2016

Maybe it's becoming a tradition that I write a long form catch-up piece about my life twice a year.

I feel overwhelmed about writing that piece for the past six months, is that a good thing or a bad thing? That so much seems to have happened, that I feel so much older and more mature, that cataloguing these progressions feels daunting?

I'll start with a year in travel again.

Some of my co-workers and friends here play Magic, which I used to do when I was a kid. They invited me to play one night and I thought, why not? I'll tell you why not: 14 months later I have around $1200 in cards and have traveled all around the country to play. Should have told past Willie about the investment he was about to make. Here are all the places I traveled in 2016 to play:

In a lot of these cities I had extra time to go out to bars or amazing restaurants. Spent a full 5 days in New York with Devin and had an absolute blast.  The quest for the best meatloaf in every American city was born. I've made several friends playing and it's honestly been an amazing escape. I love strategy games and one-on-one competition. 

Magic was just part of my travels, though. I also traveled to Oklahoma to see my beautiful nieces a few times, and for Thomas' baby shower for Mr. Oliver, my new nephew who I have not yet met. Gbenga's wedding was also in Oklahoma City and so I got to see a beautiful moment in a close high school friends life.

I traveled to a ski-resort in Denver with friends, and although I did no skiing I had a great experience. I love hot tubs in the snow. I also got to take a mental snapshot of Devin making an attempt to take a bite of a s'mores crepe in a restaurant, which was amazing.

I traveled to New Mexico for Robert's wedding, which is a story for another time. While I was there I also got to hear Elena speak about Mexican Folklore and specifically about an extremely interesting woman, Aurora Lucero-White, who history had mostly forgotten. I couldn't be more proud of Elena. 

I celebrated my and Alicia's birthday at Jake's parent's lake house in Alabama. Peeps and tons of my friends were there, including Devin. It was a very eventful weekend as the lake house always is and I got to meet Tomo. 

I also got to spend a day in Venice with my step-brother Michael (and have some delicious vietnamese Banh Me-at Loaf ha!). I really need to go visit him again, Venice is an awesome place. Just a day because it was a layover on my way to Ireland!

The initial plan for Ireland was to go with Touranne to a wedding. But some extremely unfortunate circumstances made that no longer a possibility, and so a solo trip it was. I ended up spending all my time in Dublin and had quite a bit of fun exploring the city alone, seeing art, eating ridiculously good food, and drinking. I ended up meeting up with some of the wedding goers at the end of my week there and had a great time with them going out. 

Overall that's 20 different cities in 13 states and over 2 continents/countries. I take a lot for granted, but I'm eternally grateful for the opportunities that have been afforded to me. 

This year also so the advent of me beginning to really feel myself creatively. I've gotten really into painting and writing poetry. You can check out a lot of the stuff I've created this year here. 

Overall I finished 18 paintings with 2 in (slow) progress. I wrote (at least) 41 poems. And I recorded a rap song. I have a million more ideas for creative things and am hoping to take a sculpture class (if enough people register) in the Spring Semester. It's really been an incredible and intense year of discovery for me. I feel very raw going into the start of this next year. I have a lot of bad habits that I'm working on breaking down. I have a lot of the same ambition I've always have, but tempered in a way that I think can lead to me getting where I want to go. 

My current 5 year goals involve an art studio that doubles as an event space that I can rent out, something modular and interesting. I just want to create and write full time. This year I read or partially read probably around 20 books, which feels really embarrassing, however, when I take into account all of the long form stories and articles I've read online this year, it was truly an excellent year in reading. My desire to write stories is through the roof. But writing is extremely daunting, and I already have bad habits and am not the best communicator. 

My ability to speak any foreign languages or play any music has suffered greatly this year as I didn't tend to either of those things, like, at all. (I did buy some yet-to-be-read books on the topics, though).

I continued my foray into investing this year getting more and more reckless, which led to some big losing bets. Overall, that's ok. I learned a lot about several markets and the way a lot of finance I was previously unfamiliar with worked. 

