…but being with them has made me tired.

I’m going to go be alone now.

After the toughest (and best) semester of my life, featuring me going underground to write C system code for three months, I see light again!

I got a camera and I’m now busy taking all the goofy pictures I’ve always wanted, but never could get.

I’m busy making websites again, making me feel alive more than ever.

I’m reading all the books I never had time for and writing the argument, journals, and blogs (ahem) I never caught up on.

I’m back to reviving relationships with everyone I never saw last semester (read: just about everyone) and starting new ones.

I’m back.

It would be a shame if I spent three months in Charlotte and had nothing to show for it, amirite?

So I took some video and did a lot of math, and came up with this:

Holy cow. In one week, I will have finished my time at IBM (for now) and moved for the third time this summer. It’s been the most hectic and beneficial three-month period of my life, I do believe, and even though August 12 was a million years away when I accepted in April, it’s pretty much here.

It really does seem like yesterday that I finished moving into Queens U and getting my junk set up and then getting on that bus the first day and filling out awesome tax forms, but it also feels like I’ve known this routine and my manager and coworkers for years. I’m finally getting used to how everything works, where stuff is in Charlotte (including the infamous practice of turning from one road onto another road of the same name), and preparing my epically (yes, being heroic or grand in nature) delicious dinner menu on a (nearly) nightly basis, and this right as I’m about to leave it.

I’d like to think that I’m not leaving this permanently, that I’ll be back, but I really have no idea whether I’d be able to get the same position either full-time or part-time, and that’s the catalyst for me up and moving to a large city I wasn’t familiar with, where I didn’t know anyone, and where I had to scrounge to find affordable housing somewhere it only takes a half-hour to commute. I was fortunate to get the summer thing only instead of the summer/fall co-op they claimed was the only hiring position they had in the first place, so whether that can be replicated certainly remains to be seen. I guess I’m saying that I liked the whole experience and would welcome it back were it to welcome me with circumstances as favorable as this time around.

So what next? I’ll move for the fourth time in three months on Thursday/Friday, turn back in all my awesome IBM equipment (I want to keep my ID badge forever and ever, but probably won’t get to), and head north on I-77 for the third and final time this summer. I’ll pretend to relax for a few days, move again, and start the semester grind like a boss (yeah, right). Life could be worse.

Verdict: not just mission successful/complete, but mission accomplished.

Wore on did the Day’s eagerness to please. Mild temperatures, singing birds, and glittery foliage met the senses on every front, as an interviewee dresses to impress. Her interview would not last long.

She didn’t bother with the clouds. Down came the deluge, drowning the endlessly-deep blue skies, snowy clouds of fluff, and pallid day-moon in an impenetrable, moist curtain. Nature’s frustration released as a torrent spared no scavenging squirrel, forcing their fastidious foraging to move all the more frenetically lest they be engulfed by a parking lot ocean or storm drain rip current. First came the slow taps, then, in a roaring crescendo, the pounding of a million drops on a million surfaces echoing in my ear, overcoming entirely the Sunday serenity. The detonation of a single drop into a multitude of spattered droplets attacking every angle dusted the fabric of my shorts, sitting atop the fibers as though disappointed by the quality of the landing surface and refusing to reach further in protest.

Where she had initiated a skirmish, she escalated into an invasion, hurling angry droplets under the roof and inside my balcony and forcing a retreat. My leafy friend was afforded no such luxury, absorbing the relentless pummeling in brave fashion as I could only watch. Unceremoniously and indiscriminately, the watery lashing reached thunderstruck joggers and soughing traffic, a further scourge to the urbanity suffocating the earth. Coated in a layer of punishment, the once-proud loam turned timid and dejected, grayed and sullen for the transgression of being the floor of a fruitful planet. The parking lot ocean came to be after all, bestrewn with a matrix of a thousand watery pimples seen clearly in the soft white glow of a library light pole and raging into a nearby drain.

But Day knew. And she relented to bring forth a gift instead.

Where she unleashed an inundation, she birthed a verdured land. The earthy dampness of the freshly-water land added a resplendently bejeweled appearance to match with the glistening of the accumulated droplets in the light of the setting sun. The air hung thick as a reminder of the life-giving tumult, and as I returned to my seat, the clouds and moon did likewise. The blissfully ignorant world, having never stopped its work in the first place, never gave the transformation a second thought because it simply went unnoticed. No one admired the resiliency of my friend Tree, tested yet again and successful as many time and offering encouragement to his brethren by his example, and perhaps the windshield wipers comprised the only change of routine. I found in Nature’s awakening a new question in myself:

Must Day so betray itself and Nature become so infuriated to give such a gift as themselves?

is not looking up directions at all beforehand, getting lost in transit, and then using Google Maps anyway.

After moving out of school on Wednesday, May 11, moving to Charlotte on Saturday, May 14, and starting at IBM on Monday, May 16, I’m finally ready to breathe.

It’s just fun walking around, finding where things are, driving there, getting lost, and, of course, working.

I’m in Charlotte working at IBM on business-class content analytics, which basically means that the software is designed to extract data from documents and crunch it to see if there’s something that can help you. It’s been really great so far, as everybody’s willing to help the new guy: new to the city, the company, and the product.

Walking downtown to the bus

The division of IBM that works on this has an office in downtown Charlotte, where maybe only ten people out of the floor are working on the product with me, and that means hitting up the bus every day and riding in, which is really easy, if not that inexpensive.

Bank of America Stadium from my office

I’m staying at an apartment-style dorm at Queens University in the beautiful Myers Park neighborhood, also where many of my coworkers live. It’s not too shabby, and not too expensive. All I really care about is the fact that there is Ethernet and power sockets .

There’ll be more stuff here as things liven up a little more.

As we all know by now, UConn completed its amazing streak by capping off the NCAA tournament with a win over Butler Monday night.

There is apparently a gigapixel fan cam that has a picture of the entire stadium during the national championship game, and it’s fairly ridiculous in terms of zooming capability.

You’ll probably notice that the picture is actually several pictures spliced together, as can be told from the shot clock above the backboard showing two different times, but it’s still pretty cool.

http://www.replayphotos.com/fancam/ncaa-basketball-tournament-championship-110404.cfm

Don’t forget to update your servers!

http://www.minecraft.net/download.jsp

…listen to this guy, Mark Suster. He wrote an article about why blogging is important toward growth and marketing and all that, which I really don’t care about at this particular point in time. The important part for me was renewing the excitement and energy within myself about a topic, field, or discipline.

Yeah, it’s hard to write blog posts. They don’t accidentally happen or occur during a normal sequence of a day without concerted effort, and that’s why people (like myself) can’t do it well. It’s not usually that they’re not excited about the ideas they have, but that they aren’t excited about taking time out to write about something that may be either scrutinized or ignored. Everybody’s ignored early on, I guess, so the only way to conquer that is to write quality things on a consistent basis.

In fact, I’m so lame, I post Youtube videos of cool stuff instead of write something about how epic Javascript is, when I know nothing about Javascript (yet) and everything about cool Internet videos. Personal blogs are personal, but they’re really not. I lament not the fact that I can’t find anything interesting to put on here, but that I can’t properly mirror my interests and passion in this space, despite the fact that I desire to do so.

So, interwebz, let’s make a deal. Let’s each try not to be so lame.