Black & White Photos

I went to the Pike Place Market this weekend and took some photos.

Work

Working at Microsoft is an interesting essay. (It's one of the many articles I bookmarked and took forever to get around to reading, so I'm not sure where I found it). I can relate to many of the points in it. I especially liked the subsection "Managers". The statement "...the Seattle area is known for being somewhat isolating — lots of young, ambitious professionals with no time for making friends..." is also too true.

Web Services

I transfered to the Web Services group at the start of October. It's a little strange to not know what I'm doing, anyone I work with, or anything about where I work (as it's in a different building in a different part of town). It's kind of like the start of a co-op work term all over again. I think I needed a change of scenery though and I'm excited to try out something new.

The people I work with seem nice enough and I'm slowly figuring out the project (which has a lot of subtle points). The location of the office isn't very good (no Tully's; not much in way of lunch choice) and the bus service reminds me way too much of living in Kanata - infrequent, indirect, and has an inconsistent schedule. What distinguishes Seattle from Kanata, however, is that it is unreliable, which is quite impressive!? (Disappointing!?) [Recall that I live in downtown and I work in downtown; whereas Kanata is the suburbs of the suburbs...]. The office does have great views though. I'll have to bring my camera to work some day and take a few shots of the Seattle skyline.

In case you don't know what Web Services are all about, the articles Amazon Web Services and Extending Web Services Using Other Web Services from Linux Journal should give a sense of why they are all the rage. (Although, what's described in the articles isn't really at all what I do, so don't read too much into them! :-).

Piecora's Pizza

I went hiking today with Prashant to Greenwater Lakes, which is a bit past Enumclaw (about an hour and a half southeast of Seattle). It was pretty decent - the forest was nice. The lakes were more like ponds though. And we couldn't find the "awe-inspriing western red cedar" that my guidebook called out.

I was too lazy to cook dinner (and don't have very much food in my apartment), so I decided to go to Piecora's Pizza, which was near my house. (I've never gotten a pizza there before). I phoned in my order and they said it would be 20 minutes. I waited a bit and then walked over there, about 15 minutes after I phoned. They hadn't started making the pizza yet even. It took nearly 50 minutes by the time I got my pizza and walked back home, so I wasn't very impressed. It was good pizza though. I'm not sure if it's worth going back though - too much time/effort. Heating up a frozen pizza is cheaper and a lot faster.

Real Madrid

I went to see the Real Madrid - DC United football (soccer) match last night a Qwest Field (with my Mom who is in town this week). It was the second soccer game that I've attended (and the first for my Mom). I went to see Manchester United beat Celtic FC three years ago when they were in Seattle.

Zidane retired, but Real Madrid has David Beckham and the recently acquired Ruud van Nistelrooy. They were clearly the better team, controlling the possession and flow of the game and getting a lot more chances, but they couldn't get any breaks and missed all but one of their chances. In the end it ended up a 1-1 draw.

The Seattle PI has more details.

Baseball

I got four (free) tickets to tonight's Seattle Mariners - Toronto Blue Jays game from a co-worker. I went with some friends from work. I haven't watched baseball in a long time.

We had a good time. It was a rather peculiar as all four of us don't watch baseball and we all moved here from Canada so we didn't know which team to cheer for. It didn't help that there seemed to be an inordinately large number of fans cheering for Toronto. So we decided to cheer for both teams (and that way we would be cheering for the ultimate winner. ;-)

In the end, Toronto ended up getting a lot of hits, including a grand slam in the 9th, and won 12 - 3. The game was long, but I had fun.

Bowling

I went bowling this afternoon at Garage with most of my co-workers. I haven't been bowling in a long time. I'm not very good at bowling, so my goal was to make it to 100. The first game, I did amazingly well. I made eight spares and score 147, which was the highest score of everyone (about 20 people)! Of course, the next game was not so impressive, I managed to make two strikes, but I still scored only 94.

Narnia

I saw The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe last night with Nabeel and a couple of his friends. I was disappointed. The characters were shallow. The story was shallow and predictable. The whole movie was style over substance and it's style wasn't even that original. (Granted, the animated animals were impressive).

Seattle's public transit is also disappointing. I had to wait 30 minutes for a bus home and it was the last bus ever going that way. (I was going from downtown proper to the edge of downtown were I live at 12.40 am. So I think it reasonable to expect some bus service). Sometimes I think Seattle has got to have one of the lamest nightlifes around for a major city.

Woodland Park Zoo

It's been a really busy month - my project at work launched, my sister and brother-in-law came to visit me for our birthdays, (my sister's birthday is the day after mine), and my friend Martin was at a conference in Portland and came up to see Seattle visit me for the weekend.

So aside from all the crazy hours, I've been to the aquarium, the Space Needle, hiking, the Experience Music Project, and the Woodland Park Zoo. I'm still organizing all the photos that I've taken, but for a start, here are some photos from the zoo.

Rainy Season

It rained today. It rained yesterday. The forecast for the rest of the week is rain. I think Seattle's rainy season has begin. :-(

Crazy Question

Sometimes living in a big city is an adventure. I was at the grocery store, minding my own business while selecting some peaches [Yay! Peaches are in finally season. :-)] when a guys walks over and asks How do you spelling 'kidding', as in 'just kidding'...I look up and realized he is busy text messaging on his phone. (But, I'm not sure if that reduces the strangeness of the brief conversation though).

Aquarium

I haven't posted any photos for a while. I took a lot at Christmas, but not much else this winter. Last weekend I went to the Seattle Aquairum. I took some photo. None of them are that great, but here are a few.

Photographs

I posted some more photographs of Seattle. Let me know what you think.



Yesterday I went to see The Incredibles. It was pretty good. A nice change too as I haven't seen a movie in a while and I haven't bought a TV yet. I did buy a cellphone today, so I am making some progress, however.

I'm Back

It's been a while since I've posted anything. Mostly 'cause I've been really busy at work and really busy moving to my new apartment in Seattle. I still don't even have proper Internet. Dial-up is painfully slow, but is still better than nothing.

Some new photos: Some Assembly Required.

Hockey

Canada won the World Cup! :-)

I haven't really be updating this recently. Work is keeping me busy. I'm moving to a new apartment soon. (Thursday-ish). I need to buy a cellphone. And a bed.

But Canada won the World Cup so (almost) all is good in the World. :-)

Yuppie Lamp

I bought a yuppie lamp at Ikea yesterday.

Seattle

I moved to Seattle on Thursday and started work on Monday. Needless to say, things are pretty hectic right now. My corporate housing provides a nice view of (south) downtown Seattle though.

London

I'm still organizing all the photos I took in Europe. I've selected some from London and added commentary. You can find links to them from my digital photo page. I'll add photos from the rest of my trip over the next week or two.

I haven't really been up to anything exciting since I've returned. Convocation is Saturday. I'm hoping to go camping during the long weekend, but we are poorly organized. I heard that (another) one of my friends was hired by Microsoft and is going to move to Seattle. So I'll know at least one more person when I get there!

Procrastination

I reorganized my digital photos a bit. There are a few new photos. Most were on my old site, but I think the ones of the Westlake Centre fountain and traffic on Battery Street are "new".

I haven't taken too many photos this year, but later in the week, I'll put up some real new ones [unless all my assignments/quizzes/midterms take up all my time - I have 1 quiz, 3 assignments, and 1 midterm to worry about this week. :-(]