This year I tightened some friendships that I'm very glad I have. I've realized drinking could become a problem, even though it doesn't impact my life at all negatively right now, beside empty calories. I'm more conscious of when I'm doing it and how I'm spending my time and friendships around it now.

This year I consumed some of the best media I ever have, the music I've gotten to enjoy and connect with has been breathtaking. Some of the TV I've watched has been my favorite of all time (looking at you, Westworld.) And some of the movies I've watched have moved me deeply. All of this has made me think more critically about a myriad things in my life and our society. My growth this year in retrospect has been amazing. 

I've managed to forgive a lot of people, even though I still struggle. I've created new walls in relationships as well, though. 

More recently, mom has made a move to Salt Lake City, which I've still really yet to process. I need to go visit her. I really want to make sure she doesn't feel alone. 

Just 2 days ago my Devon got engaged. I cried when he told me. I couldn't be happier.

When I lie the experiences of my year out this way, how could you say it's been anything but incredible? But despite my striving toward a better Willie it simultaneously feels like the world is collapsing. Like capitalism is being unmasked and insanity is appearing in the wake of that. People don't know what to believe or who to trust. Everyone feels as if we're being ruled by corporations, but no one knows what to do about that. 

A myriad of artists died this year, and their losses were felt whole heartedly. I've been shocked actually, by the outpouring of love and empathy around these losses. It gives me hope. 

But the events and tragedies this year and their publicity took a heavy toll on me psychologically. Mass shootings, the election of a clueless demagogue and an extremely conservative Senate and all the horrible shit that came and will come with that, AI advances, including a master being beaten by a machine in Go, countries falling under dictators and isolating themselves. An apparent folie à milions, in a lot of cases and just some frightening moves forward in technology in others. Not only in America but across the world. (N. Korea supposedly successfully tested a hydrogen bomb.) 

The future will be scary, but I'm ready to take it head on. I'm ready to try my best to speak to people with art. I love you. Here's to an exciting and positive 2017. 

Willie or Wontie

I've been thinking about a lot lately, as always. Specifically though, what I plan to do with my life going forward. I'm 27 now and I feel so restless. I feel like I haven't accomplished anything. I've felt like this for years and even though people continually tell me I've accomplished plenty I'm never satisfied.

I think I don't have a reason to live right now. (That's not a plea for help, I'm not thinking about killing myself.) I'm passionate about funny things and art. I'm passionate about sharing. I just don't know how to correctly combine these things into a life. I've been painting a lot of watercolors. I have a backlog of ideas for paintings at this point. I've been collecting Dasani bottles to make a statue of Jesus. I recorded a tone deaf rap song. I'm weird.

I've been thinking about how much I don't care for my job. It's fine, it's just a B- way to spend 8 hours a day. I've been riding my bike to work (~12 miles round trip) in an effort to make myself feel more refreshed before and after. I like my friends in Kansas City, but everyone here is married or dating someone. It's annoying always inviting two people to any given thing. The lack of being able to be spontaneous is a real downer on my personality.

Those combined factors make me want to move, ideally to a coast. Souther California? San Francisco? New York? My lease is up at the end of September and I feel paralyzed. Do I sign a new lease and spend one more year here? The alternate options perspective is that, Kansas City is actually a pretty cool place, it's growing, and despite the lack of free time my friends find themselves with I do enjoy the relationships I've cultivated here. I could buy a house?

There's so much I want to experience and I feel like I'm really limiting myself in Kansas, though. At the same time I feel like I have a lot of growing to do. I've been taking a lot of time with different things in my life. Questioning why I'm doing something or if it's worth my time. If I'm going to do something I keep feeling like I should want to be doing it well. Whether it's eating or reading or painting. I want to understand everything better.

Gesamtkunstwerk, is what I'm strive toward in my life. It's this idea of a total work of art. Perfecting every piece of something that you put together. I want this in everything I do though, I want my life to be a total work of art as aggressive as that comes across. When I cook, when I ride my bike, when I paint, when I think of new pieces of art to put together, when I write, when I learn. It's not just that striving for the perfect combination of mediums to build my perspective. I want duende. I want what I do to have soul. I want to be funny and compassionate and empathetic. I strive for a lot of this everyday. I just feel like it's not enough. I want to be better. What's the best way to pursue that?

