Back to the Daily Grind

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We made it home all in one piece. Sunday was spent cleaning all the stuff that needs to go back into the camper. We packed up in the morning, so there was still dew on the camper. Because of this, when we get home, we have to open it back up in the drive way and let the sun dry it the rest of the way before we pack it up and take it back to storage. So, we did that and I had to get the lawn mowed.

Today it was back to work for me. Jennifer picked up Austin, who we left at the kennel while we were camping. Jennifer also went and got her hair done. She goes to a hair stylist at the RDV Sportsplex, a private gym across the street from where I work. She likes it because she can drop the kids off at the kids gym across the hall for a couple of hours while she’s at the hair stylist. It would be great to take them there more often, but memberships to the RDV are too expensive. EA offers subsidized memberships for me and Jennifer, but they don’t for the kids. Not sure why when there’s more and more people with families working at EA. Hopefully they will change that one of these days.

Fort Clinch Camping, Day 3

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REMOTE POSTING – FERNANDINA BEACH, FL.: It didn’t rain today! All the activities we wanted to do earlier in the week we finally were able to do. It started off with a trip back to Fort Clinch, which was much easier to see in the daylight. We walked up on the battlement and was able to see a great view on the Atlantic coast, but it didn’t last too long since it was so hot.
After a quick lunch back at the camp, we headed over to the beach. There was a lot of people there compared to rainy Thursday, but nothing compared to Cocoa or New Sermerna beach. We plopped our beach umbrella and chairs down Cocoa or New Sermerna beach. We plopped our beach umbrella and chairs down and Abby and Emily ran down to start jumping in the waves. In usual Isabel and Abby and Emily ran down to start jumping in the waves. In usual Isabelle fashion, she ran behind her big sisters and got bowled over by the first big wave. Fortunately, I was there to pluck her out of the water. The beac big wave. Fortunately, I was there to pluck her out of the water. The beach had a ton of broken shells which were continuously being pushed up on shore and it felt like walking on glass to get to the water. We had several hours of fun and probably stayed a little too long. Even with sun screen on, everyone’s face was really red afterwards.
Back at camp, we came to the realization that we were too tired to cook, so we headed back into Fernandina Beach to eat. We needed to get more ice for the coolers and to get gas for the truck, so we figured “why not”. We spotted an Applebee’s on the way to the state park so we decided to head there.. Now we are back at camp and are trying to get the girls to settle down for our last night before heading home.

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Fort Clinch Camping, Day 2

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REMOTE POSTING – FERNANDINA BEACH, FL.: It rained all night long. The girls slept right through it, but Jennifer and myself were tossing all night lon slept right through it, but Jennifer and myself were tossing all night long. At one point the wind started whipping, but we weathered the storm.
In the morning the girls got up at their normal 6:30 time and it was still raining. Every once in a while it would slow down to a sprinkle and I was able to get some charcoal lit for our breakfast. We cooked up egg and bacon English muffins heated up in a pie iron over the hot coals.
It was still raining and the girls were getting stir crazy, so we decided to get everyone into the Sequoia and head into Jacksonville. I looked up a children’s museum with directions on the Internet using my phone. And off we went. It was a cute place. It was just a locally owned joint with several went. It was a cute place. It was just a locally owned joint with several areas like a pretend bank and post office. It had a dress up area and stage which Abby enjoyed.
We let the girls play around for a couple of hours and then we headed over to Dave & Busters. D&B is an arcade/restaurant which they have in Texas, which we haven’t been to since leaving Austin. The best way to describe it is a Chuck E Cheese for adults. The girls had fun and won several toys playin a Chuck E Cheese for adults. The girls had fun and won several toys playing all the games that gave away tickets.
Believe it or not the sun had come out in the afternoon and dried up the camp. As the sun started to set, we had a quick snack for dinner and headed over to Fort Clinch for a candle light tour of the fort. The tour was very interesting. A soldier with a thick Irish accent answered the door to the fort and led us around the various areas. He stayed in character pretending to be a corporal in the Union army who captured and completed the fort during the Civil War. As I said, it was all very interesting. It was so hot inside the various buildings and it’s amazing that people could live in the South without air conditioning. That’s why our camper has it and I don’t leave home without it. home without it.

