Chris Allwein's Journal

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San Francisco and WWDC bound
So I'll be out in San Francisco from Sunday June 7th until Saturday June 13th for the WWDC.

I forget who lives where anymore, so if anyone is in town and wants to get together sometime during the week, let me know.

WWDC bound
Just picked up my ticket for WWDC.

So I guess I'll be in San Francisco from June 8-12. Now I just have to figure out how I'm getting there and where I'm staying.

Life is incredibly crazy. There is simply just too much that I want to do, too much that I need to do, and just too much in general. It looks like it's time for another round of life simplification in allwein land.

In mid-December I got pulled off of the CoB project to replace somebody on a project in Morgantown, PA. So I've been working that job for the past month. I'm not thrilled about the re-introduction of a regular commute to my life (about 60 minutes), but I have been catching up on podcasts and audiobooks. Though I'm sincerely missing the 2 hours a day that I'm driving. See previous paragraph.

I think this project will be wrapping up soon and I'll be able to return to my old schedule. I need to spend some time planning soon. I've lost site of planning and goals with the crazy holiday schedules. Hard to clear my head with everything going on though.

On a lighter note, I hit Turkey Hill recently. I definitely have to recommend their new Mojito Green Tea. Lime + Mint + Rum = Yum.

Acceptance.
Molly got accepted to UPitt for grad school. She'll be going for her Masters in Social Work starting in September 2009. Yay!

It is way too bright this morning. The shallow layer of snow and clear skies makes the sun burn like a supernova.

In other news, molly had training for her second job yesterday. We took the pup to get her picture taken with Santa at petco. And I can't spell Courvoisier to save my life. Maybe I'll just switch to drinking Hennessy.

Allwein has left the city
...quite a while ago actually. Writing this from my couch back in Harrisburg.

Had a good time at Molly's Pitt thing. Sadly, didn't get the chance to catch up with

ohhim in the neighborhood.

I'm exhausted now. I haven't done a Pittsburgh day trip for quite some time, and definitely not one that started at 5am.

Time to kill in Pittsburgh
Molly and I are in town so that she can attend an information session at Pitt for their masters in social work program. I was going to sit in, but apparently it's playing to a packed house. Since I didn't feel like being a stand-in, I decided to come down to the lobby and kill some time. I've got my iPhone, so I'm catching up on some surfing and I've got a book to kill some time too.

If anybody is literally in the neighborhood and wants to say hi, I'm gonna be here for awhile.

Still here
Hey all, I'm still alive. That is all.

Do Allweins Dream Of Electric Sheep?
Sometimes I wonder where exactly my brain digs up some of the things I dream about. Last night I had a dream about a girl I haven't seen since Junior High and really only knew marginally. That would be curious enough. But what put it over the edge for me was that we were having a fairly involved geeky discussion about the Hayes Command Set. Yes, that one. I can't even tell you the last time I used or even thought of AT commands. And this girl I was remembering was definitely not the type to be geeking out about it.

So tell me, brain, where exactly did you pull these things out of, and why?

Current Mood: confused

The internet has failed me
Dear Internet,

We've been good friends for a while now. You and your armies of geek-minded compatriots have always told me when there was something new and good in the world, oftentimes several months or years before such things came to fruition. So it's with great sadness that I had to find out, while watching the Super Bowl tuned in via a one-eared rabbit, that A) there is a Terminator TV show and that B) it stars River fucking Tam, a.k.a. Summer Glau. Seriously internet, WTF? Isn't this something you'd think I *might* be interested in? Don't you know me better than this? I'm just not sure if I can get over such a slight. We'll see how I feel 4 hours from now after I catch up with all extent episodes. Maybe it's okay, maybe you were just protecting me from something that seemed awesome in concept but which sucked in execution. Maybe. But if not, if River kicking Terminator ass is as awesome as the very sticky dream I had last night, then we're gonna have some problems.

Love,
Chris

Solstice!!!
Yes indeedy, the day did seem a little bit longer today, even if it was only in my head.

It's been awhile since I've even read LJ at all, so I have no idea what's going on in anyone's life. So I'm gonna be catching up on the last 4 month's worth of posts in the next couple of days. If you're curious why I'm commenting on something you wrote back in March, that's why. I've got a few important updates myself to make, but I'll get to that once I'm caught up.

Some pics from the week.
I came from work this week and found out that everything had bloomed in my absence. The cherry tree had flowered, all my tulips had bloomed, the red maple had beautiful red leaves... Very very nice. I can't wait to spend some time out there this weekend.

I figured I post some random pics, since I've been slacking so much. There's a couple pictures of the tulips, a couple pictures of birds from the aviary last week, and then some pictures of me and molly.

( Flowers )
( Birds )
( Me and Molly )

When it rains, it pours
Yeah, I've been slacking. Get over it! I haven't even been reading LJ lately so I have no idea what's going on with people that I haven't talked to directly. Molly and I will be out in Pittsburgh for carnival in two weeks, so hopefully I'll see a bunch of people then.

I'm still down in Baltimore during the week doing what I do. I managed to survive half of my team getting cut due to budget constraints, which sort of sucks as it's really quiet down there now and not nearly as much fun. Not to mention I would have really enjoyed a bit of unemployment right now as the weather starts to turn.

Today seems to be the day of "everyone wants Chris to work for them" as three different people that I've worked with/for before have called me up today looking to get me to come back. It's a shame that my schedule isn't conducive for anything right now, as it looks like my current gig will run through July and I'm still enjoying the work itself fairly much and want to see it through.

In addition, even though I'm enjoying work, I think I need a break soon. So I'm entertaining the idea of a month or three off once the current phase of my project is finished.

Defense of Marriage
I brain was already spilling over into "You have got to be kidding me" territory when I started reading the first few bullets on this page.