It's funny that these concepts come from different languages. I need to learn Spanish and Japanese. I know so much but I just haven't put in the time. "The will to work must dominate, for art is long and time is brief."

I'm sad, I know I'm sad, but I don't know that I'll ever escape that. It permeates a lot of what I do and I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. It makes me funnier, it makes me more empathetic, it makes smarter. I think that's ok. Here's to a positive year while being 27. Talk to you soon.

2015

Twice in one year; who knew I could write so much?

I watched Stranger Than Fiction tonight for the first time in a long time. Still makes me cry. Still makes me depressed. Makes me want to write, too, though. Maybe if I watched it more often I'd write more.

First snow of the year 3 days before it ends. It's been so unseasonably warm that I thought for sure we wouldn't see that. Here I am writing about the weather. The snow sucks. Christmas is still a shit holiday.

I traveled a lot this year and I wanted to compile a list of all the places that I went.

January:
Although not far I traveled with David and Laura to Lawrence to see Kawehi. The show was pretty good, a lot of jam bands played first and I'm not sure how I felt about that. She was really good though, super cute, my type, I ended up getting to talk with her a bit and get a picture after the show.

February:
I drove to Oklahoma for Miss V's birthday, she turned 1. Can't believe she'll be 2 so soon.

March:
Flew to New Orlean's for Ryan's bachelor party. I wrote about that a bit previously.

May:
Japan! I spent 10 days in Japan for the first time. I went to visit Jake and Alicia while they were finishing up their year teaching English there. I visited Tokyo, Saitama, Uji, Kyoto, and Osaka. I had a blast and I want to go back. There are some pretty fun YouTube videos here.

June:
Toward the end of June I flew to Atlanta and spent the weekend in Roswell and Alpharetta, Georgia for Ryan and Mallory's wedding. It was amazing. I'm jealous them.

July:
In July I went back to Lawrence to see some local bands play, another trip with a few friends that ended up being really fun. Got pulled over on the way back for expired tags (which, side rant tags expire in a specific month in Kansas not a year after you get them so my tags expired like 7 months after getting them.)  The cop was convinced I'd been drinking and made me get out of the car, situation was high anxiety but I ended up not even having to pay for the ticket. The cute ADA in Lawrence threw it out because I literally got my tags renewed the next business day. Yay for being a lawful citizen?

August:
In early August I traveled to Memphis for Kaitie's wedding. Had a good time seeing Jake again, his family is so amazing.

At the end of August I took a trip out to SF to interview for a job. I didn't get an offer but had a good time while I was there. I love seeing Devon and Daniel and just getting to hang out on the coast.

September:
In September I went on an adventure to watch Oklahoma play Tennessee in Neyland. Robert got arrested and I had random makeouts with a girl I met. I got to see Courtney for the first time since I'd been in school. It was actually really fun.  Oklahoma beat Tennessee in double overtime and even though I was supposed to be at the game and wasn't the night ended up being really really good. It was good to see my mom that weekend too.

October:
I flew to Tampa for Halloween. Had a really good time, got to see my friends again and go out and have a really good time including at Gurn's awesome house party.

November:
I visited Atlanta again with some friends to play cards. Had a blast.

I drove to Oklahoma for Thanksgiving. It was good to see my siblings mostly doing well. I worry about Robert a lot even though we don't talk a lot. I should talk to him more. I'll probably regret it later in life if I don't do it now.

December:
I spent Christmas in Mississippi with my Dad. It was good to see him, it had been two years. I don't really care for the season though so that always puts a damper on things. It's crazy to watch families grow, my step brothers have had more kids and gotten divorces and things have just changed so much in two years. It's crazy. 

Going to make a map...

