Things that might be decidedly odd…

The Rest of the Weekend

Yesterday, I got up fairly early and did a little bit of shopping downtown. My first stop was Office Depot where I looked at office furniture and projectors. They only had a couple models there, but some were fairly cheap. That said, I wasn’t terribly impressed with what you can get for your money. I may instead just end up buying a TV that’s small enough to fit into my car. That’s actually probably a good way to avoid buying an extravagant TV, but I digress. After that, I wandered around downtown a bit, mainly looking at furniture. I went to Macy’s as well as some furniture place that was having a clearance sale. They had some OK tables and chairs in the second place, but they weren’t that great. At Macy’s, things were a bit more upscale yet I still couldn’t find any tables/chair sets that I liked. They did have some nice bedroom furniture, but I’m still not sure what components I want to buy. I’m having a hard time mentally justifying the spending of money on a big wooden bedframe. In the end, I’ll probably just get a nightstand and possibly a chest of drawers, although my mother brought up the point that a good closet organizer often works better for the latter.

Then I headed back home to wait for the delivery of my bed. The mattress, box spring and stand arrived right on time at around 3pm. I washed the new sheets I bought and took care of some other laundry needs, which was good. Unfortunately, the laundry in my building costs $1.50 per wash and $1.50 per dry which is fairly pricey. They’re big machines in good condition though. If wanted to be really cheap, I could go to the laundromat down the street, which may or may not be cheaper. In the meantime, I started filling out the paperwork to open a free checking account at a local bank mainly so that I’ll have an account to get free ATM withdrawls and things like rolls of quarters from.

On a whim, I drove down to Fry’s last night in Renton to see what kind of projectors, TVs, random computer stuff they have down there. It’s nice to be back in the land of Fry’s. I remember shopping at the one in Fountain Valley regularly when I was in high school. When I was living in the bay area, all of them were really too far away from Berkeley to be of much use to me. Once I took BART down to Fremont to buy a desperately needed motherboard, but otherwise I only went there when other people were driving. They didn’t have much in the way of projectors though. Frankly, I think the projector idea is dying out in my mind, at least for now. They had some decent 20 inch TVs that would fit in my car and be luggable upstairs. Interestingly, the 24 inch model I was looking at the other day weighed 100 pounds whereas these 20 inch models weigh only about 50 pounds. I guess the weight scales in a quadratic or cubic way.

Last night, I did get to sleep in my new bed, so that’s progress. Also, today at work I found out online that there’s a public library right near my place and that they have free wireless internet. That will hopefully help sate my internet needs over the next few days. For some reason I thought my internet access was getting connected Wednesday, but it turns out that the phone company was just coming by to test the line. Despite Speakeasy telling me somebody absolutely needed to be home all day to wait around, apparently they did it today while I was at work. Now, I have an appointment for the actual service hookup on the 10th. That means another roughly two weeks of no internet at home, but I suppose I’ll manage.

End of the First Week

Well, I finished my first week of work. Overall, I think it went pretty well. It’s a lot to take in a very large piece of software with a collective codebase stretching back about 20 years, but I’m making slow but steady process on understanding (parts of) it. In the course of a few days, I managed to fix three bugs in Word, which is definitely a good start. The work environment both wrt to people, equipment, location, etc. has also been very good. I have my own office and although it doesn’t have a window or anything, it’s still all my own. On the floor, there’s a kitchen stocked with various kinds of coffee, soda, juice and other beverages for free use by employees. Downstairs, there’s a cafeteria where a sizeable chunk of my group eats lunch every day. The campus is large, so to eat elsewhere you’ve got to walk or drive a bit. Still, the prices aren’t too bad and for cafeteria food it’s decent. From a certain side of the building on a clear day, there’s a magnificent view of the Cascades through the forest. My coworkers all seem like pretty decent, interesting and friendly people for the most part. Most of them seem to be about my age or maybe a few years older, which makes the atmosphere resemble that of graduate school in certain ways.

Except for one day last week, I took the Sound Transit express bus over to work. The bus stop near home is close–about a 5 minute walk. On the other side it’s a little longer–probably about 10 minutes. The bus ride itself varies depending on traffic. All told it’s about 10 miles, but during morning rush hour it takes about 30 minutes. One night during evening rush hour, I think it took nearly an hour. Still, the bus was able to drive in the carpool lane, passing cars stuck in stop and go.

