Jay's Challenge

Jay challenged me to a game of "let everyone know whats up" to the death, so here goes:

1) I bought a bike, and try to ride it as often as possible. When I know that I won't need to run errands or work late or need to get somewhere after work without being covered in sweat, I throw my bike on the front of the bus in the morning. Riding to work in the morning just wouldn't be practical, since we don't have a shower in the office.

The bike is a fairly new Bridgestone that I found on Craigslist. I changed out the seat, handle bars, tires, and pedals. I also stripped off a lot of the extra crap like reflectors. I have lights on the front and back, plus I flashing red light on my bag and a bright light that I can clip to the front at night. I also broke down and bought a pair of shoes with clips. Pedals that you can clip into are called clipless pedals, because toe cages used to be called toe clips, its a convoluted history of language that doesn't make sense. In bike geek, I have dual platforms with spd cleats.

2) Work is going well. The project in Canada is almost finished, which means my boss is on site most days. Typically I see him once a week. I haven't really been working on that project much, because I was doing most of the work on a remodel we are doing in town, not far from my house. Its been great to have the responsibility of running a project, and things are going well. I have a lot to learn, and it's stressful, but in a good way.

(image to come)

This is an image looking out from the front of the house toward the back yard. We ripped off the entire back of the house to extend the second floor for a master suite. The back of the house is the kitchen, and there will be a 15' wide sliding door (two 7.5' panels) across the back, so this is what the view will be like.

3) I stepped up to the world of iPhone, and it's fantastic. I love the fact that I can check email at a glance, surf the web, listen to music, etc. I need to find some cool apps, so I'm open to suggestions. I've downloaded one called Geogopher, which is for geocaching. Ive tried to find one cache, but it was micro and I couldn't find it. The gps isn't as accurate as a proper gps system. Plus I was downtown, which I think made it harder. The other cool app is Shazam, which will sample music playing around you and tell you what it is. So if you are in a store and here a song you like, you activate Shazam, it figures out what the song is, and store a record of it so that you can buy it later. I think it also has the option of launching the itunes store.

Another cool aspect of the iPhone is that I have a camera with me at all times, which means I can snap shots of anything that catches my eye.

Like grafitti-
The Wizard in drydock-

The Northwestern in the water-The two boats are from the show Deadliest Catch. The are both based out of Ballard in Seattle.

4) I'm considering buying a new car, but I've been too nervous to pull the trigger. My monthly expenses are high enough with the debt I have, I'm not sure I should take on more. If I do, my top choices are the Mazda 3 hatchback, the Honda Civic, and maybe the Toyota Corolla. Nothing too flashy.

5) I'm still living in dude house, with three other guys. One of them is getting married at the end of the month, one will move out around October when his fiance moves back to Seattle, and the other is going to Iceland for a couple months, and may not move back in after. Which means I have openings in the house. My friend Jeff is moving into fill the first vacancy, and we will deal with the others as they come up.

I've been working on sprucing up my room (although I'm moving upstairs when one of the guys moves out) starting with improving the artwork. I framed some of my dad's old comic books from the 50's. They aren't in mint condition or anything, so I'm not too concerned about protecting them as museum pieces. Still I didn't want to cut off the covers, so I cut two layers of mat to set them into. I had checked at a framing store to see how much it would cost, and the cheapest would have been around $150 each. I bought some frames at IKEA and some mat at the UW bookstore, and it cost me about $125 to frame 8. Two are in the kitchen eating nook, the other 6 are over my desk.


So that is an update. I'll try to post more often. I respond to harassment, but even then it takes a while. If you read any of this, post a comment. I want to know I'm not a voice crying in the wilderness.
I'll also say that while I have been a lax blogger, I'm not a lax blog checker. I keep up with many of yours, though I don't comment very often. I've also listened to all 10 episodes of TVLGFHF. I have itunes set to download the latest. Maybe one day I'll be invited as a guest. Apparently bringing a bottle of wine to the studio helps.