But then I got to the "punchline", so to speak, in their motivation behind the initiative.

"And at the very least, it should be good fun to see the social conservatives who have long screamed that marriage exists for the sole purpose of procreation be forced to choke on their own rhetoric."

I'm not sure the Heimlich works if you're choking on rhetoric, I think it's the same as if you're choking on soup.

What gives a girl power and punch?
Came home Tuesday night for my weekly wednesday work-from-home day. Molly came over and fixed an absolutely amazing dinner of chicken cacciatore and homemade polenta. Wednesday was a mostly uneventful day, though I had to participate in a couple of incredibly frustrating conference calls. Wednesday night we headed down to the Hershey Theatre again, this time to see Hairspray. I didn't really know much about the show or what to expect. It was fantastic, very lively, great songs and dancing. I really enjoyed it.

Wow, it's been a whole week, and way too much has happened to do it all justice. Suffice to say that I had an excellent Christmas and got to spend some absolutely amazing time with Molly this past week. I think I've seen her every day since Thursday, which is something I could definitely get used to. :)

I'm off all this week so I still have five more days off after today. I dearly needed the time. Today I think is going to be a nice quiet day at home for me where I'll get some reading done and maybe clean up around the house a little. It was actually flurrying a little bit earlier, which was nice to see, though now it's stopped.

As I slip into a food coma...
We had a team holiday/celebration dinner at Ruth's Chris down in Baltimore tonight. Five Developers, a project manager, a business manager, and some company honcho. I was sort of disappointed that we just broke $650, I was hoping we'd at least break $100 per person. Perhaps we should have gone through with our plan of ordering some of the 130-year-old cognac at $150/half ounce. As it was, it was an amazing dinner. We started with a couple of mid-priced bottles of Shiraz. There were a whole bunch of appetizers ordered. My two favorites were the mushrooms stuffed with crabmeat, since the mushrooms themselves and also the crab meat were incredibly fresh and tasty, and the seared ahi tuna, which I could have eaten as a meal all night since it was so freaking delicious. For dinner I had the prime rib, which was so smooth and tender I could have slept in it. My favorite side out of the ones ordered was the broiled tomatoes. For dessert, pretty much the entire table had creme brulee.

Now, about that coma...zzzzzzz

I'm so sick of Orange Juice
Well I haven't posted anything for a week, but for fairly good reason, I've been sick as a dog. Apparently I developed a right good case of strep throat which had me laid out for the latter half of last week and I wasn't able to get in to the doctor until today. A truly miserable week, though Molly came over to take care of me several nights, I absolutely adore the girl. Friday we were supposed to go out with her sister Amy and her boyfriend but we got a call, they apparently both had strep too, so we just staid in for the night. Saturday we were supposed to go to Molly's friend's birthday party but some sort of family issue came up that had to be dealt with, so that got cancelled as well. The last refuge of the weekend was a big group carolling party at Molly's family's house which included a bunch of Molly's friends, a bunch of Molly's family, and a bunch of Molly's sister Amy's friends. This went off as planned without a hitch. Additional Molly's friends met: Kirsten, Vicky, Sarah, and Laura. Molly's Family met: Mom, sister Amy, sister Emily. There were probably about 20 people in attendance, so I didn't get to spend a lot of time with any one person at the before or after party but it was a good cursory meet of so many people. Apparently I made a good first impression on the fam. I've got a family dinner to look forward to at some point here, which I'm actually looking forward to. Mom sent me home with a jar of cookies which I deliciously devoured once I was capable of swallowing.

( On Laura )

Finally made it in to the doctor's today. So I'm now happily flush with antibiotics and I hope to kick this strep to the curb real soon now. Also, a lesson I learned a long time ago, is if the nice doctor asks you if X is keeping you up at night, you answer "Yes". I've now got some sort of liquid codeine syrup to help me sleep through the coughing at night. Yum!

Current Mood: sick

One Month
Friday night I ended up at the Italian Oven with Molly and her friends Uly and Dan. The food was excellent (Mushroom Lasagna, yum!). Afterwards met up with an additional friend/coworker named Terri, who I apparently I made quite the gentlemanly impression on. We saw "The Holiday", which was passable, but my general impression was that the studio had two half-done half-assed romantic comedies and decided to smoosh them together with a little bit of story glue.

Spent all-day Saturday with Molly as well. We grabbed breakfast and then headed out to visit a bunch of my old haunts. We went for a walk around Memorial Lake, it was a gorgeous day, if a little brisk. Afterwards, took her down to Annville to take another walk through the Quittapahilla park, wherein we were spied upon by a goat. Since we were down that way anyway, I decided to take Molly over to the Lebanon house I'm still working on and give her a tour. There were a couple of things I couldn't find at home that I thought might be in the attic so we ended up upstairs looking through a couple of boxes and revisiting some memories of mine via souvenirs and pictures. I had a couple of packages for Christmas that I had sent to my parent's house since I'm away in Baltimore all during the week, so the next stop was a surprise visit there. Molly was surprisingly nonplussed at the prospect of meeting the parents and she performed quite admirably under the pressure. I'm not sure if she realizes how big of a deal it is for me to introduce someone to my parents. She gets to return the favor this weekend as I meet her family for a big group carolling expedition.

Sunday was a fairly lazy day and we didn't get out of the house until lunchtime. We parted in the afternoon [I'm sure she was sick of me by then. :) ] and I tried to take care of all the random chores and errands that I had piled up. I'm going home Wednesday night and I think we'll finally get around to decorating my house Christmas as well as getting some blinds and candles. Today is a full month since I started dating Molly. It seems like so much longer, and I feel like such a schoolgirl, but I don't care. :)

Current Mood: happy