Guess what.. Not dead. I know I know hard to determine that's the case when someone doesn't update for something like 15 months, but yeah still here. I actually pretty much check the page every day or so, just haven't updated... in well pretty much forever. 68 weeks it says there. There really wasn't a reason to stop posting either.. just kinda happened. Seems like as good a time as any to fix that.

Anyway,

I live by myself now. In a fairly crummy studio apartment. This apartment however is in a great location. A block or so from the lake, and 3 blocks from the ball park. Finding parking for my car sucks, but since I take the express bus to work every morning, and there is both a jewel and a whole foods within 2 blocks of where I live I only drive to go visit people back in the suburbs (or Minnisota) every once and a while. I don't mind living alone really. It's different, but it kinda fits me most of the time. The only real downside is with no one else around I don't clean up after my self nearly enough... I'm kinda messy. My lease actually had just ended at the beginning of this month, and I signed on for another 6, mostly due to not wanting to deal with moving out/finding a new place, but also because it's nice to stay where I'm at while baseball is in season still. Maybe I'll relocate (though not all that far still) in October or so.

I still work at Wrigley doing night and weekend games. I'll be 18 games into my 52 game schedule after tonight. I'm pretty much exclusively a section chief these days, which makes me basically half a step down from a supervisor. It's not a huge deal, most of the security staff are section chiefs are after a year or two, but it makes the job better. Less standing around more being mobile and able to see the games. When I'm dealing with people that is, which happens a lot too.

I'm also still employed at ECI. I do some trader support still, but mostly I do development now. Well, troubleshooting and bug fixing more often than actual software enhancements and feature additions, but still, programing at least. Jobs kinda gone down hill but I'm getting back into what I wanted to do when I started going to school for this, and I'm building good experience working on important stuff at this point so I don't have a lot of complaints. Plus I don't have to dress up for work and my hours are fairly flexible, allowing me to continue with Wrigley and some other things, which are also bonuses.

One of the major things recently to happen was I joined a gym. Not a normal gym, I've been trying to make myself go to one of them pretty much since I got outta high school, but a fight gym. Since about December I've been training in Brazilian jujitsu. For those who don't know BJJ is a fighting style mostly on the ground depending on chokes and joint locks to gain submissions. I initially chose the style because having wrestling experience I figured it'd carry over a little bit. In some ways it has, in others I've found my wrestling instincts working against me. Still it's a lot of fun. The gym teaches several other styles of fighting as well, though I haven't branched out and taken any of them yet.

A lot of the classes are geared towards self defense, or Mixed Martial Arts (UFC fighting). I donno if I'll ever go that far with it, (even to an amateur level, I think it's fairly obvious I won't ever be a professional cage fighter). When I signed up one of the selling points of BJJ over other arts is being able to compete without getting punched in the face. Another part says that someday I'd like to try it. In the end it'll come down to how well I learn the striking I suppose. I did compete in a submission grappling tournament a month ago and went 2 and 2. Not terrible for my first effort, and my two losses were more due to my lack of strength/conditioning than my lack of skill. All in all I enjoy it, I've been losing weight and getting into better shape, and unlike a regular gym which I can't motivate myself to go to, having a coach and other people in the classes makes it fairly easy to go to. Most days I look forward to going and working out. I'm getting to the point where I can not only beat people with similar experience levels as me (I'd been doing that pretty much since I started with the wrestling advantage I have) but a number of similarly size guys with more experience I've been holding my own with the last few times we've sparred. It's exciting, and nice to go through a session where I don't gotta tap every few minutes heh. Plus I come home from class with a nice collection of scrapes and bruises. I know that doesn't' sound like a plus, but it gives me a feeling of accomplishment. Yeah I know I'm pretty weird.

I still play a lot of poker. Not so much since baseball started, but still a good bit. I ran pretty well the first few months of the season, destroying the field in my poker forum's mixed game league. The best part about it was this group plays poker all the time so these were legitimate wins against good players. Plus I won a nice set of chips for my efforts, so that was a good time too.


So yeah. That's a lot of it anyway. I'm sure I'll come up with other stuff assuming I get back onto a semi regular updating pattern.