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Working in Oakland's Embarcadero Cove, renting office space for the summer from CHecker.
Embarcadero Cove is a cluster of old Victorian-era buildings relocated from construction sites to a quiet cluster near a small boat harbor. A loose collection of independent game programmers work out of the second floor of a red barn-esque building. This was the site of the Indie Game Jam.
It's mostly filled with game programmers. Some of them have been affiliated with large game/software companies in the past, but they come here when they're working for themselves, persuing their own projects.
I asked Jon the other day, What are you working on?
"Making a simple programming language to test short-term persistent states of game objects for this article I'm writing for GDmag." Sometimes I push myself to follow up with a second question. Perhaps I'm learning something about programming from osmosis.
Chris rents them office space, because they're his friends, his peers. They entertain him - they provide stimulation and feedback.
July 1, talking to Charles, Chris pointed out that at his next birthday he will turn 32. "I'll finally carry."
Charles chuckled, "Yeah."
Justin furrowed his brow, "?"
Chris was talking about his age in binary - at 31, he is 1111. Once he reaches 32, he'll be 10000. You only carry a place one more time in your life after that - at age 64. Something to look forward to! Something you learn working in this office.
We eat Vietnamese food two or three times a week, always at the same cheap good place off 880: Pho Hoa Hiep, 1402 East 12th Street, Oakland.
Chris measures a giant bowl of pho - beef brisket, beef flank noodle soup
Charles took some photos inside in late June 2002:
bald Jon Blow in foreground
5 September, Chris is heard to cry, talking about his transition from painting to programming: "that's why games are great! i can do the art, I can do the programming, I can never ship!"
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