What’s been going on this past month? Not much, really. I bought a mechanical keyboard and have been using it at work. It’s a full-size Leopold Tactile Click Otaku, and I swear I’m not a huge anime nerd because it happens to be called that. Honest. “Otaku” means that the keys are blank; Leopold also makes keyboards with labeled keys. Anyway, I like this keyboard a lot and will be buying an identical one to go with my next computer.

Speaking of which, I’ve been slowly working my way toward getting a desktop. I figured that since I’m going to get a big monitor (which I certainly am), then I should probably get smaller speakers. I’ve had these big, old no-name speakers forever, and I’ve been increasingly dissatisfied with the amount of space they take up and the quality of the sound they put out, particularly in the bass department. So I wanted smaller speakers that had better sound—a tall order indeed.

I bought a pair of Creative Inspire T12 speakers because of their small size and booming bass. That’s about all they have going for them; the other frequencies really suffer. So I sold them and bought another set by Creative, the GigaWorks T40 Series II, which are exactly awesome as they sound. And they sound great. The sound quality is better than that of my old speakers (including punchier bass), and according to some online reviews, they’re supposed to sound even better after they’ve been broken in. They tower over the tiny T12′s but are still quite a bit narrower than my old speakers, so mission accomplished.

And that’s about all I have time for now. Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things soon.

For the movie fans (i.e., everyone), a montage of famous actors and actresses in their first roles: “And Introducing…” (Via Kottke)

Since I could choose any keyboard I wanted for my new computer, I figured, why not try to find an actual Dvorak keyboard? It would be a challenge: Dvorak typists are rare enough, and most who have a problem with old QWERTY staring them in the face seem to be content with rearranging or relabeling their keys. I’ve always just avoided looking at the mismatched letters—you’re supposed to watch the screen when you’re touch-typing anyway—but in doing so, I’ve felt like a second-class keyboard citizen.

The only company I was aware of that sold standard (non-ergonomic) keyboards with the Dvorak layout was Fentek. But several of their models aren’t hard-wired—deep down inside, and as far as your computer is concerned, they’re plain old QWERTY keyboards, with only the keycaps arranged (rearranged?) Dvorak-style. And Fentek declares some models, implicitly or otherwise, to be Mac-incompatible, which makes me doubt they’d work with Linux. (I asked Fentek in an e-mail, and they didn’t respond.)

Then I found out about Unicomp, the legal heir to IBM’s legendary Model M keyboard, the huge, heavy, archaic “clicky” keyboard that many people rave about and pine for to this day. Unicomp carries on the tradition of the Model M by turning out new ones in their Kentucky factory. They even let you customize your tank of a peripheral, offering an array of body styles, colors, and layouts—including Dvorak. You can also choose between the classic, clattering “buckling-spring” key switches and the mushy rubber-dome switches that are ubiquitous today.

I don’t have much experience with the clickiness of the Model M. My dad is the proud owner of one specimen that’s probably about as old as I am, and in my limited experience, I’ve found it frustrating to type on. I remember feeling like I had to fight the thing in order to get words out. But now, after squinting at the blinding light of a million shimmering reviews that assert that the Model M’s mechanics are supremely comfortable and make you type faster too, I’ve begun to wonder whether I’m just wrong and everyone else is right.

So on Friday, one of my co-workers let me borrow his clicky keyboard for half a day. It’s a Rosewill RK-9000—a model of recent vintage for today’s discriminating typist—and while it doesn’t require as much force to type on as the Model M, it’s pretty damn loud. The Model M and its ancient brethren were intended to be noisy, as people accustomed to typewriters would expect. But today’s clicky keyboard holdouts prize the physical and auditory feedback that such a design provides. And I guess they feel like they’re really doing something if they make a lot of sound while they’re doing it.

Though I got partially accustomed to the feel (if not the sound) of a clicky keyboard during my several hours with one, I’m still not sure whether I’d want a buckling-spring Dvorak keyboard from Unicomp, which was originally what this whole thing was about anyway. I have, however, found this obsessively detailed Mechanical Keyboard Guide that explains the different kinds of mechanical switches that are out there. (The Rosewill RK-9000, it seems, has Cherry MX Blue switches, which activate with 50-60 centinewtons of force, less than the 60-65 cN that Unicomp’s buckling springs require.)

