February

28th Well, I really haven't written on here in a long time. I'll see if I can do a bit of catch-up I spose... starting with the Summer, which went by much too fast and wasn't nearly warm enough. Joey and Merina came home for the entire month of August. They got married on August 11th at Penderosa, which is a community of cottages near Thunder Cove. Most of Merina's family and many friends from Winnipeg made the trip out to PEI for the event. I remember that morning the weather was looking questionable, but it cleared up for the afternoon and everything went really well.

For the most part the Summer was all dull, rainy weather. We got out to the beach a few times, and went out to see Hey Rosetta! with Ryan at some point, but otherwise I don't think a lot of anything happened. I'm hoping next year's will be better.

Noel, Jimmy, Jamieson and I have hosted quite a few more barbecues and parties at the new house since I last updated. They're not officially work events, but most of the people that come out are friends from work so we sorta consider them office parties. Life at the new house is still pretty good. I like my room, and I'm looking forward to using the patio more often this Summer. We're coming up to our first year here, and are pretty sure we'll be sticking around, with the exception of Jamieson, who may be moving away.

Christmas vacation was a nice break, although it went by far too quickly. It was just me, mom and Gary at home, so I didn't stay in Summerside for as long as I usually do. I think the weirdest part was not having Buddy around this year. I did get some nice gifts though, like a ukulele and an amazing Volkswagen camper lego set, which I haven't yet assembled for some reason.

I've spent most of my spare time the last few months doing website work. I'm just about to launch some updates for one client, and then Ryan and I will be finishing up a very large new site.

Aside from client work I've been doing plenty of upgrades to Fourside. For years I've wanted to make a dynamically generated header that would display an image based on the current time of day or night, and over the last two weeks I managed to put one together using some new functions added for HTML5. So far I'm really happy with how it's working, but I still have plenty of ideas for things I would like to add. I've also created a new background and logo for the site, and have made tons of adjustments to polish up the layout after several years of neglect.

Oh, I've also posted an updated version of my game, Rabbit Jumping. When I originally released it I didn't have any background audio, and I didn't really want to use existing music. It turns out my friend Shaun is pretty skilled at composition and he created unique tracks for all of the levels, the title, and a few other places, using pxtone, the music engine created for Cave Story. The game is definitely a LOT more impressive thanks to him, so give it a try.

Time has been passing really quickly lately. It feels like winter just started, but the days are already noticeably longer. Daylight savings starts on March 11th so in just a couple weeks it'll feel like spring is on the way.

July

16th So much for updating more often. The Summer is probably about halfway done, and I'm still waiting for it to start. The weather has been seriously lousy this last month and a half. If it's not raining, it's just cloudy and cold, and nice weather always falls on work days. This whole weekend looks pretty good, but I'm at work today. I'll try to get to the beach tomorrow though.

Sculpin QA moved to a new office yesterday. We're not down-town any longer, more like mid-town by the Sobeys and Dairy Queen area. The place is definitely an improvement from our old space though. There's so much more room, and we've got bigger desks. It's also really close to my house so I may walk to work when it's nice out.

After the move yesterday Noel, Jimmy and I hosted a barbecue at our house. It seemed like most of the office was there, so we got more familiar with some of the new guys. The place was a pretty huge disaster this morning, but somehow I actually kinda enjoy cleaning it up alone, with a nice quiet house and sunny weather outside.

Aside from work I haven't been doing a whole lot. Mainly just playing video games I guess. A few weeks ago I created a website for a video game I had made in my spare time last summer. The game doesn't have any music for the time being, but Shaun is composing some great retro music for it so I'm hoping to update soon with a much more enjoyable version.

Joey and Merina will be coming home for August. Their wedding is on the 11th. I'm hoping it'll feel more like Summer once they arrive, although I only managed to take the week of their wedding off. I hope the weather is nice.

May

2nd Oh wow it's May already. The weather really needs to improve. Today was supposed to be the one not-rainy day in the middle of two weeks of rain... and it's gloomy out. I'm anxious to be out on the beach, or taking this new dog for a walk. Yep, my mom adopted a new dog. His name is Wyatt, and he's a quiet grown-up dog from the Humane Society. She's had him a couple weeks and he's apparently doing really well, but I haven't been home to take him for a test walk yet.

The week before last I went to Winnipeg with Kalon for Joey and Merina's social. We only stayed 6 days and it went by so fast. I would have been happy to stay for a couple more weeks. The social went very well from what I could tell. (I've never been to one before, but a ton of people came out and everyone seemed to have a great time dancing, doing karaoke and winning prizes.)

The night after the social Joey, Kalon and I went to see Video Games Live at the Burton Cummings theatre, hosted by Tommy Talarico. It was a really cool show, although maybe a bit overpriced for what it was.

On Saturday we all went to Merina's aunt and uncle's house for an Easter Supper, and then we flew back Sunday morning. Once back in Charlottetown we went out for supper at the Gahan with my mom and I got their PEI Burger Love burger, it was pretty amazing.

Last week Noel, Jimmy and I finally found a new place. It's actually a four bedroom house that Jamieson from work found (he'll be living with us). There's an apartment in the basement but it's pretty separate so we basically have a whole house, garage and driveway, with a patio and backyard for bbqs. We signed the lease on Sunday and should be good to move in on Tuesday, though I'll be waiting for the weekend to go. It's gonna feel a bit strange to leave 610 behind, but a lot has changed around here since I moved in three years ago so maybe it is time to leave. (Actually now that I think about it, today is EXACTLY three years from when I first moved in. Time goes way too fast...)

Finally some computer related news that very few people will care about. I bought a video card cooler a few months ago, but haven't had the guts to install it. Dalton offered to install it for me and I just got it back before the weekend. The difference is amazing! My video card maxes out around 65 degrees now instead of 90, and the cooling fan doesn't make nearly as much noise when it does. I'm quite happy about this.

Yesterday Chris and John MacPhee (from Paper Lions) did an acoustic set at Timothy's downtown. It was really good. Chris has been putting together some songs for a solo side project and it seems to be coming along. After the show we all went for some food at the Gahan. It seems like it has been a long time really since I've gone out in Charlottetown.