Concerts, Conferences & Games

Well, I just booked 4 tickets for the Vodka Rocks Music Festival at Snoqualmie Casino. John’s pretty excited. It’ll be a new thing for me – I haven’t been to any bigger open-air concerts (with any bands that had actually made names for themselves). At least he asked to go to a concert which is featuring bands I actually really like… Verve Pipe, Candlebox, and Toad the Wet Sprocket.

So that’s July 9th. And on July 20th I got tickets to a Sounders game! Sounders vs. my favorite team – Manchester United. We’re in the nosebleed seats at the very top, but I asked someone at work and they said we’ll still be able to see just fine. I’m mostly interested in experiencing the game itself – with the pre-game march and such. It was one thing I definitely wanted to cross of the list before we head back – especially after having class with Brian Marr from Wexley and hearing about all of the marketing and branding that went into the Sounders as a team.

Oh yeah! And I totally forgot – I got two three-day passes to PAX Prime! “the largest gaming festival in the nation!” I got passes pretty early – they were completely sold out of all day and 3-day passes by Memorial Day and the conference isn’t until the beginning of September! That should be awesome as well. I had no idea Seattle is where PAX originated. If it’s good, I’ll probably try to go to Pax East every year in Boston. It’s one of those conferences that I wanted to go to, at least once. Lots of great speakers to see and games to play. Now, if I can just figure out a way to go to E3 and CES in the future…

Next to purchase: Bumbershoot tickets.

Summer Events Are Here!

My third quarter is almost coming to an end in a few weeks. It seems kind of quick, but I just have two left to go. The Summer quarter is probably going to be pretty brutal since they squeeze 10 weeks worth of content into 8 weeks. Isn’t stopping me from taking two. Looks like I’m in for The Health of Networks and Transmedia Production & Distribution. I’m a little interested to see how it goes. Both descriptions were rather broad. I really don’t have a solid sense of what the transmedia class might entail, but I started looking into work by the professor and he and his work sound interesting. We’ll see. The other class, I know will be reading/writing/discussion intensive – which I’m liking quite a bit.

Other than school, there’s work of course – which is taking off in a million different directions. I have the full-time job at CampusCE, and then was asked to start getting into another project that is semi-related. Then there’s the freelance stuff. One third with Creative Circle (a creative staffing agency), one third doing my own thing, and one thing starting the beginning stages of a partnership with an IT/networking company back home.

When I’m not doing that, I’m going to make the most of exploring and events. Starting next weekend we’re going to a tribute Queen concert by the Seattle Rock Orchestra and two Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) events. The first SIFF event I’m going to is being put on by the MCDM program, The Fusion of Film and Gaming in the Pacific Northwest. The second for next weekend is the movie Hooked (Russia). The two following weekends I got tickets for The Whistleblower (Canada) and Third Star (UK, North American Premier). There are so many movies at SIFF – a few hundred at least. I narrowed it down to three – one a weekend. Not only are they an expense that could add up quickly, but we’re getting close to finals. I’d go to see every movie if I could.

Surfaced

I spent the entire weekend buried deep in case analysis writing for my marketing class. I’m glad that’s over. Now I just have two more to look forward to writing this semester. John made out better than I did. He spent Friday night on Whidbey Island at his friend, Jason’s, house. He said he stayed up way too late, but was happy to get out and visit and to see the area – which he said is much closer to home than Seattle is. He got back on Saturday afternoon and then spent Sunday with a new friend (who he met through Jason). I’m not really sure where my weekend went – all I know is I’m going to start the next case analysis much earlier (I had no idea what I was getting into when I started).

Things are going well. We’re both looking forward to seeing Georgette and the boys when they come to visit next month. There are so many sites that we have yet to see (which will make good sites to see with them). It looks like Nancy and Linda might visit one after the other in March. It also looks like Winn and then Jenett and Zeb might come out in April. I can’t wait for Spring and Summer weather – especially for the cherry tree blooming (the campus is covered with cherry trees).

The MCDM program is awesome. My classes this quarter require a significant amount of work compared to last quarter, but I’m managing (somehow). One class is basically a media theory class which requires a ton of reading, but is very interesting. Our final group assignment is to take a technology/media and show the history of it and future uses. My group picked motion-based user interfaces (e.g. Kinect) and we’re thinking of doing a user manual that looks like it’s from the past (as in someone from the future is reading it). Hard to describe, but it should be really fun. For our individual final projects we have to choose a technology/media and predict where it will be 2, 5, and 10 years from now. I have no clue what I am going to do, but I want to make it gaming related. Other than that, I have a marketing/branding class and an analytics class. They’re both great classes, but the media theory class (evolution & trends) is one of my favorites so far. I can’t wait until next quarter – I’m going to take a gaming/virtual worlds class and another mobile class.

It seems like I have somehow acquired a lot of clients here. So between clients from home and new clients from Seattle, that’s also keeping me pretty busy. Most of the time I wish I had as much time as John to play Call of Duty. *** Just got interrupted by a call from an agency I submitted a bid to. I quoted a job at a quarter of what another guy did (I was quoting how long it would actually take me) – I guess I should at least triple my usual numbers for work around here. UPDATE: The agency called back. Guess the client enjoyed talking to me on the phone and really wants to work with me. So… they asked if they could double what I quoted. Now I just have to find the time for the additional hours needed to put into it.