This will be my third autumn here in Richmond and just to commemorate it I thought I’d get sick out of tradition. Every single year I get sick here and spend hours and hours online until I’m compelled to make a website. It’s a nice routine I got going. If you haven’t noticed it’s taken me quite a while to get a page up again and as you can see I haven’t even come up with anything special. I took a look at my last site’s code and I vaguely remember writing it. I’ve had to relearn a lot of basic material that I thought I would never forget. Thanks to my customers’ (friends’) questions on how to use the new server I’ve been able to get a good review.

If you recall where I left off in May I had a very well thought out plan for my summer. First, Jason, Kyle and I were going on a hike. Then, I was going to enroll at NOVA and take math and nutrition classes to better myself. The big summer project was to finally settle down and learn PHP and MySQL and my vacation was to drive down to Florida and visit una de mis noviesitas and tour the state. Well, as you might have expected, things didn’t exactly go as planned.

We did go on that hike, and it was more fun than I had anticipated. We managed to hike approximately 50 miles from the Swift Run Gap Entrance at US-33 to the bungalows close to Big Meadows. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time on the trail with my friends and I hope to get the chance to do it again in the near future. I also managed to take a few good pictures of us and our adventure that I intend on scanning and sharing with you all soon. As I write this a bunch of vivid memories are popping up in my head–all good ones. Thanks guys.

Before we left for the hike my parents took me out to Sam & Harry’s for my birthday. This is a tradition we started on my 18th birthday. I spent most of the dinner dismal, thinking about how only two years ago we were seated for four at the table next to ours. I remembered I didn’t have to feign content even as I cut Allie’s steak for her while she blushed like a bottle of White Zinfandel in front of my parents. As we were leaving one of the floor managers confessed to have been watching us, particurarly me, throughout our meal and that I carried myself so well at the table that she would like for me to come back to talk to her about working there over the summer.

I took her up on that offer and I am so glad I did. When I got back from Shenandohah Isabella offered me a position as a busser. She told me it was grueling work, and I accepted it because it felt like a challenge. The two months I spent bussing tables, setting tables, serving drinks and cleaning up after guests for somtimes twelve hours a day, six days a week was the singlemost gratifying occupational period of my life. The staff there was a pleasure to work with, and the management was simply delightful–a big change from Carytown Burger’s and Fries! I really miss all of them. Which reminds me, I need to write them a letter and let them know how I’m doing.

When August came my plans for Florida were sketchy at best so I decided to skip the trip and do something entirely different. My parents hired sil0net (I registered it as my company), to do a whole bunch of maintenance at their company and build them three new computers. With Jason’s help I ended up doubling what I had saved from Sam & Harry’s and learned enough about business to known that I don’t want to major in it.

So, even though I didn’t do all of what I set out to I think my summer was very well spent and, dare I say, the best since the golden summer of 1998.

Now I’m here in Richmond taking Philosophy classes and really getting into them. Jason and I have a great apartment and things are going pretty well for me–sometimes I just have to remind myself of that. Oh and I’m selling domains and webspace too, I forgot to mention that.