Another week of work, more things achieved. The IT organization at this new client is much larger than that of my previous one, and so it takes a lot longer to get things done sometimes. We spent the last two weeks trying to get a vendor we interact with to enable a certain logging feature on their database. We first had to figure out what switch to turn ourselves, test it, convince the client’s IT department that it won’t have any negative effects, have the client go to the vendor to request this switch be turned, then wait for a work order to be issued. Sheesh!

We rescheduled this past weekend to go up to our VP Scott’s house near Mount Baker. After the two hour drive up there Friday night, we crashed immediately to get up early Saturday morning for a full day of skiing at the Mount Baker Ski Area. Luckily I had the chance to sneak in a final practice session at Snoqualmie Thursday night in some night skiing. Scott and his family have been going there for almost 20 years now, and they took Steven and I along. It’s incredible to see their collection of family ski passes; they’re framed up on the wall like baseball cards.

Skiing was a blast, this place put the regular place we go to, Snoqualmie to shame. It was awesome to be able to make a path through all of the runs at the resort, rather than the up-down-up-down the same ski run routine. There was 14″ of fresh powder on the ground and it was snowing all day at about another inch an hour, beautiful. I’m getting better; I can handle a Blue fairly confidently with minimal chance of falling over. It’s looking like we’ll have a couple of more opportunities to ski this season, hopefully capping it off at Whistler,BC sometime which is supposed to be a great place to go.

Training for the MS150 is lagging; I can handle an hour ride pretty easily, but need to start upping the distance with just over a month to go. I’m going to try to find a local rental shop here and go on some 20/30/40 mile rides on the weekends; should give me a good chance to train and see some of the local scenery.

I’ve started uploading some select photos I’ve taken while up here, check them out at my new flickr set.

Another great week. Right after I made a big breakthrough at work, I proceeded to shear off my passenger side wing mirror off of Lizze while backing out of my client’s parking garage. After a brief moment of grief, I found an auto salvage yard just south of Seattle that had a spare that I installed; back in business.

After a Wednesday night at the Spot, I woke up Thursday morning to this:

A winter wonderland. This was my first snow while in Washington, the third of the year. By lunchtime most of it was gone, and the office was half empty as droves of people had left to hit the slopes. Doug flew in Thursday night to spend the weekend in Seattle. It was fun showing him around. All in all we covered the Pike Place Market, Public Central Library, Seattle Center, Olympic Sculpture Park, Pioneer Square, Boeing Manufacturing Tour, Red Hook Brewery, Ferry to Bainbridge Island, Capitol Hill, Ballard Locks, U. Wash. campus- pretty freaking inclusive! To top it off, we revisited Nishino, for the exclusive omakese dinner; 10 delicious courses of the most creative sushi I’ve ever had.

March has begun, and so has my new budget. Spending kinda got crazy there with the first month of traveling, and a new regime is in place. It also marked me finally completing my 3-month emergency fund! Now to begin travel and an eventual home downpayment savings. I love how easy ING makes it to have sub accounts, it really helps to make ad hoc buckets of money for varous purposes.

Training for the MS150 has lagged; I attempted to do a spin class at 24 tonight but it had already filled up. We’re trying again on Wednesday…

This past thursday I went to a pub in West Seattle that featured a lot of micro-brews from the area. It was awesome to see a beer menu with perhaps only a handful of names that I recognized. Steven and I met up with his friend Alan and a couple of his two friends with whom we played this card game. At first I dismissed it as a Magic The Gathering sort, but it was actually pretty fun.

Friday night we hit up Capitol Hill for some dinner at Boom Noodle and bar hopping. Capitol Hill seemed to be just like the guidebooks described; a pretty casual, grungy area with a very diverse mix of people. It was a lot like the movie Singles, which was filmed here.

