Regarding Tom

Man, it feels pretty lame just making a topic for me to talk. Feels selfish, arrogant. But I just can't find the time to idle in the chat these days. Got a lot on my plate. I know it's been a while since I've posted anything but I figure a returning thread is unnecessary. I've come and gone over the years anyway. I don't think I've actually been a regular poster for a solid 5 years. Man, it's crazy thinking about time like that. It's weird getting old.

I'm rambling. I'll do a quick recap of what's going on and try to keep this from going too heavy. I'd been working Red Lobster for way too long and I knew that I needed some kind of change. I was looking at you college goers with a bit of envy. Well, lacking any kind of connections, training or education, I was having a hard time figuring out what to do. I think my love of writing's pretty well documented at this point but my god writing a book is just awful, ahah. So that wasn't working out. I didn't want to go into debt either, so my options were kinda limited. I'd been thinking about the military thing for a few years then so I figured that was the time to go in. So I went to a recruiter and got the ball rolling.

Funny thing is, that was over two years ago. I spent over a year just going through the process of joining the military. I'd signed up with the Air Force and after the background checks, paperwork, and finally a visit to MEPS it was still another year of waiting for them to find a job for me. It's funny, after a year they have to redo the paperwork (I think it even involves another visit to MEPS) and you have a chance to opt out. I was pretty tired of jumping through hoops at that point so I was already making plans to bite the bullet and just go to college with all the debt it entailed. After all, it was a lot of waiting and there was a chance I could've gotten saddled with a job I didn't even want.

Slight segue to talk on that. You do get to list a number of jobs and you have full opportunity to turn down any jobs not on your list, but you have to at least accept one catch-all job, like General-70 or something akin to that. If you get that job, you go into BMT not even knowing what your job is with everything in the general category under the score being available as an option. Scary stuff. There's probably a little more involved in that subject that I'm not aware of. I'm just an AIC after all so take any knowledge based stuff I say with a grain of salt.

Anyway, just when I talk to my manager at Red Lobster to kick up my hours so I can get a nice bit of financial padding setup, right when my one year of waiting is about to come up, I get a call from the recruiter telling me I've got a job. Air Traffic Controller.

Man, this really turned into story time. I did not intend for this to be the case. Please, moderators, I'm beggin' ya, don't move this to the welcome forum because then I've got to make a new thread and continue it from there or just continue in the welcome center and maaaan.

Let's wrap story time up. I go through BMT (man, skipping some good stories here) and the tech school (more good stories) and I make it to the operational Air Force. I'm 10 months in now and I'm still in training. Ack, I was posting another huge amount of information, forget it. Whatever, I'm pretty busy with my training.

The thing is, I really, really want to get back into writing. Like, that passion is still there. Maybe passion's the wrong word, maybe more like drive? I just feel like I need to write lately but I'm having a lot of problems getting back into the swing of things. I really want to be around here more often because I know there's writers here, y'know, be amongst my people. Well, I also like you guys, so there's that too. Anyway, I've gone on way longer than I intended to and I am a sleepy fellow. Typed this up after a shift and I'm a little drained. I'd love to talk about writing or whatever's been going on with you guys. Any cool projects going on? Heck, maybe I'm even asking for help. I just want back into it so badly and my normal shtick isn't cutting it. Annd I guess that's it. Good to talk to you folks.
Tom: the man, the legend. :V

Not much going on like projects, but there's always RPing, waiting and ready. And chat. You know the deal. But if something new comes around, you'll be the first to know.
There ARE projects going on. But they're SPECIAL SECRET projects. <Insert much shifty eyes and conspiratorial hand-rubbing here>


Ok, no really a big secret, but aside from long-term projects and planning, a lot of the usual, mostly. Writing stories, poking people with stick, plotting madly. It's good to hear from you though, If you do feel like stretching your creative flex around here sometime soon, I'll look forward to it
It's bad, but I feel like I'm past RPing. It's almost ridiculous for me to be here since that's the cornerstone of the site, right? I just love the people. We go way back, after all. It's hard to believe I've been visiting the site for something like a decade now. Oh yeah, Aim, I finally got internet so I'm good to throw down. I'll try to idle in the chat now and then, we'll see. I said I'd do that a month ago and I think I've come by three times. We'll see if I can't step it up.

Ugh, I want to do something but I'm exhausted. Maybe that's it? Maybe that's why I've lost my edge? My previous job was so menial, no real mental taxing. But this, this is definitely not that. Brain is, ugh, ready to be done.
Well instead of RPing you could help write up the next big story arc for the site. We'll do the RPing for you.
*takes a deep breath*
Funny that you should mention 'projects'. I actually have a project (planned) related to RERN. I'm sure you're familiar with RPG Maker. Well, a new version is going to come out this month and I intend to get it. Like, actually purchase it and make a game with it. Why now? I'll show you.

TEST PAGE

Yes, this new version allows exporting as HTML5 so the game is entirely playable in the browser. It's even playable on mobile devices due to built-in touch/mouse controls. This new version also simplifies the custom scripting, as it's done in JavaScript. Spoiler, I've been working with JavaScript the last 2 years. So that ought to be interesting.
So what's my plan? Basically an RERN RPG. Nothing's set in stone, but I've got some ideas. Once RPG Maker MV is released and I get to playing around with it, I'll form a concrete story and mechanics to make it interesting or closely tied to RERN. I know customization is RERN's biggest draws and I do want to keep something of that in. But for the time being it's still in a planning phase. Once I've got a snippet of the story, I'll discuss it here on the forum.

Maybe this wasn't the right topic to drop this... But you did mention 'projects'!
A year later and I'm back again. Phases and phases! A game huh? You still working on that Shuryou?

I've been dabbling in Game Maker myself. It's been fun. I've been trying to make a regular thing of it but it's a pain doing things habitually. You know, I've been thinking about documenting my game making journey lately and I've been struggling to find a place that felt appropriate. I was thinking youtube but it's a real hassle writing scripts and editing videos. Making my own web site has also been on the table, but I don't know the first thing about web design. In thinking of options, doing it here came up too. It's why I'm here, again. But it's just an idea, and it seems kind of silly.

Man, there's a new chat! That's craaazy! I had no idea Twi was dropping money into that. Guess I'll peek in there and see how things are.