Roommate Scott took the week off and left me to live in my own apartment alone for 10 days. Kinda lonely. Not my favorite. I don't know how people do it. Go to work, come home, make yourself dinner and watch TV, read, email, and bed. It was kinda sad. I tried my best to find other things to do, but decided I don't ever plan on living alone if I can help it.
At the end of that week Dad and Kyle Lewis came up to visit me in Seattle. We had a great weekend spending time with the Boys (Ron Kellmer joined us too) and letting Kyle and Dad see my place where I work and what life it like up here in Seattle. We all got together and went to see the Cougars play the UW Huskies at Husky stadium and wow what a game. BYU barely won (which is gay cause we were expected to destroy them) but the Cougars won after a celebration penalty on the Husky's last touchdown set them back 15 for the PAT and BYU blocked it. Kinda crazy, ESPN's all talking crap about BYUs win and I know everyone at work today's gunna give me a hard time, but a win's a win. Apparently BYU now has the longest winning streak (dating back to last season) out of all the div I teams. Go Cougs!
We also drove around Seattle and ended up at the Mariners Yankee's game. Marinas lost, but going to the game was fun. Kyle and Dad came back to my place with me and got to experience how cool it is.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Detroit what?!... Detroit Lake
Went camping with some family friends, the Kelmers, this past weekend. It was a whole lot of fun this year. Great location at Detroit Lake and great weather except for the last night when it dumped rain while we were sleeping and broke the rain fly and got all our stuff wet. (That's probably because I only stakes down the poles with one stake instead of two, but it was all good cause Dad woke up in the middle of the night and went out into the storm to fix it while I slept. :))
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
SES San Jose
Headed to San Jose this week for work. Spent most of my time absorbing as much search knowledge as I possibly could while balancing my duties of manning the MSFT Live Search/adCenter Expo booth and working remotely. Hit up the Google Glow-in-the-Dark dance. Not bad Google, not bad.
Monday, June 30, 2008
4 days on one Highway
Wow what a week, so Joe and I had a great time traveling down the coast and doing the whole roadtrip thing for the past 5 days. Personally my highlight was being able to see Kyle hard at work, but there was lots of other stuff that went on. I don't have a whole lot of time, but you can look at my facebook photo albumns to get a feel for what went on the whole trip.
Here's a real quick review of what we did:
Monday night we started with a trip to downtown Seattle and the space needle, explored downtown and caught up. I got pulled over for making a MI left turn but no ticket (first time I’d been pulled over in almost 3 years if I remember right)
Tuesday we rode the train to see mom and dad and Kandace and Kyle and went out to dinner with them and caught up. The train ride was beautiful and seeing the family was great too.
Wednesday Dad hooked us up with a great car rental and we started our drive down the coast. We stopped at Cape Meares and Cape Lookout and a couple of other places along the way. We ate shark and fish in Pacific City and then camped south of Waldport on the beach.
Thursday we drove further down the coast, stayed on the highway 101 most of the way, we stopped at a few places to get souvenirs and fresh jelly and stuff. then we made it into CA and tried to keep close to the coast. We drove through the redwood national parks and saw Paul Bunyon and Babe the big blue ox. We missed our turn to get on the 1 and ended up 40 miles off track, so we had to drive the craziest road through the redwood forest back to the coast and the forests we were driving through were filled with smoke from nearby forest fires. We continues to drive these crazy curvy roads along the coast in CA were NO ONE lived and ended up in some tiny small-town BBQ roadhouse for dinner, it was really good. Then we managed to find our way through the darkness across the cliffs and past the occasional cliffside cow to northern San Francisco where we stayed at this scary looking motel for the night.
Friday we crossed the golden gate bridge, drove to San Jose ate eggrolls with Kyle his companion and a great investigator and then went back to SF. We tried to go see Alkatraz, but they were sold out of tickets and we didn't want to go on a lame boat tour so we ate at Bubba Gump on the pier.
Saturday we got off to an early start and drove down to Santa Barbara. There we started driving down the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) and stopped at a lot of beautiful vistas along the way. We laid out on the beach in Santa Barbara, had dinner in Malibu, walked the pier in Santa Monica and saw all sorts of street shows and crazy people in downtown Santa Monica/LA. We found a hotel to crash in by the airport and got some much needed rest that night.
Sunday morning we packed up dropped off the car and went our separate ways at the airport. Lines were ridiculously long at LAX and the only reason Joe didn't miss his flight apparently was because it got delayed. I made mine, but it was leaving 45 mins after his. I flew Virgin America, which is a newer airline with super fancy gadgets and entertainment systems at every seat. They had chat rooms for everyone on the flight and I played doom from my seat as well as watched live ESPN via satellite and a few on demand shows. I could have paid $.99 for an episode or two of the office, but was fine with the free selections they had. They also have radio stations, music, movies, food ordering, shopping, WWW, multiplayer games for the passengers and a ton of other stuff that was pretty cool. I got home to Seattle and it’s like 80+ degrees here, nice.
Here's a real quick review of what we did:
Monday night we started with a trip to downtown Seattle and the space needle, explored downtown and caught up. I got pulled over for making a MI left turn but no ticket (first time I’d been pulled over in almost 3 years if I remember right)
Tuesday we rode the train to see mom and dad and Kandace and Kyle and went out to dinner with them and caught up. The train ride was beautiful and seeing the family was great too.
Wednesday Dad hooked us up with a great car rental and we started our drive down the coast. We stopped at Cape Meares and Cape Lookout and a couple of other places along the way. We ate shark and fish in Pacific City and then camped south of Waldport on the beach.
