what's new
a running scratch pad posting web site changes, interesting events,
and random junk
- 09/17/2007
Just did some minor maintenance on my site. My
resume has been updated (finally) to
reflect my new position as co-owner and CTO of Balanced Worlds. I also
changed the settings in my photo gallery. Sorry
everyone but I turned off the "Comments" feature because it was
getting spammed with ads.
- 05/16/2007
A week after my amazing trip to Tibet I have my pictures up. See the pictures,
with captions and description of the trip
here.
- 02/20/2007
Chris Pfeiffer, CEO of Balanced Worlds, wrote an article about our
experiences in the game industry and the motivation behind founding our new
game studio in China. Check it out at
kotaku.com.
- 01/26/2007
After a great run as a programmer and lead programmer at Insomniac
Games, I decided that it was time to move on and pursue broader goals. Me and
my good friend, Chris Pfeiffer, started laying the foundations of our new game
studio which will open its doors around June 2007, in Beijing China. The
studio is called Balanced Worlds, a name that symbolizes our core values. We
strive to harmoniously balance eastern and western business practices, talent,
and culture, to create games that carefully balance innovation and mass market
appeal. We know that successful studios must have a strong dedication to
work-life balance. Our goal is to establish a highly creative studio where we
retain key employees by providing the best work environment in the industry.
Please check out our official web site
here.
- 12/27/2006
For the second year in a row I spent time researching
charitable organizations and chose one to receive a $1000 donation.
This year I picked the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, and
organization that strives to make a positive difference in the
lives of children and youth, primarily through a professionally supported
one-to-one relationship with a caring adult, and to assist them in
becoming confident, competent, and caring individuals. I have more
details on my involvement with various charities
here.
- 11/17/2006
Resistance:
Fall Of Man, the game that I'd been working on for over 2 years, as a
programmer and as the lead of the Gameplay System Programming Team, hit
the store shelves as a launch title for the Sony Playstation3. The game is
getting solid reviews and is currently the best selling game on the
PS3.
- 11/15/2006
For my post project vacation, after Resistance: Fall Of Man, me and a
good friend spent 2 weeks touring around Thailand and Cambodia. I visited
the bustling city of Bangkok, the beaches of Phuket in Thailand, and the
amazing ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. The pictures are right
here.
- 10/22/2006
After completing production on Resistance: Fall Of Man, I met my
family down in La Paz, Mexico, to spend a week sea kayaking around an
island on the Sea of Cortez. It was an amazing trip. You can see the
pictures here.
- 02/18/2006
I just put up some new pictures in the
family section of my web
site. These pictures were taken when I visited home over the past winter
holidays.
- 02/11/2006
During the holidays of 2005 I spent some time researching charitable
organizations. After considering many options I choose the International
Medical Corps as my choice for this year and donated $1000 to that
organization to help improve health and provide disaster relief around the
world. I added a page to my
hobbies web site to explain why I made this contribution and how I
chose this particular charity out of all the possible organizations to
donate to.
- 09/05/2005
I finally got around to finishing my big coffee table (a.k.a. my dinner
table) this weekend. Almost a month ago I started the project and since
then my living room has looked more like a messy art studio than a place
to hang out and relax. But finally the work is done and I have to admit it
turned out pretty well. Now I get to enjoy eating off a nice new table, in
a nice clean room. Pictures are right
here in my hobbies section.
- 08/07/2005
Just planned my post project vacation, and its gonna be good one. Me and
Chris, a good friend from work, are heading to China for 2 weeks. The
current plan is to visit Beijing, Shanghai and Tibet (if we can swing the
special permit). I'm already looking forward to the trip. I've been to
Europe so many times that I'm comfortable traveling there. I decided a
while ago that this year I would step off the beaten path and visit Asia,
a continent that I haven't been to before. Its so much fun to plan things
out, and read about all the sights to see. We're heading out on September
14th, so the adventure is not so far away.
- 08/01/2005
Some news from work. I've been promoted to Lead Programmer. I'm managing
the Gameplay Systems team for Insomniac's PS3 project. Currently our team
is 5 people, but we'll be getting larger as production moves along. I'm
really excited about the new position. I doesn't leave me as much time to
program as I used to have, but working out schedules, helping our guys get
their tasks done, and making sure our team hits its objectives and
produces the best game possible, is a job that I enjoy more that I'd have
imagined. I'm still learning the ropes as a manager, but I can already
tell that its a role that I'm passionate about and will be good at.
- 02/16/2005
I've made some fun new additions to my
hobbies page.
People have been asking me how I finish the furniture pieces that I have
in my bedroom. So this time out I grabbed pictures of each stage of the
finishing process, as I take a coffee table from plain white pine to all
dark and tiled. I'm only about 3/4 of the way done, so more pictures are
on the way.
