A High-Velocity Year

Ah, 31 December: The last day of the year.  Time for reflections on the past, New Year's Eve Nachos, and OHMIGOD has it been five MONTHS since I've written on my blog??!?!!?

Well... the best explanation for why it's been so long since I've written here is because, simply, I have way more interesting thoughts than I have time to write any of them here.  This may be some form of the proverbial "good problem to have," but really, I'm not sure.  I find it nearly impossible to bookmark or backtrack to a thought for long enough to write about it, as my thoughts are constantly moving forward.  I think they call this phenomenon "stream-of-consciousness."

Anyway, the thought-time imbalance is caused mostly by the fact that one can think from anywhere, in parallel with performing other tasks, while writing here requires being at a computer and not being busy doing other things.  Most of the time, I have one of these, but rarely do I seem to have both.

But enough of this meta-blogging nonsense.  I find that too often I set out to write something novel here only to end up writing ever-longer diatribes about why I haven't written anything novel here for ages, and it just spoils everything for everyone.  Why should I write about writing, and specifically about not doing it, when I could just be doing it instead?  Who could possibly care enough to read what I have to write about (not) writing?

Crap.  Now I'm meta-meta-blogging.

Anyways, onto the "meat" of this post, which is primarily on the topic of the year that we've just been through (twenty-eleven, for those keeping score) having reached its inevitable ending.

As you've no doubt guessed by now, the reason I've been so busy this year has been due to the immense amount of change that has been going on in my life... and the high velocity with which it has happened.  While at home earlier this year after graduating, I struggled to figure out what my next steps in life should be.  Through February and March, I studied for the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam, the first step toward professional licensure for engineers, which I took (and passed!) in April.

Then, in May, a lightbulb went off in my head that, academically, computer science was the missing key.  So I signed up to take the GRE in June, began making arrangements in July to take courses, and headed back to Pittsburgh in August.  And now I'm a student again!

Obviously, it wasn't quite that simple, and there's a lot more to explain... but as has become as much of a tradition as writing these year-end posts, I'm writing a good deal of this in the last several minutes of the year while also trying to do other things simultaneously.  As such, I'll be cutting this short but intend to continue in the near future (ha!).  Nevertheless, I'm pleased to report that my first semester of courses in the CS department went exceedingly well, and I have high hopes for the future.

I wasn't lying 364 days ago when I said that I had no idea what 2011 would bring.  It certainly didn't fail to bring me, and I can't wait to see what 2012 will bring.

Random tangents:

• Oh, and the computer issues from July are issues no longer; as a computer science student, I was more or less forced to get a new computer in September, the arrival of which was very welcome.  The only reason I mention it is because the aforementioned issues were featured in the post adorning the frontpage of this blog for the last five months.
• As with last year, we're watching Carson Daly on NBC tonight.  We're quite the anti-Seacrest family now.

Computer Issues

Well, I knew this day would come. I was just hoping it wouldn't for a few more months.

A few weeks ago, I was just looking at a few low-cost replacement parts for my laptop, like a new bezel and hinges for the monitor. Now, I'm considering getting a new computer altogether.

About a week ago, some mysterious vertical lines started appearing on my screen near the cursor. Then they started appearing all over the screen. Then the computer started hanging when it came out of hibernate. Then it started crashing more frequently.

After a good round of diagnosing, I'm pretty confident it's my graphics card. So now I'm faced trying to decide whether I want to:

• buy a refurbished replacement card for around $150–250 and hope it works,
• buy a new replacement card for around $450–600 but only get a few months' use out of it, or
  
• buy a whole new computer right now for... well, a bit more than that.
  

Each option has its pros and cons and none is terribly desirable. Decisions, decisions!

Couch-to-5k

Most of you are probably at least remotely aware that I'm not the most athletic person in the world by a long shot. Nevertheless, this past winter I found myself getting a little bit stir-crazy. Wanting to run, walk, get-out-of-the-house — whatever — but not being able to do so, primarily because it was winter.