Thursday we drove further down the coast, stayed on the highway 101 most of the way, we stopped at a few places to get souvenirs and fresh jelly and stuff. then we made it into CA and tried to keep close to the coast. We drove through the redwood national parks and saw Paul Bunyon and Babe the big blue ox. We missed our turn to get on the 1 and ended up 40 miles off track, so we had to drive the craziest road through the redwood forest back to the coast and the forests we were driving through were filled with smoke from nearby forest fires. We continues to drive these crazy curvy roads along the coast in CA were NO ONE lived and ended up in some tiny small-town BBQ roadhouse for dinner, it was really good. Then we managed to find our way through the darkness across the cliffs and past the occasional cliffside cow to northern San Francisco where we stayed at this scary looking motel for the night.
Friday we crossed the golden gate bridge, drove to San Jose ate eggrolls with Kyle his companion and a great investigator and then went back to SF. We tried to go see Alkatraz, but they were sold out of tickets and we didn't want to go on a lame boat tour so we ate at Bubba Gump on the pier.
Saturday we got off to an early start and drove down to Santa Barbara. There we started driving down the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) and stopped at a lot of beautiful vistas along the way. We laid out on the beach in Santa Barbara, had dinner in Malibu, walked the pier in Santa Monica and saw all sorts of street shows and crazy people in downtown Santa Monica/LA. We found a hotel to crash in by the airport and got some much needed rest that night.
Sunday morning we packed up dropped off the car and went our separate ways at the airport. Lines were ridiculously long at LAX and the only reason Joe didn't miss his flight apparently was because it got delayed. I made mine, but it was leaving 45 mins after his. I flew Virgin America, which is a newer airline with super fancy gadgets and entertainment systems at every seat. They had chat rooms for everyone on the flight and I played doom from my seat as well as watched live ESPN via satellite and a few on demand shows. I could have paid $.99 for an episode or two of the office, but was fine with the free selections they had. They also have radio stations, music, movies, food ordering, shopping, WWW, multiplayer games for the passengers and a ton of other stuff that was pretty cool. I got home to Seattle and it’s like 80+ degrees here, nice.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Dad Visits, I Travel, Car Costs
Dad came to visit this week and we got dinner together. Sure is nice that he can stop by every couple weeks and visit when here's up here for work. The weather FINALLY got warm again, I'm hoping we've seen the last of the gloomy rain season up here and can get PuMpeD for summer. My Xterra just about gave up the ghost last week and I need a new transmission. Dad and I talked options and some of the first quotes I got were for like $4k in repairs. I took it to a shop dad suggested and the guy said he'd be able to rebuild it with a warranty for just over $2k. SUPER expensive, but after hearing $4k and $3k from the other 3 mechanics I talked to, I feel like this is a great deal. I hope my car really loves me for putting over $5k into it over the past 4 months. It better work good for the next 30 years.
I went to a cabin up around the other side of the Puget sound on Saturday with some friends, it was really pretty, just relaxed, chilled by the lake and had a bonfire, played games and played pool, roasted hot dogs and s'mores. Good times. The area up here is real pretty and if it wasn't for the weather and the cost of living, I’d be sold on it being the best place to live in the country. Oh well you can't have everything.
Best friend Joe is coming to visit starting this Sunday. We'll chill for a few days in Seattle and then head to Portland to visit Mom and Dad for about a Day. Then we'll start our little trek down the coast. We're gunna be driving in a rental car and visiting friends/sites along the coast all the way till LA which we need to be arriving at on Sunday morning or earlier cause we both have flights home from LAX early Sunday afternoon. Anyone have any suggestions on where to go/camp/visit along the coast?
I went to a cabin up around the other side of the Puget sound on Saturday with some friends, it was really pretty, just relaxed, chilled by the lake and had a bonfire, played games and played pool, roasted hot dogs and s'mores. Good times. The area up here is real pretty and if it wasn't for the weather and the cost of living, I’d be sold on it being the best place to live in the country. Oh well you can't have everything.
Best friend Joe is coming to visit starting this Sunday. We'll chill for a few days in Seattle and then head to Portland to visit Mom and Dad for about a Day. Then we'll start our little trek down the coast. We're gunna be driving in a rental car and visiting friends/sites along the coast all the way till LA which we need to be arriving at on Sunday morning or earlier cause we both have flights home from LAX early Sunday afternoon. Anyone have any suggestions on where to go/camp/visit along the coast?
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
A Woman's Touch
Memorial Day! Today's a great day cause I have it off! Plus Mom and Kandace came to visit this weekend and helped me make my new apartment feel more like a home. Now it looks and feels great! Picked up a kitchen table, lots of wall art and bedroom/bathroom stuff that all matches. Lucky to have a family that loves this kinda stuff. Place is all ready for visitors, we’ll see how many show up. Mom and I got a chance to take a bike ride up and down the Sammamish River Trail. Also feel lucky to have ended up in such a beautiful area to live.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Bill Builds Beautiful Buildings and Seattle Snows?
So Microsoft really knows how to treat its employees. We get fantastic benefits, great perks around the Redmond area, amazing job opportunities and it doesn't stop there. The Microsoft Campus itself is really a sight to see. There are waterfalls, streams, trees, and flowers everywhere you look. I snapped a couple quick shots of my Campus when I was at lunch today in between the weather's inner struggle for seasonal identity.
The thing that cracks me up is because there are so many hills around here everyone freak outs driving in the snow and ends up abandoning their cars in the middle of the freeway/hill/intersection out of fear that they won't be able to navigate the wild white yonder.
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