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Let's pretense this by pretending I never stopped blogging, my last post definitely wasn't in June, and I've been posting ever since. What's happened since then? Quite a bit, and not very much at all. I suppose first and foremost I've been kicking it with a new shorty (see below, and no, not the studly being in the black who asks me every day to post pictures of him,) and getting used to the 9-5 grind.

The area is certainly a blast -- NYC at least so far seems to be everything it's made out into. I'll definitely be making more trips than there in the next few weeks to do some holiday shopping for the rents, sister, and "The Dream" aka little Brendan. I've never been much of a present buyer for absolutely everyone, but maybe now's a good time to start, considering I'm on my own now?
Work all in all is amazing, I really couldn't ask for more out of a first job. They treat me great, are incredibly flexible, and keep complicated and mind enticing projects flying at me as fast as I can finish them. The proximity to wall street is a huge bonus, considering how hooked I am on reading the related news articles and watching companies stock prices fall (and occasionally rise.. I guess).
About a month ago I drove up to Boston and met up with Steve, Geoff, Oboy, Rat, and a few of Geoff's friends to tour the town while thye were in the area visiting Tyler. Boston was incredibly pretty, and not as busy as I would have expected. Certainly a place I'd considering chilling a while at some point down the road. It wasn't too long of a trip, but we did make it to a few landmarks, including the Cheers! bar (yes, like the TV show) and the Sam Adams brewery tour. That was followed by a wacked up night on the town where I fronted the drinks for a weak $200 tab. I guess I should have bought more shots, drinks don't quite run up the bill as quickly. Some alumni are better than others I guess!


I spent last weekend going out with the roomies, then one of my roommates (Kate) was in the Stamford Thanksgiving Parade the day after, so we went to watch her juggle in that. Kate dressed as a man bum clown, I only have videos it turns out and no good pictures (you can go to her Facebook for the pics..) so I won't throw them on the blog, but I did get some good shots of the different floats that were being expertly maneuvered down the street. I had to get the underdog pic for dad, since I always seem to remember him talking about that cartoon.


And here's Miss Piggy showing some skin, but at the same time keeping it just classy enough to parade through public.


Then this last weekend I spent Thanksgiving in Philadelphia with Sandra's parents and family. Everyone was remarkably hospitable, and even though I couldn't understand 80% of what was spoken in the house I felt surprisingly at home. The food was stellar (and completely new to me), and seeing Philly for the first time was great. I'll throw up a picture of the monsterous Phillie Cheesesteak I woofed down from Tony Luke's... mushrooms, hot peppers, onions, and cheese wiz make for one amazing sandwich. Sandra was nice enough to give me a tourist view of the down town, where we went to see the Liberty Bell, the Constitution Center, and South Street on Friday. Wednesday and Friday nights were spent partying and Saturday was a nice day to stay in the general area, take a peek at the high school, play around in Chinatown, and get a glimpse of what the bad parts of Philly are like.. haha. Overall I was pretty impressed with the city.. it's no Chicago but certainly has a welcoming feel to it.

Stamford, CT

I now reside in Stamford. I haven't really explored enough to get an abundance of pictures to share, but I'll still give you a rundown of the last week or so. Last Thursday I made one last trip to Purdue to visit my girlfriend, the Neon Cactus. She was gorgeous and impregnated with little ones as always, but this time only in the Piano Bar, so I had to forgo my typical time at the table near the dance floor so that I didn't spend the night alone. Notice the lack of people on the dance floor, this wasn't only at 8 pm, but the entire time we were there :(.
After my always-enjoyable Thursday, I spent the day recovering from the ensuing hangover most of Friday, before DK and Aaron got to town and we went over to Brothers and Where Else?. They were the typical nights, although I got to meet Tmo's new girlfriend, who seemed quite nice. It was nice to get a little goodbye in before taking off. Then on Saturday night Kathryn and I went to the epic B96 SummerBash, which had a wonderful lineup like always including T-Pain, Pitbull, Cascada, Ray-J, Natasha Bedingfield, Flo-Rida, and more. Flo-Rida and Pitbull really lit up the stage from what we could see from the best seats in the house. Notice how well positioned we were behind the snack stand! Luckily we were able to move a few seats to the right a bit through the show and actually see the screen and stage. Haha. Then the next morning it was off to Stamford! The drive was about 13 hours, pretty much what Google Maps said it would be. What Google Maps didn't say is that I'd get stuck on George Washington Bridge in NYC for over an hour of that trying to pay an 8 dollar toll to go over the bridge -- this was NOT FUN AT ALL in the new stick shift! Oh well, at least now I know to avoid driving in the city at all costs. Stamford doesn't seem terrible to drive in, and one day thsi weekend i'll probably try driving to work just to see what it's like traffic-wise. The neighbor across the street is a lot of fun, she stops over once a day or so with her big guy poodle Indy and we chat, but otherwise I haven't done too much exploring or meeting people yet. I went and got a membership at LA Fitness, found all the essentials, and now I'm kinda sitting it out until work starts. Maybe this weekend i'll explore a little more, find the beach, and get some more pictures of the town for you all. So i'll leave you with my room -- I picked the smallest room, because I ball like that, but I think it'll be fine -- it's already cozy. The new (expensive) bed is the most comfortable thing i've ever laid on :).

