blogging

Changes

Life is full of change, some good, some not as good.

Back in January, I accepted a position with a new company. This change was a good thing, at least on the surface. Unfortunately, things at the new job have not lived up to expectations. For that reason, I’m passively looking into potential new opportunities. Recruiters regularly approach me, so if an opportunity comes my way, I may look into it. I do have my resume submitted by recruiters to two different companies right now, and we’ll see if anything comes from it.

One benefit that did come from this job was the ability to work from home. Any new opportunity I look into would also be a remote position. Back in May, I was informed that the house I was renting was being put up for sale. Working remote allowed me to be more open in where I chose to move. After a couple of weeks of searching, I found a townhouse in an apartment community in the area where I grew up. This put me back within 10 miles of family and old friends. My family is very close, so being that close was a pleasant change. Unfortunately, this also meant that my time online was being affected. When push comes to shove, I will choose things offline as opposed to online, which has caused some scheduling conflicts for me, and some additional frustrations.

What does this mean? First, my online time is reduced to Saturdays, which, at the very least, will be my DJ set on Saturday afternoons. Saturday mornings I should be able to set aside to take care of sim related priority business. Saturday evenings are questionable at this point. The rest of the week is pretty much gone. I might have some time here and there to take care of things for the sim or peripheral things related to the sim, such as the blog. I also have my own personal projects that I have to find time to complete, such as the calendar. There’s a lot going on, and only a limited amount of time in which to accomplish anything.

It hasn’t been an easy decision to make, but it was a necessary decision. I will still be online, even if it is in a much more limited capacity.

August 13, 2019 by Blog 0

Microsoft Certification

I’m a software architect who works for a technology consulting company. I’ve programmed since I was in middle school. I started with BASIC and later moved into web design. HTML, XHTML, CSS and JavaScript was my focus for a few years. From that, I moved into PHP, ASP, and Visual Basic 6. As the technologies evolved, I moved into ASP.NET, VB.NET, and C#. Ten years ago, I started working with Microsoft’s contact management system, Microsoft CRM 4.0. I did a lot of customization work, which heavily used C#, HTML, and JavaScript. Five years later, I received three separate Microsoft certifications related to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013. Times and technologies continue to change and evolve, which means it is now time for me to gain some new certificates for Microsoft Dynamics 365.

As of yesterday, I started studying for the first of five exams I’m looking to take. Studying has never been easy for me. I learn best through hands-on experience and finding the answers to issues I encounter along the way. Real world application always trumps textbook answers for me. Despite that, these certifications are essential. They are a benefit to me, my career, and my employer.

What this means is that I now need to restructure my schedule to include times for study. I want to spend time each day in preparation, even if it is an hour out of the day. As of today, I’m not sure how I’m going to schedule my study time, or how it will affect my time in Second Life. There is always so much to do, and time is lacking.

April 20, 2019 by Blog 0

Personality Coloration

I have mentioned it before, but there are differences between how I am online, versus how I am offline. I consider my online identity closer to my true self, while the offline identity is more the self I have to be from day-to-day. I’m no psychiatrist, so I have no idea what that means, it’s just something I’ve come to accept over time.

Now, I’ve recently been exposed to another personality test, very similar to ones I’ve taken in the past. This one is based on colors, and offers just as valuable insight into who I am as the other ones that I’ve taken. Like any of the other personality tests, it just helps me understand myself better, and, hopefully, give me insight into understanding others more.

True Colors is the name of the personality assessment. I went through a series of ten questions plus looking at what colors meant, and rated them to what sounded most like me, and what sounded least like me. At first, I did this based on my offline self, as it was a requirement to do there. Later, I decided to retake it based on what I consider to be my online self.

  • Offline Self = Gold/Green, Blue, Orange
  • Online Self = Blue, Green, Gold, Orange

For my offline self, gold and green were almost equal, with gold just slightly higher than my green. My online self, on the other hand, seemed to have a much stronger blue score than green. While the numbers aren’t being shown here, I can say that both green and orange for both offline and online were almost the same. What do these colors mean, though? The following is taken from the True Color web site.

Orange: Energetic, spontaneous, and charming. If you’re an Orange, you tend to be action-oriented and are comfortable taking risks. You probably also tend to be competitive and seek out adventures with opportunities to push the boundaries. Living in the moment and enjoying an adaptable time schedule are important to you.

Gold: Punctual, organized, and precise. “Golds” tend to need structure and organization. If you’re a Gold, then order, rules, respect, and dependability are important to you. Time is a key part of your life if you’re a Gold personality type. You need to be on time and want others to be punctual as well. Following the plan or schedule is best for you.

Green: Analytical, intuitive, and visionary. These are traits of the Green Personality type. “Greens” find innovative thinking and problem solving exciting. If you’re a Green, you tend to be able to see the big picture and able to effectively analyze situations. Thinking outside the box is a real strength. You also have an extreme need to be right.

