Sunday, August 23, 2009

Back to School Again!

After a long hiatus, I'm finally headed back to the classrooms of CU. Tomorrow is the first day of school. Almost everything is ready; my books are purchased, I didn't need any new supplies, and I have my parking and bus passes. I still need to file a little bit of paperwork for my brand-new Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits. Luckily, in the Financial Aid department, my new status as married and a veteran means that only my own financial situation is considered, not my parents'. And since I'm a poor college student, I'm receiving a lot more tuition grants.

I'm pretty excited about being a student again. Riding on my recent wave of inspiration, I realize that being pushed back a year means I'll be in a different group of student colleagues. That gives me an opportunity to change people's perception of me. I can be the guy organizing study sessions and going to review sessions and office hours. I can be the guy that hangs out in the computer lab and helps underclassmen with their projects.

And it's as much of a change in the way I perceive myself as it is the way others perceive me. For years I've been following the same mediocre study habits; do the homework half-heartedly and only complete what's assigned, whether I really feel like I understand it or not. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. I kept this pattern because it was what I knew, and it was easy. This year-long break has given me an opportunity to change that attitude.

‘They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.’
-Andy Warhol

Monday, August 17, 2009

Painting, Camping Trip

Last week, Ashley and I finally got going on a project that we've been talking about even before I left last year. After Mike moved out last weekend, his bedroom was left empty, so it was perfect timing to empty our bedroom too and throw some paint on the walls. Ashley's mother loves to paint her rental property's interiors completely in ultra-pure gloss white, and it has been bugging Ashley for a long time. She says it's depressing to be around so much white. We've fixed that situation, painting our bedroom in green tones, and our new guest room in shades of red. It came out really well! We finished most of the painting in one day, which amazed me. The next day, Ashley shampooed the carpets in both rooms, so they're both nice and fresh.

After all of that hard work, it was a little hard to get motivated for the camping trip, but we managed to get packed and drive up on Friday afternoon. We camped at the Cold Springs Campground in Roosevelt National Park, just outside of Black Hawk. The site was beautiful and well developed. We were on two of the only pads without electrical, which I preferred. If you're going camping to commune with nature, why would you want electrical hookups? We set up a tent for Ashley and myself, and one for Chris and Holly, who were coming up much later, after dark. Kelly and Will arrived not long after Ashley and I, and set up their own tent. We spent Friday evening getting a fire going, cooking shish kabobs over the fire grate (with only some success), and talking. It was perfect.

In the morning, I got up early to get the fire started and cook breakfast on the propane stove. After breakfast, I suggested we all go geocaching, which the other two couples hadn't done before. We had an excellent little hike in the forest behind the campground, and were able to find The Tommyknocker's Cache. The other couples had a lot of fun and were gung-ho to find another cache, but on the hike back to the campground we had a little rain and decided to wait for later. After a lunch of Ashley's white chili, we split for a bit. Kelly and Will wanted to hop down to Black Hawk for a couple of hours to gamble a bit. The rest of us drove to an Idaho Springs laundromat to try and dry Ashley's sleeping bag out. She had been very cold during the night, and was convinced that her sleeping bag was damp. We ended up finding a motel office with the only laundromat/tanning salon I've ever seen. After that, we also drove to the Walmart in Evergreen and bought her a better sleeping bag, just in case hers was just not capable of keeping her warm. In the evening, Ashley cooked up tacos, and again we enjoyed the campfire and the company.

On Sunday morning, Holly made a breakfast of oatmeal and flavored granola, which was really good. After the day started to warm up, we struck camp. The group was eager to look for another geocache, so on the way home, we stopped and found the Dory Hill Cemetery cache. It was a beautiful cemetery, very natural, with overgrown grass and aspen trees. There were many new-looking headstones, but many of them were dated quite old, as far back as the 1860's. After that, we parted ways and headed home. We've all agreed to do similar trips with each other at least yearly. We had a ton of fun, and I'm really glad Kelly suggested it!

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Inspiration

Several things have happened lately that have started me thinking. First, I found a book while browsing Barnes and Noble with Ashley during the retreat in Columbus; The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development by Chad Fowler. It's been a great read; it talks about things you can do as a software creator to not only rise above the average programmer, and not only shine among your peers, but to have a fire for your work and actually enjoy your accomplishments. Chad draws on his experience as a professional musician in addition to his work as a software engineer, and compares the skills that make artists in both fields really great. While I've never been a good enough musician to be a professional, I can see that many of his points are valid.

Also, I recently sat down with some friends to watch the movie Once. In that movie, a pair of penniless musicians meet by chance and discover a wonderful connection through their music. While they don't forge a romantic relationship in the movie, their artistic skills combine to create something beautiful and moving. I had been interested in rekindling my musical pursuits, and this movie really pushed me toward that desire. I would like to start working on my music again, slowly but surely. Maybe I'll finally start learning the acoustic guitar.

