Social Icons

Pages

Featured Posts

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

The One Who Got Away (Part 6): PLOT TWIST

Quick Translation: This confirms that German citizenship will not be opposed, if within two years it can be verified that the aforementioned person no longer possesses citizenship for Trinidad and Tobagoe and/or has fulfilled the requirements for the loss of this citizenship and that nothing has happened in the meantime, which would forbid naturalization. 


I almost forgot what it felt like to receive a industrial size dose of 100% homegrown German bureaucratic pedantry. Luckily, the German authorities will never leave you too long without a fix. You can count on that.

As you can see from the picture above (and from my previous posts), Trinidad and Tobagoe  had only been mentioned once in passing up until now, when I finalized my application and paid the fee.

Mr. S: Your mother was naturalized in the U.S. after you were born?
Me: Yes, but she never applied for Trinidadian citizenship for me, which would have had to have been done by my 18th birthday. 
Mr. S: Ok. (Accepts my papers and my 255€)

Six months later:




Saturday, May 27, 2017

The One Who Got Away (Part 5)

Pro tip:

Don't estimate the amount of time it will take to review your citizenship application based on the amount of time it took to get the results of your citizenship test.

So far, this has been the area of the German-side of the process that ran a little closer to my bureaucratic expectations, namely, if an official expresses a length of time -- e.g. 3-6 months -- things will start moving closer to the six month mark than the three month mark.

Getting down to the wire, I was (and still am) slightly concerned that this would drag on and I would have to renew my U.S. passport first, since it's getting kinda close to the point where it's only valid for six months. This would have cost me 1.) more money 2.) plus a trip to a consulate that actually does shit for U.S. citizens 3.) money and time off work for a trip to Bremen, Berlin, or Frankfurt.

As luck would have it, I finally received notification that the Germans are letting me in!
The full term is that they are giving me a Einbürgerungszusicherung (assurance of naturalization). This thing is valid for 2 years, during which time I have to submit a Certificate of Loss of Nationality (CLN). It is at that time that I offically stop being US American and start being German.

In true German style, the letter in my mailbox was not the assurance certificate itself, but rather a letter informing me of an appointment early next month where I can go pick this piece of paper up. At any rate, this will then wrap up all the stuff I have to do for Germany to gain citizenship. After this,

Currently the tally is still at 280€ spent in this endeavor, but watch this shit start to skyrocket.
For now, I'm just happy that I made it this far.


Previous Posts:

Thursday, April 20, 2017

109 Days

How's my driving? Nearly halfway in and here's what I've been up to...
  • My longest Duolingo streak: 31 days. Cuánto español puedo hablar? Más que Mike N.
  • Back to School: My project management course is under way. The streber in me rejoices.
  • Breaking Bones: See previous post
  • Coding/Ruby: Kind of backseat at the moment. I will revisit this topic in August. I think my new rig will help (see below)
I got a really nice new laptop yesterday. You can't see it, of course, because I don't think it can take a picture of itself. Maybe... I've avoided Windows 10 for a while now and haven't taken a look at the feature list. Anyway, my phone is also all the way across the room and I'm really comfy on the sofa under all these blankets, so you'll just have to trust me on this one. 

The whole thing was an early birthday surprise from Duncan and, I think, a clever ploy to get me to stop schlepping my work laptop between the office and home. Or maybe a clever ploy to get me to start playing the games in my Steam library that have been sitting there for years now. Either way he's a smart dude. 


I was pretty touched by the whole gesture. Most of the stuff I've owned (aside from clothing) falls into the "new to me" category. And, specifically, most of the electronic devices I've owned fall into the "old to Buche" category. PCs, phones... um... a coffee maker. Also much appreciated gifts, because they helped me stay connected and... caffeinated.

I like how things are moving right now. At least on the private front. Work, as always, is a challenge and right now I'd call it my biggest professional challenge yet. I'm anxious to see how I'll manage to survive the coming months, but I hope to have a good (or at least optimistic report in a few months).

