Green Mountain
My project is currently in Limbo. Yes, it is in the Land of Judgement AKA Nintendo. Most of the team, myself included is wishing that we would get bounced from lot check so that we might get an extra week to fix all the bugs. We honestly WANT another week of no-sleep, working till 7a.m., pumping our system full of Starbucks to get our game to the state that we know we can be proud of. The game is seriously flawed right now and we will get eaten alive by reviewers if it gets released in its current state. How do we allow a game like that to go to our client? Well, it was due date, we simply had to turn in what we have with a request for more time to work on it. If the client decides they are okay with the state of the game, they can choose to take it as it is and hope that Nintendo will let the game pass. Nintendo has their own testing team to do quality control to make sure the game isn’t complete crap…but bugs and such, if the client is a big name company…they can belly-ache up a storm if the game gets kicked…well, there you go.
On Friday, we were all just on hold, waiting around to see if our game got bounced from lot check. I rolled into work at noon, went to the gym for two hours then left work at 4:30. Rough day. At the end of the day we had a quick team meeting, the producer said we were actually allowed to have real weekend. I felt my face crack…it felt like a smile…what is this feeling…I think it’s joy. Then I asked him what I rolled on my Save to Disbelieve. I expected we would all be leashed to our phones this weekend for on-call duties. He said nope, we can actually turn off our cellphones if we like. That would mean, I can actually wander outside of Seattle…
I was sitting around pondering over what I planned to do with TWO whole days off when Dave called and asked if I wanted to go hiking. Ha! No...I hate that hiking bullshit.
So I went hiking on Green Mountain with Dave on Saturday. I woke up that morning with the worst fucking migraine ever…no it’s not a hangover, it’s something worse…it’s caffeine withdrawal. Holy shit, does it ever hurt. I’ve only heard about that, being not much of a coffee drinker myself but towards the end of the project my typical coffee intake starts with half a cup of coffee mixed with a Starbucks Doubleshot. A coworker asked me if I was spiking my coffee with coffee. Yes, our company coffee is the most potent shit on planet, but it tastes like potent SHIT (Dan describes it as, “It’s like licking tar and asphalt.”)…so the Doubleshot is only there to make the drink a little more potable. Doubleshot is actually really good and tasty, try it sometimes. So I have two or more of those, plus the one or two Double or Triple Mocha from our coffee runs each day. I didn’t have blood; I had coffee coursing through my veins. I’ve stopped drinking coffee for two days, my body was in shock. Fuck you, body, no coffee!
Who needs coffee when you have a beautiful hike to wake you up? Green Mountain is the most beautiful hike I’ve been on thus far. I say that about every hike, but I really do mean it this time. It starts out really easy, it was so easy that I commented to Dave, “This is too scary easy so far. We’re going to have to pay in the end aren’t we?” He couldn’t quite remember since it had been 3-4 years since he was last there. The hike calls for some 3000 ft elevation gain in 4 miles…at what felt like the halfway point, I don’t think we’ve even touched 1000ft.
At around 3 miles, all the elevation gain that we were missing backhanded us. I was hiking along when I suddenly felt…winded. I’m asking Dave, “What the fuck is going on!? I think I’m getting winded. I CAN’T get winded!” He laughed and said, “I wasn’t going to say anything, but...” We started cursing the trail together. It just went from pretty stroll through the flower meadows to hahaha, fuck you, burn thighs burn! It’s a good thing the view from the trail was just gorgeous throughout because it made for good excuses for breaks. It’s a bit humbling to have a trail force you to take breaks.
The view from the top is…wow… You end up standing on a stone ledge with nothing to obstruct your view. Here’s a stitched photo from the top…it’s 360, so wrap the photo end to end, that’s what you see.
I saw my first marmot on the way down. It’s so cute. Suddenly they were everywhere. Not so cute. Dave warned me I would have to kick them if they come after me. I protested. He said, “No really, they have really sharp teeth.” As we hiked along, we saw two marmots on the path, we stopped, one of the marmot bee-lined for me. I was frozen in shock with my trekking poles crossed in front of me in case I had to fling the poor little bugger. It veered sharply to the right about 2 yards away from me. Whew! The other one scrambled off.
