Hey Everyone!

Its certainly been ahile hasn't it? I wish I had a lot of awesome Angels 22 screens to show you guys to make up for my absence, but unfortunately, most of the work I've been doing is either top-secret(ie. gonna be ca-razy go nuts!), or behind the scenes stuff that you can't really see. Hopefully I'll be able to interest you guys by ranting on and on about the technical stuff I've been up to, and an update on my life, Prinz Eugn style.


College
As some of you may know, I've been trying to go to college at the U.S. Air Force academy, and become a fighter pilot like my father. Unfortunately, I was medically disqualified for service because of.... heartburn! Yeah, WTF. Anyways, I applied for a medical waiver that would allow me to go to the academy anyways, and everyone I talked to expected it to be granted quickly. Well, I found out about a month ago that the waiver was rejected, and I can't go to the academy this year, which fucking sucks, because I was apparently an extremely competetive candidate, with good chances of being appointed. What gets me the most though is that one of my friends is applying to Westpoint, and he got a waiver for asthma, while I was rejected for having heartburn, which I don't even have to take medicine for. Fortunately, my heartburn "problem" can be fixed with a relatively simple laproscopic surgery, so I'm not completely out of the running yet, I just have to reapply next year. In the meantime, I'll be going to the wonderful school of New Mexico Tech!! I was offered a nice scholarship there, and its actually a very well respected engineering school, so I'll hopefully go there for a year, and then get accepted to the Air Force Academy, and start over there as a freshman in a year. I was pretty pissed off the first couple of days after learning of my waiver rejection, but I've decided to look on the bright side, so I made a pro/con list in my head for the whole situation, which I will now transcribe to the internets.....

Pros
-I get at least one year of "real" college life to experience
-I'll be getting experience in a lot of classes that will help ease the transition to the Academy
-I get to keep on programming games for awhile longer!!
-I can stay unhealthily obsessed with GDNet for at least another year!
-Halo 3!!!!!!!
-I get a new car
-I can work this summer and get the monies!

Cons
-I have to restart as a freshman if I get into the Academy, so it'll be 5 years of college
-I have a whole year to get out of physical shape (I just came off of the swimming season)
-I have to work this summer to get the monies....
-Tons more I don't even feel like listing

Air Force Academy Trip
Before I found out about my disqualification, me and two of my friends decided to rent an airplane over spring break and fly up to the Air Force Academy to see what it was like, and meet some friends we know up there. It was pretty much the adventure of a lifetime, as it took us about 4.5 hours to fly up there, through dangerous mountain passes, gale force winds, and overpriced aviation fuel. It was pretty freaking awesome though, and I documented our trip with my digital camera. I've picked out two of the best piktars, and while I know most of you guys don't care about my personal life, theres still some pretty cool pictures of the scenery on the way.


This is a view of the mountainous terrain we were overflying most of the way there. It wouldn't have been a good place to lose an engine...


I really like this picture, its a mountain road we were following through a really high mountain chain. Even though we're about 700 feet off the ground, we're at about 12,000 feet above sea level, and the airplane was barely maintaining altitude with all of our baggage weighing us down. Fun stuff.

Retirement
While I was rooting through my digital camera looking for the trip pictures, I stumbled across some pics from my dad's retirement ceremony from the Air Force. It happened a little while ago, but some of the pics are kinda funny, so here are the best ones....

Taxiing in from his final flight


The traditional Air Force "hosing down" of the retiree


Nice family pic in front of his F-4


Even the Hooter's Girls showed up (They even brought chicken wings)



My growing IL2 Sturmovik obsession...
I've been a fan of Sturmovik for a long time, so a couple weeks ago I bought the new installment of the series, IL2: 1946. For the record, it kicks serious ass. I can't stop playing the damn thing, theres around 300 playable airplanes, online play, pretty clouds.... I just can't get enough. Anyways, its sucking up a huge amount of my time, so I thought I'd post a kickass screenshot of my grilling some guys online in a Spitfire. BTW, on the offchance that someone who reads my journal actually plays IL2 online, leave a comment so we can play together (there was a player named TANSTAAFL online awhile ago, which got me curious).....



Glider License
One of my friends turned me on to gliding earlier this year, and I must say, it is probably the funnest flyin I've done in a long time. Initially I was pretty skeptical about it because I had this idea in my head of going up, and then coming right back down a few minutes later. Turns out, that New Mexico has some of the best soaring weather in the world, and a skilled pilot can pretty much stay up all day using the various kinds of lift (ie. thermals). It didn't take long for me to get my license, as I've had my private pilot's license for awhile, and ever since I got it, its been my primary "thing-to-do" in the afternoon.

Secret Uber Project: X!!!11`!!~!
If you've read this far, then good for you, you'll be one of the chosen few who know what Eugn and I are going to be up to for a couple weeks. Angels 22 development pretty much came to a standstill during the final weeks of school, and we never quite were able to get back into the groove, so we decided to try and make a simple little game that is definitely not something we would usually try and do..... A Dungeon Crawler.... with Guns, Commies, Zombies, Robots, Biological Experimentation, and more!!! Don't worry though, we haven't abandoned Angels 22, we just need some new scenery to get us back into the A22 dev mood. The new project has a few limitations that we are imposing on it to keep it from feature creeping its way into next year, and the current limitations are as follows:

-Levels are made up of a series of interconnected "Rooms"
-"Rooms" can only take up one screen
-Basic AI only
-Level Generation must be completely random, requiring no input other than parameters
-Resolution of 800x600 for that old school feel (and to make Mark's life easy)


Anyways, our new project lacks a concrete name at the moment (All my project files are in a folder called "Fortress of Terror", while Mark has been internally refering to it as Lab 81 or something), so if anyone has any suggestions, go for it!

The project is currently coming along great for having started two nights ago, as I already have random room generation working somewhat, and Mark has already begun the task of creating artwork for the project. I'm going to hold off on giving you guys a screenshot until I can put some more of Mark's art in the game, so check in next time for a kewl piktar!

Well, thats all I've got for now, I'm feeling very much back in the saddle, so hopefully there won't be such a huge lapse in journal entries like last time. Peace Out!