I might have accidentally turned myself into a keyboard nerd since I can never think of keyboards the same way again. And I have no clue what I want. Yes, I’ve heard of the blank Das Keyboard—it’s been recommended to me several times over the years as possibly a good keyboard for a Dvorak user—and now I happen to know that it comes with your choice of Cherry Blues or quieter Cherry Browns.

I need some help here. Life was so much simpler before I wanted a new keyboard.

mental_floss asks: What’s the Difference Between Ketchup and Catsup? Nothing, it turns out, and you can find out way more than you ever wanted to know about ketchup.

My external hard drive crapped out last week. I originally used it just for backups, and then it became for backups and whatever wouldn’t fit on my laptop’s hard drive, and when I got another backup drive it became just for all that extra stuff. Such is the way of these things, I guess.

I spent quite a bit of time trying to fix the filesystem, but I was getting some strange errors. So I wiped the drive and created a new filesystem, which had errors in it immediately. I gave up and reshuffled some of my files among my laptop, my backup drive, and my online backup so it’s less apparent that I don’t have enough (non-backup) space. (This reminds me that I should write about my backup regime, which I think I’ve just perfected after trying various schemes over the course of several years.)

While I was dealing with all that stuff, I realized that I had gotten my laptop and my external drive around the same time—almost five years ago. I’ve periodically thought about getting a new computer, but now it’s going to be a priority. I don’t want my laptop to croak while I’m still using it.

As with my current laptop, I want to be sure that Ubuntu will work on my next computer, so I started looking for laptops with Ubuntu pre-installed. Unfortunately, the selection is extremely limited. It looks like Dell (from whom I bought my current laptop) still has a couple of Ubuntu offerings. System76 seems to have the most—and most customizable—models, but they didn’t seem to have exactly what I wanted. Eventually I realized that I don’t need a laptop: Though the portability was convenient in college, I never take mine off my desk anymore.

So instead of buying a laptop and paying a premium for portability, I’ll probably get a desktop and use the savings to splurge on better specs, including a huge hard drive. System76 is still looking like the way to go, but I probably won’t replace my laptop for at least a few more months; I shouldn’t rush in to this decision, and I’ll need to save up a bit anyway.

Here’s something I didn’t know about Congress: during any particular session, one Republican senator’s desk is filled with candy and called the candy desk.

Kate and I (she’s been with me for a couple of weeks now) started the day by going to Top Pot Doughnuts with my friend Nick. It was extremely windy, and I had sometimes had a hard time walking because of the wind. Kate doesn’t like doughnuts, so she didn’t have any. After that, the two of us went to a bagel place that she had looked up. We had bagel sandwich-type things there (yes, I had two breakfasts), and then she wanted to go shopping for clothes.

We went to a thrift store called Value Village in the nearby neighborhood of Capitol Hill. Well, it was kind of at the edge of Capitol Hill, maybe in First Hill, or that area in between that they call Pike/Pine. I don’t know. I haven’t been to Capitol Hill(/whatever) very much, but it’s always interesting when I do go. It’s got a different vibe from Belltown, the neighborhood where I live, even though it’s not very far away. Belltown is at the edge of downtown, and it kind of feels like an extension of downtown but with more less traffic and more high-rises. Capitol Hill has more of a community feel, but there are a lot of hipsters. I like what I’ve got, thanks.

Anyway, I thought it was going to be this little thrift store, but man. The place was three stories—two and a basement. Something about buying used clothes just doesn’t do it for me, so I interested myself by looking at the used books. Kate, meanwhile, picked out some dresses, tried them on, and decided not to buy any of them.

I guess hipsters love thrift stores because they’re full of tacky stuff that they can buy for irony. I got kick out of completely useless items like pairs of crutches, someone’s old trophies, all manner of ugly clocks, one of those little stitched signs with some dubious morsel of homespun wisdom (in this case, “Age Doesn’t Matter Unless You’re a Cheese”), a used day planner from 2005, a framed photo of a baseball player with a priest (presumably you would just want the frame), and a 125 MB Western Digital hard drive made in 1991. The cheesiness was just off the charts.

