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February 11, 2005 - AWOL - and leaving again

So, long time, no update. Sorry. Those of you who might be looking for the tale of how I got heavily delayed in an airport will find that story here.
It's been a whirlwind kind of a week. I think I have spent more time on the phone this week than I ever have. Between all the calls home and all the calls out West, I'm pretty sure I've logged about two hours a day on the phone this week, which is absolutely unheard of for me. Why all the calls, you ask? Because I officially got a job offer from Microsoft on Monday. I'm not supposed to talk about specifics, but let's just say that it's a very good offer, and very hard to turn down. So, the decision is made; starting in late May or early June, I will be moving out to the Seattle area and working full-time as a software developer! I haven't exactly wrapped my mind around all of the implications yet, but I do know one thing - it gives you all an excuse you roadtrip out to the west coast and see me!
So that's been the major form of excitement for me here. Second only to that is the weekend-long ski trip in Lutsen, Minnesota that's happening this weekend. Assuming that I don't break myself, it should be a pretty fun time. Half a dozen of us hanging out in a hotel and skiing sounds like an awesome time to me. But since I leave directly after class this afternoon (as in, they pick me up as I walk out of the lecture hall), it does kind of put a cramp on the schoolwork side of things ... which is probably okay since, let's face it, all my motivation is now officially gone.
Which brings me to yet another point; refer to my current schedule as a reference point. I've mysteriously lost all passion for my video games class, and I figured out that dropping it will save me about five hours of class time a week, plus who knows how much in stress and out-of-class workload. And since I'm not getting much out of it and I'm not contributing much to it, I've decided to drop it. This will all be official once I talk to my advisers and confirm that it's not going to hurt me, graduation-wise. Hopefully this will bring the tone of the semester down a little bit, since I haven't even thought about playing Halo in over a month. How depressing.
And then there's been the mundanity of the past two weeks - the schoolwork, the meetings, the random junk. Senior design is most certainly not my favorite place to be right now; what a waste of everyone's time that class is. Add in a small speech, an exam or two, and you have a pretty full couple of weeks there. Oh yeah, and a Try Scuba night as well. You get the idea by this point.
Anyhow, I'll try and not let two weeks go by between updates again. If I'm not in a body cast, look for something after I get back from Minnesota this weekend. Should be a good time; hope everyone else enjoys their weekend as much!

February 18, 2005 - Yeah, weekly update

It's been pointed out to me that I was supposed to let everyone know that I hadn't died while skiing this past weekend. Sadly (for some of you, anyways), I must report that I'm still very much alive, and even (somehow!) intact. I had an absolute blast with it, and I can definitely see myself skiing for some time into the future. It's just so ... relaxing and challenging and exhilarating and fun, all at the same time. Now they just need to invent a way to go skiing when it's about eighty degrees outside.
This past week certainly had its interesting moments. Our Senior Design server crashed again, and bringing that back was a bit of fun. My car started making a horrible, evil screeching sound the other night, which ended up being nothing more than a slightly bent plate on the inside of one of the wheels. And just tonight, I tried to boot up my camera, and apparently it's died. Good thing I have that four-year replacement plan, huh? We'll see about getting that last one resolved, but so far it hasn't been anything that I can't handle. Of course, saying that is bound to jinx something, but whatever.
Things are a lot less stressful for me at the moment, I've noticed. Ever since getting and accepting that job offer - and dropping my video games class - I've just sort of been on cruise control. A great example of this was my speech exam today - I finally got around to thinking about it (not studying, mind you) about half an hour before it started, and I just absolutely couldn't care less. It's kind of liberating, but when I find myself with free time, I almost feel guilty and confused after not having had any for so long. Hopefully that will pass soon, and I'll be playing a whole bunch of video games in the near future.
Oh yeah, and after my portfolio gets done this week, I'll be even more free! Sure, it's dues Wednesday and it's huge, and I've almost started, but hey, it'll get done. I think.

February 27, 2005 - Hrm

Right, so once again we're back to the time-honored "update whenever the hell I feel like it" schedule. I think I was deluding myself with any attempt to try and keep this thing up. I always either forget about it or am just too darn lazy to update it. In conclusion, I suck. Moving on...
Let's see, last week... last week was busy. Between Senior Design, the absolute bane of my existence, and that friggin' portfolio that I had to do, I was swimming in the work. Oh yeah, and the speech on Friday that I started preparing for on Thursday at midnight. I really do suck, don't I? Ah well, the point is that everything got done, and now I'm looking to be on easy street for at least a little while. Which of course means that I'll end up having things to be doing regardless, but oh well.
This weekend was pretty quality; I did a whole lot of nothing, which included an awesome party with King and the crowd on Friday night, some quality video games and poker on Saturday, and a (most disappointing) basketball game on Sunday. It's kind of nice to relax every so often, but I always end up feeling like a waste when I do. Meh.
Oh, and then the super fun thing is that I've been having loads of trouble with one of my computers lately. I have absolutely no idea what's going on; I've found and fixed two major problems and things still aren't right. Bizarre, but it certainly gives me a project to be investigating. Man, technology is irritating when it doesn't work right.
Only two weeks to Spring Break!