Finale.

As I sit here about to watch the Game of Thrones and Silicon Valley I thought to myself, it's a great time to crank out a short blog post. A really short one.

So yeah, let's see what have I been up to lately:

• Saw Jurassic World - Pretty solid. Chris Pratt delivers in another action setting and as someone who grew up watching the original movie, it was really nice to go back. Plus, who doesn't get excited about dinosaurs, right?
• Still reading The Kingkiller Chronicles and I'm a little over halfway done with the second book! It's getting better and better with every new page. I am a little bummed that book three will not be coming out for a while.
• Orange Is The New Black Season 3 is out now. I'm pretty early on into it and so far it seems that this show just keeps rehashing the same things over and over again. I guess the plot lines are limited when you're dealing with a prison. Getting some extra back story on all of the characters is really nice though. I find I can get more invested in them when this happens.

Anyways, with E3 this week I'll be hanging out in San Francisco creating some exciting video content for a brand new Gameloft game. I am really pumped for it and hope that it'll do well! So is pretty much everyone here at the company. The initial feedback on the game is pretty solid and I hope it carries over to release. Can we all also agree that Fallout 4 seems really, really awesome? Okay, good!

Until next time!

Post Oscar Recap, Quick Update, and Redwoods.

Well, the Oscars have officially come and gone.  Just like with the any other ballot-able event before it, I filled out my 2014 Oscar ballot.  This year wasn't a record breaking year for me, but it was nonetheless decent: I posted 17 correct predictions out of 24 total categories.  If I had earned a grade for this, I would have received a 71%.  Yikes.

I won't lose any sleep over my 71% though because I'm not a movie critic, although I really did want to win that prize basket.  Granted, it would have gone to my mom in Virginia since I was up against all of the ladies I used to teach with at my mom's school; it's just the competitive spirit in me speaking up.

Anyways, I was lucky enough to see most of the major films (outside of the documentaries and shorts) this year.  With that in mind, I can't recommend Whiplash enough!  Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons both blew me away with their performances.  It should be mentioned that I'm a sucker for anything drummer and/or jazz related.  So this movie had me hooked before the opening credits.  If you can't see the movie, just listen to the soundtrack, especially since I've embedded it below for you!

Okay, enough about the Oscars.  One big update on my end is I'm starting to dive into Photoshop.  I know a lot of you are probably thinking, "How have you not dabbled in it before?"  Well, truth be told, I've just had too much fun messing around in MS Paint and I've always been fortunate enough to have a graphic designer either in the office with me, or on call.  So, I've always heard it's better late than never and that's the approach I'm sticking to with this new endeavor!

I'm excited to see what I can get done after investing some time in Photoshop and I hope that I will be confident enough in the material I'm putting out to host some on the site.  We'll see, no promises just yet.  That might be optimistic on my end just, but I'll see what the quality is like when I actually churn some things out.

I think this blog is starting to go a bit stream of consciousness.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, right?  Any who, the last thing I wanted to tell you about or at least put up on the Internet is that I was able to check out the Muir Woods last weekend!

For those of you not familiar with the Muir Woods, it is one of the places where George Lucas filmed the planet, Endor.  So for a Star Wars fan like myself, it was amazing being on a movie set AND getting to check out these unique trees all in one stop!  After hiking a little under ten miles last Sunday, I can safely say that if you are ever in the Bay Area, do yourself a favor and stop by the Muir Woods.  You won't regret it!

Witnessing History

If you read my blog you know I'm a football fan.  You also know that I am a fan of the New England Patriots.  This past weekend, the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl for the 4th time in franchise history.  It also meant that Tom Brady won his 4th Super Bowl and Bill Belichick won his 6th.  Sunday evening was one heck of a roller coaster for Pats fans everywhere.  This is clear thanks to the Advanced NFL Stats Win Probability chart below.  Things looked dire, until the VERY end.  According to experts, this was the largest shift in win probability in Super Bowl history.  Wow.

Thanks http://live.advancednflstats.com/ !

