I am now a homeowner! I closed on the house yesterday and took possession last night. Today my furniture was delivered and tonight I went shopping for essentials (broom, mop, vacuum, sheets, string cheese, etc.). I'm about to go to Wal*Mart (it's 11:30 PM... I should probably just go home and go to sleep, but I'm too wired to go to bed yet. Right now I'm at the apartment. I forgot my duvet, so I had to come pick it up. When I do finally make it back to the new house, though, I'm going to sleep like a king on my new king-sized bed.

http://dantwo.net/video/snl_tacotown.wmv

We were in tears watching it.

is Pablo Francisco.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swQ7faJV_mM&feature=TopRated&page=2&t=t&f=b

There are several new developments in my life as of this week, one of which I can't really discuss publically. There are three that I will, though:

1) I am closing on my new townhouse on TUESDAY! Finally!

2) The Qwest (our local Baby Bell) land line service will be installed on Thursday. After that, the DSL will be installed. I'll have to basically work here at the current apartment all day and sleep at the new house at night. I can't be without internet for an extended period of time, though.

3) I saw "Pride & Prejudice" last night and LOVED IT. Most of you will likely have heard me rail on and on at some point over the years about how much I dislike Georgian-era Brit Lit. I had never read the story, though, and had only seen pieces of the pathetically boring A&E series. I went in open-minded, though, and came out totally impressed on several different levels. The production value was high, the acting was superb (Knightley deserved her Oscar nomination, Sutherland was great as always, and whoever played Darcy really sold the part perfectly), the timing and pace were right on the money. It was just fantastic. I can't wait to see it again.

After a three-hour drive to LAX yesterday, saying goodbye to Naomi, Terje, and Jacob, finding out my flight was cancelled, going to IKEA with Kari, staying in the Travelodge on Century Blvd., eating at Denny's when I was bored, waking up today and going to the airport, being put into the wrong check in line, waiting, then having to get into another line, waiting longer, then waiting in security for so long that I missed my flight from LAX to SLC this morning, being rerouted to San Francisco, taking the BART to downtown San Francisco and eating paella at B44 Catalan Bistro, my favorite Spanish restaurant, taking BART back to the airport, boarding my flight, flying to SLC while having a lovely conversation with a Heidi whose husband just left her, being picked up by Andrea in her roommate's car because she accidentally locked the keys in my car earlier today, and driving back to Provo, I am finally home.

We left Ridgecrest yesterday at 1 PM PST, and I got home at 11:00 PM MST tonight. That's 35 hours. I did get a great mini vacation in San Francisco, one of my favorite American cities, which was a good thing, and which will satiate my appetite for a vacation for the next couple of months. It's good to be home, though.

1) Thanks to Mac's not-so-gentle prodding, I've changed the site yet again. The content remains the same, but the look is a tad different. I am committed to keeping the text-only feel, but it was okay to add a bit of traditional organization to the site.

2) Tomorrow evening I go back to Utah and back to the everyday mix I've enjoyed being away from for a week. I broke up with Andrea again last Sunday, and since then I've gone back and forth in my head about whether or not it was the right decision, even though I felt for the entire week leading up to last Sunday that it was what I needed to do. So, my mind remains a shaken cocktail of emotions and opinions, not quite sure exactly what I should have as my goal. Part of me wants to get on my knees and beg her back, but other parts want me to just cool down for a while and see how I feel later. Regardless, she is my best friend right now and I would rather die than lose her, and even if I've somehow screwed things up, God will take care of me and help me correct my mistake. If I haven't screwed things up and all is as it should be, then God will take care of me to help me move on. At the least, though, this will serve to be some of the favorite few months of my life.

"It's true."
"Ridiculous!"
"Indeed."
"It really is."

Anyone up for some nickels tomorrow night? What about Tuesday night? How about every night this week? I'm having withdrawals. Andrea? Emilee? Yes? No?

I'm back from Glenn's wedding in San Diego. We headed down yesterday for the dinner, then we got up this morning, attended the wedding in the San Diego LDS Temple, then came back here to Ridgecrest for the reception. There's nothing quite like bumper-to-bumper traffic from northern San Diego County until Cajon Pass. Add rain to the mix and you've got quite the afternoon. I was with McKay, though, and we had a good time.

