It's been far too long since I've written an article. Several pretty big things have happened in the last couple of weeks though that sucked up a lot of my time. I've also continued to work overtime every week as there isn't enough time for everything I need to get done. I also took several trips, one work related, and one for fun. I'll discuss those below.

Trip to Rocky Point

As I mentioned in the last article, I was preparing for a volleyball tournament in Rocky Point, Mexico. The format of the tournament was co-ed sand fours. I was heading down with several people, namely my good friends Emy, Nolan, and Krista. Krista was just going down to enjoy a weekend in Mexico. The fourth player on our team was driving to Mexico by himself. There was serious concern about whether he would be prepared, but we trusted that it would all work out.

We had an uneventful drive to Mexico, and got settled in at the resort hotel we were staying at. I had never been to this particular beachside resort before, and I was blown away. They had more rooms than they could ever hope to fill, and each one was filled nice decorations and comfortable furniture. Walking out to the deck led to a huge spa and pool, and a little further, the beach (and a bar right above the sand). I knew we were going to have a great weekend. We got some food that night at the pre-tournament dinner gathering, where a huge number of players came in costume. A live band also played later in the night. Nolan and I were pretty serious about playing though, so we headed back a little early and got some good rest.

The next day, we headed to the beach completely prepared to play. Adam never showed up, and didn't call us. We still hoped that he would show up, even if he was a little late. As time kept ticking, and we approached the start of the tournament, we got less and less optimistic about his appearance. Even with three though, we played incredible. Emy played solid defense, I gave Nolan killer sets, and he put every ball away with style. We were beating the best teams out there with only 3, and it felt great. By the end pool play, we were 1st place out of around 16 teams, and we were definitely drawing attention. Our only concern was if Nolan could keep up his tempo.

By the time we started tournament play, we had given up on Adam showing up. I would only learn later that he had forgotten his birth certificate, so he was turned away at the border (poor guy). We started out the tournament playing fairly well and won our first game. In the second game, we played the only team we had lost to in pool play, and once again, they proved to be too much for us. We started climbing the loser's bracket, but Nolan started cramping up, and I knew we were done for. We wound up getting something like 8th or 10th place, which wasn't too shabby for three people. The best part of the trip was just chilling on the beach, enjoying the perfect weather, surrounded by great people (and beautiful women ).

Microsoft Developer Conference

This past week, I was given the opportunity to go to the Microsoft Developer Conference. It was a really cool experience (from a software developer's perspective). Microsoft is introducing some new software that has the potentially to do great things for the web, including Azure for cloud computing, and their new Silverlight. Their new IDE, Visual Studio 2010, looks like it could really be a winner. The best about the conference was that they gave us free laptops! Every attendee was given an Acer 1420P. Talk about an amazing surprise. The laptop has a touchscreen and supports multi-touch. It has windows 7 installed on it, as well as some of Microsoft's newest software. It's my new best friend

Aside from the trips I've taken, and work, I've been using my free time to play a lot of piano, as well as League of Legends and Left for Dead 2. I wish I had more time to continue recording and writing music, but things have just been too crazy lately.

As a side note, I've been experiencing some lower back/hip pain for the last couple months ever since my trip to Japan. It just kept getting worse and worse, probably because I never iced the muscle or let it recover properly. I'm now paying the price. Doctors have been absolutely no help, of course, but I was convinced to visit an acupuncturist who really gave me great information. He helped show me which muscle was pulled (it's deep in the hip and not obvious), and told me that he could take care of it in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, he showed me some extra stretches I could perform to help. In conjunction with that, I got a stretching video from a chiropractor who I trust and respect. For the last several weeks, I stretch every morning and night, and let me tell you, it makes a huge difference. It's also really rewarding - you watch your flexibility increase by huge amounts, and your muscles feel tremendous afterward. I'm almost to the point now where I can bend straight over with locked legs, and put my palms on the ground in front of me. I've never been quite this flexible before, so I'm gonna stick with it. I think everyone should give this a try, especially if they have a desk job, as it will help keep you healthier longer (stretching throughout the day isn't a bad idea either...)

Anyways, I will try not to wait so long to write another article. Next time perhaps I can cover some of the really interesting movies I've watched, or some of the new music cds I've picked. Until then!

