Moving On

My buddy quit his job yesterday. He used to work with me, and he's decided to go back to his former job in DC. When he told me he had turned in his two weeks' notice and was heading back north, I was disappointed, but not terribly surprised. He's one of these guys who changes jobs every year (sometimes twice a year), and while I thought he was generally happy with things down here, I guess he wasn't. Apparently The Itch was too much for him to ignore and he switched jobs yet again.

Bummer. I hope he's happy going back to a job he already quit once. I tend to stick around and have a harder time moving on than most people my age, I guess. I've been at the same job for the last five years with no intent to move; before that I was at one job for almost four. (And that job sucked!) Most people my age move every, what, two or three years? I guess I could look it up.

I wonder how much of that has to do with how I was raised. My dad has held exactly one job since I was born, and it's all I've ever known him to do. I lived in the same house from birth until I was, I think, 17. On the one hand, maybe I'm getting the shaft by not moving around all the time and getting more and more money...on the other hand, maybe the roots I'm putting down will one day allow me to move into a better position for me and my family.

Well, right now I feel like I've got a good thing going. Until that changes, I don't plan to go anywhere.

Nostalgia

I had, and still have, grand visions of writing much more on this thing than I do. Unfortunately, I think of lots of good stuff to write about, but I rarely take the time to write it. I don't think that's going to change any time soon, but I'll try to be a little more proactive about it.

In the meantime, they recently made a brand new Mega Man game. Remember those? They had about a zillion of them on the old NES, and I had a couple of them, which I played over and over again. You had two buttons on those old controllers, and that gave you two options: jump and shoot. As a result of the technical limitations of the day, the game designers had to rely on creative and interesting level design to make the games fun, and they WERE fun. Simple, and occasionally frustrating, but fun.

Well, Mega Man 9 just came out on the 360, and it's a brand new game that looks, sounds, feels, and plays just like the old ones. They even made it so that if you get too many sprites on the screen at one time, they flicker. And you know what? It's still fun! It's really, really hard, but all the gameplay elements are just like they were--the running, the jumping, the shooting guys with your little arm cannon that looks like it's shooting eggs. They didn't update it at all and I'm really glad.

What they need to do is put all those old games on one disc, add some speed run objectives, online leaderboard features, and achievements, but don't update anything about the games themselves(!) and I'd definitely pay, like, $20-$30 for it. Someone let me know if they decide to do this.

Weekends Update

In the last two weeks I have been to New Orleans and Denver, bought a fridge, and had my paper accepted for a conference in the spring. Well that is the thirty second version of the story for those short on time.
Now for the longer story:
I went to New Orleans for a conference two weekends ago. The conference focuses on Southern history, but also encompasses all historians who work in the South supposedly. I didn't really see this as true though since almost every session was related to the Civil War or Civil Rights. It was a good conference all the same. I enjoyed my time there because the food was amazing. I ate alligator, crawfish, frog legs, Jambalaya, Gumbo, and beignets (french donuts covered in powdered sugar.) By the time I got home I was sure I had gained 5 pounds, but I lucked out and only ended up with one extra pound. The day after I returned I went to the State Fair for more fried foods, but now I am done for at least a month.
This weekend I went to Denver to see family I have not seen in a very long time. My mother is not very close with her side of the family with the exception of her father and step-mother. I haven't seen my uncles in over 15 years, or longer for some, or met their children. My real grandmother has only seen me two times since she divorced my grandfather when I was two. So when I got invited to attend a wedding for one (of six) uncles, I jumped at the chance to get to see them all again. I am glad I did too. T got to meet that side of my family he has never met, and they got to meet my nephew for the first time. Now I have all their contact information and I refuse to lose contact with them again.
This morning we woke up to the noise of our fridge, which is quite old. I paid attention to it here and there during the day and it never shut off. The food is still cool, but the fridge is obviously on its way out. T and I decided that we should just go and get another one before it does die. I researched a few fridges, but then it turned out they were all too big for the cabinet space. (Thanks to the previous owners who tiled the floor after the cabinets and raised the floor level.) We went to one of the big hardware stores and found one that worked. The salesman was actually very nice and helpful, which is not like that particular store typically. The fridge could take up to nine days to get here, but hopefully it comes sooner or the current one survives that long.
This evening I was reading my emails and received a notice that my paper was accepted for THE conference in my field. I submitted it a few months ago as a stand alone paper, which makes it more difficult to get accepted. Luckily an alumni of my program was on the review board and saw that another stand alone paper matched my topic and put it forward as a complete panel instead. And now it has been accepted and I get to present on segregated state parks. (Which also means a free trip to Providence thanks to my department.)
So I am having a pretty good month, which I hope extends into next month as I start the rough draft of my thesis. Actually, it can keep extending for the rest of the school year since I have to apply to the PhD program and defend my thesis.

The only feasible option

So here's what I think. Everyone knows who Warren Buffett is, right? He's the wealthiest man in America, and he made all his money by more or less consistently outperforming the stock market. (Okay, NOW everyone knows who he is.)

He has managed to do something that people generally assume is impossible. But it's not...if future Warren Buffett traveled back in time to visit young Warren Buffett and give him stock tips...is it? I know, this is the exact plot to Back to the Future 2, but it worked for Biff, and I think it's probably the explanation for Buffett's extremely good luck.

Think about it. You know I'm right. If I "go missing" any time soon, and this website goes offline, it's because Buffett's squad of time-goons got to me.

I got tagged to post the fourth picture from the fourth album from iPhoto. (I use Picasa from Google instead but same difference.)
This photo was taken this summer in Dublin the day I arrived for my 7 week journey for school. I took the picture because the store had the same last name as one of my friends who has family ties to Ireland, as you can imagine with that last name, and so I took pictures of every instance I found.
Now I tag Carie and Alida.

I Think It Is Getting Colder

I made this for the Lolcats website, hence the caption.