Capitol city living and catching up on life

It has been a coon's age since I have had the time to write anything in the blog.  Long overdue for an update I think.

Where did I leave off?  Oh yeah, all the way back in Colombia almost a month ago now.  Well, the last few days of the trip were pretty sweet, except for being deathly ill for a few nights.  Cartagena, although really, really hot, was an amazing city.  The architecture there was some of the coolest I have seen.  Glenn and I only had a half of a day there, but I would venture back for a week or more if I could.  It was a great mix of old world with new city.  It was a little (ok lets be honest a LOT) hot, but definitely manageable.  We stayed at one of the nicest hostels that I have stayed at anywhere.  Luckily, we splurged the extra dollar for an air conditioned room.  That night I unfortunately felt Montezuma's wrath, but not as bad as the following night.  It just wasn't any old wrath...this one was like when the Spanish were invading and he was hating on them like none other.  I was up pretty much the whole night.  I'll spare you the gory details, but after about 4 hours I literally had nothing left in my body.  Finally, at 6 am, I headed down to the pharmacy to pick up some OTC Cipro.  Luckily, it seemed to do the trick and I was feeling mostly better by midday, which was lucky since I had to fly home later that night.

After getting back from the SA excursion, I spent a few days jazzing around NYC with Suzie.  We hit up some Vietnamese (don't go for the spicy noodles or they will tear you up) and Indian food (chicken masala = delicious).  I mad it back to State on the megabus, which was surprisingly on time this time.  I went to lunch with a bunch of awesome Penn Staters...Mella decided that TGIFridays would be a good spot, pretty much because she had a coupon and wanted to use it before going to Iowa...and, as adam knows, you never tell a pregnant woman no when it comes to anything to do with food.  It was a great lunch, but almost immediately after I tried to head out to Lake Erie where mom and dad were fishing with my grandparents.  Lucky for me, I had not been smart enough to unplug a few things from my cigarette lighter, and it completely burned my battery out. Even with Grave's help, we couldn't jump it. $115 and a new battery later, I was headed on my three hour drive through beautiful country to the lake.  You don't really realize until you leave PA and come back that we really do have a nice state.  Rivers, forest, lakes, rolling hills.  Especially through the north central part that I drove through.

When I made it to the lake, I was welcomed how a man who hasn't been in the US for a while should be welcomed: with an ice cold Keystone light from my grandpa and grandma.  A bunch of their friends were up there fishing the same derby that my parents were in, and I sat around and listened to them reminiscing about old times.  They talked about old fishing tales and traveling out west.  I think I finally realized then where I got some of my sense of travel adventure.  It was awesome to hear some stories that I have never heard about my family.  It was a great night with the family catching up.  The next day we went out fishing.  Not the best day out, rainy, windy, and not much sun, but still a day on the water!  I wound up wearing pants and a fleece all day, which is not what you should wear during the summer at the lake.  We finished up the day with a fish fry and I headed out back to State early the next morning for a GREAT campfire with some more awesome people in the backyard.

The next day, Becky and I headed out to Williamsport for the Shoales/Keim wedding.  The wedding was freaking fantastic!  I got to catch up with some of the mirabile ivenut MI7-007 crew.  Just like the old times, lots of laughs, jokes, and sarcasm.  It was great seeing Hannah, Emily, and Kristen.  We decided on the next reunion in the Florida Keys.  It better not be 2 years in the making though.  The sooner the better.

The last 3 weeks have been a blur.  Starting work, trying to find a house to live in, traveling on weekends, trying to catch up on sleep.  It has been pret-ty nuts.  But, everything seems to be working itself out.  I started up with IBM to find out that I would be assigned to a project in Springfield, VA.  Today was the start of my third week and I am settling in a little bit.  It is a little bit slow at times and super fast at times, and pretty challenging because I don't know very much about the programs that I am using.  I am learning a lot, but I am still lacking in human interaction.  A lot of my day is spent in front of the computer screen.  I know it is necessary to do analysis and I enjoy doing that for part of the time, but I also need to be able to use my people skills.  Most of you who know me know I like and am good at interacting with people, so hopefully soon down the road I'll be able to make it happen.  On the home front (literally) I found a place to live in the Clarendon area of Arlington, VA.  It s a house with a few other guys.  It is great.  I'll have a lot of space, a place to store a kayak in the basement, a back yard, front porch, and all the sports channels available.  I think all of the roommates will be on about the same level work/still wanting to get out and have some fun, so I am pretty pumped about that.  I move over there on August 1st and will finally, finally be settled back into a place after 3 months of moving around and crashing on couches.  Speaking of, I thought it would be fun to list all of the places that I have slept in the past 3 months:

1. Guayaquil, Ecuador
2. Cuenca, Ecuador
3. Riobamba, Ecuador
4. Banos, Ecuador
5. Quito, Ecuador
6. Cotopaxi base camp, Ecuador
7. Bogota, Colombia - old center
8. Salento, Colombia
9. San Gil, Colombia
10. Taganga, Colombia
11. Colombian jungle
12. Santa Marta, Colombia
13. Cartagena, Colombia
14. Bogota, Colombia - Zona Rosa
15. NYC - Elmhurst (Suzie's new apartment)
16. NYC - Astoria (Suzie's old apartment)
17. Barcelona, NY (Lake Erie)
18. State College, PA (out spare bedroom)
19. Williamsport, PA (Days Inn - hot breakfast, oh yeah)
20. Washington, DC - Shaw (Chelsea's house)
21. Baltimore, MD (Lindsay's house)
22. Clarion, PA (tenting at Jon's campsite)
23. Clarion, PA (Lindsay's house)

I think that rounds it out.  So - as you can see - it has been freaking busy but great.  Over the past 4 months I have got to see and have fun with a lot of family and close friends that mean a lot to me.  As an italian guy in a restaurant in NYC's little italy once told me - "I'm jealous to this guy!!" In other words, I'm one lucky man.