I spent my Mandatory PTO / New Years in Vail, Colorado. I really wish the snow could have been better – but the front side of the mountain was open and it was an awesome time! The place is huge.
I went with Pete, Kenneth, Paul Harvin, Pete’s friend Brandon, and Kenneth’s brother Jeff and Jeff’s wife Mariana. It was crowded but fun. We apparently all like to drink because I had to recycle two giant trash bags of empty beer bottles!
Check out some pictures of the trip here:
I’ve taken to making myself breakfast and coffee on the weekends. Turning into an adult is actually pretty awesome (even if it took me a LONG time to start the process).
When I was a kid everyone was like “you’ll have to work so much” and “you’ll have bills to pay!”
Now that I’m actually grown up, it’s just as awesome as I thought it would be. All those naysayers of my youth must have been getting it wrong. I get to do what I want mostly whenever I want. Sure I go to work 5 days a week, and yes I have plenty of bills to pay. The upside of all that work on top of being unmarried with no kids is almost unlimited travel and hobby time.
That’s really the primary focus of this blog. I only post when I buy a new toy, or go a new place with that toy, or have awesome visits with friends.
Now that we’ve got the random thoughts preface portion out of the way, let’s continue on with updates.
Jumping out of a plane was a pretty awesome feeling too, but honestly my favorite part of skydiving is piloting the chute down after the jump. I just like to steer things. I did a tandem jump so I didn’t get much free fall flight control – maybe if I jumped solo I’d be more into the free fall portion of it. In tandem it just feels like wind going by fast – like on a motorcycle, but way more expensive per trip.
As part of this trip I added three new states to the map of states my motorcycle wheels have touched:
I also learned that a 700 lb Kawasaki Concours with 180lb rider can easily drive up onto a curb if that’s where the hotel valet wants you to park. Who knew it would be so simple? After much trepidation I just drove up on that damn curb, no hassle.
Here are some awesome Jeeping and camping pictures:
However, I think after 6 years my stress levels of constantly being on the hook or on the phone with customers on their worst days, has taken its toll. You try to steel yourself against the customer who says they’ve spent millions of dollars and now everything is down and they need you to fix it ASAP and make sure it never happens again, but they do take their toll, one piece of sanity at a time.
Some customers are great, patient, understanding, appreciative of your time, and know that some problems just can’t be instantly fixed.
Some customers are ungrateful, impatient, uncooperative, willfully ignorant of basic facts and reality (even when clearly presented to them), and set expectations so unrealistic that their lives are guaranteed to be a constant disappointment for them. Some people have problems that I can’t solve. Some people just want to watch the world burn
That’s tough for me. I like being able to solve the problem, and then being recognized as the bad ass without whom it would not have been possible.
Have you ever seen House? When House makes his diagnosis he walks away. He’s solved the puzzle – figured it out. The patient themselves are not the prize, it’s solving the puzzle. That’s my motivation – interesting puzzles.
This new job is going to be designing and deploying voice solutions for customers who contract with us. I believe it will go like this:
Customer wants solution / Customer is sold solution
I come in and help gather requirements for design and implementation
I present design and deployment plan
I deploy and verify success
Next project
I’m excited to get started on it at the end of October. The two main differences are going to be:
Project lifecycle has clear start and end points (as opposed to non stop incoming cases)
Customer is paying you for the work you perform (as opposed to customers having paid a flat service contract fee ahead of time, entitling them to have their problem fixed no matter how long it takes)
Also – travel and more work from home. I’m going to get to see some places and spend more time enjoying the downtown digs.
All in all – life is pretty damn good right now. I’m excited to see what this next chapter of personal and professional development brings.
Now my coffee pot is empty and it’s time to take on the rest of the day. Hope you enjoyed the updates.
It’s been a month since my last update. That sounds about right to me.
The first big change is that I moved to downtown Raleigh. I’m in an apartment building called “Hue,” which is pretty nice. The view is awesome.
My Jeep and the FZ6 are living at Pete’s house, along with power tools and some other things. I’ve got the 1BR and a single parking spot that has the Z and the Concours parked in it right now. Locked parking garage. Pool. Sweet View. Close to all of my favorite bars. Not a bad setup.
I’m in desperate need of furniture, but that will come in time I’m hoping.
So Brendan has been excited that I’ve moved downtown. In his excitement he’s been trying to get me to leave Raleigh as often as possible. An opportunity popped up to drive to DC with Brendan for Esther’s housewarming party. At the same time I’d also get to visit Heather.
Two beautiful girls, one stone. I had a fun time. Esther took Brendan and I rock climbing which is pretty awesome.
Here are some pics of the house warming party.
Heather was looking especially hot.
Esther was in party preparation mode.
One very fun thing about the House Warming party was trying to mount a clock to the living room wall with 6 drunk people and power tools. I’m glad I have video of this:
I’m definitely bummed that I didn’t get to hang out with Heather for very long, but we still had a great time.
