Finally! I’m back (for now)…

Hey everyone. I know it’s been awhile, that it’s funny that my last “real” post was over a year ago stating that I would blog more. Well, guess I was wrong! Sorry about that… although it’s not like you missed all that much, anyway. :)

So I just finished re-doing my entire site. I didn’t do a redesign, so if you didn’t notice much of a difference, that is why. Basically, the last version was entirely XSLT-driven (and I really mean entirely), with just a main page and the gallery. It was fun to code at the time, but I was getting tired of the sub-par SEO and not having my blog in the same place (I really did not like Blogger after awhile. Hmm… maybe I will blame Blogger for my lack of blogging…).

So voila - what we have now is a (modded) Wordpress-driven site! The gallery is almost the same (but better), the homepage is somewhat unchanged (but better)… The gist is, not much has changed from the front-end, but all in all it really is much better. :)

So what else has happened in the past year + few months? I’d be lying if I said nothing, but it’s one of those things where it’s been so long it feels like not much has really happened. But I’ll try to fill in as best as I can…

Condo

For starters, I bought a condo. Yes, I am now a homeowner! My place is at the Penthouse Condominiums, which is in the north part of downtown, two blocks from the Texas Capitol. I’m in a corner unit on the 8th floor and have an absolutely awesome view of both the Capitol and the rolling hills of West and South Austin. I closed in late September, and thus far I’ve made a few minor improvements (much thanks to Chill), installed a washer and dryer (more thanks to Chill), and spent months trying to buy a sofa (that’s a whole story in itself). It’s awesome being able to walk to almost anywhere downtown, take the bus to work, and no more throwing money away at rent!

Kitty

I am now also a pet owner - Chill and I got a cat! We named her Tigger and she came from the Town Lake Animal Shelter. She’s absolutely adorable, and sometimes very crazy. You can see pictures of her at her album in the gallery.

Work and Life

In the past six months I’ve had three jobs and finally got some of my tax dollars back in the form of unemployment insurance. In November, I left Springbox for Powered. After about a month and a half and deep into the economic meltdown, I was one of many laid off in late January. Countless phone screens, interviews, and programming tests later, I am now at Pluck, where I started in early March. While getting laid off wasn’t fun, I have to say that it all ended up turning out really well. I got to go back home to Virginia for the first time in over a year, and it certainly was nice being able to sleep in for a month. :)

Ultimate and Running

Summary: fail. I attempted to train for the marathon. I started training in early September for the Austin marathon in February, and I was doing great about 75% through. But then I started playing ultimate in Winter League, something I hadn’t done since training started. The ground was hard, and shin splints and a sore calf in my right leg ensued. I stopped running altogether for a few weeks. And for the past couple of months now, I’ve been off and on. My shin splints are gone, but I’m caught in a loop - just when I started running again, I got sick. Then I turned my ankle. Then I got sick again. One week later, we are all caught up to today.

As for ultimate - when I decided to train for the marathon, it got put on the backburner. I don’t play nearly as much anymore, but I think I should try to start playing regularly again, if not just to make me NOT get injured again! I played for the first time in over three months last night, and I am in pain.

I did get to watch a ton of ultimate, though. Chill plays on Doublewide, the elite men’s team in the area. I traveled with the team to the Colorado Cup (my first time in Colorado!) and the Labor Day Championships, and watched them through the UPA series - Sectionals, Regionals, and ultimately Nationals in Sarasota. Playing ultimate is fun, but I’ve that watching isn’t so bad either. :)

Music

I go in streaks of show-craziness and droughts. I guess the summary of the past year is seeing Wilco at Stubb’s last summer, ACL 2008, Spoon at the Parish, and discovering MGMT. The next couple of weeks are going to be crazy, though. Next Tuesday is Spoon at the Scoot Inn (EXCITING), next Wednesday is Guster at Stubb’s (#19, baby!), the following Tuesday is Cake at Stubb’s (double set!), and the Friday after that is Death Cab at the Austin Music Hall. I wasn’t kidding when I said it goes in streaks.

Sports

It was a tough past year for the UVA fan. Both football and basketball were… the suck? I can say that as a fan, right? Leitao is gone, and the coaching carousel ensues. I never liked Al Groh, and who knows how much longer they’re going to put up with his shenanigans. What makes it worse is that I’m in Big 12 country, UT territory, where fans are shamelessly spoiled. They’re used to their football team winning national championships, Rick Barnes sends their team to the tourney every single year… Not that I don’t like Texas - it’s hard not to like them living here (unless you went to OU or some other Big 12 school) - but it’s amazing to hear fans complaining or calling for the coaches head when they lose a few games. Or rather, they’re SO concentrated around football that nobody cares about the basketball team, even when they’re good! Ah well.

I should point out that this year was the first year that I didn’t absolutely screw up my March Madness bracket. I was tops on all my pools up to the Final Four. Too bad I decided to pick Louisville over North Carolina to win it all, though. That was the difference between me being a sore loser or $150 richer.

I will try

To sum everything up, I’m just going to say that I’m going to TRY to blog more, but I’m not going to promise anything. I have a feeling it’s an inevitable cycle. You blog a lot for awhile, then you stop for awhile, and then you start again. We’ll see how long this part of the cycle lasts. :)