Item 2: For those of my readers who need color, flashiness, and movement, I've provided you a treat at the top of the page. Here's another:

FUNKY TEXT WITH COLORS

I found this article a few minutes ago:

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/news/story?id=2368193

I think it's absolutely awesome that President Bush took the time to meet with Jason. I continue to be motivated and touched by this whole story. Make sure you watch the video on the right side. It'll have you in tears all over again.

I write this post with a stick of my favorite gum in my mouth. It is Trident Tropical Twist, and I can only thank my dear roommate Kevin for bringing it into my life. About 18 months ago he introduced me to it, and I bought a pack of it every now and then. An 18-pack costs 83 cents at Wal*Mart, so I would get a pack every month or so when I was at the check-out counter.

A couple weeks ago I bought a 16-pack "case" (16 packs with 18 pieces each). I've now eaten three and a half packs all by myself since then. I gave Andrea a pack and she still hasn't finished it yet. I, however, can't seem to stop eating it. I eat probably 6 pieces a day.

The amazing thing about Trident Tropical Twist is that it keeps its flavor for at least 90 minutes. And the first few bites are amazing -- there is a sort of shock that you feel from the burst of flavor. It is simply delicious.

Sugar-free, of course, and less than 5 calories/piece. Try it.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/03/11/milosovic/index.html

I'm sure you've seen the news by now about Milosevic's death. The problem with the whole situation is that this is one of the clear-cut cases where someone truly deserved the death penalty. Europe is so anti-death-penalty right now that there is no way they would've ever sent him to death. He would've been given the opportunity to live out his life, albeit in a cell.

In my opinion, bloody and murderous dictators should be exempt from living out a happy life in a cell. And I'm not even that big of a fan of the death penalty.

After today's FrontRunner commuter rail announcement, I spent a bit of time reading about the future of both mass transit and new freeway construction in Utah and Salt Lake counties. I found this blog and will be adding it to my bookmarks:

http://mountainviewcorridor.blogspot.com/

If you're interested in the topic, keep watching it. It looks like it gets updated pretty regularly.

I passed my compiler off today. I ended up getting 16 of the files done, good enough for the grade I was hoping for. Yay!

I've been working on my compiler pretty hard core the past few days. We have 20 test files that we have to get compiling. As of two days ago I was at 3. By the end of Thursday I was at 6. By yesterday afternoon I was at 10. As of now I'm at 12. I'm shooting to get 16 of them done. I mean, if I can get them all done, that would rock, but I don't see it happening. 16 is a good number.

Last night I went out with Andrea and her roommate Emilee. We went to look at fabrics for a chair they're re-upholstering. Walking through two fabric stores was like bathing in estrogen -- the scrapbooking section at Joann Craft is both compelling in its size and desperately pathetic. It was fun, though, to look at some of the gawdy prints found in fabric stores these days. Some people must have awful taste. Clearly I am not one of those people.

Back to the compiler I go...

*EDIT*: I forgot to mention that I have to wait a couple of weeks to move into the townhouse. Apparently there was some issue with the builders getting some of the occupancy permits. No big deal, really. It'll give me the chance to save more money for furniture. Not only that but my original goal was to find a place I could move into in April. I was only going to move in March because the sellers didn't want to wait until April. So this works out well.

http://wuapinmon.blogspot.com/2006/03/my-southern-heritage.html

Read it.

On Saturday BYU will be retiring Kresimir Cosic's number 11 jersey. It is just the second time a BYU Basketball player will have had his number retired (the first was Danny Ainge, a few years ago -- I was there for it).

http://www.byucougars.com/Filing.jsp?ID=7301

No way will I miss this one on Saturday.

April 4-6 I will be attending the ISC West security conference in Las Vegas. Not only am I responsible for the scheduling software portion of my employer's recreation centers, but I will also be responsible for security video transmission over the internet. My boss and I are going down to check out new technologies and so that I can begin to learn how our security and automation systems will work. I'm really excited.

Here's the conference's URL: http://www.iscwest.com