User:WiseEyes

Updated: 2006 12 07 20:05

Background
I am a 2nd year student at Arizona State University, currently studying Computer Science. I wish to work in the video game industry after graduation. However, realizing the present prospects regarding the employment of programmers, especially in the video games industry, I realize that this goal will take considerable effort to reach a comfortable position. In the meantime, I enjoy classes and learning programming. I am new to wiki markup and this page is my first experience with it. I have learned some C++ and a decent amount of JAVA. Most of the classes at ASU are centered on JAVA as opposed to Visual Basic or C++. I am employed by ASU's "University Technology Office" for email support.

I have programmed several small console programs both for school and personal use. Presently, I am working on programming a text based, console version of black jack. It's been causing me a series of problems...

Other than programming, I enjoy video games, reading, writing, martial arts, movies, some sports and music along with most common interests to others of my age.

As far as this page is concerned, update will be a whenever I feel like it/think about it thing. As to whether that'll be more often or less, that depends on what's going on in my world at the time. Leave a comment on the Talk page if you like. Be nice to see if anyone actually sees this or not.

My online journal can be found at http://www.xanga.com/ufbad

Biography
Born in Texas in February of 1986 in the year of the Tiger as a Pisces. I usually don't put much stock in astrology, but I have become rather attached to the Chinese zodiac. I've moved a few times in my life, but still spent most of it in Texas.

Employment
I've been employed by the University Technology Office as email support since September 26th, 2006. Prior to this, I was unemployed over the summer of '06 and the '05-'06 school year. I've been in the Army Reserves since March of 2004. Presently, I'm rated as an E-4 Specialist with the MOS of 63B Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic. I enjoy the Reserves; often saying "They pay for school and I get to blow things up". I've found it's been a rather interesting experience, but I'm still undecided as to how long I want to stay in.

Wikipedia
To be honest, this page will be a minor autobiography of mine, but its main purpose is for me to experiment with wiki markup.

Video Games
Video Games and Technology have so far been my biggest hobby. I enjoy spending time with and learning about computers and other types of technology. However, it's always fun just kick back and tear some stuff up on the digital landscape. My favourite games are usually very contested and dynamic, but my favourite has consistently been the Half-Life series. I enjoy Halo, but consider it to be overrated. This doesn't impede me having fun playing it, but I don't get much opportunity to play it so my skills are somewhat lacking. Call of Duty and Team Fortress Classic are usually pretty easy for me to get back into with a little practice however. I like other genres as well; Real Time Strategy and Puzzle/Adventure games are usually the others I play most. The first modern computer game I ever played was Command & Conquer by Westwood Software, and I still enjoy the series, both old and new. I also like the Zork series and The Neverhood has always been one of my all time favourites. I consider The Neverhood to be one of the most underappreciated games in history, as Microsoft only released a limited number of copies, but it's among one of their best.

Technology
And with video games comes technology. I enjoy a variety of different technology, from guns, to games, to bots, to other random stuff. I'm the sort of person who would consider buying a piece of new tech just because it's cool, but never has the money to actually go through with it. Presently I own a PS2, which I loaned to my girl-friend, a Toshiba TV that my room mate left when he moved out last year (friggin sweet man, free TV!!!), and my HP laptop. Needless to say, I spend most of my time on the laptop of the three.

Laptop Specs:
 * Operating System: Ubuntu/Windows XP dual OS with GRUB boot loader
 * Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz
 * RAM: 1024MB (2x512)
 * Hard Drive: 80GB 7200 RPM
 * Graphics Card: ATI Technologies x600m 256MB, up to 1440x900 resolution
 * Display: 17in Wide Screen

So it may not be the best these days, but it runs Half-Life 2 smooth as a baby's ass and it works well enough with Premier and Photoshop.

Programming Other than gaming, programming has managed to develop into a bit of a hobby for me. Since I'm schooling for a BS in Computer Science, it's also what I plan on doing with my life... Well, for a career anyways. There's still Writing and Martial Arts after all. Anyways, I'm currently a 2nd year student at ASU, and have taken most of my classes in JAVA, but I do have a little experience with C++ as well. Since most of my classes are in JAVA, university's decision, not mine, I've been writing my personal programs in Java as well. The latest developments, and pretty much the only ones worth noting, include an E-mail SMTP address checker and a Shadow Run "Dynamic Character Sheet" I've been working on.

The SMTP E-Mail Address checker was written for work, and uses an SMTP connection to the address's domain to validate whether the server is mail enabled and the user is present upon that server. Recently, I finished this one up with help from some of the other guys in the office, but I might go back and clean up the programming so it's easier to read.

