Found out today that we’ve passed Microsoft and we are now through all three console makers and are heading to manufacturing. Though, we’ve hit our slow down point at work for about two weeks now, it’s finally official that we are done. Madden 2005 will be hitting store shelves on August 12th. On or around then, I will be updating my Madden 2005 page with new screen shots and information about the game.
We had a nice quiet weekend. We mainly just stayed around the house cleaning. My aunt will be arriving next Sunday so we’ve got to keep the house clean, a pretty big feat with two small children. On Saturday, Jennifer cleaned both of the cars inside and out. Abby and Emily donned their bathing suits to help for a little bit.
On Sunday, as the final part of her Vacation Bible School, Abby sang in front of the church with all the other kids. We didn’t think we were going to get her to go up there. She was complaining that her tummy hurt. However, when it came time and all the other kids started heading towards the front of the church, she got right up and just sang away. She did a really great job and impressed both of us. Today’s picture if from the event.
After work today I met the family at Chuck E. Cheese so that the girls could run around and have fun. For the first time Abby was really into watching the animatronic Chuck E. Cheese show. She watched the show instead of running around and getting tickets from all the games. Emily is getting more vocal. She exclaimed “bubble” when someone walked by with some balloons. Pretty much anything round is “bubble” to her: bubble, ball, balloon. Not bad for 18 months old.
Today was the day our company store got NCAA Football in. Took it for a test drive this evening. Still just as good a previous years. I beat North Texas 17-14. It wasn’t really that close as I ran the ball all over them gaining almost 200 yards on the ground. I’m going to once again attempt to take Texas to the National Championship. Last year I was able to do it in one season and the previous year it took me two seasons. I got a copy for George and we will be starting up our Strange Brew College Football League (SBCFL) which we’ve been doing for many years now starting with Front Page Sports Football on the PC.
Today’s picture is another one that my grandparents took while the girls were up at their place in Lindale, Texas.
Electronic Arts has put up a web page devoted to the features that I worked on this year. Storyline Central was the main feature that I worked on all year. The Newspaper being the hardest one, in particular the newspaper picture. Because of created players and new rookies that come into the league during a franchise, there’s no way you could do a static bitmap for the picture. The picture in the newspaper is actually a posed 3D player. He gets moved and placed when flipping through the newspaper.
The other feature that I’m pretty proud of is the Sports Radio. This feature is like no other in a sports game. It’s so compelling to listen to the radio show after each week of your franchise to hear what is going on around the league. The Radio Show and the Newspaper both use the same story tracking system that I wrote for all of Storyline Central. Each week I put together the “radio script” from the major stories or which coaches or players are doing well during the season.
Trying to get caught up with what all has been happening over the last few days. A lot of resting a relaxing, except for Saturday morning. I went and played flag football with some of the guys at work. They play on a regular basis and I’m going to try and make it when ever I can, so I can get some sort of exercise. Even though we played 10 a.m. until noon, it was sweltering hot. Near the end I was dragging my feet before and during plays. Had lots of fun and have been very sore and sun burned for the past two days.
To relax the past few days I’ve just been playing Jak II and Jennifer has been working on Emily’s baby scrap book. We go upstairs and work up in the office. That has lead to trouble with Abby sneaking out of her room and getting into trouble. Friday she snuck out and got into Jennifer’s make-up. She spilled it on the floor and then blamed it on Emily even though Emily had been asleep for a couple of hours.
I saw Kill Bill, Volume I this weekend. Quentin Tarantino is an amazing director. Some of the shots are astonishing. The way he blends the music to what is going on in each shot is perfect. Can’t wait until Volume II comes out on DVD next month. It’s already in my Netflix queue.
Today Jennifer and the girls started attending Vacation Bible School up at church. Jennifer is doing games with the kids while Abby attends the classes. Emily is staying in the nursery. Because of the problems we are having with Abby about getting out of her room at night, she hasn’t been getting a good night’s rest. This morning, she was tired and kept crying at Vacation Bible School. She had to sit up with Jennifer for a while until she calmed down and then she joined her class later.
Today’s picture is from the set of pictures that my grandmother sent me from when Jennifer and the girls visited them in East Texas last month. Abby is showing off the new purse that MaMaw made for her.
Found out today that my parents have sold their house and bought a new house. They live in Shreveport, Louisiana. The house is much bigger than the one that they are currently in and it’s on an acre lot. The house is older and they are going to be doing a lot of home improvements like they did in their current house.
Today was another day off from work so we went to the beach. We got a late start so we had to park on the beach. The girls had fun digging in the sand and sitting in the waves. Me and Abby went out and jumped in the waves. After a couple of hours, we all piled into the car all sandy and drove home.
Finished Jak and Daxter tonight. It was a fun game. I like games where you can get stuck. Set it down and come back to it and keep going, getting past the last place you were stuck in. Jak and Daxter was that type of game. I also like it when the last boss isn’t too tough to beat. It took a few tries to finish him off, but it wasn’t impossible. Now I’m going to start on Jak II, which I got for Christmas.
Happy 4th of July. We braved the rain and the lightning to go to the fireworks show in Sanford, the small town near where we live. We weren’t going to go because it started raining around 5:00, but it started clearing around 7:00 so we decided to brave the storm. It was looking good and I even got a great picture of the sunset. Once it got close to starting time, the rain started and we huddled underneath an umbrella watching the fireworks. Near the end, Emily started getting restless and we had to get going, but overall it was a good show. If it just wasn’t raining, it would have been great. Since the 4th of July is in the middle of Florida’s rainy season, we just want to know if it rains on this day every year. I would love to find a nice secluded spot like Jennifer and I used to have when we live in Clear Lake near Houston. I’m surprised Heathrow, the community we live in, doesn’t have a fireworks show.
We started out the morning by going to The Little Gym with Abby & Emily. They just opened up this gymnasium for little kids around the corner from our house and Jennifer signed up the girls for a couple of free lessons. We thought Emily was too young for their program. We think Gymboree is a little more Emily’s speed since it’s for younger kids. However, Abby did excellent. She followed the instructor’s directions and she was the only one in the class which could hold her own weight on the ballance beem and extend her toes all the way out. We are thinking about looking for a regular gym and put her into, but we will see. The best thing about it was that she ran herself tired for a full hour. When it was nap time, she was out like a light.
Jennifer’s been trying to work on Emily’s baby scrap book. It’s been harder because when Emily was born, we switched over to a digital camera and she’s having to get the pictures she wants printed.
I received some pictures from my grandparents, MaMaw and PaPaw, from when the girls were up in Lindale, Texas visiting. I will be posting them in the near future, but today’s picture is from Emily’s trip to the gym.
It was a nice quiet day off from work. Hopefully I won’t get a call and I will have a great four day weekend. Here’s to hoping. It was a nice lazy day. I mainly just played video games all afternoon. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t play video games at work all day, so I haven’t had a chance to play anything since March. I downloaded the trial version of Rise of Nations after seeing a review for it on XPlay. It was pretty fun. Much like any other real time strategy game, but more like Civilization in that you move through the ages from a wandering nomad tribe to modern era equipment. I also played Jak and Daxter, which I’ve been trying to finish and MVP Baseball 2004.
As a family, we didn’t do much either and it rained all afternoon. We’ve hit the Florida rainy season when it rains every afternoon and it has rained every day for at least two weeks.
Our first movies from NetFlix arrived and I watched The Last Samurai last night. It was a very good epic film. I recommend it to those of you who haven’t seen it.
Here’s another picture from our redecorated living room. Jennifer bought some metal wall plaques and some new potted plants. It helps break up the giant wall that the television set sits on.
Frenchville 