When I have furniture I’ll have a house warming party myself and invite everyone.
I’ve been extremely busy being eXtreme lately.
Here are some pictures of a snow board trip I took to Tahoe with Brendan, Kurt, Lauren, and Marcy.
I also rode 1000 miles from Raleigh, NC to New Orleans, LA and back. I tried to get my Iron Butt certification (1000 documented miles in < 24 hours) but just missed it due to some terrible weather. It rained on me for something like 20 hours of the 36 hours I sat on my motorcycle. I rode through several tornado warning zones. I don't really know how I can endure distances like that. It clears my head though. I enjoy the solitude and scenery. I'd do it again just to get away from things. I can just head out any direction I please for hundreds (or thousands) of miles.
In NOLA I met Jason and Ashley, Dan and Tammy, and Chuck and Gina for a week of Mardi Gras celebration.
Here are pictures of motorcycles, drinking, and boobs. You can't really go wrong here. I loved New Orleans and ordering drinks to go. The music and costumes were the best part.
Oh, and I wandered into a spontaneous Mardi Gras parade:
On St. Patrick’s Day I fell in love with a beautiful brunette. She was really friendly and we got along quite well. Her boyfriend did not appreciate this. I realized that I definitely have a type, and my friends know it now too. They saw her and said “Burns, you would like this girl”. They were definitely right. I saw her and said, “This won’t end well for anyone.”
I wish I remembered more of the night, but when I realized I’d met yet another great girl with a boyfriend, I started drinking at a brain and liver punishing level. I sincerely have been trying to avoid that – but having a DD and a reason makes it tough Tomorrows will bring better days though.
I can’t say that I should only ever pursue single girls (even though some of my friends INSIST I MUST). It’s rare that I meet a girl who gets me to talk, let alone try hitting on her. But, I think I’ll make something of an effort to leave the “It’s Complicated” girls alone.
Winning.
As usual it’s been forever since I’ve updated my site.
I went to see all of those shows in the previous post and they were awesome. Especially Menomena and The Thermals. Say Anything was pretty sweet too.
I finished a simple Android app that can be used at work. I don’t use it. I’m trying to find time to get some more training.
Lately there has been some serious downtown condo / house hunting. There are a few places down by Moore’s Sq I’m seriously considering, but this requires further concentrated thought. It’s apparently a lot of money to spend all in one place for something you CAN’T EVEN DRIVE!
I have a camera full of pictures of things I’ve done that I haven’t posted. Like my motorcycle trip to Florida for Thanksgiving. 1200 miles of motorcycling awesomeness.
Last weekend I went snowboarding in Snowshoe, WV. My skills are developing there. It’s always amazing to first suck at something, and then get better with practice. I’m not used to being good at anything besides computers. At the end of Jan we’re heading out to Tahoe to get some more boarding in at Squaw. Should be an excellent time. I hope I don’t get injured too badly.
This weekend I’m taking DC Heather (I don’t know what I’ll call her if she ever moves) out to the Mountains. We’re going to drive through some snowy trails in the Jeep and try not to die, or get stuck. I’ll finally have an excuse to go visit the Biltmore Mansion too, since Heather will be coming along
Anyway – more updates once the weekend is finished and I empty my camera’s contents. For now – time to drive out through the crappy weather to Mountain City, TN.
This past weekend I went up to Buffalo for Don and Tiffany’s wedding. You can find some great pictures of the wedding here:
I drove the Z up on Thursday to stop by and have dinner with my dad, and to go see Jaime. That’s an interesting story because I “met” her at my HS reunion. I know what you’re thinking, how do you meet someone at your HS reunion, don’t you know them already? Well yes I suppose that’s true, but when you have a terrible memory for people like I do, and 10 years go by, it’s like meeting someone again for the first time.
I drove the 10 hours up to my dad’s then the 35 minutes out to East Aurora for coffee, then around EA, then back out to Delevan, than back out to EA. We wound up staying out WAY too late, which turned out to be a fun time for everyone. I didn’t make it back home until somewhere around 5AM, at which point my dad was already working on getting up and doing chores.
Friday I went out to see Elementary school friends Janette and Will. That’s always a blast from the past when you can hang out with someone you remember from 2nd grade!
Friday night I spent at my Uncle’s place where my grandmother cooked dinner. Home cooked meal == win!!!
Saturday was the wedding proper which worked out really well. I was partially responsible for some of the decorations. It was my job to light all of the candles hanging from the trees in mason jars. After a few drinks I don’t know what I was doing at the top of a ladder, but I survived. The lights came out great:
You can look through all of the pictures to find some ridiculous dancing, and me getting to hang out with a ton of old HS friends. Always a great time.
