So, amazingly enough I’ve been doing some interesting things lately. You know, like when I was younger and went to see shows? Well, I saw a few different shows this past week. I also stopped by the Church Brew works tonight to see what Geek Night was like. Unfortunately, I didn’t really get to see anyone from work, or chat with any fellow geeks. I’ve also finally begun swimming again, on a semi-regular basis. This is definitely a Good Thing ™, since I’ve been growing more and more out of shape during my college tenure.

In other events-worth-mentioning news, Jury Duty was not so bad.. Nobody was called, I was let out after lunch, and I got a cheap meal and used CD for practically nothing (hooray for instant stipends). I also went to the Pitt Career Fair to represent my company yesterday. I saw a few old classmates, and met a few kids who were definitely excited to be free of college and join the real world to do cool stuff. Kind of like me, except for the free networking I had from my old jobs. I guess the only other thing of note lately is that I’ve been on a reading spree. I got 6 books for next to nothing from a free amazon gift certificate I got not too long ago. Now that I’ve finished the Harry Potter series, I’m moving on to several other sci-fi/fantasy series that I’ve always meant to check out, so hopefully they’ll hold my attention for the next month or so. If anything is particularly sweet i’ll be sure to drop a note about it on here. Until then, enjoy life, my few blog readers.

So tomorrow I have to respond to a Jury Summons (i.e. actually go downtown and sit around). Its unclear if I’ll actually get picked for a trial, or if it will last more than 10 minutes, who knows.. they make it all kind of vague. In some ways I don’t mind, I get paid by work to follow through with my civic duties, plus I guess I get a small stipend for going down there. Also, it’s a new experience, something i’m always up for. Plus, i’ll get some more time to do some reading while I wait, who knows, maybe i’ll even come close to finishing a book (8 hours is a long, long time).

There’s lots of fun concerts coming up in the next month (a surprise, I know!), so i’m definitely going to be checking all of those out soon. Just to name a few.. Paul Luc, Finger Eleven, Minus the Bear, Saves the Day, Johnette Napolitano, and a few more. If you know of another sweet show I don’t, let me know by leaving a comment or shooting me an email.

Last night I went to see Paul Luc with Kim (who got the cd, and all the bandmembers signed it). Then we went out for some more drinking and met up with a friend. Tonight one of our friends is turning 21, so that should be a good time as well. I also started on my slow attempt to get back in shape. I went swimming at Oliver Bath House for an hour today. An hour is pitiful, but I’m out of shape, so hopefully the more I go, the better I’ll be able to do.

To anyone out there who has an Ipod classic, who used to have one of the older revs, does the UI seem to run slowly to you? I was playing with one at the apple store the other day and it seemed to react really slowly. The music interface on the Ipod touch is definitely one of the most refined ones I’ve seen, but 16GB just won’t cut it (unless I get one for free :). Seeing as the classic has twice the space and battery life as my aging Creative Zen Xtra (and I could use it as a raw hard drive) I’m actually considering getting one. I was disappointed that the Shadyside Apple Store had none of the 160GB ones out though, so I could compare just how much thicker it really was, but if they don’t have them out next time I’m sure I could ask them to get one for me. That store also doesn’t have the new mini power adapter for the MacBook Pros (but then, I guess most stores don’t have them yet). What I really need to do though (tech purchase wise) is to get a 2GB stick of ram for my laptop, not from Apple if I can pull it off (it’s sooo much cheaper that way).

As a random last side note, I’m somewhat impressed with Pittsburgh’s tech influence as of late. Not only did we have the most bloggers per capita, we have like 4 or 5 lifecasters on justin.tv (maybe more), who knew?

Wow, i managed to forget to update this thing already. I guess a quick update is in order.. Over the last few weeks i’ve gone to California for a business trip. I stayed in a small area called Menlo Park, which is just next to Stanford and Palo Alto (home of facebook). That was interesting, the weather was nice, but it was mostly work, so not all that much to write home about..