There were some useful things there, though. I was looking to buy a coffee machine, so I seriously considered a couple of the less-beaten-up models they had there. In the end, I decided to buy a new one, so after three or four hours at the store, we left empty-handed.

We were starting to get hungry again, so we went to a nearby pho restaurant. Pho is a Vietnamese soup that apparently has a cult following. I just had to see what all the fuss was about, so Kate and I split a bowl there. It was good, sure, but it was nothing to write home about (although I guess I’m doing just that). I would have it again. (It was at this point that I had to ask Kate if it was Sunday—it felt like it because of all the stuff we’d already done.)

After that, we went to Bed Bath & Beyond in search of a coffee machine. I’ve been drinking coffee more lately, and I figure it would be good to have for guests (especially Kate, who will be staying with me for a while). I had taken a poll of my friends/Twitter followers/anyone who would listen about what I should look for in a coffee machine because I know jack about coffee at all, let alone making the stuff. Against literally everyone’s recommendations, I went for a simple drip coffee machine. I made sure it was small since I didn’t want it to take up too much space and I’d probably never really use it anyway.

So, we took the thing home, and that’s when I discovered that when they say “Makes 4 cups” on the box, they don’t mean 4 cups (32 ounces), they mean four arbitrarily tiny cups of coffee—barely enough, I found out, to fill one of my normal-sized mugs. Kate and I went right back to the store so I could exchange the tiny coffee machine for a regular-sized one. Back at home, I set it up, and we were able to drink some coffee I had bought for Kate as a Valentine’s Day gift (I had been considering this purchase for a while). Now everyone will hate me for buying a plain old coffee machine and for not knowing that coffee machine companies lie.

After that, we watched Sleepless in Seattle, which I had been meaning to watch for a while because I live in Seattle. I always figured it had something to do with Seattle, but it doesn’t really. Probably less than half of the movie even takes place in Seattle. But you’d never know it, what with all the souvenirs you can buy here that have the name of the movie on it. Still, it was a good movie (if a bit ridiculous), and I got a kick out of the few scenes that were shot in places that I recognized.

So, I guess I really become a Seattleite yesterday. I tried pho, bought my first (and second) coffee machine, and saw Sleepless in Seattle. It was a good day.

Here’s the best coverage you’re likely to see of the circumstances surrounding the suicide of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi: “The Story of a Suicide.” Hat tip to Luke for the link (imagine I’m wearing a hat or something).

Anyway, we made it to the beach, and, as usually, I didn’t feel much like going into the water. It was just too cold for my blood. I really tried to go in, but I couldn’t stand it, so I was sitting on the sand again in no time (we didn’t bring a towel). The previous night, Kevin had told us that Broward County had launched a bicycle-rental program with stations in various places, and we found out that we’d be right near one of the stations, so when we were done at the beach, we checked it out.

There were some bikes locked up, and you could unlock one after swiping your credit card in this machine that was next to the bikes. So Kate and I each got one to ride around. The first thing I noticed was that the bikes were small and low to the ground; even Kate, who’s probably about average height for a person, found hers to be uncomfortable. The second thing I noticed was how sturdy and fully equipped they were. Each one had a basket, a bell, a lock, a light, fenders, three speeds, and other frills my childhood bicycles would have envied if only bicycles could feel. (I’ve always preferred single-speed bikes, so anything more than that seems lavish and unnecessary.)

But the best-equipped bicycle in the world can’t prepare you for a cruise down the bike lane of an American street. I had never actually ridden next to traffic before, and it was slightly unnerving. After we had gone a short distance, I proposed we turn back because it looked like the traffic next to us was only going to get worse. So, we brought our bikes back to be locked up again for someone else to use, except I guess I didn’t push mine into the locking thing all the way because I got charged an extra ten bucks on my credit card later.

That evening, our host made spaghetti for dinner, and then we all went out to a local bakery for coffee and light noms.

