One of the guys I work with has a bike! The vroom vroom kind. He told me what it was and I'd never heard of it before, but he said it is a sportbike! Wait a minute...I know this because I saw him with his helmet...that means he rode today...it was like 40 degrees?!? Damn crazy bikers. And there were some scenes with house on his bike, also. Ironic that a guy with a bum leg rides a bike more than twice as powerful as mine. I tell myself that he's just a fictional character, but it never helps.
I was discussing time zones with my office mate today, and he brought up an interesting query: how will we handle time zones in the future when Amazon expands to Mars? I found it quite interesting, as evidenced by the expression on his face when I brought up the general theory of relativity. Seriously though, time on Mars would be problematic. For one thing, days and years are different. Suddenly GMT/Zulu/UTC is no longer universal, since you would have to come up with some mapping to martian days and years. And the orbits of Earth and Mars are your best bet for a clock. You can't really use the time the sun takes to orbit the center of the galaxy--that reminds me, Battlestar might have a good ending. Anyway...so besides the lack of something common between Mars and Earth, you also have...time dilation? Yes! And then there's the problem of communicating between Earth and Mars. I don't know how far away they are from each other, but I'm going to bet that Light is going to takes a few minutes. Makes TCP acknowledgements less useful. And then what do you do when Mars and Earth are on the opposite sides of the sun from each other? Thats going to make next day shipping a real challenge.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Some of my friends called me tonight while drunk. From what I could make out from the slurring, they miss me. They also want me to visit, which seems odd because even though I've been here for a month I feel like I just got here. I think while I was in corporate housing, with the nice furniture, this whole move felt more like one long adventure...like I was studying abroad in Seattle. Now that I have my guitars and my ugly cheap furniture, and now that I've spent a night or two sleeping on my crappy futon, it has begun to sink in. I live in Seattle. Lets be honest: I was barely aware of this entire city most of my life. I'd heard of it, sure. And I knew it wasn't near where I lived. Now I'm here. And my back hurts from this stupid futon. How did I sleep on this thing for a year and a half? And I don't have anyone to play Settlers with. I was going to post on craigslist something about hanging out and playing Settlers, but when I looked at the other posts they were all like rock climbing and softball and football. My post would be like the dorkiest one there. Ok this one about a puppy pay date...thats pretty dorky.
In other news, I went to Ikea with Luke today and spent a $900 on Ikea furniture. I really hate checking out at a store and finding out what I'm spending. Somehow the grand total always seems larger than the sum of all the price tags I looked at...by a factor of 4. And we went to Ikea because we wanted cheap furnature. And I passed (for now) on buying the cool L-shaped couch that turns into an awesome queen bed, because it was too expensive. Actually, thats not true. It was all gray and ugly. If it was black, I would have bought it. Anyway, instead, I bought a bed that was labeled $200. Thought it was a great deal. But then, like, you have to get slats, and a metal thing, and the cheapest queen mattress they had, and its more like $500. And then...then I bought a kitchen table, so that I would have somewhere to play Settlers. And then I bought the minimum number of chairs I would need to play Settlers with two of my imaginary friends: 3 chairs. And then a drawer...some swedish fish...pear cider...$900! WTF? How do poor and/or frugal people get furnature? I know they have it. Maybe I should have looked on craiglist...except you really dont want to look on craigslist for a mattress. Ohh...I could have gotten a bed. Like last time. Or some chairs. Dammit. Each chair was like $40. I hate money. I don't even know what to do with my sign-on bonus from Amazon: I don't want to put it in the stock market, cause that sucks, and my cousin says when its in a regular old savings account the interest is so low that you actually lose money after taxes and inflation. My money is currently in a savings account.
Anyway...so I actually got my first task done this past week. I realized, then, just what a scary prospect it was. I wrote code that is eventually going to make it into production. Sure, people are going to look at it and test it and all that, but code I wrote is actually going to power the website. Real data from people in the real world is actually going to pass through my functions. And I don't work one some fun feature of the site. I work on the backbone. If I screw up badly enough, Amazon will lose a lot of money. I'm not exaggerating. The wheels of industry will stop (metaphorically speaking) and people will not get their crap. Its a good time though. I like being just a programmer, and working with people who are also programmers. Good programmers. I never look at someone's code and want to scream. Actually that's not true. Last week I couldn't figure out why my crap wasn't working and I dug a little too deep into the bowels of their code base, and did not like what I found there. I probably shouldn't tell you what it was, so I'll leave you with an analogy: making toast with a nuclear reactor.
Still haven't really hung out with anyone that I didn't already know before, but I know which Salsa club I'm going to try next: China Harbor. Its half the distance to Century Ballroom. Also, a bunch of salsa classes are starting up, so that should be a good way to meet people. Aw, man, now I miss my friends from La Luna. Of course, the nostalgia is partly mitigated by that disaster with Kristal...never has "out of your league" been so literal. That was a good learning experience though. Now I know that life is not like a chick flick. For example, if the girl of your dreams asks you to be her dance partner in a performance class that is above your ability, you should find out if she is dating the dance instructor before you say yes. That is some valuble information right there. Also, if you are not confident of your ability to perform, if you think there is a good chance you might screw up big and not be able to recover, those aren't just nervous jitters. That is a real danger.
Not to worry, though. They don't really have big studios with lots of performance classes out here anyway...at least I haven't found one yet. Nothing on the scale of La Luna.
