Aaron Clark: Personal Webspace

Hi. It's been awhile. In fact, it's been nearly five months since I've blogged. Sadly, that's not a record for me, if we were to look back at previous lapses in journal activity. Quite a bit has changed, and it's no doubt worth the time to sit down, do a bit of composition, and share with everyone out there just what exactly has transpired in the my life since last you heard from me.

First, let's talk about work. I was working at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, doing helpdesk type stuff, including (but not limited to) setting up audio-visual equipment, taking and filtering technical requests, and supporting the main operator line of the Library of Congress. It was a shit job. The pay was alright, but it didn't merit the commute, the odd hours, or the stress involved. What ultimately pushed me to the breaking point was a combination of two main things: health, and an overnight rotation. I was sick for weeks. I just couldn't recover from this hacking cold, and I was having some combination of chest pains, stomach cramps, and headaches every day. The other part was a rotation that would have forced me to work 8:30pm to 6:30am four days a week for two weeks every few months. Not exciting prospects, especially considering how much it would have interfered with all the other aspects of my life, including Spriggs, and more importantly, my relationship with Christina.

So I put in my two weeks at the end of March, and was like "Cya!". I didn't bother getting another job, I just pulled up anchor and left. I didn't know where I was going to end up, but I knew I'd find something better no matter what. I took a few days to lounge around my apartment, play some video games, and just generally de-stress. After the first week of unemployment, I seriously started looking for jobs, and midway through the second week, I found a fit. So in case you haven't heard, it's official, I am now a professional web designer, and I have business cards to prove it. The company is called r2integrated, and it's situated just fifteen minutes down I-83, in the Canton area of Baltimore city. What the job ultimately means is that I get higher pay, work more reasonable hours, get more sleep, have more free time, less stress, and I'm actually using some of what I learned in college. It's quite literally better in every conceivable way from working at the Library of Congress.

So... yeah. I'm a professional web designer. It is neat.

Aside from that, the other big thing in my life right now is the Halo machinima that I've been working on. Yes, that Spriggs thing. It's been a weird ride. As of right now, I've not kept good tabs on our view counts, just that I know it's something over 3 million video views. Hell, our views on our YouTube channel just passed 1 million, and our first episode on Machinima.com's YouTube channel is getting pretty close to a million views. I also like that our subscribers on YouTube has passed 5000. We've got an actual fanbase going, and we might actually take this somewhere. We officially formed a company back in March, just before I quit working in DC. Within the next month, we'll be setting up a dedicated studio in Alex's new place, getting some HD capture equipment, possibly obtain funding, and quite possibly enter into talks with Microsoft about becoming licensed to use assets from their games for profit. Very exciting times. I'm currently a professional web designer, and if I'm lucky, I might also be a professional filmmaker within the next year as well. And if I'm really lucky, I'll get to be both at the same time!