House Hunting

I'm not really sure if now is the right time to be off house hunting, but here I go. We've all heard about the housing bubble and how it's supposed to burst any time now, but who knows? Here's an example: I just saw a house yesterday that my real estate agent alerted me about. I drove past it and thought it was in just a perfect little neighborhood and in great condition. My plan is to take a look at the interior after work today. If I like it, I'll make an offer. Actually, there's already another party showing interest in the place and, as I understand it, he/she/they have already made an offer. But, their offer is below the asking price. Thus, if I'm willing to pay the asking price, then I'll get myself a nice new little house. It might just be worth it... I'll have to take a look at it and see. My agent says that the selling agent is willing to wait for me to look at the house to see if I'll offer more than the other party, so I've got that goin' for me... which is good. I mean, at least I've still got a shot at this cool little house. And if it doesn't work out, then I can still hope for this housing bubble to deflate, right?

I'll be posting pics of the place in my yahoo photo album. Actually, I've got some new pics up there now if y'all wanna look: Savvys Albums be here.

Summer Day-Z in the Sun

Oddly enough, this set of sunny summer days occurred in Seattle. I went up on Friday, a few hours after work, to see the crew and show off my new dj stuff. Yeah, I've been mixing again and made a demo tape. Not too bad, not exceptional, but good stuff. So anyway, I drove up and planted myself on Mario & Sean's couch for what would become the remains of the day.

Friday night
How I conned the peeps into sticking around their house while I was on the freeway was kinda silly. When I was still about 10 miles south of Chehalis, Sean called me and asked where the heck I was and how soon before I arrived. Knowing that Chehalis is aboiut 100 miles south of Seattle, I told him I wasn't far and I'd be there in 30 minutes. I was doing about a steady 90mph, but even so I wouldn't arrive in Seattle for another hour-fifteen. Well, thirty minutes and about 45+ miles later, I get another call. Sean was just so pleasantly inquiring as to when I'd be there since the crew wanted to go out to a bar or club or something. I said that I had been stuck in some nasty traffic, maybe behind an accident or something, and was still in Federal Way (20 miles south of Seattle). Sean told the crew it would be another 20-30 minutes before I arrived and told me to call him when I'd entered Seattle. Um Hmm. So, after traversing Tacoma, Federal Way and Sea-Tac I called Andy rather than Sean to tell them I'd entered Seattle. I was pretty close anyway, but not quite there. By that time, I figured, if they hadn't left the house they probably weren't going anywhere. Good news. Eventually, I arrived and sat on the couch and sipped my beer smiling serenely.

Saturday
Next day, I met up with the friends again and went to a birthday/house warming party for a friend of a friend. It was a'ight, we played kickball and a bit of football, non-tackle of course. I mean, I like active, physical games and all but I was dog tired after about 30 minutes of it. My mouth felt as dry and full of cotton as if I had just been chewing on a stuffed animal.

Somewhere in that time period, I spotted a meth-head scoping out my car, which had my overnight bag in plain view. I stealthfully watched him and then he approached me. He asked for some tools to help repair his motorcycle. With no other ideas in my head, I went to my friend's friend's (the birthday/house warming party person) place to ask if they had some tools in the basement or something. Nope. But I got that dude to follow me there and alerted the whole party to his attention. Now everyone knew there was a meth-head sketching around... Then I went back and moved my car to a spot in front of the house. Andy was saying he wanted to check out a party at this place called Belltown Billiards because a friend of ours was deejay-ing (DJ Elad) and we could get in free. A'ight.. a'ight..

So, long story short, we ended up going to a club where Andy wanted to meet some chica that someone said had a crush on him. It didn't pan out for him, unfortunately, but he did manage to leave me stranded downtown. Oh what fun! He ran off to an after hours club, chasing that girl, and another friend offered me a ride back to where I'd left my car --about 15 miles across town. I went back to the car and drove off in search of a place to get some sleep. I drove to Golden Gardens park in search of a quiet spot by the Sound (Puget Sound) at which to crash land my tired mind. Not too bad, except that I heard some girl(s?) and maybe her boyfriend getting mugged by three dudes. I saw nothing, only heard parts of an argument and possible fight. Then the police came and took care of whatever it was that had happened. I heard no ambulance, though, so I assume there were no serious injuries or ill shiznit that went down besides someone getting punched a few times and then having his/her/their wallet(s?) stolen. And that's alls I knows 'bout that.

Sunday
I had drank too much. I wasn't able to sleep well and my back hurt from my lumpy car seat. I was not a happy, frolicking Dawei. So, I just took care of some business. I went shopping to buy a new pair of sunglasses I'd lost mysteriously on Saturday. Don't really care though; they were broken anyway. And my new ones look more like my old favorite pair. All was going well. Some breakfast at Cyndi's Pancake place where I remember eating with my Ci the last time we visited Sea-town. Hei hei hei... And then I met up with Andy, who drove us out to Alki beach and talked the whole time about how he had just ended a relationship he'd been in for the past 3 years. Personally, I think the guy just needs a woman he can think of as a close friend instead of thinking of a dating relationship as something separate and independent of friendship.

