FIRST was excellent as always!! :) Although this time the standings didn't really show our true talent. We ended up in 30th place after the seeding matches after a couple tough losses. But we were also up against some of the best teams, so it was ok. But we were picked by the #3 team as an alliance partner, so we made it into the tournament, losing in the semi-finals (making us #3 overall). We had some tough breaks with the robot and trying to hang, but overall we learned a whole lot and are totally ready for the nationals next month!! :)

Not a whole lot else new around here. I went to dinner with my parents after FIRST today and mentioned Ethel enough that they probably have figured out what's going on :) They are very indirect people. It's bizarre. Anyway...it was fun to have dinner with them :)

I think I'm ready for a nice quiet evening in after a crazy busy few days at FIRST. Time to make some nice hot tea and read a book I think. Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone!! :)

Yesterday was AMAZING :) I'm so serious that it was like the best day ever!! :) :) Ethel and I went to the Milwaukee Art Museum and saw the "wings" open and close...went all over the museum..laughed, smiled, held each other's hands, walked along the lake in the nice spring weather. Man...I couldn't imagine a more beautiful and amazing day. Things are definitely going well!!

Oh!!! And Toys R Us is now selling atari in a box...like all the old games bundled in a little joystick that you plug into your TV! It's awesome :) Ethel and I were playing pac man in the store. Yes, we went to a toys r us. And yes, I'm 24 and she's 23 :) And yes, we had SO much fun :)

So Ethel gets to open up the Wisconsin State Fair! How cool is that?? And she's like in a parade on the 4th of july! Man, the life of a beauty queen ;) Of course that means that she'll be back in WI a lot, which makes me happy :) :) :)

I'm just very happy right now, if you couldn't tell :) :)

FIRST is this weekend! If you are in or near Chicago, you should totally come!! It's at the Northwestern Basketball Staduim right on Central all day Friday and Saturday!! But if you come saturday, come early, cause it's eliminations in the afternoon and you never know how far we'll make it! It should be an awesome competition though and we should do really well! Our drivers have been practicing a lot and we finally have autonomous mode working :)

Have a great weekend everyone!! :) :)

Susan Twomey is my hero! :) I'm going to Wrigley in April!!! :) :) :) :)

Hi again! :) It's been a super busy week again, so sorry for the lack of posts. But it's actually been a super-fun week as opposed to all those super-busy-with-work weeks :)

So I flew home from San Francisco last Friday night and met my friend Susan at 2am at my place and we drove out to Detroit for the FIRST regional out there!! I was super-bummed that I couldn't make it out there for Friday (since WildStang won every round we were in!) but that was ok. It was nice being in 80 degree weather in SF on Friday :) Anyway, we watched the regional all day and I worked on strategy for Dan. We picked a couple of awesome teams in the "draft" since we were the #1 seed, but we ended up losing in the tournament part because of some oversights between rounds (stuff being unplugged or not set..). Oh well...we learned a lot for the Northwestern Regional which is this coming week!!! Anyway, if driving to detroit and doing FIRST all day wasn't enough, Susan and I went out to dinner and drove all the way back to Chicago! Such a crazy but totally fun day!! And great as always to hang out with Susan. Kinda funny since I just hung out with Eliza-Beth the other day :) (If you don't know the Twomey-Lerch story, ask me sometime!)

This week was super fun as well. I ended up going to work in Libertyville on Monday to participate in an open house for our design group. Our designer is over in China, so he asked if we could step in for him. So that was fun, but I got this random t-shirt with a devil on it for participating...don't ask :) But being in Libertyville meant that I could meet Stacie for dinner!! (a theme that will repeat itself over the week) :) We went to Firkin which is the most awesome restaurant in the suburbs. They have this amazing vegan chimichanga! :)

Other highlights if the week include green beer with stacie on St. Patricks day and getting to meet our new CEO on Friday at our Motorola Labs tech fair! He was cool and seemed to like our work, so that was super cool as well :) And then when I was hanging out with my friend Jenny and some of her friends at a movie on Friday night, I ran into an old friend from like preschool onwards who just happened to be in the same show!! He did FIRST in high school too, so he's coming to the regional next week!! I haven't seen this guy in years, and now I'll see him twice in one week! Crazy!

It's been snowing all week! :( (And it's even snowing right now as I write this!!) Man, what a difference from the 80+ weather out in california. I keep debating what I should do with my life. If CA is the place for me. It would be hard to find a company as diverse at Motorola in the things they work on (without going to the Evil Empire) so right now I'm just thinking. One thing that's great about motorola is that one day you could be working on devices for the home, the next year on something for cell phones, the next on things for the car, or things for police men, etc. We do a lot, and the different areas are pretty exciting. Oh well...we'll see what this year brings!!

So Tuesday is the big "valentines day" with Ethel!! :) Man, I am SOOOOOOOO excited! :) I really really hope it goes well!! We're going up to the Milwaukee Art Museum and then hanging out, talking a lot, going out to dinner. We'll see how it goes...but man, Ethel is super-cool...and she's gonna be Miss Wisconsin someday! :)

OK...I should go clean...that's going to be an all day project since I've been coming and going to CA so much lately I have stuff all over!! And I get to hang my new pictures that I got with stacie at IKEA yesterday!! Fun fun :) Have a great weekend everyone!!!!

Hey!! No, I haven't disappeared!! I've just been super busy out here in Cali!! :) Last week was busy getting all of my code in organized for this release, so that was pretty intense. But I got to drive up to Berkeley one night and hang out with my good friend Eliza-Beth!! :) So that was awesome!! Despite the fact that it took two hours to drive up there! But hanging out with Eliza at Naan -N- Curry made the drive totally worth it!

This weekend was quite the adventure as well!! I drove down to LA which was *the* most amazing drive ever!! You know that green mountain that is the default wallpaper background from windows xp?? I saw *that* on my drive...and so much more. So many amazing mountain ranges!! :) And I got to hang out with my aunt and uncle down there and meet a cool cousin I never knew about!! But I think I figured out that I need at least a week out here in California to get to see everyone I want to see!! I made it down to Whittier to visit Allison, but didn't have time to make it to Pasadena to see Irvin or down to San Diego to see Marissa! :( Allison and I had a tasty lunch though and it was fun to hang out with her in that very beautiful city!!

I'm back up in Mountain View now finishing out the week! It should be pretty busy, but that's cool...things should calm down a little when I get home. Except for this crazy weekend!!! We've got a FIRST competition in Detroit, so Susan and I are driving out at 3am on saturday morning!! :) Should be an awesome time!!

Speaking of the robot!! Check it out!!! http://www2.wildstang.org/2004/video/WS2004encore_v2_vcd.mpeg

I'll see all you chicago people again next week!! :)