01. Set up a lot of tickler reminders in OmniFocus, which is quickly becoming the only way I remember to do anything.
02. Read a lot of Pride and Prejudice. My distractibility made my progress smaller than the time I allotted should have shown.
03. I started off the day with a good night of sleep that didn’t drag on past 0900. This is so rare with my night owl tendencies.
04. A nice glass of Scotch warmed conversation with Stephen and Misty.
05. I got an extension on a project¹ and didn’t have to skip my prob/stats class.
06. I had a nice phone interview with a local company that has a distributed team—hence the call.
07. Lazy Saturday, but I fired out a bunch of cover letters and got to hang out with Andrew for a while. Grand!
08. My Easter sucked, but at least I got this stupid program done.
09. Talked to Joel and Daniel about how best to handle this chargerhockeyheroes.com deal.
10. Got back a good grade in the class I’m ace-ing and figured out what the grades probably will be in the class that I’m not.
11. Got the truth from a friend.
12. Boston Bruins Playoff Hockey!
13. Bought some land and watched some hockey.
14. Lenny’s with Andrew for the second Saturday in a row.
15. Wrote about hockey, and I’m reasonably satisfied with what I wrote.
16. I found out just how much my doctor trusts me², and the Bruins won in regulation, keeping me from the stress of playoff overtime for the first time this series.
17. Celebrated the semester being so close to ending.
18. Hadn’t been to the hockey office in a while. Good times.
19. My friend Emily offered to circulate my résumé.
20. Hockey banquet!
21. Sold the truck; it was time. Lenny’s with Andrew. A couple good phone conversations with Mom.
22. Bruins force Game Seven!
23. Lots of caffeine, a good programming session, and talks with good people.
24. Classes are over! Just finals left.
25. My dad survived his heart attack.
26. My CS exam was easy, and I’m done with that wretched class.
27. Listened to a good podcast by Nick Flora about Andrew Osenga’s next album while driving to come to West Tennessee.
28. Got the chair lift locking mechanism fixed after it broke.
29. Got to say some (hopefully) supportive words to someone who needs some.
30. Between selling the truck and my tax refunds, my car loan balance is just under $1100. It will be paid off this summer!

1. Because our instructor hadn’t returned the email sent on the 3rd asking for help. [↩]
2. a lot [↩]

Seven years ago today, I bought a townhouse I still live in. It’s been a place to lay my head, watch TV (mainly hockey), read, and think. It’s not perfect. It’s not well-kept. It’s mine, though.

If I live here another ten months, I’ll have lived in that house longer than anywhere else; the current title-holder is a two-story in a 1970s-era subdivision in a little place called Beavercreek, Ohio. If I make it to mid-August, I’ll have called the metropolitan Huntsville area home for fifteen years; this is the longest I’ve lived anywhere in my entire life. If I somehow make it to 2015, I’ll have lived half my life in Huntsville, but I hope to not be in this house by then, for I hope to be married (yes, finally) and have sold my house. I want to have the next house be “our house”. This is “my house” for as long as I can stay here.

Needless to say, the unsettled state of my last two years has all of this in doubt. There are some glimmers of hope to stay here, and I work every day to remain a Huntsvillian. I am not guaranteed this, though, and so I wanted to write of my little mile marker today. In a period of extreme uneasiness, it’s a welcome sight every time I pull in the driveway.

01. I made lots of progress on the next programming assignment. I may even finish it by the end of the weekend, and it’s not due until Thursday. Who is this person doing my academic work?
02. I survived the tornado event.
03. Stephen and I talked about lots of things while we watched Duke stink up the joint against Carolina.
04. Friends helped me out of a spiraling mood.
05. Chance meeting with Katherine. Good to catch up. Also got some stuff out the door on a job opportunity with GE Aviation.
06. Program’s done two days in advance. (Say what?) I was the recipient of honesty and the chance to spread some hope. Tough roads are best traveled in teams.
07. I got to have dinner with Jeff!
08. Isolated opportunities at GE Aviation and fired off fantastic cover letters.
09. More cover-letter-writing and job-submitting. Great time with Andrew and Lee at the coffeeshop.
10. Helped Rick build an outdoor play set for his kids, except it’s not done. Oops.
11. Men’s basketball won. Survive and advance.
12. I wrote a kick-ass cover letter to a Teledyne Technologies company on the other side of the estuary from Liverpool. Who knows?
13. I realized what had been going on with me physically and took steps to correct it.
14. I had good times with people (Kelsey, Stephanie, Lucas, Lee, Andrew) and a good phone call with my parents that offset a crappy day otherwise.
15. Ten hours of sleep, and then cupcake and pie with Andrew and Lee.
16. Set Mom up with her first Mac!
17. Just a nice, quiet day with my parents.
18. Radiohead made my drive home tolerable. I also realized on the trip that they’re now, by all measures, my favorite band. Sorry, Wilco.
19. Bruins rout, Celtics win, good day of reading, nice episode of How I Met Your Mother.
20. Just a nice, quiet day at the house. Got a lot of reading done.
21. I thought my WRX’s air conditioning had conked out, but all it took was a full power/option cycle and I had cool air again. I was dreading another big bill on that car.
22. Crisis averted.
23. I was having a bad day—a long, bad day—but a really hot shower made it tolerable. Mental note made.
24. Rainy day. Coffee. Pride and Prejudice.
25. Traded texts with Laura.
26. I thought I’d have to have a dental crown installed, but all I needed was a filling. Less pain for my mouth and my bank account.
27. Solved my mother’s computer problems via Screen Sharing.
28. I talked with Dana for an hour.
29. Med tweak.
30. I felt a lot more like myself. I also got to talk to Stephanie some, which I didn’t expect.
31. Bruins won.