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Fort Clinch Camping, Day 1

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REMOTE POSTING – FERNANDINA BEACH, FL.: We headed out on our first non-Disney excursion in the camper today: Fort Clinch State Park. It’s just north of Jacksonville and was about a two and a half hour trip from Orlando. It’s as far north as you can go in Florida without crossing over into Georgia. The campground is right along the Atlantic coast with the beach within walking distance.
Unfortunately, It’s been raining almost the whole time, which is pretty unusual for Florida. Usually it rains for an hour max and then the sun comes back out. We did have a little break in the clouds and walked along the beach. We also rode our bikes down to the actual fort itself, but got there right as it was closing. We also got there right as the clouds decided to let the rain out again. It was a very soaking mile-long bike trek back to the camp site. We were still able to cook out on the grill even through the sprinkles. After dinner it was a couple of games of Chutes and Ladders inside the camper with the girls and it was time for bed. Hopefully it won’t be as rainy tomorrow.

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Wastin’ Away Again in Margaritaville

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I did end up having to send my new Treo 750 back, but they were able to get me a new one just in time for my birthday. I spent most of the day trying to get my work e-mail transferred to the device and finally just gave up.

On Monday, we went to Typhoon Lagoon to continue using our annual water park passes. We had fun and actually got Emily to go on one of the water slides. Last time we got all the way to the top and she refused to slide down. Around 2:30 they shut down the rides because a thunder storm was heading our way. We had already been there since 10:00, so we took this as a sign to get going.

On my Birthday, we headed down to Universal CityWalk because I wanted to waste away in Margaritaville. I had a Cheeseburger in Paradise and downed a couple of Margaritas (which were very good). We were going to do some shopping around the CityWalk, but once again those pesky late afternoon Florida thunder storms scared us away. Overall, a nice birthday. As you get older, it gets harder and harder to get excited about birthdays. It’s just another day.

Today we headed to church mainly because we had to teach Emily’s Sunday school class. It’s always tough to do this because Emily clings to us the whole time. At one point I refused and walked away. This just caused her to become a puddle on the floor, refusing to participate. After church, we headed to Five Guys hamburgers. I had been there a couple of times for lunch, but this was the first time I took the family. They have very good hamburgers and French fries. I really recommend them. Because we had nothing else to do, we headed over to the Altamonte Springs mall. This mall we don’t get to as much since we moved up to the Lake Mary area. We had two missions: find a new camping cookbook and find some school shoes for the girls. Four pairs of shoes later, I can say we were successful in one of those missions.

The rest of the day was a lazy day around the house with most of us electing to take a nap. Me and the girls finally cleaned up their play room. The summer has been long and their room has become a mess. Neither Jennifer or myself have the energy at the end of the day to make them clean it. We are always ready for them to head off to bed.

NCAA Football 08

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For my birthday coming up I ordered a new phone, a Treo 750. I haven’t gotten it to work and I’m assuming that I have to get it fully charged. I’m going to let it charge up over night and hope for the best. Otherwise, it’s back to AT&T for another one. We also upgraded Jennifer’s phone to a Razr, since it was free.

I also played NCAA Football 08 at home for the first time tonight. It’s much better playing in at home than at work. It was the first time I got to sit down and play the Campus Legendmode. This is really cool. You get to create a player. I created a free safety #37 who played for Lindale High School (this is the position & number I played in junior high). The mode starts out with you playing through the state high school championship tournament. How well you play in the tournament determines the school you will play at in college. It was fun although the position of free safety isn’t all that exciting.

New President of EA Sports

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Vacation Bible School is getting more stressful for Jennifer as they keep adding more and more kids. They are now over 400 kids and the crafts she’s in charge of are going fast. She doesn’t want to get into a position where she has to tell one of the kids that there isn’t enough supplies for them.