In other news, I went to Ikea with Luke today and spent a $900 on Ikea furniture. I really hate checking out at a store and finding out what I'm spending. Somehow the grand total always seems larger than the sum of all the price tags I looked at...by a factor of 4. And we went to Ikea because we wanted cheap furnature. And I passed (for now) on buying the cool L-shaped couch that turns into an awesome queen bed, because it was too expensive. Actually, thats not true. It was all gray and ugly. If it was black, I would have bought it. Anyway, instead, I bought a bed that was labeled $200. Thought it was a great deal. But then, like, you have to get slats, and a metal thing, and the cheapest queen mattress they had, and its more like $500. And then...then I bought a kitchen table, so that I would have somewhere to play Settlers. And then I bought the minimum number of chairs I would need to play Settlers with two of my imaginary friends: 3 chairs. And then a drawer...some swedish fish...pear cider...$900! WTF? How do poor and/or frugal people get furnature? I know they have it. Maybe I should have looked on craiglist...except you really dont want to look on craigslist for a mattress. Ohh...I could have gotten a bed. Like last time. Or some chairs. Dammit. Each chair was like $40. I hate money. I don't even know what to do with my sign-on bonus from Amazon: I don't want to put it in the stock market, cause that sucks, and my cousin says when its in a regular old savings account the interest is so low that you actually lose money after taxes and inflation. My money is currently in a savings account.
Anyway...so I actually got my first task done this past week. I realized, then, just what a scary prospect it was. I wrote code that is eventually going to make it into production. Sure, people are going to look at it and test it and all that, but code I wrote is actually going to power the website. Real data from people in the real world is actually going to pass through my functions. And I don't work one some fun feature of the site. I work on the backbone. If I screw up badly enough, Amazon will lose a lot of money. I'm not exaggerating. The wheels of industry will stop (metaphorically speaking) and people will not get their crap. Its a good time though. I like being just a programmer, and working with people who are also programmers. Good programmers. I never look at someone's code and want to scream. Actually that's not true. Last week I couldn't figure out why my crap wasn't working and I dug a little too deep into the bowels of their code base, and did not like what I found there. I probably shouldn't tell you what it was, so I'll leave you with an analogy: making toast with a nuclear reactor.
Still haven't really hung out with anyone that I didn't already know before, but I know which Salsa club I'm going to try next: China Harbor. Its half the distance to Century Ballroom. Also, a bunch of salsa classes are starting up, so that should be a good way to meet people. Aw, man, now I miss my friends from La Luna. Of course, the nostalgia is partly mitigated by that disaster with Kristal...never has "out of your league" been so literal. That was a good learning experience though. Now I know that life is not like a chick flick. For example, if the girl of your dreams asks you to be her dance partner in a performance class that is above your ability, you should find out if she is dating the dance instructor before you say yes. That is some valuble information right there. Also, if you are not confident of your ability to perform, if you think there is a good chance you might screw up big and not be able to recover, those aren't just nervous jitters. That is a real danger.
Not to worry, though. They don't really have big studios with lots of performance classes out here anyway...at least I haven't found one yet. Nothing on the scale of La Luna.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Shell Shock
I made an ass of myself in a coffee shop today. I asked for a vanilla chai tea. I don't really know what that is, but I understand it that it tastes like vanilla, which I like, and it may be tea. Then I stood around while they made it and got absorbed in the television and the girl making the drinks called out "nonfat chai tea!" as she set a fresh drink on the little table thing. I automatically moved to grab it, because I was the only person or ordered anything in the last five minutes, but then the words "nonfat" sunk in. As a skinny person, and someone who knows what olestra is, I've nursed a special hatred of all things "diet" and "nonfat." Partially justified, by the way; once I accidentally drank half some kind of werid weight loss drink with the word "fuze" on it and felt sick immediately. But I digress.
I froze for a second, wondering if the guy heard my order wrong. Impossible. He was all like "you said vanilla, right?" And I said yes. So what happened? I don't know. What I should have done, I realized later, is ask her if that was for me. What I actually did was just stand there waiting for her to make the next drink so I could see if it was mine. She wasn't even done with the next one, though, before she picked it up again and yelled "NON-FAT CHAI TEA LATTE FOR DAVE," pretending she didn't already know it was for me. Oops.
I left as quickly as I could, staring at my paper cup, wondering what gross manufactured chemicals swirled around inside my hot beverage, waiting to give me a fake sense of being full. The coffee shop was only about 100 meters from the building where I worked, but I already regretted the entire trip. I had only ventured out into the cold because I was getting quite chilly at my desk...some kind of air vent was constantly blowing cold air onto me. But I digress. I considered throwing out my drink and walking across the walkway to starbucks and trying again, but that would have been too weird even for me. Instead I just sipped the drink and went back to my desk to get some work done. I don't want to turn into a coffee snob. I don't even like coffee that much. I just like going places where you can get something hot to drink that has milk and vanilla syrup in it.
In other news, I am starting to get the hang of the bus system. That is, when I need to get on a specific bus, like one that stops at specific points on the surface at specific times along its route, I can usually get there. All you get to do is get there like ten minutes early, buy a crossaint from a nearby coffee shop that has flies on it but which you still eat most of because you are hungry and are about to go climbing, and then huddle in the little bus stop booth and stamp your feet until the warm bus rolls up. Then, you may or may not pay as you enter the bus, depending on where the bus is, where you're going, what time of day it is and whether or not the planets are aligned. They have little signs to tell you, though.
Oh, and speaking of climbing...they have 2 gyms up here. I don't know if I wrote about them yet, but one has top-roping with ATCs like I'm used to, and the other has top-roping with those stupid gregery pieces of crap that I hate. In fact, one of my personal goals right now is to go climbing there a whole night without complaining about the belay devices. So far it hasn't happened. It is sad irony that the gym with the stupid belay devices has a lot more top rope courses. I'm not sure what to do about that. I suppose I should look on the bright side: every time I go there I fall more in love with ATCs. When I'm belaying someone I fantasize about how it would feel it I was using an ATC instead. I wonder if my ATC gets lonely, stuffed in my gym bag in the locker room, without the harness and shoes to keep it company while I climb.
Last night I got a full nights sleep by accident, and discovered why I've been falling asleep at my desk at work so much.
