This year was a solid Christmas. Things have changed a lot since last Christmas at this time, but isn’t that always the case. All in all, its been a great year and there is always the dream that next year will be even better.

Now, this year for Christmas I got myself a new guitar and another Xbox to mix things up in Left 4 Dead properly. But what I’m most excited about getting to break in is the gift that Santa brought me this year. Santa brought me one of the new Sony Digital Readers the PRS-505. It’s pretty sweet, but not without its flaws, but so far I like it better than the Kindle (that may just be because I don’t actually own a Kindle and do own one of these). I swore after getting a Sony MiniDisc player that I would never again own a Sony device, so I guess in some way I’m eating crow. Switching from page to page isn’t as fast as I would like, but the text is as smooth as butter to read. I’ve tried reading technical documents and books on computers screens (CRTs back in the day, and LCD displays these days) and I just can’t do it. My eyes just flip the quack out for anything longer than a few minutes. But with the digitial ink displays, its fantastic. I’ll write a more proper review of the PRS-505 once I’ve gotten some more time to play with it, but my first impression is very high.

I mean seriously, what happens to the time. It’s been what two months since my last post. Apparently. Damn! So much changes, in such a short time. I went up to see John a few weekends ago, and hoping to head back up there the first weekend of April. That was a blast. It had been way too long since I’ve seen him and his wife. It was good to catch up.

Both of my jobs are kicking my ass. And I think what really takes up the most of my time is preparing for teaching. I remember back when I was TA at AIA, I would just show up and help out a few students and maybe have a lecture or two every once in a while. But this is a whole new ball game. Its rough, but a hell of a lot of fun. I’m teaching with Mr. Ford and Mr. Rabun in the Game Design department and the department chair is Mr. Manning so its kind of like mini AIA reunion. I dunno, its taking some getting used to. The days are long, sleep is elusive, and there seems little time for my own personal projects beyond work… But its better than working at the bookstore and having absolutely no money like 3 months ago. Like I said, it’s weird how much things can change in such a little time, and how much ones perspective of the world can shift.

I’ve been trying to get out of the city on the weekends to go back up to the Smokys and get some hiking and camping done. I was supposed to go last week, but the girlfriend put up the nix on that. Thats alright, though. I needed the sleep and it was good to have a weekend where I wasn’t doing something. But I’m really excited about the new Magellan GPS Triton units, the most expensive one has a built in digital camera. I think that it would be really impressive to geocode the images taken with the camera with the current GPS location, and match that to google maps. It could make for a really dynamic website prototype. I’m going to try one out at REI next time I’m out there. If it as good as they make it sound, I hope to have it out on the trail this summer.

Well, my class is almost over and I’m headed out for some sushi with Mr. Ford. So I’ll try to update this a little more often… (I know what you are thinking, but we’ll see!)

Another year come and gone, and this has been an especially busy one for me. Looking back, seems like the year between August of 2006 to August of 2007 was probably one of the most volatile periods in my life to date. So much has changed that it seems almost outrageous to reflect on it now. I have changed seemingly everything during that period of time; I changed apartments, quit jobs, lost a girlfriend, made new friends, lost touch with old friends, got a new girlfriend, fried a computer, got a new laptop, lost a cat, adopted a new cat, left the country, reluctantly returned to the country. The person I was two years ago seems almost like a complete stranger to me and I can’t help but wishing that I could communicate with my past-self and warn him of the changes ahead.

Things tend to get a little too intense and screwed up at times for me, but I guess that is just life. I’ve learned a lot over the past year, but to be honest, I’m glad that its over. With all the change swirling around me, there have remained percious few constants; Friends, family and small static comforts, and for them and the solidity to my life that they bring I am truly thankful.

So now on the eve of yet another year, I can’t help but wonder, “What else can change?” I have high hopes that things will be changing for the better this year, I feel that I’m finally back in a place where I can move forward with some positive energy and positive motivation.

So here is to the new year… I think I’m ready for this one.

Lo and behold, I have finally restarted my website. Its been a few hectic days trying to get this together and back on track. But it seems now that I can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel and after about two years of not having this site in any kind of functioning format, it feels good to be close to wrapping it up.

There are a few things left I need to do, but I should be able to get them polished off over the next few days. Then comes the daunting task of trying to get a good chunk of my content/portfolio back up.

While I was finishing up this design over the Christmas/New Years’ break, I stumbled across a completely different site design I was working on for 32bitkid.com back in June/July. I am much more pleased with this current design, but it is always strange running across old art and design stuff that you have completely forgotten about.

Anyway, I need to get some sleep, but expect more regular updates to follow; no more waiting two years for the next blog update.