Saturday, June 23, 2007

The first day of the rest of your life

A lot has happened in the past month. I've started some meaningful posts, but never got around to finishing any of them. Here's the cliffnotes version, which will be quicker for you to read and quicker for me to write (everyone wins!):

Graduation: Being back in Pittsburgh was fun, but strange. It was great to see everyone again (hopefully not for the last time!) but all the little things that had changed since I left back in December left me feeling a little out of the loop. Staying at Bloodshaw wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be, but I can only speak for myself. The weekend gave me a wicked hangover that lasted through Monday evening (seriously, I’m not exaggerating), most likely due to the combined effects of alcohol, sleep deprivation, and, um, other things.

Las Vegas: Spent a weekend in Vegas to celebrate Bulent's birthday, which was fun and depressing and expensive and exhausting. Spent the entire weekend either drinking, tanning, or sleeping. The group of about 16 people was made up of coworkers and colleages from work and the kickball team that a bunch of SpaceX people play on. It was my first time “doing” Vegas, my only previous stay was mid-week while driving from Pittsburgh to the Bay Area. I guess I did it right, considering that the first night ended in a shady strip club, the first morning was spent sick and sleeping until 1:30, and the second night ended in a suite at MGM with a canadian bacholor party. I definitely have a weakness for foreign accents ;)

FSAE West: Last weekend was FSAE west, which was held about an hour away from here. I went out to "recruit" for SpaceX and to see the CMU SAE boys. The weekend was alright; it was good to see the guys, and although I wasn’t exciting about recruiting in the beginning it was a good excuse for me to be more outgoing than normal and strike up conversations with people I would otherwise not talk to. Saturday night the guys wanted to go go-karting, which lead us to a small outdoor track that obviously wasn’t expecting a large group of 20-something year old car nuts who think they’re pro racecar drivers. They almost got kicked out; their first race was stopped short since they were all trying to run each other off the track and one guy crashed head first into a fencepost. I didn’t participate, but I did meet a local guy who seemed cool- he gave me his condolences for having to put with the sae guys, and his business card.

Work has been busy. I can’t believe I started over two months ago- the weeks have been passing so much faster than when I was a student or intern. Now summer’s in full swing, which means it’s time to get out and enjoy the sunny days and warm nights.