And then it was December 31. We were flying out from Miami International Airport, which I had never actually flown in or out of before. Early, early, early in the morning, we left our host’s place and took a taxi to the nearest Tri-Rail station, and then we took the Tri-Rail to the station before the airport because the station at the airport is closed, and then we had to take a connecting bus to the airport. Because the Tri-Rail doesn’t run very much on Saturdays, we had no choice but to get there very early. We were so far from MIA that I don’t even think we could have taken a taxi the whole way.

At the airport, I had time to dash off most of 2011: The Year in Review, and then we flew to Chicago. We had a long layover at O’Hare, but I didn’t want to go out into the city because it was cold and snowy and I didn’t want to have to go through security again. We managed to kill some time just by walking around and having a meal. And then we took good old Alaska Airlines back to Seattle.

Eventually, we were back at my place, and I was getting ready for guests to arrive for New Year’s Eve. I had been looking forward to this night for months since I knew I’d have one of the best views of the city’s fireworks show. Kate, understandably, wanted to enjoy the view of her eyelids, so she retired early as a few of my friends showed up. I tried to make sure it was nice and quiet for Kate (which was difficult, since several of the guys had already been partying), but Kate later said she didn’t hear a thing.

Three of my friends and I stood on the balcony and watched as dazzling fireworks erupted from the Space Needle for a good six or eight minutes. And so it was the new year.

Kate and I spent the first few days of the year buying things that she needed for cooking that I didn’t have. So now I actually have mixing bowls and pans and things like that. I had January 2 off because New Year’s Day was a Sunday, and then it was business as usual on January 3. I went to work, while Kate did her own thing. That week I had lunch with her every day, usually at home, but once she met me at work and we went to nearby 13 Coins.

Saturday, January 7, was the last night of Kate’s visit. In the evening, we went to see a foreign film (nothing romantic, just some boring movie about a kid) and then had a romantic dinner at Amore Infused. Since Kate wanted to make mulled wine after dinner and I didn’t have a corkscrew, we brought a bottle of wine with us and asked the waitress to uncork it. After our meal, we stealthily brought it home. (It was a good idea to eat there. I had never been there, it was great, and there was a fire in the kitchen a week later. It’s been closed since then.)

When we got home, Kate made mulled wine (I’m including the Wikipedia link since I had never heard of it), and we drank it out on the balcony. Even though it was cold outside, the mulled wine kept us warm. I didn’t think I would ever like hot wine, but it was pretty good. I managed to drink half a mug (I don’t have wine glasses), and I would like to have it again, when hopefully I’d be able to stomach more.

We slept for a few hours, and then it was almost time for Kate to go to the airport. I helped her pack (she’s a last-minute packer), and we headed there together. We arrived early, so we had a few minutes to kill before she had to go through to security. We savored those minutes, though I knew there would be many more soon.

Kate has quit her job in Russia and is coming here again on Friday. She’ll be staying with me for almost three months. I’ve never done anything like this before, and I’m excited for what the future holds.

This was my first time seeing snow anywhere I’d actually lived. I’d only seen it on trips to DC and Russia. Seattle only gets 5.9 inches per year on average, so anytime it snows, it’s a big deal. A lot of the city shuts down because there aren’t a lot of snowplows and people don’t know how to drive in the stuff. Some people grumble and insist on going about their day as usual, but they seem to be the minority.

Anyway, as soon as I realized it was snowing, I went out on my balcony and took some pictures. I went out to breakfast at Top Pot with my friend Nick, and the snow had pretty much tapered off. But as soon as I got back to my apartment, it started coming down again. It snowed harder and harder and harder. Then Nick and I decided to go for a walk downtown while it was still snowing.

Phil Spector Christmas songs looped in my head. I was giddy. Snow makes me giddy because I missed it in my childhood, you see. It’s fun, and it’s funny—to see all these familiar sights frozen over and covered in snow. I’m not afraid to say that I made and threw snowballs. But I wasn’t the only one who was enjoying the snow. I saw three or four snowmen. Oh yeah, I also took a lot of pictures.

