Catching Up

So it's been over a month since I've posted anything here and lots of things have been going on, so I thought I'd take a few minutes and lay-out life, work, and general going-on's over the past month or so.

First was the vacation, freakin' awesome! Got the visit the Yuengling brewery and it was SO great. You really could at one point reach out and grab a bottle off the line. The tasting area was kind of lame, but it really didn't matter since the tour was so awesome! The rest of the trip was great too. Lancaster and the Dutch Country was really fun and educational, Hershey was a great place and we learned that Mr. Hershey (the guy that started Hershey) was WAY more than just a chocolate guy, he even has his own boarding school for at-risk youth! Gettysburg was also lots of fun. We went on a ghost tour the first night we were there, and it was pretty lame. I always thought ghost tours would be super cool, I was wrong. Oh well, we did the battlefield tour and that was a lot of fun and the museum was really cool too.

After the trip it's been pretty crazy at work. The release of Windows 7 has been a huge deal for us, but it's also been really good. I'm currently running Windows 7 on all of my systems at work (2 Desktops and a Laptop) and also running Windows 7 on my home Desktop, so far, it's great. It just feels better than Vista. I'm sure it's because of all the negative media that Vista received, but every time I booted into a Vista machine, it just felt really sluggish. This isn't to say that Vista is a totally crap OS. I used it for about a year, and overall, I have very few complaints about it. A few things I found annoying, but most of those things are an easy fix if you know how, in both Vista and Windows 7.

I guess that pretty much brings us up-to-date. Mostly been busting my butt at work. I did turn the big 3-0 on vacation and we had a great birthday party for me that weekend, that was tons of fun. I was kind of scared to turn 30, I mean, that's pretty old, but since I've turned 30, things have been going pretty well. I have a great job that I love, I just celebrated my two year anniversary at work, and have just been having a great time with life recently.

On the gaming front, WCG 2009 happened and, yet again, Korea dominated the tournament. I got a chance to watch a few of the replays for Broodwar and wow, now I know why Korea dominates the world...they're REALLY good. One American did make it out of the group stage, so that was pretty cool, but this guy trains in Korea so I'm not really sure if that counts one of the US or just one more for Korea. It has been announced that WCG 2010 will take place in California which is really awesome. I think I may try to qualify again this year. I'll need to do some serious play between now and then, but I think if I practice a lot and really stick with it, I may have a chance of making it past the qualifier stage :P

The big news this week though is the Toy Lift http://kidslift.org. I know I've talked about this a bit before, but it's one of those things that I'm pretty adamant about so I wanted to bring it up again. The event is taking place on December 4th (Friday), at the Fashion Square Mall in Charlottesville, VA. They are collecting toys and books for under-privileged children who may otherwise have nothing under the tree for Christmas. This will be my second year working with the Toy Lift and this year I'm the guy that will be coordinating all the people who will actually be going up into the bucket trucks we have which were donated by Virginia Power and Comcast. Toy Lift is a great charity and it's a great event for a great cause. Come on out Friday December 4th between 7am and 9pm and bring a toy to donate!

Ok, I think that's probably enough my rantings, more later on!

~C