I'm feeling generally disoriented again. I'm out of the corporate housing apartment and into my own, which is a mirror image of the corporate housing one, but it has all of my stuff instead of the corporate housing stuff. Just when the corporate housing apartment was starting to feel like home. After that king bed, I feel like I'm camping out here...like I should pitch a tent on top of my crappy futon and sleep in my sleeping bag. Such a weird feeling. And its difficult getting places...especially without a car (and with the weather too cold to ride) whenever I think about going somewhere, first I have to ask "where is it???" and then "how to I get there?" I'm losing interest in locations where the answer is "spend half of your day on busses."
Also, I don't think I wrote about this yet: I spent $125 on towels. Towels. I did write about this...whatever. Since then, I've started looking at price tags on things in stores before I buy them. I understand this is a custom that most normal people practice when shopping. I can see the benefits...today I bought a smaller trash can than the one I was looking at, because no trash can should ever cost $25 (and if it does, the thing better be able to walk up and grab the trash out of your hand) . As a result, I only spent $50 at bed bath and beyond. Which, by the way, does not sell paper towels. I don't know why. Paper towels could go in both the kitchen and the bathroom, and I have some ideas that would make them handy in the bedroom, too. But whatever. I stole the roll from the corporate housing department. I also took the dishwasher soap. Part of my dishwasher is broken. I asked them to fix it, so someone who works for the apartment complex came into my apartment, put a bunch of my dishes in the dishwasher, and ran it, and then wrote "fixed" on the little work sheet. The guys probably thinks I'm a total moron now. The dishwasher technically works without the piece thats missing. I think I'm going to order the part I need off the internet and fix it myself. I'm all about being assertive and stuff, but I can see this turning into a big passive-aggressive battle fought through notes and work slips. Seriously, what a jackass. They probably have the exact same dishwasher in every other apartment. I don't know how they didn't notice there was a giant piece of plastic missing. Whatever.
I froze for a second, wondering if the guy heard my order wrong. Impossible. He was all like "you said vanilla, right?" And I said yes. So what happened? I don't know. What I should have done, I realized later, is ask her if that was for me. What I actually did was just stand there waiting for her to make the next drink so I could see if it was mine. She wasn't even done with the next one, though, before she picked it up again and yelled "NON-FAT CHAI TEA LATTE FOR DAVE," pretending she didn't already know it was for me. Oops.
I left as quickly as I could, staring at my paper cup, wondering what gross manufactured chemicals swirled around inside my hot beverage, waiting to give me a fake sense of being full. The coffee shop was only about 100 meters from the building where I worked, but I already regretted the entire trip. I had only ventured out into the cold because I was getting quite chilly at my desk...some kind of air vent was constantly blowing cold air onto me. But I digress. I considered throwing out my drink and walking across the walkway to starbucks and trying again, but that would have been too weird even for me. Instead I just sipped the drink and went back to my desk to get some work done. I don't want to turn into a coffee snob. I don't even like coffee that much. I just like going places where you can get something hot to drink that has milk and vanilla syrup in it.
In other news, I am starting to get the hang of the bus system. That is, when I need to get on a specific bus, like one that stops at specific points on the surface at specific times along its route, I can usually get there. All you get to do is get there like ten minutes early, buy a crossaint from a nearby coffee shop that has flies on it but which you still eat most of because you are hungry and are about to go climbing, and then huddle in the little bus stop booth and stamp your feet until the warm bus rolls up. Then, you may or may not pay as you enter the bus, depending on where the bus is, where you're going, what time of day it is and whether or not the planets are aligned. They have little signs to tell you, though.
Oh, and speaking of climbing...they have 2 gyms up here. I don't know if I wrote about them yet, but one has top-roping with ATCs like I'm used to, and the other has top-roping with those stupid gregery pieces of crap that I hate. In fact, one of my personal goals right now is to go climbing there a whole night without complaining about the belay devices. So far it hasn't happened. It is sad irony that the gym with the stupid belay devices has a lot more top rope courses. I'm not sure what to do about that. I suppose I should look on the bright side: every time I go there I fall more in love with ATCs. When I'm belaying someone I fantasize about how it would feel it I was using an ATC instead. I wonder if my ATC gets lonely, stuffed in my gym bag in the locker room, without the harness and shoes to keep it company while I climb.
Last night I got a full nights sleep by accident, and discovered why I've been falling asleep at my desk at work so much.
I'm feeling generally disoriented again. I'm out of the corporate housing apartment and into my own, which is a mirror image of the corporate housing one, but it has all of my stuff instead of the corporate housing stuff. Just when the corporate housing apartment was starting to feel like home. After that king bed, I feel like I'm camping out here...like I should pitch a tent on top of my crappy futon and sleep in my sleeping bag. Such a weird feeling. And its difficult getting places...especially without a car (and with the weather too cold to ride) whenever I think about going somewhere, first I have to ask "where is it???" and then "how to I get there?" I'm losing interest in locations where the answer is "spend half of your day on busses."
