Monday, August 25, 2003

First off, congratulations to my roommate Tami who got married this past weekend!

Saturday I went hiking at Snoqualmie with people from work. Half of us (including me) went on the easier trail but I'm still a little sore, though I feel much better than I did on Saturday night/Sunday. We stayed in a cabin with heated pool and sauna which we took advantage of. It was my first time in a sauna. Pretty soothing but I don't think I can stay in there for too long.. it gets kinda stifling after a while. The waves of steam feel pretty good though.

Yesterday I went to the "C-Spot Drive Party" which is a free event put on by Mercedes-Benz where they have a bunch of C-class cars, a few mini autocross-like tracks, and they let you drive around. It was pretty fun. It was like the Car and Driver one Allan and I went to a while ago, but Benzes drive better than Accords and Camrys, so it was more fun.

One fun thing was that we could ride with professional drivers taking AMG C32's around one of the tracks. One guy driving the black C32 was pretty awesome, taking us around the curves at ridiculously high speeds in beautiful 4-wheel drifts. We would be coming back towards the starting line with the car going totally sideways.. very exhilarating.

I finished reading Ender's Game last week. Good book. Continuing on my sci-fi binge... next book: Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.

Next weekend is a long weekend. Woo!

Sunday, August 17, 2003

So I went to the 2 Mariners games last week. The first one wasn't so great but the second was awesome. I got to see Ichiro hit a grand slam! How awsome is that? Plus my roommate and I went down to sit in some empty seats by the field, behind the 3rd base dugout.. so we were really close for most of the game.

Los Angeles is a little peculiar. For one thing, in LA you use the singular form of team names, as in "the Dodger game" or "the Laker game." Everywhere else you use plural, right? Like in "the Mariners game" or "the Tigers game" etc. Another thing is Angelenos put articles before their freeways. So it's "take the 5 to the 101" instead of "take 520 to 5." Regional differences are interesting.

Yesterday I went paintballing which was fun. This was my second time paintballing and the place was way better than the place in Santa Clarita where we went the first time. For one thing there weren't any hidden charges -- one fee for field use, equipment rental, mask, CO2, and paintballs. And for another there were a lot more fields and they were a lot better and more fun. The only thing lacking was a bunch of friends to shoot at. It's not quite the same shooting at strangers. =)

Jenny flies out to NY on Tuesday to begin life as an east coaster. Go eastern time zone people!

There are only 4 weeks left in my internship!

Thursday, August 14, 2003

'Tis been a while since I updated. Why? Jenny and others were in town. Woo! What all did we do? Let me see if I can remember.

We did a lot of touristy stuff the weekend before last, such as Alki Beach and Pike Place Market. The Blue Angels were in town so we tried to catch them but weren't really successful. I had seen them performing over Lake Washington the day before though. There was also a play called Sex in Seattle which was basically a live episodic comedy based on what it sounds like, Sex and the City, except with Asian actors. It was pretty good. Then we went hiking at Mt. Rainier which was very nice. When I get a chance (i.e. when I get back to Michigan and can use my computer there) I'll probably make a Seattle album with all the pictures. Wow, this reminds me, I'll be back in Michigan in less than a month now.

During the week we saw some stuff such as the Space Needle, tried to catch the sunset over Lake Sammamish, and explored the Seattle downtown. But mainly I went to work and Jenny stayed home and somehow kept herself occupied.

Then came the weekend, bringing with it Shirley and friends. Jon Malkin showed us around the UW campus as well as The Ave, and later we went on the Seattle underground tour which was pretty neat. Evidently in Pioneer Square, which is the original downtown area, there was a fire and they rebuilt that part of the city above ground level for various reasons. So you can actually go downstairs and walk under the sidewalks and see the original ground floors of the buildings in some places.

Soon it was time for all the visitors to head home. Unfortunately, this didn't turn out to be very easy. Shirley and friends had a standby ticket which they were unable to use on Sunday since flights were totally booked.. and Jenny's flight was actually overbooked so they gave her a free round-trip ticket in exchange for bumping her until Monday. It all worked out eventually.

Sean also flew in on Sunday whereupon we enjoyed a luxurious dinner at Arby's ("I'm so hungry, I could eat Arby's!" -The Simpsons) and saw 28 Days Later. Pretty good movie.

Wednesday morning my roommate, officemate, and I went to watch the Perseid meteor shower. We got up at 4 am and camped out at a park. It was pretty cool though there weren't as many meteors as the Leonid shower in LA that I saw with Leah, Jace and Teresa. At least it was better than the time in Michigan when it was cloudy.

Today and tomorrow I'm going to two Mariners games -- today vs. Toronto and tomorrow vs. Boston. Woo!

**

Oh, I forgot to add, on Saturday we had lunch at Dixie's BBQ where they have the one known as The Man. He makes an ultra spicy sauce known as the Man Sauce. This stuff is crazy concentrated.. one forktip of sauce tastes like it has more hotness than an entire Indian buffet. Here's a picture: