google, the ultimate search machine

I just realized that if anybody had the sneaky sense to search my email address on Google, they can easily find this blog... good thing I used alias names for you all, although if you were ever mentioned in this blog, no doubt you will know it's you. Unfortunately, this means i will have to keep some of the more juicy entries to myself :(

Back to the T.dot

As I write this, I am waiting for my connecting flight to Toronto!! This will be my first time home since the move to Seattle. I’m pretty neutral about it, a lot has been going on here and I’m amazed at how fast the time has gone by.

The journey from Seattle to Vancouver, normally a 2.5hr drive, took only 30 minutes in the air. I got to go on another one of those propeller planes, except this time the plane was only 16000ft in the air. I got a beautiful look of Seattle and Vancouver at night. The terrain in Vancouver was extremely hilly and when cover in grid like lights, looked like something out of Futurama.

Two of my roommates are moving out of the house. The last couple of months have been unsteady there. Three of the girls are constantly fighting while M and I try to stay out of it. M found a job closer to southern Seattle and will be relocating. I’ll miss her sanity. The remaining ladies L, C and I have agreed to recruit a couple of guys to move in, so as to keep the drama between them.

Did I mention that I have a kitty? She is L’s foster pet, but did not get along with the other cat in her room, so she moved in with me. It’s great to come home to a cute little animal who really needs me. She gives me hugs and plays fetch, which is as much as you can ask for out of a cat. I miss her already! She’s getting left along in the house for four days.

I’m looking forward to seeing a couple of friends in Toronto, but this weekend is about spending time with the family. With the extra vacation days I have to take before the end of the year, I’m not sure why I didn’t extend my stay in Toronto (I’ll be leaving Sunday). Maybe once I remember what -10degC feel like I’ll be glad to return to the west. or maybe the general admission concert to Broken Social Scene will warm me up tomorrow!

Fall in Seattle

It’s been a while, I last left off at the anticipation of going on a business trip almost three months ago. I’ve been putting off on writing because I had made some entries in China and was too lazy to type it all up. Stories and events just kept piling up, and eventually discarded from my plans to get them into words.

Life in Seattle has been great for the most part. I say that with joy and gratitude. Mostly I’m glad that music is following me in my career path, something I am thankful for everyday. To be exposed to a kind of work environment where I am among passionate and talented people has been the biggest benefit here. Due to the gradual nosedive of the economy, I had to say goodbye to a few of these talented people, in particular, Rolf. They were very saddened to leave this place and I think about them often.

Remember when I wrote about the “mandolin guy” that I wanted to befriend at work? He has since become a great friend and mentor. A product manager for guitar amplifiers, he is the inspiration for new products in the biggest names in amps, working and spending time with him as allowed me to cross paths with real geniuses in the industry. Mandolin guy hereby deemed Z, has been teaching me guitar on weekends too, I am not an ideal student by any means, my attention span is a bit better than a 5 year old’s, so I’m glad he’s being patient with me.

Since my last entry, I have seen some spectacular concerts, NM and I went to Jack Johnson at the Gorge amphitheatre when he came to visit in late August, NM has since moved up to the Yukon for work. From our infrequent emails, he is enjoying his time and will forever associate me with Jack Johnson’s songs. I also saw My Morning Jacket, if you haven’t heard of them, look them up! They play soulful bittersweet rock. And the highlight of my concert experience for fall, Ray Lamontagne at the Seattle Center last Sunday. Just a simple artistic guy with a guitar, but his voice is so genuine I shed a tear during his solo performance of “Winter Birds”, you could hear a pin drop in the theatre during the song, and judging by the sniffs from the people beside me, they were equally moved. Z, who had never heard of Ray before, enjoyed the show very much. I hope our next concert will be to see his band perform!

Seattle itself is an amazing city. I am so fond of it, autumn has almost come and gone, and it was beautiful. This place might have more maple trees than Canada does! Watching the changing colours on my way to work was worth the 25 minute bike ride every day.

I’m making my second trip to Vancouver this weekend. Hope to take advantage of the cheap Chinese food and sushi.

Jack and Dell

August 20, 2008

I am now the owner of a Dell XPS1530. I purchased this doozy a week prior on dell outlet. The only machine with the features I wanted at a discount was in fantastic flamingo pink, which now sits proudly in my mostly black and green room. I had to get matching speakers of course. The laptop’s impressive features (even a remote control for who knows what), will most likely be wasted on me. In fact my immediate reaction after pulling the pink laptop out of the box was one of despair, as if I will be responsible for the repression and eventual destruction of this beautiful machine. I would not disappoint, after a half hour, the speakers still did not work, as with the fingerprint recognition feature. The finger identifier, quite nifty actually, uses a small sensor below the keyboard that can store my fingerprint through a scanner. I have to move my finger above it at the right speed and depth, not as easy as the instructional video indicated. In the 200 attempts, I successfully scanned my index finger only one time, and that was only during practice.

Turning to youtube for a finger swiping demo, I came across many related videos of people filming themselves as they took their own xps’s out of the box. Titles like “Unboxing my xps1530” where the perpetrator carefully unwraps layer after layer like a kid on Christmas day. They then continue to zoom at the laptop from all angles, as if the climax to some perturbed erotica. It made me queasy.

The real reason for getting a computer was, well, how can an ex-student go without one? Also, I needed somewhere to put the music that is now available to me through the ITUNES SHARE FOLDER at work. I will never go hungry for new music again. There’s been so much to listen to lately that I’m noticing it affecting my work, so my broken headphones may be a blessing in disguise. I took them down the hall to Rolf; a rock star and road hog at heart, and the best headphone doctor around.

