Plan for Justin Kovac

::WARNING::LONG READ::
Well, I'm finally out here in OreGUN (I gotta get used to that one); and boy was that a trip. A thirty-six hour drive from downriver Michigan to Eugene is far from fun, especially by yourself. Being the manly man that I am, I basically worked two eighteen hour trips of solid driving. About twenty hours through I really started to even wonder the benefits of driving out here just to have my car, and am still pondering this. A note to anyone who may take the Tour de USA anytime soon: Nebraska and Wyoming are LONG. Everyone's told me that Iowa makes people go insane do to the endless farms, but it really didn't bother me since I was still in the plowing along mode when I went through it. Nebraska and Wyoming seriously never ended, no joke. Music began to run together; I didn't know if I was listening to Queen or Tool.

Half way through the first night while going through Nebraska it started to rain really hard. If anyone has ever driven in any of those central USA states, you'd know there's a ton of trucks, especially at night. I, of course was trying to make the best time possible out there, and would no longer suggest driving 90 in pitch black farmlands while it's sleeting rain while flying by big trucks that spray the shit out of your car. The roads were getting pretty slick and I thought my brain was starting to fry so I thought I'd call it quits around 3:00 a.m. I pulled off in a town in the middle of nowhere, and decided to ask the gas station attendant how much the nearest hotel cost. He suggested I headed downtown (past the houses with more garbage in their front yards than I've thrown away in my lifetime here on Earth), and got one of those hotels since they were cheaper. The first place I saw was by far the biggest hole I could've found, so I decided I'd stay there for laughs. It was ironically called The Oregon Trail (in Nebraska, which makes perfect sense). Now staying at the worst hotel in all of Nebraska (from what I saw, that's saying a lot) may sound like something enjoyable to talk about for entertainment purposes. I thought this as I saw the place...and thought nothing of it. I pulled in and it was raining like a madman, and dropping to about 34 degrees out fast. Another man with a big blue tarp over the back of his beat up old pickup truck walked into the so-called "office" about 20 seconds before me. After a few minutes of waiting, a stubby old Indian lady walked up to the desk to give us our rooms. I think my car was the only one in the parking lot that was newer than 1984, so I was definetly skeptical about even parking in the same lot. The guy who just got a room next to me started to unload thick black garbage bags full of something heavy I chose not to think of into his unlit room (the lights took about 10 minutes to kick on) as the sleet really started to kick off. It definetly felt like something out of a horror movie; and the thought was definetly in the back of my mind after my initial thought of it being funny (it wasn't as funny all the sudden, don't ask why). Figuring I'd go right into my room and crash, get up early and continue on, I stepped under the rusted awning that was over my room's door. The outside of the rooms had old kids toys and broken chairs in front of all of them, adding even moreso to the getting less funny mood. I go up to the door with my key firmly grasped and try to insert the key. The door creeks open as I try to do so. Apparently the doors handle was broken and could not be shut. I flipped on the light and had a smoke while I waited for the bulb to heat up and turn on and listened to some people arguing in a few rooms down. I walked in and to my surpise, it was a dump . Hair balls under the blankets, no toilet paper on the rolls, and the only channels I had on the near dead TV were in Spanish. I pulled the blankets back over the bed and slept with a hoodie and a jacket for warmth. I threw a chair infront of the door to keep it from opening, but it still let in a ton of cold air. I woke up thankfully in one piece at about 5 a.m. freezing to death and was more than eager to get the hell out of there. The rest of my trip was almost potentially worse.

