I turned in my last final this afternoon at 4:30, and no longer consider myself a sophomore at UW-Madison. In a few months I’ll be a junior at said institution, and in the interim, I’ll be a Software Development Engineer Intern at Microsoft. It should be an interesting summer.

I couldn’t have asked for much better an end to the semester, either.

Last weekend, Jon had an awesome cookout in Vilas park. I tried getting pictures up, but my camera battery is dead, so I’ll still need a raincheck on that. In the mean time, look at Dale’s facebook photo album for details.

Then I had exams Monday and Tuesday.

Wednesday I caught up on some email, played some SNES, met the guys from Enlight one last time for the year, and then Jeni and I hung out Wednesday night.

Thursday (yesterday) I did a so-brief-as-to-be-non-existant amount of studying, and then went to Chicago with Jeni and Lauren. Unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate with us walking around Chicago, so we killed some time at the Des Plaines Oasis. Enough time that I think the employees thought we were crazy. lol.

Anyway, the point of the Chicago trip was not the oasis, but the Gomez concert at the Vic. Our timing couldn’t possibly have been any better, as we arrived, had supper, and went to the Vic about 5 minutes before they opened the doors, amazingly securing us a spot in the front row. I think the weather helped us a bit there. Btw, parking on the street just a couple blocks from the Vic in kindof-downtown Chicago was $0.25 per hour. How on earth is it $0.25 per 15 minutes in Madison? Oh, and don’t put dimes in the meters in Chicago- they only take quarters and dollars.

The opener was David Ford, who was really good. One song in particular that I really liked was “State of the Union,” both for the lyrics and for the Howie Day-style live looped/layered performance. You can find a copy of the music video, which, while awesome, was not nearly as cool the live performance was, by searching Google for it. (Try the first link…) I definitely need to learn more about the technology behind that looping. It was awesome.

Then came Gomez themselves. (Who, I have been told, were named Tom, Ben, and Ian, from stage left to stage right.) Apparently Ben had a new shirt, though not the new striped shirt he has been otherwise spotted in 😉 It was somewhat strange going to a concert and not knowing much of the music beforehand, but it ended up not really mattering; the music was awesome. I don’t care what technologists say about CDs being indistinguishable from the real thing to the human ear. There’s something undefinable that’s unique to live music that makes it a completely different and better experience. Maybe its the difference between speakers that merely hurt your ears versus speakers that make you literally feel every note. It’s probably also the difference between the sound guy mixing the live music (who was awesome, might I add) versus a producer having to choose the most “sellable” sound to put on a CD. Maybe it’s also the fact that at a live show, the band is performing for a live crowd, and puts just that little extra into the music that makes the connection more real than listening to a CD. Idk. It’s awesome nonetheless. Going to the concert really makes me wish I had the free time to do some sound mixing again. Seeing all the top-notch equipment that groups like that get to use, and hearing a sound guy who has everything perfectly mixed right on the edge of distortion but never actually crossing the line was so cool.

So to forestall my rambling on any further, I’ll just say: it was an excellent way to end the school year.

Oh, and today I took my last final. It went well. The end.

Now I need some supper, and then I have to pack: My parents will be here around 8-8:30 tomorrow morning to move me home.

I hope everyone else’s year ended so well!