Over the past couple days, I’ve been accumulating various things for my apartment. However, because of work, my ability to procure certain things has been limited. Fortunately, last night I made it to Sleep Country in downtown and bought a mattress. It was expensive, but hopefully it will be worth it. I keep telling myself it’s important and I can afford it, yet I’m pretty sure it’s the most expensive non-computer, non-automobile thing I’ve ever bought. Also good is that they’re delivering it Sunday afternoon, which means just one more bedless night. After buying the mattress, I noticed there was a Bed, Bath and Beyond nearby. There I picked up a toaster and some other odds and ends for the kitchen like potholders and a dish rack.

This morning, I got up and made a quick trip on foot to the post office (about 5 minutes from home). I bought some new 39 cent stamps and mailed a CD of the Nicaragua photos off to Sarah for official SHI use. After that, I drove over to check out the Pro Club, which is near work. I pay a little bit of money and Microsoft pays for the rest of my membership at this mega gym. According to their website, they’re the largest gym in the United States in terms of the size of their main building in Bellevue. The place is quite large. I had to park on the third level of the underground parking structure. Additionally, there was valet parking available, which was the frist sign that this place was going to be swank. Upon walking in, the place was crowded with lots and lots of families with children running every which way. I guess Saturday around 11am is a busy time. None the less, I was able to get my membership card without waiting more than a minute. The locker room was also interesting. It was almost but not entirely unlike a locker room (bonus points to people who get that reference). It was very swank. Hard wood lockers with fancy electronic combination locks and get this–the whole thing was *carpeted*! The place was much more like the lobby of a fancy hotel than a dank locker room. I felt very outclassed, but at the same time managed to enjoy the bounty Microsoft has bestowed upon me. After a five week break (at least), I got back in the pool and managed to swim 1650 yards in about 50 minutes. My arms are a bit sore, but otherwise it wasn’t too bad to get back into the swim of things. Although there were tons of loud children and their parents in a nearby pool, there was a dedicated lap pool which was really, really nice. After showering, I weighed myself and realized I’d lost weight over the past few weeks. Being on the road and in Nicaragua, my consumption of junk food has gone WAY down while the amount of walking I do every day has gone up. Still, I think I might want to make a concerted effort to eat more (nutritious) food. 155 pounds is below where I want to be in general.

I spent almost the rest of the day shopping at various places on the Eastside and in Seattle. My first stop was Bear Creek Shopping Center. There’s supposed to be a Linens and Things there, but I couldn’t find it. Instead, I managed to go to Target (where I bought more crap), Mervyns (got new bed sheets for my bigger bed) and Fred Meyer. Fred Meyer is worth discussing in its own right. It’s the Pacific Northwest store that has everything. Essentially, it’s a full grocery store, a hardware store, a bed and bath store, and a clothing store all rolled into one. Imagine Walmart, but with many of the sections turned into full-blown stores. The place was HUGE and two stories.

After that I went in search of BestBuy. After driving around in circles trying to find the address I had found through Google Local in my cell phone, I realized the place was “Best Buy Co Inc” which isn’t an actual BestBuy. I went to the next place listed in the phone and it was a normal BestBuy. I meandered around for a while. Originally, I had intended to buy just a microwave, but soon I found myself over the TV section. A TV and DVD player, what a great idea! I thought. I could while away these boring nights of no internet watching VCD movies I have. A ton of money later, I found myself in the not so good situation of not being able to fit the TV in my car. Doh! I had to go back inside and return it like a goof. The sad part is that nobody batted an eye. That sort of thing must happen all the time. I found out I could have it delivered for $50, but it would take a few days. I opted to just return it and straighten things out later. Hence, I have a new DVD player but nothing to hook it up to. I also got a microwave, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Then I drove back to the area where I was lost before to check out Levitz Furniture. Everything there seemed kind of old and frumpy, although I did find a bedroom set I liked enough to measure for. Maybe if I don’t see anything soon, I’ll go back and order at least a chest of drawers or dresser and a night stand. I’m still conflicted about buying an actual wooden bed. I haven’t had one of those since I was in high school. It seems kind of superfluous, but I imagine it would make the room look nicer and more complete. Levitz wasn’t a bad place pricewise though. It’s more than Mor, but the stuff was also nicer. Most everything at Levitz was either too big, too ugly or too modern though. They did have a good selection of reasonably priced couches and easy chairs, so I might go back for that. Kitchen tables were a total failure for what I need.

Then I drove back into the city and ended up at Northgate Mall, which is probably the closest mall to where I live (about 7 miles or so away in north Seattle). I went to all of the department stores and bought some clothes here and there. At JCPenney (of all places) they actually had a small kitchen table with chairs that I liked. It wasn’t TOO expensive, but not super cheap either (I think about $500 for the table and four chairs). I got a wild hair and thought maybe I’d buy some Chuck Taylor’s while I was there too. However, every place wanted $40 (plus the 8.8% WA sales tax), which is just too much to pay for those shoes. Maybe zappos.com will have better pricing.

