What a difference a day makes.

If I had been writing this blog on Tuesday instead of Thursday you'd be getting a much different show! Fortunately there has been some more signs of promise today and yesterday so I'm happy as I sit down and write this! The last week has consisted of a lot of sitting in the room for the day, refreshing craigslist and job sites looking for any new postings.


She just refused to sit nice and still for a decent picture.



I did manage to go out on Saturday for a night and had a laugh with the lads from Blue Castle again and then on Sunday we actually went into the office for a while (unfortunately nobody of power was in there so I could not unleash the persuasion/intimidation skills just yet, but as Seamus is saying, if these guys are out come January then that must leave space for me!) to chill out and play some games.


This is the previous Saturday. I'm almost glad that whoever took the picture managed to turn the flash off.

Being in the office surrounded by boxes of unopened toys on everyones desks, the walls, floors, ceilings and pillars all covered in zombie survival paraphernalia really revitalizes the hunger to get into the job you want. The scrum boards on the walls detailing the stages of development, each area of the game, progress, bugs etc... had me practically foaming at the mouth. This is what I want to do.

I spent some more time on Tuesday walking into places in downtown but this did not have as positive a result as previous experiences and most places would just tell me to go and post for any opening from the website, which most times I had already done. Even getting into the places though and seeing the kind of environment that they're working in helps me to keep chasing after it. It's definitely worthwhile just being surrounded by the offices, even if they're not willing to pay me to hang around there just yet.

Until yesterday I had been having very little success but yesterday morning I had a voicemail on my phone. I had bought credit for my phone on Saturday and had yet been able to actually get the damn stuff put onto my phone between distracted employees, network outages and then not having PINs etc that Julie had used. So that voice mail just sat there taunting me with the potential job offers it might hold. (I hate each and every phone company in North America and everything they stand for).

As I wrestled with the phone and customer service to try and find out what the illusive message was trying to tell me I checked my email and there were new items. The first was for a Java Development role that they were trying to fill fast. He wanted to call me on my phone but I told him that that was not quite possible at the moment as I was wrestling with the phone company to try and get it topped up, I said that either way I'll find a way to call them by 3pm.

This is a front driveway of the house.



During this response another email came in; this time from a games company. They had been trying to call me (Grr!) and thankfully had decided to send an email as well just to be double sure. They wanted to know when I would be free to take their technical test and I replied "ASAP". So at about 10am with half of my breakfast eaten it was time to sit down to a 2hour technical exam... fun times! Maybe next time I won't let me eagerness take over so much.

This was a company whom I had emailed 5 days previous so it was good to get at least some human response from the faceless applications I had been sending out.

The exam went OK, of 20 questions I answered 18 and of those I would say 15-16 were between good and perfect answers so overall I was quite happy with it but it's hard to tell exactly what they're looking for. Thankfully some of the questions asked I had immediate answers for because of the books I had been reading when I was just sitting around the house, other questions I had to do some research on. So when that was finished and my time was up I sent off my sheet and have my fingers crossed since then.

There is one slight catch. The job is in Nova Scotia. That's about as close to Ireland you can get while still being in Canada (but thankfully it means you break straight through french-canada). It's not a problem at all and if I was offered a job I would get on the first flight over there but it's certainly something that I was not expecting; but that's OK!



After that I managed to get the information I needed from Julie and was finally able to top up my phone. I checked the voice mail; and I had absolutely no idea what the person was trying to tell me. They had a name, they worked for a company, they read a resume, call back. I tried, and I failed. So that was a bit of a dead end.

Once that was taken care of I got talking about the other job on Skype to a really nice guy. That job is technical and pays great, only it's financial software and while technical it's not something that's likely to progress my skill set much. It's a 6-month contract which is nice but I think even if I was offered it I would have a hard time taking it, but we'll see how it goes, I'd like to get into the place and have a look anyway.

So I was pretty happy yesterday after all of this so I went to the gym and on the way home bought some groceries and a meal deal for 2 from KFC (6 chkn, 2 chips, 2 sides). That replaced the breakfast I had forgotten to eat once the technical exam had started (and it's now about 4-5pm). The rest of the day was spent sending out a few more applications and contemplating a move to Nova Scotia.

This morning I woke up at about half 9 for ice-skating and "brring brring", another phone call. I my most groggy of morning voices I pushed out "Hellurehgh?". I'm still not sure if this was the same person as had left the voice mail yesterday as at the start of the conversation I missed both the name and company yet again but the rest of the conversation was perfectly fluid; it may have just been the groggyness. Anyway, my morning mood was shaken off once the lady on the phone said "Well yes, it's for a video game company".