Jealousy

I don't even have my Mazda yet, but I'm falling more and more in love with the lineup every day. Today I spent most of the day doing random yard stuff -- picking up rocks that the snow plow pushes way off of the driveway, fixing the push mower, cooking venison sloppy joes (wow, those were terribly good), and checking out my neighbor's bright red Mazda RX-8. That's a gorgeous car in person, and I just wanna sit in it and spin the tires for a few minutes every time we drive down the driveway.
Saturday my dad and I went on a road trip to visit my uncle Ron and aunt Jackie. Ron hasn't changed a bit, still the happiest goofiest guy you'll ever meet. He has pretty much my favorite put down in the world -- "they're inbred." And who else can I go into the gas station with to get a drink, then have him walk out with a 12 pack of beer, jump in the car, pop it open and start heading home. We spent a couple hours at his new house, which is a very nice pad for the two of them, and then took about a 50 minute drive to his river house. The house on the river was very cute, someday I'd like to have either a house on a river or a lake, though it always seem that I end up having good friends that have exactly that setup that I can mooch off of. Maybe I'll do the fat condo in the city -- then they can mooch the real fun off of me :). Tonight I watched the WEC live event that was on -- I find MMA fighting so fun to watch. The guys from East Chicago and Hammond (around here) have a real dominant presence in those fights. It's crazy how guys who look like they have more muscle than me can weigh 125-145 pounds. It's absolutely ridiculous, haha. Those fights are so brutal, and the title fight definitely didn't disappoint between Urijah Faber and Jens Palver. I won't spoil it for anyone that actually watches those cage fights, not that I think any of you do =P.
I should be able to pick up my car Wednesday or Thursday, whenever it comes in from the dealer they had to ship it from. I'm gonna make a point to stall it out 10 or 20 times with my mom in the passenger seat since she gave me so much crap for wanting a manual, haha. Then it's up to Kathryn's for a few days to lounge on the golf course, maybe I'll hit a few balls down the driving range instead of the 9th fairway a couple hundred feet to the right this time. Thursday next week I'm hoping to have my "for real" last cactus trip, followed by a chill Friday at the Purdue campus bars. Sometime early Saturday I'll head up to Chicago to enjoy a day in the city and then a night at the B96 Summer Bash! B96 always seems to get a wonderful lineup, so that should be a great time. And then Sunday morning... it's time to pack it up and drive away from home for the last time!

Graduation and leaving Indiana

So my Grandma always asks me to send her pictures about what I've been up to, so I'm hoping that I can just post them here and direct her and that whole process will become automated. The first thing she asked me for was a few graduation pictures. Not that I took many, but I will warn you now, I was definitely the most dressed up person at commencement, and I definitely wasn't wearing the same clothes I went to the bars in the previous night. Commencement was certainly a fun ceremony, which I won't soon forget. President Cordova was a good speaker, and all the hoopla and ridiculously extravagant garb was worn. I didn't really feel the need to walk all over campus and take pictures with every landmark for some reason, like most kids do, so I don't really have that extensive of a collection of graduation pictures. What I did decide that I'm going to miss, however, is things from home like Buffalouies and Dunkin Donuts. The whole Dunkin Donuts problem was solved when I typed my new area code into their store finder and, much to my relief, I'm surrounded on every side by my favorite cup of coffee. Look at the bottom left of that screen capture -- 27 locations in the area, five in my new town alone! With Buffalouies though, I wasn't quite as lucky. With only three locations left (the one in Portage closed down!) and more wing places moving into our area every year, I don't know how many more times I'll be able to eat there before it goes out of business. So, in customary Chris Lee and Rich Yueh fashion, let me present you with the before and after shots of my last visit to Buffalouies. Notice the graveyard in the back. I'm gonna miss that place.
