After that I went across the street to a new shopping center that’s been built. I went to Target (to buy a navy bed skirt that no other store seemed to have), BestBuy (to see if they sold projectors–they don’t), and Basset Furniture direct. Basset furniture was really expensive ($2000+ kitchen tables) and definitely out of my league at this point. Then I went to get in my car and go home. But I couldn’t my car. Then I realized I was on level “2a” and I must have parked on level 2. But my car wasn’t there either! I kinda started to freak out, but first walked the rest of the way through the parking structure. I guess I was parked on the first level after all (whew).

Right now, I’m at home just finishing up eating my dinner of chicken, rice and chayote (Safeway sells ones imported from Costa Rica). Tomorrow, maybe I’ll go look at some more furniture and see if I can’t get some more stuff delivered on Wednesday. The DSL people are coming that day anyways, so I’m going to probably end up working from 4pm to midnight that night anyways. Maybe I can kill two delivery birds with one stone. I may also investigate buying a projector. It would be space saving and not require delivery. Some friends in Chapel Hill had one and it was pretty cool. Unfortunately, my walls are beige, so I’d probably need to get a screen (or at least a white sheet). We’ll see though. I know they’re pricey

Washington HB 2661

Just a few hours ago, the Washington state Senate passed HB 2661, which adds sexual orientation to the list of criteria that cannot be used for discrimination in things like housing and employment. Apparently, various versions of the bill have been brought up for about 30 years, but always voted down. Most notably, there was a flap the last time the bill was up for a vote. Microsoft had thrown its support behind the bill, only to change its stance to neutral then back to favoring it before the vote. This time, MS came out in favor of it from the start and did not back down when certain religious groups threatened a boycott of MS products. The governor has said she will sign the bill, so the big hurdle of passage has been overcome.

It’s definitely a nice time to have just moved to Washington…

Updates

Yesterday morning, I finally moved my stuff out of the furnished apartment on the ground floor where I’d been staying and into my actual apartment on the top floor. I then drove to work, braving the traffic. The traffic wasn’t actually as bad as I had heard, although maybe I just still have a high traffic threshold from that summer I worked at GDI and had to commute every day. Either way, I got in a bit late (around 10am) because of the moving, traffic and parking. I was intending to work late that night so it isn’t such a big deal. However, while I was making progress on getting my workstation set up, I sort of ran out of things to do while I was waiting for a whole bunch of stuff to build. Still, I didn’t leave until around 7 or so.

I drove down to Mor Furniture and Ikea in Kent and Renton (although the two are across the street from one another). I saw some nice furniture, but it became immediately apparent that I really didn’t know what I space for in my apartment. I badly need a tape measure and to take measurements with it of the different rooms in my place so I can plan things out. The bedroom isn’t tiny, but there is a limited amount of space.

Last night I slept in my sleeping bag on my camping pad supplemented with some additional blankets on top of my new hardwood floor. While I slept relatively ok for the first night in my place, it is definitely giving me some motivation to get organized with regard to bedding and other furniture. Originally, I thought I might buy a futon that I could fit in my car, then get a real bed later. However, the more I think about it, the less I want to have a futon in the apartment afterwards. A sleeper couch is really the better way to go with regard to comfort for people sitting on it. Still, maybe I should consider a futon for my office. That could be nice for taking a nice after lunch nap, although I’m not so sure how that may affect my productivity.

Today I finally got things set up with my workstation to a point where I have actually started doing real work. I even tackled three minor bugs in Word this afternoon. Still, it’s all a bit overwhelming at times. Here you have a very complex program with a 15-20 year old code base using its own unique coding standards. It takes a bit of time to even begin to figure out how things work. I’m confident though that as long as I put in the time and effort things will work out.

Since I’ve moved out of the temporary furnished aparment, I no longer have internet access at home. The Covad guy is supposed to come out on Wednesday to do the physical wiring for my Speakeasy DSL. Hopefully, I’ll be up and running shortly afterwards. I decided to go with Speakeasy, because I’m fairly tired of dealing with cable and phone companies that jerk you around. Plus, I’m getting the ‘naked’ DSL that comes without actual phone service since I’m just planning to use my cell phone as my main phone. If I do end up wanting or needing a landline, I’m inclined to go with a VOIP solution and stick it to the local phone monopoly (Qwest).

