time keeps on slippin, slippin

It's been quite awhile since I've updated this thing. Typically I get on here to read other people's blog entries, and don't really post much on my own.

The theme of this year has been change. Almost every aspect of my life has had some sort of significant change over the past couple months. Where to begin...

Lets start with the fun stuff. My band, Third Coast Renegades, started playing shows in February. This has been an incredible experience for me, as it's something I've always wanted to do since I started playing guitar. When we first started playing out, I was nervous as hell and I'm sure we sounded like shit. We've played 6 shows thus far this year (with 5-6 left before the year's over!), and I've certainly come a long way in that time. I'm still nervous right when I get up on stage, but that nervousness fades away much quicker than before and allows me to get into the zone of just playing. I'm actually starting to PERFORM. This has helped me in other aspects of my life as well, particularly when giving presentations at work and doing various public speaking. I hope the rest of our shows this year rock hard, and things continue to progress musically into next year. Be on the lookout for our first CD in 2011...

Back in January, I moved to a new position within my company. I'm now the Product Support Engineer for Systems Software. This is still a support role, but it's less speaking with customers every day and more consulting my previous department and other people in the company when they have issues with our products. I think this position is great for what I want to do in my career, which is management. In fact, I just recently started managing the next release of one of our pieces of software. If all goes well, I'll start doing project management full-time. I'm much more comfortable in this role than I was in my previous one, which is great.

The biggest change, though, involved my personal life. I won't go into great detail, as those who would read this already know what I'm talking about. Since then, I've been in a period of self-reflection, thinking about who I really am and who I want to be. It's been a very eye-opening experience, and I think I'm much more honest with myself because of it. I've made a new group of friends from work, changed many aspects of my daily routine, and am trying to get the most out of life. Life's too short not to live it how you want to.

Well, guess that satisfies my 1 post per year quota. See you in 2011!!

end of a decade

i really cant believe it's about to be 2010. i can remember exactly where i was and exactly what i was doing on new years eve 1999. the 2000's for me represented a time of growth and learning. i graduted high school, graduated college, got my first real job, bought a house, learned how to drive, started playing guitar, went from never drinking an alcoholic beverage to turning 21, made new friends and lost old ones, and so much more. if 2010's (the 10's? 010's? how the hell are we supposed to say it?) are as wild and exciting as the 2000's were, then i cant wait.

from 2010 to 2019, i'll have gone from 23 to 33, which is generally the age people start getting married and popping out kids... yikes. i wonder if, 10 years from now, and if this blog still exists, i'll think back to today and how i viewed the 2010s. I wonder if it'll be anything close to what i'm expecting.

Happy new years eve everyone!

time for a change

i'm startin to think it's about time for some change. let's start with this blog layout/color, and see where it takes us

man, some days i really feel like i'm just gonna drown in all the work i need to get done. here's hoping work gets better in august

less than a month til i'm 23...

damn, this year has been flying by. oh well, better get used to it i guess

i feel like the underlying theme to june and july thus far has been transition and change. at work i'm beginning to take on more and more responsibilities, and will likely be moving up to Platinum Expert pretty soon. that basically means i'm one of the more knowledgeable people in the department, and thus have even more responsibilities and all that. i'll likely be out of the department sometime early 2010, which is kinda crazy. right now i'm thinking about taking either an R&D position or a product marketing position once i leave AE. marketing is a MUCH better fit for me, as i'm a pretty decent tech writer (at least according to some of the marketing managers i've worked with) and i like how you can see a project from start to finish. marketing are the ones who think up new projects, which is pretty cool. R&D is more of the engineering bread and butter. i want to learn about a lot of useful technical shit, and R&D would be the place to do it. i think i'd probably be happy in either position, so i'll have to wait and see how everything plays out

i also joined a band last month, and have been rehearsing twice a week. it's been fun as hell, and i really dont know why it took me 5 years to start playing with other people. i'm fuckin excited to start playing some gigs... which should hopefully be happening sometime in august or september. music is ftw

currently in the process of buying my first house too, which has been pretty crazy. i'm excited about moving in, and will definitely have to throw a huge party there at some point.

went on a cruise last week to jamaica, grand cayman, and cozumel. really awesome, as usual. had a great time with my stepbros and my cousins who i havent seen in forever. got sunburned (twice) and ridiculously drunk (twice). good times

off to watch tv the rest of the night. yay boring saturday nights. last night provided a little too much entertainment though... so i'm ready for a boring night.

it's always weird how after coming back from a lengthy vacation, i kind of forget what i'm supposed to be doing at work. that changes pretty quickly once i get my first call

Not the greatest of father's day's this year. Talked w/ my dad earlier... he's back in the hospital. Backstory : on Wednesday, Cherie called me up at work and told me my dad was in the hospital because he was having chest pains. Turns out he had a minor heart attack Tuesday night, but fortunately there was no permanent damage done to his heart. They didn't really know what caused it, but they thought it was a combination of the cholesterol medicine he was taking as well as starting a new workout program. He ended up going home Thursday evening. Friday night he started having chest pains again, so they brought him back to the hospital and it turns out he had another minor heart attack =( . Again, I don't think there was any permanent damage done, but the doctor's don't know why he's having these heart attacks. They've ruled out all the "major" causes, and still don't know why this is happening. They're running a bunch of tests now to see what might be causing this, and they're gonna talk with a cardiologist tomorrow.

After I talked w/ my stepmom on Wednesday, I really had a tough time concentrating on work and everything. I really just had to force myself to not think about it, because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get anything done. Wednesday evening I had flag football practice, which was nice to get outside and run around and take my mind of things. Friday I had band practice, which again was nice to just lose yourself in the music and take out some frustration on the guitar. But this weekend I've been thinking about it almost nonstop...

Happy father's day to all the dad's out there. You mean more to your sons/daughters than you'll ever know