Delayed

*Making it back to my apartment with my luggage! I half expected not to find my luggage waiting for me when I finally got to College Station. My first flight was delayed by 2 hours or more (I wasn't there long enough to find out if it was more) so they put me on a different airline through Houston since DFW weather was the cause. I arrived at IAH to see lighting and heavy rain a few miles out through the window and see lines of planes backing up. Watching the lightning was fun even if it meant my 6:05 flight left at 7:30.

*One of the business travelers on the first flight got my favorite type of seat...both window and isle at the same time...but gave it up for another seat when he noticed that a woman was traveling with 2 children so that she could sit in the same row as her kids.

*Grocery shopping and feeling good about getting stuff to not eat out. I had been eating out way too much and I found a number of things I'd like to have for both lunches and dinners. I was also proud that I went shopping after I got home even though it was late and I was hungry instead of just eating out.

Birthdays

*G'pa's birthday. G'pa's bday is May 30 but since everyone is flying home that day we celebrated it already. We had my favorite meal, and good cake. These are always great :) I can only hope to be doing that well when I get older.

*Sleeping in. I had been waking up pretty early for the week at home, but I got a chance to sleep in since my parents were both at work.

*Worms. No, not the slimy critter, but the game. Sean, Rebekah and I played worms for a few hours in the evening and had a lot of fun doing it. We haven't gotten to play since Christmas and it is always a fun multiplayer game.

Outdoors

*Swimming. Our pool was open again today even though it was a little cool, but everyone except my grandpa got in at once and played around. We didn't have enough people to do a whirlpool but we still had fun.

*Cookout. We made a fire and cooked hot dogs and ate other good cookout food. We finished it off with s'mores made with peeps since we have 100+ peeps from my grandma. I decided not to make a s'more since I don't really like toasted marshmallow, but I did burn a peep, which was really more like it melting (after caramelizing) not like a regular marshmallow.

*Nice warm sunny days. The weather was perfect, and the birds were out. Mid 80s and partly cloudy.

Freedom Weekend Aloft

*Balloons! Freedom Weekend Aloft contains a whole lot of hot air balloons. We waited until the evening to go and got to the balloon area just as they were filling the first set of balloons. There were 50 or so balloons in all which took off in 2 or 3 groups from a large field. Each was unique in its own way and they were all really fun to watch.

*Seeing all my home church people. Even though most of them don't know much about me, they are all still really friendly and remembered having seen me in the past this time. It was cool to see them since I hadn't since Christmastide season.

*Listening to the Goo Goo Dolls live. It was a lot of money to get into the amphitheater, but we sat just outside and listened to a few of their songs while we also watched a balloon fill up at night and light up as it did so. It was cool to hear the Goo Goo Dolls as they are a band that I have liked for quite some time and seem to still be really popular.

Sean & Rebekah's Engagement!!

*Sean and Rebekah got engaged!!! I'm very happy for them and they seem really excited about it. They haven't picked a date yet, but the wedding will be in Victoria and it will be awesome. I can't wait!


*Picking up grandpa at the airport. I don't remember exactly when I saw him last, but I know I hadn't seen him in 2006 or 2007 so I'm really glad I got to. This was one of my primary reasons for coming home this week. He's exactly how he was when I saw him last (which is great for his age...I can only hope to be that well off), sense of humor and all.

*Homemade southern BBQ. Dad made BBQ the long slow real way....cooking then smoking the meat for hours, and it turned out as well as ever...

Katherine!

*Meeting Katherine for lunch!!!!  I hadn't seen Katherine in a little over 2 years, and she lives about 2 hours away from my parents' house...We both had some time in the middle of the day (unusual for her) so we met about halfway in Gastonia, NC at Cracker Barrel for lunch.  We met about noon and chatted until about 2:30 before realizing how long we had been there.  It was awesome to finally get to see her again.  I think I finally left the restaurant around 4 or 4:15.  We talked about everything that came to mind and I don't think we ran out of topics.  I have gotten to talk to her on the phone a few times in the past but this was much better.  Hopefully it won't nearly as long until I see her again.

