Well, Christmas was almost a month ago. So maybe I'm a bit late. Maybe not. Who cares? Not I. So I got some stuff, blah blah blah, you're not interested. I did, though, get some good books. A couple of Tim Sandlin novels. Great books, in that comedy-novel genre, but I'm through them by now. I got "House of Leaves," by Mark Z, Danielewski. Haven't read more than the introduction, but so far, i think this could turn out to be the weirdest book I've ever read. What kind of a *novel* has a 40 page index in the back? Weird. Anyway, I had mentioned to my mom and step-dad that I'm going to try to go back to school come the spring term. And that I wanted to branch out from the audio/video production type program I used to be in, that I wanted to go for some kind of computer science degree. So they got me a couple of beginner level Java programming books.

So today, I started into the first of them. I've made it through a few (well, 8, actually) of the 24 lessons in this book, and I have to say, I've impressed myself with how well I'm comprehending it all. I mean, other than playing around with BASIC back in elementary school, I've got literally no experience with any of this. I guess I do spend an awful lot of time on the interwebs using other people's Java programs, but starting from scratch is all new to me.

So far, it's all been text-based, writing short programs to display text from a command prompt or terminal. Just kind of getting the hang of some of these keywords and commands. I've got 4 chapters of objects to get through next, then finally some programs with a visual output. I can't wait.

So I was reading an article about Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, and I got an idea. I think his $10,000 goal might be a bit high, but I think I'm going to give it a shot. $0 to $5,000. Should take a *while* to get started, hell, it's tough just getting entry into the freerolls. they fill up so quickly it's ridiculous. then I've got to win a few of em. Then play some *really* low limits to build up even a small bankroll. This is going to take a *long* time. But, I think I can do it. wish me luck.

So here I am, back in Ohio. Sitting here pondering my options. When I first decided to move back here, I had been thinking about following Chris into the Navy. When I found that I was ineligible to join up, I went to my plan B. I wasn't thrilled about the Army, but I needed something to help me out. I thought the military would have been my best option. I'd have a place to stay, wouldn't need a car (but would be in a position to buy one as soon as I got out), and would have all the money I needed to get my ass into school. However, the Army said no also.

well it's official: I've been defeated.  My quest for a new life down south in Orlando has come to an end. I've gone the past 3 months without my laptop, thus haven't posted since then. It's time for a change. I tried to make this work for 6 months now, and I'm now at the point where I have to give up. I'll be around more now, with my Mac back in hand.