I have a pretty good life, you know?
I have a solid position as a programmer/analyst at Idaho State University. I also have a great job with InstantAction as a community manager/e-mail support tech for the Torque team. I know a lot of game developers out in the "real world" and love the projects that they are working on. I somehow became the president of the board at the Westside Players, a community theatre organization that I've been a part of for a long time. I see more excellent theatre in a year that most people see in a lifetime (which I just find sad, actually...for them). I have three kitties (Sam, Beckett, and Topher) and two ferrets (Zoe and Broots). And most importantly of all, I have the most amazing wife in the world.
Even though money is tight she lets me indulge my tinkering side by licensing game tech. Someday I might actually make use of it--a sadly, mostly empty threat, but I could train a ton of people on using a lot of engines if I had to. I often think that I should teach a game development course. Then I think: who the hell am I to teach such a course?
Who knows, there is a strong chance that no one in the area would be interested in a course on game logic using engines like Torque, UDK, Unity, or Pushbutton here in Idaho. I think I'll leave the teaching to my wife. I doubt there's much interest here. I still need to head down to the Utah Indie Game Night and meet up with everyone down there. I haven't seen a lot of them since 2007 in Eugene. It's been a long time and I want to see how their projects are faring--I know how Ninja Bee's projects are doing since I've been playing everything I can get my hands on from them. But others, I keep track of on blogs, forums, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
There are a lot of times that I feel disconnected from the game scene since I'm a remote employee in the remotest area (okay, Josh and Lara had be beat before moving to Cali). But then I think about the people I've met, conversations I've had, and the very, very cool developers who stopped by to chat at GDC and I feel at least a little connected again.