 

*Lounging around.  I got to lounge around most of the day while I was home and played games, etc.

 

*Bday/Christmas present shopping.  My mom and I went out to try and find birthday presents for my grandpa since he is coming Saturday through next Saturday and his birthday is Wednesday.  While shopping we also found a Christmas present for some of our extended family and broke a personal record for earliest Christmas present shopping.

Lost and Found

*Picking Sean and his girlfriend up at the airport in the morning.  Now there are 6 of us in the house for the week and it is already starting to be a lot of fun. :)  I haven't seen Sean since Christmas, and I had never met his girlfriend Rebeka (sp?) before.

 

*Found luggage.  Sean and Rebeka's luggage all got "lost" and did not arrive with them.  They were not too worried as they suspected it was all still in Charlotte since when they originally checked in they were given boarding passes through Charlotte.  They pointed out the error and it was corrected, but the luggage tags could only have 3 flights on them max and they had 4 (obviously they should hire better CS majors).  The lady hand wrote new luggage tags with the first flight on one and the last 3 on another to help ensure they'd get there, but apparently they didn't.  They did manage to locate the luggage, in Charlotte none the less, and sent it over on the next flight so it was here by noon.  They also gave Sean $50 off his next flight, so in the end it really was only a minor inconvenience and they got a lot out of it.

 

*Home cooked food:  We had a pot roast and mashed potatoes, etc...Its a kind of meal that would be difficult for me to make by myself and have too much food for me, so its really nice to have that kind of thing when I'm home.

Safe Travels

*Flying home to see my family, brothers girlfriend (first time ever), and grandpa!  The flights all went well and I made it in on time with no problems at all :)

 

*Being home!  Its nice to not have to worry about dinner or much of anything at all since I'm home.

 

*Game Show Network.  Since I don't get GSN in college station, its really nice to see it and watch old games like Match Game on GSN when I am home.  Leslie Neilson was on the show, and I've never seen him on there before.

Another Last

*Hanging out with the bunch and watching Thank You for Smoking.  It was a very different type of movie than we normally watch, but Heather had it from netflix and I think we all enjoyed it.  It was actually probably one of the better movies to watch because we could occasionally have a conversation and not worry about ruining the movie watching.  It was, unfortunately, the last time I'll get to hang out with Heather.  She got back into town and within 24hrs I go home for a week, during which she will be moving to Oregon for the summer.

 

*Honest people:   I lost my wallet somewhere between paying for food at McAlister's and 2pm, so I searched everywhere I had been and couldn't find it.  Finally one of the office people upstairs from my office suggested I talk to the receptionist after we had looked in my advisors office with no luck.  As soon as I walked up to the receptionist desk, they commented that I was there for my wallet and handed it to me!  I was so relieved since I needed it to survive the trip home (passport could have gotten me home, but without money).  It was nice that one of the profs was honest, found it, and turned it in to the main desk

 

*Making more progress on my research

Rice Crispies Treats

*Rice Crispies Treats!  I finished off the last of my cheesecake waiting for my dinner to be ready so I went ahead and made Rice Crispies Treats.  I haven't made or had homemade ones in forever and they are awesome!  They were much easier than I remembered, but then again that's probably why little kids help make them so much.  They're quite yummy in a very different way than the cheesecake was.  If anyone wants any come get some!  I'll probably take some to the office tomorrow to share.

 

*Watching Crocodile Dundee at Andrew's and just chatting.

 

*James gave me a couple more circuit parts out of his supply that I had overlooked in my original design.  He's really been helping me out a lot with this project.

Alone time

*Staying up until 2am just to finish my book because it was just that good and I felt like I was so close at 11pm (even though I knew it would be 2am-ish)

 

*Lounging around by myself.  Jeremy came home from Julie's wedding and did some laundry and left for Houston until an unknown day.  He may be gone through part of Monday, or all the way through Thursday.  Until then, I get the apartment to myself.  Aside from the little time Jeremy was home, and some very short IM conversations, I didn't see or interact with anybody, which is enjoyable occasionally.

