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August 30, 2002

The Days To Come

This will be my last entry for a while, so let me explain what I'll be doing:

Sept 1
Fly from Seattle to Toronto. I'll keep a log, since flight stories are always interesting.
Sept 2
Mom's birthday.
Sept 3
Grudgingly pick up shipped packages from Customs.
Sept 4-5
Move in to new apartment in Waterloo.
Sept 6
Have 4 impacted wisdom teeth removed.
Sept 7-8
Enjoy a state of drug-induced delirium from the painkillers.
Sept 9
Lectures start.

So expect my next entry sometime next week. Until then, have fun and play safe!

00:00 | Stuff

Last Day

Today is my last day at Microsoft. I've packed up my desk, deleted all my personal data from my PC and took down the Canadian flag from the wall. Soon the scavengers will come and claim my 21" monitor and desk. *sigh* I had a great time here, putting in some late nights at work, eating with the richest man in the world, crazy weekend adventures, and playing lots of pool. I can't wait to come back.

00:00 | Work

August 29, 2002

Aftermath

I've received a few emails congratulating me on the HIRE recommendation. Thanks!

But what does that recommendation mean exactly? It doesn't mean I have the job. It means I have been approved to interview for a full-time position on an as-of-yet undetermined date. Microsoft will fly me over, and I will be interviewing up to three teams that day. Since I got such a favourable review I have a definite advantage, but I could still screw it up. I'm meeting with my manager either today or tomorrow to work out some details.

00:00 | Work

August 28, 2002

The Decision

As I type this entry, my mentor and manager are discussing my final review. In less than an hour they will make the decision whether to hire me. My hands tremble as I think of what they could be possibly saying:

And so on.

I'll post the verdict here as soon as I find oot.

Update: As it turns out, my manager was MIA for the past hour and my mentor was chatting with another employee. But I've been assured they are now together and discussing my review. In the meantime I've been surfing the web, and to my horror, found out that I had been banned from Slashdot! Maybe this is a good sign. Surely Microsoft employees are first on their ban list...

00:00 | Work

August 27, 2002

Version 7

In unrelated web browser news, Netscape 7 is out and a rewritten Opera 7 is coming. Still no word on IE 7. If you're using Netscape 6, I highly recommend you upgrade.

00:00 | Nerd

I'm Choking On My Own Rage Here

I'm in a bad mood. My mood has evolved past mere annoyance, past frustration and for the first time, I was actually so angry I made myself sick.

Thursday I sent two packages home through Microsoft's intern shipping program: my bike and bike rack. On Friday I sent three more packages containing personal items, including software (bought at a significant discount from the company store). Well the first shipment arrived no problem, but the second one is currently being held at Canada Customs. Apparently since it's so valuable (over $200), I have to personally sign for it at the shipping company, take the paperwork to Customs, then give the packages to the shipping company to deliver to me. Did they tell me before I shipped that my packages would have to be signed for? No. Is this a major pain in the ass? Yes. Why? Because they're closed the day I fly home (Sept 1), and won't be open again until Sept 3.

That got me wondering how the bike and rack made it home without someone clearing it through Customs. I was told that the bike "slipped though Customs". A bicycle slipped though. Yeah, I can see how they missed the 1mx2m 50lb box! <insert angry emoticon face here>

I found out all this information this morning after playing phone tag with the Toronto representative since last night. Since I needed to make this call today (lest they ship my stuff back to Washington), I missed the bus going to the company meeting (since the company has over 50,000 employees, the annual meeting is held in Seattle's baseball stadium). So I'm here at work alone, occasionally running to the men's room to be sick.

00:00 | Rant

August 26, 2002

A Funny Thing Happened On My Way In To Work Today...

When I first got hired on as an intern at Microsoft, I was given a choice: subsidized car rental or a free bicycle with one week of free car rental. As I looked down at my soft, doughy body, I decided to opt for the bike, thinking I would ride it to and from work and somehow get into shape as a result.

I'll wait until you stop laughing before I continue.