I finally got into Oregon at about 11:30 p.m. and thought I'd drive for 4ish more hours and then find a hotel. Three hours later, exhaustion really set in and I knew I needed to get off the road. My vision started to blur as trucks going 75 mph around 45 mph bends of mountain made me a bit nervous, but I couldn't find an exit for the life of me. I finally stumbled upon Baker City and was very happy to get a place to stay and crash out. Ironically, I told myself the second place I saw I was going to stay it. It just happened to be a place called The Oregon Trail (irony anyone?). This one was actually nicer and gave me a free continental breakfast. While I was drinking my coffee and eating my toast the next morning I started to chat about this beautiful state with some local (you knew he was local because the waitress set the plate of food down for him exactly as he walked in). He got really excited and suggested I took Highway 26, as it was a much more scenic route of Oregon than I-84. I told him I would, but knew I wouldn't simply because I wanted to get there as soon as possible. Karma sure is a bitch. I had a quick feeling of guilt as I turned towards 84 and not 26, but instantly grew happy that there was still a nice view and an early morning ahead of me. I grabbed a smoke and cranked some Tom Petty and headed on my way. About an hour into 84 a construction zone came up, with a sign telling me to slow down from 65 to 45. The car in front of me was leading the way, I was merely following. As I'm going through the zone my gauges died (all the dash's gauges randomly die, it's nothing new, merely accepting that I own a Jeep). Continuing with the car infront of me, I head around a bend and WHAM! cop car. The cop weaved inbetween both of us and threw on it's lights. I was reliefed for about 10 seconds, thinking he was only pulling over the leader and didn't clock me before I dropped my speed. I then saw him waving his hand at me to pull over. I drive for one hour in the place I'll be living for at least 3 months and I get slammed with a $201 dollar ticket (my first ticket at that). Not only did the cost piss me off, but the fact that a 4 hour drive at my usual speed now turned into a 6 hour at the 'I don't want to even come close to getting pulled over again in one day' speed.

I made my way at a snails pace through the mountains of Oregon. I decide it's about time to get gas as I was in middle of a canyon, so I pulled up to a Shell station. Still bummed out about my ticket, I went inside to swipe my credit card (my cash box was absolutely submerged under my computer, folded down seat, all the food I brought, a LOT of stuff), and the lady tells me I keep getting denied. I instantly start to worry that something happened and my I went over my credit budget by someone screwing up my card on the way out and got really pissed that I had to pay the only cash I had left in my pocket and hopefully make it to Eugene on it. I try to call my card's hotline and everytime I get through all the automated messages and finally get an operator on the line, my phone hits a dead spot and loses service completely. After 5 attempts I finally got through and to my relief, my card was only put on hold due to suspicious activity (charges in 7 different states in 2 days time will do that to you). So I was set on that and drove the last painstaking stretch to Eugene.

Ah, finally in Eugene after what seemed like another 2 days of driving due to the speed and anticipation of arriving. I've been here since Associate's Day and have been loving it since. IGC I don't need to go into detail with as everyone has already told how freakin' badass it really was this year (though I felt moderatly out of place at first during Associate's Day, not knowing a single person in thousands of miles on a real life basis). I'm attending my last day of Torque Boot Camp tomorrow morning (which is geared moreso towards programmers but I picked up a lot of cool information, especially on how the Torque Network Library works). Stephen's doing a great job touching base on all my questions (which a lot of the time I asked not only for my assurance in the form of comments with a question mark at the end but for anyone who seemed like they might not have gotten the concept down to get a better image. An example of this would be interpolation and extrapolation: I understood it right away but referenced it to games like World of Warcraft to give everyone including myself a better view of how it works).

I seriously cannot believe how cool both the community and GG staff are. I hung out at Tim A, Justin D, Ben G, and Adam D's pad the first night of IGC and got to basically just make fun of everything that was on TV, and got a chance to get to know them and a few other great guys. I can't explain how amazing it was to just sit around and talk to people about video games and the creation of video games and not see blank faces or loss of attention. This is all such a new experience to me, and I definetly feel right at home with this kind of lifestyle already.

So in conclusion, I just want to give a thanks to all of you (both community and employee) for making my first experience out here one of the best times in my life. I've slept 4 - 5 hours a night since I got here and want to sleep even less. Right now I'm hanging out in the office with the two other interns (who are very cool and fun as well, and am starting to grow very comfortable already and hope they are growing the same way), and Matt F and Paul S are downstairs. I swear I'd sleep in this place if they let me, it's that cool to me. There's nothing I'd rather do nore picture myself doing than working with guys like you and attending conferences like IGC, and this internship hopefully brings me one step closer to it. So to sum it up, I hope you guys enjoyed my first Plan (NOT blog, I hate that term!), and feel free to leave some experiences of your own or of IGC. Oh, what's my Plan in this thing you ask? I'm, uhm, going to be working on a LOT of art very soon and can't wait! :)

Edit: Uploaded some pics of the place and some others which can be found here.





The mood was set a lot better at night with freezing rain ;).

Justin Kovac