 

*Being grateful that the headache that woke me up early in the morning went mostly away by 11 and stayed mostly away all day...its an unusual occurrence for one I have when I wake up to stay away most of the day.

 

*Making final plans with Katherine to meet her just inside NC for lunch on Friday!!!  Its going to be awesome to see her again after 2 years!  She will be the third person I've seen from VT since I graduated.

 

*Looking forward to flying home Wednesday!  I love to fly, which is a good thing considering driving home would waste days.

Cleaning/Recycling

*Clean Apartment!  Or at least common area....All the recycling taken out, and completely clean...It hasn't been this good in months :)

 

*Faster recycling than expected.  I had expected to get to the recycling place and spend forever unloading and tossing everything in the correct bins, but instead there were people paid to unload my stuff and sort it all for me (it was already sorted), so once I got there it only took 2-3 min to be done.  It was a nice surprise.

 

*More Reading.  I got pretty far along in the book and its still exciting.

Shrek 3

*Shrek 3!  Tara, Andrew, Elliott and I went to see Shrek 3 in the evening.  It was quite funny and I really enjoyed it.  It brought a great end to an otherwise rough day  The audience was laughing a lot, especially during the previews.  I had forgotten what it was like to watch a movie with a full crowd, many of whom are kids.  It certainly added to the overall experience positively.

 

*Running.  I went out and ran down the path once again, which I had not done in quite a while.  The weather was perfect for it right as the sun was going down.  Running truly is a wonderful stress relief activity and I enjoyed it very much.

 

*Getting my experiment back in working order after a long time of it not functioning

Reading

*Reading in the middle of the day.  I took a break from my work in the middle of the afternoon to read 2 chapters for Bourne Ultimatum.  It was a very welcome break and kept me hooked on the book.

 

*Getting to bed early.  To end the day I went to bed early so that I could read 3 chapters before midnight.  I enjoy reading to end the day and think it makes my brain more active the next day which is also a plus.  I am now almost halfway through the book, even though it feels like I should be near the end.  It feels like a really long book, but that's also a good thing.  I keep wanting to get to the end to see how it ends, and getting frustrated that I'm not very far along and that it keeps going, but in reality that's why I read these books in the first place!...to get hooked...now I just need to learn patience and to enjoy good things as they progress and not wish for them to pass quickly.

 

*Working productively at home.  The A/C was out in the Bright Building today so I left when I could as it was getting unreasonably warm to go home and work.

 

*Cheesecake for breakfast again

The Cheesecake Joy Continues

*Cheesecake for Breakfast! What more could I ask for?

 

*Assembling my experiment and hooking up the power to the motor for the first time...It turned but wobbled unfortunately, but it was still really nice to see it almost all together!  Now once the code is complete it should run tests!

 

*Meeting Tara and Andrew shopping, then hanging out at Andrews and watching a movie, while programming.  I had planned to spend the evening at my place programming, but changed my mind when I learned Tara and Andrew were at Target (near my place) and I really wanted freebirds (next to Target).  I met them at Target and looked at kitchen items and then we went to Freebirds where I got a monster burrito for the first time and really wasn't as full as I expected to be, probably because I had only eaten cheesecake in the morning, and nothing else all day.  After dinner and a little more shopping, we went to Andrew's where I actually worked on programming most of the time while chatting and watching a movie.

Andrew's New Apartment

*Getting to see Andrew's new apartment.  Its much nicer than his old one, largely due to the lack of other roommates, and its in a nice wooded location.

 

*Taking my cheesecake which apparently turned out perfectly (even though I was worried and it was undercooked the first time) over to Andrew's and sharing it with everyone.  Everyone enjoyed it and that's what it's for!