Blue: Empathetic, compassionate, and cooperative. “Blues” tend to be very social people. If you’re a Blue, you value relationships and harmony. Genuine kindness, sincerity, and compassion are important to you. You enjoy opportunities to work with others and collaborate and any opportunity to develop a connection.

So, I’m not the outgoing, energetic, spontaneous and charming orange. Considering it was almost the lowest possible score, it is the least like me no matter how I look at it. The analytical, intuitive, visionary green is consistent for me as well. It is the punctual, organized and precise gold that is swapped with the empathetic, passionate and cooperative blue. What becomes even more interesting is when I take an average of the numbers, blue, green and gold are almost identical in value.

Ok, what does this all mean? I’m sure you can look at this blog post, as well as others written in the past, and pretty much shout “GREEN!” I do think that the core me is that analytical type, that always wants to know who, what, when, where, why and how. This blog post alone is a clear demonstration of that. This blog post even shows the precision and organization of the gold. The blue and the gold are both part of who I am, as I see aspects of both when I’m online and offline. So, if I had to summarize my true self from all of this, I would probably say that I’m Green, Gold, Blue, Orange, with gold and blue switching depending on the audience and environment. Being honest with myself as well, I would have to say, despite how the score fell for my online persona, I think even that probably still falls stronger to the gold side than the blue.

February 21, 2019 by Blog 0

Site Updates and Kitties Going Tweet, Tweet, Tweet

I have finally formatted the blog to be a little easier to read. I have previously combined by various blogger sites into this one site. Instead of being separated by separate blogs, they are now separated by categories. This will hopefully make things a little easier for me. Of course, due to my general lack of time, who knows how often I will be updating again.

Of course, with the updates, I decided to embed by Twitter account. Yes, I have one, and as you can tell, the only thing it was really used for was posting screen shots from when I played Lightning Returns 5 years ago. So, maybe now, I might decide to join with the rest of the world and tweet like a snow canary. Who knows what the future holds? I know I sure don’t.

February 20, 2019 by Blog 0

Prioritization

Prioritization is important, but often something I fail to do correctly. There are many things I have to do, and many more things that I want to do. With all these competing interests, and no sense of priority, I jump form one thing to the next, with no apparent rhyme or reason. Just look at this blog, and you can see an example of that. Add depression into the mix, then nothing gets done at all.

So, now I need to figure out my priorities. I need to get some order to the chaos, if that is even possible. What is really important to me, and what isn’t as important. Some things will have to fall by the wayside, as I can only do so much at one time. Then I want to figure out how I want to structure the blog, and keep the momentum up here, without grasping at straws, or wandering aimlessly between topics.

Blender and my store. I’ve been down to one monitor for several months now, waiting to have the money to get two monitors again. The move in the middle has caused me to put that purchase on hold, while I paid for my part of the moving expenses. There are still things I need to pay for related to the move as well, so it will probably be a couple more months before I can get the monitors. Does this mean I can’t do Blender? Not really. It may be easier with two monitors, but it is still possible with one. I’d like to get my store products updated, add them to my store blog, and get some new content in the store.

LSL Scripting. I had intended on doing updates to an open sourced security orb in Second Life, as well as writing my own home integration tool for windows, doors, and the like. I think both of those have fallen away. Certainly would be nice to use my own scripts with my prefab home designs, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

SL photography and pose making. This is something that I used to enjoy doing, and had thought about creating my own poses for photography as well. I haven’t done either in a couple years, and with the number of things I want to do, this is probably something that is going to stay in the background.

Create a game based on several different ideas, that would work on mobile and browsers. It’s been an idea of mine for a while, and I even have a lot of notes for it. I’m a C# programmer, and with Xamarin part of Visual Studio, it is certainly something I could resume. Yet, since my career involves programming, I’m not sure if it is something I really want to spend time working on outside of work. Granted it is a different type of programming, but regardless, it is still thinking, writing, testing, and debugging code.

Creative writing. I’ve been writing things since I was in high school, from poetry, to never completed works of fiction. There are so many different ideas bouncing around in my head that I would love to get out sometime. The problem is getting it written and completed.

Learning to draw. A couple years ago, I worked on a web comic using SL as the way to generate the scenes. It was an interesting and fun experience, but much too time consuming and costly to complete. So, I thought about learning to draw. Bought myself a drawing tablet for my computer and a couple learn to draw books. Did it one or two days, then that was it. I’ve always wanted to get back to that as well.

Purchasing and decorating a full sim in SL. Like the monitors, this is something that I have to wait for, simply due to finances. I’ve been wanting a full sim for years, and have finally moved to my own homestead, but having a full sim, with 30000 prims available to me, would be amazing. Of course, with Sansar on the horizon, maybe I’d forgo the full sim in favor of whatever they have there. Time will tell on that one.

