Vertically Rising

So I originally heard of “Invisible Children” way back in late 2005. A worship band that I was friends with had produced a video which was dedicated to the Invisible Children organization and used video footage of African children from a visit the band took to Africa. It was also a night where several organizations were highlighted and talked about, and they had one of the filmmakers there to talk about the documentary they produced and the plight of these children who were being abducted to fight in a war that was not their own.

My wife and I were just dating at the time, but I distinct remember watching the Invisible Children Rough Cut DVD together in her apartment living room and just being moved to action. At this point, Invisible Children had been set up as a 501©3 non-profit, and had just been raising funds through their rough …

// Coming Soon: Double Trouble

A little over a month ago, I made a fun announcement for my 5,000 tweet on Twitter. I had been holding off on the information for quite a while, as often times I ride the line between sharing too much personal information on the internet.

But yes, my wife and I are expecting twins. At the time of this blog, my wife is currently in her 27th week, so we have about 10 more weeks to go! It seems to be a more common thing these days, as there are currently two other couples that are in our small group that are pregnant with twins, and a pastor his wife in Oakland with twins (who just recently turned 6). We’re expecting two fraternal girls, and are almost done picking out names. What’s funny is that between the 3 of us couples having twins, there’s …

I have to admit it. I’m a GLEEk (a fan of the show GLEE on Fox).

Yes, it’s a show about high school Glee clubs.

Yes, I probably did make fun of those same kids back in High School.

Yes, I bought the first season on DVD for my wife for Christmas, but secretly wanted it myself. (Whoops! Hope she doesn’t read this…)

My first time my wife and I watched GLEE, we actually weren’t impressed. We were hearing great things about the show, and caught the second or third episode of Season 1, but was severely disappointed. In the episode, it had the Spanish teacher and Glee coach, Will Schuster starting some boy band with the other male teachers of the school. It didn’t have much of the students singing that episode, and I distinctly remember the “Bad Boy Teachers” singing Color Me Badd’s “I Wanna Sex You Up”… …

So in my last post, I talked a lot about my personal journey on becoming a Community Manager in the gaming industry. Looking back and wanting to provide something for the community, I wanted to make a posting with some actual practical steps that can be taken from my story.

1. Be Active, if even on a volunteer basis.

I started out by just volunteering my time on a forum. Others I know started by writing reviews on community gaming sites. Being active and staying involved helps to show a passion towards being part of a community and the industry.

2. Get on Twitter/Facebook & Network!

If you’re not using Social Media (Twitter – Facebook – Google+, etc.), you should be. Brands and their respective Community Managers all use these as tools to reach their audience. Most of them also have their own accounts that can be followed. …

Growing up as a kid, we all have had our dream jobs and careers. I used to want to be a Paleontologist and discover some new dinosaur. At one point I wanted to be involved in the comic book industry, but my art was terrible, so I thought maybe I could ink (and in the words of Kevin Smith’s “Chasing Amy” film, it’s just tracing!).

I’ve spoke about how I started playing video games at a young age with the Nintendo Entertainment System, and while I never quite had a moment in life where I knew I wanted to work in the gaming industry like Cliff Bleszinski, I just didn’t think there was an actually opportunity to walk down that path.

in 2008, I had been part of a group of gamers from my church who played Halo 3 and Gears of War almost nightly. One of them had recently …