Some crazy stuff has been going on with me lately and I thought now would be a good time for a quick update to let people know (meant to do it last week but I'm lazy). April was a very busy month. It started with trips to see my family for Passover and the usual trip to Pittsburgh for booth. We missed Hirsch but that gave me the current longest unbroken streak of 10 years. Then last week happened.

First, last Monday I ran 8 miles of the Boston Marathon. ( details )

Then on Tuesday I started a new job at Harmonix, the makers of Guitar Heroes 1 and 2 and currently the Rock Band series. ( details )

On Thursday I got a pretty shady invite to see a sneak preview of the new Star Trek movie. ( details )

I'm writing this on May 21, but I've been in Atlanta for a week and a half by now. I only now have my website up again so this is my first chance to update my journal again. Since so much has happened, I'm going to break it up into several sections.

The Drive

It all started with the drive. In total it took about 12 hours. I wanted to get there at a reasonable time so that I could get set up, so I woke up early and left at 4:30am. I like driving at night when the roads are empty and you can just set the cruise control and go. But the short sleep and early start backfired. Doing the drive alone was tough and several times I felt like I would fall asleep. Other than that, the drive was good.

Housing

When I first got here I was a bit upset about my living situation. I had arranged to stay in the GA Tech AEPi house over the summer, because it would be cheap. When I moved in, I started to have second thoughts. I knew that fraternaties are messy, I lived in one for 3 years. I thought I'd be find with that but I found out that I'd gotten pretty used to not having to deal with it over the past 2 years. And someone else's mess is always more disturbing than your own.

I was going to stay here just until I found a new place which I began looking for right away. I actually had 2 options that I looked into. One option was a friend who graduated from the ETC's place. I would have had it all to myself and it was very nice, but it was expensive and not in a very nice neighborhood.

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( Preamble )I took the bus to Squirrel Hill today. I waited about 20 mins. When the bus came I got on, but the guy told me that my ID wasn't valid because the bus sticker was expired. That is only the second time in four years a driver has cared, and I rarely remember to keep my sticker current. So I got off and told him I'd just wait for the next bus. I suppose it was a mean thing to do, to imply that his efforts to stop me from doing something I wasn't supposed to were useless. They are. The last time a driver wouldn't let me get on with an expired sticker I didn't have money, this time I did it on principle. He told me he'd make sure to let the other driver know I was waiting. Of course the next bus, the one right behind him, was probably what he meant, but it was not a bus I could take to where I was going so it didn't matter. Another 15 minutes wait was well worth the satisfaction of getting away with it. I wasn't really doing anything wrong. I paid for the current sticker, I just haven't gotten it yet because I'm lazy and it is rarely neccessary.
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