Status Update

It’s interesting (haha I usually say to replace the word “difficult” with “interesting” in a whiteboard interview….) to think that my last post was more than a year ago. Things have been pretty hectic over the last several months and I’ve spent most of my time trying to “stay afloat”. I have good news, bad news, and…news?

Bad News

  • I don’t think I would be exaggerating if I said that the last 7-8 months have been the toughest of my life.
  • I stopped working on every….single…one…of…my… projects. I have nothing to report on the “big list of project ideas” I mentioned a year ago. I still have the ideas. I just haven’t worked on them.
  • Sadly, I think I finally achieved the mythical burnout state. The root of the situation is, of course, the fact that I’ve been working too much during a very difficult time, but there were smaller reasons too. I lost contact with:
    • martial arts and exercise.
    • family and friends.
    • most of the entertainment I love: novels, anime, and videogames
    • self-improvement/self-study
Last week: Graphical representation

Good News

The good news is that things will start to improve, at least a little, soon. Over the next several weeks I’ll spend a lot of time focusing on resting and recovery. Part of that recovery is going to be to finally start to work on the projects I’ve neglected for far too long. (Is it weird that I’m planning on working to be able to…rest?)

I’m going to use Twitter to document the process and to keep myself accountable to living a healthier lifestyle. Follow me if you would like to check that out: https://twitter.com/vladimirsan

I’ll probably write a post here to summarize the process in a few months.

Time to recover

News…?

Neither good nor bad, but one of the most interesting outcomes of this whole process how it may force me to re-think most of my plans. I’m trying to avoid making any big decisions until I take care of my burnout though.

Another one of these posts?

Over the last several years I’ve noticed that there is one particular type of post I always dread to write: a post where I explain a massive change in my plans. It is with a heavy heart that I’m about to cancel my newest project: irpgs.com.

But why?

Time

Even in the earlier development days; it was very clear that iRPGs was going to require a healthy amount of time. Especially after I realized the amount of free time I had while working a full-time job.

In hindsight, that was a red flag for any “side” project. I didn’t want to cancel yet another project, so I persevered.

However; at some point, I had to ask myself “Do I really want to spend this amount of time working in iRPGs and not working on my main projects (the same projects I left stranded because of iRPGs)?” Sadly, the answer is NO. Even if iRPGs were to become super successful, the answer is still NO u_u

Python

I’ll admit this is a weak justification, but I did not have a great time with python. I love python for small scripts, but I didn’t like using python for iRPGs.

It can be said that most of my problems with python stem from the fact that I might not have learned enough python, but I didn’t have a great time with the environment and I don’t think I’ll start another project in python anytime soon.

It’s not you Python…it’s me.

So, what’s next?

Hopefully, I’ll think thrice before starting any other project…

I have a  big list of project ideas in my queue, but I’ll limit my active projects as much as possible. I should be able to write about my next steps in the next few weeks.

Vladimirsan.com is online (again)!

I was preparing myself to write a big post detailing the reasons behind why I closed vladimirsan.com, but I decided to go with a “TL;DR” version and focus my energies on rebuilding the blog as soon as possible.

Let’s a-go:

Why did I close this blog on 2015?

  1. I was kept having grievances about my web hosting and its unreliable performance.
  2. I internalized that once my development studio launched, it was going to have their own blog, so the future of vladimirsan.com was uncertain.
  3. Main reason: I was having financial problems at the moment, and ending my web hosting contract seemed like an easy way to save ~100 dollars.

Why is the blog online again?

  1. I’m getting ready to launch a web project I’ve been preparing for a while, and thanks to my good friend Jason Fu, I was able to get an excellent deal on web-hosting.
  2. I did miss having a blog to share my adventures in software development.

Any changes to the blog itself?

I’m planning on moving most of my game development adventures (and misadventures) to my development studio’s blog (yet to be created…). Vladimirsan.com will still hold updates about all my other projects in software development.

The blog will also take a more personal tone in some instances.

What’s next?

I’ll (slowly but steadily) upload my older posts, and I’ll start writing about something I’ve had on my chest for quite some time.

It’s good to be back n_n

just remember…this was the TL;DR version…