Well, it turns out I was placed 5.5 km (3.3 miles) from my office, and it's uphill the whole way. Those of you who know me know I'm not the kind of guy to get up early just so I can bike 20 minutes uphill. So I decided to ask my roommate for a ride every morning, since his building is next door to mine.

I bought a bike rack so I wouldn't have to rely on my roommate (let's call him Sam) for a ride home as well. For the month of May I strapped my bike to the back of his car and rode home on my own. (I also bought a speedometer to see how fast the downhill ride would take me. I hit a top speed of 55 km/h (34 mph)!)

Once June reared its ugly head things changed. "Sam" started placing restrictions on the ride:

  1. I had to wait until he was ready to leave in the morning. This only became an issue when he started sleeping in until past 10:00am, meaning I wouldn't be arriving at work until after 10:30. Granted that's still earlier than my mentor usually arrives, but it's later than I'd prefer.
  2. He would not drop me off in front of my building, but rather in the underground parking behind his building (despite the fact he had to drive right by the front of my building in order to get there).
  3. On days when I did not bring my bike, he would not call me before leaving for home, thus stranding me at work.
  4. He wanted $60 a month for the inconvenience. Let's do the math here: 6.6 miles a day, 20 days a month, gas costs $1.50 a gallon, and his car gets 22 miles per gallon. Actual cost of driving 132 miles: $9. Net profit: $51. Now multiply that by 4 months, and you can see I would be getting fleeced. (By the way, the $60 a month was after negotiation.)

It didn't take me long to look for alternate modes of transportation. I started riding my bike, which resulted in me arriving at work sweaty and exhausted. Then my fellow intern Bryant started offering me a ride. He would pick me up before "Sam" woke up, and we usually worked similar hours so it all worked out. That is until 2 weeks ago when Bryant returned to Rhode Island. Coincidentally, that was also the time I had to send my bike to get boxed up for shipping. So once again, I looked down at my puffy abdomen, and decided to walk in the morning. Thanks to the portable CD player Angela gave me, the one-hour stroll was quite pleasant.

Now at that time, I was still rock climbing with Bryant's schoolmate Andrew. His girlfriend came up to visit him for his last week in Washington and used the car whil he was at work. When she found out how I had been walking 6.6 miles everyday, she was aghast. She insisted I let her drive me to work every morning after she had dropped her boyfriend off at work. I didn't have the heart to deny her a 7 minute car ride with me, so I agreed. Thanks Jessie!

Last weekend Jessie and Andrew left, and I was once again sans ride. I was telling this same rant to some other interns on the weekend (yes, I also rant in person, and yes, you can book me for weddings), and someone took pity on me. I'm now getting a ride to work with Tia, another intern. End result: no exercise for Chris!

I've always depended on the kindness of strangers.

00:00 | Rant

August 23, 2002

Impulse Buy

On my way back to my apartment from getting my haircut on the weekend, I walked by a CD store I had never noticed before. That was when I smelled the distinct aroma of money burning a hole in my pocket. I went in and looked around. It was your typical indie CD shop (with some generic name like "Music 2 U" or something like that). I perused the CDs, not looking for anything in particular. I've kind of lost touch with the music scene lately, with the exception of the Chili Peppers' new album and the new Dave Matthews album.

I noticed a new Peter Gabriel soundtrack, The Long Walk Home. I've always loved his music, ever since seeing the video for Sledgehammer when I was 6. I loved his other soundtracks, especially Passion, so I picked this up.

But the smoke kept streaming out of my pocket. I looked around the jazz section, remembering that I wanted to expand my jazz collection. Then I saw the new CD by a band called Medeski, Martin and Wood. The cover art looked interesting, so I bought it. A complete impulse buy.

When I got to work, I popped MMW into the computer. I immediately loved it. I don't know whether to describe it as Funky Jazz or Jazzy Funk. Lots of Stevie Wonderesque keyboards, upright bass and horns. I've been listening to it non-stop since Sunday.

And the Peter Gabriel album? Slow, moody, with a hint of Australian aboriginal sounds. Great background music. Whets the appetite for his long-awaited new album to be released in September (!)