Our ski trip to our boss’ place at Mount Baker this weekend was rescheduled, so Steven and I went to Snoqualmie again. Last time I went I purchased a 3-lesson pack, the second of which I took on Saturday. I managed to make my way down a green without falling by the end of the day, I just need to learn to resist the temptation to try a blue that I’m not ready for. I learned last week that the pain doesn’t hit until the second day after, so I’m really looking forward to reliving some pretty hard falls I took come Monday morning :)

I didn’t really have much to take a picture of this weekend, so I figured I’d finally post a picture of my rental car while I’m up here. This is my 2003 Ford Taurus, Lizzie:

This picture was taken from her “good” side. I finally went to the grocery store tonight, to the Whole Foods a few blocks away. It’s amazing how much local produce they have around here, not to mention the extensive beer selection. I stocked up on stuff for my morning smoothies and snacks for work; kinda easing into the whole ‘cooking at home’ thing. Doug’s comin up on Thursday night so I should get to explore more next weekend…

After my third week in Washington state, I finally got to have a weekend in. My roommate was going out of town so it was just me by myself on Singles Awareness Day. Friday I did normal things like go home, workout, cook dinner, go to Frys, watch TV. It’s finally refreshing to do the little normal things that you would do back home.

On Saturday after riding the bike for 60 minutes in prep for the MS150 (that I’m inevitably going to die during) in April, I went on the following drive from Seattle to Port Townsend:

It was beautiful the whole way - a sort of less-tropic, less-nauseating Washington version of the road to Hana. I took the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island, and drove up along the Puget Sound to Port Townsend. When I finally got there I enjoyed a Port Townsend Amber on the porch overlooking the Puget Sound, and finally drove back to Seattle. On Monday our client had the day off so my roommate and I decided to go skiing. I’ve never been skiing AT ALL before so I stopped by the flagship REI in downtown to pick up some basic thermals and skiing essentials.

Most of Sunday was spent napping, doing laundry and watching the NBA all-star game. It’s great how all the little things will finally help you settle into a new location. This is the first time that I finally felt at peace in my new surroundings; I cleared up a lot of mental clutter, as well as catch up on some rest.

After we got my roommmate’s POS Ford Taurus rental on Monday, we hit the slopes at the Summit at Snoqualmie for some skiiing. I’m still astounded how close such beautiful surroundings are to where I live. Every day, my coworkers are amazed at how nice I think we have it here.
I’d never EVER been skiing before, so I was excited/nervous at the same time. My first lesson was at 3PM so my roommate took me up a green slope to ride down, which I fell on my ass at least 4 times hehe. The lesson was good, they taught the basics of starting and stopping and turning. After that, I wanted to try another green, but my roommate was convinced I could handle a blue, which I almost got, but still fell over a good 4-5 times on the way down! All in all I had a blast, no serious injuries, but at 11PM the next day, I’m finally starting to feel the familiar burn of a regular workout.

On the way home we stopped by Snoqualmie Casino on the way home, where I finally got to try casino poker. I made a quick 50 bucks and got to bed as we have work on Tuesday. What a great 3-day weekend!

Hey-o, I’m still alive! It’s been a crazy past 2 months. For once I’m going to skip the in-betweener and just fast forward to the present. I’ve also been tweeting a lot, the link to my twitter is on the lower right column.

A couple of weeks ago, I started a new client in Seattle, WA. It’s a pretty sweet setup: they’re a major US cellular provider, and I’m working in the engineering division, just like at HP. It’s pretty laid back with hardware everywhere, side projects going on and whatnot. I’m up here for 6 months to a year, with our VP subtly hinting that he’d like me to permanently move at some point.

The past couple of weekends I’ve been flying home to Dallas to steadily move some of my stuff up here, but now that I’m settled, I’ll get one flight to anywhere in the US a month, which is pretty nice. The last few Mondays have been bears; getting up at 5AM CDT to get on a 4.5 hour flight to a timezone that extends your day by 2 hours, and then stay a little later to make up the missed time. Thank God that’s over.

I have a furnished apartment in downtown Bellevue, which is about 12 miles from downtown Seattle, not bad. I eventually have to get a car figured out at some point, for now I share with a roommate, who’s also at the same client, but on a different project. Last weekend, I picked up a Rough Guide, so I’ll start exploring on my own pace. A lot of friends already have flights booked up to visit between now and May, so that should keep me pretty busy.

That’s all for now, but I’ll keep this thing updated with my travels…