On Monday, most of my co-workers worked from home (that’s the great thing about having a computer-based job), so I followed suit on Tuesday; there was still a lot of snow around and nobody wanted to drive in it. On Wednesday, it snowed all day, so I worked from home again. Then, I realized that I didn’t have much of an excuse to be working from home since out of all my co-workers I’m the one who lives closest to work. So on Thursday and Friday, I was one of the few people to show up.

There was still a lot of snow around on Thursday night when Nick and I went out to celebrate his birthday, and the snow was all melty on Friday. But that night it started to get warmer, and by yesterday morning, almost all of the snow had disappeared.

It might not snow again for another year. The child in me is sad, but the adult part of me thinks it’s good that everyone will be back at work.

Here’s an interesting Lifehacker article about how to make better spending choices: The Comfort Principle.

So it was two days after Christmas, and my aunt was taking Kate and me around Gainesville to see and do stuff. Before lunch, she took us to her work at No More Homeless Pets, which shares a facility with a couple of similar organizations. We passed by a room with some kittens in cages.

I would have been content with just looking at the kittens, but Kate wanted to go into the room with them. So, we went into the room. Then she wanted to hold one of the kittens, so my aunt opened one of the cages and let her pick one. Then she wanted to hold all of the kittens, so she picked up each one in turn. Also, I ended up holding some of them.

Later, we went to the bat houses on the UF campus to watch the bats fly out at dusk. Except we were really early for that, so we first checked out the nearby Baughman Center and watched the gators swimming around in Lake Alice. We also took a brief detour to my old apartment building because Kate wanted to see it. Having visited me there during her first three trips to the US, she had a rosier overall image of the place than I did. When she wasn’t there, I would spend most of my time avoiding strange roommates, eating pizza by myself, killing fleas, and not cleaning anything.

The next day, we set off for South Florida. My dad took the day off from work to drive us to Lakeland, and we took Amtrak the rest of the way. I had only taken Amtrak once before—namely, the express service between DC and Orlando for you and your car—so I didn’t have much of an impression of how it was. I knew that in Europe, you get assigned a seat when you buy a ticket. In the USA, or at least in Lakeland, they tell you where to sit when you get on the train, and they group you together by destination. They also write your destination on a piece of paper and stick it above your seat. It’s shameful.

It was time for a late lunch, so Kate and I went to the dining car. We lingered there for quite a while, and when we came back, some other people had been given our seats, so we had to find some other seats that were empty (though maybe they belonged to someone who was in the lounge car or whatever). Finally, we arrived in familiar old South Florida. I hadn’t been there in almost a year and a half.

Since none of my friends nor anyone on CouchSurfing could put us up, we fell back on the Passport Service. Count that as a perk of being an Esperantist; I was this close to dropping $400 on a hotel. So this Esperantist picked us up from the station and introduced us to his husband. We spoke Esperanto with each other, even as we went out for dinner at a pizza place. I hadn’t spoken it in a while, but it came rather easily.

The following day, Kate and I had a late lunch with my friends Nick and TJ. We went to this place on the beach that Kate had a Groupon for. It was nice to catch up with them. I wanted to spend more time with them, but they had to split because they both had to work that night. So Kate and I hung out on the beach for a little while, and then I called up my friend Kevin and asked if he wanted to hang out. He picked us up, and we went to take a stroll in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

None of us had ever been on the Water Taxi before, so flagged down one of their boats from the banks of the New River and rode the entire route, down the river, up the Intracoastal, and back. On the way, we got to see a lot of rich people’s huge houses, still decorated for Christmas, and unfamiliar views of familiar bridges and buildings. I’m very glad that we did it. It stops near some convenient places, like Las Olas Boulevard, and once you have a ticket, you can use it to get on and off for the rest of the day. Protip: tickets are $10 per person after 5 PM.

Possibly related link: Why Do Russians Smile So Seldom? For what it’s worth, I think Kate is smilier than the average Russian.