Darkwolf Boardwalk and Lounge, my club and fun area. Right now, I still do one event a week, Saturdays from 2-4PM SLT. I’d like to see that grow more, but it is something that I know I can’t do without more help. I’d like to get other DJs and hosts and really get things promoted. For now, though, I’m going to have to settle with my one day a week, and not let my depression push me away from something I enjoy.

Sorting my SL Outfits. The SL inventory is a black hole in which no one ever emerges. I’ve always had a lofty goal of getting my outfits organized and pictures added to my Wardrobe. Who knows, maybe I’ll find that mythical organized inventory one day.

Continue playing Final Fantasy 15, and a couple other video games that I purchased, but haven’t played yet. This is fun and relaxing, not requiring a lot of thought, which is why I’ve kind of fallen back to that during my depression. Now that I’m trying to get back on track, I’d like to keep those things going.

Writing this all out and trying to think of everything is just as overwhelming as trying to figure out what I want to do. This list doesn’t even include things in reality like work or errands, nor does it include the time I spend with my Mistress, which all take priority over this list. It also doesn’t list this blog, directly, but my blog should be along the lines of my priority. So, if I’m working in Blender, I’d try to blog about tips and tricks in Blender.

So, I guess one of my first priorities on this list is Blender. I need to get my store moving again. If I can get a product a week relisted, that would be great. Some products will take longer than others, so it will be interesting to see how it all plays out. In between Blender, I think I’ll still keep playing Final Fantasy 15, as time permits. I will still have my event at my club on Saturday as well. I don’t want to pick off more than I can chew at the moment, so, for now, I will limit myself to these. After I see where I’m at with this, maybe I’ll look at some of these other ideas.

March 29, 2017 by Blog 0

Purpose

This blog was first set up in February, after I purchased my new domain name. The timing was still in the early days of my depression after the move. At that time, I had planned on doing more with the blog, starting to post various thoughts and share ideas. Among those thoughts and ideas would be things related to Second Life as well as sharing hints and tricks that I’ve learned with Blender, scripting, programming, or whatever else might interest me.

Starting this blog on Saturday, I’ve seen it move in a way I wasn’t completely expecting, but it was something I had been thinking about before. Aside from the depression topic, I have posted my views related to my sexuality and how I viewed submission, both adult related topics that revealed a much deeper look into myself. The topic on sexuality was especially hard to write, and I assume others might be just as hard. For that reason, topics of that nature will be few and far between. Those were just some of the more pressing subjects I had on my mind this weekend.

So what is the purpose? What will be seen in the future? I’m hoping to include topics relating to Blender, GIMP, LSL, C#, Second Life, as well as life in general. Yes, that does mean that there will be more adult topics in the future as well. The purpose is to share my thoughts, my ideas, and my creativity. Who knows, maybe someone would find it useful to them. If no one else reads it, though, that’s ok. Writing here allows me to express myself, and by doing so, helps me push past my depression.

There’s a lot I want to do, but if I try to do it all, nothing will get done, and I’ll slip back into my depression. I’m trying to start small, and find out the right steps to take. For now, that means the blog followed by my Second Life store. We will see where it goes from there.

March 28, 2017 by Blog 0

Welcome to darkwatch.me

Welcome to my shiny new domain! http://www.darkwatch.me/

I’ve been contemplating having my own domain for a long time, so I thought it was about time for a change. I’ve switched to Blogger as opposed to WordPress, simply out of convenience. WordPress would have charged me more to use my own domain name, while Blogger remains free. Besides, I don’t really need all the functionality of WordPress, so Blogger is more than enough for my needs.

With the move, I will also be slowly updating my store and store blog. http://tdcreations.darkwatch.me/

I want to go back and update some of the pictures as I relist things, and update the inworld store at the same time. In addition, some of my older mesh models I want to try to update, based on things I’ve learned in Blender over the couple years working with it. This is no small task, especially considering my time has become much more limited lately.

For this blog, I’d like to get back to posting things here. I want to write about my own struggles and triumphs. Thoughts and ideas that I might have. Reflections on things going on. Maybe even some creative writing in the mix. Again, there are a lot of ideas, but no clear focused plans as of yet. There is a potential possibility of some more adult themed content. If I decide to have anything like that, I will create a new blog that will be marked as adult content, and make a mention of the new post here. As I don’t have any clear direction on what exactly I want to do yet, I will announce that update if and when it comes. One thing I do know, while there may be posts related to Second Life, this will not be an exclusively Second Life blog.

I guess my first step will be to get some plans and priorities in order, and see where that leads.

March 25, 2017 by Blog 0

Trasee Darkwatch

Trasee Darkwatch

About Me

I'm a native Californian, who also resides in the virtual world of Second Life. Online, I'm a cybernetic snow leopardess. Offline, I'm from Generation X, so I've had many cycles around the sun.

About Blog

Trasee's Furventures is mostly about my online virtual life. Despite that, there will also be elements from offline as well. Topics related to what can be safely shared between the two may appear from time to time. While I'm obviously not a cybernetic snow leopardess offline, I am the same person in both worlds.