00:00 | Entertainment

August 22, 2002

Slow Work Day: Webpage Rant

Ever since signing off on the product on Monday, my days at work have been less than busy. But I've been thinking of you, my loyal readers. I've used this time to start several new Misc Ramblings (the only real reason to visit the site. And a lame one at that), try to take Accessibility Guidelines into account as well as my usual web site tweaking. Why do I go to all this trouble, you ask?

  1. I believe strongly in a WWW that is truly accessible to everyone, including the visually impaired.
  2. I really want to be Jeffrey Zeldman's friend.
  3. Working on my website helps fill the dark empty void in my soul and gives my life purpose.

However this does raise certain issues. The "Content is King" approach I take is directly opposite to Dav's point of view. He believes the web designer, not the viewer should have ultimate control over the look and feel of the website. He would rather allow no user customization than the possibility of someone changing the colour scheme for the hell of it, and let the visually impaired be damned.

Since I'm not a graphic designer, nor do I have any artistic talent whatsoever, I'm not personally offended by people who don't like my website's design. I'm in the process of coming up with some alternate layouts, and giving you the user the ability to choose the way you want this site to look. Why? Because it's a slow work day.

00:00 | Blog

August 21, 2002

New Material

I found a dearth of new material I can blog about, however it goes against one of my personal principles of not ranting about someone who may actually read this site. Oh well. I'm writing a new rant about my roommates. To give you a taste and at the same time not spoil the piece, here's an amusing anecdote about Bryant's roommate.

On Saturday, Bryant and my mutual friend Janet had a pot luck dinner to celebrate her 22nd birthday. I decided to make salad and green beans, while Bryant decided to be more adventurous and make salmon. He said it was easy since it only involved 5 ingredients: salmon, lemon, dill, salt and pepper. We bought salmon and lemon at the grocery store, and purposely omitted buying the dill since Bryant assured me he had plenty at his apartment.

On our way back to my apartment to cook the fish, we stopped off at Bryant's place to pick up said dill. His place was in disarray since he was packing to leave the next day. For 10 minutes Bryant searched for the dill, to no avail. Then he noticed he couldn't find any of his other spices save one: onion flakes. Then it dawned on him. His roommate had moved out that morning and had taken the spices back to Boston with him.

"Who takes spices?!" Bryant cried, shaking a fist in the air. "Who does that?!"

I shrugged. "Apparently you roommate does. Maybe he's a starving student, and needs these spices. What school does he go to?"

"Harvard." There goes my starving student theory. "But he's too good for onion flakes!" v "Bryant, put the onion flakes down."

The conversation went on like that for another few minutes. I asked Bryant if his roommate had any reason to do something like this. I then found out that Bryant had been doing his laundry at 3am just to piss his roommate off. We finally concluded that this was his roommate's way of giving Bryant one final "Fuck You!" before leaving. Well played old boy. Well played.

Stay tuned for the crazy adventures of my roommates!

00:00 | Stuff

August 20, 2002

Programmer's Hands

For those of you who have been following my rock climbing adventures, I climbed my first V1 route last night. Now those of you who know anything about climbing realize this is nothing to brag about (it's the equivalent of bragging about hitting the baseball past the pitcher's mound), but hey, I'm no athlete. I also completed several V0 and V0+ routes that I could never finish before. As a result of all that climbing my soft, delicate, programmer's hands are now sore and red.

00:00 | Stuff

Signed Off

We signed off on our product yesterday! In less than a week, Microsoft SQL Server Notification Services will be on the web, ready for the world to enjoy.

00:00 | Work

What A Weekend

Friday

I should have known the weekend was going to be an interesting one when my boss took the team out for margaritas at 6:00pm on Friday. I lost count of the number I had, and when he brought me back to work at 9:00, I was in no condition to get any more work done. I also realized I hadn't eaten since lunch, which only added to my drunkenness. I goofed around at work, updated my blog, chatted online, then decided to walk home to help sober myself up. An hour later I got home, called Angela, set my alarm for 7:00 and went to bed at 12:30.

