and the people in that final scene where Jacob apparently dies part of the ongoing battle between Horus and Seth.  Is that why Jacob (Seth) is inside the statue - restrained by Tawaret, killed by Sobek (Ben) for Horus (the dark-haired man from the start of the episode)?

I'm also starting to wonder if this island is Atlantis.  That would also explain the mysterious disappearance of the fabled city and the presence of so many different cultural markings.  It almost seems like they are blending mythologies from many cultures into a single parallel story.  For example, is the island also the Garden of Eden?

I don't really read much of the forums and random theories out there on the net so I may stating things that are already assumed or proved wrong.  It doesn't matter.  I just thought I'd throw my 2 geek cents out there.  No matter what... cool episode.

After 2 weeks of doing basically nothing in my spare time, I'm finally motivated to write music for Tinderbox again.  I'm still working on the PAX Convention Video.  It's a 20 minute doc on the creation of the small video game company, it's first 2 games and their successes showing them at the Penny Arcade Expo last year.  There are 11 "stand-in" pieces of music in the video that we don't have the rights to and I am making original pieces to replace them using the same styles and tempos.  There's a lot of variety and I've had a lot of fun learning as I go.

So far, I've written 6 pieces that are being used and last night I made updates to 4 of them from the notes I got from the video director.  A 7th piece I wrote is not being used.  I was kind of bummed about it but not entirely surprised.  It was originally intended for use in a game but didn't get used there and then it was determined to be too busy for background music in the video.  Oh well, it was bound to happen.  On a happier note, I've been asked to provide music for another section of the video so I'll be writing 2 more very simple loops for that section.  There is also a chance that I might need to do more.

A couple of weeks back, I got to see a work-in-progress cut with 6 of my pieces in it (one was the deleted piece and the other wasn't ready yet).  That was a very strange experience.  Hearing the music in proper context really boosted my confidence because I really felt like it mostly worked as I intended.  It also made some flaws way more obvious to me which I think I've fixed now.  I can't wait for it to be finished though.  I'm pretty excited.

I'm also still plugging away at the "logo sound" for the company.   I don't have any new notes yet but I don't think we're done either.

I'm really hoping to get to do an actual game soon.  That would be the most fun I think.  But I'll be patient.  I've got to get the video and logo done first and I think those are acting as a sort of working audition / training time for me.  I really hope I get to keep doing this in the future...

For those who don't know already, I am an Automation Technician for the Las Vegas show "The Beatles LOVE" by Cirque du Soleil.  Over the past couple of months, I've been giving a lot of backstage tours to various visitors to our stage.  In doing this, I've discovered that many people (sometimes even those in my industry) have very little or no awareness of what Theatrical Automation is.  In short, I'm often answering the question...

"What the hell is automation anyway?"

I thought it would be fun to write out a little bit about what it is I do for the benefit of my friends and family who might be interested in a little behind the scenes peek.  Let me start by saying that I got permission from my Manager to write this and he edited it before I posted it here.

Automation is the remote control of moving scenic elements and performers including stage lifts, scenery, flying rigs, and sometimes animatronics.  ( Click here to read more - cut for length )