FREEEEEEEDOOOMMMMM

I ran some tests overnight at work for something that I've been working on for many weeks now. The results were absolutely amazing. In fact, they were so good that neither I nor two of my co-workers were convinced that they were right. So I did some cross-validation and sure enough, things are as good as my program says they are (at least mathematically speaking). So I'm pretty excited now, because this could turn into something big if there's no serious flaws found in later tests. It's good to work so hard on something for so long and finally start seeing the results, even when initially the results look too good to be true. :)

I'm FINALLY on my vacation now, thank god. First thing I think I'm going to do is set up a doctor's appointment and figure out why I've had a chronic cough for over a month. I heard it could be lung cancer, or tuberculosis. Hopefully it's not fatal. >_> On a totally random note, I got an e-mail from th UT Athletics department that was dated 06:00PM December 31st, 1969. Man, their computer must have been so slow that it took 5 years for the Y2K bug to hit! *snicker* Ok, I think I'm going to go sleep for a couple days now. Hopefully I'll wake up in time for Independence Day...

Can't Hardly Wait

The apartment complex that I checked out this morning was AWESOME! I am so pumped, I already told them I want to be a resident and I'm going tomorrow to make my deposit and sign the lease for a 2 bed-2 bath for $900/month. Not too shabby I say, and it's a block a way from campus. :) It's good timing too, because I just killed ANOTHER cockroach in my place (this is the second in about a week). They've both been in my bathroom for some reason, how do they get in there (or come from there?). It creeps me out, especially because I sleep on the floor (I have no bed, because not too long ago I was living in total destitution).

And more good news, tomorrow is my last day of work until July 11th! I have never needed a vacation this bad in my life. I'm so burnt out from work/school at this point that I've been losing my will to live. :P I think that I'm going to go to the pool and lay out in the sun and read every single day. I almost wish I had a job that required me to be outdoors, but computers and weather don't mix. :( Anyway, now that I've found a good place I need to find a good roommate and I'll be on the road to recovery for next year!

Being the boss can suck

I had to start something really unpleasant today: a discussion of the removal of one of our programmers from the Allacrost staff. It won't be the first time I've ousted a programmer, but the guy we're considering right now does a really good job. He's just not avaiable enough and it's been really slowing down our code production because we are waiting on parts of his code to proceed. This is unlike the situation with the last guy, whom we hired and for four months he didn't write a single line of code for what he was supposed to do! Seriously, I have no idea why it took me so long to think to get rid of that guy; He was not just unproductive but actually counter-productive for the team.

And this is one of the major reasons why developing this game is taking so long. I'd like to see you go out and hire random people on the internet to help you accomplish some childhood dream and not have a couple that just fly away and disappear, leaving you hanging. Oh well, I can't complain since no one is being paid anything but respect and gratitude. :) In other news I'm going to check out an apartment complex tomorrow, which surprisingly meets both of my main criteria (inexpensive and close to campus). Hopefully I like the place because I really want to get out of my current apartment ASAP and start fresh.

Finally done

I just hit the finalize submission button for my paper to IISWC. I'm really glad it's over (for now) because I was starting to get really depressed going to work all day and working on my paper all night. It's summer! I should be having fun! Or at least that's what I feel.

I guess I must have been really tired after last week. I slept about 10 hours Friday night, then 3 hours after I woke up somehow I just unconciously went back to floor (not bed, because I sleep on the floor) and took another 4 hour nap! So of course this screwed up my sleeping schedule, and I stayed up all night Saturday working on my project at work and some other junk. Then I went running at 5:40 AM and ran for an entire hour (I haven't run but more than about 20-30 minutes every 3-4 days for the past two weeks). It felt great, and afterwards I could barely stand. Then I took another 3 hour nap later that morning and after waking up, I went to the pool and swam 762 meters. I thought that I would be so sore today that I would barely be able to move, but I felt almost totally fine, which kind of sucks because I like being sore (it lets me know that I'm getting stronger).