 

*Working with one of the SEI students for the last time in person (I think)...this pretty much brings this job to a close after I can finish up the report he is writing

Baking Popularity

*Cheesecake!  I made my favorite cheesecake again, its been a while since I got make it and its always fun to share it with everyone.  Every time I bake something I'm reminded of how much people enjoy my baking...I've already gotten 2 IMs from people wanting whatever I was making and they didn't even know what I was making!  The cheesecake is definitely the least healthy thing I know how to make, with 7742 Calories!  That's a ton of Calories.

 

*Finally taking care of talking to some people that I needed to get to sign or make things for me.  It usually takes me a while to get around to these tasks and now that these are done it feels much better

 

*Relaxing evening in the apartment with nothing in particular to do besides cook, eat, and watch tv

Mother's Day

*Calling home to wish my mom a happy Mother's Day.  I always talk to my mom on the weekends but this was a special day to remember all the good things mothers do for us.

 

*Reading more Bourne Ultimatum.  The book is good and keeps my attention well, and reminds me how much I really do enjoy just sitting and reading, and little I've done it recently.  Its good to get back to the habit as it feels more productive than staring at my computer.

 

*Hanging out at Tara's and chatting after the movie.  We didn't hang out too long, but every hour is crucial at this point and I try to enjoy them as much as possible

Good Times

----Saturday----

*Getting a little work done in the office in the morning (on a Saturday!) before lunch.

 

*Meeting up with the graduates and their families and some other past and present UCMers for lunch at C&J's (alison's favorite!).  We all had a good time chatting

 

*Bowling for the first time in months and getting a 138(?) on the first game.  This is above my old average when I used to bowl more often, so I was quite impressed with myself.  Joseph was there and I think he had fun too, and this was the first time I've seen him in months!  It was definitely good to see him again.  All 6 people there had very unique bowling styles and we had a lot of fun giving each other a hard time about it.  I particularly enjoyed harassing Kay who walks slowly up to the line, stops, and sort of drops the ball with a slight backspin so that its amazing it ever reaches the other end, yet she got a number of spares and strikes!  I think she got half of them just to taunt me, but I often retaliated with a strike of my own.  It was a lot of fun!

 

*Going to a concert at Wolf Pen a block from my house for free, even if it was country, which didn't matter because we couldn't really hear and didn't pay attention anyway.  I was just there to hang out with everyone and enjoy the company as much as possible...

 

*Shakes at Shakes!  I got a shake with peanut butter, hot fudge, and caramel and it was delicious, then we just hung around on Tara's truck and chatted

 

-----Friday-----

*Going to Alison's graduation with Tara, Andrew, Stuart and Alison's sister.  I paid attention as Alison walked up and crossed the state, and got a lot of reading done of the Bourne Ultimatum for the 2.5 hours before that happened.  Its a good book, and I hadn't gotten to read in a long time.

 

*Sitting outside and reading.  I sat outside the Bright Building for a couple of minutes before being picked up for the graduation and read.  It was an amazing day outside and I found a nice dry shady spot, which was also very quiet due to the day/time.

 

*Continuing the Friday lunch tradition even if it was just Jeremy and I and going to Double Daves which we haven't gotten do to since Feb since we get outvoted by all the girls.  That's right...guys outnumbered by girls in an engineering group.

Relaxed and Enjoyable Day

*Lounging around for the evening with nothing in particular to do.  It has been quite a while since I've had an evening completely to myself.  I played a computer game for about an hour which I actually haven't done in weeks, and watched Equilibrium.  (Yes Tara, I know who was in it: Christian Bale, and a few others I don't remember, one of which was in LoTR as Boramir or Faramir (sp?) :-P)  I also was going to make a cheesecake but ended up making muffins because it was so late.

 

*Getting the new Linkin Park CD (Minutes to Midnight) 5 days before release, as well as the new Kamelot and Dream Theater cds(also pre-release).  Some of the songs on the cds are really good.

