Biography

My Past

I've lived in Washington my entire life, living in Kent, WA until 4th grade, then moving to Maple Valley, WA where I currently reside.  I attended Tahoma High School, where I proceeded to graduate from in June of 1998.  Following graduation, I applied to DigiPen, where I was accepted for the Fall Semester of 1998.  Since that time, my life has been run by DigiPen, where I have attended Fall, Spring, and Summer semesters constantly.  I will graduate in April, 2001 with a Bachelor of Science: Real Time Interactive Simulations.

In High School, I was heavily involved in performance arts.  I was a 4 year member of the marching band's drum line, playing bass drum and pit percussion.  I was also involved in "We the People", which is a national constitutional debate organization.  My We the People team won the state competition, so we traveled to Washington D.C. for the nationals competition.

My Present

Right now, I'm a Senior at DigiPen, after two short years.  I started here in 1998, and have taken classes both summers to hopefully graduate the 4-year program in 3 years.  There are 13 Seniors that remain from an original class of 110 students, though some fell behind by not taking Summers or not passing key courses.

Right now, 11 of us are on a team making a game called Gekisen.  Since this causes a few management problems, and there are only so many official roles in the team, I am an 'assistant technical director'.  Generally, I'm a really fast worker, and am able to do homework and other projects in far less time than my classmates, which tends to mean that I work on the game more.  I certainly consider this a bonus for me, as I have more time to do things than a lot of other people, and I usually don't have to sacrifice a grade in one class for a higher grade in another.  So far I've managed to pass all the courses here at DigiPen, which is also an accomplishment this far into the program.  Heck, I even made the Dean's List.

Anyway, apart from doing actual work, I like to play a few games once in a while.  I usually play CounterStrike, but have been known to play a little Diablo II and Baldur's Gate II as well.  Just keep in mind that DigiPen is not about playing games, but making them.  I usually only have time for about 5 hours a week for games, though making them is nearly as fun as playing them, and a lot more fulfilling. 

My Future

After graduating from DigiPen, I plan to do one of two things - get a job in the games industry at a local company, or to attend Western Washington University, aiming for degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science.  The reason that I might not go straight into the industry is that I feel that it would benefit myself and my future employers if I had a bit more experience with high level math, and computer science is always useful.  At this point, it is hard to say what my final choice will be.

This is where I get to talk about all the wonderful things going on in my life.  Primarily, this includes work, school, and friends.  I try to balance them all as much as possible, but there are definite swings in the balance.

First of all is work.  I work at a company called VitalLink, which is really fun.  I'm a project programmer, which means if they have something for me to do, they let me know and I do it.  My Dad and two of my cousins also work there.  My Dad is the National Sales Manger, and is usually out across the country doing great things for us.  It's nice to be able to go out to lunch with a family member.

The next major thing is school.  At this point in my school career, I'm ready to graduate and get out making games.  My focus of schoolwork is more focused on passing classes so that I don't have to take them again.  Probably not the best thing I could do for my GPA, but I'm still above 3.5 so I'm happy.  After school and work time, I've got very little for the last part of everything I do - friends.

As for friends, I figure I'm doing well.  My wonderful girlfriend Monica is very supportive of my devotion to both school and work.  She lives in Bellingham, which is a few hours from here, but we make the time to see each other nevertheless.  She's a student at Western Washington University, studying Philosophy and Sociology.  She works as a youth director at the local Methodist Church, which she really enjoys.

So basically that's my life, other than sleep and driving time.  I hope it gives you a better idea of who I am.