Crossfit has been having a positive impact on many people in our game as of late and this is no exception. Justin "William" Burchell of Invictus recently passed his Level 1 Certification to become a Crossfit Trainer. This means he is now certified to teach at an existing gym, or open his own. His certification involved a two-day course which included workouts, instruction and classroom work, in addition to a final written and workout exam. Congratulations Justin!
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| Justin (gray shirt) with some of his Crossfit teachers |
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Earlier this year, Matt "Thon" Norris of the Iron Kingdom released his debut novel "Wars and Rumors of Wars," the first of six planned books in his Blackmount series. Says Matt: "As for some context, the series is one part shout-out-filled homage to the Realms, one part completely unrelated fantasy political thriller, and one part birds-eye-view on the 18 year running Blackmount plot. Now, after 18 years, ~120 players interacting with Blackmount plot through 5 games in 3 formats, we're turning a corner by making the next leg of the story into a 6-book cycle of novels that hits on some of the major events of the past, but really stands on its own as a full reboot of Blackmount's story in a world designed from the ground up to tell it best." What an awesome achievement on top of his photography business. Congratulations, Matt!
You can purchase the e-version of the book through Amazon here
You can purchase the print version of the book here
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In other creative news, Joe "Elwick" Piepiora has recently, together with a partner, started a game development studio in California, called Empyrean Interactive. There is currently a Facebook group and a website set up that you can follow to get more information on what the studio is up to. This blog post from the website is also serves as a good introduction to Empyrean and what they hope to bring to the video game world. The studio's vision statement, as stated on the blog: “Empyrean Interactive is part game development studio, part
publisher, with the singular goal of defining groundbreaking cooperative
experiences.”Congratulations Joe (and partner), and good luck! We can't wait to see what you guys come up with!
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Jake "Goku" Boyce of Folkestone was selected for a aerospace engineering summer research position at Syracuse with his aerospace professor, who is considered a major player in the industry. The focus of his research, in his own words: "designing a space ship and an attack helicopter in a program." This is an awesome achievement as Jake is currently a sophomore (going into junior year) and an amazing opportunity. We wish him the best of luck with his research! (Adds proud mom Rori: "He also made the Dean's List last semester!") |
| Jake (R) with mom Rori and (and also, Neil!) - photo by Robyn Nielsen |