We made it back to the car without having to kick, fling or otherwise maim a marmot.
The drive to Green Mountain is 2 hours, but it’s so worth it if you have the time and good company. Here's a slideshow of the hike.
Eric just emailed me reminding me that he lives in the Bay area too. What a bastard I am to forget. That’s 4 men that I want to see in the Gay area, and only one of them is gay...why are all these straight men congregating to the not so straight area?
On Friday, we were all just on hold, waiting around to see if our game got bounced from lot check. I rolled into work at noon, went to the gym for two hours then left work at 4:30. Rough day. At the end of the day we had a quick team meeting, the producer said we were actually allowed to have real weekend. I felt my face crack…it felt like a smile…what is this feeling…I think it’s joy. Then I asked him what I rolled on my Save to Disbelieve. I expected we would all be leashed to our phones this weekend for on-call duties. He said nope, we can actually turn off our cellphones if we like. That would mean, I can actually wander outside of Seattle…
I was sitting around pondering over what I planned to do with TWO whole days off when Dave called and asked if I wanted to go hiking. Ha! No...I hate that hiking bullshit.
So I went hiking on Green Mountain with Dave on Saturday. I woke up that morning with the worst fucking migraine ever…no it’s not a hangover, it’s something worse…it’s caffeine withdrawal. Holy shit, does it ever hurt. I’ve only heard about that, being not much of a coffee drinker myself but towards the end of the project my typical coffee intake starts with half a cup of coffee mixed with a Starbucks Doubleshot. A coworker asked me if I was spiking my coffee with coffee. Yes, our company coffee is the most potent shit on planet, but it tastes like potent SHIT (Dan describes it as, “It’s like licking tar and asphalt.”)…so the Doubleshot is only there to make the drink a little more potable. Doubleshot is actually really good and tasty, try it sometimes. So I have two or more of those, plus the one or two Double or Triple Mocha from our coffee runs each day. I didn’t have blood; I had coffee coursing through my veins. I’ve stopped drinking coffee for two days, my body was in shock. Fuck you, body, no coffee!
Who needs coffee when you have a beautiful hike to wake you up? Green Mountain is the most beautiful hike I’ve been on thus far. I say that about every hike, but I really do mean it this time. It starts out really easy, it was so easy that I commented to Dave, “This is too scary easy so far. We’re going to have to pay in the end aren’t we?” He couldn’t quite remember since it had been 3-4 years since he was last there. The hike calls for some 3000 ft elevation gain in 4 miles…at what felt like the halfway point, I don’t think we’ve even touched 1000ft.At around 3 miles, all the elevation gain that we were missing backhanded us. I was hiking along when I suddenly felt…winded. I’m asking Dave, “What the fuck is going on!? I think I’m getting winded. I CAN’T get winded!” He laughed and said, “I wasn’t going to say anything, but...” We started cursing the trail together. It just went from pretty stroll through the flower meadows to hahaha, fuck you, burn thighs burn! It’s a good thing the view from the trail was just gorgeous throughout because it made for good excuses for breaks. It’s a bit humbling to have a trail force you to take breaks.
The view from the top is…wow… You end up standing on a stone ledge with nothing to obstruct your view. Here’s a stitched photo from the top…it’s 360, so wrap the photo end to end, that’s what you see.
I saw my first marmot on the way down. It’s so cute. Suddenly they were everywhere. Not so cute. Dave warned me I would have to kick them if they come after me. I protested. He said, “No really, they have really sharp teeth.” As we hiked along, we saw two marmots on the path, we stopped, one of the marmot bee-lined for me. I was frozen in shock with my trekking poles crossed in front of me in case I had to fling the poor little bugger. It veered sharply to the right about 2 yards away from me. Whew! The other one scrambled off.
We made it back to the car without having to kick, fling or otherwise maim a marmot.
The drive to Green Mountain is 2 hours, but it’s so worth it if you have the time and good company. Here's a slideshow of the hike.
Eric just emailed me reminding me that he lives in the Bay area too. What a bastard I am to forget. That’s 4 men that I want to see in the Gay area, and only one of them is gay...why are all these straight men congregating to the not so straight area?
posted by SteakGirl at 9:02 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home