I kept myself busy (with all sorts of stuff I haven't bothered blogging about, as usual) and made it through the winter. Most days, though, I still felt a general sense of malaise. And then in May I stepped on a scale and finally confirmed my suspicion that I was a little bit heavier than I had remembered. (The technical phrase for the amount is "a couple kilograms" which, of course, translates to "a few pounds"; thankfully nothing more.)

So I looked at my schedule and picked a date to start the Couch-to-5k Running Plan, which had actually been in the back of my mind ever since my friend Jen posted to Facebook well over a year ago. And when that day came... it rained. But I did it the next day!... in the humid afternoon heat at 16:00 on the day of the summer solstice which made it downright miserable. To say nothing of the fact that I was also out-of-shape and attempting a moderately taxing workout.

I mean, I'm still out-of-shape now. Just a little bit less out-of-shape. I've got a lot of work to do, but I figure I'd better do it while I still can.

And you know what? It feels great. I've always known this, really, but the stresses of life have often taken their toll and prevented me from getting out as often as I'd've otherwise liked. But now, there are no excuses. I'm doing this for me.

Of course, that's not always easy with everyone else who's involved in my life. With the exception of that first workout, I've typically been starting about half an hour before sunset, which is around 20:30 EDT here right now. Unfortunately, twice already that has come within about 5 minutes of dinnertime in this household. Faced with the choice between running now and eating later or eating now and not being able to run until nearly midnight, I've picked running. And hungry as I've been during some of those runs (tonight was spaghetti and meat sauce), I haven't regretted it yet.

Hopefully the same will hold true in Week 4, when I'm going to be counseling at Lambec Music Camp and will have to wake up with the sun at 05:45 to get my workouts in before the bustle of the camp day begins. I must persevere!

Now assuming I can keep to the nine-week Ct5k schedule (which may not happen since you're encouraged to repeat weeks if necessary), I'd be at the end of Week 7 for the 5k at Dan Rice Days on 6 August, which would have me running 4 km (2.5 mi) straight, but perhaps I'll register just for the fun of it. Obviously, that'll be a decision I make much closer to the day of the event, but it would be an experience nonetheless.

I've been tracking my progress at MapMyRun.com, an awesome site for all sorts of fitness tracking, which I've actually used since before I became terribly concerned with my fitness. For the record, I'm doing a slightly modified version of the time-based version of Ct5k, with basically the only difference being that I'll be planning the "straight through" routes in Weeks 5–9 by distance in metric, since the actual Ct5k program peters out at 3 mi. (Which — I'm sorry — is only 4.83 km. I know, I'm a stickler. Sue me.)

Here's my planned Ct5k workout calendar, all nicely worked around the oddities of my schedule and everything. We'll see where I am physically on 20 August, but whether I'm running 5 km or not, hopefully I'll be a lot better off!

Start on the Other Hand

Once again, it's mid-May. Whoa.

You see, six years ago today, I started this blog. That means it can't show you its age on one hand anymore...

It's also still worth mentioning that this blog still exists, I guess. I've got some ideas for what to write more of here, but they're all pretty radically different from the existing content. So we'll see if any of them actually come to fruition. (Hint: Probably not anytime soon, if ever.)

Anyway, tradition dictates that I bake a bloggy cake today, but since today was an awfully busy day, I did it after midnight last night. Which still counts. Totally.

It's perhaps worth noting that today was busy in the same way as the day I started this blog in that it was the day of the National Association of Letter Carriers' Stamp Out Hunger food drive, the second Saturday in May. Each year, I've volunteered to help the local food pantry take in all of the donations from the area, which usually amounts to about 2 tons of assorted food coming through the doors in 7 hours.

It's always fun and rewarding, but also somewhat exhausting. So that explains why my first post was so short and uninspired. And it explains why I'm finding it difficult to come up with more to write here now.

I guess I'll just loosely tie things together by saying that we saw various cake things at the food pantry today. But don't worry, for my dearest bloggy's sixth birthday, I baked this one fresh! Enjoy! And get used to counting on two hands...