I have a lot to add today. On the weekend of 4/8/200 and 4/9/2000 I went to Austin to visit Craig. I left Friday night (I arrived there around midnight central time.) I had a pretty good time. Craig had to work Saturday, so I drive him to work in the morning. He is still working at Origin, but now officially works or Electronic Arts as a billing/customer service person. I still can’t believe how relaxed things are there. He can dress pretty much however he wants. The entire atmosphere is very liberal and open. Craig told me that this past weekend, he took a cooler full of alcohol ‘punch’ into work to share with his co-workers on the night shift. I can’t imagine being able to do something like that. He claims that as long as it’s off duty, it’s ok. He even said that people have beer in the company refrigerator to drink after work. Another interesting thing is that they seem to promote people staying after hours at work. Craig tells me that some GMs (Ultima Online Game Masters) will stay after work and play their UO characters or even Everquest or Asherons Call. I picked Craig up from work to have lunch with him. Saturday in Austin was absolutely perfect. It was around 70 degrees, sunny, clear, and a few clouds. There was a gentle breeze that was just begging me to go outside. After lunch, I dropped Craig off and I drove to a park nearby where he works (did I mention that Origin’s office is in a beautiful part of Austin?) I walked the trail at this park for about an hour and then went back to his place. Saturday night in Austin, Craig threw a party for the scuba club. He also invited some people he works with. The party wasn’t all that great. A large group of people from the scuba club showed up, all basically talked to themselves, and then left. Three guys that Craig works with (GM’s) showed up as well. One thing I noticed about all the people Craig works with is that they are typical computer geeks. They are either skinny as a rail or overweight. Most of them have long hair and a beard. They are also all pale and typically anti-social. That could describe me I guess, but I hate to consider myself like that or in that extreme. If given the choice, and the situation were right, I would love to work for a gaming software company like that. I love the atmosphere that goes with that industry. Craig hopes to eventually move into a technical job and away from answering the phones like he is doing now. So after all the scuba club people left the party, it was just a bunch of guys (Craig, myself, Alex, and the three Origin guys). We talked about online games. One of the guys had recently quit his job and was moving to California the next day. It was fun to be able to talk ‘openly’ about online games such as Ultima Online, Everquest, and Asherons Call with people who all know what the others are talking about. Sunday in Austin was a bit of a waste. We slept in and then went to the airport for my flight back to Austin. Unfortunately I did not make the flight. The next flight looked even worse. After that, the only other flight out on Sunday was a 7pm ASA flight. I did not make that one either. I had to wait until Monday morning to get back to Atlanta. I left a message for my manager (Eric Neumann) saying that I was not able to make it back to Atlanta and would be in late Monday morning. I found out Monday that he would prefer not to hear that because in the past, people could be fired for being out of town and informing their boss that they couldn’t make a flight. After wasting a lot of the day at the airport, we went back to his apartment and watched “Stigmata” DVD and ordered pizza. The movie wasn’t all that great, but it was a good way to pass the time. I made it back on the Monday morning flight and came into work for a couple of hours. I took the day as a vacation day and did laundry as well as went shopping.
This past weekend (4/16/2000), I went to the furnituregallery.com tennis challenge with Melissa Nicewander from work. She came over around 11am, and we went to lunch at Rio Bravo nearby. Sunday was another beautiful day. It was in the 70’s, sunny, breezy, and a few clouds. I was so elated that the day turned out so well. We had an early lunch outside the restaurant, and talked a lot. I had a good time at lunch and think she did too. We arrived at the Atlanta Athletic Club about an hour before the match started. There were a lot of people there already. We have ‘general admission’ seats, which were the highest section of the bleachers. The seats weren’t that bad, and we could still see the game and hear everything. The bleacher seats were pretty uncomfortable with no back support, so I rented two ‘chair backs’ for us to use. The game went well. I didn’t know who the players were, as I was looking forward to Andre Agassi playing, but he had to bow out in the third round due to a hamstring injury. The two players were Illie and Stoltenberg, two Australian tennis pros. It was exciting to watch the match in person, as opposed to on television. During the game, we knew we were going to be sun burnt because of the bright sun beating down. Sure enough, two and a half hours later when we left, we were red with a ‘farmers tan’. After the game we drove around the area, as there were some big and expensive houses in this plush part of town. We drove by “The Country Club of the South”, which is supposed to be an exclusive and expensive country club. We drove into a new neighborhood and stopped at an unfurnished open house. It was a large 5-bedroom house with some nice amenities. They were selling the house for $670,000. On the way back to my apartment (I was driving), we stopped for dinner at Subway. I had a steak & cheese on wheat bread.
I got a traffic ticket on Tuesday (4/11/2000) on I75 northbound for going 80 mph in a 65 mph zone. I wasn’t paying attention and saw a cop behind me. Needless to say, he pulled me over and gave me a ticket. I usually pay attention and am on the lookout for cops. This was the first time I ever got pulled over, which is surprising because ever since I got the Cougar, I’ve been speeding a lot. He also gave me a ticket for having expired tags. I didn’t even realize they were expired until he told me. This makes me upset because I paid for the registration, but the tax office never sent me anything back. I have proof that I paid and will go the Cobb County courthouse place to get it all taken care of as soon as my ‘bill’ or whatever comes in the mail.