Also, I don't think I wrote about this yet: I spent $125 on towels. Towels. I did write about this...whatever. Since then, I've started looking at price tags on things in stores before I buy them. I understand this is a custom that most normal people practice when shopping. I can see the benefits...today I bought a smaller trash can than the one I was looking at, because no trash can should ever cost $25 (and if it does, the thing better be able to walk up and grab the trash out of your hand) . As a result, I only spent $50 at bed bath and beyond. Which, by the way, does not sell paper towels. I don't know why. Paper towels could go in both the kitchen and the bathroom, and I have some ideas that would make them handy in the bedroom, too. But whatever. I stole the roll from the corporate housing department. I also took the dishwasher soap. Part of my dishwasher is broken. I asked them to fix it, so someone who works for the apartment complex came into my apartment, put a bunch of my dishes in the dishwasher, and ran it, and then wrote "fixed" on the little work sheet. The guys probably thinks I'm a total moron now. The dishwasher technically works without the piece thats missing. I think I'm going to order the part I need off the internet and fix it myself. I'm all about being assertive and stuff, but I can see this turning into a big passive-aggressive battle fought through notes and work slips. Seriously, what a jackass. They probably have the exact same dishwasher in every other apartment. I don't know how they didn't notice there was a giant piece of plastic missing. Whatever.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Words of Wisdom
If you are home and watching tv when a Girls Gone Wild Commercial comes on, you have clearly made some wrong choices about how to spend your night. Every time I see one of those commercials I look at the time and realize that the people with social lives are out drinking. Unless its a weekday; then it just means I was supposed to be in bed an hour ago. I'm meeting some people at work, though. Also Gabe is here. Forgot about him. I should invite him climbing next week. Him and my office mate's friend. And I need to hang out with Luke. My lack of a social life is incredible. I never considered myself a particularly social person, but back home, whether due to a large number of friends or an innate calendering deficiency, I often had the heart-wrenching task of deciding between two things I wanted to do on a given night. I usually attempted to do both, which rarely worked out. Here, though, total opposite.
I tried looking on craigslist for stuff I wanted to do. Like volleyball or something. Didn't really find anything. Then I looked at the personal ads because I was bored. That was basically a dead end, except for the girl I met in the "just looking for friends" section. She is incredibly attractive, and apparently looking to not actually date, and doesnt actually live in Seattle, and also we've never actually met. We are making vague plans to possibly explore Seattle together in the indeterminate future. She is so attractive, actually, that I thought I was being scammed. But then she told me she had never heard of any of the bands I like, so that seems pretty real. For someone who thinks meeting girls on the internet is stupid I sure do talk about it a lot. Maybe I have too much time on my hands...
...which brings me back to tonight: I would have made an effort to see Watchmen, but it is sold out everywhere. I'm not excited about it enough to battle what I feel are too many sudden Watchmen fans. The only people who knew about Watchmen before the movie were like comic book nerds, and people like me who looked it up on wikipedia after they showed a trailer for it when we saw Dark Knight.
The real reason I stayed home was I had some spaghetti left over and knew there was a good chance House would be on. It was. The spaghetti was good, but the meat sauce I used apparently expired in YU01. Or will expire. I'm not exactly sure when that is. I also watched Battlestar tonight. What a disappointment that was. All of the characters are whiny and crying now, and pretty much none of them are in control. Its as if the characters themselves are just waiting to react to the next plot twist. I know I am. Most of the plot twists now are dumb.
All of my stuff is sitting in my new apartment. Unfortunately, it doesnt have cable or internet, so I'm still basically living in the corporate housing apartment, roughly five doors down. Also the fresh paint smell hasn't gone away, not even when I opened the sliding door to the outside and forgot to close it for more than a day. Also, [one of] the hot girl[s] who works in the office, the one who rides motorcycles, took part of my dishwasher because none of us knew what it was for. Either that, or she didn't take it and it is lost among all of my stuff. Either way I can only do dishes here. Plus, the internet.
I emailed a flight school last night and still haven't gotten a response. I think I'm going to just show up their tomorrow and just find someone to talk to in their flight operations building. I need to figure out the bus routes to there anyway. I've learned that outside the downtown areas, the bus routes aren't so confusing cause there is usually only one bus, and you'd better not miss it.
I spent $125 on towels. I'm not kidding. I walked in to Bed Bath and Beyond, which is located dangerously on my way home, and I got some towels. And a scrubby brush. And a shower curtain. $125. Most of that was the $40 shower curtain that I should have studied more closely. I know the scrubby brush wasn't the problem, that was only like $3. Still. I paid $7 for some orange juice. Prices are ridiculous. Did I mention the girl who works in the apartment office likes techno? I'm going to have to keep a budget or something.
Work is getting difficult. I'm still useless. I'm not really allowed to tell you how Amazon's software works, but I think it is safe for me to say it is ridiculously complex. Like, nuclear reactors probably have simpler software than we do. And I don't know any of it. I'm going to be useless for about 3 months. Or 6, depending on who you ask. I am enjoying it though. Life is better when you don't hate your work.
I tried looking on craigslist for stuff I wanted to do. Like volleyball or something. Didn't really find anything. Then I looked at the personal ads because I was bored. That was basically a dead end, except for the girl I met in the "just looking for friends" section. She is incredibly attractive, and apparently looking to not actually date, and doesnt actually live in Seattle, and also we've never actually met. We are making vague plans to possibly explore Seattle together in the indeterminate future. She is so attractive, actually, that I thought I was being scammed. But then she told me she had never heard of any of the bands I like, so that seems pretty real. For someone who thinks meeting girls on the internet is stupid I sure do talk about it a lot. Maybe I have too much time on my hands...
...which brings me back to tonight: I would have made an effort to see Watchmen, but it is sold out everywhere. I'm not excited about it enough to battle what I feel are too many sudden Watchmen fans. The only people who knew about Watchmen before the movie were like comic book nerds, and people like me who looked it up on wikipedia after they showed a trailer for it when we saw Dark Knight.
The real reason I stayed home was I had some spaghetti left over and knew there was a good chance House would be on. It was. The spaghetti was good, but the meat sauce I used apparently expired in YU01. Or will expire. I'm not exactly sure when that is. I also watched Battlestar tonight. What a disappointment that was. All of the characters are whiny and crying now, and pretty much none of them are in control. Its as if the characters themselves are just waiting to react to the next plot twist. I know I am. Most of the plot twists now are dumb.
All of my stuff is sitting in my new apartment. Unfortunately, it doesnt have cable or internet, so I'm still basically living in the corporate housing apartment, roughly five doors down. Also the fresh paint smell hasn't gone away, not even when I opened the sliding door to the outside and forgot to close it for more than a day. Also, [one of] the hot girl[s] who works in the office, the one who rides motorcycles, took part of my dishwasher because none of us knew what it was for. Either that, or she didn't take it and it is lost among all of my stuff. Either way I can only do dishes here. Plus, the internet.