Well, my week of vacation is over. As is usually the case, I didn't get nearly as much done as I had hoped. I had planned on recording several songs (including some covers), and possibly arranging instrumental only pieces. Instead, I'm not even completely done with 1 song. In my defense, the song has a full arrangement, and I had to spend a good number of hours studying drumming, and learning to drum well on my keyboard. Hopefully I'll finish up the song and have it out soon. I also wanted to practice guitar using some of the guitar books I have, but I didn't wind up doing that at all. At the volleyball tournament yesterday, I had a good time, but we wound up losing very early on. I also planned on doing some programming, and while I did get quite a lot accomplished there, it still wasn't as much as I would have liked.

One thing I did do, is fully complete the Japan Trip Articles. If you go to http://www.zubersoft.com/Japan09, you can read all about the trip. It's nice to have some context while looking at the pictures. Also, this is a way for me to document the trip for myself so I never forget about it.

I watched several good movies over the break, and I have Braveheart on blu-ray waiting for me. I truly love that movie, and it will be even better in hi-def. Well, it's back to normal living now. Until next time!

It's been awhile since the last time I posted. I've been working extremely long weeks (60-70 hours), and spending the rest of my time with miscellaneous activities like working out. This last weekend, I went camping with my family up in Flagstaff. Although the location was amazing (Dairy Spring Campgrounds), going camping on a holiday weekend is not a smart plan. We spent at least double the normal amount of time driving, and the campers around us were noisy and inconsiderate. That aside, spending time with the family is always great.

I've decided to take this entire next week off, so I have a lot of big plans. I should be putting out lots of music, and finishing up the Japan trip articles. I also have a volleyball tournament Saturday. Wish me luck on a great week!

I sit here, still drunk from the vodka, rum, and wine that I had tonight. See, I thought it would be an awesome idea to invite my neighbor John over, as I was already grilling chicken. So he came over, I busted out the alcohol, and we started drinking. We started up the movie Dune, as I've never seen it, and it's a classic. Let me tell you - alcohol made that movie GREAT! There is nothing quite like special effects from the 80's when you are spinning So, while I'm still buzzed, which has put me in a great mood, I have to go into work tomorrow, and I can't seem to fall asleep. So I've decided I will continue to work on my Japanese website. Speaking of that, if anyone is interested, I've finished days 1 and 2 of the Japan articles, which can be accessed at www.zubersoft.com/Japan09. There is a lot of text, as I wanted to be thorough in case I look back years from now, but it's worth reading (I hope).

In other news, I'm working very hard on recording some new songs. I spent around 5 hours today working on a new song I wrote that I'm really loving. I recorded the guitar part, and after hours of work to get it perfect, realized that one of the microphones was upside down (it's almost impossible to tell without testing it as it looks nearly identical on both sides). So, needless to say, I'm going to have to re-record it so that it sounds the way I want it to. When I first set up the microphone, it sounded distant, and I couldn't figure out why. If I had only paid attention to my instinct then, I could have saved myself a lot of time and effort. You always learn from those kinds of mistakes though... I also have started initial work on two other songs, so if I work hard, I might be able to get three songs out by the end of this weekend. That would make three down, and about 8 to go...

This last weekend, I had a chance to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince as well as Wicked (in the same day!). I seem to be hearing some negative comments about the Harry Potter movie, but considering the size of the book, and the massive amount of content they had to cover, I thought they did a great job. They covered all of the really important details, even though sometimes it meant they had to be really quick about it (which might lead people to say it "jumps around too much"). The movie left me struggling to remember some details from the book, as well as book 7, so I'm definitely going to have to go back and skim the books again. It's such a fun series.

Wicked was truly great. I was a little worried at first as the actress who was playing Elphaba wasn't the regular - it was the standby. Elphaba is pretty much the single most important role in the musical, and the regular actress had an insane amount of experience in Broadway. It definitely left me feeling a little bummed. However, once the show started, the standby distilled any doubts I had - she had a lot of talent and was plenty good enough. I guess that's why she's not an understudy - she could be the lead any day of the week. I always am so happy when I watch musicals though - they are one of my favorite escapes. I would rather see a musical than any movie. I will say that it helps to know all of the songs extremely well - you can connect easier with the songs because you know what's being said, so you can just appreciate the performance. It also gives you something to compare against, so you know how good the cast is. I couldn't help thinking about singing all of the Wicked songs with my sis though as they were being performed - I think we sound great together (we've sung musical duets together for years), and it's one of my favorite things to do. I'll have to make some recordings sometime soon so people can hear her - her voice is gorgeous.

Now I just gotta make it through the week so I can enjoy my 3-day weekend!