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So, what have I been up to lately? Not a whole lot really. Work has been pretty busy lately, and after I get home and feed myself and Maggie, I really don’t feel like doing a whole lot. Some days I’ll get in a game of tennis or go for a run, but then I’m usually in bed by midnight. Is this what it’s like to be grown up? I sure hope not. I finished up several of the main parts of the next release of myDesktop Online, but just haven’t found the time to finish the other little stuff that needs to get done. I even cancelled my World of Warcraft account. Like that Atari’s song says, “Being grown up isn’t half as fun as growing up.”

I’m going to have a pretty tough time next semester with 15 hours. I’m going to be taking Automata Theory, Computer Networks, Compilers, Contemporary Issues in CS, and an EE circuits course. It may sound like a bunch of nerdy classes, but I hear Automata Theory is full of hotties (yea right). Two of those are electives, which I’ll most likely take pass-fail. The internship is going well, so I think I’m going to continue working part-time (10-20 hrs/wk) during the school year. Besides, it’s the only way I get to keep the new bling-bling laptop they bought me. If I’m a little stressed out next semester, you know why.

Today was an interesting day at work. I walked in this morning and my desktop machine was dead (looked like a dead HD. It would turn on, but wouldn’t start loading windows for anything. One might think that this would be a disaster for a software developer, that he would’ve lost all the code he’d written. This is one of the reasons why developers use some form of source code control. When you’ve finished working on some piece of code, you check it into source control and it gets backed up to the main repository. Luckily, just the day before, I had checked in all of the code I was working on so I thought my machine dying wasn’t going to be a problem. As it turns out, I had missed a couple files when I was checking in all my code. This is where I said, “Oh fudge” (but substitute another F word for fudge). I could’ve given up and written the code from scratch again, but instead decided to fight the machine to the death for my data. For the next hour or two as soon as I thought I had found a way to get the code off, the computer would say, “Oh no you don’t…” and slam the door shut. In the end, I was able to hook the hard drive up to another computer and get what I needed off of it. It was a POS anyways, good riddance!

My 22nd birthday was this past Tuesday, and Denicia took it upon herself to throw me a surprise party. I thought we were just going to see a movie, but when I got to her apartment it was all decorated and everybody was there. I’ve never had a surprise party like that before, so it was awesome. Thanks Dencia!

I’m going to make this quick because I’m exhausted and I’ve got to work tomorrow morning. My sister and some of her friends came through Austin this weekend so I took them downtown last night and tubing today. Last night, before we all went out, Kam, Floyd, Denicia, several others, and I went and saw Frank Caliendo at a comedy club here in Austin. This guy was, freaking, hilarious. If you’ve never seen his stand up act or seen him on MadTV, do yourself a favor and go watch a clip. The clip is in a Real Media format, and although I hate Real more than anyone, it might be worth downloading their stupid codec to watch the clip if you don’t have it already. He does about 10 different impressions, John Madden being my favorite. Just go watch the clip and see for yourself.

Today we decided to go tubing, despite the fact that it was pouring rain in Austin as we were leaving. My sister has never been tubing before so we decided that we were going no matter what. I wouldn’t say that I was miserable all day, but the fact that the sun was only out for 15 minutes made for a long river trip. Regardless, it was nice seeing my sister and spending some time with her.

Note to self: Don’t leave things outside with the dog.

I’m back in Austin now after spending a nice weekend in Plano with the rents. My parents are moving out next Wednesday so that’s the last weekend I’ll ever spend in that house. I thought walking out for the last time would be a lot harder than it was, but a lot of the attachment is lost after being moved out for a couple years. I did manage to score some pretty good loot though. My two sisters had already claimed most of the big stuff (couches, beds, piano, etc…), but they left behind a lot of the electronics and some other stuff. I made out with a washer/dryer, 3 TVs, a receiver, DVD player, CD player, speakers, lawn mower, edger, weed eater, and a compressed air tank =D. I also got two awesome gifts for my birthday from them as well: an iRiver MP3 player and a set of Longhorn golf club headcovers. The MP3 player is really cool, it has a lot more features than your typical portable MP3 player. I’ll write some more about it as I use it. Thanks Mom & Dad!

Denicia and Nicole took Maggie to the vet today, and her checkup went really well for the most part. They thought it’d be funny though to give us a little scare and tell us the vet had discovered that Maggie was really a boy. I immediately felt violated; I felt that Maggie had been hiding it the whole time, trying to pass himself off as a girl, how disgusting of you! Maggie has this little nub on her stomach that originally looked like a scar of some sort, but they said it really was his ‘package’ and I took the bait hook line and sinker. I began to question everything, like how a male pitbull with no real manhood to speak of could have such attitude. When they got back from the vet, I could barely stand to look at the dog, not sure what to think. Luckily, it turned out to all be a joke and my world was turned right-side up again. In all seriousness, her checkup went well, she took her shots like a pro. They told us she was about 5 months old, a purebred pitbull, and would most likely double in size. I’ll try to get some more pictures of her when I get a chance.