Also, I didn't forget about that intern thing... I'm just way on some other shit at the moment.

Wednesday, April 05, 2017

Broketoe Mount-ow!

I'd never broken anything before. That's because -- aside from a few traumatic near-drowning incidents and a tragic slip-n-slide accident -- I was basically the safety police as a child.

As an adult, I think I most feared a slipping in the bathroom-type accident. You know, those close call moments when you step out of the shower, your foot slips a bit, and your life flashes before your eyes.

"This is how I die," you think.

And then a split second later the moment has passed and you put some damn clothes on.

My bathroom slip kind of snuck up on me. Ok, the floor was wet. But it was probably the dancing and being a slightly drunk at the time that did me in. And I didn't even have time to think. I was just suddenly on the ground. At the time, I didn't even realize that I broke my toe. It wasn't until I got up the next day and basically tried walking and decided this was definitely ER-worthy

And that's how I lost my broken bone virginity.

Highlights:

  • The only other person in the ER waiting room with me and Duncan was a woman with her son. When her name got called, I saw that she too had a foot injury. We both chuckled at that.

  • Nice drugs. Germany's not big on super duper painkillers. But everytime I've gotten something nice, it was from the ER

  • I got to bite down on a stack of gauze while the doctor reset the bone (the closest I'll ever come to time travel... because it felt like I was in 1865) 

  • People asked a lot of interesting questions like: "I thought you didn't feel it when you broke your toe,"; "Did you kick it on a door, the bed, or the sofa?"; "Do you have something in your shoe?"
X-ray after the jump... because pics or it didn't happen

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Office Police: Harrowing Tales of Project Management

I'm working on a crime drama loosely based on my life as a project manager. Here's a sneak preview of Episode 1 "The Whiteboard Marker Bandit"

Rayvan Bronx: Thank goodness you made it, Office Police. You have to catch the s.o.b who keeps stealing my precious whiteboard markers.

Office Police: Ma'am, the Office Judge granted us a search warrant. There are thousands of whiteboard markers in your home. And, like, six sticking out of your pockets right now.

Rayvan: (sobbing) Alright, alright... it was me! You caught me, damnit! I'm addicted to whiteboard markers. I don't even realize they're in my pockets anymore (long, snot-filled sniff) Please help me. Help...Me... Office Police... Please. 

**End Scene**

Monday, February 27, 2017

Work Experience in Games (Part 1) - The Challenge(s)

Work experience isn't a common thing in the U.S.

I don't know anyone who's had to do it voluntarily, much less mandatorily. Here in Germany, however, it's very common for school kids do a two- to three-week "internship" (of sorts) at a company. Generally, they are around 14-16 years old.

I've hosted five such "interns" in my team(s); the last two were with us back-to-back at the end of January and beginning of February. It can be exhausting and, in the last couple of years, I've struggled to figure out what to do with them (with varying results). Like a good citizen of the internet, my very first step was to let me Google that for me. Unfortunately, the internet wasn't as enlightening as I would have hoped and there wasn't really anything related to the games industry to help me out. So, if you're an enterprising person given the task of organizing a work experience for a youth (*coughcough* Project Manager) in the game industry and don't know where to start -- especially if you are in a game production team -- keep reading. This might help.


As you know, there are real interns, i.e. slightly older young people with slightly better critical thinking skills than your average 14-year-old (hopefully). They're in your team anywhere from three months to one year and are generally motivated by the possibility of being hired full-time or getting college credit/professional experience. They arrive with (preferably) a basic skillset upon which you can build. In other words, they're not complete blank slates upon their arrival and, given a month and some healthy mentoring, they can/should begin to contribute to your team's productivity in some way.

Work experience "interns", on the other hand, are much more challenging Jon Snows. In all but the rarest of cases, they know nothing except having played some video games or leaving inappropriate comments on let's play videos on youtube.

A breakdown:

1.) They are teenagers and (generally) have not really formed ideas of what they want to do. 

