yosemite! (and some other random nonsense)

I've been writing way too much lately which means that if anyone actually reads this thing they might have an idea of what I'm really thinking. I don't think its quite possible to put all the pieces together yet though, especially since I have a hard time doing that myself and I live inside my thoughts.
But anyways, I had visitors this past week which gave me a great excuse to get out, be a tourist and take some pictures. It was a super busy week, but that turned out to work to my advantage. Being busy works well when you don't want to be distracted by other things.
Last weekend we went to Yosemite. There was lots of driving on windy, hilly roads but I enjoyed it and my passengers didn't get too sick...and they claimed that it wasn't my driving, just the windy roads. Perhaps they were just being polite - I'm not so sure. I got to climb on a bunch of the rocks in the picture. A lot of the time there's a waterfall running through there but at this time of year things are pretty dry. It would be nice to go back in the spring and see the difference. The other picture is just kind of neat. It looks like a perfect fall day - sunny with a deep blue sky. It looks crisp like the fall days that they get back in New England. I like being a tourist sometimes. I guess I'm looking forward to having more visitors then because that's what motivates me to do that kind of stuff. Next one comes in just over 3 weeks. I'll have to start thinking of things to do. I know I say this a lot but time is flying! I think I need to start a list, or maybe a few different lists. Between the movies I need to see, books I need to read, and places I want to visit, I can't remember them all.
I picked up some books yesterday so that should keep me more busy at bedtime. Instead of sitting down in front of the computer and writing to nobody and not falling asleep, I'll actually be able to read. I haven't really read much in the past two weeks or so and I definitely got less sleep because of it. Nothing puts me to sleep quite like reading a regular old book. Maybe in 10 years, when I've forgotten that I went to places like Yosemite at all, I'll actually appreciate this blog as a reminder. I guess that's motivation to keep posting...

a little more baseball

So the season is officially over. This is the least attention I've paid to a season since I can remember. I blame California. I made it home last night to see the last batter of the game, but that's the only part of the entire world series I saw. It just wasn't exciting. I wasn't sitting on the edge of my seat, biting my nails, grabbing the arm of the person next to me, holding my breath or covering my eyes. There were no phone calls from people that I know are *always* asleep at that time of night, no honking horns, people out and about in the streets, or lights on in every window. There were no yankees to route against. That was last year when the sox were red. But now, in true sox fan fashion, its time to look ahead to next season and see what they can come up with. There's always next year. And out of curiosity, since I'm on the subject, I need to figure out what happened to the "reverse curve" turned "reverse the curse" sign on Storrow. I used to drive that way a bunch but I can't remember if it ever got changed.

And on a completely unrelated note: I really like eating dinner outside in the dark. (This is mostly a note to me so I don't forget.)

a bit of a beating

Work seems to be beating me up lately. I finally thought I had a handle on things and then bam its like day one all over again. Although, really its not, it just seems like it sometimes... I've learned a ton so far its just that there is just a lot more to learn. If someone had given me my current project during my first week I would have been 150% lost whereas now its only about 75% and another few months from now I'd probably be down to about 40%. So I'm making progress, just not as quickly as some of the others. I know I've only been working for 4 months but its hard to see how people can get sick of their jobs. Everything is so dynamic and every day is different. Don't get me wrong, there are still times when I feel like tossing my two 24 in. monitors (I am very spoiled) out the window because I'm frustrated. But those times pass quickly and can mostly be blamed on C++ letting me shoot myself in the foot. My feet have lots of holes in them - its a good thing I'm still kind of young (depending on who you ask) so they heal pretty quickly.

Distracted

Its been a little while... In some ways lots has happened and in some ways nothing. I got that first phone call since I moved where I just wanted to be able to go home... But, since home is pretty far away these days, I couldn't. It's not like I could have done anything had I been there, but it would have been nice. I knew it was going to happen at some point - I just kind of hoped it wouldn't. It's called denial - I've pretty much perfected it. It's a good defense until it catches up with you and it doesn't do that too often. But next time, when the news is worse I'll be more prepared.
I keep getting distracted though which isn't so good for productivity and I like being productive. I'm trying to break that though. I beat it out of myself by running (if you can call my snail's pace running) a couple of times which was useful and productive. Then I got sick (I even had a slight fever :) ) and did nothing. Now that I've kicked the cold maybe I'll have to give it another try... otherwise I'm not going to get anything done again.