If that weren't enough, our good friend Kelly suggested on a lark that we plan a camping trip. It's been years since I've been camping with my Dad and my siblings, and immediately I was hooked to the idea. We've been putting a checklist together and buying basic gear, like a tent and sleeping bags. When we mentioned the trip to Chris and Holly, they surprised me by being really interested to go, too. We were lucky to find the one campground in Colorado with two open campsites on the weekend, and they are even next to each other! It's been such a long time, and I'm really looking forward to the trip. I'm looking forward to being away from the suburbs for a couple of days, up in the mountains, and to smelling the crisp air and camp fire smoke. I always remember that feeling so invigorating!

All in all, I feel very motivated to jump back into life with both feet. For the past year with the Army, I did a great job at a position with very low expectations. I showed up to work on time, left on time, and did my best to stay sane and engaged in between those times. Now that I'm back, I want to excel and be a leader, and have a clear purpose. I feel ready to make every moment of every day count. I know that feeling may be tempered with the realities of day-to-day living, but I want to at least keep the idea that I have a clear goal, and to keep the work ethic to reach it.

I don't want to be a programmer that always goes where they can find easy, mindless work, toiling away in the cubicle farms. If my God-given talent is as a programmer, then I want to be a great programmer. I want to break boundaries and work on exciting projects and solve the problems that others can't solve. Move over, Microsoft, here I come!

Blog Change of Scenery

I've been using LiveJournal for a good long time, since I began blogging in 2004. Now, my friends, it's time to move on.

I've set up a new account at Blogger, which is Google's brand of blog, and I like what I've seen so far. I was able to import all of my LiveJournal posts to the new blog (with some technical fussing), and I'm really impressed with the advanced features that Blogger has for free. I have a paid account with LiveJournal, and it's still harder to customize to my liking.

This will be my last post on my LiveJournal; from now on, you can follow me at my Blogger site. If you've been reading through Facebook, not to worry. My posts from Blogger will be imported into Facebook notes just the same.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Strong Bonds Success

The Strong Bonds marriage enrichment retreat that the Army arranged for Ashley and I was a big success. We spent three full days away from home, and about two days in Columbus, Ohio. We were flown on Southwest Airlines, and I must say, I was really not a fan of their open seating policy. We stopped in Chicago for a layover, and Ashley and I both noticed the difference in the general atmosphere between that city and Denver. People in Chicago are just downright rude! I guess I shouldn't expect anything less; it has a reputation as a hard town.

The hotel in Columbus was very nice, considering that this was an Army event. The Columbus Airport Marriott treated the conference guests very well. The hotel's catered food and restaurant were good, the conference room was stocked with water and writing materials, and the rooms were clean and relaxing. As for the retreat, it was presented as a seminar, with short classes interspersed with small group and couples discussions. We learned some of the reasons couples can have problems, and learned some communication techniques to deal with impassible arguments that just escalate and never get resolved. Ashley and I haven't experienced a lot of those arguments, but we're still young in our marriage. I'm thankful that we can generally work together, but these techniques will come in useful for some of the harder things, I think. We also thought about some of the things that bug us in our marriage, and then linked that to our expectations of marriage, and thought about whether those expectations are valid or not. We talked about hidden issues, and personality quirks, and how they affect our marriages. Beyond all of the classes, it was just nice to get away from life for a couple of days, and focus on each other.

While we were in Columbus, the hotel offered to shuttle us to a local mall called the Easton Town Center. Everyone seemed to think it was the thing to do. I'll admit, it was nice. There were lots of shops, and a combination of indoor and outdoor shopping. But I don't think there were any shops we don't have at one of the malls here in Denver. I wish we could've seen more of the town, but we really only had one evening free. One thing Ashley and I did enjoy was The Cheesecake Factory. Even though we have them around home, we've never eaten there. If the local restaurants can do as well as the one at Easton, I think we may have found one of our new favorite places to eat.

Since coming back home, I finally bought a new car for myself. I went with a 1998 VW Jetta GLX. It's a V6, 5-speed manual, and it's very fun to drive. The car's in decent condition, but has a few quirks and small maintenance issues. One of the rear windows doesn't open, and neither does the sun roof, so they probably need motors replaced. The cruise control isn't operational. Still, the engine is good and has no leaks, so I'm happy. I just pray that this doesn't become one of those constant-maintenance cars that nickels and dimes you to death.

Besides that, I've been doing a few bus runs, and helped with a party for Ashley's uncle this past weekend. The party was a lot of fun, but Ashley and her mother had to do a lot of house cleaning and reorganization beforehand. She's still exhausted. On Monday, we helped Mike move out of the house and into an apartment in Boulder. He's finally been accepted into CU (congrats!), and will be starting there at the end of the month. He's located very close to campus, and the apartment's not bad. It is expensive, though. Best of luck, Mike.