Apparently no company currently makes them, and only websites that sell them are a few online stores that cater to left-handers. Of those, I found that England-based Left-Handed.com had the best selection and the lowest prices, so in November, I ordered one there. Not long after, I received a left-handed Swiss Army knife from them, but it wasn’t the model I ordered. The one I wanted had scissors, and the one I got had some different tools, including a wrench.

I could see how they could have made that mistake. The two models are similarly priced (about $40), and the knife I got was packaged in its original box, which didn’t identify the model. They were probably next to each other on the shelf. No big deal, I figured. So I sent the store an e-mail letting them know about the mix-up and asking for an exchange (although I was secretly hoping they’d let me keep both).

Two weeks passed and I didn’t hear anything from them, so I went ahead and mailed them the knife in the original box with the invoice and a note asking for them to send me the right knife. I chose to send the package First Class (misleadingly, the lowest tier of service that the USPS offers for shipping), which, to Left-Handed.com in England, cost me $11. I didn’t count on them paying me back for any shipping more expensive than that, so I didn’t get a tracking number or anything.

After a few weeks, I still hadn’t heard from Left-Handed.com, so I sent them a message through the contact form on their website. The holidays came and went—no reply. Last week, I tried calling the phone number listed on their website, but no one picked up, not even an answering machine. Then I tried calling them during their business hours (1 AM to 8 AM Pacific Time—not an easy thing for me!), and no one picked up then either. Finally, I sent them another message via the contact form, asking as politely as possible for the item I bought.

Okay, so maybe I sent the first e-mail to a no-reply address. Maybe they didn’t get the package. Maybe their contact form is broken or my messages got stuck in their spam filter. Maybe they don’t have an answering machine, and maybe they had closed up shop early when I called. But I very much doubt that all of the above are true. They seem to be ignoring me, plain and simple. I understand that my story may not sound credible—maybe people have tried to rip them off before—but a simple “We don’t believe you” would be more courteous. If this was my fault, my mistake was to be too trusting.

At this point, I don’t know what recourse I have. I originally paid by PayPal, but it’s too late for me to file a complaint with them. (Of course, if I had thought to do it earlier, I would have.) It seems that the only way to get the attention of Left-Handed.com would be to buy something else from them, although I’m very unlikely to give them any more of my money due to the way they’ve treated me. It looks like I’m out 50 bucks, so I guess all I can do is warn everyone not to make the mistake of doing business with them.

Oh, and I’ll send them a link to this post too, in case it gets their attention.

I’ve often wondered if there’s a website that keeps track of the surprisingly common trend of homophobic public figures being outed as gay themselves. Turns out there is: Gay Homophobe succinctly announces “# days since the last prominent homophobe was caught in a gay sex scandal” (25 as of right now) and lists previous “winners” (there were seven last year alone).

Way too early in the morning on Saturday, December 24, I took a taxi to Seattle-Tacoma International Aiport. After a layover in Phoenix (spoiler alert for those who haven’t been there: the landscape is all brown), I found myself at good old Orlando International Airport, waiting for Kate to fly in and my family to pick us up.

After a long wait, Kate arrived and so did my parents and my sister. We set off back to my parents’ house, where we had some light noms for dinner and decorated the Christmas tree. Some people always decorate their Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, but in my family we normally do it super early, so it was nice for my family to wait. My dad and/or mom had actually cut down the tree themselves since they live out in the relative wilderness now, near Christmas tree farms and things like that.

The next morning was Christmas morning, and, still jetlagged, I slept way in. By the time everyone woke up, it was time for a late breakfast, so we decide to eat before opening presents. Then we exchanged gifts. It was such a familiar feeling to me that it was hard to remember that I wasn’t home for Christmas the previous year. I normally dread giving gifts because I never know what to get, but this year I felt like I’d picked some winners. (I was really happy with the stuff I got, too. I’m surrounded by good gift-givers.) Later, other friends/family came over for a turkey dinner, and after that, more gifts were exchanged. It was a great Christmas.

The day after that was a pretty lazy day. My parents had the day off, so we all went for a hike nearby. It might have been pretty cold by my previous standards, but I found that after living in Seattle for less than a year, I could withstand the Florida winter a lot better. We probably did other things that day, but I don’t remember what they were.