I emailed a flight school last night and still haven't gotten a response. I think I'm going to just show up their tomorrow and just find someone to talk to in their flight operations building. I need to figure out the bus routes to there anyway. I've learned that outside the downtown areas, the bus routes aren't so confusing cause there is usually only one bus, and you'd better not miss it.
I spent $125 on towels. I'm not kidding. I walked in to Bed Bath and Beyond, which is located dangerously on my way home, and I got some towels. And a scrubby brush. And a shower curtain. $125. Most of that was the $40 shower curtain that I should have studied more closely. I know the scrubby brush wasn't the problem, that was only like $3. Still. I paid $7 for some orange juice. Prices are ridiculous. Did I mention the girl who works in the apartment office likes techno? I'm going to have to keep a budget or something.
Work is getting difficult. I'm still useless. I'm not really allowed to tell you how Amazon's software works, but I think it is safe for me to say it is ridiculously complex. Like, nuclear reactors probably have simpler software than we do. And I don't know any of it. I'm going to be useless for about 3 months. Or 6, depending on who you ask. I am enjoying it though. Life is better when you don't hate your work.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Now there's a guy who knows where his towel is.
In Philly when I got tired of something, or just needed to recharge, or wanted to be alone, or didn't have anything else to do, I'd just go home. Right now, though, it feels like I don't have one. Not yet. I'm living, for the moment, in a pre-furnished apartment, with less than a weeks worth of winter clothing. It feels like I'm in a hotel. Which made me wonder: how psychologically dependent am I, or we, on having a home? (Yeah, no social life yet so I've plenty of time to think. And watch House.) What if I kept moving so frequently that I never had time to settle in anywhere? What if I never had a fixed address? Would I go crazy? I don't know. I may or may not get a chance to try that. Now that I managed to tear myself away from where I grew up, the idea of moving pretty much anywhere they speak English doesn't scare me.
Could I travel the world with few possessions beyond a towel and a little book that says DONT PANIC in bold red letters? By now you've realized that this is a long post and are wondering whether its really worth your time to read it all. The answer is no.
I was genuinely hoping that by now I would have some crazy stories to tell. Something about going clubbing and getting lost in Chinatown and waking up without any pants. Unfortunately I've been unusually tired. When I come home from work all I feel like doing is sitting around and watching some tv. Cooking myself dinner seems to take extra effort. Admittedly, I haven't actually cooked dinner in over a year, so this is a little new to me. I like living in an apartment with a real kitchen. And...housekeeping. Which I discovered today. I knew that, in theory, I was supposed to get housekeeping services (courtesy of this corporate housing agency) every other Wednesday, so I should have been prepared. However, two Wednesdays went by and there were no housekeeping services, so I just assumed I wasn't receiving that service and figured out how to take the trash out myself, which by that point took two trips. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I figured this out when I got home after work because the large pile of dirty dishes in the sink was gone, and whoever put them in the dishwasher knew how to run it so they actually get clean. Plus, all my stuff, everywhere, was all shuffled around. Not thinking that they were coming, I was content to leave my crap everywhere, including loose money and my laptops and a bunch of sensitive financial documents, etc. To my relief nothing that I remember owning is missing. Of course that doesn't really say much.
While we're on the subject of things that freak me out: I'm getting the impression that the people at Starbucks (the one near my job) are actively trying to learn my name. I know this wouldn't bother normal people, but I think its completely weird. I've only gone there like 1 or 2 times. Actually it may be approaching 5, but still. During my first or second co-op in Lansdale I actually carefully planned out where I'd go for lunch each week because I was worried that if I went to wawa too often they'd start to recognize me. Eventually I gave up and went to Wawa almost every day and no one seemed to care. Here, though, watch out.
After finishing an amazing book called "Three Cups of Tea" I went for some heavily advertised book about Starbucks. Thought it would be good. The title is something about starbucks saving my life. Its supposed to be this inspirational story. I finished it last night. The guy who wrote it is really into the coffee chain, and works there, and writes about their training. Apparrently, and I did not know this, the fact that the people at Starbucks always seem happy and friendly is not a coincidence like I thought it was. That's their job. They are supposed to be chatting you up while you order. So all this time I thought I was learning to be more friendly or something, the coffee people were just doing their job. Oh, and today the girl behind the register gave me a free bag of coffee...beans. Not entirely sure what I'm going to do with it. I am definitely not going to sit at home and try to figure out how the coffee maker in my room works. I don't drink coffee because I love coffee; I drink coffee because I want to hang out in a coffee shop. Or just get away from my desk for a few minutes. Maybe everyone else who goes there really is a coffee snob, and thats why people always make fun of starbucks. I don't know. All I care about is finding more drinks I like so I can randomly order different drinks before the baristas start guessing what I want.
Some people fear death. I fear a coffee shop where they already know I want a "grande vanilla latte for Dave" as soon as I walk in the door.
Housekeeping, starbucks...oh. I'm learning Spanish. Soy aprendando espanol. That was probably wrong, actually. I don't really know why I've decided to try this again. In middle school they gave us a choice between German, French, Spanish, and some other language I didn't bother to even remember. I wanted to study French, for no other reason than Owen was studying it. But French was full so I took Spanish. Then I spent 3 or 4 years studying the language and never learned enough to hold a conversation. Since moving here, I've had so much time on my hands, and such a desire not to waste it, that I bought a few Spanish books and started watching the Spanish channel. I recognize roughly one word every two minutes. Usually a number. Like when they are doing the weather and they show the numbers on the screen while they say them. I'll let you know how this turns out. If it works, and I become conversationally fluent, then all I have to do is invent some way I'll actually need to use it. Like...visiting Mexico.
