Turquoise Cherry

I have been addicted to shopping the goodwill and salvation army type stores in my area. There is one store called Hope Gospel Center that has a building full of furniture and building supplies where the procedes go to the church. I found a xray light box there for $70. It is a million times brighter than any commercial light box and is way bigger....I think I scored on buying that one.

current things i am doing that i consider awesome;
Broadening my programming capabilities
Starting up my own company (Something i believe is awesome because i have the commitment to do it at a young age)
Thats about it really...

Packing to fly to Tokyo on Sunday... I think that's pretty awesome (I'm not one of those people who hates packing).
The only downside is that we were due to be leaving tomorrow morning and without any warning SAS cancelled their flight and re-routed us... I thought swedes were supposed to be super efficient and whatnot? Morons. So we're down a day on our vacation, but I guess the silver lining is that I sent them an e-mail laying some EU regulation smackdown on them. Because we didn't get notice in the appropriate timeframe, and because no exceptional circumstances apply, and because we're arriving more than 2 hours later than our originally scheduled time of arrival we should be entitled to compensation. Look at the regs it will be either 250 euro each, or as much as 400 euro each (depends on what whether the whole distance travelled in the intinerary is counted or just the leg they cancelled).
Bought a few bits and bobs to bring the guys in Yellow Blaze today as small gifts. I know they'll probably never do a celtic style tattoo, but maybe what I bought will find a spot in their rather large library of reference material - a few books on celtic design, knotwork, bordering etc. Going to chuck in a bottle of whiskey too.

I finally enrolled as a PhD student. It's taken almost a decade just to be able to begin. I don't have an MA and went to art school, so I was told by the university I wanted, 'I'm sorry but it is simply our policy and without a good Master's degree you will not be considered.'
I got depressed, then indignant, then pissed off. So I spent a month reading, focusing and writing a proposal and extra essays, sent it all in, and proved (mainly to myself) that I could do it. That felt pretty good.

I started a little etsy shop and I make weird things, like Ouija Board Candles.
:D

I have started the next phase of my medical training - moving from student to intern! It scares the bejeebus out of me that I am now having to be responsible for real patients. First overnight on-call shift is Monday, which I anticipate will be both interesting and completely overwhelming.

I gave my resignation letter at my job which I have grown to resent over the last year after finding a job where I am finally appreciated and learning more about my field of practice.
As I walked out of our main station I raised my hands in the air and yelled:

Best day EVER.

We just officially bought our first home today!!! I'm so excited! Now to redo the floors, paint and then move. I can't wait to get out of my shitty apartment and no longer have to listen to my gross neighbors humping!

yeah i really dig it too
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For a moment before clicking it, i thought the thumbnail with the bow was a tupac skull haha

I love hearing about all the great things you all are doing. :)
Next week, I start my last semester as an undergrad. I'm ecstatic. Now, I just need to figure out what I want to do before I apply to PhD programs. I am happy that I decided to take a break to get some more work experience, etc. Not stressing over grad school has enabled me to take time to consider what is important to me and to focus on other aspects of my life.

Screw this. Who wants to do this? Let's form an awesome tattooed posse and just live and say fuck everything...

Upcomming march I will leave everything behind for an unknown period of time and start living out of my backpack while hitchhiking europe. Started preparing today. Can't wait for the adventures ill have and all the people I'll meet! It's scary as fuck to do this but at the same time so exciting to be living my dream pretty soon! Just sharing my stokedness (is that a word? if not it is now)
Take care!

I accepted a job offer today. I'm waiting on paperwork and what not before I hand in my notice but it looks like I'll be in a new job soon. The job isn't for a place that I'm super excited about, but it's a much easier workload than I have now for slightly more money and it means that I'm not going to have any shiftwork. For the past couple of years I've been working about five months a year on nights and pretty crappy hours otherwise and I'm pretty much completely burned out and hopefully changing jobs is going to help me to decide whether or not I'm in a career that I want to stick with (which would mean finding financing to start my own business in the next year or two) or whether I need to find something else entirely. Work things aside, I feel that working normal people hours is probably going to be great for my marriage and it's also going to give me a chance to pursue other interests like playing music with other people, which is pretty much impossible with shiftwork. So yeah, I don't feel super excited about it, but when I think about it, it's pretty awesome.

I made a lightbox :D
Woodwork is not something I've really done before, but I thought I'd give it a go. Buying a lightbox is pretty bloody expensive, so I decided to make my own from recycled materials. The top is an old cupboard door that I got from a seconds warehouse ($18) and I used second-hand timber. The cost of buying a drill and other odds and ends probably meant that this ended up almost as expensive as just buying a lightbox, but now I have a drill AND a place to draw so win-win. Still thinking about whether I'll line the inside of the top to disperse the light more evenly.
I should point out that I didn't make the desk (just assembled it from a flatpack :P ), only the frame at the top.

Congrats to your wife Hogg! And to you too--all partners of dissertation writers are saints. For real.
I did my PhD in the UK but have been back in Canada for a few years now, so defending meant a whirlwind trip back to the UK (I arrived last Thursday morning for my Friday defense and just got back yesterday), which I am still recovering from. INTENSE.

@irezumi: Love you, buddy! I missed the pics here, but man, I'm glad I checked 'em out.
Congrats! My wife just completed her PhD dissertation (also in History--US) last weekend, so I know how involved it is. Huge kudos to you. She's at UC Berkeley. Where are you?

Took my girl to the museum of natural history to look at dinosaur bones and meteorites and other cool shit, ran around fao schwarz like little kids, and proposed to her on a mountaintop on the blue ridge trail.

Reviving this thread partly 'cause I love it, partly because I have something to add in terms of awesome things I've done recently. This afternoon I successfully defended my PhD! Yikes! I am still kind of wrapping my head around the enormity of it, and so spewing my crazy wired energy wherever I can. :)

I do machine shop work on the side.... I had been working on these really close-tolerance parts for a another shop over a year ago. It turns out that some of them are on the Mars craft that is actually now on Mars. How can you beat that? I found out about it last week.
CG

Ok so I was slacking and forgot to update you all, Thanks Dan for reminding me.
Test was a 3 1/2 hour test, and after gaining two large blisters, two black eyes, bruised jaw and a awesome fat and bloody lip, I received my Shodan :D


Basic's

Kata

Also Kata

One attack

Sparring - 1st fight, 1 vs 1 for 2 mins.

Sparring - 2nd fight, 2 vs 1 for 1 min

You can see it starting to swell up during the question and answer portion, by the time we got to the bar, I had to use a straw to drink

Myself and the 3 others who tested :)

here's an update guys! i went sky diving this morning and it was the most amazing experience of my life! my friend said just as addictive as getting tattooed i wanna go back for more!! and i wasn't as nervous as i thought i was going to be. you dont have time to be nervous really! actually the scariest part is signing the liability wavier before you get suited up.

I had a trauma doc at my hospital buy my partner and I coffee for doing some kick-ass patient care today. The dude still died, but felt good to hear a doc tell me I did a good job rather than yelling at me for not doing "enough". This was even after he threw up nasty coffee-ground vomit all over the team.

I stay pretty busy trying to make sure that my five year old daughter, and two year old son don't grow up to be assholes. It is not glamorous but I like it.

I finally got enrolled in college again after about a 10 year "break".

My girlfriend thinks I'm a tattoo snob. She doesn't understand that I know next to nothing compared to most. I just know how to spot good quality tattoos from really, really bad ones.