Happy Holidays!
Merry Christmas! A lot has happened since the last posting, and I'm sure I won't be able to remember it all. My sister got married in November. She is now living in Tacoma, WA with her husband Aaron. A couple of friends got married as well. I went through the hell known as graduate school and received my Masters of Engineering from Purdue on December 17, 2006. I am now on my way out to Seattle to start my job as a Materials and Process Engineer with Aerojet. They make small rocket engines that go on satellites and the space shuttle. I will be living in Kirkland, WA. I'm sure more updates will present themselves, seeing as though I shall have more free time since my days of graduate school are done. The picture is from Denver where I am currently celebrating Christmas with family. Note the lovely 2 feet of snow we got just days before Christmas. It made getting into town quite interesting!! Have a safe and happy holidays!

PEARL JAM
I went to see Pearl Jam in Chicago on Tuesday (5/16) and Wednesday (5/17). The first night, I used my Ten Club membership for the tickets and took a fellow grad student, Derek, with me. First off, my seats were absolutely amazing. They were by far the closest seats I have ever had to a Pearl Jam concert. I was 6th row, right on the side of the stage. It's nice to know what Eddie looks like in person :). The set consisted of 29 songs and they rocked out for a good 2 1/2 hours +. Some highlights from the set list included the opening track of "Release" which is an all time favorite of mine, but I had never seen live before. After that, they played a couple of tracks off the new album, which definitely are great live. "Low Light" was a definite pleaser, one of my favorite tracks off of "Yield". "Indifference" and "Baba O'Riley" definitely made the second encore for me. Overall, the entire concert rocked, the crowd was really into it, probably because they played a lot of crowd pleasers.
The second night, I had ended up buying a ticket off e-bay for way below face value. I was a little skeptical if my ticket was legit, but figure it was cheap and the company looked legit who was selling it. Since it was only two days before the concert when I bought it, they were probably just looking to unload it. Anyways, I got to the United Center and the ticket was legit, so I was happy just to get in. I didn't care where I was sitting as long as I could hear PJ play. My seat was actually pretty damn good. I was off the side of the stage, 19th row, and had an excellent view of Boom Gaspar and Matt Cameron, as well as a clear view of the rest of the band. The set list was definitely different from the night before. The tempo was much more upbeat and probably directed towards the Pearl Jam faithful. Songs that really made the concert unique for me was hearing "Down", "Man of the Hour", and then the crowd was graced with the "Mamasan" Trilogy, but in reverse order. The songs "Alive", "Once", and "Footsteps", if listened to in succession, tell a mini-opera of a young boy who goes through different stages in his life, ultimately ending up in prison. It's the first time Pearl Jam has played the trilogy since 1994 in Atlanta. And to make the concert even that much more special, Pearl Jam graced the audience with a song it has only played 7 times ever live, a Mother Love Bone song called, "Crown of Thorns." I think the last time they played it was their 10th anniversary show in Vegas. Definitely made my night. The concert ended with "Rockin in the Free World" and "Yellow Ledbetter." 31 songs in total and again over 2 1/2 hours. The two nights were absolutely amazing and I will never forget them. It's too bad Joe was in France, it would have been nice to share my excitement with a PJ fanatic.

Found this photo among the many I have on my computer. This was my meager attempt at trying a sexy wink at the camera. Pretty pathetic, huh? This was when I was up in Minneapolis for Kris' bachelor party. I miss you guys up in MN. I hope to make a trip up sometime this summer. This picture was me circa 20 lbs ago. Since Christmas, I have attempted to work out and eat healthy. I think I ballooned to about 185 lbs right after Christmas. Now I'm down to 162 lbs and feel healthy. My diet of steak and potatoes has been replaced with turkey, chicken, fruits, and vegetables (although Cynthia thinks my diet of fruits and vegetables still needs expanding, and I agree). One more week til I see Pearl Jam in Chicago! I can't wait.

Well, finals are over. Now the major work begins. Right now, I am currently being funded by the Technical Assistance Program here at Purdue. They pay my tuition and pay me a stipend. In return, I do consultant work for them. Through the Technical Assistance Program, businesses in Indiana bring an industrial problem to them, then they give it to the department that it is relevant to. I do whatever work is necessary and then write a report at the end. This is all on the side of doing my normal thesis work. Luckily, I am done working with the TAP program at the end of this month. From then on, Cummins, Inc. will provide all of my funding. I will be up to my eyeballs in work. This summer is basically dedicated to getting all of my results which will go into my thesis. I hope to write the thesis this fall and graduate in December. The sooner the better. The work that I will be doing this summer will be electropolishing off micrometers of sample, then taking the sample to the x-ray diffractometer and measuring the residual stress at that position from the surface. The process will be repeated until I have a complete residual stress profile. So much fun! Can't wait! In the meantime, I will be keeping my eye on the job market in the Portland, OR area, so that I can move out there when I graduate. This weekend I will be heading down to Fishers to clean out anything I have left in my closet. My parents will be closing on the house they bought on May 30th, so I will be helping them move during the month of June. That's the latest and greatest with my parents. They are so incredibly excited to move into a house after living in an apartment for the past 14 years. My sister is currently in the process of moving to Fort Louis, WA, where she will be living with her fiance, Aaron. They plan to get married in the fall sometime. So much going on with my family. That's enough for now, hopefully more will come shortly. Adios.

Today's gripe is with the Pittsburgh Pirates, my favorite baseball team. They're off to their worst start since the 1950s at 5-16. It's such a disappointment considering they actually were somewhat aggressive with their offseason acquisitions. The young pitching rotation has been just awful and the lineup has barely been able to score. I subscribe to MLB.tv so I can watch all of their out of market games, but at this rate I don't know how much longer I should pay to watch them lose.

This weekend, my dad came up to visit since my mom is visiting my sister in Denver. Dad and I went over to the race track here at Purdue to watch some of the annual Grand Prix race. These go carts are stocked with ~5 hp engines and go about 40-50 mph around a track with left and right turns. There was also a car show going on in an adjacent parking lot. Dad and I got a real kick out of looking at some of the cool cars they had there. A lot of classics like a 1970 Ford Mustang Mach 1 and a 1955 Chevy had my dad and I drooling. It amazes me exactly how much he knows about the different kinds of classic cars. What's even more amazing is he knows about all the castings that go into the body of the car since he used to make them when he worked in the foundry industry. Anyways, we've always said this together, but it became even more solidified this weekend, he and I are going to build a car together. It seems as though I might not be living here in the Midwest for too much longer, but with my parents just buying a house and having a garage, this idea seems more and more like it could become a reality. Anyways... I'll post more, time for class.

Trying out the whole blog thing. Here goes nothing.....