In this episode of of the podcast, I talk a little bit about coming back from Los Angeles, the state of my various projects, and go into some details about the fiun had at Origins 2009 this year. Also, a bonus rant/ramble about why people like me are the Game Vendors’ Worst Nightmare:

Links for this show:

• Pinax
• Origins 2009
• War, Season 5 of Heaven
• Fluxx and Family Fluxx
• Are You The Traitor?
• Necessary Evil
• The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia

Names dropped: Kris Johnson, Jim Van Verth, Mur Lafferty, Ken Newquist, David Moore, Erin Moore, Natalie Metzger, Andy Steigle, John Cmar, Laura Burns

Download the show here.

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No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.
— Field Marshall Helmuth Carl Bernard von Moltke

The Plan

We leave Woodland Hills at 3pm, missing most of the rush hour traffic.  My wife will use the GPS, and I will use my G1 to navigate. We’ll wind up on Henderson, Nevada around 8pm. We’ll get to bed early, and be ready to continue to Grand Junction Colorado, taking the northern route through the Rockies.

The Reality

1. The landlord was late for the walkthrough on the apartment, so we lost a half an hour there.
2. Just as my father-in-law and I were mapping out our route we heard about the big storms they’ve been having in the mountains.  We check this out on my G1, only to have the hardware fail. Getting a new phone, we lose a half an hour.
3. We stop into AAA to get the skinny on what’s going on in the mountains.  It’s crowded. After 45 minutes, a very nice lady told us that, without getting chains for the tires, there’s no way we’re getting through the northern path. She gives is the option of the southern route, or going through Khazad-Dum, where Gimli’s cousin Balin will give is a kingly welcome. Having no Balrog repellent, we decide to go to Henderson and then plan for taking the I-40 across the southern route, blowing all other travel plans to hell.
4. Pee breaks, getting and extra key made for my car, coffee, updating my wife and mother-in-law in the other car. We discover that the GPS’s power cord as gone missing in the chaos. No worries, we have cellphones, and they’ll follow.
5. We leave Woodland Hills at…wait for it…5pm. Cue omnious traffic music.
6. We manage to skirt the majority of the trasffic by taking the 118 to the 210. But once we hit Pasadena, all bets are off. Traffic ensnares us.  It’s 7pm by the time we hit the I-15 north, heading toward Vegas.
7. We stop in Barstow for dinner.
8. We finally arrive in Henderson around 11:30pm.  Do we go to the hotel?  No…because like moths we are draw to the bright lights of the Las Vegas Strip. We decide to go and drive down the strip, so the kids (and we) can see it all.
9. We get to the hotel at 12:45am, only to find out they do not have a reservation for us. No, wait…there are TWO Hampton Inns in Henderson, and the one we are booked at is so new, it does not show on the battery-powered GPS, and the phone number is not in 411.  We get the info from the other Hampton Inn, and drive across the city.
10. We check in at 1am. Pulling up the bare minimum from the cars, we get settled and asleep by 2am.

So…the trip we’re we were taking…is not so much the trip we thought we were taking.

Today’s plan is to try to get as far as Albequerque, New Mexico. I can hear Fate laughing at me.

The final walkthrough of the house in Woodland Hills.

The Final Walkthrough from Christopher T. Miller on Vimeo.

(Yeah. I’m playing with the new Mino we got.)

A number of things are coming to an end today, but the most significant at that we’re finishing moving out of our apartment in Woodland Hills, and that today is my last day at Mahalo.

Mahalo

I’m leaving Mahalo because we’re leaving L.A…not the other way around. It was a tough choice, but I believe it was the right one.  I’ve built a team I can be proud of at Mahalo, and I have every confidence that they’ll do great things in the future. The truth of the matter is that I cannot manage this excellent team from a distance. A Lead Developer needs to be on site, dealing with the day-to-day running of things.  I cannot do that if I’m moving, pure and simple. There’s no drama, no feud, nothing like that…everything is ending on good terms.

I’m going to miss the whole company, no doubt about it. These are good, hardworking people. They deserve to succeed. I cannot wait to see what they are going to do next.

Leaving Los Angeles

I’ve written a little bit about why we’re leaving L.A. in a previous post, but there’s more to it that just economics and schools. Los Angeles might as well be a different planet when you’re coming from the midwest.  There are many who have moved here and loved it, and I can see why they would. The difficulty for use was that we did it with a family.  If Cathy and I had moved out here when we re newly married, I think things might have gone differently.

Some friends here told us what they’d like most: to own a small house with a good sized yard in a good school system. They followed that up with, “but this is L.A.”  As time went by, I heard this from other people — they all wanted what we took for granted, what we gave up to move here. And many of them had given up on ever achieving it, because “this is L.A.”

We’re moving back to our families, our oldest friends, to neighborhoods that we love, schools we know we can trust, and places that we’ve loved for years. We took so much for granted…that won’t be happening again.

People will poke fun about leaving the Big City, but that’s fine with me. Cleveland is home, and always will be.

New Eyes

Some folks have asked me if this move is bittersweet. No…not really. I achieved what I wanted to achieve at Mahalo, and I learned what I needed to learn from L.A.  I’m coming away better for it. If I never left Cleveland, I would always wonder what would have happened if I had. It’s been costly, yes, but I feel I’ve gained far more than I’ve lost.

I’m looking forward to seeing home with new eyes. That alone will be amazing.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the thing I’ll miss most about Los Angeles: My gaming group, the West Valley Pathfinders.

This was taken tonight at the Saddle Ranch Chop House in the City Walk at Universal Studios. The guys, left to right: Jeromy, Steve, Damon, and Dave. I’m the looming figure standing in the back.

I’ve shared many a pleasant Friday night with these guys, and it pains me that we didn’t get to hang out more while I was here. It’s my one regret about leaving.

Hmmm. Maybe I can get them out for Origins….