The Shadow Run Character Sheet is a personal project of mine that I thought would be a pretty cool idea. I got the idea from this little program called "The Dungeon Master's Companion" or something like that, for Dungeons and Dragons. The program was basicly a little NPC generator, Information Storage and random item generator sort of rolled into one. I haven't used it in a long time, so it's hard for me to remember everything about it. Anyways, I thought it was a pretty cool idea, so I decided to write a similar version for Shadowrun, since it's my personal favourite. My Shadowrun version is centered upon the player characters themselves, however. I'm designing it to act as a replacement to traditional paper character sheets and as a Gamemaster's assistant. The program will store all the information about your character, name, description, attributes, skills, money, damage, intiative, gear, weapons, vehicles, contacts, etc., and track their changes and use throughout the gaming session. At the end of the session, you can choose to save your character to a data file for later use and/or to print out a generated character sheet from the information within the program. The best example I've been able to think of is for its use in combat. I don't know about the rest of you, but in our gaming sessions, tracking ammo is the worst. Not just how much total ammo you have, but how much is left in the magazine, and what type is in which mag, etc. So, the program will be able to track not only your total ammo, but the amount and type of ammo in each magazine you have. Therefore, if you drop a half-empty clip, instead of just forgetting about the rounds, you'll still have that clip with its few rounds left that you can either unload or use later. I suppose you could throw it away if you wanted, but hey, whatever.

Literature
I grew up without a TV for most of my life, so me and my 3 siblings spent a lot of it with books instead. I don't really mind, and rather prefer it that way since it's what I usually attribute my current interest in learning too.

I've always enjoyed writing. These days I only get to do it every so often. I used to write a lot in high school, but that's mostly because of assignments. I like to write poetry, because it's easy. Course I've only come up with one or two poems I actually like. And no, they’re not about blood death and emo. I prefer nonsensical stuff. Lewis Carrol is my favourite author, and probably the only continuing influence my writing has had. Can't really say I've developed much of a style, but hey, that'll come with time I suppose. I enjoy writing stories too, but don't do as many of those considering the time they take. Most stories I do write are rather short, say 4 - 8 pages or so.

Recent Writing
The Jungle is a comic book project created by my brother, my girl friend and I, inspired by characters my girlfriend created. Considering I'm living in a different time zone than my brother these days, it's continuation and development are somewhat limited. I'm trying to figure out a way to get at least the first issue completed. My brother and I developed the story together. I do most of the writing and some basic sketches; he and my girlfriend handle all the art and contribute to the story extensively. It's a great project, so I might post some pages if we ever finish it.

Timmy was a text file I made while playing around with the Unix system at school to get used to various commands. I've written a couple paragraphs, but don't really know what I want to do with it. He's sort of the persona that I imagine would habitat my laptop if it were sentient. If you care to read the first bit of 'Timmy' you can find it here, http://www.public.asu.edu/~jacripe/Timmy.txt. At this time it's still a really rough writing since I only edit or add to it when I'm playing around with the school's Unix system. It doesn't really seem fair to download it and work on it at home for some reason...

Martial Arts
Next to Video Games and Tech, martial arts are probably my next biggest interest. I've always wanted to learn them, but haven't had a whole lot of opportunity until recently. I started taking Aikido in high school for 2 years or so off and on. In Basic Training, I was taught some Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu but not a whole lot. In college I started up with Aikido again, but not for very long. I also joined the fencing club for a year and might go back. Recently I've been interested in Kokondo, Shaolin Wu Shu, and Shinkendo but am not sure if I'll have the time and money for them. I'm planning on joining the Shaolin club once I get the money for it. This school year, I've started working out with my roommate weekday mornings. I rather like the progress I've been making, so I'm going to try and keep up with it for as long as I can. We've also recently started sparring every two weeks. October 22, 2006 was our second match.

I believe my interest in martial arts is something I've had throughout most of my life, but intensified with my experiences in Aikido. After finally training in some martial arts, I realized how much I really enjoyed in. Then, later on when I decided not to go active duty, I figured Martial Arts would be a good way for me to maintain a "warrior" focus in my life without having to keep an extensive military career. So, in a way, Martial Arts has replaced my childhood dream of active duty military service. Recently, the start of 2006, I finally picked up a copy of The Street Fighter starring Sonny Chiba. This quickly became one of my favourite movies and has spurred interest in a variety of other martial arts. I began researching Sonny Chiba more so in the fall semester of 2006 and learned of Kyokushinkai karate and Goju Ryu. Learning about these two style of karate, showed me how much of a difference there can be in different forms of karate. Now, I hope to travel to Japan someday and train under both of those schools. In similar occurances, I grew more interested in the varying forms of Wu shu after watching Jet Li's Fearless. I am interested other styles of Wu Shu now, such as Hung Gar and Ba Gua, but I still want to concentrate upon Shaolin when it comes to the Chinese Arts. I've had an interest in Muay Thai as well, but haven't had much much of a chance to practice it.

My roommate and myself have now decided to join the university's Shaolin club next semester since funds will be more available to us then.