I think I’ve alluded to this before, but I feel like a part of me is missing when I forgo writing for so long. I lose track of where I’ve been, and I don’t verbalize my ponderings. In turn, I think I end up stunting further ponderings.

Addendum
There are actually a couple of topics that I neglected in my last entry way back in November. You’d think six months would be enough to time to remedy that, but I’m a born procrastinator.

At some point in fall (I don’t recall exactly when), I remembered the fun that is Cornhole. We hadn't picked up a new game around these parts in a while, so I ordered a set online. I've mentioned it previously, but to refresh those of you that aren't familiar, it's kind of like Horseshoes with bean bags. It's a tremendous amount of entertaining. We played it very few nights there for a while despite bugging the heck out of some neighbors with the noise of bean bags pounding on wood out in the parking lot. It actually led us to meet a number of neighbors that we probably wouldn’t have otherwise.

Additionally, I made my national television debut on ESPN. I posted the picture on Facebook, but I'll repost it here also. Basically, I appeared in the audience of a WSOP broadcast while I was railing Daniel. I talked more about that here.

Wiiii!
After the fall semester closed, I went back to Chattanooga for the holidays. I dropped through Birmingham briefly on my way there and spent a morning with Amber searching to find a Wii for Paul for Christmas. We weren't successful, but we did find out that Best Buy was getting a shipment of them later that weekend. The salespeople recommended that we show up a few hours before the store opened.

I went back to Chattanooga and planned to go to the Best Buy there. We planned to go at around 4am, but someone informed us around midnight that people were already lining up, so we headed down. It was a cold, uncomfortable night. I’d never waited in a line like that before, but I didn’t really have much better to do. I pulled out a sleeping bag and intermittently played Cornhole with some other people in the line. They ended up giving out 15 Wiis. Fortunately, we were 13th in line. We've gotten a good bit of mileage out of the system so far, but I still have some reluctance playing video games these days that can’t turn a profit... which is kind of sad.

I spent most of the break being lazy at home with the family. I did hang out with some of my friends and some of my siblings' friends a bit. Unlike other holidays, we didn’t go visit the cousins. There were a number of issues that led to that result, so the holidays had an odd flavor to them. One other highlight of the break was going to a party at Jeremy’s and seeing some of the guys. Oh... and Jeremy's sisters (while somewhat young) are hot.

Back To School Special
After all that relaxing, I jumped back into school for my last semester. I lacked two Electrical Engineering electives and Senior Design. I settled upon Electric Machines and Digital Image Processing for the electives and a power-oriented lab for Senior Design. Having never taken a PE class in college, having some room in my schedule, and figuring I could use some exercise, I also threw in Ultimate Frisbee for fun. I'd had the elective teachers previously, so I somewhat knew what to expect. Fortunately, Electric Machines was mostly an extension of Power Engineering which I had in the fall. A lot of the topics were review with a little more depth. As for DIP, I was pretty frequently lost. It involved a little more programming than I’m comfortable with, but I ended up passing the class and learning the basics (mathematical functions) behind Photoshop image manipulation, so it was a positive experience.

In my Senior Design, I got assigned to a group with Hal, Chris, and Stephanie. We ended up becoming pretty good friends by the end. In fact, I don't recall ever meeting and liking so many people in my major until this year. Outside of my group, I also spent a good bit of time talking and studying with Matt, Jeff, and Ryan. Most of the engineering students that I've dealt with in the past... well, I just didn’t like dealing with them. Anyway, our lab ended up designing something called a DC-DC Boost Converter. I won't bore you with the details, but basically it takes a low voltage source and outputs a higher voltage. I ended up getting stuck with most of the programming. We cut it close, but by the end, it mostly worked.

And that wraps up my undergraduate career! After all of these years, I'm finally done. No more sarcastic "So when are you graduating?" I didn't actually walk at graduation... something that my mom wasn't very thrilled about. I just didn't feel like it was worth the hassle (the ceremonies are huge) and a lot of my friends never walked. I do need to go pick up my diploma at some point soon.

Wooden Planks
Early in the semester, I took another trip with some Navigators. A group of about eight of us went to North Carolina to go skiing/snowboarding with a group of FSU Navigators. It was an official retreat for them, so there were a lot of them and we were kind of the tag-alongs, but they were pretty welcoming. It was the first time I’d been able to hit the slopes since Colorado, so I was raring to go. The Blue Ridge Mountains don't quite compare to the Rockies, but we were pleasantly surprised with the conditions. There was enough snow and it wasn't as slushy as we dreaded. I still fell a decent bit, but I was prepared with wrist-guards and felt a lot more comfortable than the last time. I also learned that I may prefer goofy-footed. I know that I certainly prefer being on my heels as opposed to my toes, but I’ll keep working on that.

