I can't hear you over the awesomeness of this mustache.

Today begins the yearly event commonly referred to as No-Shave November. This year, with any luck, I will be participating all month long. I say 'with any luck' because I'm not entirely sure that I will be supported what so ever by my girlfriend and other friends. I may or may not be attacked sometime during the month.

In honor of the beginning of the month, both at the beginning and the end of this post are some wonderful references for what you can do with facial hair.

And don't feel that just because you can't grow decent or any facial hair, you can't participate. For women, the easiest way you can participate is by not shaving your legs. It may seem gross, but on the bright side, you may be a bit warmer this November.

Men: Don't forget, just because you can't grow any respectable facial hair doesn't mean you should be ashamed to participate. I can't grow a good looking beard to save my life, but I like to try anyway.

If I can remember, and we all know how well my memory is, at the end of each day in November, I will take a picture. This picture will show the growth. So don't feel awkward, because you won't be more awkward than me!

Didn't see that one coming.

The epic Warhammer battle that I was expecting didn't go as I had originally planned. It was supposed to be a 2 vs 3 match of Bretonnian & Tomb Kings versus Wood Elves, Vampire Counts, & Beastmen. By the time we got around to figuring out what we wanted to do, it was far too late to begin a decent point match. Instead we threw together a five-way objective match. The objectives were pretty simple, and I ended up coming in second place (completed my objective of collecting 3 flags, but I didn't get the most victory points of those who completed the objectives).

On the brighter side, I believe that this weekend should be a painting marathon. With any luck, I'll be updating my painting diary a bit. Speaking of which, here are a few photographs I took from my last painting session.

From Warhammer Painting Diary

In theory, all of my Raiders will be similar to him. I'm still trying to decide what to do with the skin, but it's working for now.

All we want to do is eat your brains

I'm not entirely sure what prompted me to think about the Quantum Singularity, but it popped into my mind. I started to wonder how long it had been since my last post. When I looked, I felt kinda bad that I haven't posted anything since my mom's passing. But now is a good of a time as any to get back on top of things and start posting on a semi-regular basis again (and hopefully there will be some casts too).

Just wanted to let you know I'm still alive. Rumor has it that there is going to be a large scale Warhammer match tonight between the Wood Elves, Beastmen, Tomb Kings, and Bretonnian. :)

In memory of Carrie A. Bartz

I come posting a not-so-happy cast. On June 21st, 2010, my mom suddenly passed away in her home. The following cast was created in rememberence. It contains the obituary notice that was posted in the Pioneer Press newspaper and also contains something that I shared during the service about my mom.

Click here to download the Special Cast

I mention a couple times in there about a website about my mom. You can reach that website at http://www.carriebartz.com

Splat.

So, I have successfully plastered myself against a wall with all of the work that I've stacked on myself. Somewhere along the line, I thought it was a good idea to accept a second job here at school during the summer. My workload has exploded from 15 hours a week to nearly 40 hours a week.

"Adam. Quit your complaining. Most people work 40 hours a week and you don't see them complaining."

You're right. I don't. And in fact, I used to work more than this per week. Back in the day, I worked for the State of Minnesota at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. I worked there during the week for 40 hours, and then I was still employed at Target on the weekends, working another 30 hours. 70 hours a week baby, this is nothing. But wait, my story gets better! I'm also taking a summer class, CS 111 because I need to get a higher grade (B- or better) to get accepted into the Computer Science major in order to finish my degree.

"Pfft. That's nothing. People go to school and work full time jobs all the time. They're called graduate students."

Yeah yeah, I realize this. I mean, again, I used to do that. Referring back to my 70 hours a week, I also was a full time student at St. Paul College. 70 hours + 16 credits = batshit crazy. Now I'm only 40 hours + 4 credits. Not too bad. Life can get a bit crazy and stressful, but nothing out of the ordinary. But wait, my story gets better! I'm also doing some freelance web design projects for 3 different people.

"Now you're just pulling my leg."