Today it was announced that Peter Moore is now President of EA Sports. Recently Electronic Arts split into four separate labels or brands: EA Sports, EA Games, EA Casual, and The Sims. Each label will have a president who reports directly to the CEO of the company, John Riccitiello. EA Sports was the only label which didn’t have a president. Peter Moore comes from Microsoft where he was head of marketing for the Xbox. It’s good that John Riccitiello recognized that we needed someone from the outside to give us a different perspective on how to take our games into the next decade of gaming. I’m closing in on my seventh year at EA and it’s been pretty much the same thing: each year there is a packaged good that we sell: Madden 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, etc. How long can that be sustained? Are there better methods? Hopefully Peter Moore can help guide us in the right direction. It will now be interesting to see if this changes how the reporting structure works between studios. We’ll have to wait and see.

Today was another softball game this time against the QA department. We ended up losing 13-3. We were leading after 1 inning, 2-0, but after that our bats went away and they started getting in the runs. I went 1-2 with an RBI for hitting. They were playing with a “rover” in the outfield. I was able to plunk it right between the gap in the outfielders, but beyond the reach of the rover.

First Day

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Today was the first day of Vacation Bible School for Jennifer and the girls. Even Isabelle got to go now that she’s two. Almost 400 people are attending and Jennifer said it was a sea of kids in the Family Life Center gymnasium up at church. Fortunately, Jennifer only sees a hand full of kids at a time and only for around twenty minutes until the next group comes in. Today’s picture is some of the decorations that were put up this weekend.

At work, I conducted the first team meeting for my new team. It was pretty much silent as I explained the plan for figuring out the type of game we were going to build. I also had to give some bad news to some guys who were going to moving off to a new team. Of all the things I don’t like about being a manager, it’s delivering bad news. It’s a fact of life that it’s part of my job and I know I have to do it and I don’t have a problem doing it. I just don’t like doing it. I guess no one really does, unless you are sadistic.

NCAA Football 08 comes out tomorrow and the Marketing department had some extra Xbox 360 Faceplates, so I snagged one for my 360. The requests for copies of NCAA from some of my friends started coming in this weekend. I plan on picking up my copy tomorrow. A pretty good commercial featuring the Texas Longhorns was sent around work today as well.

Setting up for Vacation Bible School

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Today was a lounge around the house day with the kids while Jennifer went up to church to set up for vacation bible school. Jennifer is teaching crafts next week at our church’s vacation bible school, so she had to spend the afternoon up there getting ready for almost 400 kids to show up. They decorated nearly every room in the entire church. Jennifer was originally expecting around 325 kids and it kept increasing over the week. There was a mad dash this afternoon for some extra supplies, but they found what they were looking for and they should all be set.

Abby and Emily pretty much played on Jennifer’s computer while I watched TV and did the laundry. I also spent some time updating the look for Frenchville.

Plaques & Racks

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We started out the day by heading up to where I work. I recently moved to a new project and, thus, moved to a new office. When ever that happens, that means that I have to re-hang all my game plaques. Now totalling eight, it’s not an easy project. I try not to do it during the day, because I never have enough time and I don’t want to be banging on the walls with a hammer. So, it’s a family trip up to the office to hang the pictures. Jennifer did most of the work arranging them in a pattern. Because there’s now eight and I had a smaller area to hang them, we went with a double stacked approach. It also left some room for a new plaque when I finish the project I’m on a year from now. The girls ran around the cubicles and found some Nerf darts that some of the guys on the team sling across the cubicles. Abby was actually pretty good at firing them.

After that we went to pick up the camper. We bought some bike racks for the top of the camper. We noticed after we bought it that it had a Yakima rack system on top. So, I visited the web site and found some bike racks so that Jennifer and me could take our bikes. We didn’t buy four because we didn’t know if Abby and Emily’s bikes would fit. However, once we got them up on the camper, we tested their bikes and what do you know, they also fit. I’m going to go and buy two more so that we can fit all the bikes on top of the camper.