The view from my bedroom this morning.

The view out the back of the house.

While true, it's not a development role. It's some factory where they repair and package consoles and games. The pay is better than my previous factory work so I'd be happy to do it, although it's a little far away from where I am at the moment. Still, it would be work and certainly something that would be much easier to drop should something better come up whereas with the Java role I'd be somewhat uncomfortable dropping it.

Some geese.

Some trees.

Besides all of this, I have figured out a potential way to make my own money but we'll see if that progresses.

Anyway I'll be going into that factory tomorrow at some stage to hear more about it and probably hearing back for the Java role soon enough. Who knows when I'll hear back from the studio in NS but I'll email them next week if I don't hear anything before then.



My bed.

So things are not looking hopeless! I'm without work for now but there are jobs out there and even some relevant ones. I'm still not touring the city or seeing any sights but with some luck we'll get there eventually. Hopefully you can bare my ramblings for the time being!

Where to from here?

So as expected we've all been laid off from work since Friday. Bleh. I ended up going out on Saturday and went for pre-drinks with people I had meet on the internet. Turns out it was two guys in their final year of college and they're both doing 4-month internships here; and where are they working? Blue Castle Games of course. Bastards. I don't think it'll be much of an in for me since they hardly pull a lot of weight having only been in the company for a month or so and will be leaving in January but still, it's all about who you know.

Pre-drinks consisted of beer-pong (ain't played that in 3 years!) and then once everyone had gathered about 6 of us headed out to the Red Bull MEGAHRTZ event in Downtown. It was a really cool "underground" sort of venue, nothing fancy, just a floor, some rooms and pillars here and there. The night was hilarious fun and once it came to an end we all headed back to the house to crash. In the morning we went out for some Phở which is cheap, filling and quite delicious.

Then it was back to the house to think about what I'd be doing to get myself back into some work. Well the past few days I've just been looking for relevant stuff and have had minor success. There is a military simulation company that put up openings so I called into them and got chatting with a recruiter but they'll be a couple of weeks before they shortlist phone-interviewees. No call back from EA so I'm assuming that ship has sailed for now. Apart from that I've just been reading some books to keep myself somewhat sharp in the downtime.

I think I might start looking at things outside of Vancouver, even just to test the waters. If I get offered something then great and I can see if I want to make the move or not but I suppose there is no harm in sending out some feelers. Next week I'll get back into the anything and everything search and start going for the survival jobs.

There is yet another new house mate, this time in the form of a brand new puppy. So that's kept spirits up a little more also!

Save the planet, lose a job, party on!

So it's looking like there will be no work in the factory come Friday. There are rumours of potential orders soon etc... but for now I'm assuming that come tomorrow I'm out on my ass and will be in search of jobs. I'm not too bummed about it, the work so far has allowed me to find my feet and will tide me over for a while yet and now that I'm more settled it will allow me to job hunt and studio visit like I want to. It also gives me the time to work on the skills I need to work on. So it'll be a bit crappy but there is always a silver lining.

Last weekend was good fun, we got nice and tipsy after work on Friday. I am beginning to see how "work is the scourge of the drinking class", it seems all anybody wants to do after a week in the factory is drink. Drink and play board games of course. On Saturday I went out to a concert in downtown Vancouver, The Bloody Beetroots w/ support by Congorock and had an absolutely incredible time. Sound was spectacular, crowd was great and I got talking to some cool people.





After the show Sinead's friend in Vancouver, Julie-Ann, was kind enough to let me crash at her apartment as there is not really a viable option for one person to get home from Downtown to Richmond at any reasonable price. So I stayed there for the night and woke up refreshed having gained a free hour in my sleep.

Julie had been having a bad week and was not feeling so well but the sun was shining so we went for a walk around Stanley Park. There was a ton of people out and about walking around, running, skating, biking and it is a nice park overall. We built up a bit of a sweat, went for Starbucks and then sat at the beach sipping away. There was lunch after that and then I made my way across town to get to a Giants game.







The Giants are the local non-NHL team. So the tickets are about $20 instead of $200 and they're all trying extra hard as they try to get drafted into the NHL. The game was great fun with plenty of action and laughs to be had. I'd gone with the Irish couple from the house and they had brought along another Irish couple whom they knew and had come over in the previous week. They also lived about a 5 minute walk from the stadium so we dashed over there afterwards for some tea and biscuits.






Bold boy was fighting. Tut tut. There were 2 fights that night.

It's Remembrance Day today but we have the shipment in work to finish so I'll be working today, in light of this they've rewarded us with Monday "off" although I think we might get more than just Monday!