I went rock climbing last week at an indoor rock gym. All of the little details made me miss Go Vertical in philly. For example, here we had to tie our own S knots. In Philly the loops are pre-tied and cauterized into the rope, so that all you have to do is walk up and pop it into your carabiners. I'm awesome at that. Also in Philly the top rope is double looped through a pulley at the top, which adds friction and makes the fall less scary. Here, the rope goes through nothing but two carabiners. No pulley. No extra friction. If the person belaying you screws up, you're in for some sudden motion. If you suck at tying knots you're in for a lot of sudden motion. Also, the walls were rated easier out here. Back home I was climbing 5.7's. Here I climb 5.9's. Nice boost to the ego. My goal is to go regularly, learn how to lead climb, and then go climb some real rock when the weather gets nicer.
I signed a lease for an apartment. Come March I will be moving...down the hall. It was nice to not have to go out and actually look for a place. There is even a garage for my ninja. Also the cute girl that works in the office rides sportbikes. She probably has a boyfriend.
Speaking of girls...I haven't really met any. Went dancing again, and there were more guys than girls. And I didn't know anyone. And there were few attractive girls close to my age. I tried cragislist, thinking maybe girls who live near Microsoft and Google and Amazon would be more computer savvy, but didn't have much luck there either. I might try some league sports, like volleyball. I'd be all over indoor soccer but it would probably kill me. Aside from that, I don't have any good ideas yet. Maybe something involving texas hold'em. When I've been at my job for a few more weeks and start being productive I'll feel out the best way to take a day off here and there. By that time my stuff will get there and I can go skiing and flying again. I need to pick a flight school.
Could I travel the world with few possessions beyond a towel and a little book that says DONT PANIC in bold red letters? By now you've realized that this is a long post and are wondering whether its really worth your time to read it all. The answer is no.
I was genuinely hoping that by now I would have some crazy stories to tell. Something about going clubbing and getting lost in Chinatown and waking up without any pants. Unfortunately I've been unusually tired. When I come home from work all I feel like doing is sitting around and watching some tv. Cooking myself dinner seems to take extra effort. Admittedly, I haven't actually cooked dinner in over a year, so this is a little new to me. I like living in an apartment with a real kitchen. And...housekeeping. Which I discovered today. I knew that, in theory, I was supposed to get housekeeping services (courtesy of this corporate housing agency) every other Wednesday, so I should have been prepared. However, two Wednesdays went by and there were no housekeeping services, so I just assumed I wasn't receiving that service and figured out how to take the trash out myself, which by that point took two trips. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I figured this out when I got home after work because the large pile of dirty dishes in the sink was gone, and whoever put them in the dishwasher knew how to run it so they actually get clean. Plus, all my stuff, everywhere, was all shuffled around. Not thinking that they were coming, I was content to leave my crap everywhere, including loose money and my laptops and a bunch of sensitive financial documents, etc. To my relief nothing that I remember owning is missing. Of course that doesn't really say much.
While we're on the subject of things that freak me out: I'm getting the impression that the people at Starbucks (the one near my job) are actively trying to learn my name. I know this wouldn't bother normal people, but I think its completely weird. I've only gone there like 1 or 2 times. Actually it may be approaching 5, but still. During my first or second co-op in Lansdale I actually carefully planned out where I'd go for lunch each week because I was worried that if I went to wawa too often they'd start to recognize me. Eventually I gave up and went to Wawa almost every day and no one seemed to care. Here, though, watch out.
After finishing an amazing book called "Three Cups of Tea" I went for some heavily advertised book about Starbucks. Thought it would be good. The title is something about starbucks saving my life. Its supposed to be this inspirational story. I finished it last night. The guy who wrote it is really into the coffee chain, and works there, and writes about their training. Apparrently, and I did not know this, the fact that the people at Starbucks always seem happy and friendly is not a coincidence like I thought it was. That's their job. They are supposed to be chatting you up while you order. So all this time I thought I was learning to be more friendly or something, the coffee people were just doing their job. Oh, and today the girl behind the register gave me a free bag of coffee...beans. Not entirely sure what I'm going to do with it. I am definitely not going to sit at home and try to figure out how the coffee maker in my room works. I don't drink coffee because I love coffee; I drink coffee because I want to hang out in a coffee shop. Or just get away from my desk for a few minutes. Maybe everyone else who goes there really is a coffee snob, and thats why people always make fun of starbucks. I don't know. All I care about is finding more drinks I like so I can randomly order different drinks before the baristas start guessing what I want.
Some people fear death. I fear a coffee shop where they already know I want a "grande vanilla latte for Dave" as soon as I walk in the door.
Housekeeping, starbucks...oh. I'm learning Spanish. Soy aprendando espanol. That was probably wrong, actually. I don't really know why I've decided to try this again. In middle school they gave us a choice between German, French, Spanish, and some other language I didn't bother to even remember. I wanted to study French, for no other reason than Owen was studying it. But French was full so I took Spanish. Then I spent 3 or 4 years studying the language and never learned enough to hold a conversation. Since moving here, I've had so much time on my hands, and such a desire not to waste it, that I bought a few Spanish books and started watching the Spanish channel. I recognize roughly one word every two minutes. Usually a number. Like when they are doing the weather and they show the numbers on the screen while they say them. I'll let you know how this turns out. If it works, and I become conversationally fluent, then all I have to do is invent some way I'll actually need to use it. Like...visiting Mexico.
I went rock climbing last week at an indoor rock gym. All of the little details made me miss Go Vertical in philly. For example, here we had to tie our own S knots. In Philly the loops are pre-tied and cauterized into the rope, so that all you have to do is walk up and pop it into your carabiners. I'm awesome at that. Also in Philly the top rope is double looped through a pulley at the top, which adds friction and makes the fall less scary. Here, the rope goes through nothing but two carabiners. No pulley. No extra friction. If the person belaying you screws up, you're in for some sudden motion. If you suck at tying knots you're in for a lot of sudden motion. Also, the walls were rated easier out here. Back home I was climbing 5.7's. Here I climb 5.9's. Nice boost to the ego. My goal is to go regularly, learn how to lead climb, and then go climb some real rock when the weather gets nicer.