I wish I was. I'm kinda hungry because I ran out of money for groceries and am stuck eating ramen and tortilla chips until June 18th. One of the projects I've kinda let slide more than I should because I believe down-time (7-ish hours a day) can strike a nice balance. What does my downtime consist, you ask? About 4 hours of sleep and 3 hours of video games/goofing around on the internet. Sometimes I change around my sleep to gaming ratio, but on average, that's what I get.

So that's my life in a nutshell. It is a poor excuse for not putting up any casts recently, but it's the best I've got. I've got some 'vacation' time coming up next week, so maybe I will try to put together a few special casts while I'm out in San Diego, California. Perhaps you all can watch me get burnt to a crisp. So yeah. Who knows. Maybe after work tonight I'll put something together.

A day late and a dollar short

Thanks for everyone who replied on facebook, sent @me tweets on Twitter or sent me an e-mail about my idea for GameShelf. I've decided that I'll be sharing this application once I have a beta version ready for release. I don't have any clue how long it will take me to write this up, but my current goal is to have it done before school begins in late-August.

This brings me to something else I wanted to talk about. I know every college student says it, but I feel that I need to add my opinion to the already overwhelming pool of people: I can't wait to be done with school.

I say this not because I have been in school for the past umpteen million years, but because I am super excited to get my career started. Although it sounds boring and tedious (because it is), I look forward to the day when I'm spending my life in a poorly lit office with no windows, being bathed in soylent green, and working on the next generation of computer software. Why do I look forward to such a grim future? A job where printer paper will have more color than my skin? Because I will feel like I am contributing something useful. Right now, I'm writing code that I may or may not reuse, learning languages I won't every touch again, and studying studying theories that may be obsolete by the time I hit the real world. To me, this doesn't seem like a good use of my time, but I understand the need for it. In many other majors, the coursework that a person learns in their college career, as long as they get a job/career in their field of study, proves useful right away and typically stays with them until they're done with their job. Computer Science on the other hand, is not that nice. For example, I'm currently doing a lot of work with higher level languages (C++, Java, PHP), because that's where my field is. Why do I need to learn Assembly? Yes, it is a useful language to understand how electronic logic works, but doesn't do much else for me. Isn't that what the engineers are for? Since they make the hardware, they should program its basic logic functions and then the higher level programmers take it and make it something the sheeple can use.

Now, before you say "drop out of school and just jump into the workforce". No. There's a several reasons why I'm going through the painful process of college and the most important of those reasons is that most firms don't hire anyone worth doing anything unless they have a degree. Yes, I could work at a help desk and get my techno-fix that way, but it wouldn't be as satisfying, nor would it be a career.

I also don't want to turn into the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. I'm not looking to make a ton of money for some sort of product that will revolutionize computing and force the majority of consumers into blindly accepting my product, then forcing them to use only it for the rest of their lives. If I'm going to be working with people, I'd rather work alongside them instead of above them. Yes, I understand why positions such as project leads and managers exist, but that kind of stuff doesn't matter to me. I feel that when I find my niche, it'll be in a small development firm (hopefully my own), where I am working with about five or six other programmers to create something great. Something that may or may not revolutionize computing, but revolutionize the experience of using a computer/technology.

So that's my little rant for today. Hopefully I will have some sort of cast up this weekend. I've got coding projects coming out my ears, so we'll see. My goal is a video cast, however, you may have to suffer with just a plain old audio cast.

Not ____cast worthy

Just as a brainchild I want to write down (and hopefully not get stolen). I'm gonna start working on a personal application that I'm, for the moment, calling GameShelf. This program/application will act as a virtual 'bookshelf'. Instead of holding the titles (and covers, publishers, synopsis info, etc) of books, I want it to hold video games for all current systems with similar information. At the moment, I am thinking of developing this application just for Facebook and Android Market (v1.5+). The reason I'm kinda throwing this out there is to ask this from my readers/viewers/passerbys: If something like this was available, would you use it? You would be able to keep track of games you've completed, games you're in progress of, and games currently on your wishlist.

Please drop a line for any suggestions, or even if you'd simply use something like this.