It's back to uncertain ground for me now, but that's why I'm here. Plus, I'm about to receive a phone interview for a rendering job so things ain't so bad. Just off the phone, seemed to go OK, might hear back next week... so stay tuned! :P


Boo-yeah, phone interview!

PS;I had this written on Thursday morning but had to leave before I got the pictures in, and I have been working 9-5pm today so this was my first chance to put things in. All is well for now!

Ice cream! and Stick & puck.

Not much to report as it is a mid-week entry (and a late one at that). This week has mostly been focused on the ice-cream eating competition within the house in which each competitor has 4 liters of ice-cream and must finish it first. Simple. I was in the lead until yesterday when I left the house at 9am and didn't get back until midnight so unfortunately it was a race to the end and I am not much of a sprinter with food (as most of you know) so my lead was slowly eaten away. I did finish in a reasonable 2nd place but there is talk of a milk-off soon so I'll be putting in plenty of practice hours for that.

Was out yesterday ice-skating and then we stuck around afterwards for a "stick & puck" session where you can practice your hockey skills. It actually went quite well and while I had some near spills I have still managed to maintain [strike]balanced[/strike] upright at all times. We then had an extra long day in work as a shipment was going out but there was some pizza. My legs are banjaxed today but it's Friday and I have a reasonable weekend ahead.

Too comfortable?!

Back again! Apologies for any delay. Looking back at the old blog I might just have to set a day for updates and see how that pans out. I'm thinking Thursdays but don't hold me to that.



Hmm so what has been happening for the last couple of weeks. Well I have settled fairly well into the house at this stage and working 3pm-11pm has keep my weekdays quiet enough. I got paid on Thursday and that certainly brought a smile to my face! Ate a whole 10pc bucket of KFC the following day! Was working yesterday for 4 hours as we get double time so that was handy enough but it meant that the day was mostly gone. I went into downtown afterwards to pick up some stuff and just have a look around and there was a fair bit of activity with Halloween and everything and I'm beginning to think I should have gone out but who knows, maybe I'll end up heading out this evening and we'll see what happens.



During the week I'm doing one of four things; eating, browsing the web, ice-skating or looking for video game employment. So there is not a whole lot to report on those fronts. Ice-skating is going well and is good craic, and I have still yet to fall but maybe that just means I'm not pushing hard enough :P. I've sent out 20 applications today to gaming companies in the area so hopefully those will return some fruits over the next few weeks but we'll see how it goes.

On Monday and Wednesday of last week I walked around downtown looking for companies and managed to find some. Slant Six Games were interviewing people when I arrived but unfortunately it was for more senior positions. Big Sandwich Games had moved office on the Friday before I arrived and so could not be found. Then I went to Blue Castle Games who are quite far out of town and I'll like to note now that it had been raining constantly all day. Well I took out my handy development studio map and headed to the marker that said "Blue Castle Games". Well I walked and I walked. I asked for directions and I walked. All to no avail. I couldn't find the place and ended up walking in the soaking rain for far too long. I did a very uncomfortable 8 hour shift with no jumper, a damp t-shirt and numb feet. That was not a happy day :).


Game studio map. Dried out and crinkled. It'll be framed if I find a job.


That's what a 108' boom looks like when it's on its reel.



And that's what the factory where they're made looks like.


Den här är en Dalahäst.


We'd just finish a game of Pictionary. I'd been teamed with the girls. Guess who'd won.

On Wednesday, armed with update intel I set out for Blue Castle Games again and with the sun beaming (raging I didn't take more picture that day, was some good opportunities) was this time successful in finding the offices. As it turns out they had been previously located by Deer Park but had moved from there a number of years ago. The recruiter was away for the day and so I got talking to the head of HR and one of the founders. We chatted for a bit, happened to catch the Technical Director as he went by and generally left with a fairly good feeling. I've been in touch since and will get in touch again next week to see what the story is but overall I was happy enough. Hopefully I'll get a chat out of the recruiter if nothing else.


The red illustrates the route I took on Monday to try and find Blue Castle Games.
That red "A" pointer? The actual location...

Oh, on a side note; the bus drivers over here are the best I've ever known; they'll wait for people if they see them running, be understanding in situations where people don't have the correct fare, save people money, chat to anybody. Overall they've been really great.

And to explain the title; while it's all well and dandy having a job and a place to stay it's not really what I want at the moment (it's nothing I couldn't do back home really) as it's very awkward to get downtown and the job is not very "relevant" so I'll keep it going for now as it's certainly by no means a bad situation but most of my spare time is going towards finding different jobs or practicing my programming so that's why there has not been much touristy stuff yet, but hopefully that'll all come in time.