I signed a lease for an apartment. Come March I will be moving...down the hall. It was nice to not have to go out and actually look for a place. There is even a garage for my ninja. Also the cute girl that works in the office rides sportbikes. She probably has a boyfriend.
Speaking of girls...I haven't really met any. Went dancing again, and there were more guys than girls. And I didn't know anyone. And there were few attractive girls close to my age. I tried cragislist, thinking maybe girls who live near Microsoft and Google and Amazon would be more computer savvy, but didn't have much luck there either. I might try some league sports, like volleyball. I'd be all over indoor soccer but it would probably kill me. Aside from that, I don't have any good ideas yet. Maybe something involving texas hold'em. When I've been at my job for a few more weeks and start being productive I'll feel out the best way to take a day off here and there. By that time my stuff will get there and I can go skiing and flying again. I need to pick a flight school.
Monday, February 16, 2009
First Impressions
Seattle, like some other cities that aren't Philly, does some funny things with streets and addresses. First of all, it has numbered avenues. Like 4th ave, where I live. I can handle that. The problem is the addresses are schizophrenic. They have multiple...versions. Like: 1200 12th ave. And: 1200 12th Ave South, which are completely different locations! 12th Ave and 12th Ave South are the same street, but when you see "South" that means the little numbers in the address denote a completely different section of the same street. This fun little fact screwed me up before, but it didn't sink in until I hopped off a bus for my orientation at 1200 12th Ave, and then walked 24 blocks to 1200 12th Ave South. I have some ideas for making a city even more confusing, but I'll keep them to myself just in case any of you ever design a city.
Fortunately I did a lot of walking last week and didn't even break a sweat. I figured out the bus system. Imagine if Septa had a first class option, where all the seats are clean and the drivers are friendly and you dont have to use tokens for mass transit. Thats the way all of Seattle's buses are. Also, they have a subway made out of buses. I'm not kidding. There are big tunnels underground, and they drive buses through them. As if they were trains. And the tunnels are all circular, like we're the teenage mutant ninja turtles. Except that the tunnels are well lit and not dirty.
The people here are nice. I often run into someone who goes out of their way (compared to Philly) to start a conversation. Its kinda weird but I like it. If everyone is so much nicer maybe I'll have better luck with girls in bars. Or I'll hang out in the university district a lot. I haven't been up there much; only once so far after my laptop destroyed itself (Windows updated itself into broken) and I had to get another one. I went to Best Buy hoping to get a cheap laptop with Linux--well, I'm going to stop here because this little story ends the same way all of my Best Buy stories end. Suffice to say, I know how to get to the University District. I think I want to finish getting my private pilot license before I go back to grad school though. That will mean I'll be even older when I start classes again. Could I still find a smart girl? I've seen amazing girls get attached to guys that are far older, dumber and uglier than I am, so I'm not going to worry about it.
I went salsa dancing on a Wednesday and it was ok. Made me miss brazil's, and all the girls I used to dance with there. I miss Sonia's lessons too. And I never got to dance with Nicole or Cassie before I left. :( I want to find a dance studio here, but their websites don't look too encouraging, and the one teacher I saw wasn't impressive. Her little lesson felt like a ballroom class.
It doesn't actually rain as much as I thought. Apparently its the gloomyness that gets everyone down. I don't think I'll have a problem with it, unless it interferes with flying and skiing. Which it might. The coffee thing is for real, though. Coffee shops don't permeate the entire city proper, but when you go downtown there is almost one on every block. Also, some of them stay open late, like bars. I kind of want to try going to one late and night and see if smart girls hang out there.
There are definitely a lot of tiny little weird differences. Like the video store that is closest to me that rents videos for one night, for at least as much as blockbuster/hollywood video charge for a week. I had to walk ten blocks to get to blockbuster. And they didn't have "The Great Train Robbery." I dont know if I'll ever see that movie. I can't believe I actually got up and just moved out here. Also, in the supermarket I went to, you don't even put your own food on the conveyor belt. In fact, they didn't have conveyorbelts. You walk up to the cashier, and drop off your cart or basket like you're a snobby rich person and they scan your items directly from the cart. Like lifting the items out of your cart is too much work for you. Unless, of course, you're me, and you didn't get a cart or basket because you were only planning to grab what would fit in your backpack anyway, and end up awkwardly handing it to the girl at the register. I don't make a very good rich person.
There are definitely more bums here. A lot of them put less into the act than in Philly. Some of them might actually need help though. In Philly it seems like there was almost a distinction between the bums asking for money and the homeless people who didn't ask but actually needed it. Here I can't tell the difference. And the crazies are different. In Philly it was the black-jew people reading made up old-English sounding Bible verses over loudspeakers. Here I saw people with signs like they were protesting, but they had what sounded like southern accents (or some kind of rural accent?), and the stuff they were shouting had more of an apocolyptic flavor. Also it was more offensive and less comical. Oh, and they wanted to free Gaza, which made me immediately cynical since the annoying political people never scream stuff about Darfur or the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Sierra Leone or the hunger or HIV epidemic in your face. Or protest about the lack of schools in Afghanistan. Or, perhaps, I'm really just annoyed because that was the day I was looking for a Cosi's and I never found it. Instead I ate stuff from a Chinese fast food place in a mall food court and felt sick later.
At work they don't let you be the administrator/root person on your computer. I'm starting to think that now that I'm at Amazon I won't have the luxury of doing pretty much whatever I want, whenever I want with my computer anymore. I spent most of my day today watching training videos that nearly put me to sleep, which is a step up from the military documentation I used to read that always put me to sleep. Also, I might not find my desk tomorrow. I think I work on the 4th floor. Also the laptop I got from Best Buy has the shift key in a really weird place. I just wanted to share that with you.
