As I started resuscitating the long dormant justCheckers project, I began wondering why did the development occurred at a comatose pace. Much of the problem I place on my own inexperience and my university workload. I also paid more attention to possible future problems than managing the team.

Yesterday, one my of good friends and fellow justCheckers developer basically verified that he had no time to work on the project. He has got a lot on his plate. And so do most of the other developers. Still I need active developers. He suggested to wait a certain amount of time for a response, and then start removing developers.

As much as I hate to restructure the team, it will be necessary if I want to create an active core development team and a community around justCheckers. So I decided that the deadline for the inactive devs to respond will be December 20, 2007.

The justCheckers project must go on.

Ubuntu Linux makes many things easier. Today, I hit a notable exception: running Eclipse so that I update and do other “insane” things with it. After a lot of hassle, I downloaded a Linux version of eclipse right off of eclipse.org. Some updates, installed the subclipse plug-in and I am ready to hack away at justCheckers.

I finally finished the majority of the justCheckers wiki too. So finally I can show some real work to the rest of the world. Now if I can gather back some of the “band” (the development team), then things would go much faster. Worst case scenario I can do this solo. But would rather work with someone together. Its just much more fun.

What a busy day. Today’s line of exploits include:

• Installing a wiki. A moderated wiki will be the new justCheckers site.
• Importing articles from a website and wiki into a… wiki.
• Counselling about my career choices… and that I need to cold call. Brr…
• A quick update with a friend.
• Me time with a coffee and a danish.
• Running to a moved conference.
• Being told I am unfashionable. Big time. Still learned alot about business attire.

Quote of the day:
“Lose the camouflage pants. Seriously.” My rebuttal being… thats what I found before I ran out of the house.

Seriously, I am exhausted now. And this list is about the maximum level of cohesiveness I can manage today. More wiki and driving fun tomorrow. Night.

So you typed my name into Google, and found this site popping up as the second result. Congratulations! You just found my blog. You are probably surprised, that you found it so easily. I was surprised when I Googled my name today too.

I welcome you. I just want to point out a few things, before you go and delve into this blog too deeply:

I started this blog when I was still in university, and made it public so that my friends and colleagues could read up on some of my thoughts. Most of my posts are either about some academic idea I juggled in my head or its about tiny snippets of my life. As life goes, there were ups and downs. Sometimes I achieved something great. Other times I failed. I learn from my mistakes, and by personally challenging myself. But with so many posts, I don’t see why I should scurry the blog into hiding. The Open Source Gamer (formerly Mlaren Dreams) has been around for a while now. Just because I sent you my resume, should not change things.

I want you to get to know me better. But I want to point out my achievements rather than my idle ranting. Take a look at the open source project I lead: justCheckers. I gained a lot of experience about developing in an open source, de-centralized manner.

I also love to write, and have written a few articles, some of which are on my blog:

Oct 12, 2007: Thoughts on Richard Stallman’s “Free Society, Free Software” essays,
http://opensourcegamer.blogspot.com/2007/10/free-society-needs-free-market-and-free.html

Sept 28 & Oct 02, 2007: Reviews on Kubuntu 7.10:
http://opensourcegamer.blogspot.com/2007/09/initial-impressions-of-kubuntu-710.html
http://opensourcegamer.blogspot.com/2007/10/settling-in-with-gutsy-beta.html

Sept 17, 2007: How to on Fixing NVidia graphics on an old Toshiba Satellite
notebook:
http://opensourcegamer.blogspot.com/2007/09/penguin-and-rusty-wrench.html

Dec 10, 2006: Gaming: Simplicity, Good Graphics and Open Source Gaming
http://opensourcegamer.blogspot.com/2006/12/gaming-simplicity-good-graphics-and.html

I have also written a series of quantum computing articles, for a science and technical writing class. Unfortunately, you will not find them here. Feel free to ask me about them if you decide to interview me though.

You may also notice, that I don’t talk about my previous employments. I don’t do this, because I think it would be unprofessional of me to disclose potentially sensitive material. And because I don’t like to complain about people behind their backs.

I want to show you that I have an organized work ethic and that I am self-motivated. I even invented a new organizational technique based on operating system process management: Task Logs (1) (2).

Finally, I want to thank you for reviewing my application, and looking up on me. I hope to hear from you soon.

Yours sincerely,
Dorian Pula

One of the hardest thing to admit is one own errors. Today I finally confronted two of them. A while ago I opened up two different FOSS projects on SourceForge. I soon realized that I did not have the time to work on them and school. So today, I finally found the courage to ask the SourceForge to remove those projects. The projects basically only had a basic amount of code, and an unmaintained website.

Instead I want to concentrate on my involvement with the justCheckers project and make that a successful venture.

I wanted to write and post the second part yesterday. But having scraped my fingers whilst gardening, any finger intensive activity like blogging or gaming had to be postponed. Now my fingers seem better, so I will continue where I left off…

(Monday) …having arrived late into the night from Niagara Falls, I was not too keen on waking up in the morning. When I did, I realized I missed out on a full day of work. Actually, I pondered whether or not yesterday’s trip was not a waste of time. Not that I did not enjoy the company. But I think everyone going hiking would of been more fun. Then again I am not sure Rob, Tangay or Echo would of enjoyed hiking. But I could of done so much work… As you can tell, I am a bit of a workaholic, and think about doing something productive even on a national holiday. Its sad, I know.

After some progress in landscaping our frontyard, I hoped to catch up on some old work for a client. However, my client told me that the project I was supposed to work on finished already. And so thanks to my inconsistency and overambition, I did not uphold my end of the bargain. And I got rightfully burned. I was overambitious while still in university, and took up a job I could not finish. Now I am no longer certain of my abilities. I hoped that at least that I could get ahead in my professional life. But I failed. The rest of the day, I devoted on chores to ignore this haunting thought.

(Tuesday-Thursday) Everyday started like many others. Chores, gardening, a lot of ego-surfing and more gardening. Oh and I kept on busting my fingers. Not because I do self-masochism. I am just clumsy, and too unhappy to be more cautious. I read some more of McKenzie Wark’s Gamer Theory. On the subject of games, I should be resurrecting the justCheckers project. This means I should invite the developers back into active coding again. But considering what happened recently, I worry if I can truly lead the project still. Tomorrow I will see if I can work up the courage to continue to the next step. Much like the lyrics in Rachel Loy‘s Big Sky song: My life’s not over, just twisted out of place.