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Socoder -> What Have You Done -> What Have You Done? - June 2014
Wed, 25 Jun 2014, 05:24
Jayenkai

Ups

What did you get done this month?
  • Temporary Financial Stability

    Did everything turn out as planned?
    Kinda, but not quite.
    Having waited more than 2 feckin' years for the government to decide I'm officially disabled, they finally decided this week that I'm unfit for work.
    This has led to a fairly decent backdated payment in my bank account, and a marginal (kinda crappy if I'm honest) increase in my weekly disability payments
    The backdated payment, although nice, pretty much went straight out of my bank account again, as I used it to pay off my Very.co.uk home shopping account. (And also splashed out on a new phone ) This means I no longer have £200 EVERY MONTH going out of my bank towards the Very.

    Essentially, because the Very is done with, I'm now in a "£200 a month leftover" sort of scenario. I'm going to let it build up for a while, see how stable it makes my bank account, and hopefully do something nice with it.

    Or at least, that was the plan....

    Unfortunately, not everything went as planned...

    Downs

    What didn't you get done?
  • Permanent Financial Stability

    Why not?
    Mum's been out of work for most of her life. Having dealt with years of depression, fibromyalgia and other crap on a daily basis, she's been living off disability benefits along with whatever income me and my sister kindly donate towards the house. Obviously, with my situation, the past couple of years have been somewhat erratic.
    It didn't help that, just a few months ago, the government decided that Mum was indeed "fit for work", stopped her benefits, and put her onto Jobseeker's Allowance, making her do the bi-weekly signing on thing.
    She complained to them, and explained the situation with me, and they helped her as much as they could, allowing her a temporary quick-sign-on thing, whilst we waited for my crap to be dealt with.
    Once all that was finally finished with, they took her off Jobseeker's, and she's now registering as my official Carer, which she couldn't do until I was officially disabled. To say it's been a bit of a financial struggle, lately is a bit of an understatement, but just as things started to look up, of course there was a downside.
    .. Mum's "claimed" to be my Carer, but apparently that's going to take around about a month or two to go through!!
    This basically means that, as of right now, the only income coming into the house is the money I'm getting paid!!

    Until mum's Carer's allowance gets put through, we're pretty much coasting on bugger all!!

    But the Very is paid off, and we have no mortgage to pay, and .. Really, things could be a whole fuckton worse than they are.

    The disability income is just about keeping us afloat, and with any luck the Carer's allowance should help even things out again.
    Bloody government!!

    Now

    What are you working on right now?
    This week, I have been mostly.. Playing with Spreadsheets...

    How's that going?
    Messily.

    Next

    What's the plan for the month ahead?
  • Keeping afloat!

    With any luck, this time next month will be a better scenario.. :/

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    		•
    Wed, 25 Jun 2014, 05:32
    cyangames

    Ups

    What did you get done this month?

  • Websites
  • More bits 'n' bobs for They Are Everywhere - Mostly Zazzle and the dev blog.
  • A couple of gui bits 'n' bobs for Number Racer

    Did everything turn out as planned?

    Yeah, some client website work went awry due to suddenly changing requirements but, aside from that, yup. progress is just slowwwwwwww

    Downs

    What didn't you get done?
  • Lots
  • Of
  • Things

    Why not?

    Still dealing with a very cute baby most evenings which requires most of my attention, which is all worthwhile as she's cute, doesn't sleep well but very cute

    Now

    What are you working on right now?

    More websites. Mostly White-label stuff so I can't mention it.
    Preparation work for some games and Develop Conference in Brighton (might get me a laptop sharpish actually for that)

    How's that going?

    It's going okay. My lil CMS has had a few improvements made on it over the last month and it's getting even quicker to turn websites around which is great!

    Sadly, aside from researching on marketing,etc for games there's been very little game coding going on. Which sucks.

    Next

    What's the plan for the month ahead?

  • Code Me Do some more websites
  • Number Racer
  • They Are Everywhere
  • Crystal Catch

    I've been promised to have a weekend to do some game coding by the wife so I'll be finishing off some games, at least Number Racer or getting more done on They Are Everywhere anyway


    -=-=-
    Web / Game Dev, occasionally finishes off coding games also!
    		•
    Wed, 25 Jun 2014, 08:46
    rockford
         		Aww Jay & Jay's Mum

    Ups

    What did you get done this month?
  • Started coding a brand new game for Pandora
  • Lots of graphics works - have actually created two sets
  • A new college course
  • Got contact lenses

    Did everything turn out as planned?

    The new Pandora game is playable and starting to be real fun

    I've had to do two sets of graphics - one cartoon based (forward facing really chunky characters) and one more realistic, but stylized and side-on. The stylized one will negate the need for further side-on images, which I will need for certain sequences. However, I really like the cartoon ones more. I could have already done side-on animations already really, but obviously something in my mind wanted me to do the other set instead. It's weird...