Saturday

8:25am the phone rang. It was Bryant, my ride.

Bryant: "You ready?"
Me: "Give me 5 minutes."

I leaped out of bed, cursing my drunken self for setting the alarm for 7pm. I threw on pants, t-shirt and a hat, grabbed my jacket and was out the door. We met the other interns on campus. In total, there were 13 of us, each with bloodlust and the urge to hurt each other. Yes, we were going to play Paintball.

On our way out, we stopped at McDonald's for a wholesome breakfast, then drove about an hour South into the boonies. The place was called Hole in the Wall Paintball and spans several acres. We waited a good hour to get our equipment (we insisted on semi-automatic rifles instead of the pump-action ones). We were each issued a rifle, several hundred paintballs (marble-sized plastic balls filled with water-soluble paint), a camouflage jumpsuit and a mask. After a brief safety orientation we were sent out into the forest to kill each other.

We joined a group of obviously experienced people, and were split into two teams distinguished by the presence or absence of fluorescent green ribbons on our helmets. The experienced players scoffed at the number of "Walk-ons" (non-members) and likened us to fresh meat, ready for the killing. We took up our positions. The game was Elimination: kill all opposing team members. Last team standing wins.

We took up our positions at opposite ends of the field (section of forest marked off with yellow tape), and when the whistle blew, we each ran off in random directions shooting at anything that moved. That first round I mostly hit trees and the ref. He wasn't happy.

We played several rounds of Elimination and Capture-the-Flag on various fields before breaking for lunch. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they didn't price gauge us on the hotdogs, chips and pop they had. Considering we were in the middle of absolutely nowhere, they could have charged $5 a hotdog and we would have had to pay it.

We played for another few hours against some semi-professionals (one had a fully automatic paint gun), acquiring welts and bruises as we went. At one point I was in a bunker when an enemy came up behind and shot me on the tailbone. I now have a welt a mere 2 centimetres from the top of my ass crack. Add that to the ones on my knee, arm and shoulder, and I'd say I had a good day.

We went home around 6. I had laundry to do, and besides I wanted a good night's for...

Sunday

I had actually set my alarm for the right time the night before, so I was actually dressed by the time Bryant phoned me. We met Shahaf and 8 of his friends at work, and we headed North to Anacortes, Washington. It was about an hour-and-a-half drive to the small harbour town. We met one of the other 3 cars there at 10:45. According to Shahaf's itinerary, our ferry was leaving at 11:00. When I phoned him, he told me he and his carload were in a grocery store buying lunch for themselves and sardines for the seals he assured us we'd be seeing. He didn't seem overly concerned with the fact he had 15 minutes to get to Anacortes, buy his ticket and board the ferry. The rest of us waited at the ferry terminal and watched our ferry sail off, and another one dock.

Shahaf et al finally arrived around 12:30, just in time to board the next ferry to Friday Harbour. The ferry ride lasted about an hour, and I kept myself from being bored by filling out a survey about Washington Ferries. I tried explaining to the survey woman that this was my first time on a ferry, to which she replied "That's ok, it's my first time too." Reluctantly I took the survey and joylessly filled out all seven pages. The questions ranged from the bland "How many times a year do you ride Washington Ferries?" to the tongue-in-cheek,

"If Washington Ferries did not exist, how would you have made your trip?"

  1. Drive
  2. Walk
  3. Swim
  4. I would not have made the trip

Yeah, like "Swim" is a viable option. I chose "d", because if I can't ride the ferry, dammit, I'm not going!

We made a brief stop at Shaw Island, where we played frisbee with a 7-year-old girl. She laughed when I dropped the frisbee, and at one point asked Bryant "What are you afraid of?" after he flinched at a throw aimed at his head.

From Shaw Island we headed to Friday Harbour. There we met the hippy who would be teaching us how to sea kayak. He drove us to the secret kayaking location, gave us a lesson on climbing in and out of 2-person kayaks. We then pushed off for open waters. Bryant and I partnered up, me in the stern, steering, and Bryant in the bow. We kayaked in the sea for a few miles until Randy (our hippy leader) told us to stop, and to line up our kayaks side-by-side in the "Raft" formation. Floating in the ocean like that, we saw boats travel past us, a bald eagle in a tree, and then the orcas, or "Killer Whales".