So needless to say this one definitely means something.  As a kid witnessing three relatively quick Super Bowl repeats ('01, '03, and '04) was cool but I willingly admit I didn't understand how rare or awesome it was at the time.  After 10 years of some close calls, some not-so close calls, and one helmet catch, Sunday was awesome.  I honestly don't know if I'll ever experience that again as a football fan, but you know what?  That's okay.  I have been fortunate enough to witness the greatest quarterback in the NFL, to date (This is definitely biased, haha!), play with one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, coach play together for 15 years.  Wow.

Anyways, I'm off to knock out a few more pages of The Lord of the Rings on my Kindle.  I recently finished reading two books that I can't recommend enough now:

• How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
• Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh

These two books gave me the opportunity to learn about interacting with people, remaining positive, and gain insight on how an awesome customer-first business operates.  I like to think my personality is that of a positive person, but nonetheless, these two books gave me some great food for thought!  It's worth mentioning that not only did this impact my daily life, it has helped me revise some of the ways I go about my job as a Community Manager.  I owe these book recommendations all to the awesome Buffer Community.  If you haven't checked out this awesome social media tool yet, you should!  I recently learned I've been using Buffer since 2011 and couldn't be happier.

With that I believe I'll call it a night.  The Super Bowl is on my DVR and just typing about it got me excited to watch it again so I think that's what I'll do!  Thanks for reading, commenting, or lurking!

That Time I Spoke On A Panel At PAX South

Okay, first off I'm going to admit when I write a blog post title I always struggle with what words to capitalize and what words not to capitalize.  I remember one of my teachers telling me at a young age to capitalize all of the "important" words.  Being in elementary school at the time I thought to myself, "Aren't all of the words important?"  I think this is why I'm still confused to this day on how to properly capitalize a title, haha!

Anyways...On to the actual topic of the blog post!  This past weekend I attended PAX South and it was a blast!  Seriously.  I had such a great time speaking on a panel about mobile streaming with a colleague from Twitch and then two of my Stream Team broadcasters.  It was a humbling experience sitting in front of 100(ish) people talking about a hobby I started in college for fun and now I have helped grow as a part of my job.  If you didn't get to attend and would like to check out the panel, hit up the YouTube video below.

The only other thing I wanted to talk about was how amazing it was to meet a good chunk of the Stream Team I've put together for Gameloft.  These people are truly wonderful and what they do for me each week is awesome.  I'm very fortunate that my line of work allows me the opportunity to work with gamers like this.  It's all part of the reason I wanted to work with social media/community management/customer interaction because creating relationships with people through the Internet is awesome.  You really meet great people from all walks of life.  What's not to love?

Anyways, that's enough for tonight.  I need to catch up on the latest Deflategate news and continue to worry about the Seahawks.  If the Patriots can win this Super Bowl I will be amazed as to how good New England sports have been in my youth and young adulthood.

Two in a row? Don't call it a habit. Yet.

It's 11:15 PM on Monday.  I'm waiting on my new water filter to finish filtering out the Carbon dust before I can drink some ultra clean water again.  What better time to sit down and crank out a short blog, right?  Right.

So, with this three day weekend a few things happened...

1. The Patriots are AFC Championships after trouncing the Colts.  I won't say anything like this to my friends who are Colts fans, but this is my blog so this is considered safe space.  Go Patriots.  Go Tom "GOAT" Brady.
2. I had some amazing sandwich in the city with Daniel before going on a top secret excursion.  I was in sandwich heaven and I want to go back.
3. Chris' wife, Kim, makes great meatballs and spaghetti.  I ate way too much at their house the other day while watching the games and the UFC fight.  Thanks guys, it was a great time!
4. I CRUSHED Broadchurch and it was uh-mazing.  Seriously, check it out.  The first season is on Netflix and it had a heck of a twist.

Other than that, I was looking at the various videos I've done for Gameloft and seeing how I can improve them.  It's been fun to laugh at myself, especially when I try to throw a pun or clearly can't articulate a word correctly because I'm speaking too fast.  You live and you learn though, so I really can't complain; it'll only get better from here on out.