- 01/26/2005
I had my second follow up on my broken collar bone with the doctor. The
good news is that the healing is going better than expected. I also had a
chance to take some pictures of my x-rays which I have dutifully put up on
the web right here.
Enjoy!
- 01/23/2005
Big deadlines at work have kept me really busy, but I recently managed to
spend a little time updating the hobbies
section of my web page. I put up pictures of the furniture that I've
finished, and tiled, and added a section on playing the drums.
- 01/02/2005
Finally after more than 4 years I got around to putting up my travel log
full of stories from my 49 day trip all across Europe back in the summer
of 2000. Check it out.
- 01/01/2005
I had a great New Year's Eve at a party hosted by Ted, the President of
Insomniac. A lot of people from work were there, and so were a lot
of new people that we could mingle with and meet. I did a little drinking.
I did a little dancing. It was a blast. I was very easy to talk to.
Everyone just kept walking up and asking me what happened to my arm. I
think I must have told that story a hundred times that night. I was very
tempted to start making up details to keep it fresh and interesting.
- 12/27/2004
So I remember reading The Odyssey, about the hero who took years and years
to get home to Greece after the Trojan War, and after the last few days I
know what he must have felt like. My family dropped me off at the airport
in Burlington, Vermont, at around noon on Friday December 24th. They
helped with my luggage waved goodbye, and drove back to Toronto. I was
supposed to fly out of there at 4pm, chance plans in Cincinnati, to arrive
in L.A. later that night. But Delta Airlines had some different plans.
After waiting in the airport for 3 hours I find out that my flight to
Cincinnati is cancelled because they just had a huge snowstorm there and
due to the backlog of people stuck in the airport they aren't letting any
new flights in. So I wait in line, talk to a Delta employee, and find out
that because Burlington isn't such a huge airport and there just aren't
that many flights going in and out, the next flight out for me with a seat
available 2 days later, on Sunday the 26th, of December. Well, after some
successful arguing I managed to get them to pay for my hotel room and some
of my meals. Then I spent Christmas day sitting in a hotel in Vermont,
with a broken collar bone, watching movies in my room. On Sunday, I make
my way back to the airport and get a nasty surprise. My flight is
cancelled again. This time its because the regional airline Comair, that
handles all of flights for Delta out of the smaller airports in the North
East has had a computer crash and lost all of the crew logs. They don't
know where any of their flights crews are to fly their planes and so they
cancel all of their flights, over the Christmas weekend and the next week.
Its a funny game because they keep scheduling flights, getting people's
hopes up, and then canceling them, leaving people stranded. I think CNN
said that they cancelled more than 1600 flights that week. Nice. Well, on
Sunday the same people were at the Delta desk in the airport, dealing with
2 customers every hour, because there was really nothing they could do.
All of their flights were cancelled, and the few seats on other airlines
were booked up. They were telling people that they would have to wait 5 or
6 days to get out of there, or drive to another city and try their luck.
People's holiday plans were ruined. A lady was crying in the airport. It
was a total mess. I was told that I could either wait around until
December 30th for the next flight out (which probably would have been
cancelled anyway) or I could drive to Boston and take a flight out of
there. So there I was in a rented Chevy driving 4 hours though a nasty
snow storm, though the mountains in an area of the country I'd never seen
before, with a broken collar bone, fighting with my one good arm to keep
the car from sliding off the highway, with windshield wipers that barely
worked so that I could hardly see the road ahead of me. But I'll tell you
this, if I can keep a smile on my face and holler along to Jay-Z and Kanye
West (Thanks Tots for the new CDs!) in that situation than I can pretty
much handle anything....Although I might take a while to rest up before
I'd want to test that theory :0) Just as I'm getting ready to pack it in
for another night of free hotel stay courtesy of Delta Airlines, I called
their 800 number just to make sure things are set up for the next morning,
and you guessed it, my flight at 6:30am the next morning, December 27th,
was cancelled due to the snow storm I'd just driven through in Boston. I
talked to a very helpful ticket agent over the phone and hooked up seats
on two different planes out of Boston for the next day, just in case one
was cancelled. Sure enough the first flight I was on the next morning was
cancelled, because of the Comair computer crash, but the later flight was
good to go. After that it was relatively smooth sailing. My flights were
delayed. I managed to get on an earlier flight than I was supposed to
because the lady behind the counter felt sorry for me and put me on the
standby list. My luggage didn't make the same flight as I did and is still
waiting in LAX for someone to drop it off at my home. But in the end,
after 4 days, 4 cancelled flights, 4 hours of driving through a blizzard,
3 nights in hotels in 2 different cities, and at least 8 hours in airport
lines I finally made it home. I want to thank Delta Airlines for the worst
travel experience of my life.
