Firstly, there’s been work. It’s really ramped up and yeah…That’s really it. I’m trying to keep everything balanced in terms of work and life, and I’m doing an ok job at it. Still, I occasionally find myself working late, but nothing too insane.

The next big thing has been class. It’s going ok. It’s hard, but I’m hanging in there. Unfortunately, the homework eats into my life a bit. ::shrugs::

The other big thing that just eats my time is Sakura-con. As you know, I’m an assistant director for the con, and right now, there’s just a shit ton to do. I’m not going to go into specifics because, well, just don’t need to. Needless to say, it’s what I spend my weekends doing. Well, at least the days. I usually get Friday and Saturday night to do whatever. ^_^

So those are the big recurring themes of my of what have me so busy.

There was also a trip to Whistler a couple of weeks ago. Maybe I’ll get around to writing that. But yes, I’m still alive, I just have a lot going on. Alright, time for bed, I need to get up and work out tomorrow.

• Grad School – That’s right. Grad School. As of today, I have officially turned in my application for the professional masters program in CS at the University of Washington. I’d been doing a lot of thinking over the past six months about how I was wondering what I would do as far as my future career is concerned. After talking with some friends and thinking about it, I decided that I would like to open a bunch of possible doors and the best way to do that would be to further my education. Since UW has a masters program at night for professionals in the industry, and since Microsoft will pay for it…let’s do it. So yeah, I’ve applied to go to school part time.
• I’m leaving Zune – Big thing number two, I’ve left the Zune team. I’m still at Microsoft, mind you, but I’ve left Zune. I don’t want to go into all of the specific reasons why, but I will say, I came to the realization that I was ready to go tackle some new challenges. So where am I headed? Microsoft’s just announced hotness. It’s more cloud/internet/services stuff, but it’s a new thing for MS and it’s a pretty sweet idea. So yeah, after a year and a half, I’m leaving the social for new digs.

So those are the big big changes.
I also spent about five days back on the east coast in NJ/NYC. I was there doing some recruiting stuff and I got to visit Syd and my friend Lisa in NYC. It was pretty fun and I’m really glad I went. I may write more on that later, but for now, I want to get back to enjoying my “staycation.”