Things that might be decidedly odd…

Gun Violence on the Hill

Since I moved here, there have now been (I believe) three shootings in my neighorhood. None of them have been your typical shootings though. The first one was a bizarre murder suicide back in March over on Republican & 21st. Then there was a mentally ill man who was shot dead by the police on Broadway & John after threatening police and passersby with a gun. This morning yet another shooting on Capitol Hill occured with a guy being fatally wounded on Harrison & Melrose (about a block from here). Apparently, I slept through the sound of gunshots at 2am, because I’m definitely close enough to have heard them.

It’s just odd to me, because this neighborhood in general does not feel particularly dangerous. Maybe there are just too many people with psychological issues?

iChat

I just got done with a video chat with Jeff T using iChat AV. We had some trouble getting the audio to work at first which may have had something to do with his playing songs on iTunes at the time. However, on the second try everything started working. We were both pretty impressed with how smooth the video was and how synced up the audio was to the video. Granted, we were both on broadband connections but nothing too fancy (just cable and DSL). Cool stuff. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work with Adium yet, although I hear they have plans to get it working in that program at some point too.

Camp and More Travel

Well, it looks like I will be going to CAMP this year after all. I paid my money, but I still need to pick up a couple of items before I leave on Friday. On one hand, I really need a weekend where I’m not traveling all over creation and being busy, busy, busy but this only happens once a year so I thought I’d give it a try. Maybe next weekend I’ll be able to chill out. I believe I’m going camping two weekends from now.

For those who I haven’t told yet, I’m probably going to be in Chapel Hill the weekend around my birthday (probably 9/20-24) on a recruiting trip for work.

Whew, it’s been a busy summer and it doesn’t seem to be letting up any time soon.

Telemarketers

So I’ve been getting a call every couple days from 727-569-1515 usually in the late morning for the past 1-2 months. Sometimes it only rings once or twice, so I’ve missed who’s calling. Other times I think I’ve answered and gotten a recording. Today I answered on the first ring and there was actually a human on the line. He asked me something about consolidating my student loans. After informing him that I’ve already consolidated my student loans (twice actually), I began laying into him about his company calling me all the time. I kept getting angrier and angrier. Within like 15 seconds, I was swearing and going off on the guy. Even I’m amazed how mean and angry I was, but they really ticked me off with their incessant calling!

I think I’m still a little shaken up from it even, but maybe they’ll stop calling now.

Mt. Rainier

On Friday night, I went to party at some guys’ place that Larry knew. It was a fun party where I tried a tasty drink I’d never had before (pomegranite juice + vodka + soda water). I left fairly early since I had to get up at 5:30am the next day to prepare for my camping trip to Mt. Rainier National Park. Fortunately, I got up at the scheduled time and got picked up by Robert just before 6:30. After several stops to pick up other passengers, get coffee, get an air matress, get groceries, etc. we arrived at the campground to meet up with Don, John and some others who had spent Friday night there.

We ended up taking the free shuttle up to Paradise where the trailhead for the Skyline Loop trail started. It was a decent hike with some elevation gain, distance and great views of the mountain.

After the hike, we returned to the campground to set up camp and start dinner. We a great potluck dinner with way too much food, which soon stretched into an evening of drinking beer around the campfire. This morning, I got up a bit later than the rest of the gang but still joined in on the breakfast. Some people went to hike Pinnacle Peak, but a few of us stayed at the campground just kicking back for a while. Eventually, we drove up past Paradise to see the “Grove of the Patriarchs”, which is a section of the park with some large, old trees. It was an easy walk around and was a nice ending to a busy weekend.

From there, all of us headed our separate ways back to Seattle. All in all, a nice little weekend camping trip.

More pictures here.

Past Couple Days

The beginning of the week is always slow for me I guess. Thursday through Saturday is usually busy with social events and then on Sunday there’s always hiking if I’m not out of town. The rest of the week I feel like I’m just recovering. At work, I got my login changed on Tuesday which caused a couple days of problems and a general lack of productiveness. Certain systems and tools weren’t working until my new login had percolated all the way through the system. Fortunately, as of today everything seemed to be working again. I also had my first annual review at work yesterday, which went very well.

Tonight I went over to Daniel’s place for the weekly night formerly known as Will and Grace Night (they used to watch that show until it got cancelled). We were watching Adventures in Babysitting for a while as well as socializing. I ended up leaving before the movie was over to meet up with this guy Steven for a date. He’s a friend of the guy Jeff I was dating briefly, but we’ve seen each other around town a few times too. We went to Byzantion on Broadway where we got to chat a bit and have a nice dinner. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to take credit cards at the time, so Steven had to run and get some cash to pay the rest of the bill since neither of us had much cash. I definitely owe him a few drinks or a dinner at some point for that. All in all it was a great evening though.

This weekend I’m hoping to go camping with some friends near Mt. Rainer after doing a nearby day hike on Saturday. I can’t believe I haven’t done real camping (not sure Orcas Island at the airport really counts) this year yet, what with being out in the Pacific Northwest and all! It should be a good time though.

Yesterday, I bought a plane ticket to Puerto Vallarta for February. Robert and some other guys are going down there for a couple weeks. I’ll be there for about a week all told it looks like. I’m not really in the mood to go right now, but I know after enduring the Seattle winter for a few months, I’ll really be looking forward to relaxing on a sunny beach for a few days.

Rest of the Weekend

After hitting the beach, Drew and I carpooled over to a “Brokeback Yard” cowboy themed party in West Seattle. It was a fun time with several people I knew and some new ones I hadn’t met before. Afterwards, we carpooled back into town to meet up with the rest of the gang at CC’s. However, Drew was feeling hungry and tired so he left early leaving me all alone at CC’s. Now CC’s is a perfectly nice bar, but it’s not a place I’d consider to be “my scene” by any stretch of the imagination. It’s mainly known for its bears and exceedingly stiff cocktails.