Only two months of summer left now, and I don't even feel like the season has begun for me yet... *tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock*

I've become an asshole

Tonight I was proofing a translation script that some new girl wrote. I have always hated proofing, because 90% of the scripts I've proofed just weren't up to snuff. They were missing crap, they were poorly translated, or they were poorly worded. So I wrote this girl a short critique on things she missed (she missed *a lot* of translations). And then I was told that she cried about it or something, and after an online discussion I suddenly realized it.

I've become a complete jerk. All this stress and fatigue must have changed me, because before I was always a super-nice guy (part of the reason why I become "just friends" with every girl I meet). But now it's like I have no tolerance at all. The slightest shred of incompetency is like lighting a 10-second fuse. This isn't just with translation, this is with everything lately. I've become angry enough to the point where sometimes I will hit things to relieve my anger. It is absolutely horrible that I've become this way. I hate the person I am right now, and I hate the fact that I've allowed myself to be worked hard enough to sink this low. I really need to take some time off and alleviate the pressure in my life before I destroy myself. Seriously.

RAWR!

I've been adding the word rawr in almost all of my e-mails lately. People tend to think it's some kind of acronym, but it's not. It's just a word I picked up that I've been using to indicate 'my general distaste with a situation or thing'. And belive me, there are a lot of things I'm unhappy about these days. I thought this was going to be the best summer of my life. My roommate is in Taiwan and I have the place to myself, school's over (in theory at least...), the project I'm working on at Freescale is really cool and fun, etc. I had so many big plans and dreams for this blessed 3 months of my life, but so far all that I've experienced in pain, frustration, and anger. Why?

Well it started out with the continuous stress of working full-time and going to school part-time from January through May. It got really bad in the last few weeks, but I just kept telling myself to hang on and weather the storm and then life would be good again. Far from it. Shortly after finishing up my term paper, a new "high-priority" project sprung up from work. At the first meeting we were given 4 weeks to do an analysis that would normally take double that time, or more. And then later the next day that 4 week period was shortened to two weeks, and all hell broke loose. It was really tiring and frusterating.

During that time I got an e-mail from my advising professor who said she liked our (my partner and I) term paper and that we should submit it to IISWC (a computer architecture conference). So I thought "Oh wow this is awesome!". So I looked up the submission deadline and it was June 27th, about a month. Now normally this wouldn't be too bad, but we had to basically write this paper from scratch because IBM completely changed the benchmark suite we used and we had to get performance data on multiple different machines. To sum it up in a nutshell, we had less time and more work to do than our original paper (which was a hell of a lot). I even e-mailed my professor and basically said "I don't think I'm going to have time to do this much work. After all I have a job and I'm super busy with it right now". To which she replied "Sorry to hear you're busy, but that's good for you. Learn a lot.". Yeah, thanks.


So basically, I've been putting in between 50 and 60 hours a week into school and work for a few months now and I'm about out of gas. It's not that I'm in a particularly stresseful situation right now (well, except for the fact that the paper is due Monday), it's that I've been exposed to constant stress for so long it's making me feel horrible. It's like everytime I'm successful at something, all it amounts to is more work given to me. I am almost starting to think that I should strive to be an unsuccessful loser at this point. ;_;


Rawr indeed. I'll end my blurb here since I've probably already said too much. But those of you who know me should already know that I'm a very verbose and detailed person. :)

Frist post!!111

Yeah, so here it is. My first blog and little corner on the net to talk about the things I do and why I do them. And if you don't know who I am, here's a really brief introduction:

Name: Tyler OlsenAge: 22 (23 next month)
Occupation (1): Graduate Student of Electrical & Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin
Occupation (2): Computer Architect and Performance Analyist at Freescale Semiconductor
Main Hobby (1): Founder and Lead Designer of the open source game Hero of Allacrost

Main Hobby (2): Japanese translator for Yanime


Chances are if you are reading this right now, you know me from one of the four things I do that I listed above. There have been talks about creating a blog for staffers at Yanime and I have given the thought of making a blog for everyone on the Allacrost project once or twice, but I figured it would be easier for me to just have one blog than several.

Anyway, what can you expect here? Well mostly just me talking about crap in my life, including my job, school, my game, translating, and the other numerous things I do. I promise it will be entertaining. :) You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll ponder the deeper meanings in life along with me. Good times are ahead my friend. So check back every now and then and maybe I'll have written something that peaks your interest.