 

*Sleeping in until 10am...I've done this a couple times this week, but I still really enjoyed it today and I think I'll do the same tonight so as to get at least 8hrs of sleep.

The Firsts of the Lasts

*Going out to eat at Wings-n-more with the group.

 

*Seeing Spiderman 3.  The movie was good and I enjoyed it.  We also hung around outside for a little while afterwards like normal, and it was something I often used to take for granted but now that the end of my time at TAMU approaches, I'm realizing how much fun it is!  As we began to part of the evening, I started to realize item 3:

 

*Realizing how good my friends are, and how much I will miss them all.  Some are graduating, some are going to camp for the summer, and some are going home.  Most importantly to me, I'm realizing how close I am to graduating and how close I am to them.  This evening I said goodbye to the first group of friends that I won't see until I visit TAMU again.  It was the first of the lasts with people.  Marshall left for home after dinner.  Stephen headed home to Houston after the movie.  Shelley is headed home tomorrow morning.  I only recently got to know Stephen a lot better and I wish I had been a bit quicker at it.  He and I have a lot in common and we've had a lot of fun recently just chatting both in person and on the phone.  Marshall, Shelley and I have had a lot of fun rock climbing and playing racquetball as well as hanging out as some of the more regulars of UCM, and at church.  There are far too many experiences to list here with all of them, and I will miss them.  In the upcoming days there will be a lot more friends leaving.  One positive for now is that at least a few of my friends (Tara minimum!) will still be around for the summer!

Rediscovering Good Home Cooked Food

*Study hall once again.  I went to study hall twice going home to eat dinner.  We played Frisbee in the gym as well.  Its amazing how much simpler it is to throw when there is absolutely no wind.  I even impressed myself and managed to throw it into the basketball hoop from the other side of the court.  Once I actually took my time and aimed it only took 2 tries, the first hitting the net below the rim, and the second hitting in the perfect spot above the rim on the backboard.

 

*Home cooked food.  I had forgotten how nice it was to cook a multiple item meal for myself at home.  This one involved pork chops with a Baja chipotle with lime marinade and a side of long grain and wild rice (my favorite).  It was amazing how simple the meal was to cook and yet how much I enjoyed it over the other stuff I've been making recently.  I was also proud of myself for not going out to eat when that would have been far simpler.  I plan on doing the same thing again!

 

*Getting a few more parts of my circuit done

More Productive Work and Study Hall

*Playing football in the dark in the gym at study hall

 

*Getting a large amount of soldering done, and starting some debugging of my code.  I did the limit switches all by myself and they seem to work!  I didn't do any poor electrical connections and I think the whole system is coming along just fine.

 

*Sleeping in and eating a nice lunch at home before heading to work!  Sometimes that's exactly what is necessary to start the day off right.

 

*Determining that I can stay up and get more work work done quickly and seeing it pay off.  My students need my responses quickly and I'm staying on top of it.

Nearing The End

*Finishing the last part of my last project for Advanced D&C.  This marks the end of classes for the semester.  I am now done with everything except my research project for my Masters!  Its so close!

 

*Going to UCM study hall.  Even though I only had a little work to do, I went out to the UCM study hall.  I probably distracted people more than I should have, but people got work done while we chatted a bit.  I didn't disturb the quiet rooms, only the people in the lobby.

 

*Seeing another happy face when distributing pictures of ski trip and spring retreat.  I still need to make more cds so I look forward to giving those out as well.

 

*Learning to solder much better and more quickly than ever before.  It is actually kind of fun and I think I can complete that part of my experiment quickly now.

Surprise visit

*Getting a surprise phone call from Becky saying that she was going to be coming up to College Station for the night.  She was going to a big swing dance with a bunch of her swing dance friends and I met up with her at Denny's at 1am.  We got to chat and catch up since we hadn't really seen each other in a semester.  Its always great to be able to see old friends again.  I'm glad I wasn't too busy or out of town for the weekend.