On another note, grandma also asked me for pictures of the cats. I was lucky the other day and stumbled in on them all taking a nap together, so I was able to finish this assignment in one swift push of the button. The nice thing about this picture, is that it actually catches the cats in their natural poses too. Violet is giving her default "leave me the heck alone" stare, Gracie is sleeping, and Maybelle is waking up and stretching so she can come over and greet you. I'll certainly miss automating the playing process with Maybelle.














I really enjoy this medium of writing if you can't tell, it leaves opportunities to seamlessly interweave pictures and little tidbits about what you're doing with your life and make them easily accessible to the world. Heck, people don't even have to make it their homepage to make sure I haven't updated it everyday, just subscribe to the RSS feed and you're good. I love being such a young part of the future of computing. Blogging was a word hardly understood by anyone a few years ago, now it's probably got an entry in the dictionary (don't quote me on that quite yet, those books that are still actually printed are slow sometimes.)














One thing that definitely impressed me about the commencement ceremony, which I forgot about until I posted the diploma picture, was that they actually had our individual diplomas ready as we walked across the stage. I went back to my seat holding it -- no need to wait for it in the mail or pick it up later. My high school couldn't even pull that it off, and our graduating class was hardly 400 students. Impressive Purdue, impressive.

Finally, I guess i'll leave you with a picture of the Chile Verde I mentioned last time. I thought it came out pretty good, and it almost looks like what it's supposed to, or as Kathryn would say "a bowl of green goo."

Getting this started.

Since i'm moving away in less than 3 weeks, I decided that blogging would probably be the easiest way to keep my friends and parents informed as far as what I'm up to. I've never been to much of a diary keeper or writer, but maybe since blogs are so close to the computer I'll be able to keep up with it.

The latest escapade in my life has been car shopping. I'm pretty much hooked on the Mazda3 after test driving it and am in the process of trying to pick colors and options. The Nissan Sentra was my second favorite out of everything I drove, but once I found out I can knock $2500 off the price of a Mazda I was sold. The Mazdaspeed3 is such a hot/tempting car, but I suppose I'll keep my head on straight and put mileage higher on the priority list than horsepower (for now) -- so I think i'm going with the S model in the dark grey. It'll probably look like the ride below, but with a spoiler. My mom said it doesn't quite look right without the spoiler, and who am I to argue with my mom.

The next thing on my agenda lately has been insurance shopping. I plan on buying it about 10 days before I leave, so that I'm on my parents insurance "grace period" when I drive out to CT, but after that point insurance is going to be up to me. Getting old is pretty nuts, I never thought I'd be saying I'm "insurance shopping." FYI, Geico is ridiculously cheap. They were the only company besides Liberty Mutual that offered me any amount under $1000 for 6 months -- even with the higher coverage levels. I'll probably end up supporting Warren Buffet and the Gecko/Cavemen after all, god knows they spend enough money on advertising to warrant it.

In non-real-life (I suppose), I spent most of the last few weeks cooking and trying to pick up Ruby. Ruby really is a fascinating language -- it's syntactically nothing like anything else I've worked with. You really have to start thinking out of the box to even guess what the correct syntax to do anything would be. I suppose that goes to show that when the Japanese set out to do something it's always going to be completely off the wall. The learning curve is feeling pretty high, but I suppose I have to learn a scripting language sooner or later. I might as well go with the one that fascinates me the most.

As far as cooking goes, I finished off the last of my Chile Verde today. That's definitely a dish I'm going to want to perfect over time, it was one of my absolute favorites when I had it during spring break in LA. I think I added a bit too much cilantro and I want to play around with the different chiles you can put in it. I tried Anaheims, which definitely had a bite to them. I'm probably going to try pablano's next time just to see what they have to bring to the table. When I was reading about all the different types of chiles around Google I kept hearing about a hatch version from New Mexico. Knowing how much I love hot things it's probably only a matter of time before I order a bushel and go to town putting them in everything...