Made some maps:

It has been an extremely satisfying year of travel. There is already a trip to Lawrence January 4th to see (3) Oklahoma play (2) Kansas in Basketball. San Francisco and Oakland on the schedule for January 8th as well. Hopefully it's another eventful year and I have another awesome set of maps at the end of it.

It makes me happy thinking about all the traveling I did.

This year has been a real roller coaster. When I started it I was determined to make all these changes in my life, and that didn't really happen. It did, and then it didn't and then it did again. For instance I set a goal to lose some weight. I dropped 30lbs in 3 months, but I put it all back on before years end. I wanted to complete my app, which I didn't do. I got a lot of work done but I got burnt out at a few months. Working 8 hours at Garmin and then 4 more at night everyday for a few months will shut you down pretty quickly. I ran my first race this year, the St. Patrick's Day 4 mile that they do in Westport in Kansas City. I played disc golf and regular golf (went to a driving range, anyway) for the first time. I played a lot of piano and learned a lot of Japanese, but I'm pretty rusty at both of those things again already. I rode my bike a lot in the Spring and Summer, that was really satisfying. It's surprisingly easy to put in 15+ miles and feel great.

It was a lonely year, but I think that's just what getting older and being single is like. I think my mom probably worries about me a lot. My family can't understand why I don't have a significant other, even Thomas is engaged now.

This next year I want to learn some things and actually retain them, piano, Japanese, programming. I've created a short list of schools I want to apply to get my MBA with a focus in Finance at: Arizona State, Carnegie Mellon, North Carolina Chapel Hill, and of course Kansas, because it's close I think I could get in without even taking the GMAT, which I need for the other schools, I've scheduled the test for March so I need to get to studying.

I need to email a professor about a Japanese course I want to take at the local community college, too. I could ride my bike there but, maybe not in the terrible weather. I've grown a lot mentally and emotionally. I can feel myself getting older though, they say that feeling really starts at 26, I'd be inclined to think that's true at this point.

Maybe I'll find something I'll be good at in 2016.

Hey Head

How about shutting the fuck up.

It's almost 1 am and I'm tired. I have bronchitis or tuberculosis or something and my lungs are sucking at breathing.

I'm frustrated because my mind won't let me sleep tonight even though I'm exhausted. I lie down and think of sleep coming to me. I've tried counting. In three languages. To 100.

You would think that would be exhausting. It was but it didn't put me to sleep. I want to write poetry because for some reason I keep thinking of poetry tonight but I don't really want to give in to that urge. Maybe a little. Just for you. But I won't.


I went to New Orleans for Ryan's bachelor party and spent an egregious amount of money. I don't use the word lightly. I was there for 2.5 days and spent around $1500. Where does $500 a day go? Not sure, really, I mean. I probably payed for a couple of semesters of community college hahahaha.

Strip clubs are an interesting thing psychologically. I'm not the kind of person who does or says something like, "I would fuck the shit out of that girl." But being in a strip club for an extended period of time really puts those people into a different perspective for me. I could see how a lesser person could get the impression that women are objects and then never let go of it. My opinion of strip clubs and fools is at an all time low.

I'm typing this hanging off the edge of my bed like a bored child and it's killing my wrist. Carpel tunnel here I come. I went to the doctor today and she prescribed me drugs after about 3 questions and listening to my breathing. In and out in 5 minutes. It's fine she gave me an anti-inflammatory for my lungs and an anti-biotic. These will probably help. Maybe I should go back and tell her I have hand pain and need some pain killers, I might get in and out with a hydro script in 5 minutes. Hey-o.

It's quite literally been an age since I've been here.

I can't believe I didn't publish anything on here for almost 2 years. I sort of started writing on my new website but all I've managed to put up to this point is a story about how much I love sufjan stevens, basically.

So let's play catchup for fun.

2013-- Pretty much have no idea what happened that was good that year. It wasn't bad. Just relatively mundane. I started working at Garmin, but you knew that, I covered the first half of that year pretty well. I got in the papers in Kansas City for winning third place at Startup Weekend with an app idea that I'm currently working on putting together now. We're pretty close to finishing it. Hopefully it will be out this summer. That's really it.

