Ok, I couldn't resist that title since I am kind of a fan of Entourage.  Anyway, it's less of a return to and more of a welcome to Queens Blvd.
Anyway, things here in Virginia are wrapping up pretty nicely.  This weekend will be kind of boring, but whatever, I'll manage.
So updates on life:

I got into grad school! I'm doing a Distance Learning Master of Engineer in Systems Engineering through Cornell University (my alma mater).  I'm pretty excited, I know a few people doing this and they are extremely satisfied so far with the coursework, etc.  My employer is paying for this, so I'm pretty happy not to have to fork over another fortune to Cornell this time.

I'm going to be living in Queens starting either Monday night or Tuesday night, for the foreseeable future.  As you can tell from the title I'll be living on Queens Blvd in Forest Hills.  I really like the neighborhood, I'm close to the E/F/R/V subways and I'll finally be able to drink in Manhattan without worrying about driving, etc.  It's a pretty sweet pad, a 1 bedroom with a nice living room, nice kitchen, cool terrace, and lots of closets.  I don't have nearly the amount of stuff I guess they figured I'd put in the closets, oh well.

So I've been pretty quiet on this journal for the past few years, maybe I'll start it up again, who knows?  I'm quite happy with my current job and my prospects, so that's good.  Things are a bit complicated on the love front right now, but I'll bear through it, overall I'm pretty stoked to be returning to NYC for good this time.  Coming for a weekend or a little more and then having to drive back to Virginia or Ithaca, etc is pretty depressing.  I will not miss those drives.  It's interesting how, in the past year or so, I've gone from embracing driving to really spurning it as much as I can.  If I wanted to, I could take mass transit to work when I get back to NYC and forgo even having a car.  Anyway, that's not going to happen yet, but I am excited about a pretty decent commute (about 24 minutes with light-to-moderate traffic and it's a true reverse commute, not like that hellish 'reverse' commute from SI) and the prospect of not really driving after work or on the weekends.  

I'll have to see how everyone else is doing and how to keep incorporating them into my plans since going from SI to Queens isn't exactly easy sometimes.  Oh well, there are always trade-offs in life and I think this is one I'm more than willing to make.

It's been a long time and a lot of things have happened/are happening.  I guess I'll start to blog a little more frequently now...
I guess the big things to catch up are that
1) I graduated from Cornell last May (a year ago)
2) I have a good job and I am in a leadership development program
3) I'm applying to grad school (for a MS or MEng in systems engineering)
4) I will finally be back in NYC (most likely Queens) by July 4... and I am counting the days (I'm currently in Manassas, VA)

    Ok, well we all made it (not that I was really worried...) and it's now 2008, which scares me.  It scares me because the invitations to Commencement say May, 2008 and I'm sure those numbers being the same is no coincidence...

    I made a few resolutions, but I will see how that goes.  I don't tend to make resolutions much in the same way I don't make promises to break promises.

    The other thing I'm going to say is a little personal insight into the upcoming election.  Well, for starters, seven years down, only one more to go!  Too bad I have a feeling this is going to be in the suck just as much as the last year...
    So the only candidates I really like right now are Mike Gravel, Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich is starting to grow on me a bit.  I really like Ron Paul because he's a libertarian and would, in my opinion, make the US freer and restore a lot of lost liberties.  Frankly, this is the most important thing.  Restore liberties, personal freedom, faith that our government is following the Constitution and defending it, just like it swore to do, and a lot of other problems will resolve themselves.  That said, the economy will only grow worse, unfortunately.  Unless Mike Bloomberg magically confirms that he's running and now just yanking our chains, because if he did - I would be ecstatic and would probably campaign for him.

    Ok, so that was my little, itty-bitty shpeil on the current political climate.  The other thing on my mind lately is this growing trend of people taking the lazy, easy way out of things.  I mean economically.  Look how we're producing now, we're a country about financing and we're not even that great at that.  Frankly, we will lose the tech market to Asia because they're interested, fueled, and we're teaching them here.  Now I'm not saying that we shouldn't do this, but we should at least do this less.  Look, Apple's not going to exist forever and it will certainly not drive the entire economy.  Intel and AMD are doing well, but ultimately they too will spread too thin and I think more Asian companies will start debuting low-cost, low-power processors that appeal to more portable applications, as this tends to be where we are moving towards.  Microsoft dominance won't last forever (fortunately for me, unfortunately for the US economy).  We're not that bastion of manufacturing we once were.  The only thing it seems as of late we're great at producing are weapons, aircraft, and software, but that won't last forever.  We can't even produce good food anymore, our agriculture business is in the shitter and most countries don't want to import things from us anymore.  As our economy continues on this spiraling road, the financial sector will go with it as more and more companies change from the NYSE and NASDAQ, etc to foreign markets with foreign currencies.

    It's bleak, I know, oh well, we should stop living in a fantasy and tackle this head-on.

      Anyway, have a Happy New Year!

              -Matt

So we haven't had a chat in a while.  Life's going great, but I am at a crossroads.  Nothing love-related or even job-related, more of something personal and intellectual.  I have been doing a lot of reading online and I essentially read rehashes of the same articles, "we are all stupid for choosing the lazy path and the path of enjoyment and in time it leads to a lack of fulfillment  and growth."  I've seen this theme hashed in political articles (namely people being lazy and following the same established parties and ideas), computing articles (sticking with Windows, etc), and personal articles (TV, fast food, etc).
Now I don't feel that someone in an online article or blog is really going to convince me to change my ways, and you know it really hasn't.  But I've personally noticed a bit of a down-turn.  I am not learning enough anymore.  I am wasting my free time essentially doing nothing and proceeding to bore myself with the usual activities - namely watching reruns of the same shows, reading stupid articles instead of books, etc.
I've decided to take a chance and implement change.  I am going to take this writer's strike as sign.  I am going to finally pull myself away from this incessant TV watching.  Granted I watch very little nowadays, but I feel I need to watch even less.  I am going to get back into the habit of pleasure reading, coding, and learning.  I am going to use this time to develop the photos I took over the summer and much of the fall and really get into taking more.  I want to learn php, relearn perl and python, and use linux more frequently.  Lastly, I'm going to work out again and attempt to instill a healthy routine.

I guess this is my New Year's resolution come about a month too soon.

-Matt

Summer was interesting - I made a nice chunk of money, bought some stuff I wanted/needed, wish I spent more time in SI / NYC - but the house was awesome

DTD - I love living in the house - too awesome to describe, great time, great people, etc.

Classes - Interesting, difficult, I'm doing well so far.

Life - AWESOME

Why so awesome?
Alexis

...I'm so in love with that girl it's not even funny :-)

    -Matt