On Tuesday, Kate wanted to explore nearby Gainesville, but my parents had to work. Fortunately, my Aunt Sandi volunteered to take us around, and we even visited some places I had never been to before. After going to Bealls Outlet (one of Kate’s favorite stores), we tried to go to the Devil’s Millhopper only to find that they were closed on Tuesdays. Nearby was a musical instrument store I had never been to, so we checked it out. We plinked around on a steel drum, surely to the delight of everyone who was working and shopping there, and I strummed some acoustic guitars for Kate.

For lunch, we went to The Jones, a local-type restaurant that I had wanted to go to with Kate during one of her previous visits (that time, we went to an Italian buffet instead). The food was great, and I’d love to go there again.

Well, that’s all I have to time to impart right now. Next time: kittens.

You probably know that certain societies (ours not being among them) have a lax attitude toward drinking alcohol. So it seems that the effects of alcohol are a self-fulfilling prophecy. The author of this article for the BBC suggests that if we make alcohol seem boring to kids, they’ll stop binge drinking and engaging in other drunken shenanigans.

In the days leading up to 2011, I had arrived in Russia to see Kate, first spending a few very busy days in Saint Petersburg before actually visiting her. Once we were together, she showed me around her hometown, and then, more relevant to this discussion, 2011 happened.

• January 1 – I ring in the new year with Kate in Russia.
• January 4 – I arrive home from Russia.
• January 10 – I’m hanging out with my friend Andrea when she finds out she got in to her first choice of law school.
• January 24 – I talk to representatives from Amazon at my department’s career fair and give them my resume.
• January 26 – Amazon offers to interview me on campus.
• February 2 – I have a first-round interview with Amazon.
• February 3 – Having passed the first round, I go through a second round of interviews.
• February 9 – I see Penn & Teller speak (both of them!) at UF.
• February 10 – I get a job offer from Amazon.
• March 18 – I find out that Krishna Lunch volunteer Stacie has died.
• April 14 – I get honored for my two and a half years of service to the Dean of Students Office at UF.
• April 30-May 1 – Graduation weekend: My sister graduates on Saturday, and I graduate on Sunday.
• May 6-8 – My sister accompanies me on an apartment-hunting trip to Seattle.
• May 9 – I’m quoted in a news article about Where’s George?
• May 14 – Kate arrives in Florida to visit me again.
• May 19 – I move out of my apartment in Gainesville.
• May 20-22 – I vacation with family and friends at the family condo in Fort Pierce.
• May 22 – With Kate in tow, I set off for Seattle.
• May 24-27 – Andy visits Kate and me in Seattle.
• May 28-30 – Kate and I visit Olympia and Aberdeen, Washington.
• May 31 – My first day of work at Amazon.
• June 2 – Kate ends her visit to the US.
• June 4 – I buy furniture for my new apartment.
• June 21 – I move in to my new apartment in downtown Seattle.
• June 25 – I watch an LGBT pride parade go down my street.
• July 4 – I have some people over for a housewarming/Fourth of July party.
• July 9 – I apply for my Washington state ID card.
• July 13 – I celebrate my birthday with a few friends.
• July 30 – I watch the Seafair parade go down my street.
• August 15 – I go on a community crime watch walk in my neighborhood.
• September 1-6 – For my first vacation from work, I visit my family in Florida.
• September 21-23 – I host my first CouchSurfer.
• September 30 – I see a movie presented in Cinerama at the local Cinerama theater.
• October 14-16 – I visit my friend Luke in Oregon.
• October 23 – I go to the Northwest Chocolate Festival and CroatiaFest at the Seattle Center.
• November 19 – I go to a benefit show featuring Rainn Wilson and others.
• November 24 – I celebrate my first Thanksgiving away from my family, and indeed, everyone else.
• December 24-31 – I meet up with Kate in Florida and we visit my family and friends. More details to come!

As you can see, I haven’t written much during the latter half of this year. I haven’t done very much during that time either. In 2012, I resolve to do more interesting things and to write more. We’ll see how that goes.

Happy New Year!