2014 was a seriously shitty year. I had an interview with Google that I tanked. My freaking crazy beautiful niece was born, Miss V. Which was terrifying because my sister almost died in the process.

I'll never forget when my brother called me and told me to get there as fast as I could. It was 10pm. I drove all night, 5 hours. I so scared the entire time. She's too strong though. She pulled through like a champion.

I got an interview with Y-Combinator to work on my non-profit electronic medical record for doctor's to take to the third world. We didn't get accepted. That was a fun weekend in California, anyway.

My grandpa died shortly after the interview. Coincidentally I was cooking sopaipillas in my kitchen when I got the phone call. I just cried. I cried and I cried and I cried. I selfishly cried. His funeral was exhausting. My family fought, naturally. I cried some more. My brothers and I got drunk with my Uncle David and he told us stories about growing up with Papo. I miss him.

Robert and Marissa got divorced. It still makes me clench my jaw.

Thomas had a tough year. He was struggling a lot and made some bad decisions. I hope he doesn't mind that it's here. He's alright though, he's better, I think. We don't talk much. I don't talk to anyone in my family much, to be honest.

After all the bad things happened I made a pointed effort to spend time with them in the fall, though, and to go see that beautiful baby. I went to most of the OU home games, even though the season went to shit. It's weird that I can just afford season tickets. It's weird to have money. I don't want it though. I spend it pretty recklessly when I should probably be saving more of it. I have a good time. I would rather be happy, though.

I did go to chicago with my friends for a weekend and saw Death Cab For Cutie, Sylvan Esso, and Handsome family among others perform at the Onion AV Fest. That was a lot of fun. I love traveling. 

Mrs. Crystal got hurt at the end of the year too. She was in a hospice so that's where I spent a lot of my Christmas break, with family visiting her.

Christmas sucks, I think it's become my least favorite holiday. That's not really saying much because pretty much all holiday's have become meaningless. I'm not religious, that knocks out several. I don't see family for most of them, that knocks out a couple more. And a few others just don't really have meaning anymore.

2014 was just a really shitty year overall. I got nothing done. I lost some things. I wasted it. Miss V was easily the saving grace.

I forgot 2014 was also the advent of Goodbye for Life, a playlist that Ryan, Jake and I have collaborated on of songs that make you feel very sad. It's amazing.

This year has a been a lot better, so far, although I feel like I'm a coin on one of those museum coin rolling things. Where you let a corn slide down the little slot and then it rolls around and around and around into it falls into the hole. It feels like the year is going to turn sour but I'm trying really hard for that not to happen.

I took some of my money and started investing a little bit in oil and pharmaceuticals and have actually had ridiculously good luck with that. I'm sitting on like a 30% return on my investment so far. I've learned a lot of things about it. I went to Oklahoma for Miss V's birthday and had a really good time. I bought her way too many presents for a one year old but she was born as my niece so she's destined to be spoiled for life. I found these adorable stuffed animals on kickstarter called fruitimals and so I ordered her some of those too. I'm excited for them to come in. I dote.

I started working pretty diligently on this app and have made quite a bit of progress. I've been working out a lot and riding my bike. I participated in my first running event on St. Patrick's Day, a 4 mile. That was surprisingly fun. I just got back from New Orleans last Sunday night for Ryan's bachelor party, like I said. Insanely fun. I missed my friends a lot and it was really good to see them. I was anxious about something bad happening with all the testosterone but, as soon as I landed and got in a cab all my fucks went out the window and I had a very relaxing and drunk weekend.

I'm finally yawning. That was 45 minutes of straight mind dump. Most of my blogs are posted late at night because I can't sleep and that's what I need. I'm pretty tired now. 

A post

Having a real job complicates what I can put on the internet and it is sort of annoying. I like being able to just write what's on my mind. [Insert joke about the NSA].  Life is going surprisingly well, but I still feel kind of anxious about a few things.

