Howdy folks... Of course it's been a while since I've updated anything on this front page, but I've been doing a lot of work on the photo albums, plus I've been updating a live journal here!
It is now the beginning of 2005 and I'm still working at IBM and still going after my PhD at NC State. Alecia and I are dating and she's now working full time at IBM. I've travelled a lot in the past year, visiting my family for holidays and reunions as well as visiting friends in Virginia, South Carolina and other places. Recently I took a cruise to the Caribbean. That was pretty nice. Back in 2004 I did a cross-country trip to visit my brother in Houston as well as the rest of the family. There have been a couple new additions to my family, my younger sister had a daughter (Makayla) in 2003 and my older sister had her second child, a son (Zane), in 2004. I've had the joy of seeing both of them over the recent holidays.
I am making a little bit of progress on the PhD research. I have completed the qualifier and I'm working towards the preliminary. This Spring (2005) I'm taking 2 classes and I hope that this fall I'll have the last class out of the way and I should be able to focus on the written document until I gradutate. Hopefully that'll be December 2006. I want to have the doctorate to be able to teach college-level, but I'm not willing to sacrifice my whole life to get it. Until something really bad happens though, I'm sticking with it!
I still miss the martial arts. I'm getting lazier and less and less physically fit. Right now I'm blaming my work and school schedule. I'm too busy to fit in a regular schedule of exercicse, but the stress relief would really do wonders for me. Maybe one of these days.
As of this past weekend, Schmoo by the Sea is on the market. Alan and I have decided to sell the house and upgrade to a newer one. Should keep us busy for this Spring and give us a fun place to visit before and after summer. The new place will have a pool as well as a hot tub, so that'll be fun.
The Acura is still holding up, but I have a feeling it'll be passing on soon. When it goes, it probably won't be pretty. I've put 185,000+ miles on the thing. I've started considering another car, I'm just waiting for the death of this one before I invest in another one. Once the weather warms up, I'll be using the motorcyle more often as well. Here are some updated pictures.
Work is work... I was promoted last May, so I don't expect anything to happen this year. I'm still staying busy as team lead and I hope that I can earn the respect of the team as we move forward. It will be a busy year with the projects we have as well as trips to Virginia Tech for recruiting. The IBM/Lenovo split will also make some changes happen, although no one knows what yet.