Aside from that trip, it’s been mostly the same old shit. Work, come home, hang out, whatever. I did manage to read books 5 and 6 of the Harry Potter series, and go see the fifth movie (which is an ok movie, but a horrible adaptation). I went out to a friend’s birthday soiree in shadyside, and a housewarming in the strip. Both events were nice, plus I don’t get to visit those parts of town much. Now that I’ve left Oakland, I pretty much stick around Southside. Let’s see, I also finally bought an external hard drive. It’s a nice 750GB from Western Digital which was on sale at Best Buy, I saw a metallic looking one for 75 dollars more at the Apple Store tonight, so ha! In other positive news, my “online transcript” at Pitt lists me as graduated with my Masters Degree. With that, I am officially done with school (in what I hope is, forever).

The remainder of this month looks to be not tooo boring. A friend is turning 21, Mad Mex is having several specials, I have potential Jury Duty, we’re getting more serious about furniture for our apartment, and I should finish dealing with post-graduation services loss. Oh, and maybe if I’m really cool, I’ll work on my domain (or at least my side project). Anyhow, that’s enough rambling for tonight.

Life has always had irrationally quick ups and downs for me. Most of which even my friends weren’t aware of. Lately I’ve been having trouble picking how i actually feel from hour to hour. Work is really exciting since I’m finally coding again, but it’s also really depressing since I’m sort of drowning in the depth of it. And I’m not just talking about the depth as far as there’s a lot of codebase, I mean it’s also deep; as in way more abstract and cleverly planned than I have ever dealt with. I won’t say I’m not up to the challenge, I just occasionally wish I could make things “work,” and get that instant gratification of “oooh look what I did!” This reminds me that I should be doing side projects, whether personal or open source, but after a day on the computer, I only want to be lazy or braindead when looking at a monitor, not trying to motivate myself to do work.

To that end, I’ve been trying to do more non-computer things to keep me at least from becoming lame. I just read “I hope they serve beer in hell” by Tucker Max. It was a short, easy to read, and mostly hilarious book. Perfect to get me back into reading, since I kind of dropped the ball on that when I started college. I’m hoping to read at least a few books a month from here on out, even if they are tech/work related. I want to watch more movies too, or go to {baseball,hockey} games if possible. I basically just am realizing that all I did in college was homework, party, concert-go, and piss around. Now that homework is gone and partying has become a different beast, pissing around is not what it used to be, and Pittsburgh frankly sucks as far as concerts go as of late. I guess all this faux-motivation will just have to evolve into something that turns a profit in terms of my need for interesting experiences.

So I finished two weeks of work. I actually committed a change late on friday (nevermind it didn’t change any programmatic behavior), so it’s like i’m a real developer again. I also got paid for my first week of work, so I can finally start paying my credit card back down. I kind of chose to let my debt grow (a lot) these past 2 months while I waited to start my new job. on the bright side, it looks like I might be able to pay it off before my promotional APR disappears.

I guess life is pretty much going ok. It’s nice to be able to get to know more people from work, and be able to hang out at fun places on the southside. I’ve been taking advantage of iTunes’ free tv shows, but I really really need to get an external harddrive so I can keep downloading, I can’t watch them fast enough to archive for more space. The apartment needs some stuff too, as well as some decorating. I guess I’ll just have to aim to get my credit card on its way back down while I spend whatever amount on the stuff I’ve been waiting a long time to get. Anyhow, I need to start getting ready for another night out, peace.

The last week has been quite a crazy one. After moving in and doing some stuff related to getting the new place in order, there were plenty of fun activities to be done. I went out to several of the bars and clubs on the southside to check them out for the first time. Friday was my dad’s birthday, Saturday was mine, and we had a family get together today at my great aunt’s house.

Pretty much this week involved alcohol in some way or another. When I went to a bar, this connection is obvious. As far as my dad’s birthday, I attempted to have them try some new beers since they only like a few (and aren’t usually interested in trying new ones since they don’t drink all that often). My birthday was a day long adventure, ending with many friends hanging out at Mad Mex. I also found out earlier this week that I’m getting the opportunity to brew a kettle of ESB at The Brew Kettle in Ohio. I’ve been wanting to do this since I heard about it, so i’m pretty excited. I get to do the bottling in a few weeks, shortly before I start my new job.

This coming week will hopefully yield a better end-date for my project as I’ll be meeting with my advisor. Some of Kim’s friends are coming into town this week and staying with us for a bit, so there will be some fun getting to show them around Pittsburgh and what it has to offer. Who knows, maybe i’ll even get to find a few new places myself.