There were at least a dozen of them swimming around the area. We mostly saw dorsal fins, but every once and a while an orca would leap out of the water. It was incredible. The Hippy explained to us how to differentiate between male and female orcas based on the shape of their dorsal fins. The male dorsal fin is long and erect, while the female fin has curves. I'm not kidding, that's what he really said. At one point, a pair of orcas swam under our raft and surfaced a few metres off our collective sterns. It was a great experience.

After the orcas stopped surfacing, we decided to head back. As Randy drove us back into town, he gave us the skinny on his hippy life-philosophy, including political neutrality, environmentalism and pacifism. No big surprises there. Once we were in downtown San Juan, we checked the ferry schedule and found we had missed the ferry by about an hour. The next ferry would be at 10:30pm, and we would be arriving at Anacortes at 12:30. Great.

We decided to eat at the town's Mediterranean restaurant. I had the kibbeh which was described in the menu as "Ground lamb stuffed with onions and ground lamb". Who can say no to two scoops of ground lamb?

We finally boarded the ferry and amused ourselves for an hour, until one of us realized there was a meteor shower going on outside. We all lay down on the deck outside and watched the lamest meteor shower I've ever seen. I think I witnessed one meteor in the 20 minutes I was out there. We went back in and patiently waited for the ferry to bring us back to the mainland.

Monday

I finally got home at 2am, exhausted after such an action-filled day. It was probably the most exciting weekend I've had out here. I can only hope that I get a job offer at Microsoft, so I can enjoy weekends like this instead of sitting in front of the TV watching Law & Order marathons in my underwear.

00:00 | Misc Rambling

Not Mandatory

Well, I got my wish. According to a University of Waterloo press release the engineering course which teaches C# will NOT be mandatory. This contradicts Microsoft's press release that stated the course was mandatory. For a second there UW has the investors' interests in mind instead of the students. Thank God that's not true.

00:00 | School

August 18, 2002

Drunk

This was the last weekend for two of my team's interns, Bryant and Kati. To celebrate, we went to Belltown Billiards in Seattle for a little bit of pool, and a lot of drinks. We played countless games, which made Wan Li very happy, and when the rest of us had had enough pool, Wan Li played with strangers. That guy sure loves playing pool.

On our way home, we stopped by Microsoft to get Kati's car (she was sober enough to drive). While we were there Bryant bowed to the porcelain god in the lobby washroom. Kati drove Bryant and I back to his place where we drank some more. Despite having 4 pints of beer, 3 shots (including tequila) and a mixed drink, I wasn't at all sick. Bryant however passed out on the couch, so I made myself comfortable on his living room floor.

The next day I spoke to some of the people I went out with that night. Apparantly I didn't appear very drunk, but rather funny and charming, despite the fact there are definite gaps in my memory from that night (including pissing off some stranger with tatoos while waiting to use the ATM).

00:00 | Stuff

August 15, 2002

By Parliament

Let me put my sunglasses on. That's the law around here, you got to wear your sunglasses. So you can feel cool.

00:00 | Quotes

I Want To Hear From You

So what do you think? Do you disagree with my rants? Am I full of shit? Anything you want to tell me but are too afraid to give out your email address to a guy who hates Hello Kitty? Well now, thanks to netcomments you can leave me quick comments by clicking the comments link below.

Wow. My site is growing and deloping new features so quickly that it's becoming less and less practical to maintain it by hand. I'm soon going to have to start automating it using one of them new-fangled blog management tools, like Blogger or Movable Type or something. If any of you readers have any recommendations, please email me or leave me a comment below.

00:00 | Blog

August 14, 2002

UW & MS

I just read today from various news sources, that the University of Waterloo is accepting a $2.3M donation from Microsoft and in exchange will teach C# (a new programming language invented by Microsoft) instead of C++ in a required entry-level Electrical and Computer Engineering course.