I’ve got a busy few days ahead. A great friend is coming to stay for a few days; we’re painting the down crimson and hitting up Jack Johnson at the gorge this Friday. Then, off to China for two weeks starting Saturday… I should pack.

The Merchant's Cafe

July 27, 2008

M and I went to the Merchant’s Café on Friday. It is the oldest restaurant and bar in Seattle, it was once a brothel, and the evidence was still there with lush regulars gracing the bar tops with raunchy dancing at every classic rock song. When getting some fresh air outside, a scrap broke out between the bouncer and a girl who’d just been kicked out. She was underage but felt she had the right be stay because she knew people at the bar, anyway, she threw a drink at the bouncer that reflected onto everyone nearby, I had lime juice in my hair and M and I were ready to start something if we didn’t have heels on. She got dragged across the street kicking and screaming. A man beside me was also the victim of the juicing. Him and his old man were in Seattle for one night and were due for a flight back to Newcastle, England the next day. Mike was a song writer and musician on tour with his father, who happened to be the first guitarist for The Animals and former band member for Eric Clapton. My stunned reaction, which included getting slightly teary eyed quickly scared him back into the bar. Mike and I talked outside for a while longer about the music industry and I invited him to visit my company the next time he was in town.

The next day I wrote my bike out to pick blackberries and fell asleep on a bench for a while, you know, like what the homeless people do. A stretch of the bike trail is full of exotic looking roosters, nobody knows who keeps leaving them there, but I hear every year there are new varieties. There must have been hens at one point but they must have run far away for fear of being trampled.

M and I went out in search of a live music venue for Saturday night. We went to the university of Washington district (also UW). We went to a small club called the Monkey, they had funky stuff all over their ceiling like a beer keg with plastic buttocks stuck to it. The band was a head banger called Ubik, their sound check was my favourite part: “check, check… check… CHEEEEECCCCKKKKKKKKK!!!!” The crowd really got into the music after a while, they even started moshing in the one cubic meter of space there was to stand, knocking over tables and chairs. The bass player was also dressed in a panda costume for those on ecstasy.

After our eardrums had enough, we headed back to downtown Seattle to an Irish pub called Fado. The band was great and the place was huge. I love it! There were many other pubs in that area and I will be spending many more weekends scouting out my new watering hole, although Thursday nights at the Duke of Wellington during my time in Waterloo is irreplaceable. The statistics were not lying. Seattle is home of the most eligible men per capita. They are everywhere and most are well dressed and handsome, a girl can get used to this.

Livin Loud

July 24, 2008

These past few weeks have just flown by. I had hoped to accomplish a lot more by the end of July, but it much easier to lounge the weekends and evenings away. Our last roommate, M, joined the household a couple of weeks ago from Sacramento CA. She is so great and has moved from far for a new life just like me.

A few things I’ve learned from living with the girls:

• all newly purchased clothes must be introduced to other members of the house
• The answer is always no to

-“Do I look fat/skanky in this?”

-“Am I being unreasonable to assume…”

-“Is it asking too much for him to…”

• Always answer yes to:
  

-“Do I look nice in this?” (followed by recommendations on accessories)

-“He’s cute isn’t he?”

-“Pina Colada?”

-“I worked out today, I can eat this right?”

• Purchase junk food but be incredulous about it
  
• Keep quiet when others complain about their bodies
  
• Walking in underpants is acceptable and common
  
• Cosmo magazine and Victoria secret catalogue must be in plane sight
  
• Cats must be spoiled and oogled at
  
• Weekend = car wash in bathing suits

All cliché, all true and pretty great actually, but if I don’t sit at a pub with some beers, boys and live music soon, I’m going to freak out. It’s time to make some new guys friends and work is where I’ll start. I already know just the one to befriend. I first met him when I wondered into the recording studio for a closer look at the mandolin hanging on the wall. He was testing some new speakers there and showed me a few things on the mandolin. Every Thursday my company offers a class at lunch ranging from company background, studio recording, digital mixing etc… These lessons are taught by company experts and such a rare resource. The biggest perk about this job so far. Today’s class was the second of a three part series on studio recording where we got to see pre-recording, fine tuning of the user interface and over dubbing of different instruments. Each instrument was recorded separately and combined. As soon as the mandolin guy started on his guitar, it was obvious that he was born with one in his hand, everyone was thoroughly impressed.

Sorry, I hate to rub it in, I really do, but I’ve just been informed of a room filled with prototype/sample guitars that is very overcrowded at the moment. My coworker was kind enough to help by taking one of the guitars to his desk and I will do the same soon.

The weather here has been beautiful and I wish I had a car just to be able to explore the area. Blackberry season is starting, bushes grow everywhere here and I will not go hungry for the next month. M and I may be doing the live music thing tomorrow. The weekend after that is roomie S’s birthday camping trip which happens to fall on STEVE MILLER BAND at the gorge amphitheatre, what am I going to do?

Never shopping again

I have discovered... Victoria Secret. Goodbye crowded malls, hello silhouettes and spandex!

good credit bad credit no credit

Where is the trust?! I can't get a credit card in this country! My fantastic bank (really they are a very established and helpful bank) cannot give me a credit card without US citizenship. I don't know if there's a bank in town that will look at my credit history from Canada. What really sucks is, people with no credit history cannot get a credit card from a bank. They have to start out at ohhh, Target or Home Depot. It's kinda hard to get established around here, looks like I'll have to buy a car with cash.

Other than that, things at the house have been good. My roomies brought their cats over to live at the house. One of them named Peaches, is the sweetest thing. I used to think the cats on cat food commercials were high on catnip or trained by the circus to make them so friendly, turns out, it was just Peaches! I have a land line set up now so if you want the number just ask! I miss everyone back home very very much, and one person the most. Whatever he's doing now, I hope he's happy and self assured.