    Downs

    What didn't you get done?
  • Anything for OUYA
  • Anything for GameStick
  • Fixing my Mother In-Law's tri-walker brake-cable
  • Putting in contact lenses is a bastard, although I'm getting better.
    Why not?

    I'm not really caring about OUYA at the moment, wanted to do a handheld game. GameStick is looking like it's sucking donkey balls at the moment, with an apparent demise on the horizon. TBH it won't be missed.

    Now

    What are you working on right now?
    The Pandora game

    How's that going?

    OK. I'm near to the point where I will need sound and music. This is always a down-point for me.

    Next

    What's the plan for the month ahead?
  • Finish Pandora game
  • Finish college course
  • Fix M.I.L's brake-cable.

    		•
    Wed, 02 Jul 2014, 06:43
    Jayenkai
         		Aaaaah!!!


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    Wed, 02 Jul 2014, 11:58
    cyangames
         		Aye, our lil family have really enjoyed the ouya ports over here so would be happy to donate

    -=-=-
    Web / Game Dev, occasionally finishes off coding games also!
    Wed, 02 Jul 2014, 18:11
    CodersRule

    Ups

    What did you get done this month?
  • Finished my first "real" game!!
  • Finished an online community college intro to business course
  • Started a new ruby on rails application that's going to be fun to work on
  • Finished my second year of high school, too. Did well on all my finals, did well in all my classes. Good year.

    Did everything turn out as planned?
    Well... yeah!
    My game got me a 99 for my AP Computer Science final grade. So that was good. I've only just submitted my capstone project for the online course a few hours ago, so I don't know how well I've done on it. But I will pass the class with certainty, so I'm pretty confident about my position.
    The rails application has been moving slower than I had anticipated. I got into a spot that makes it really easy for me to procrastinate. Luckily, GitHub has a "contribution streak" feature that imposes enough intrinsic value for me to try to make *some* improvement every day. If I make a whole lot of small commits, eventually I'll get somewhere with the project... right?
    I have a pretty big hurdle to go over next, so I'm going to isolate the functionality and try to push through it. Now that I'm done dealing with the stress of the community college course, I intend to start working on summer assignments for school next year.

    Downs

    What didn't you get done?
  • Worked out how to get a replacement headset (my headset's microphone snapped. It'll work if I just glue it back on, but I'd rather not)
  • Didn't make as much progress I wanted on my rails application, but I still have time to play with it.
  • I haven't started my school summer assignments at *all*. They're pretty hefty, so I should get to work on those.

    Why not?
    To send in my headset for a replacement, I needed a proof of purchase: pretty much just a scan of the retail receipt. I'd lost the retail receipt, and only got around to asking for a printed replacement today. It's pretty cool. You can just walk into Best Buy and ask for a receipt for something you bought and they'll give it to you. I'm probably going to initiate a support ticket tomorrow. The headphones I've been using in the meantime keep cutting out in the right ear, so I'd like to get my normal headphones replaced quickly.
    The rails application has been overshadowed by just about everything else in my life. I've got a trumpet lesson tomorrow, had a college course to complete, and have just kind of been all over the place (as is my right! it's summer )
    The summer assignments have been on hold because of the pretty large workload from the business course. I'm about to write out a basic schedule that I want to follow every day during the summer so that I can make sure stuff gets done. It'll be a loose schedule, of course, but it'll let me manage myself and keep me on track.

    Now

    What are you working on right now?
    Still working on that rails application. That's pretty much my main thing right now. I also want to schedule the rest of my summer and maybe work the alarm clock I started writing about a year ago into a functional state.
    How's that going?
    The rails application is going well! I just need to step up my game so I can get the cool stuff working.

    Next

    What's the plan for the month ahead?
  • Starting marching band rehearsals! This year I'll be an assistant drum major and trumpet section leader, so I've got a lot to worry about. Mostly because trumpet players have a record of being relatively incompetent. We'll see how that goes (really though, I love all the trumpet players this year. it's going to be fun.)
  • Attempt to successfully pursue a love interest
  • Finish my rails application
  • Get my violin tuned up and start to figure out how to play the thing.

    		•
    Thu, 03 Jul 2014, 13:37
    Jayenkai
         		Stabilisers engaged. Mum's now officially my Carer, so now we just need to bugger about with another couple of government agencies, try to get them to talk to each other, and then summon the ghost of Fred Dibnah to put his stamp on things, as per the usual Bolton government rules.

    Finances are becoming slightly more stable by the day. No need to panic, folks!!

    -=-=-
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    Mon, 07 Jul 2014, 05:42
    Jayenkai
         		Finances continue to stabilise. Still need to sort out life insurance for mum. Apparently the old one which was tied to the mortgage, has been completely fucking cancelled now that the mortgage is paid off. Oh, geeze, thanks for warning us about THAT!!!
    That needs sorted, along with a few other "getting old sucks, real life is boring" monetary issues, and .. It'll be plain sailing after that...!!!

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