back to work

I really don't update very often, do I. My life seems sort of boring from inside of it. I go to school, go to work, go home, watch tv, play Tabula Rasa, sleep.

I'm enjoying the New Pornographers CD that my dad copied for me. It's been in my car for a few weeks now and there's only one song that I skip on it. When I first listened to the CD, I hated it, of course. The only way for me to find music I really love is to listen to it over and over until I like it. For some reason I rarely like my favorite songs on first listen; everything I like straight away eventually ends up forgotten. Take, for instance, Modern Life is Rubbish, my first Blur album. I bought it because it was cheap, and on first listen hated it and wished I hadn't bought it. But after a few months and repeated listens it became one of my favorite albums. Not to say that I wouldn't recommend it over Parklife.

I've also been listening to Slacker radio at work a lot. If you'd like to listen to my station: here it is.

My semi-vegetarian status seems to still be holding, for the most part. I do think it's a good thing for me to force myself to eat shrimp or fish instead of other meats, and I like shopping at Vitamin Cottage (though Daniel complains that it's full of hippies). It has led to situations where I've eaten bread pudding for dinner, however. Next time I'll go to Noodles, I swear.

In not as happy news, today was layoff day at Sun. It seems that my entire team is untouched, but one of my friends in a different team was laid off, and I don't know what to say... I just feel awful about it, but I feel like I need to wait until she says something to talk to her. I'm also sort of edgy walking around the office, because not everyone knows if they've been laid off yet, and I don't know who's staying or not. I promised Molly I would tell her if any of her friends got RIF'd, but I honestly don't know how I would know...

And, well, it looks like I might have a job after graduation. If our team gets new responsibilities after the re-org, they'll need more people, and my manager pretty much stated that he's going to request a position opening for when I graduate. Knock on wood. So, I'm actually pretty psyched about that.

Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving was interesting. Daniel and my mother and I all went down to Grand Junction and spent a week with Daniel's family. Thanksgiving dinner was quite impressive. His aunt "rented a hall" which basically ended up being a large structure with two rooms, one smaller one in the front with a fire and tables for all the food, and the one in back being quite large, with long tables for eating and a giant projector screen (think Frank's 2000" TV) hooked up to a Wii. There were various small children there who I'd never met who played DDR and Mario Kart and Wii Sports. Since there were so many people there, there was also an impressive array of dishes, ranging from turkey (two of them) and ham, to Granny T's Sweet Potatoes, to a crockpot full of mashed potatoes and a pitcher of gravy, to crackers and buffalo chicken dip, to red cabbage. And a separate dessert table.

Even more impressive was the fact that I didn't gain weight the day after.

The ride back was ok... the first part was fine, we stopped at Chili's and had lunch, and by the time we hit Vail the snow was starting to get thick. Just before we hit Eisenhower tunnel, my mother lost traction and tried pulling onto the snow to get it back, and we ended up getting stuck. A nice woman came over with a truck offering to pull us out, but there's apparently nothing on my car to hook onto. So Daniel and I ended up pushing the car and dashing back in once it was rolling again. The drive from that point on was pretty miserable, and we didn't get back to my mother's house until 8pm.

Other highlights of the trip: girl's day out, where Daniel, Ian, Clayton, and other assorted BOYS went to The Shop and played Warhammer, and the girls hung out, went shopping, ate out for lunch AND dinner, and then went to Twilight. It was entertaining enough but I don't know that I'd, say, recommend it.

Also enjoyable was the party on Friday, which benefited from a Magic draft, crockpots of chili and cheesy potatoes, and a sort-of-working pinball machine, and would have been even better if I hadn't gained a pound and a half from munching on chips and dip and brownies and cherry pizza all evening.

ERROR: Required field must not be blank

I've been thinking about my blog a lot lately. Some of it has been spurred by Daniel, who just created a new blog for himself on his personal website.

I know that some people still check this every day (lord knows why) so I've been spending some time lately composing blog entries in my head. These then turn into meta-entries on the fact that I spend more time (much more time) composing entries in my head than actually writing them. Which turns into the realization that I probably won't even write the meta-entries, at which point I give up and start thinking about pie. Or homework.

Daniel is silly. He's reading over my shoulder. I mean, if he were to just wait, he could read it tomorrow during his daily grind...

Well, I should write something more than a meta-entry, but who am I kidding. I'm just procrastinating on my ethics essay.

I suppose I shall put an update here, so that when I look back I know what was going on in my life at the time.

I'm hoping to graduate this May. Saturday is my mother's birthday, and Daniel and I will have been dating for four years. I'm an intern for Sun. I like it there. I'm only taking 13 credit hours this semester, and it's quite a bit more relaxing than this spring. Next semester I'll only be taking 12. I wish I hadn't taken Databases. But at least Kenneth is in class with me. Then again, he convinces me to ditch a lot.

I like my ethics teacher, which is sort of surprising since I hated him at the start of the semester. Amer is an even better teacher than I thought he would be. I'm president of WICS. I'm a lousy fellow, but at least I try.

That's about it. I have too many things I need to do. Like go to the bank and deposit checks. And get an oil change. I can't remember everything. Maybe when I've graduated I'll finally get everything done... ha.

do you hear it too?

I swear I'm going crazy. This is the fifth time in the past two weeks that I've heard a snatch of a Paul Simon song floating through the office. By the time I leap up from my chair to investigate the source, it's gone. Today was "You Can Call Me Al"... Previous occurrences have included "Me and Julio" and "Late In the Evening".

...

I have solved the mystery! Ok, so I wasn't going crazy, but I apparently am too attuned to Paul Simon or something, because someone in an office across the hall and around the corner was playing it very quietly in his office. So, I could hear it, but only just enough to think I could have been imagining it. And my coworkers couldn't hear it...

Man, the guy must have had it on loop for the past two weeks. He must really like Paul Simon.

A break.

Today has been nice. I haven't done much of anything, and I don't really plan to. It's a nice contrast to the happenings of the past week. Every night I've had plans.

I interviewed with Google. That in itself was an interesting experience. On Monday I went to a tour of the Boulder office with ACM, and then just hung around until I went to dinner with some google employees and recruiters, as well as fellow interviewees. It was expensive. Well, ok, not for me. It was free for me. I had wine even. Like, maybe a tablespoonful, but still. The dinner was definitely enjoyable, but it did take up 3 hours that I needed to do my chaotic dynamics homework. I got home at 10:30 and ended up staying up for 3 or 4 hours working on homework due on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning I split between working on my homework and interviewing with google. I got to the office early and snagged a naked protein shake thing, and a pack of milano cookies. Hooray for google breakfast. The interview was fun, but I don't feel I did particularly well. I was confident and answered the questions I was given, so at least it was entertaining. I shall hear back in 5-10 days.