TrickJarrett.com

SEA -> IAD -> CDG -> SEA

Last week, on my third week on the job, I headed back to the airport and flew to Houston for the first Riftbound Regional Qualifier. It was fantastic. There are definite learnings and opportunities to improve, but it exceeded expectations nearly across the board.

My role was primarily support, though I fell into a role helping drive and coordinate coverage for the show. I worked closely with our contracted social agency for the show, and we delivered some of the best social content I've seen come out of a TCG tournament.

But my work trip doesn't end there.

I'm now in Paris for another work event, the TFT Paris Open. We flew out of IAH at 4pm yesterday, and overall the flight was fine. I was warm the entire time, which I expected. I had brought a pair of basketball shorts to change into for the overnight flight in hopes of combatting the temperature - it did not work.

However, that wasn't even the worst part of the flight. The worst was just as we came in for our final approach, my nose began to bleed. I had one cocktail napkin and I did my best to staunch the flow as we landed at CDG. As soon as we touched down I hit the call crew button, knowing they weren't going to get up while we were taxiing.

As soon as we got to the gate everyone began standing up to disembark, but I waited until I could flag a flight attendant and she brought me a box of tissues. Thankfully while a few blood droplets did fall on my shirt, it could have been much worse and I was able to clean myself up and disembark the flight to meet up with some of my coworkers.

I've always been prone to nose bleeds, having had them randomly for much of my life. And I used to be much better about making sure I had extra tissues on me for just such an occasion, but I got overly confident. I haven't had an issue with a nose bleed in months, if not more than a year. And my hubris paid the price.

I have had my nostrils chemically cauterized, and I've had multiple ENTs take a look and they don't have any advice other than to just deal with them when they come up.

C'est la vie.

That said, my little incident, had a cosmic karma pay off as we went through customs here in France. As we approached the lanes, there was one marked Sky Priority, which was also on my ticket. I showed it to the guy directing people into lanes and he let me and one of my coworkers go down the lane, which was by far the shortest of them all. Once we got to the front we realized something had gone awry as we were in an EU-only passport lane.

The woman at the front was kind; rather than send us back out she had us step aside for a few minutes. Then we were directed to the end of the row of agents and were able to pass through for passport check and getting our stamp. Where as another of our group took an hour to get processed, it took us less than ten minutes.

So, I think that balances out the frustration of the nosebleed.

Joy and Thankfulness

MagicCons are always special and a good time. This one was no different.

A lot of work goes into these events by a lot of smart and incredibly talented people.

As we celebrated the end of the show, a group of us in the show office went around and shared a one-word answer to represent this show and weekend.

My word was 'joy' - working for a game company can feel sometimes like a silly job but there is no more important sensation or feeling to people these days than that one. And everywhere I looked, everyone I spoke with, and even what I felt inside as I walked the event... It was joy.

Unfiltered. Pure. Social joy.

This evening, after a great dinner with coworkers and now back in my hotel room with my feet up and resting my poor aching lower back - that joy was bloomed into thankfulness.

Thankful for the road I'm on. Thankful to call so many of those smart and incredibly talented people my friends. Thankful that I get to be home with Katie and our dogs tomorrow. Just thankful.

What a magical weekend. Pun fully fucking intended.

Homeward Bound

I am simultaneously 3 hours early for my flight and 21 hours late for it. Originally, I was going to fly out yesterday but unfortunately that didn't happen.

Around 1:30 in the morning, I woke up to void my bladder and I glanced at my phone (as I always do) to see notice that my flight out of Amsterdam was delayed. I immediately knew this was a problem as I had a short layover in Dallas, one I was already concerned about. Sure enough as soon as I got the notice of the flight delay, I was told I would need to book my flight on a new itinerary. Long story short, after two hours of being on hold and communicating with low wage frontline customer support workers I finally managed to get on a flight for Tuesday.

An extra day in Amsterdam is normally a fantastic thing but the truth is that I was drained and just ready to get home to my wife and dog and bed. I didn't venture out on this extra day, instead I stayed in, did some very small amount of work, read, and napped.