I have more or less settled into Kansas City. I have a routine of work, gym, rinse, side-projects, sleep, rinse, repeat. I still haven't managed to finish anything though. A lot of the side-project time gets used doing... you know... not side-projects. I got my diploma in the mail:

I'm not going to lie, that's a pretty good feeling. I'll probably order a frame in the next week or so. Although, I really don't like the idea of it staring at me while I work; maybe I'll hang it in my bedroom. It is pretty though. I have a list of shit I need to do on my whiteboard on my wall, but I literally do what I just did while writing this in my day-to-day, all the time. What I mean to say is: I get side tracked very easily.

I've been having some very annoying dreams lately. There are people I would like the respect of in my dreams taunting me. I think it's because I don't feel like I am living up to my own expectations. I feel like I am disappointing people around me. I had hoped to go to The Pitchfork Music Festival with Devon in Chicago. Unfortunately because I sort of decided on (maybe) doing it so late I'm not going to be able to. It would run me about a grand and I just don't feel like spending that kind of money on a 3 day weekend. However, I did get tickets for the end of the July to the see The Postal Service at a venue that I can walk to from my place. I'm incredibly happy about that; they are definitely on my list of  bands to see before I die.

I have the opportunity to go see John Mayer this Wednesday but, I think I'm going to pass on it. I do want to go but, I know the set list will be 90% Born and Raised (it is the Born and Raised tour, haha). I just don't really like the album. On the other hand, he recently released the single Paper Doll. It's not old John, but it is MUCH better than Born and Raised in my opinion. I have been on a crazy indie-hipster music kick the past six months and I have an incredible playlist to show for it. I'm going to start another for the second half of the year.

I've made some friends at work and even went out to the bar this last weekend with them. I like them, they're pretty fun. They joked that they're the Garmin singles club because so many of our co-workers are married. A new guy just started and it seems like him and I are going to get along, we have not knowing anyone in common and that seems to be a pretty good glue. I'm tired and I think my weird tone in my writing reflects that.

I got some furniture delivered today. I now have a couch, coffee table, and ottoman/trunk type thing:

The ottoman/trunk type thing opens up if that wasn't obvious from me calling it a trunk. I need to buy a rug to actually bring my living room "together". I'm really happy with my place, but... In a very willie-esque fashion I hear John Mayer in my head a lot when I buy stuff for my place: "I rent a room and fill the spaces with wood in places to make it feel like home." I'm not sure how to feel about it, I suppose I'll get used to it slowly. I'm slightly further from Oklahoma and my siblings than I thought. Definitely closer than I was but still further than I thought. I'm considering spending some of the money I would have spent to go to Chicago to buy Season tickets to the Sooners home games so I can go with my brother. They're pretty expensive though and that's me committing to a five hour drive down there for six weekends this Fall. I suppose I could sell the tickets online if I couldn't make a game. I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

I suppose that's enough of a brain dump for now. (That's a real thing, there's a Wikipedia page.)

Fold a scarf, Moroccan red, And tie your hair behind your head

Strap into some heels that hurt, You should’ve kept my undershirt

You’re like twenty-two girls in one, And none of them know what they’re runnin’ from

Was it just too far to fall? For a little paper doll

Started From The Bottom

Now we're here.

Heard that song for the first time today, repetitive, but I'm a Drake fan. Points for them smoking hookah randomly through out the music video too haha.

Basically as soon as I thought I was going to have time to read books and post on here and do side projects... everything I had to do came down in a rush and lasted 3 months.

I ended up being contracted to build two websites through out the semester. One of them is mostly done, but I have a few things to update on it. I guess it's really a short to-do list of things I want to do for it that I don't necessarily have to, but it reflects on me, you know? It's BridgeIQ+. The other isn't complete. I've gone through a few iterations of the design, but the application the website is marketing for hasn't been completed so I haven't been able to do anything too concrete, it does look really good though.

I finished with decent grades. They kind of reflected my post at the beginning of the semester, the part where I was describing the classes.

I don't really feel like writing so this might come out as one of those broken flow / archiving life event / museum cold posts.

