Time machines

My Time Machine:
On Sunday April 3rd, Kathy's roommate Melissa had a going away party. She is moving to Miami. At this party, they had a poker table set up. We decided to play a few hands. $10 buy-ins. The game started decent. Then I got some good hands. My secret is that I am terrible at bluffing, so normally I don't bluff. I usually go big when I got what it takes to win. So I went big, got excited and cracked a huge smile. Everyone thought I was bluffing. Truth is, I was just excited. +$40 later I left the table with a really good feeling. We set up another day to play on Wednesday. +$50 later, I am thinking this is the best way for me to make income.
With Quicken, I am able to figure out that I net +$27/day on average. That is after food and rent and fun spending. These poker matches are basically placing me into the future. It's my time machine. I am 3 days ahead right now. This is great. I will continue to play poker often.

Work got a bit better:
(side note): A friend talked to me Saturday about IEC. She has worked on some really cool stuff. Her impression of my project from the outside  is exactly the same as my impression of the project from the inside. We talked about what COTS meant and she feels the same as I do. *edit*

Friday I had a meeting with my manager and my manager's manager. It was one of those "What do you want to be when you grow up?" conversations. There is a formal document that needs to be filled out that I needed to do which I had a very planned response too. I think they weren't expecting this because of what everyone else has been saying. ("I don't know", "Maybe a manager or something non-specific", "code-monkey", "etc"). My response was that I wanted to be a CTO. But in the case where my background is not sufficient, I would settle for the rest of my career heading towards that. They replied: "GREAT, here is what we will do...". My 2nd line said that she knew a guy we could get in touch with. I can interview him and get his resume and see the kind of stuff he did to become the CHIEF TECHNOLOGIST. How cool is that. So end of June I will do this thing and they said that what they would like is for me to do some type of Mentorship with him. This made my day. I could be really excited about something like that. I wish I had a time machine so I could go to the end of June and get this thing on my schedule so I can start my career.


Weekend/Weather/Exercise:
This was the best weekend (that I didn't have visitors) in as long as I can remember. Started out Friday with that meeting (see work section).  Then Mario, Kathy and I played some hot racquetball for a few hours. That ruled. After that we went to a dinner with Amanda, Azella, Re Re and her friend and a few others. It was great. Re Re and her friend and I talked quite a bit. It was great. I think we are all going to get together and go dancing. It will rule. Re Re seems like a really chill chick. I saw her house on the bike trail when I went with Derek. Rules.

We called it an early night Friday (11:30) and we went to the Cherry Blossom festival (check back after work hours today) on Saturday morning with Mario, Stephen Long, Melissa Mong and her friend (see gallery). It was wicked nice out and I got a wicked sunburn (see gallery). We all had a great time eating Japanese food and seeing the trees.

Sunday we got up, watched Lost (which was Flippin AMAZING), then I went home and fixed my bike and took her out for a spin. I rode all the way up to Kathy's place by way of Great Seneca. There is a path basically going all the way to her place. That ruled. I love Gaithersburg. It was probably like 12 miles or so. Based on this and the Pythagorean Theorem. We finished the day with the front 9 of the Seneca Park Disc Golf course and some tasteless home made turkey burgers. It was a healthy/athletic weekend with perfect weather. I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and live that weekend again.

Moving:
So hanging with Melissa Mong (CHAP president), she talked about where she lived in Bethesda. It seemed like it was about 2 stops from the metro center so it was mad close to everything in DC. I think she even pays less for me in rent and stuff. And her ride to work isn't bad at all. I was totally jealous. Damn. Then we were talking to Mario about getting pre-approved. Based on what he said and my situation, I think that I can get pre-approved for $200k. With that I would be really excited to buy a place similar to the one I was looking at on Christopher ave (map to work). This would not hinder my move to Hawaii NEXT summer either. It would only add to the savings. Good deal. I am looking into it. I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and not spend so much on credit cards.

CHAP Athletics:
I am the Athletic head for the MD West chapter of the College Hire Acceleration program. This means that I have to set up a paintball game in May (done), and semi-weekly Disc golf games. The good news is that CHAP will pay for the new set of Discs. Of course I will be responsible for storing and transporting (i.e. CHAP is buying my new discs). Good times. I don't need a time machine. I enjoy life now.