- 12/20/2004
Ahhh, my luck with Holidays is not so great this year. I flew out to
Vermont to spend the week before Christmas with my family and do a little
snow blading at Killington. For those who aren't up on these things, snow
blades are short little skis that curl up at both ends, like little
freestyle snow boards for each foot. They are really maneuverable, and
great for carving, skiing backwards, and doing tricks. Their down side is
that they are not as stable as skis at high speeds. Because they are
shorter they don't glide over rough snow nearly as well, and have a
tendency to sink in and catch their edges. Well, I think everyone can see
where this is going. On the second day of the ski trip I was pushing my
blades to the limit, going really fast down a nice rolling run. I caught
some air off one of the hills and when I came down I caught the front
outside edge of my left blade and fell forward hard on my left shoulder.
When I got up I knew right away something was wrong. I had to ski the rest
of the way down the mountain, catch a lift up again, and ski down another
run to the lodge. At the lodge I saw a doctor, and yeah, the x-rays showed
it clearly enough, I'd broken my left collar bone. It didn't hurt as much
as I thought it would, or as much as the x-ray made it look like it
should. To be all technical, I had a fracture in the distal third of my
clavicle, which means that its broken at the outside end near my shoulder.
That type of break is worse than if it had just broken in the middle.
There's a chance that it might not heal on its own, and so would require
me to get surgery and have a pin put in to the bone. I'd need to wait
until I got home and could see an Orthopedic surgeon before I'd know how
it would turn out for me. In the mean time, the doctor put me in a
harness that looked like the straps of a backpack, and an arm sling. I
spent the rest of the week in the hotel room, relaxing, taking the
occasional pain killer, and watching movies. This was the first time I'd
ever broken a bone and I suppose that with all of the stuff I've been up
to my whole life, like martial arts, skiing, and other sports, I've been
overdue for something like this. But even then, the discomfort of a broken
bone, and the irritation of not being able to used my left arm very much,
couldn't really ruin a nice holiday week spent with my family.
- 11/25/2004
This is not such a happy entry, but I might as well put it down. After my
homecoming from Spain, me and kimi did 3 days of solid relationship
talking and by the end, on Thanksgiving night, we decided to split up.
We'd been together for a year and 9 months and we both cared about each
other very much, so the end was emotionally rough for both of us. Despite
our very different backgrounds and religious views we'd done an amazing
job of building a really solid relationship that we thought could have had
a future. But the reality was that in the end we both saw that things
weren't the way they should be, and for each of us there really had to be
someone out there who would be a better match. Those who know me well and
have talked to me about this know how crystal clearly I see this. I
look back on the relationship with some fondness, and some frustration,
but I know that this ending is the only way that it could have gone.
- 11/22/2004
In the middle of November I took an awesome trip to Spain for my "End of
Project" vacation. I spend a week on my own backpacking around the
southern part of the country, visiting 5 different cities. The pictures
are up here. There
are quite a few stories behind this vacation trip. Because of the rules at
Insomniac I had to take my 2 weeks of post project vacation time in a
single block before the end of November. That made it really hard to synch
up with my girlfriend, kimi, who only had a single week of vacation for
Thanksgiving. Add in the surprise wedding of one of her friends and yeah,
the scheduling got all sorts of messed up. Well, I'm not one to waste
vacation time, so if I was gonna rough it on my own, I was gonna make sure
that it was someplace amazing, like southern Spain. Iberian Airlines tried
to put a damper on my vacation by forcing me to spend 24 hours in Chicago
after my flight was cancelled due to engine trouble. But the delay was
actually quite nice as I was able to spend time with my good friends Vince
and Ellen, and explore the city before jetting off to Spain. After a week
of tramping around, I was happy, tired, a little lonely and ready to go
home.
- 11/02/2004
Wooot! Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal, the second game that I've
worked on, has hit the store shelves. This game is even better than the
last one, and even though I didn't have as much to do with this game as
with RC2, I'm really proud of it, and ready to hype it to no end. We've
had great reviews so far and the sales are going well, so people around
Insomniac are really happy.
- 11/01/2004
Okay, okay so I need to say a few things. First of all, as I'm writing
this its not November 2004...its more like the end of December, but if
you'll allow me a little leeway you'll see that I'm trying to tell the
story of the last few months in the best way possible. Second of all, I am
more than a little sorry for letting down the people who have looked at
this page over the last year or so. I would completely understand if many
of you have given up on my "what's new" section since, well, there just
wasn't anything new. All I can say is that I've been busy, and I've been
lazy, and my web site had fallen through the cracks. While I can't really
promise that I'll be able to keep things up to date any better in the
future, I have been taking more time lately to post the photos of my
exploits, clean up some sections of my web site, and now finally add some
interesting tales to this sad little page.
