Don't mess with Texas...

Trucks everywhere, traffic jams, cowboy hats, huge belt buckles, orange and cream, gorgeous (tall) women in high-heels (they are tall without the heels), special edition truck commercials, 70 degree weather in January/February, crazy-awesome Mexican food, and, of course, Shiner beer.....yep I'm in Texas alright.

Austin is a really cool place. I've been here about 6 weeks now and I am now just starting to get a true feel for the town. Austin has a large town feel and also a small town feel at the same time. The University of Texas has a lot to do with this. UT is right in the middle of Austin and all the cool shops and restaurants make it feel like Bloomington, IN--accept better. I've managed to make it down around UT quite a bit here lately. The traffic sucks, but its well worth the hassle to hang out around the campus. If out-of-state tuition didn't cost so much and I wasn't already a junior, I would definitely consider transferring here.

So you all want to know what AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) is like eh? I guess I should probably say something about it, since, after all, thats the reason I am here. AMD is has been a great and work-filled time. It's great hanging out with the other co-ops. I've been privelaged to meet students from UT (of course), Texas A&M, U of Michigan, Cornell, U of Illinois, U of Florida, and the coolest school of them all, Purdue. Every week we all get together and have our "DAA" (dinner around Austin) adventure and try out the really cool restaurants around here. The locals really push people to go to the local restaurants and even make T-shirts that say "Keep Austin Wierd" to promote this. As far as the "work" side of things go, AMD certainly keeps me busy. I am on the Dual-Core (yet to be released) Processor product development engineer team. I basically (at this point) run tests, gather data, present the data in a professional and meaningful fashion, and debug the problematic parts. It sounds pretty dry, and it is at times, but...I do get to play around with multi-million dollar test equipment which is really fun.

The apartment life has been pretty cool (as it always is). We somehow managed to get a hold of a "luxury" apartment for less than the market rate ($890/month instead of $1100/month). BMW's, Infiniti's, Jaguars, Corvette's, Porche's, and any other high-end car you can think of are constantly pulling in and out of our complex. This is definitely a luxury apartment. 9ft ceilings, 12ft family room ceiling, crown molding, yea you get the idea. I really don't need all of this, but it just happened to work out. A blessing indeed.

Now, since I share this nice apartment with two other co-op's--Jake, Computer Science major from Purdue and Dave, Computer Engineering major from U of Michigan--you can imagine that we have a lot of similar interests...and we do. Being geeks that we are, our apartment has become quite wired. Yes, there is definitely four 5.1 surround sound sets in our apartment. There is definitely 7 computers between the three of us (soon to be 8, thanks to Dave). We definitely have all the latest video game consoles connected to a high-definition TV with an assortment of games and movies. We definitely have a wicked fast cable internet connection (well, the fastest cable connection I have ever had). We are seldom bored.

Moving to Austin also provided me with another great opportunity. That opportunity was thankfully answered by God himself. Thats right, the opportunity to attend a great Texas church. This church is absolutely the best church community I have ever been a part of. The college ministry, ECHO, is sooo awesome. There are at least 200+ college students that attend the college group every Sunday from universities throughout town (primarily UT). I have met a bunch of great Texas guys through ECHO who love God and love to show me around the town. I have also joined a bible study group through ECHO. We are studying the life of David in a very deep and observant fashion.

I think good things are going to happen throughout this semester. God brought me down here for a reason, and I am experiencing his reason on a daily basis.

Sorry I left you all hanging for, like, what, three months since my last post? Wow, I am lazy. Anywho, I do miss you all back in the Midwest and can't wait to see you again....just when its warmer :)

-Josh-