Of five interns only one had the vaguest of ideas of what he wanted to do during his "internship". He wanted to program. He had some basic programming knowledge. None of which we could effectively utilize in the team. 

The other four? When asked, the responses were, "I don't know" or "A little of everything." Some kids know they want to work in games and most kids (like most people) don't really have any idea how games are made. So... they don't even know what their options are. 

Maybe you get their baby CV. Maybe you can at least have email contact before and ask them to play your game in advance. Mostly you see them on day one and have to figure out all of this then.


2.) Especially relevant if you are in a live browser game: You need to keep your game running. 

Depending on your content cadence, your team is going to be busy producing the things that your team needs to produce and ship in order to keep your game in business. 

My last team has a fast-paced weekly release schedule, in which most team members multitask several content items to keep production on schedule. My current team is in the middle of some internal transition. Employees are short on time and have tight deadlines to keep. If the intern is just going to shadow one person the whole time or a whole department the whole time, then you have assume lower productivity for that department the whole time. 

Strive to spread out the responsibility.

3.) They aren't the most independent thinkers/doers

Having spent time teaching 14-16-year-olds in my brief stint as a German teacher, I can say that humans at this age are raging balls of hormones with short attention spans who are accustomed to having to ask for permission to do just about anything and require a full set of instructions for damn near any task. Independent, self-organization is at a minimum. They've likely not mastered the art of taking notes, so any instructions are best given in chunks

  • Instruction chunk
  • They do the thing
  • You check/give feedback
  • They re-do the thing
That said, try to foster some independence and time-management as much as possible. Let them know when they should start and end everyday, give them a span of time for lunch that they can determine themselves (e.g. one hour between 12:00 - 2:00pm). And an ongoing research task for them to work on when nothing specific is planned. 

Essentially any task you give them (likely the most non-essential tasks you have) you can calculate the amount of time it would take someone in the team to complete and quadruple it. Also take into account that several iterations will be needed. They will also heavily sigh when asked to re-do it. Because they're definition of done is usually the baresr of minimums (e.g. if you tell a kid to write a critical essay, they will usually ask for a word count and give you that... no more, no less). It's not the most exciting work, but you can always say, "This is what real [programmers, game designers, QA, etc] have to do as part of the job." 

It's funny 'cause it's true.

4.) They should still learn/do something... even if it's not directly a part of the live game.

Whether it's learning how to systematically do a task and document it or (as I get into in the next post) be a mini-game development team of one, the work experience intern should walk away having actually learned about the game development process. 

It was weird for me, at first, because work experience has such a short time box and can be really disruptive to a development team.

Coming up is a plan that maximizes the independent learning of the intern, minimizes the impact of production, and gives a kid a two-week crash course in making games.  

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

54 Days

Here's how 2017 is going so far:


  • I've registered the domain ravenbrooks.de. There is nothing there, but I have it until 2019 and intend to migrate...because 1.) I could put the URL sickpimpin.blogspot.com on a business card, but I'm heading into my 40s.. and 2.) I've been learning Ruby and I need some kind of blank canvas upon which to do things.
  • I've done zero additional Spanish learning at this time, but I have made a convenient bet... which I am thinking I should make into an inconvenient bet. Basically, I have agreed to have a conversation with a specific Spanish person on June 1st, 2017. This person determines the topic and whether or or not my Spanish is sufficient. If I don't pass....I buy her dinner. If I do pass... Duncan buys her dinner. Either way, she gets dinner. The conversation of a more drastic stake came up (e.g. I clean her apartment). After a month of avoiding anything Spanish... I feel like this is a sufficient threat....
  • I've had to take care of two teenagers on work experience interns within a month. It has been exhausting, but I think I have a good plan for (specifically) games teams who have to take in such an intern. I will share this information here soon. I looked all over the internet and found nothing particularly helpful. I hope to put up a program that others can follow that is minimally intrusive to their workflow and gives maximum value to "the kid" embedded in a team. I think it's easy enough to implement. 
  • I'm tired all the time
  • I found a great chiropractor.