We just hung out and eventually saw a movie: The Descent. It was a pretty freaky movie, but had a really contrived plot with very little depth. The storyline was pretty transparent and the characters were never well-developed. But the cave scenes were kinda scary. I didn't quite understand the ending, but I can guess that the main character must've been psychic or something to see ghosts like she does. But I won't spoil the plot here...

After that, Andy and I watched The A-Team for an hour or so. I crashed on the couch.

Monday
I have today off due to the kindness of my boss and my shrewdness in picking just the right time and manner in which to request it. I mean, I've only been there for three weeks and I've already scored a day off. It's because I worked a lot of overtime recently and the boss is just appreciating a dedicated effort. All to the good!

I left Seattle around 11am, after a nice IHOP breakfast, and got home around three. I checked email, sat in the hot tub and just spaced out a bit. Now, here I am winding up this story and journal of the past weekend. And, oh what a weekend it was! This one was one for the books! I exercised, took a few pictures, displayed my deejay talents and caught up with some folks I'd not hung out with in awhile.

But the night grows on toward bedtime and I'm thinking about calling it a day. More laters.

Reportz on da Life

With the first two weeks of the month behind me and a total of three weeks experience in the office I'm feeling pretty confident about my job moving forward. It was quite busy at times during the first nine business days of August, with dozens of spreadsheets folded within about a hundred messages coming in while I was sending out analyses in files so big that I had to put them in .zip files before I could get them out. And the documentation I've been working on has passed the 20 page mark. I should actually be working on that now, but just can't bring myself to be productive. It's Friday. I'm tired. And I've got myself a nice little three-day-weekend coming up.

My plan for said time off is to rock on up to Seattle sometime either tonight or early Saturday morning, depending on whether or not I can get anyone to meet up with me tonight. Friday is generally not a big party day among my friends. We all work during the week, so Friday is more about hanging at home and slothing around from the computer to the beer fridge to the T.V. and back to the computer. So it may just be that I go to bed early and rock it up north at 7 or 8am tomorrow. We'll see.

My hunnie is in Beijing and I miss her but she's with her family and it's a good thing. I'll try to keep my finicky camera working while I'm on vacation this weekend so I can make vids and pics to show the Ci (and my blog audience as well) just how relaxed I get this weekend.

Keep on keepin on and chizzill and all dat.

A Bee in the Water

The other day, I found a bee stuck in the pool. He had gotten himself --I call it a "he" because isn't that the gender of all drone worker bees? Toiling away for the queen, who sits in the nest giving commands and eating the flesh of other, would-be queens?-- into the center of the pool. I watched him work himself around in circles, never making much progress in any one direction, as he scrambled his black, stick-like legs in a frenzy. I stood there for awhile just watching adn contemplating the apparent metaphor of this bee in the water. "How much am I like that bee," I wondered, "And isnt this just a perfect illustration of the situation of all humans? Spinning around on the Earth." At times, I considered jumping in to save this bee, but never could bring myself to do it. After all, I had just gotten out and showered and dried off and.... So I decided to kick water at the bee with no really good reason for why I was doing so. I splashed the bee and thought I had seen him sink. I kicked again. He hadn't sunk so much as been knocked about by the tiny ripples the droplets made on impact. This poor bee. Then I noticed something different. He was then closer to the pool's edge than he had been before. I kicked again. He floated closer, surfing the waves as they were towards closer to the edge. I continued to kick water just behind this bee to push him to where I could reach in and scoop out this water-logged bee.

Before too long I had this bee near the edge. I stared at him kicking around for a while as I thought about what might happen if I scooped him out. Would he sting me? Would he bite? Would he just die? I wouldn't take the risk so I found an old t-shirt someone had left by the pool and scooped the bee. He crawled on the shirt a bit to make me think he had more spunk in him than he actually possessed and I flung the shirt to the ground so that he could recover in peace. But the shirt, unfolding in the light breeze, twisted and rotated about so that the bee hit the ground first and this wet, black t-shirt piled on top. Would this be a tragic turn to an otherwise happy ending? Would this bee live to see dry land again? I darted at the shirt to flip it and check the bee. At first, no movement. But then he walked an inch and stopped. I could see his wings move a slight gesture. He survived!