- 11/12/2003
I finally got around to putting up pictures from my family's trip to
St. Petersburg, Russia.
- 10/27/2003
I just returned from my end of project vacation to beautiful Zihuatanejo,
Mexico. Take a look at the pictures
of me having fun in the sun.
- 09/30/2003
I shipped my first game! Ratachet and Clank: Going Commando, has just gone
Gold. It took a lot of hard work from everyone on the team, but in the end
it was definitely worth it. The game looks great! I was responsible for programming
the enemy AI, game logic, and special effects for the two Arena Combat Megagames,
and the enemy segment on Planet Damosel.
- 02/11/2003
So its official: I love in Los Angeles. I just found myself an awesome
studio apartment in the Los Feliz area of LA, east of Hollywood. I'm totally
stoked about the place!
- 02/03/2003
Too much time on my hands? I have no job, no car, and not much to do
but plan out my move to LA, and work on my web site. I revamped the front
page and added a section for my family.
- 01/29/2003
Well, the job search is finally over. After having many phone interviews,
taking several programming tests, flying out on 5 on site interviews, and
getting 4 really solid job offers, I finally accepted a job at Insomniac Games in Los Angeles,
California. I'll be working as a gameplay programmer on the sequel to the
award winning PS2 game Ratchet and Clank. The
position sounds really awesome and I'm really stoked to move out and join
the crew in southern California.
- 01/24/2003
I just put up the pictures
from my trip to southern France last December to attend the WAFR 2003 conference.
- 11/20/2002
Announcing www.maxgarber.com!
Yeah I finally got around to registering my own domain name. I moved my
personal web pages off the UNC servers to prepare for leaving.
- 11/15/2002
So its official. After a great two and a half years here at UNC
I've decided that its time to move on. I'm currently looking for a full
time job as a programmer in the game industry. Who knows where I'll end
up a couple of months from now. Wherever happens, it looks like the next
little while will be a pretty exciting time for me.
- 11/01/2002
Finally got around to putting the images up from my trip to Europe
this summer.
- 10/31/2002
Halloween! Again there was a big party on Franklin St. I dressed up a
a member of the Blue Man Group. Basically, I painted myself blue. It was
fun!
- 10/25/2002
This week was absolute hell. I worked every day until between 4 and 8am,
and was back in the building working by noon the next day, with less than
5 hours sleep. Me and Brian were working on a paper and video submission
for a conference. It all came together in the end, but there was definitely
no time to spare. We had to sprint, I mean an all out run, to get the video
dropped into the mailbox before the last FedEx pickup of the day before
the deadline. We worked on the paper text until 7:58pm and still managed
to submit it before the 8pm final deadline. Once the paper was submitted
I spent the weekend sleeping 12 hours a day and literally doing nothing.
- 10/06/2002
Walking in to Sitterson Hall through the woods, I took a detour off the
path to avoid some naked people. I ended up getting stuck in a really dense
bamboo forest with so much underbrush, thorns, vines, dirt, etc. that each
meter of progress felt like it took me an eternity of thrashing to get through.
Every time I thought "it can't get much worse than this", it did, and I
wished I could retrace my steps without going through all the brambles I'd
just been through, all over again. Finally ended up breaking through to the
water tower and my usual path after more than a half hour, all sweaty, dirty,
scratched up, and tired. Next time I'm staying on the path.
- 10/05/2002
Updated my resume, as well as the jobs and publications sections
of this web site to include my recent work.
- 09/17/2002
My paper Constraint-Based
Motion Planning Using Voronoi Diagrams has been accepted to the WAFR 2002 conference
to be held in Nice, France this December. The paper expands on my previous
work with Constraint Based Planning by incorporating more of the Vornoi
diagram based estimated path planning we'd developed previously. I'm just
looking forward to visiting Europe again to present this.
- 09/13/2002
Posted a web page with pictures
and information about my road trip from California back to North Carolina.
The trip was a blast, and and me and Vince managed to get some pretty
nice pictures, this time, to show for it.
- 08/29/2002
Me and Vince road trip across the US from Southern California to North
Carolina. On the way we hit every national park we can. The American Southwest
is pretty amazing.
- 06/23/2002
Visited Europe. The trip was to present my paper at the Solid Modeling
2002 conference, in Saarbrueken, Germany. I spent as little time as I could
at the conference, and as much time as I could backpacking around the surrounding
area. On the way back I had a 2 day stopover in London.
- 06/05/2002
I started this "whats new" section to let all of you in on changes I make
to this web site, as well as any other miscellaneous info that I may have
to pass on. It started as a simple text file in which I kept random notes