As the Austin Game Conference kicked off, I took Tuesday night to run up to Austin and meet up with several of my old cronies from the days at Origin working on Ultima Online. They have all scattered to the four corners of the United States at this point, now working in California, Texas and Georgia for EA, Sony, and Cartoon Network, so it was a rare and delightful opportunity to get to catch up and spend the evening having dinner and a couple of beers. (More than a couple in some people’s cases…)

During the course of the evening, the question inevitably came up, “Do you ever think about getting back into the game industry?” Honestly, I’d have to say no. Though I probably had more fun working at Origin than I have had at any other job, it’s quite common to have to deal with “crunch time” in that industry, which means 60-80 hour work weeks, sometimes for months at a time. And even at the places that are good about maintaining a healthy balance between work and the rest of life, I’d have to endure a long commute or move away from the community where we’ve invested a lot of ourselves, which doesn’t feel worthwhile for a mere job. (For a job that furthered my life goals it would perhaps be worthwhile, but game industry jobs appeal to me for other reasons.)

Anyway, shout outs to Steve Henry, Mike Howard, Josh Kriegshauser, and Rob Knopf. I had a great time catching up with you guys! Thanks for the super evening.

We spent this past Labor Day weekend down on the shores of Lake Conroe with Mom McMains and Chris. It was a great little getaway, combining lots of relaxing with a hike through the nearby Sam Houston National Forest, picnics, lots of good conversation, some swimming, several games of Carcassonne, a good bit of reading, and ultimately a visit to Space Center Houston. (Chris had unfortunately departed before the last stop to go pick up Becky, who was regrettably unable to join in the frivolity.)

While the whole trip was a treat, Space Center was definitely a highlight for me. We filed into the Mission Control room that had been used for decades while a septuagenarian narrator, who doubtless remembered it himself, described the moon landing. I went momentarily teary-eyed as he intoned “Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed.” Standing in the shadow of a massive Saturn V rocket was also a treat — it’s amazing how much vehicle and fuel it took to get that tiny little Apollo capsule where it was going. We also poked into a shuttle command cabin, saw the training facilities astronauts use, and heard about the Orion Crew Vehicles that will eventually replace the shuttle.

Houston, however, remains as hot, humid, and traffic-choked as ever. Liam enjoyed the Space Center so much that, upon noticing that season tickets would only cost an additional $2.00, asked if we could move down to Houston to take advantage of that. My response was so vehemently negative as to be nearly inappropriate for a family-friendly publication like this weblog.

Abby: I won.

Liam: No you didn’t.

Abby: I won!

Liam: No! You didn’t!

Abby: No, I-1! That’s my move!

There’s a really interesting piece on Washington Monthly’s website by Wes Clark. It’s a bit long and nuanced, but really good reading for anybody interested in Iraq and our strategy there. If that’s you, then make the 20 minutes to read and digest it sometime.

More than anything else, we should keep in mind the primary lesson of the fall of the Soviet Union: Democracy can come to a place only when its people rise up and demand it.

via Kung Fu Monkey

Tuesday marked the first day of school for the kids, and the first day in 13 years when Kathy has been at home during the day without responsibility for children. She drove Liam and Maggie up to school, both to help Maggie make the adustment and to keep us from having to get up at 6:00am so that they could catch the bus. (The great elementary school our house is right next to is being knocked down and rebuilt over the next year and a half, so the smaller kids are getting bussed all the way across the highway to the old Bowie Elementary building.) The jury’s still out on whether she’ll be driving as a matter of habit, but for the time being it seems to be working out well.

Maggie’s been having a bit of a tough time with the transition, as she’s not been away from home this much before. Fortunately, I think having Liam at the same school has helped some, as she told us the other day that Liam had seen her crying in the hallway at some point during the day and came over to give her a hug and make her feel better. The bus system is also taking time to sort out: the older girls were an hour and a half late the first day, and a fair fraction of that the second day. Hopefully all of this will get sorted out quickly, but in the meantime it certainly makes things challenging for all of us!

The question of how Kathy will be spending her time is an interesting one. For this semester she has committed to watching the baby of a friend from church who is finishing up her degree. Yesterday and today she changed out the brake pads on our Escort, an accomplishment that impressed me mightily. She’s considering college again in the Spring, either to finish out the Physical/Recreation Therapy stuff she had started a decade ago or to get a nursing degree. Stay tuned — I’ll post more details as they become clear.

Hey, neat! Several of my photos from Flickr were chosen for inclusion in Schmap’s travel guide for San Antonio. Nice to see other people getting something out of my time with the camera.

My friend Scott Wade, who drums with The Patio Boys from time to time and is a big part of the annual Sand Sculpture contests we attend, has recently achieved some measure of fame with one of his hobbies: creating some amazing artwork on the filthy rear windows of automobiles. In addition to his website, the Austin American Statesman published an article on his work which was quickly picked up by a variety of newspapers around the country, the Austin CBS affiliate had a segment on his work Saturday night, and he even got to roll around on Kinky Friedman’s election bus for a few days.

Congratulations on the notoriety, Scott, and keep up the great work!

I finally got around to editing down the video from our Potato Cannon building adventures. Here it is!

A quick shout-out to my old cronies at Origin as they announce some of the work that had started while I was still there: Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn. The new client shot looks pretty nice, and it’s great to see that EA continues to invest in the most venerable of online Role Playing Games. Keep up the good work, lads and ladies!

After running around Schlitterbahn for the day yesterday, I decided to treat the kids to a new ritual that I called “Grocery Store Feast”. The way it works: we all go to the grocery together. Each family member selects one non-junk-food item to be a part of dinner. We then take the whole pile home, cook it all up, and enjoy!

Thus we found ourselves enjoying a balanced meal of whole wheat pizza, eggrolls, fried chicken and basil & garlic polenta last night. Now that’s good eating! (And a lot of fun to boot.)