I gathered my things and prepared to go back to my apartment, stopping on the way out to look at this bee who really should be dead. He sat on this wet, black, leaking pile of cloth upon which he had just ridden to salvation as he dried off his wings and appeared to be licking his legs. I began to wonder what the long-term effects of the chlorine would be on him but then, he's just a bee. Probably wouldn't have lived that long anyway, right? So, I stood up and headed back to my apartment. Now I think back to the moment I saved a bee and wonder if I'd have been fortunate enough to have someone save me if I'd been in his position. Thoughts of Jesus' death on the cross came to mind and I realize that I have been. We all have been as fortunate; because the true metaphor of this story is that mankind is the bee in the water just waiting to die. But Jesus came to our aid (admittedly, he's saved us with more style and honor than I when I pondered just letting the little bugger die) and rescued us from alienation from God and certain death.

I thank God every day for what he has given me and seek to share knowledge of that gift with others.

The Un-restroom

Poopy! That is, unfortunately, the most accurate and appropriate word to describe the state of my fellow cube-dwellers -- not that I enjoy saying so. Now, I need to set the scene here to give a clear picture of what I'm talking about. Picture this:

I walk into the office building, a huge warehouse of grey fabric cubicle walls and printers and fax machines stacked up in corners. From my usual entrance, its about 100-150 yards to my desk, across a field of others that look just the same. At any given time maybe 75% of the office is full. I guess people just work on different schedules or for whatever reason that just isn't important to the discussion at hand. So, it's a big office, but never jam-packed with folks. There are multiple bathrooms generously located throughout the workplace. That is, I'm never more than 50 yards from the "facilities" when I walk through the place.

Yet, whenever I make a trip to these rooms of rest and relief, 90% of the time the room is filled with a smell more fitting to an old septic tank than a (relatively) upscale office. Accompanying the fumes are the sounds one would expect from a person experiencing an Ex-Lax moment. But enough of the fun details, you can imagine the rest.

Perhaps it is the lack of healthy foods in the diets of so many of my coworkers that leads to multiple trips to the toilette or maybe its in the water. Whatever it is, I wouldn't be suprised to learn that this office creates enough methane to power the city of Wilsonville! Well, maybe not quite, but close...

And what is the moral, you ask? Nothing. It's just a bunch of stuff that happened.

What's up?

Back to the basics. My job and my life have seen a fair amount of turmoil over the past couple of weeks. Partially, this is due to my becoming acclimated to a new position and the responsibilities associated with that. It doesn't help matters that no documentation currently exists (other than what I've been creating on the fly, as it were) describing responsibilities and how to go about satisfying these. According to sources I've contacted within the company, the previous individual to hold this post was something of a maverick when it came down to coordinating forecasting schedules with our worldwide partners. That is, not only is there no documentation on my position but that we (my mgr and I) are reconstructing the methodology and essentially redefining the post from this point forward. So, I'm tasked with writing all of this down and making it comprehensive and as easy to follow as possible. Partly, I'm doing this for myself, so that I can run through next month's forecasting cycle with greater confidence and speed -- since the boss will be on vacation. But also, I'm working it with a mind towards identifying areas of necessary improvement.

So that's been tough.

At home, my new apartment, I'm getting used to being away from my hunnie in Eugene. I've begun to build a routine, but only a couple of weeks have gone by and I'm still not settled in my activities. I work out at the apartment rec center and have used the pool a time or two and I take regular walks around the area. So, it's feeling more and more comfortable as time goes by. I'll make a post detailing my surroundings --pics and all-- sometime maybe this weekend.

All in all, things are going well. I'm busy but feeling more confident by the day and have begun to re-focus my mind towards house hunting. In all likelihood I'll get back to searching in September. In the meantime, I'm just taking life one day at a time and trying not to let myself get too stressed out about future plans and goals.

And that's what's been up with me lately.

Give them Gods

Random thoughts post ahead: Continue at your own risk!

I just thought of one random thing that would make me pause and get it down in writing before the fleeting thought flies its course away from the front of my mind. Giving thought upon Egyptian culture and their usage of narcotics as a natural part of life, it occurred to me that another, non-physical form of narcotics had been simultaneously fed: religion. Now, I'm far from Expert in my knowledge of Ancient History or Theology, but it reasons to me that the successful governments throughout civilization have had at least one commonality: association, and sometimes intermingling, among church and state. The question that arose in my mind today is such that I wonder if religion has been largely a means to control people, perhaps through either preiminent structure of class/caste system or by fear, in its most primitive form.

And... was there ever really a time when human-kind simply allowed his mind free to wander about what is and what came before? Assessment of this leads one to believe that humans would tend more towards natural harmony with the environment and develop in a more "natural" manner if allowed to develop without powerful individuals seeking domination through government control and land ownership. That is, mass-customization of beliefs would not have resulted unsolicited.

D

PS I've just had a long and difficult day at work, and a tall glass of wine at home. I'm relaxing and letting my mind wander. Excuse and enjoy.