On Sunday I made it home from the wedding at about 7AM, just in time to eat breakfast at my Dad’s, and then go to sleep! When I woke up I made a trip out to Rochester to hang out with Kaija and Devon. It was interesting to meet Kaija for the first time after chatting with her online for nearly a decade (wow).
Monday I made the long trek back home to Raleigh.
In the end the odometer says 1700 new miles, and 31 hours of seat time!
My left leg calf was really sore from all that clutching. I’m just not that used to it. The Z drove great minus some hydroplaning issues in the rain. I enjoy road trips more than any sane and normal person should! My friends told me I should be a truck driver since I love driving around so much.
Now I’m back in Raleigh after being in DC for business. Just back in time for Matt and Candra’s wedding. I need a weekend of rest to prepare for it!
I’ve been ridiculously busy since my last blog post. I’m starting to keep track of things by having my picture folders include the full date in the folder name. Otherwise I’d have no way to remember what order things came in.
In chronological, photographical order here is what I’ve been up to:
Marcy came down to visit Lauren and we all spent a few nights hanging out. It was a really great time.
Raleigh Times:
The Pit and The Saucer:
Matt’s House for Matt and Lauren’s Birthday, followed by Napper Tandy’s:
That one is a pic of Marcy trying out the Rum siphon. Engineering + Alcohol = WIN!
The weekend after Marcy visited, I went out Jeeping with Brendan, Garland, Andy, and Shapess in Mountain City, TN. It was a full Jeep caravan to Callalantee. This place was pretty awesome. We found a Jeep playground to jump over things, as well as some very cool logging trails up mountains!
After Jeeping in TN I decided it would be an amazing idea to ride my motorcycle to NYC from NC to go to a Brewfest on Governor’s Island. I was correct.
I stayed with Pete at his Parents’ place on Long Island for a few nights, as well as spending a drunken night in Manhattan with Munns. It was fun to finally visit Munns and see him in his natural concrete habitat.
Here is the gang drunk on the island. Just like old times:
My back, hands, and wrists were sore for a week after that trip! It’s a hell of a long ride on a motorcycle to just tackle on a long weekend, but definitely an adventure.
I took the weekend of June 25th off for actual relaxing (I think).
The next misadventure was the 3rd of July party at Justin’s house. I proceeded to get liberally sloshed and make a new drinking partner (Ruri) who can drink more tequila than I can, while at the same time thoroughly making an ass of myself. It seems the two go hand in hand. I woke up the next morning on Justin’s couch.. knowing that there was something I should apologize for – but not what exactly. Either way – I had fun!
If I hit on your friend, girlfriend, fiance, or wife (or any combination thereof) I’m sorry. That just happens.
I don’t even remember this picture at all! No one should have let me near fireworks.
I hear they found me asleep in a chair on the back porch and then wrangled me to the couch. I have no recollection of that either.
After much recovering, it was decided that I should start drinking at a more moderate pace.
I spent a weekend of general sobriety Jeeping at Gulches ORV Park in South Carolina with Andy, Nadine, Cam, and Shapess:
Sobriety lasted until the weekend after that – when I decided I hadn’t yet put enough miles on the Jeep, so I drove it to New York. That’s NY trip number 2 of the summer. Probably the 4th time I’ve been to NY so far this year!
Marcy has a cottage up on Seneca Lake in NY. Finger Lakes Wine Country! There was a Wine Fest in the infield at Watkin’s Glen. I drove up with Lauren and Brendan to spend a very long, very relaxing weekend. We floated around in the lake, drank some wine, and took a lap around the race track in a pace car. We even managed to fit a trip into Dinosaur BBQ in Syracuse.
Here’s the view from the Lake House
Here’s Brendan very sad about the number of our sign for picking up the wine:
Here’s Brendan and I taking a drunk ride (as passengers) around Watkin’s Glen:
After spending so much time in the Jeep it was time to spend a little less time behind the wheel.
That doesn’t mean I was done travelling though!! This past weekend I went BACK up to New York for my 10 year HS reunion. It was certainly an interesting time. Seeing everyone again brought back a bit of nostalgia (which was to be expected), but also turned out to be a much better time than I thought it would:
After the reunion we drove around town looking for bars that were still open. Quite an adventure.
This weekend I helped Pete move from his small 2BR in Chapel Hill to a big house with a 3 car Garage Mahal. We loaded up a massive truck with furniture and assorted boxes of crap. The best part of helping was getting to pilot his BMW R1200RT over to his place while he towed his other two motorcycles on a trailer. Woo motorcycle.
I’ve finally unpacked from all that travelling and done some laundry.
I’m beat.
I’ve become unstuck though. I want to go somewhere else now.
The summer has one more trip to NYC planned, and then WHO KNOWS? More motorcycling? More Jeeping? A road trip in the Z? We’ll see.