All my stuff is in transit and I feel aimless and bored without my guitars, or my flight bag, or my skiis, or my climbing gear, or a reliable internet connection (Comast out here is worse than Comast in Philly). Sometimes I think about the job I left behind and the other grad students there and how comfortable I was. Sometimes, especially today during the boring movies, I think about the girls I left behind, including some that won't miss me. Memories linger in my mind like ghosts in doorways. Probably just because I haven't met any girls yet. Or too much caffeine.
Last week I showed up in Seattle with a sunburned face and not nearly enough clothing in my bag. Since then I've done a lot of walking (enough to make my calf muscles sore) and drank a lot of coffee and endured a lot of cold, cold weather. I bought a blanket and got over my fear of buses and started cooking again. Oh, and I'm starting to get a taste for wine! I can impersonate a cultured person FTW!
Not a bad start.
Fortunately I did a lot of walking last week and didn't even break a sweat. I figured out the bus system. Imagine if Septa had a first class option, where all the seats are clean and the drivers are friendly and you dont have to use tokens for mass transit. Thats the way all of Seattle's buses are. Also, they have a subway made out of buses. I'm not kidding. There are big tunnels underground, and they drive buses through them. As if they were trains. And the tunnels are all circular, like we're the teenage mutant ninja turtles. Except that the tunnels are well lit and not dirty.
The people here are nice. I often run into someone who goes out of their way (compared to Philly) to start a conversation. Its kinda weird but I like it. If everyone is so much nicer maybe I'll have better luck with girls in bars. Or I'll hang out in the university district a lot. I haven't been up there much; only once so far after my laptop destroyed itself (Windows updated itself into broken) and I had to get another one. I went to Best Buy hoping to get a cheap laptop with Linux--well, I'm going to stop here because this little story ends the same way all of my Best Buy stories end. Suffice to say, I know how to get to the University District. I think I want to finish getting my private pilot license before I go back to grad school though. That will mean I'll be even older when I start classes again. Could I still find a smart girl? I've seen amazing girls get attached to guys that are far older, dumber and uglier than I am, so I'm not going to worry about it.
I went salsa dancing on a Wednesday and it was ok. Made me miss brazil's, and all the girls I used to dance with there. I miss Sonia's lessons too. And I never got to dance with Nicole or Cassie before I left. :( I want to find a dance studio here, but their websites don't look too encouraging, and the one teacher I saw wasn't impressive. Her little lesson felt like a ballroom class.
It doesn't actually rain as much as I thought. Apparently its the gloomyness that gets everyone down. I don't think I'll have a problem with it, unless it interferes with flying and skiing. Which it might. The coffee thing is for real, though. Coffee shops don't permeate the entire city proper, but when you go downtown there is almost one on every block. Also, some of them stay open late, like bars. I kind of want to try going to one late and night and see if smart girls hang out there.
There are definitely a lot of tiny little weird differences. Like the video store that is closest to me that rents videos for one night, for at least as much as blockbuster/hollywood video charge for a week. I had to walk ten blocks to get to blockbuster. And they didn't have "The Great Train Robbery." I dont know if I'll ever see that movie. I can't believe I actually got up and just moved out here. Also, in the supermarket I went to, you don't even put your own food on the conveyor belt. In fact, they didn't have conveyorbelts. You walk up to the cashier, and drop off your cart or basket like you're a snobby rich person and they scan your items directly from the cart. Like lifting the items out of your cart is too much work for you. Unless, of course, you're me, and you didn't get a cart or basket because you were only planning to grab what would fit in your backpack anyway, and end up awkwardly handing it to the girl at the register. I don't make a very good rich person.
There are definitely more bums here. A lot of them put less into the act than in Philly. Some of them might actually need help though. In Philly it seems like there was almost a distinction between the bums asking for money and the homeless people who didn't ask but actually needed it. Here I can't tell the difference. And the crazies are different. In Philly it was the black-jew people reading made up old-English sounding Bible verses over loudspeakers. Here I saw people with signs like they were protesting, but they had what sounded like southern accents (or some kind of rural accent?), and the stuff they were shouting had more of an apocolyptic flavor. Also it was more offensive and less comical. Oh, and they wanted to free Gaza, which made me immediately cynical since the annoying political people never scream stuff about Darfur or the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Sierra Leone or the hunger or HIV epidemic in your face. Or protest about the lack of schools in Afghanistan. Or, perhaps, I'm really just annoyed because that was the day I was looking for a Cosi's and I never found it. Instead I ate stuff from a Chinese fast food place in a mall food court and felt sick later.
At work they don't let you be the administrator/root person on your computer. I'm starting to think that now that I'm at Amazon I won't have the luxury of doing pretty much whatever I want, whenever I want with my computer anymore. I spent most of my day today watching training videos that nearly put me to sleep, which is a step up from the military documentation I used to read that always put me to sleep. Also, I might not find my desk tomorrow. I think I work on the 4th floor. Also the laptop I got from Best Buy has the shift key in a really weird place. I just wanted to share that with you.
All my stuff is in transit and I feel aimless and bored without my guitars, or my flight bag, or my skiis, or my climbing gear, or a reliable internet connection (Comast out here is worse than Comast in Philly). Sometimes I think about the job I left behind and the other grad students there and how comfortable I was. Sometimes, especially today during the boring movies, I think about the girls I left behind, including some that won't miss me. Memories linger in my mind like ghosts in doorways. Probably just because I haven't met any girls yet. Or too much caffeine.
Last week I showed up in Seattle with a sunburned face and not nearly enough clothing in my bag. Since then I've done a lot of walking (enough to make my calf muscles sore) and drank a lot of coffee and endured a lot of cold, cold weather. I bought a blanket and got over my fear of buses and started cooking again. Oh, and I'm starting to get a taste for wine! I can impersonate a cultured person FTW!
Not a bad start.
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