Moving in

It is the beginning of “life as usual” here. I’ve been contacting random people on craigslist to piece together some furniture. The plan was to rent a truck for a day and pick them all up. I ended up blowing a lot of money on everything but I’m not the proud owner of a queen sized Sealy Prosturepedic mattress woohoo! Driving a Ford F150 around was also quite interesting. I think the steering ratio on a truck is different than a car, because I kept swerving off the road every time I made a turn. All my stuff is now at the new house, and I’m on my way there shortly.

The next step is to buy a car, because there just is so much to see around here, like Olympic National Park or the scenic coast of Bainbridge Island and Portland Oregon... Not to mention, Vancouver is only a couple hundred miles away!

I will be without internet at home for a while, but when I’m back up and running, there will definitely be some interesting stories to share. Happy Canada day everybody!

The gig

I’ve spent a couple of days at the office now. This company is really something, there are guitars hanging on every wall and posters of musicians holding up our equipment. I even saw an autographed poster of Jimi Hendrix, although I still have to verify the hand writing on that. I sit with some other engineers and the tech support in a huge room painted entirely black. People who work here have a strong passion for music, and most are musicians themselves. Some loved the equipment so much that they started in entry level positions just to get a foot in the door. Electric guitars usually go off in the recording studio at around 4:30, I’ve been told to leave the office before 6, when the rockers at heart really go hard on the equipment.

I met up with my future roomies to sign some paperwork yesterday. Lena drove me around town to show me where to shop and dine. She kept on mentioning store chains I’ve never heard of and after a while she started explaining what every store was while we were driving by it, even Wendy’s and Subway… I felt like martian. These girls are super, they are so chatty and hyper. They come home from a long day's work and just stand around, snack and talk over each other. I was the only one sitting down for 40 minutes. They are also mature for their age, well, who knows what mature for your age really means? We’re all adults now, but there is an attitude that can only come from having to clean up your own messes and pay your own bills. They’ve all made it on their own before and are just thrilled to have each other now. I enjoy their company a lot.

Speaking of retirement savings, for all you Canadians in Canada, invest in RRSP! I’ve come to realize retire savings work pretty differently here. The government does not match your contribution, only your company; and if your employer is having a bad year, then so will you. This fund is also not a high interest savings account, but more of a mutual fund, which means, your base amount can go down if the economy is doing poorly… like… uh, now? I have to decide whether to start contributing or wait a while, I really don’t know, mutual fund is among my least favourite words. On the lighter side, America has bald eagles! I saw one today. It was trying to claw at some pigeons and it was beautiful!

The bike

A couple of entries I wrote and typed up later
June 21, 2008

In these last 2 days, I managed to not crash the car and returned it back to the airport.

So, continuing on from the last entry; The first night in the tent went pretty smoothly, though the crows here don't know when to shut up. My mission for the day was to buy a bicycle for my twelve mile commute to work. After seeing the current market price for a bike, I opted for one on Craigslist. This website is great, stuff changes hands in a matter of hours and everyone walks away happy. Bikes were in high demand on Craigslist, after a bunch of emails, I was finally able to get a seller on the phone for a ten-speed woman's road bike, perfect.

Me: "I can come pick it up right now."
Seller: "It's a hot item, I've got someone coming at 4:30 for it... tell ya what, I'll sell it to you if you get here first, I'm right behind the Salmon Bay Cafe."
Me: "alllright... " (tough luck to the first guy) "what's your name?"
Seller: "I'm Tiny."
"Hi Tiny, are you like a really huge guy or something?"
Tiny: " haha no, I'm tiny... well, medium sized."
see now it just makes no sense, why would you call a medium sized guy tiny?

Thinking Tiny was going to promise the bike to yet another person, I rushed to Ballard, a southern district of Seattle, surrounded by water. I planned on getting the bike and heading home, but the town looked way too interesting not to stop. It was like a time warp to the fifties, with vintage cars and antiquated buildings in every corner.

Tiny was already waiting at the Salmon Bay Cafe when I pulled in. He was in fact a tiny guy with a not so tiny beard. Tiny worked as a small time mechanic who liked to fix up bikes with his spare time. The bike, a high-tech road bike in my mind, turned out to be as ancient as the town. It had a curvy steel frame with raised handle bars that angled toward me, a cushy seat and original orange paint. I was in love! It was way better than any bike I could have pictured. I'm going to name it Nelly, because this type of bike is called a High Nelly. Tiny pointed me to the direction of the beach. With my new, old bike, I rode to the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, located between Lake Union and the salty waters of Puget Sound. I took lots of pictures.

I decided to spend one more night in the tent and played some guitar.

My beloved car got turned in this morning, I took a bus to downtown Seattle for the day. A popular tourist destination is the Pike Place Market, with fresh seafood, flowers and talent. The big crowd pleaser was the Pike Place Fish Market, with all their seafood on ice trays around the cash counter. To weigh stuff, workers had to throw it to the counter, salmon, crabs, they threw everything, and always with a holler. I had to walk away before impulsively buying a full sized salmon.

I'm sitting at the water's edge by Pike Pl. right now. You can spend all day watching the ships, birds and mountains. That's what I really like about the greater Seattle area, you can be driving down the most random suburb and suddenly a view of snow covered mountains will appear in front of you. The place also managed to preserve its humanity regardless of the size of the city. People say "hello and how are you." There's a hippy jam session behind me and a guy with a dinosaur mask just walked by waving to people. Don't get me wrong, there are also a lot of creeps around too. All in all though, I'm really going to like it here.

