Matched Chatting Class

I thought this a good time to talk about some of my more peculiar ideas. One great thing about Thanksgiving flights is that I can almost always count on some other college students to chat with. And chatting brought up some interesting subjects I wanted to mention. I have been telling many people lately about my restaurant ideas. I really just wanted to include that link again. I really do think at least 1 of those is a good idea and would love to see someone do it. I like having neat little quirky ideas like that.

But the real idea I wanted to metion that this flight started making me think would really be great is a "matching class" on airplanes. I mentioned it before but I've been thinking about it more. I like chatting people people on planes. I don't know why, but while traveling is my favorite time to meet new people. I often see people in the waiting area that I'd hope would be seated next to me to talk to, but usually I just get some old lady and so I read a book. What if there were a service for people like me that put all the talkers in a section of the plane for those looking to meet others and then did seating assignments based on mutual interest like most dating and other personality matching services. They're always offering upgrades to first class and I don't really care, but I'd pay real money to sit in matching class...

...Especially if I could get matched with that cute girl on my flight who was staring at me. I saw her in the waiting area and said nothing.

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Keywords:Ideas | Travel | Girls
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At least I'm thankful for what I've got

Home for Thanksgiving. This gives me a chance to write a bunch of journal posts I've been meaning to. Some of them are backdated so if you really care about me you'll need to look a little deeper than your friends page. A smaller crowd this time for dinner this time. I ran the Feaster Five again as usual. This time my Mom joined us which was fun. Although the snowing was a new twist. It was good to see Missy again. Was my mom's b-day too, and so I gave her Apples to Apples which we all played and Enjoyed. I won.

Cheezy Sentimentality )
Keywords:Family | Travel
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Career Plans

At IAAPA I thought a lot about what I'm good at and what I want to do. In fact this whole project this semester has made me think hard about that. I've always thought I was clear on what I wanted, just not very specific. Now I think specificity is required and I never knew to begin with. All this cutting edge interactive stuff, I think I've been distracted from my original purpose. Sure it's interesting, this stuff I've been doing since I joined Stage3. If you think about it though, maybe I've been led astray. That seemed to be the case when I went to MIT and realized that it wasn't for me, that I took a big leap in that direction. But even back here, I'm starting to remember when I was in High School and a freshman here and when I knew that the technology I wanted to master was for putting on a show. And that's what I'm thinking about now. Show control might be what I'm interested in. I mean, sure I'd like things to be interactive, but maybe I should be a little more conservative. The kind of stuff I've been known for might be special to me. I can make people's crazy ideas work. Sort of. But all these things aren't solid enough to be used for real or taken seriously. I can't take them seriously. Sometimes I don't think I'm any good, but maybe I'm just working on things that aren't ready to be any good. If I'm not willing to develope them in an academic setting maybe I should back off. I want to make real shows. I want to design and manage and program and not always be afraid of the frailty of my work. I want to do something solid. I think I'm realizing all this a little late to really do anything to turn around my portfolio and get myself where I want to be.
Keywords:Jobs | Worries
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IAAPA: Atlanta

Got back from my second IAAPA expo. It's a big expo for the themed entertainment industry. Last year I went to the expo in Orlando with the ETC and we exhibited. This year a bunch of us went again, this time just to see what was around. PlayMotion! was exhibiting so I helped them out as well. It was in Atlanta this year, my summer home. It was kind of neat and weird to be back. I got to see my old friends, and be the one in my ETC group who knew what was going on. We talked to a lot of companies. Well, some of us did. Several of us were from the World's Fair for Kids project group, and since we were meeting with our clients while at the show, we had a production design document printed up. Besides showing it to our clients, it turned out to be a great way to start a conversation with companies and to get them to take us seriously. We talked to some big important people and did some great networking. The ETC is getting really respectable. I wish I could say I was part of all the networking. I had some issues, but I think I'll write about that seperately. While there we got to see the new GA Aquarium by talking to someone on the show floor and getting VIP passes to a special preview. It was really neat. I got lots of pictures. PlayMotion has a project in there that was good to see.
Keywords:ETC | Travel
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My Quest is Complete

Well it is about time that I write about this. This fall, like last fall Microsoft sponsored a puzzle competition at CMU. Last year my team came in 2nd to a non-CMU team. Disappointing for us (who really shouldn't have had outside competition anyway) and really for all of CMU. But this year we took first place. This was my 5th such competition. I guess I'm partly just lucky I got together with such good people. And yeah, winning is great, but really the best part is just getting to do it. I love solving puzzles. The best part about winning, actually, is just the fact that to do so you must have actually figured the puzzles out. I'm not sure what else to say about it. We got Creative Portable Media Centers. Not the greatest thing in the world. Even if I was going to buy a portable video/audio player I don't think I'd have picked that one, but I'm going to keep it anyway. It'll remind me of this experience and I'll find a way to use it. Portable portfolio/demo device I think. I like being always able to show people stuff that I'm proud of. A lot of very cool puzzles this year. And we solved all of them (well a couple we had to cheat).
Keywords:Puzzles
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Thought Repository » November 2005