Anyhow, eventually Robert picked me up from there and a bunch of us went over to meet up with his friends at Purr. Purr was quite busy that night–certainly busier than I’ve seen it in a while. I spent some time mingling with Larry (he does know quite a lot of people) and also talking with Robert’s friends. Soon enough, we all walked over to the Cuff just before last call to grab a final drink and dance. One of his friends was this guy Mat who was visiting from San Francisco. The two of us definitely had some connection, but unfortunately he doesn’t live around here. We ended up dancing and chatting a bit over the course of the night. I have his contact info though and we’ll have to meet up again the next time I’m down in the bay area. By the time I got home, I was pretty tired because I’d hardly gotten a full night’s sleep the night before and had a very long day.

Probably around 4 hours later or so, I was up again to lead my hike to Lake 22. There was a huge turnout (21 people!). The trail up to the lake was shady with some nice views of waterfalls. The lake itself was scenic:

Several of us went swimming (some in suits, but a couple of us including myself a natural) although the water was a bit on the chilly side (refreshing though). The rest of the pictures are here.

Friday Night, Saturday Morning

Last night I went to see Quinceañera at the Egyptian with some people from work. The movie was cute, although not exactly groundbreaking. Still, I liked it, especially the concept of finding acceptance in a family within a family. Plus, Jesse Garcia’s character was pretty hot. Anyhow, afterwards nobody really wanted to go to the clubs or bars, so we all went our separate ways home. I called up Robert and ended up meeting him and his friend Cliff out at Purr some time just past midnight. After spending some time there, we went over R Place right as it was closing. We must have bought our drinks right at last call because as soon as we’d bought them, the staff starting pushing people out the door. Oh well, at least my drink there was cheaper than at Purr. From there, we went to the Cuff where we ran into some other folks. By the time we left, it was pretty late. The music had stopped and the lights came on, which happens comparatively late at the Cuff.

This morning I dragged myself out of bed to go to Frontrunners. Despite not having new shoes, I managed with the old ones for yet another run (sigh). I ran with Brent, who tends to go at a slightly faster pace than I’m used to. It was a good workout though. After that I went home, got cleaned up, did some laundry and then headed out to Madison Park Beach to meet up with Shepherd and Keenan. It was a beautiful day at the beach to say the least! Sunny, warm, perfect basically. The water was still cool and refreshing too. Eventually, a bunch of Keenan’s friends showed up and we all talked for a while. I also ran into Jeff, Steven and their gang and chatted with them a couple of times too.

All in all a lovely Saturday afternoon!

Shoe Shopping

Man, I hate shopping for shoes. I think I hate it more than shopping for furniture, although it’s hard hard to say.

First, I drove over to Road Runner Sports (a running store) near Green Lake to buy some new running shoes. After waiting around and seeing no salespeople in sight, I asked the cashier if she was the only working there to which she replied “there’s a guy in the back who should be out in a minute. I’ll help you if he doesn’t come back soon.” So I wait around some more and of course said guy never appears. Moreover, there are at least two other people in front of me waiting to be helped and there’s no way the cashier is coming over any time soon since she has a line of like 4 people waiting to check out. Ugh. I got up and left. I’m just not going to pay the overinflated prices at a running store when I’m getting such crappy service. I can pay less and go to Big 5 for that.

Since I still had about 45 minutes until it closed, I decided to drive over to Seattle Running Company and try my luck there. Unfortunately, by the time I got over there they were only open for another 20 minutes and I couldn’t find parking at all (doh). In the end, I gave up and decided to go over to REI and look at hiking boots. Once I got in the store and started looking at the boots, I remembered how freaking expensive hiking boots and REI both are and decided I’ll have to wait until there’s a sale somewhere. On the plus side, I did manage to buy some parking passes for hikes (in particular, the one to Lake 22 I’m leading this Sunday). So I guess it wasn’t a total loss.

Still, I desperately need new running shoes as my current ones have lost most of their bounce since they’re about a year old now. Maybe I’ll try Seattle Running Company again tomorrow after Frontrunners. I don’t think I’ll be going back to Road Runner any time soon. I was pretty disappointed in the situation over there with regard to lack of staff. Hiking boots can wait some, but I should invest in a pair at some point. All my current shoes are starting to give me blisters on long hikes, which is just not a good thing.

Out on a Wednesday Night

Normally, I don’t go out on Wednesdays. I guess it’s just too early in the week and not my habit. After the Outventures potluck yesterday, a few of us decided to grab a drink at Purr since it was still fairly early. Next thing I knew we were hitting Manray and R Place, both of which were surprisingly busy. I ran into Jeff’s (BTW, the two of us are no longer dating–after something like a half-dozen dates, it just wasn’t working out any more) friend Steven at R Place and had a brief conversation with him before Robert whisked me away.

Over the course of the evening, I had 4 drinks–two beers, a cuba libre and most of a Manhattan that was too strong for Ken to drink. I didn’t stay out particularly late–probably only until about 12:30 or 1, which meant I was able to get up (hangover free thank you very much) earlyish and get to work at a decent hour. I was really surprised how busy it was considering it was Wednesday night. Perhaps I need to get out more earlier in the week.

I felt like I spent most of today running around at work trying to coordinate with multiple people yet strangely I felt very productive. After work, I drove straight to Don’s for a rooftop BBQ and some TV. Actually, I did stop at Trader Joe’s on the way over to pick up some salmon (with spicy Cajun seasoning) to grill. It was a nice BBQ although by the end I was feeling a bit chilly up there on the roof. Ah yes, August in Seattle.