One video I did watch that I wanted to share because I'm rather proud of it for two reasons: the first being I ate a habanero pepper and the second being, the video turned out to be pretty funny.  This is especially true if you enjoy watching people suffer.  So, without further ado, here is me eating a very spicy pepper at work.  Just a heads up, this is the unedited and unfiltered version on my personal channel!

I'm also playing the mess out of the song 'Wolves' by the band Dreamers.  Check it out!

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

So, as you can see it's been a while since I've posted.  I logged in the other day as I was updating various online profiles and claiming the domain www.ryanchanges.com and realized, "Wow, the last time I blogged was around the World Cup."

Realizing that was an issue, I wanted to take some time tonight as I relax in bed watching some League of Legends streams and let you know I'm still alive and well.  I've just been pretty busy!  Which has been great for me, to say the least.

I recently returned from a two week stint back home in Virginia.  It was great to see family and old friends (no really, they are all older than me) during the holidays.  I can honestly say that those two weeks went a long way in refreshing my mindset, which has allowed me to start off 2015 strong!

Before that, I was busy with the typical Fall/Autumn stuff; sweaters, Halloween, and eating way too much candy.  I also was able to enjoy Thanksgiving with family later on down the road.  There I ate too much food and watched a ton of football.  Are you sensing a theme here?  I like to eat.

That's really the Reader's Digest version of what's been going on since I last blogged.  Work has been going strong and San Francisco is still a great place to be!  Now let's talk about what's coming up that I'm particularly excited for...

First off, let's dive back in to football.  The New England Patriots are set to play against the Indianapolis Colts this weekend in the AFC Championship Game.  I really, really, really would like it if the Patriots won.  If you know me, you know why.  If not, well if it isn't clear yet, I'm a big fan.  Big fan.  So let's go TB#12 and crew and get that W this weekend!

Next up for me is actually PAX South!  After being able to attend PAX Prime this Fall (oh yeah, that happened!) I was interested in going back.  Luckily, this time work is sending me!  That's right, not only is Gameloft sending me, but I'll be speaking on a panel about Mobile Streaming on Twitch.  I'm pretty excited to say the least.  It is neat because to me, at least, it feels like the work I have done qualifies me as someone knowledgeable in my field and people are interested in what I have to say on this topic.  It's very humbling, nerve-wracking, and exciting all at the same time!  If you will be at PAX South, you can hit up this link to see more information on the panel.  Hope to see you there!

With all that said, I bid you all a good night!  I'm going to finish the second Hobbit movie now and probably fall asleep with my glasses on my head.  Note to self: Don't do that.  Until the next entry (which should be sooner)!

Why Netherlands? Whyyyy?

It's Thursday and even though I cranked out like three new, relatively long blog posts at work, I wanted to take a moment and confess I will not win money on the World Cup.  That's right, I'm officially out of the office bracket pool with Netherlands failing to advance against Argentina.

It's all good though!  The Europeans in this office all did REALLY badly during the World Cup brackets so they are hungry to prove themselves in some other sport.  Add in the fact that the 3 most likely winners are Americans who really only watch World Cup soccer, the big soccer fans have a huge chip on their shoulders.

One other really neat thing that came out of organizing this is it really seemed to bring the office together.  Since joining, I can't remember the last time a majority of the office sat down to eat lunch together (outside of welcome/goodbye lunches) and doing it during the World Cup has been a blast.  Now if only they'd all sit down and do this for The International 4 this week I'd be in e-sports heaven!

I'm off to catch up on some VODs for the time being.  Until next time reader!  PS - Go Cloud 9!

Post E3 Catchup

What's up!  I'm back from E3 and boy was it a busy week.  I was really optimistic thinking I'd have a chance to do a quick blog post while at the show.  Between the busy schedule and the incredibly bad hotel Internet, the week was a wash for blogging haha!

It's good to be back though and it's nice that things are slowing down a bit.  I learned last Summer that August at Gameloft is when people go on vacation and things tend to slow down a bit.  So, needless to say, I'm looking forward to powering through July and getting to a vacation of my own!