I did so much this semester. I was so busy; coding basically non-stop.  And the funny thing is, I enjoyed it so much. You would think the lack of social time would have been really annoying but... it wasn't. My friends thought I was a ghost sometimes still, but I managed to balance being social and all my work alright, it turned out great actually.

I am still working with those Biomedical engineers on our startup. We won $5000 dollars from a venture fund competition at UT for the idea, and we're in the middle of another one that is Knoxville wide. If we win that one it's another $10000, it ends June 20th.

I really wanted to stay in Knoxville and take the job that was offered to me here, which was the part time job I had my last two semesters. It was a pretty huge pay cut from Garmin, not really in terms of money, but in terms of no benefits being offered. My idea was I would take that job and work 40 hours a week for pretty decent pay and spend all my free time working on our startup. If it takes off obviously it could be worth a lot of money.

I like the idea, it solves a real problem and that makes me happy... but it is kind of boring to code for something that isn't technically challenging.

My mom of course hated the idea of me not going to Garmin and was very upset with me. She had my family working against me on this. I ended up getting wind of one more possibility, a doctor friend of the doctor we did (are doing..) our senior design project with, looking for someone to make an iPad app for his clinic. It could have been huge but I think he kind of flaked out. If that had come through I would have definitely stayed. I decided to go to Garmin.

I am moving to Kansas City in less than 10 days. I had found an awesome two bedroom two bath condo right on the river in the area I want to live, but right before I could complete all the paper work I got an email from the owners saying they found someone who wanted to buy it and they decided to take the offer. :(

That's ok though, because in the week that passed with that happening, one of the original condos I found when looking opened up, so I swooped on it. It's a 1 bedroom 1 bath in the Library District of Kansas City. It's pretty awesome, I put some photos in this Dropbox folder: Condo Pictures.

Everything is exactly how it looks in the place, except that the bedroom is actually 14x10, which is about the size of my bedroom right now, which is awesome. It isn't furnished, but I'll be decorating how I like, minimal, modern.

I've come to realize I have an insane appreciation for design. I started looking for furniture and 4 hours later realized that I was using intricate queries and looking up the correct words to describe different pieces of furniture. I eventually decided that I have to learn how to design furniture. Add it to my list.

I want to be able to...

I stopped writing for a minute and came back to "I want to be able to". I don't know what I was going to say, could have been anything.

I started writing a To-Do list app in my free time, it looks really great, I hope to have it in the app store by the end of June. Speaking of which, there is a hackathon in Kansas City the weekend after I start my Job at Garmin and I'm really excited for it. I want to network and I think it will be an awesome chance. The condo's I'm going to live in are right next door to the Kansas City Club, which is basically a country club, I'm going to join. They have awesome gym facilities, a pool, and a hot tub and they are literally right next store. The networking opportunities there will be pretty awesome as well. I'm excited for that.

I think this summer I'm going to spend part of my time studying for the GRE. Then starting Fall of 2014 I'll pursue my masters in CS at the University of Missouri Kansas City, unless something else comes up; Garmin pays for it so I might as well take advantage of that. I might start taking Japanese classes even sooner at a local community college or somewhere. I really want to start learning it well. Also, piano, I'm still just ok. Definitely going to pay for lessons after I settle.

I have 309 Quora notifications right now, a new personal record. I'll probably spend a couple hours sometime soon clearing them out and absorbing all the information. Sometimes Quora can be exhausting because it is so much information at once, but I still love it. I never applied there, I don't know why not, I guess I just didn't have time. I might still, in a while.

I've grown so much in the last 6 years. I really can't believe it. 6 years is a really long time though, I'm just sort of now realizing it. Life is extremely fleeting. I feel like watching 5 centimeters per second now.

It's 1 am and I have to be up for work. I'll be back sometime soon. I want to start writing about technical things, but I think I should probably start another blog for that. This one might fall by the wayside (that idiom comes from the bible) if that happens, but I can't be sure, I like introspection too much. 

Would you love me twice

Also, this song feels so good. 

Jhameel – Love Me Twice