Humorously, as I was sitting here in the airport at the gate, well early of today's rebooked flight – I got notice it also has been delayed. Now, when I booked the new ticket, I purposefully picked a later connector for just this reason – so long as we don't get delayed more than another hour… I should be okay. Famous last words, but sometimes I need to tempt fate.

Overall, as far as work trips go, it was excellent. The MagicCon event went well and largely without issue. Sure, there were some things, but in the grand scheme of things it went very smooth.

Did a Reel for work today

For the weekend I'm in Amsterdam for work and today I got on camera and recorded a brief video for it.

A Day of Content Harvesting

A snap from my day yesterday, out with coworkers harvesting content.

Me playing Magic on stream

Capturing for posterity, me at work, playing Magic on stream yesterday piloting the Masters of Evil commander deck from the upcoming release.

I was not expecting the video I did for work yesterday to be as popular as it was, but glad people are enjoying some esoteric Magic history & trivia.

In LA

I'm down in LA this weekend for Summer GameFest. I'm helping out at the Magic booth, just a small area for Press to come and learn about the game, learn the game itself, etc. It's going to be a nice change of pace for me.

I was looking out the window of my hotel room when a very obvious fact struck me - how little grass there is in LA. There are a few trees I can see, planed along property or next to roads, but they don't have grass they have dirt and mulch. I literally cannot see any grass as I look out around me.

I hate it. Cities need more nature.

Disclaimer: I work for Wizards of the Coast and worked on this project.

And I am incredibly proud. Lots of cool stuff announced today and our fans have a lot of cool stuff to look forward to.

Aug. 18, 2022 - Handwritten Note

Transcription:

Aug. 18

Last night's sleep was not great. Big day at work today and I did the thing where I woke up every hour for three hours before giving in and getting out of bed at 4:45 this morning. Granted, I also had my first alarm of the day set for 5am, so it was close to the planned start.

But, overall, I feel good and am ready to tackle the day. Let's get to it!

Trick

After the Covid years, and while my job is still hybrid (though I choose to predominately work in the office) - I remade my trusty daily work organizer. A 3-ring binder with single day-sheets. Each sheet is basically split in half, the top half of the page is what I had been always called an Eisenhower Matrix, but which others simply call a Priority Matrix. The bottom half is blank, reserved for additional notes from the day. I've tried various digital "Priority Matrix" tools, but I've never found happiness with them. I don't know what it is.

I tried using OneNote throughout Covid, when everything went virtual. It's good as far as a data archive and organizer goes, but it just never clicked with me for using it for my daily organization during a work day. So I might use it for taking full notes of a meeting, but in terms of capturing tasks and action items, etc. Nope, no good.

In addition to that, I've come to realize is that while yes, digital only notes are useful and in many cases faster, as a consumate data consumer and multitasker, if I am sitting with both hands on my keyboard and mouse then I am going to be multitasking. And, in some meetings, that is fine, but for others I need to force myself to focus. Minimize other windows, silence notifications, ignore email, etc.

Using my physical notebook helps me disengage from multitasking on the computer. Work stuff is shifting and that is what triggered me to remake the binder.

This weekend flew by. Absolutely flew by. I played D&D on Friday. Saturday was coding, running a few errands, and I did a little bit of work out in the garage to fight back the ever growing mess. Today was soccer, then some more errands, some coding, dinner, and tv. And just like that, tomorrow I'm back at work. Well, working from home.

It's wild to realize I've been working from home for over a year. This December I mark ten years at Wizards of the Coast, and now over 10% of that time will have been me working from home. Hopefully we are back in the physical office in the next few months. Working from home has been interesting, but I am missing my coworkers and spending more time with people.

Today is an exciting day. It's the day I get a new work laptop. I don't think it is much of an upgrade, at least I know the RAM on the machine is equal to what I currently have, but I am always eager to move to a new PC. It lets me shed the various apps and bits which accumulate like barnacles, the longer you use a machine. The one I am using has a few issues that I am hoping the new one solves or improves. Fingers crossed.

Also, an excuse to get out of the house.