Anyhow, I believe Speakeasy has done everything on their end that needs to be done and I just got an email from them saying my equipment was shipped today via UPS 3-day. Consequently, I’ll have limited internet access from outside of work (maybe I’ll find some free wifi) for the next week or so.

Tonight I’m hoping to get back home at not completely indecent hour, so that I can run over to Target to stock up on various odds and ends that I still need for my apartment. For example, I bought a shower curtain the other day, but of course the shower rod doesn’t have the little rings you need to attach it. Hence, this morning I actually took a bath to avoid spraying water all over my bathroom while showering without a curtain. Honestly, I don’t remember the last time I took a bath instead of a shower (maybe when I was 12 or so?), although it was pretty enjoyable. I’ve got a whole list which just seems to be getting longer and longer.

First Real Day

Today was what I’d call my first real day at my new job.

The morning was filled with more presentations. Unfortunately, I had a much harder time dealing with them today compared to yesterday. I don’t know if that’s because they were less interesting, less relevant or if I was just getting tired of sitting through talks. All told, it was probably a combination of the three. One presentation on legal issues was particularly painful. One question from the audience concerned the length of copyright. I mean seriously, why does anybody in the room need to know that? Like I said, I think my patience for long-winded presentations was wearing thin.

I got out at noon and walked over to meet my team and direct supervisor. I decided to walk across the campus because the day was so nice outside. It was crisp and sunny. On the way there, I noticed that you can see the cascades with their snow-capped peaks framed by the evergreens from the campus. Absolutely breathtaking. Upon arrival, we started getting one of my computers (I have two, how fancy) set up and then headed to lunch at the cafeteria. After lunch, we went back up stairs and resumed the install. I then met my peer mentor, who is a guy in my group who’s been with the company for about 5 years. He introduced me around to the other developers before we went to the weekly group meeting where I had to do the whole “I’m new, this is where I’m from, this is what I’m going to be doing here” spiel which was relatively painless. Apparently, I’ll only have two regular weekly meetings: this one and one with my supervisor. That should give me a lot of flexibility wrt schedule.

After the meeting, my mentor and my boss’s boss introduced me to several other people I’ll be periodically working with who perform different roles on the same project (testing and program management). Then I really just spent the rest of the day trying to get my workstations set up, doing some reading on how things work in my team, dealt with this weird email/Exchange problem I was having and filled out the online paperwork to get my benefits started. It was kind of a long day with me not leaving until about 7:30pm (I got there at 9am). Still, the bus ride home was pretty quick due to the limited traffic.

After stopping quickly at home to drop things off, I drove out to Ikea in Renton. I didn’t end up buying anything, although I was generally impressed by what they had in stock. I found a futon that seemed pretty decent that would fit in my car (assembly required–this is Ikea we’re talking about). They had some nice beds too, although I think I’d buy a matress elsewhere (horrible memories of Ikea matresses in Germany make my back hurt).

Tomorrow, I have to move out of the furnished unit and into my apartment. I was up there this evening and everything appears to be finished now. Unfortunately, I have no furniture at this point. More unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll really have time tomorrow to look for some. Most people on the team work late on Wednesday nights, so I probably will be too tomorrow. I guess there’s always the weekends to brave the crowds. While unpacking my car, I realized I have my sleeping bag and pad. Not ideal, but I can take one or two nights of that I think. Then I can move onto the futon until I get a real bed. The work schedule looks like I should be able to work things around furniture delivery.

The other big thing I still need to do is get broadband installed in my apartment. I’m leaning towards getting the Speakeasy phone-less DSL. It’s more expensive than with Qwest (local phone monopoly) or Comcast (local cable monopoly), but less restrictive. I probably call tomorrow and see what the wait time for installation looks like. They’d need to send out a technician to test the line and what not though, so who knows how quickly I might be up and running. Because of that, my internet access may be somewhat more limited for a while. That of course will probably mean less frequent blogging.

Shopping

I finally got around to getting some obligatory move-in and grocery shopping done. First, I drove up to the Target at Northgate. It’s one of those fancy two story jobbies with a cart escalator (always cool). I bought some odds and ends for the bathroom like a bathroom rug, cleaning supplies and a shower curtain. Then I drove back towards home to go to the Safeway in Capitol Hill. I stocked up on a lot of those standard sorts of groceries everybody needs like salt and sugar as well as buying some food to cook for the next couple days.