Since I last posted the World Cup has started and much to Ann Coulter's dismay, I'm really enjoying it.  I actually am watching the Greece vs. Costa Rica game right now.  I've got $10 down on a bracket with some coworkers and so far my predictions have been right on.  If Costa Rica wins the trend will stay alive!

Before I go I just wanted to post about some updates to the site.  Rather than trying to do a formatted Resume exclusive to this site, I figured it's just more efficient to direct people over to my LinkedIn page.  I figure I put a fair amount of time into completing it, so I might as well get some use out of it!  If you want to talk to me about my work experiences or anything else employment wise, please feel free to head on over to the "Links" page and check my profile out.  I've also included some other links such as blogging I've done for Gameloft, my Social Media profiles, and the bi-weekly Twitch show I currently host for your viewing pleasure.

Anyways, I'm off to watch the rest of this game and do some wash.  My parents are coming to visit over the 4th of July so I've got to make my apartment somewhat respectable, right?  Yeah, I thought so too.  Socks can't just lay anywhere.  As a parting gift, I'll leave you with my favorite World Cup gif (in YouTube form) thus far...

I Swear I'm Still Here!

Okay, so on the risk of sounding excuse-y, I've been pretty busy.  I'll be traveling for E3 in about a week and I'll also be going back to the East Coast for a brief stint to visit my family and celebrate my sister graduating college.  Yay, she made it!

I've been told that E3 can get pretty hectic, but if I have a minute of downtime, I might try to post a brief impressions blog.  I'm really excited to check it out though, especially since it's the first time I'm going.  For the longest time I was watching and reading E3 coverage from home, but now I'll get a chance to live it and see it in person!  As a video game fan, this is very exciting.

I'm also pumped because I'll be streaming on the Gameloft Twitch channel for two hours every day.  I am fairly certain this will make us the ONLY mobile developers to be streaming from the conference.  On the risk of tooting my own horn too much, it's been great to see my passion project at work take off the way it has.  It's awesome being recognized by people within the company from all over as piloting the presence of Gameloft on Twitch.

Also, SPOILERS AHEAD, I just finished watching Game of Thrones from this week...WOW!  What an ending.  The Prince of Dorne is one of my favorite characters from the book and he definitely lived up to it while he has been on the show.  I'm also just about done with the three seasons of The Killing from AMC.  Solid TV show, I'd highly recommend it.

I made sure to check out WildStar again now that it's officially launched.  Overall, it's wayyyy more polished than when I initially tested it in the Beta stages.  I am really impressed by how much it has improved.  I figure I'll give it a solid month before I have any final thoughts on it, but I've heard that people are already max level which is insane!

Well, I'm off until I can put together some other ramblings for the week!

PS - Really impressive win by Cloud 9 today against LMQ in the NA LCS.  Felt really good rocking my shirt around town knowing the boys pulled out a huge comeback win!

Here We Go Again...

Welcome to my site!  This blog post already feels eerily similar to 'About Me' section... Well anyways, I'm going to do my best to blog once a week on here about a variety of topics.  If you know me outside of this site, you know I like a TON of different things.  Pretty much anything is fair game on here.

The main reason for this website though, is to have a place where I can link up to all of my projects, events, and of course, my resume.  Being still relatively new to the Community Management/Video Game Industry, I've noticed that people in similar positions tend to have websites just like this.  So, it's about time that I made one as well.  I'll admit though, I'm not really good at website coding or anything like that and that's why I've gone with Squarespace.  Don't get me wrong, it'd be cool to have a site like ryanchangesDOTcom and all of that, but I'll work with this and brush up on coding with the help of SS!

I'll be adding a variety of links and pages to this site as I can.  I hope this can turn into a great portfolio of my professional and personal life.  If you're interested in talking to me in any capacity, please feel free to check out my social media links below or using the old-fashioned email method works as well.  I promise I'll get back to you within "soon" (TM).

PS - Hope you enjoyed that picture of me going in on the Cupid Shuffle with a bunch of French people at a wedding.  I know I did.