A few final words about my year 2000 summer

By Wren Weburg
9/9/00

By far, the summer of 2000 has been the most memorable and exciting for me. My internship as part of the Web Team for three months at Maxis taught me new programming languages and methods, new technologies, and netted many new friends. And beyond the internship, the trip included many new experiences in the unexplored areas of myself and within California (well, at least areas unexplored by me). Looking back, it all seemed much like a wonderful dream.

Here's a partial list of the many people I met and wish to thank and/or mention, in no particular order: Alex Z., my closest cube/chat neighbor and a very talented programmer, who wouldn't stop playing his techno music (which admittedly I preferred over silence, and actually came to like); Daniel (Dano), a big part of SimCity.com, who works on much of the site's content and is an all around cool guy; Darren Futa, the friendly and highly capable mastermind behind much of the Web feats at Maxis; Grantley, who gave me direction and oversees much of the Web architecture at Maxis; Mark, who answered (and tolerated) countless questions of mine regarding the Web sites; Frank, who also answered questions and helped me learn my new programming language; Beverly, who injected fun and laughter into each and every one of my days; Boh, the very friendly DBA who set me up with the database tables I needed; Joe, who is "tha man" and one of the finest testers at Maxis; the other Maxis interns Scott, Dan, and Avery, whom all ate lunch with me and just shared in the learning experience (and whom shared quite a few nights out on the town); Waylon, the SimCity scenario man at Maxis; the help desk gentlemen whom fixed my computer up; Nancy, the morning receptionist who always greeted me in the morning and made me feel welcome at Maxis; Will Wright, who basically IS Maxis; Robert, who gave me much help and support; Mike P., Mike L., Christine M., Lucy B., Luc B., Tim L., Kevin O., David O., Mike S., Joseph K., Tammy, Lori, and well, everyone else at Maxis! Obviously, I could make this list really long, but I need to keep it somewhat short since the Academy Awards people are starting to sweat. Really, to everyone I met and worked with: thanks! I hope to see you all again!

For now, I'm back at college and continuing my work at SC3000.COM, as well as gearing up for other projects. I thought I would close by mentioning a few new images I added to my summer internship photo album (link available below), including a few photos taken at Great America, an amusement park in Santa Clara, CA. In closing, for anyone who has a free summer, by all means -- investigate the possibility of an internship. Especially at a great gaming company such as Maxis/EA. I'm glad I did!

The links. Here's a few places to check out for items related to this article:

• Wren's updated Maxis summer internship photo album
  Has 3 additional images from the summer's events.
• Summer at Maxis: First Look
  The original article summarizing my experiences at two and a half months into my internship. More resources are at the end of the article.