Now I don't know how to feel about this. On one hand, UW accepts donations from other companies, like Apple and Nortel, and adjust curricula accordingly (CS 130, a semi-required course is taught on Macs). On the other hand, C# is a brand new language, one that has not yet proven itself in the real-world (as was the case with C++). Also, no one likes the idea of a university's curriculum being bought out by a corporation.

On the flip side, UW churns out the more graduates who get hired by Microsoft than any school in Canada, and more than most American schools. So I guess MS figures it's just training its future employees early.

Sorry I don't have a definite position on this issue (no, it's not because BillG signs my paycheques), but because:

I hope this gets resolved in such a way that UW doesn't look like it's getting bought (like only teaching C# in a non-required course).

00:00 | School

August 13, 2002

I'm #1

According to Google, I am the #1 Chris Lyon on the Internet. Go on, see for yourself. That's right, my web presence has beaten out that of Chris Lyon, High School Wrestler; Chris Lyon, Rock n' Roll Vocalist; and even the Reverend Chris Lyon who survived what he described to be "a serious bun-fight". It takes a special kind of person whose popularity can soar above and beyond these outstanding individuals. Also among the ranks of the lesser Chris Lyons, a real estate agent in Boise Idaho and a female lecturer at Utah State University.

After playing around with Google for a while, I wondered if a domain with my name had already been taken. Of course it had! (now taken down) And what kind of site is it? Some kind of really sketchy chat site (check out the girl in cam 1). I signed up just for fun but haven't got any confirmation email yet. But I'm not worried. I know Chris Lyon the Pornographer won't let me down.

I just realized that now a search in Google for "Chris Lyon the Pornographer" will return this site. Let the good times roll!

00:00 | Nerd

August 12, 2002

Patience And Appreciation

Today my team took the four interns out to an Intern Appreciation Lunch, since two of us are leaving this Friday (I will be staying on until Aug 30). We went to a South-Western restaurant and were given the following parting gifts:

We also each got a good-bye card, signed by each member of the team. It's obvious which team members didn't know me very well by their generic signatures. Messages like "Best of Luck -Steve" and "Great Work! -Bob" tell me that Steve and Bob won't remember me 3 months after I leave. It's kinda like when you passed around your yearbook to everyone in the class, even to the kids you didn't know, and you'd get back signatures like "Have a great summer -Suzy". Sometimes I look back into my yearbook and wonder who the hell Suzy was.

Anyway, reading that card I found my boss' signature, and this is where things get exciting. He wrote: "Best of Luck! See you soon."

What does this mean? Did he mean "See you soon, like after graduation," or "See you soon, back at the office this afternoon." I guess I'll find out in a few weeks...

00:00 | Work

August 9, 2002

Gettin' Bizzay

I have been swamped at work, so apologies for the lack of blogging. If it's any consolation, I'm working on a new Misc Rambling, and trust me, this one is going to give a whole new meaning to the word "rant".

00:00 | Blog

August 7, 2002

Pool Shark

One of the many perks Microsoft offers its employees is a wide variety of recreational activities at the office, in case one needs to blow of some steam. On campus there are volleyball courts, soccer fields and baseball diamonds. In the office we have pool tables, foosball tables and even an arcade game. Over the term I've played my share of pool, improving my skills by 1000% (I was never that good to begin with). But my coworker and fellow intern Wan Li has taken the love of pool to a whole new level.

Everyday, at least twice a day, Wan Li pops his head into my office and asks, in his own particular enunciating manner-of-speech: "Dude! Can I interest you... in a quick game... of pool?" Since I've been really busy this past week, I've had to decline, but that didn't discourage Wan Li. He would play by himself if he had to (and has on numerous occasions).

As a result, Wan Li has gone from a piss-poor pool player (now that's alliteration) to a sure-shooting shark (ok, I'll stop). Since our product became Test-Complete as of last night, I had some free time to play. During the week I didn't play, Wan Li has was putting in 4-hour-a-day pool sessions, and it showed. He beat me 3 out of 3 games without breaking a sweat. I blame my failure on the lack of chalk.