First Day

Today was my first day at work. I got up at 6:30 so that I had time to take a shower, eat a quick breakfast (consisting of a granny smith apple, ironic?) and catch the bus. The bus was right on time, getting me to the Overlake Transit center (right next to Microsoft) just after 8am. Upon arriving at the orientation, I filled out the usual employment paperwork and got my picture taken for my badge. I then had some time to kill which I managed to use to get my gas turned on and the address changed on my student loans. Around 9:30, the first of many talks started. They went through all the typical sorts of stuff like benefits, rules, company mission, etc. Things got finished up at around 3:15 and we were free to go for the day. Tomorrow morning will be more of the same and then after lunch I’ll be meeting my boss, getting my office and starting my actual job. Overall, the day was fairly pleasant although sitting and listening to talking for extended periods of time can be tiring.

It’s only about 4pm right now, so I’m hoping I can use the extra time to get some errands done today. Besides grocery shopping, there’s a whole list of things I need to get for my apartment at some point in the near future:

• lots of furniture: bed, night table, kitchen table, chairs, couch and/or futon, bookshelf
• small appliances: microwave, TV, DVD player
• 1 or 2 more trashbins for the kitchen and bathroom
• cleaning supplies

Perhaps I’ll go to Target today and possibly Ikea to see what I can find on that list. I can’t really buy a bed at this point yet (or anything else large) because I’m not sure when I’ll be able to have it delivered. Hopefully, after tomorrow, I’ll have a better idea of what my work schedule will allow though.

Arrived

After getting a reasonable start this morning, I arrived in Seattle at around 12:30 this afternoon. Because my apartment isn’t entirely finished (the bathroom door needs to be painted and a little molding in the bedroom needs to be put in) and because I have no furniture, the manager offered to let me stay for a couple of days in a furnished unit which is currently in between tenants. Hopefully, that will give me some extra time to procure furniture over the next couple days.

Anyhow, I’ve unloaded most of the stuff from my car. Basically, I think it’ll take two more trips: one for a couple more small boxes and one for my bike. Otherwise, things have been unloaded. For the meantime, I have an underground secured parking spot across the street that comes with the furnished unit. However, I’ll have to return to finding street parking in a couple of days probably. There’s a spot coming open in that garage soon that I can have once it’s free.

While I was moving in, a young couple (maybe a couple years younger than me) was looking at another vacancy in the building. We chatted a bit. A while later they were back. Apparently, they decided to rent it. Wow, things really do go fast around here!

Everybody has been dying to see some pictures of my new place. So I took a whole bunch a photos this afternoon right before I started moving boxes up there. You can check them out here. There’s also a video tour (a bit Blair Witch style though) here. Warning: the latter is a 30MB MPEG so it might take a while to download).

Moving Update

Yesterday (Friday) I began my journey towards Seattle stopping in Berkeley that evening. First, I met up with Jeremy at the Berkeley Rose Garden. From there, we headed over to Kendra’s place and met up with her there. We sat and chatted for a while before Joe joined the three of us for dinner at Barney’s (which I had never been to before). After that, Jeremy headed back to the south bay to attend one of Alice’s HKN parties. Here’s a parting shot of the two of us:

Joe, Kendra and I then went to Gilman to see a show. We arrived in time for the third (of five) band, which I didn’t find particularly interesting. Of course, we made the obligatory visit to the liquor store on the corner of Gilman and San Pablo. I didn’t buy anything but Kendra and Joe bought 1 liter bottles of Dr Pepper which they went to drink on the train tracks.

Apparently, you can’t bring bottled beverages into Gilman any more because too many people were bringing in concealed alcohol or something. We caught a good chunk of Pansy Division (15 years of gay pop punk).

At some point, we ended up outside because it was so smoky inside. Fleshies played in the background, but I think the three of us were tired. We headed back to Joe and Kendra’s where I crashed out on a futon. This morning I got up and chatted with Kendra some more while she cooked some good vegan pancakes for brunch. I finally got out of Berkeley at around 12:30, which was a bit late of a start.

All the Berkeley pictures are here.

Right now, I’m staying at a hotel in Salem, OR. Despite the late start, I got in a good day of driving today. Seattle’s about 220 miles from here, which means approx. 3-4 hours tomorrow depending how I drive.

The last few days I was in Seattle looking for a place to live, I went over to the REI flagship store and wandered around while taking pictures. Those pictures can be seen here.

Resting Overnight

This evening I made it back to San Clemente (where my parents’ live) after an uneventful bus, flight and drive. Tomorrow, I need to get up at a decent hour to get my things together and begin the journey northwards. My plan is to stop in Berkeley tomorrow night, have dinner with Kendra K and Jeremy (others too are welcome) and then go to Gilman for Punk Rawk Joel’s birthday show featuring Fleshies and Pansy Division. After that I may crash at Kendra’s or get back on the road for a couple more hours. We’ll see, but either way it’s going to be a long day!