I started today off by sleeping in again, but, being the second Wednesday of the month, it’s Irresponsible Wednesday so that was okay. Matt very kindly messaged me to make sure I was okay. I arrived at Hacker School around 2:30 pm. Only five hours late…

I worked with Erik, Alex, and Matt on the Risk AI for a few hours – it’s working now, and by working I mean that we can get a couple of the AIs hooked up to a server, only to have them quickly crash because we built them without having a test platform. We got lunch at Getting Hungry, and chatted about Erik’s startup – Snowball. (Yeah, they’re website doesn’t say much).

We’re aiming to be done by presentation time tomorrow. I’m hopeful but not super optimistic. I’ll be devoting most of my time tomorrow to that.

After Hacker School was over at 6:30, I caught the 1 and rode it two stops south to a place called the Brandy Library, which was pretty much exactly what it sounds like – a bookstore turned bar/lounge with hundreds of different kinds of alcohol.

My mom’s friend from graduate school, Sam Medley, was there doing a tasting for his Kentucky Bourbon – Old Medley and Wathen’s Single Barrel aged. It’s delicious and very smooth. Sam was giving a sales pitch when I arrived, and kept looking at me like, where do I know him from? I introduced myself and he remembered me instantly – I did some web work for him a while ago. We chatted for a bit, and I may have got some consulting work with the person who was helping Sam with the tastings!

I left after a bit so I didn’t get in the way of his sales pitches, but I the meeting was enjoyable (and great networking!).

Back to Hacker School for a bit afterward – I’m stuck on some collision detection for Space Adventure, so I’m hoping to pair with Mary on that tomorrow. I’ve updated the working copy at http://handprintgames.com. Basically it’s really hard to tell which direction you’re colliding with something in, especially on the corners.

Rode the train home, chatted with Greta and my mom, surfed the internet, sent some emails, and wrote this post.

I made an interesting observation while on the phone with my mom. I said, “I’m really excited for Hacker School to be over. Not because I want it to be over, but because I’m excited to be that much better at programming.”

From Brooklyn,

–Erty