Now I know what you're all thinking, "Does Microsoft pay Wan Li to play pool all day?" The answer seems to be yes. He's a Program Manager (PM), and apparently it's in the job description. I was this close to applying for that job. If only I had known.

00:00 | Stuff

August 6, 2002

If You Want Things Done Right

Last night Waterloo's math server went down, taking my website with it. I really need to start hosting my own site. But that will have to wait until Sept, or possibly later.

00:00 | Blog

Flag Day Fiasco

I just heard back from my girlfriend. She spent the weekend at a friend's cottage with my best friend Ryan. I heard they went swimming together. And got drunk together. One can only imagine what transpired between the two that weekend under that full Muskoka moon...

My guess is that Ryan passed out after 2 beers.

00:00 | Stuff

August 5, 2002

.NET

Friday night I decided to do the nerd thing and attended a Why .NET? presentation. I won a t-shirt, a book and a coffee mug. For all of you not into computers, you can stop reading now.

In case anyone is still reading, I'll spare you the gory details and just say that this presentation had exactly what I was hoping to find when I took this internship at Microsoft. I got to ask questions about C#, not to some self-proclaimed expert, but to the guys who wrote it (alas, Anders Hejlsberg wasn't there). It's cool to find out how a technology evolves, especially taking business factors into account.

00:00 | Nerd

Rainier

Sunday I was up at the crack of dawn (actually 7:00 am) to go hike a trail on Mount Rainier, an active volcano in a national park of the same name. It a long, cold hike through snow and a barren rocky landscape. I loved it. We only hiked a couple miles (a far cry from the epic journey I took up Mount Fuji last year), but it made me realize just how out of shape I am (like I needed to be reminded). The weather sucked; it was foggy,raining, and at one point snowing. The fog was so thick we didn't get to actually see the mountain, but I got some good shots all the same (my current host only gave me 10 MB for this site, so I can't really post a lot of pics. Maybe when I get back home I'll get a real host. And a real URL. But that's another story).

I had a good time, and surprisingly, I'm not sore this morning.

00:00 | Seattle

August 2, 2002

Restricted Items List

Anyway. Things seem to be winding down around here. I got an envelope in my mailbox today containing instructions on how to ship some of my larger possessions (bicycle) home, at Microsoft's expense. There's a Restricted Items List that outlines what objects and substances I'm not allowed to ship home. These things include (but not limited to):

I will be shipping by bike and possibly some boxes of discounted software. Yay employee discounts!

00:00 | Stuff

Thanks Matt

First off, thanks to Matt Goyer (apparently a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend from Waterloo) for linking to my site. Matt had supposedly been getting complaints from his fans that he hadn't been blogging enough, so he passed them on to me. 'Cause, you know... sometimes I write interesting... stuff. *cough*

00:00 | Blog

August 1, 2002

Brave New Weblog

Last night after rock climbing I went out with a few friends for dinner and drinks. We went to an Irish pub / Cajun restaurant called the Celtic Bayou. Had some good food and some great beer. They also had live music that played Radiohead. If you're ever in the Redmond area looking for some Irish/Cajun fusion, I recommend the Celtic Bayou.

After dinner, we drove down to Seattle to shoot some pool with Shyam. We first tried to go to Belltown Billiards. Rumor has it Patrick Ewing is usually found playing pool there.

Apparently Wednesdays are the nights to play there. We would have had to wait at least an hour for a table and pay a $10 cover charge. Nuts to that. So Shyam brought us to a much sketchier pool hall with plenty of open tables. The big chalk board over the bar informed us that Wednesday was Ladies' Night, but the only ladies we saw were either nasty, or addicted to video poker.

After a piss-poor performance on all our parts, we left and got home around 2:00am. I was up by 8:30 this morning, fresh as a daisy and ready for a long grueling day of work.

00:00 | Blog

By Yevgeny Zamyatin

And like children, you will only swallow all the bitter stuff I have to give you if it is carefully coated with a thick syrup of adventure.

00:00 | Quotes