I haven't updated my blog in sometime so I figured it's time since it has quite a bit has happened since my last post. First off I finished school finally, so we'll give that a big ole' w00t, cause w00t was word of year in 2007. Let's hope it dies with all the other trend-whorish terms like pwn, noobs, leet, brootal, bra, and hope it goes the way of the "I'm Rick James bitch" fad.

Anyway I have my Software Engineering degree now, which is really exciting cause I get to pay back heap loads of loans, go college! But I did get a job as a Robotics Engineer so now I get to help program robots to enslave the human race, or just automate manufacturing, the line is blurry.  But I will get to travel quite a bit which should be pretty cool considering I'm getting to travel on the man's dollar. I didn't get that job at google, my last phone interview my PC took a shit like in a minute into the call so that pretty much severed my umbilical for any resources. So I think it was meant to not happen, but my situation worked out for the best.

Now I am living down state with the ole' droneBox crew (Fresh and Chooch). Bill's women (Sarah) and Chooch's women (Emi) are living in Fresh's house with us too so we are all one big happy family. Bill's house has finally been finished re-modeling so we have a pool table, darts, stocked bar, the works, needless to say it's a pretty kick ass living situation.  It's also bad ass too because Chooch and I get to start jamming out again together so we'll probably be laying down some tracks soon. I will also start training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai kickboxing again at the warrior way again so I'm super pumped about that.

My last semester at tech was pretty fun, by far the most fun I've had a semester in a long time.  Thanks Rich, Laura, Toima, Nicole, Griep, Rico, Dave, Jess, Marcel & Stefon (Lutsch mein schwanz you crazy germans), The Mark Andrasko Experience, and anyone that made the semester fun.

Some things of note I finished working on the greenphone grant program I was working on, I also have been accepted for the first round of the Knight News Challenge, so hopefully I will be hearing soon if I made it to round 2, if I do then I just have to make it to round 3 and I'll be getting to work on some more open source software that will be funded, so I got my fingers crossed for that. I am also in the works of working on a project with 3 people from Microsoft that I'm pretty excited about as well.

So 2008 is starting off fairly well for me so far, and I'll try to keep headway

Well the summer is over and school has started again. I'm sure I'm not the only person you will hear say that the summer flew by. A few months back I wrote a blog posted entitled, "Summer of Awesome". I predicted that this summer would be a good time for me, but in retrospect I had know idea how awesome it would really turn out to be. It was by far the best summer of my life. Not once could I say I was bored, and considering I was pretty broke for most of it I can't believe all the things that I have done.


To highlight some of the things I did:

• Biking/Hiking/Kayaking/Canoe
• Chooch Visited (and Yassine, Jib, and Zak came and hung out too)
• 45 & Jan visited (a couple times)
• Chad Visited (a couple times)
• Hung out with John Bondie (my inspiration to play guitar)
  
• My brothers graduation party (got to see a lot of family/friends I hadn't seen in a long time)
• Got to ride in a 900 horsepower car (by far the fastest car I have ever been in)
• Brazilan Jiu-Jitsu/Muay Thai Kickboxing (trained at the Warriory Way)
• Got my white armband in Muay Thai (from Matee Jedeepitak, 4 time world champion)
• Helped Bill fix up his house (new bar, tiled bathroom, painted, etc)
  
• Barcamp
• Randy's Bachelor Party (best night of the summer)
  
• 2 Tubing Trips
• Worked for Google on Open Source Software from Home
• Family Reunion
• Built my first eCommerce Website
  

I also attended tons of concerts:

• Bury Your Dead(w/ Suicide Silence, Stick to your guns)
• Skinny Puppy
• Sounds of the Underground Tour
• Gorefest (Emmure, Bloodlined Caligraphy, and lots more)
• Marilyn Manson (w/ Slayer and Bleeding Through)

I was suppose to go to Colorado as well, but then that got canceled because my cousin wanted me to move a bunch of furniture to New York for him and said he would pay for my flight back. So I decided to pass up the trip to Colorado for that, but the furniture never came in on time so I had to go back to school instead., bummer on that one.


Recently I have been blessed with some more karma as well. I wrote a proposal this summer for a Qtopia Green phone grant.  Well on my birthday I got an e-mail saying my proposal was accepted. It's basically very similar to an iPhone(but it runs linux), and it's like $700, so that was a cool birthday present to get for free. I talked to my teacher if I could do my project for the last couple of credits I needed to get my degree this semester and he said it was cool, so that definitely worked out for me. There is a quick video I made of it here. I have also recently had 2 phone interviews with Google and found out that I get to have a 3rd one next week, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed(a thanks to Andy for the heads up on this one).


Once again thanks to anyone who helped make this summer one of the best I have ever had, it was awesome to get to hang out with so many friends and family I rarely get to see. I am now back at school and living with a German foreign exchange student. It's his first time in the U.S. but he is a pretty cool guy and seems to be picking things up pretty quick. There is so many hilarious things culturally that are different but he says he's loving the U.S. So this semester should turn out interesting.