 

*Letting 4 people (Becky and 3 I never met) crash in my main room overnight.  The new people are nice and were cool to talk to during dinner.  I don't think I've ever had this many people sleeping in my apartment.  I think the previous record was only 2 others, and Jeremy may not have even been here those nights (hurricane)

 

*Soccer Saturday.  9 people turned out for soccer Saturday.  It was a good day to play soccer since it was a bit windy, which helped with the heat and humidity.  We had 7 people who wanted to play so we had 2 teams of 3 and one substitute.  We played for about an hour and a half which was longer than expected.  It took a while to find a decent place to play but we eventually found one that works and the Frisbee people were nice enough not to hit us.

Coming to an end

*Great food at Country Inn in Somerville. 13 of us went to Somerville for dinner and most of us grouped up and split items since the portions are so huge. Everyone went home full

*Final Final! I took my last final ever today. I studied all of 4 minutes or so for it before I went to take it and I feel like I got a 100%. I think I only needed about a 70 to get an A in the class so that class is taken care of. The final was really easy, but that could be because it was my undergrad class...

*I worked more on my 628 project and now I really only have the comments left. I think I can knock them out in the next 24 hours and then I will be completely done with classes forever...well except for classes to update my knowledge or train me on things I actually need to know in the workplace.

*Realizing that I do have a much more positive attitude now than I did a couple of years ago. I think UCM has played no small role in this transformation, and I only hope it can continue in the future as its isn't perfect yet.

Farewell to Grads :'(

*Final Aggie Supper ever! This is both good and bad, but it was a very nice farewell to all those graduating. I will be sad to leave (yes I think I have to leave Tara) but I must say that UCM and Aggie Suppers over the last 2 years have been so extraordinary that this short entry into the positives a plenty list simply cannot do it justice. Its impossible to say how much of a plus it has been!

*Planning a trip to Somerville tomorrow for a great steakhouse and getting lots of excitement about it.

*Start of UCM study hall. Even though I may not get a chance to participate as much in study hall this semester due to my experiment. I still enjoy the study hall time and the fellowship. This year it is at first pres Bryan and we can play pool, sega, or basketball. Oh, and the squirt guns...

*Squirt guns. I may not have really played with squirt guns since I was little, but today we discovered some during study hall and Stephen and I ran around inside (yes inside like 5th graders) and squirted each other. It really wasn't fair since his shot further and had waaayyy more water in it, but it was a ton of fun. I felt so young and that's what it takes sometimes. That's another part of what I love about UCM.

Free Food!

*Free Lunch! The aircraft design classes had their critical design reviews today and there was, as always, a lot of food left over. The grad students are always the first to descend onto the free food and it was quite good.

*Free Dinner! My SEI team had won the poster competition and we got a large gift certificate to Chilis so we went to dinner today for our meeting. I got something other than water which I almost never do, and a dessert which is even more rare. It was a really really nice treat.

*Inspiring someone else to start a blog with positives

*Thunderstorm!! I absolutely love thunderstorms. I even stood outside in the rain for a bit and watched the lightning, its so soothing to be inside (or outside on your own accord) during a thunderstorm

Fun & Busy Evening

*Rock climbing and racquetball in the same day!  Quite the exercise routine

 

*Being productive late at night when I'm normally not in the mood to work, especially after rock climbing and racquetball.  The productivity was simply because I felt like writing up some of my project.  I had been unable to be productive earlier in the day, but that couldn't keep me down stop me this time.

 

*Going out to eat with the officemates and those nearby simply because we all forgot to bring our lunches today.

Rain

*The sound of the rain.  The rain came on quickly today and was over pretty fast, but it was still raining when I left the building.  Luckily I had my umbrella in the office so that I wouldn't get wet.  The sound of the rain on the umbrella and then on the car was really nice to hear.  The thunder was great too.

 

*Racquetball!  Always fun, and I did really well.  We played from 8 until 11:20pm.

 

*Finishing one of my remaining 2 D&C projects.  One to go!