The next day, I went on a really pretty hike with some of the group. I got to have some rather lengthy conversations with a couple of girls, so that was pleasant.

Work Vacation
Over spring break, I decided to head to Reno. I figured I could squeeze in some more snowboarding between tournaments, but I never got around to it. I ended up staying at a nice resort/hotel. The place had a mall, movie theater, and bowling alley built into it, so I stuck around the site.

Upon arriving, I played in a satellite to see if I could get cheaper entry into the main event, but that didn’t work out. My goal was to play the main event anyway though, so I stuck by that. The cards and situations resulted in not ever really getting much going. (I lost with two full houses within the first level.) I did get to play with a number of lesser known pros and talked with a few of the more well-known ones. Daniel remembered me from last summer, so I was happy about that. After I busted out, I was somewhat bummed and went to bed early.

When I woke up around 5am, I decided to head down to the card room to see if anything was going on. On my way there, I noticed Daniel playing Chinese around a small coffee table with a few other well-known pros. The game's scored so that you don’t need chips/money on the table, but suffice to say that tens of thousands of dollars were changing hands. I said hello to Daniel and stood behind him for a bit. After a while, I asked if he minded if I sat down, so I ended up sitting next to him and "sweating" his cards for around 7 hours. It was really really cool getting to sit and talk with those guys. Other pros dropped by periodically. I've had difficulty relating the magnitude of coolness involved. Basically, think of whatever realm you're into that involves any sort of celebrity (movies, sports, etc). Now imagine hanging out for hours with some of the biggest names in that realm and feeling completely welcome.

Perhaps still pumped from that experience, I ended up playing a tournament that evening and cashing in my first live event. I came in 7th out of around 100 players for around $1k. The next day, my friend JC (who I'd met in New Orleans last year) was still doing well in the main event, so I started railing him some. He ended up making the WPT TV Final Table, so some of us got to watch him play that. Again, I’ll be on TV... in the audience, behind JC's mom on July 25th. I think I need to be playing at the table the next time I make an appearance. =) Anyway, JC ended up getting 2nd for $300k, so that was pretty exciting. He's been making a bit of a splash on the tournament circuit this year.

Girl Part
So my general take on girls this past year or two has been apathy. They really haven’t seemed worth the time, but I have run across a few that I've gotten to know a bit better.

You may remember "Soup Girl". Well, her name's Jennifer, and I ran into her again last spring. She was working with my dad and told him I was looking cute or something. I didn't think much of it at the time, because she was in another town. Well, she moved back to Auburn, so we started talking. She was pretty busy, so hanging out was somewhat difficult. There were a number of life issues that got in the way, but suffice to say that it ended in rejection. Not a big deal. We're still on friendly terms.

On the snowboarding trip, I got to know one of the Navigator leaders – Briana. I mean, we'd met before, but we'd never really talked. I was really impressed as I got to know her and we seemed to have good report. We had lunch a few times, but I was assured that it was strictly platonic... so that was nice.

I mentioned Stephanie from my engineering group before. Well, we went to lunch one day, which actually led to us going to dinner about a week later. It marked my first weekend/dinner/second date in... a long time. Some of our personal beliefs didn't quite jive, so it didn't work out, but I was happy for the experience.

Finally, I got to know this girl online. (Upon reflection, it's a little sad that the net has been so responsible for my relationships in the past.) We were getting along pretty well and had several phone conversations that lasted many hours. The distance was a bit of an issue, but I was looking forward to meeting up. Well, that came to a pretty abrupt end with this e-mail: "Thank you for letting me have the opportunity to get to know you. However, I am going to focus my attention towards someone else. I truly believe you will make someone very happy one day. Thank you very much for always being a gentleman." So again... fun times.

I'm pretty torn. There really doesn't seem to be any "solution" per se. If I "try", it's not going to work out... because... well, it just doesn't. If I don't put forth any effort, it's also not going to work out, because I won't be meeting girls. So really the trick is to get to where I've kind of settled anyway... not caring. I mean, it's only annoying when I'm confronted with friends in relationships and the media saturation of "love". So that's pretty easy to avoid, huh?

Plans
What's on the short-term agenda? I'll probably head to Mississippi this weekend to play in Biloxi and hang out with Jordan. After that, I'll be going back to Chattanooga to visit with my family and then go to David W's wedding in Huntsville. From there, I head to Vegas for a month. I've rented a condo out there, so that'll be nicer and more social than holing up in a hotel room like last year. I also know a lot more people this go-around.

Once I get back from there, I'll probably be between Chattanooga and Auburn. I'll likely move to Birmingham sometime between August and December, and I'll be working with a company.

Well, I should have more after such a delay, but that'll do for now. I hope I'll have more reflectionary material the next time.