onewingedangel.com

So I was bad and bought a laptop this past weekend. I've been looking at getting one for several weeks, but had not found one I liked at the right price. This past weekend Bestbuy had a really nice one on sale and I decided to get it. Its a Core 2 Duo with 4 Gigs of memory, Nvidia 9600 video card with 512 dedicated memory, blu-ray player, 17 inch monitor, and Vista 64 bit Home Premium installed. Its a pretty nice machine.

I'm in week three of having a nasty cough, and its really annoying. The weather in Austin has been great, its a huge change over Oklahoma at this time of year, and may take some getting used to. When we moved down here we noticed a new Chinese place was in the process of opening. It took them a long time, but they finally opened a few weeks ago. Its got all the great food I like, and Jackie likes, and seems to be our new buffet spot when we want Chinese.

I got on Facebook about 3 weeks ago now, and its been quite interesting. Managed to touch base with a number of people I haven't chatted with in ten years or so, as well as some relatives, and other people I know. If you know me, feel free to look me up there.

Soooooo

I have a ticket to:

It's good living in Austin.

I'm lazy, so heres a paste of something I wrote to an old co-worker.

Well I'm on my third day of work, it was a bit slow the first two days, but today I got full access to the Stellent content management server which they do the majority of the web front work. Its a bit new for me of course, but it looks like its a very powerful tool. Tomorrow I get to sit down with the main systems programmer and discuss some php and mysql projects. Theres also talk about me and the systems programmer taking a serious look into learning Ruby on rails which I've been interested in learning.

The atmosphere is real casual, so casual in fact my new boss tends to walk around the office barefoot. I have a nice little cubical area and have a brand new imac as well as a normal Macbook(not a pro sadly). Everyone is excited that I'm here as it seems I'll be doing allot of the more advanced coding of projects and creating more robustness to existing programs.

We haven't had much time to do much entertainment wise. We did go to the Alamo Drafthouse which is a movie theater that actually serves dinner and drinks(alcohol too) while you watch the movie.

Was a pretty neat experience.

We have done some exploring, visited a few comic shops, they have a Fry's electronics here which is like a giant Wal-mart type store geared towards electronics, games, movies, and the likes. Our neighborhood is nice and quiet and pretty close to major stores(3 or so miles from I-35), but is also near the town of Pflugerville which has a small town feel much like Okmulgee. So they have the odd family owned restaurants.

The campus here is huge, I don't think I was in shock until Monday when I went to lunch and it looked like there where more places to eat in the student union then there is in all of Okmulgee. The only downside is the parking as the closest parking garages to my office are booked to capacity. Luckily I can get on a waitlist to get a permit there in time. For now I park at a lot near the LBJ Library and take a shuttle bus that gets me closer to my building.

I'm getting daily emails of campus life activities and it seems they have a good 12 or so events or more occurring daily. In fact it was neat to see that Bill Gates(Keiths hero) was on campus today giving a lecture to IT students. And tomorrow(if you watch CNN) CNN will be having a televised debate between Clinton and Obama. So part of campus is going to be off limits for security reasons.

The commute to work isn't too bad, takes about 35 minutes max if I leave at 7:00, however the ride home takes almost an hour. I'm hoping with time I'll discover some shortcuts to take to cut some time down on the drive.

I did end up buying a new car, a 2007 Hyndai Elantra, so the ride is smooth and gas is not as much of a concern as my old boat of a car. Its also a much smaller car which helps around campus as the lanes can be quite tight at times.

The weather is crazy here. My drive to work has my using the heater, and the drive home has me using the AC, haha.

Well its been a crazy month, but me and Jackie are now living in the Austin area. Pflugerville to be exact a suburb directly north of Austin. After giving my two weeks notice at OSU they threw me a going away party which was nice and fun. The next day had us loading up the moving truck and eating pizza. The next day we started our long drive to Austin. Our cats where not too happy, but they survived the drive. On Saturday the 9th we started unloading the moving van with lots of help from my cousin Eric who has lived in the area for a number of years. My parents helped and Jackies dad and step-mother showed up to help as well. Tired and exhausted we where moved in and just had to unpack. All our parents left for their homes that night as well.

The past week was very tiring but we are starting to calm down a bit from all the stress and chaos. I bought a new car as mine was going to cost to much to bring up to Texas safety standards. I got a 2007 Hyundai Elantra which will be great for commuting to work. On Wednesday we went to the University of Texas where my new job is and meet my new co-workers. They are all very nice and friendly. The atmosphere seems to be very casual compared to my old position at OSU. I'm looking forward to starting work tomorrow.

There are 4 new galleries up, two from events last October, TNA Wreslting last month, and some pictures of campus in our first week in Austin folder. I'll post more when I can.

Crazy few weeks since graduation ended. Christmas of course with lots of neat gifts you can see in my gallery. Relaxed a bit and enjoyed the time off. The second week of January started the mad rush to my current situation. After a job interview with OU and another with UT(and countless calls from consulting firms), I was offered a position at the University of Texas in Austin. I accepted as its a great position in their college of communication and its in Austin one of our top city choices. Jackie will have many opportunities for a job and it will be a great change to Oklahoma.

We found a house and got approved and will be moving to Austin on the 9th. OSU is sad to see me go, but its time to start a new chapter in our life. Lots of other things have been happening that I'll touch base on soon.