I’m got home last night from the big trip. The drive was pretty good, even though there was a downpour when I went past the Smokey Mountains. I’m glad to be back home, plus it’s about 60° outside! The only thing is I’m feeling a little sick right now, so hopefully I start feeling better soon. I’m looking forward to being able to enjoy the weather!!

It was nice to be able to visit my relatives in Augusta, since the only other time I was there was when I was about 3 or 4 years old. It brought back some memories!! I met my cousin’s three kids for the first time. They all seemed real smart—and energetic! If I decide to move to Georgia, I’ll look forward to getting to know them better. I had a real good time while I was there.

Now I’m back at my aunt and uncle’s in North Carolina, because I decided to spend Easter with them. We went to church then out to eat for lunch. Even though it was a rainy day, it was nice to spend Easter with them. I also liked being able to wind down before the trip back home tomorrow. I’m planning on taking a different way home, which would take me past the Smokey Mountains. I’ll see how that goes.

I was impressed with Charlotte. Downtown was real nice, with lots of sculptures and nice architecture. It seemed to be mainly financial institutions in the downtown area. I liked it a lot, but I think Research Triangle Park would have more jobs focused on what I’d like. It won’t hurt to try in the Charlotte area though.

When you’re just outside of the downtown area, you see lots of trees. That makes it hard to tell that you’re so close to a big city, but at the same time, there is a lot of opportunity there. It seems to be a real nice area.

Since Friday I’ve been in Georgia visiting my friend Rachel, who’s here with her aunt and uncle outside Atlanta until summer, then she’s going back to Michigan. This is a nice area. It’s growing a lot more than back home in Michigan. And from what I hear, there are plenty of job opportunities. I like to hear that since it’s not the same back home.

Saturday some friends of mine, Matt and Laura, took me around Atlanta to show me all kinds of things to do. They moved here two years ago, and they love it. Matt is also into computers, so he let me know about the computer industry in the area.

Atlanta is totally different than what I expected. I only knew how busy the expressways are when driving through. I thought of Atlanta as being a huge Detroit with more job opportunities. Well like I said, it wasn’t what I expected. It has a lot of trees and hills and not too much pavement. There are nice parks and lots of other stuff to do. I like it a lot! This is definitely one of the areas I’d like to move to.

Well I’ll be going to Augusta tomorrow to visit an uncle, so I’ll post any other news.

I was real busy last week, so I didn’t get a chance to tell about my trip I’m on now. I left Michigan on Monday morning to check out the South, especially North Carolina and Georgia. I’ve heard recently that there seems to be more promising jobs in the South, especially in NC. I have relatives in North Carolina and Georgia, so I thought I’d come visit them and check out the different areas.

Well, anyways, I got to my aunt and uncle’s place here in North Carolina on Monday night. Tuesday was just a day for resting after the long drive the day before. Then today, my uncle took off work and we went through Greensboro, Burlington, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh. While in Chapel Hill, we drove through the campus of UNC and while in Raleigh we went through NC State. That was pretty cool.

We also went through Research Triangle Park, which is between Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. It’s a large research park where over 100 businesses are located, including IT businesses like IBM, Nortel Networks, and Cisco Systems. I thought it was awesome there. It’s an attractive area for businesses because there are three large universities within a few minutes (Duke, UNC, and NC State). Everything is nice and spread out, and there’s lots of trees! I’d love to be able to get a job there!

Well tomorrow we’re going to Charlotte, so I’ll keep you posted when I get a chance!

Remember how I had some problems with my computer? Well I think I figured out what was wrong with it. I had some bad RAM—it was corrupting the data stored on it. That must have corrupted the registry.

I don’t know why I didn’t check this before. After looking back, I realized I was getting memory errors. I thought to myself that it could be the RAM, but I disregarded that idea because I thought the computer would stop recognizing the RAM altogether.

Well I learned my lesson. I replaced the RAM and all seems well.

This morning I told myself that I’d try to stop having caffeine, period. I don’t drink coffee, and I don’t drink a lot of pop either, but I do tend to have a little bit of pop every day. I just thought to myself that it would be good to cut that out of my diet. Besides, I’d also like to cut down on sugar too, so I thought that not drinking pop would be a good, healthy change in my diet.

Well, that was until this afternoon. I’m feeling pretty tired, and I haven’t felt very motivated today. It seemed like whenever I felt like this in the past, a little caffeine jolt would get me going. So, I’ve decided that I’m not going to totally quit drinking pop, but I will try to reduce how much I drink, especially when I’m working. My plan is to only drink pop when I really need a little boost, like right now.

But I AM still planning on cutting down on sugar and junk food. I would say that I am a healthy eater, except that I tend to eat a lot of snacks, so it shouldn’t be too hard of a change. I hope I can stick to it!!