The house

A couple of entries I wrote and typed up later.
June 19, 2008

I've decided to start blogging again. A new leaf in one's life is definitely worth remembering, but mostly, I can hear myself narrating in my head during these recent days and wanted to get it down on paper before it too becomes faded recollections like many drunken nights in Waterloo (a lot of which I wish I can read about again).

There was some crazy packing leading up to my flight to Seattle. Mom and dad both took days off work to get me organized. Dad even bought me a GPS, which I thought was pretty unnecessary. Through Craigslist, I was able to contact a few people about housing, but had not signed anything due to a combination of miscommunication, $$ and general mistrust. I did have a few places to look at when I landed, even got in touch with a lady who rented out her house on a weekly/daily basis, perfect for my house hunting stint. Unfortunately, I had not heard from her since our initial email exchange and wondered maybe my late flight in was too much hassle for her, still I hoped for the best.

I said bye to the folks and went through customs 5 hours early to get the work visa. The two to four hour process turned out to be only fifteen minutes. I passed the time dozing off and thought about getting on an earlier flight to my transfer in Newark NJ, then thought about the two massive pieces of luggage I'd already checked in, and decided against it.

It just so happened that Newark was experiencing bad weather. The flight was delayed by over an hour and a half. I started talking to this eccentric math prof who was moving to Staten Island for work. Apparently, profs do look on ratemyprofessor.com and some, like this guy, takes it personally, especially when his face is made reference to some cartoon character.

The plane to Newark was retarded. In engineering terms, it was a Bombardier Dash 8 Q400, a plane with two propeller driven engines under each wing. The seats shook when the propellers started up. Despite the delay, the flight was making great time until word from Newark informed us of dangerous landing conditions. The plane had no choice but to circle around until the storm blew over. Our final decent took us through a bumpy storm cloud nonetheless, there was nothing but dark grey out the drenched windows. By this time I was thinking "you should have gotten on that early flight." I could hear whimpering from the lady next me to me in between her hasty prayers. Suddenly a flash of light jolted the plane. It made a thumping sound like a heavy object had been dropped on it. I swore really loud. The stewardess came on the intercom in the sweetest and calmest voice she could muster. She told us we were hit by lightening, but all was well and the storm had passed, thank goodness! We landed safely though it gave me a taste of how helpless we are 35000ft in the air.

I'd missed my connecting flight and got to Seattle way too late, a shuttle bus took me to the nearest Travelodge for the night. Enterprise told me the next day that I needed a reservation to get a car. Proof there are way more hungry gas chugglers in the States, and I was one of them. I had to return to the airport for a rental car, which set me back over four big ones. There is something to look forward to at 25, the you-are-not-a-psycho-driver discount.

Thank goodness for the GPS, I was lost already. I turn it on and type in an address:" 4163km to destination, current position: Mississauga, ON" WTF?! Why wasn't it updating? I had no choice but to follow traffic onto a highway and headed for the nearest town in the greater Seattle area. A UPS guy pointed me to the nearest Best Buy, where the Geek Squad eventually got it working free of charge. I was beyond grateful.

I'd seen a place in the morning, an awesome house with a nice work-at-home guy. I drove around Kirkland, a town east of Seattle, and ate lunch on a park. I felt like such a bum, but at least it was a rich neighbourhood.

I also decided to visit the temporary house I never heard back from. It was worth a shot to go there, since I'd otherwise be coughing up big cheddar for another night in a hotel. I knocked on the door fully expecting the kind of lady that doesn't respond to emails, but instead, a pleasant woman greeted me. Turns out, she never received any emails from after the first one. My engmail, which I thought would be most reliable, seems more like spam to most filters. She told me the room had already been rented out, and it was too bad since I seemed nice. That was fine with me, I was pretty much expecting it. As I walked toward the car, the lady, K, stopped me and gave me some options about maybe staying after Saturday, when a room will open up. I explained my situation and she offered me the computer while she cooked in the kitchen. I was beyond grateful.

K walked in a few minutes later with a rubber spatula in her hand.

K: "You are very adventurous aren't you?"
Me: "Do I seem adventurous to you?"
K: "Well yeah, coming all the way here...
I'm going to make a silly suggestion... don't even know how to say this...."
Me: "Oh no, well you have a rubber spatula in your hand, I have no idea what you're about to suggest."
K: "Well... (after about 5 minutes), this is so silly but, would you consider camping in my backyard? I've all the equipment and of course free of charge. If you're still around Saturday then live in the house."

After the initial thoughts of "you must be f*ing joking..." I was beyond grateful. K just kept turning down money and said something about paying it forward. K's husband T had returned from work and got a kick out of the whole thing. K&T were high-school sweethearts, who knew couples like this actually existed?

After setting up the air mattress and tent, I had to go look at a house occupied by three fun girls. From their ad, they seemed like total party animals with descriptions of each person along the lines of "...she likes gardening and Malibu rum." The house was gorgeous, one of the girls was in fact gardening when I walked up. We talked until the other two came home from work. They were looking for two new roommates, because the claws on the old ones were getting way too long and sharp.

The girls' new vision for the house is one without locked doors and cattiness. They already shared everything: clothes, shoes, food and cute boys ;) Did I mention the house was beautiful? It had a huge porch and hot tub in the back yard, with a path that led to a vine covered forest. By the end of the night, I had quadrupled my wardrobe. I meet roommate number four on Monday, because hey, I'm thinking for 4 now haha.

I'll be staying with K until the end of the month. As I write this, I'm sitting in a tent with a flashlight strapped to my head, and the sound of walnuts hitting the ground with every gust of wind. And I couldn't be more grateful.