Done, and done...

Just finished my last night at JC Penney. I'm actually going to miss working there. Last week I was trying to think of a way to work part time at JCP while still working for Bowne full time, but it just wouldn't work out too well, especially not until I had a car. I'm extremely nervous about my new job. I had loads of job security at Penney's, and since I'd only worked at my first job (the one before JCP) for 3 months, JCP has essentially been my only job, so I'm not really sure what to expect at my new one. Hopefully everything will turn out as good as I hope it will though.

Attended the graduation of the girlfriend of a friend of mine. She graduated from DeVry University with a Bachelors degree in Electronics Engineering Technology. Some of you might remember that I originally came to Phoenix to go to DeVry. Anyways, the degree has a lot to do with computers, but my friend (Richard) said that she barely knows the basics about computers (she couldn't even help him install a fresh copy of WinXP Pro, which practically installs itself). He came up with a good analogy for it, saying that it was as if he learned how to tear apart an engine, and put it back together again, but didn't have a clue on how to change the oil =D.

Played GT4 at Dennis' house yesterday in 1080i mode. Makes quite a bit of difference in the quality of the visuals, and it comes really close to looking like the screens I posted in a previous blog entry. I wanted to try it in 480p mode as well, but didn't have enough time before we went to work.

Chops!

A month or so ago, I was watching "The Alamo" at Dennis' house, and either him or his wife suggested that I grow mutton chops such as the ones Dennis Quaid was sporting in the movie. They were joking, but I told them I'd do it, and after two weeks of growing my beard out, here it is. I'd grow it out more, but the new job starts Monday, and I don't think they'd take me too seriously if I kept them =P.

GT4 Photo Mode

Messed around with the photo mode in GT4 today, and to my surprise, found out that it can save images to any USB device. So I popped in my external hard drive to see if it would work, and sure enough, it does! Here's a couple pics of my first car in GT4. It's a Mitsubishi 3000GT from the used car lot. Unfortunately they don't sell any brand new 3000GT's, so the VR-4 Twin Turbo is unavailable in this game =(.

Grand Canyon 01
Grand Canyon 02
Brooklyn 01
Japan 01

Polyphony Digital kept the feature that lets you transfer your A and B liscences from GT3 to GT4, and they even threw in the option of transfering up to $100,000 from your GT3 account as well, so you can get started with a fairly decent car. So far I haven't noticed a huge improvement in graphics quality, although if I put it side-by-side with GT3 I might be able to notice. I didn't even notice much of an improvement from GT2 to GT3 until I went back and played GT2, and it looked horrible =P. Also, there's options to play GT4 in 480p and 1080i format if you have HDTV and the neccesary component cables. My friend Dennis has both, so I'm definately going to have to check the game out over at his place. As for the new physics engine, I can definately tell a difference from GT3, though I've yet to decide whether or not the new engine is better or worse. One thing I've really noticed is how much your car will tilt forward and thing back again when breaking. Also, when you hit something (ie a wall or another car) your vision is blurred for a bit, though IMO not enough to significantly distract you from driving well. One thing I'm really looking forward to is driving on the snow courses.

Edit: I just won an odd looking concept car from Toyota by winning the 4WD circuit, called a Triathalon Racing Car or something. Looks pretty cool, and is much better than the car I won from winning the Sunday Cup, but it doesn't turn very well, and my 3000GT matched it's time in a time trial.

TTRC 01
TTRC 02

Meh...

I've been meaning to upload pics of my vacation, but I'm too lazy. Maybe tomorrow....


....although, probably not, because GT4 comes out today, and it will take up most of my spare time. Horray! It does suck that there won't be an online mode until later in the year, but thanks to software such as XLink, I'll hopefully be able to play it online anyways =D. It's ironic that a few dedicated programmers can whip up a program that will let you play any LAN enabled video game, from any console, over the internet, absolutely free, and yet a multi-million dollar company such as Sony or Polyphony Digital can't seem to get it to work for one game, on one console, even with hundreds of programmers, and at least three years of development.

Off to vacation...

I'll be heading off to Washington state tomorrow morning, and will be there through February 20th. Hoping to go snowboarding while I'm there, but it pretty much depends on the weather, and if it snows decently. Even if I don't though, still plan on having fun. Anyways, that's all. Probably won't be online as often as I normally am. Later.

Wish me luck!

I'm off to a job interview at Bowne. Applied for the Typesetter position, which pays $13.27 an hour, plus shift pay. If I get 3rd shift, I'll make just over $16 an hour right off the bat, which is far higher than my current $9.65 at JC Penney. In addition, this job will be much closer in relation to the information technology field, which is where I want to be when I finally decide on a career. I have a friend that works at Bowne, and he has some bargaining power, so I have really high hopes that I can get this job. I exceed the qualifications by quite a bit as well. Anyways, I finally dressed up for the first time in about four years.

Good luck pays off...for once =P

Ok, I should be sleeping right now, but I can't go back to sleep because about an hour ago one of the people that interviewed me called me back and notified me that I got the job. This is the biggest thing to happen to me since moving to Phoenix four years ago. I can't even express how much this job could change my life for the better. Well...I suppose I can.

First thing on the list is a car. For now I'll settle for a used car, probably going to spend $2,000-4,000. Later on, after all my credit cards and school loans (which have a grand total of ~$7000) are paid off, I'll think about getting a new car, or at least something a little newer than whatever I get for the 4 grand. After that, it's back to school. I figure that will be about the year 2007. Hopefully I'll have a better idea of what I want to do in life by then, and I can make a solid decision on what degree I should get, and where I should go to school.

The job itself is pretty nice. I'll get paid ~$550 per week, for the first 8 weeks, which is the training period. After that I'll be making $15.80 an hour, which comes out to just over $30,000 a year. In comparison, I made just over $20,000 last year, so I'll be making ~50% more at this job, but that's only if I work the standard 40 hours each week. If I work six days, the entire sixth day is all time-and-a-half, regardless of how many hours I work that day. If I work a seventh day in a week, all of those hours are double the hourly rate, nearly $32 an hour! To top it off, I start getting paid time off at 6 months. Most companies don't give you benefits like that until at least 9 months to a year.

What I'll be doing is basically taking earnings and stock reports from companies, and converting them into a special format that the company (Bowne) uses so that they can place text, graphics, etc onto a page down to the millimeter. The language they use is very similar to HTML, and actually, similar to RPGCode as well. They also use HTML for a different part of the process. After the documents are converted, we send them to a printing press to be printed, and distributed to stock holders. All of the programming is through an editor similar to WordPad or MS Word. They don't use WYSIWYG editors unfortunately, but because of that, it could probably help my coding skills quite a bit, especially if I'm using HTML a lot. Unfortunately they don't use any other web programing languages like PHP or Java. It would've been nice to learn those as part of my job.

Anyways, I'm extremely happy, and nervous all at the same time. Thankfully the guy that hooked me up with the job knows less about computers and HTML than I do, and he was named employee of the year last year; so that keeps my confidence high that I'll be able to learn and perform well. I aced the crap out of the typing test. They require 45wpm. I hit 71wpm for the 1 minute test, and 73wpm for the 3 minute test, both at 100% accuracy. The lady that gave me the test looked pretty surprised. I also did really well on the test they gave me that dealt with some of the stuff that they do, including how well I understood how their programming language works after reading a couple paragraphs on it. Only got a couple things wrong, which the guy said they didn't really matter anyways.

Now to go put in my resignation for JC Penney. I'm going to screenshot it. Maybe put it as my desktop wallpaper =P.