Happy New Year - Part 1
The end of a year and beginning of another is always the a good time to take a look back at what has happened over the last year of a person's life and take inventory of the events that shaped the year for them personally. After beginning to make a quick list of what I've done in the past year, it quickly became clear that I have done a lot since Jan. 1, 2006. Highlights follow
In January, I took over as President of the Information Technology Student Association at ISU and got to organize a few different speakers to come to ISU to talk to our CS students. The highlight of the speakers for me was finally getting Volition (makers of Descent, Freespace, Summoner, Punisher, and Saint's Row, among others) to come and speak to our club. The did an awesome job as our last speakers and it rounded out my reign of Presidency at ISU in May.
As part of my reign as Pres. of the ITSA I also had to organize our yearly trip to the AITP National Collegiate Convention in which a National programming contest is held. Of course I didn't plan this alone. A few friends held out quite a bit, namely Karen and John. We travelled to Dallas, TX to represent ISU at the competition and came away with a few first places and even more 2nd and 3rd places. I ended up getting 3rd again this year in the Visual Studio.Net competition. I posted about it back in April or May of last year, but to recap, over my 4 years of college I ended up with Runner Up, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd in the Visual Studio.Net competition as well as a few other placements over the years. I'm going to miss competing quite a bit.
February was my first Nine Inch Nails concert and all I can say is that it was beyond words and I can't wait to go to the next one. There is something great about hearing live songs like Closer, Head Like a Hole, Hurt (yes, Nine Inch Nails put this out before Johnny Cash. Cash remade it), and Every Day Is Exactly The Same, among others.
I went on my first, and likely only, "Spring Break" excursion in March to Cancun, Mexico with some good friends and had the time of my life. For a full week we partied, laid on the beach, explored Mayan ruins, and came away with an awesome life experience. We got to hang out with an awesome bunch of girls from Wisconsin after bonding over the lies of our would-be hotel managers and being moved to a much better location. Pretty much they were in every place we ventured to, so we all just started hanging out at the clubs there, rollin with a 10-person posse. Good times were had by all!
In May, a few huge things happened in my life. Its actualy hard to pick one of them as the most significant though. First and foremost, I graduated from ISU with a Bachelor's in Applied Computer Science and a Minor in Mathematics. I'm actually more proud of the Math minor I think. I kind of see the degree more as a necessity for employment than anything else. The Math minor was a big deal to me because I hadn't taken any courses towards it since my Freshman year of college so when Senior year came around, I was going through Calc3 and some other upper level courses after having a few years off. A few of my friends even had some friendly wagers on whether I'd pass the courses, specifically Calc3, which I find pretty hilarious. They didn't tell me until after I had passed the class. I'm glad to say I beat the line on that wager.
During finals week at ISU, I went with my brother Erik and friend Brian Layman to attend the last ever Electronic Entertainment Expo (e3) in Los Angelos, CA. Highlights include
-Meeting a worker in the bathroom to get security wristbands, much like I would imagine a Smothers Brothers version of a drugdeal would occur.
-Meeting Jeremy from Pure Pwnage (picture)
-Standing in line for hours to see the Wii and it being totally worth it
-Not standing in line to play the PS3 and it being the right decision
-Emo Link
-BoothBabes
-Many, many others
Also in May I started a new job at ChoicePoint as a Software Developer. That means that I finally had the foresight to leave STL Technology Partners after what I would describe as 2 years of hilarity, and not the good kind. I am much happier at my new job and being compensated much better for it. Currently I'm working in C#, doing both Desktop Application and Web Application development with the .Net 2.0 framework. In other words, I make programs that you could either double-click on your computer's desktop and run, and I also create webpages. Other technologies right now include a few of the XML-family languages (XSL:FO, XSLT, XPath, XQuery, etc.).
Finally, I officially started dating my girlfriend Julie Yaunches. She's beautiful. She's a programmer. She enjoys a good beer. She rocks.
Look for year-end recap, Part 2 starting from June in another post!
In January, I took over as President of the Information Technology Student Association at ISU and got to organize a few different speakers to come to ISU to talk to our CS students. The highlight of the speakers for me was finally getting Volition (makers of Descent, Freespace, Summoner, Punisher, and Saint's Row, among others) to come and speak to our club. The did an awesome job as our last speakers and it rounded out my reign of Presidency at ISU in May.
As part of my reign as Pres. of the ITSA I also had to organize our yearly trip to the AITP National Collegiate Convention in which a National programming contest is held. Of course I didn't plan this alone. A few friends held out quite a bit, namely Karen and John. We travelled to Dallas, TX to represent ISU at the competition and came away with a few first places and even more 2nd and 3rd places. I ended up getting 3rd again this year in the Visual Studio.Net competition. I posted about it back in April or May of last year, but to recap, over my 4 years of college I ended up with Runner Up, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd in the Visual Studio.Net competition as well as a few other placements over the years. I'm going to miss competing quite a bit.
February was my first Nine Inch Nails concert and all I can say is that it was beyond words and I can't wait to go to the next one. There is something great about hearing live songs like Closer, Head Like a Hole, Hurt (yes, Nine Inch Nails put this out before Johnny Cash. Cash remade it), and Every Day Is Exactly The Same, among others.
I went on my first, and likely only, "Spring Break" excursion in March to Cancun, Mexico with some good friends and had the time of my life. For a full week we partied, laid on the beach, explored Mayan ruins, and came away with an awesome life experience. We got to hang out with an awesome bunch of girls from Wisconsin after bonding over the lies of our would-be hotel managers and being moved to a much better location. Pretty much they were in every place we ventured to, so we all just started hanging out at the clubs there, rollin with a 10-person posse. Good times were had by all!
In May, a few huge things happened in my life. Its actualy hard to pick one of them as the most significant though. First and foremost, I graduated from ISU with a Bachelor's in Applied Computer Science and a Minor in Mathematics. I'm actually more proud of the Math minor I think. I kind of see the degree more as a necessity for employment than anything else. The Math minor was a big deal to me because I hadn't taken any courses towards it since my Freshman year of college so when Senior year came around, I was going through Calc3 and some other upper level courses after having a few years off. A few of my friends even had some friendly wagers on whether I'd pass the courses, specifically Calc3, which I find pretty hilarious. They didn't tell me until after I had passed the class. I'm glad to say I beat the line on that wager.
During finals week at ISU, I went with my brother Erik and friend Brian Layman to attend the last ever Electronic Entertainment Expo (e3) in Los Angelos, CA. Highlights include
-Meeting a worker in the bathroom to get security wristbands, much like I would imagine a Smothers Brothers version of a drugdeal would occur.
-Meeting Jeremy from Pure Pwnage (picture)
-Standing in line for hours to see the Wii and it being totally worth it
-Not standing in line to play the PS3 and it being the right decision
-Emo Link
-BoothBabes
-Many, many others
Also in May I started a new job at ChoicePoint as a Software Developer. That means that I finally had the foresight to leave STL Technology Partners after what I would describe as 2 years of hilarity, and not the good kind. I am much happier at my new job and being compensated much better for it. Currently I'm working in C#, doing both Desktop Application and Web Application development with the .Net 2.0 framework. In other words, I make programs that you could either double-click on your computer's desktop and run, and I also create webpages. Other technologies right now include a few of the XML-family languages (XSL:FO, XSLT, XPath, XQuery, etc.).
Finally, I officially started dating my girlfriend Julie Yaunches. She's beautiful. She's a programmer. She enjoys a good beer. She rocks.
Look for year-end recap, Part 2 starting from June in another post!