I haven’t posted in quite a while. That time has been filled with all sorts stuff. I’ve been riding my motorcycle around, going camping and Jeeping, Ward’s wedding, more motorcycling, and just hanging out with people around Raleigh and Chapel Hill.
I guess I’ll start with links to albums in chronological order, just to document things. I have such a backlog of stuff that I can’t really write it all out in detail. Instead, we’ll skip straight to the pics, and brief blurbs.
Pete and I took our motorcycles down to the beach one random day for lunch. We ate, walked around looking at girls in bikini’s then we turned around for Easter Dinner.
I went to Ward’s wedding and met up with a whole bunch of RIT and Cisco folks. It was incredible to have everyone together again. There was a lot of bittersweet talk about how this was the first and maybe last large reunion of so many RIT grads in one place.
There was camping and Jeeping after that.
Brendan and I took a random Thursday after that and went up to Richmond, VA to see Flogging Molly and Big D and the Kid’s table. They added ridiculously hot dancers. I was immediately in love. We also met up with Esther and her friend that night. It made for a long night. I eventually wound up riding my motorcycle at home from the Cisco parking lot at 3AM. Heated grips are AMAZING!
The next night we went out for Sasha’s birthday party. Raleigh was in full blown skirt season. It was excellent.
The first week of May is a Blur. Brendan’s friend Daniel had a grad party
I saw Steve’s band Idiom play at The Berkely. We met a cute Brunette that worked at an Animal Hospital
Aric had a house warming party where it was decided that everyone loved this girl
We also ran into another short Brunette who had opinions on whether or not Earth should be keeping a backup planet in the works for disaster recovery. Awesome.
Shapess, Andy and I had a random day out at Uwharrie. I had time to dial in the scope on my 22, AND spent some time shooting Shapess’ AK-47. Too much fun there.
On May 12th Kenneth, Pete, and I drove down to Charlotte to see Say Anything and Angels and Airwaves. Say Anything put on a good show but the set was too short unfortunately. It was nice to know that the girls belt out the lyrics to “Every Man Has a Molly” even louder than the guys.
You god damned kids had best be gracious with the Merch money you spend.
Cause for you I won’t ever have rough sex with Molly Connolly again.
I met a beautiful girl with so many awesome traits it’s hard to believe she actually exists.
1. Bartender
2. Graduated Culinary School
3. Loves the music scene
4. Gorgeous
5. Incredibly friendly / nice
6. Brunette
7. Tiny
8. Likes jeeps and motorcycles, knows how to replace a radiator.
Doubtful that said girl will actually get in touch with me – but it was a good night regardless. Another weeknight of getting home around 3AM. Energy drinks are my savior.
Just last night I went to a Skinny Tie Party at Justin Tiexera’s place.
I proceeded to introduce myself to a girl so forcefully that she immediately notified me she was someone elses wife. I need to do a better job looking for rings.
I also met another beautiful brunette who can bust out the quadratic equation at the drop of a ‘hat’. Math teachers for the win. There was Rock Band. People rocked out to Coheed and Cambria, and I sang my heart out to NIN – The Hand That Feeds. I don’t even need the scrolling words to sing this one:
And finally – today I went on an awesome motorcycle ride out to Wilson NC with my motorcycle gang. We hit up Parker’s BBQ and it was delicious. There was some really beautiful back country and great roads between here and Wilson if you avoid the highway.
After riding around NC I went over to Andy’s house and helped him tinker on his new front axle. We removed the diff cover and took out the locker, getting it ready for the new axle. We also greased up his lower control arms, and I drilled some holes for his new bump stops.
I am now VERY tired just thinking about all of that.
The future holds a trip to DC to see the air and space museum, and hopefully a trip out to the mountains with my Mom to check out the roads there.
In other non fun related matters, I’ve REALLY got to recertify my CCIE 
I just had an amazing Idea.
I like Music.
I like Motorcycles.
Bands go on tour during the summer months.
Motorcycles are awesome to ride in the summer months.
Action Plan:
Take time off during the summer months and plot a course across the country that involves stops in different cities where bands are playing. Do it all on a motorcycle. I’m envisioning maybe a week or two, or if we stick to the southeast maybe just odd weekends here or there.
Who’s with me? Anyone want to ride on the back of my bike (boobs required)?
I spent the weekend snowboarding (or trying to) in Snowshoe, WV. It’s about a 6 hour drive from Raleigh. I went up with Pete and Kenneth.
We randomly managed to run into Kurt and Lauren as well. I took a snowboarding class with Kurt. Lauren took a ski class. Kurt Lauren and I spent Sat and Sun going down all the green trails!
I hurt everywhere. I also hit my head pretty damn hard. Yeah, should have remembered that helmet. Towards the end of the second day I was starting to get it, but I was also too tired to make my turns fast enough.
I’d definitely go snowboarding again! Here are some pictures of Snowshoe.