Ice Cavern Studios

In my life, there have been two women, outside of my family, who have had a major impact on who I am today. What’s interesting is that, until today, I had never realized how very similar they are. And it just makes me smile.

A little over ten years ago, when I was only 14, I met Emily. It was in art class in eighth grade. Well, it was Emily’s class, I was a helper for the teacher. I struck up a conversation with her while we were both painting. I was doing a tribute to Jackson Pollock, she was doing Marc Chagall. And the rest, is history.

I met Nicole in Mathey dining hall in Princeton. My best friend, Pat, had been telling me about this amazing girl I had to meet. How she was so smart, and very attractive. He kept going on about this Nicole person. Telling me I’d be floored. And I was. I only was around her for 30 minutes, and I knew she was awesome. And the rest, is history.

And here I am today; smiling as I think about the various similarities they share. In both I have always felt comfortable talking about both deep, personal issues. Yet both I could easily spend 30 minutes shooting the breeze about nothing. They’re both stubborn as mules, yet coercible when their friends are concerned. They’d gladly give up a kidney for a friend, and they would never ask for that in return. They hold their friends to high standards, yet forgive them when they fall desperately short of them.

Both of these ladies are beautiful and charming. They’re humble in triumph, yet driven to prove wrong every naysayer they have ever met. They have both told me I’m wonderful and then popped my ego when it quickly grew too big. They’ve picked me up when I’ve fallen, and they’ve never let me settle for mediocrity.

As friends, they are more than I feel I have ever deserved. I am blessed to have had them influence me, and I am grateful to Him for their continued presence in my life.

Emily, thank you for everything. I hope the next 10 years are as good, if not better than the first. Happy 24 Birthday.

Nicole, I love you. I anxiously await the next three years because I know they will be better than the first. Happy Anniversary.

Life and Times

…Or getting your ass handed to you by a lot of really smart people. (Hmm…I really need to be able to have bylines) But yeah, that really says it all about the MS puzzle hunt. It was an ass kicking. It didn't start off that way, it just ended that way.

So what is the MS Puzzle Hunt? It's a puzzle solving competition that lasts for over 30 hours held by Microsoft Employees for Microsoft Employees. It’s basically a super-nerd contest. Teams of MS employees try to solve as many puzzles in the given time as possible. And by puzzles, I mean seriously hard, uber-puzzles. I’m taking about puzzles that made my Theory of Algorithms problem sets seem easy by comparison.

And Team Nerdhouse got spanked.

What’s worse, if we could have kept up our puzzle solving pace, we would have done really well. The problem is, sometime around 1:00 AM, after a good 14 hours, we hit the wall. And that was about it. Before that, we were doing fairly well. We were about average, which is good for a first-year team. But that slipped, and by the time we through in the towel, we were only a few spots from last.

Sigh…

Nothing says fun like betting made to feel dumb. I don’t know why I signed up for this. While I had a good time, I’m not good at these kinds of puzzles. I’m still surprised I was able to do well enough to get hired by MS. So while I did manage to come up with a few key answers (I was able to figure out how to do one of the mega puzzles worth 2.5 regular ones) I never felt like a real contributor. Which just made me feel pretty lousy during it. I wanted to feel like I pulled my weight. I wanted to be able to get stuff, and show people that I’m smart. Instead, I just came away feeling kind of dumb.

Oh well. This week is looking to be good, so I’m not going to sweat it too much. I’m heading to Boston on Thursday night to spend the weekend with Nicole. That should be a lot of fun. I’ve had a long couple of weeks and a chance to get away from everything and just relax is going to be very nice. Plus, I think she can use a nice restful weekend as well.

Alright, time to get moving. I need to rest up for the week. Lates.

Life and Times

It's 7:51 and I am up way too early. I also should have updated, but I've been a bit…well, there really isn't much of a good excuse. I should have just posted by now.

So yeah, I'm currently sitting here in the Mazda dealership as they work on my car. Nothing bad, just the usual maintenance, but still. I’m up a wee bit early. I guess I should do a bit of recap on what’s going on.

Firstly, the job. Well, life could be better. Things don’t seem to be heading in a place I want to move, so I’m thinking of leaving the group for a different one. (I have no desire to leave MS) I had a chance to move to Boston through MS, but at the last minute, the position was moved to Redmond, and so I’m still stuck here in Seattle.

Outside of work, I’m still climbing, although a little Xbox 360 play testing has kept me from the gym on my usual nights. Flag football is still going well, although we lost for the first time last week. We should win this week which will give us the first round bye next week. I even got back to the gym for the first time in a while. The roommates and I are still getting along, beating out estimates by a few people. And generally, I’m doing alright. I’ve been tired, but nothing too crazy.

Finally, Nicole and I are still together and doing well. Our 2 year “anniversary” was last week. I say that in quotes since we really don’t have a real date, but yeah, she’s still awesome. I’m taking a trip to Boston next week during the bye to visit Nicole and to get away.

So yeah, I’m still hanging in there. This and next month look to be fun. Going to be traveling back east a bunch and seeing people. I’m really looking forward to it all. Word

Life and Times