Musical baton

Of course I still read everyone's blogs even though I've "moved on to a cooler place"! :) Literally - it's the end of June and the high today in Seattle was barely 65.

Anyway, since Jen has passed me the musical baton, here it goes:

Total volume of music files on my computer:
4.12 Gb. I reformatted my harddrive about a year ago and lost 1/3 - 1/2 of all my music files because I backed them up on CD's that were corrupt. Cari was kind enough to recover some of my music from the CD's, but the combination of that and removing Kazaa from my computer has caused a definite decrease in the amount of music on my computer from a year and a half ago.

Last CD I bought:
Well, this might get into some hair-splitting... Just this afternoon I bought "Stop All the World Now" by Howie Day on amazon.com (you know, gotta support the new boss). The most recent CD I bought before that was "American Idiot" by Green Day. I originally bought it for the song that everyone knows - Boulevard of Broken Dreams, but I think my favorite track is now Holiday.

Song playing right now:
Resurrection, by PPK (techno/trance that I got from Goutam)

Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:
"Melanie" by Toto. Freshman year in college, when everyone was spending more time downloading songs on Napster than studying for all of their tests combined, my roommate Angela searched for her name on Napster, and to all of our surprise, came up with several artists singing about one Angela or another. Not to be outdone, my other roommate Leah and I promptly searched for our names on Napster and both came up with a couple songs - I got this and another song by Weird Al Yankovic. The lyrics to the Weird Al song are much funnier, but I like the beat and the harmonies of the Toto song better.

"Everywhere I Go" by Shawn Mullins. It's just got a good beat and the lyrics are really sweet without being over-the-top cheesy.

"In da Club" by 50 Cent. I should preface this by saying that the only kind of dancing I'm not terrible at is ghetto booty dancing. However, I love dancing whenever I go out to clubs, and this is absolutely, hands-down, my favorite song to dance to.

"Learning to Fly" by Tom Petty. Somehow, this song always conjures up an image of the greatest part of any roadtrip – driving down an open road (in a convertible, preferably), clear head, no cares in the world, leaving all the bad stuff behind and heading for greater places, ready to take on the world. I dunno… I guess the lyrics don’t really say that, but that's what it reminds me of, and I love it.

"When You Say Nothing at All" by Ronan Keating. I can't remember the first time I heard this song, although it may very well have been when I saw Notting Hill, but it's my favorite song to listen to when I'm in a slow, quiet mood. The song didn’t really hit home for me though, until it was played at Katie's memorial service. To me, it describes the perfect relationship: the two of you are perfectly in sync and will stand by each other through anything, making each other happier than anyone else in the world could, and it's all expressed without any words – just a touch and a smile.

Passing the baton to:
Nick, because I can't wait to see what combination of French music and Michael Jackson he comes up with for "favorite songs";

and my little sister Laura, because she needs some motivation to update more often. :)

Internet still defunct

Phil, Glenn, and me at Whiskey's

I'm still on this "photo of the day" kick, but our wireless internet at home is still on the fritz, so I can't update at home, but all of my pictures are at home... Anyway, this is one of the few pictures that I do have here, and it's a shot of my two favorite guys - Glenn and Phil. We all met in college - I met Glenn my freshman year and Phil my sophomore year, and they're the ones who kept me sane through the hell of aero/astro, and they're probably two of the funniest people I know. This picture was taken back in April at a bar in Boston.

So yeah, the internet is still down at home. It sucks. I hate being reminded of how dependent I've become on the web for entertainment and just getting things done. Luckily (?) I had grocery shopping to keep me occupied after work yesterday instead.

I got this link from a friend a couple of days ago. Apparently Germans really do love David Hasselhoff...

Running off my craziness

Adan with some Tully's coffee

I spent most of the first weekend that I was in Seattle with Carlos, his older brother Adan, and Adan's girlfriend, Marvic. On Sunday we drove to Alki Beach to see what there was to see and get some coffee to warm up. We stopped at Tully's Coffee and ordered our respective drinks, and after you order, the waitress asks you your name so that they can call it out when your order's ready. I thought I was very clear when I said "Melanie," but apparently that had been translated into "Milligan" by the time it reached my mocha. My cup is the second one from the left.

Today I was on a track for the first time in over a year. I ran back to Seattle Pacific University again, and I didn't even have to jump the fence to get in! I got out some hurdles and did some drills, probably looking ridiculous to the handful of other people who were using the track to run. Hurdle drills involve a lot of yanking your knees up to your chest while jogging around and some strange-looking kicks over the sides of the hurdles before actually running over the them. Anyway, the trend of my sucky running continued on the track, but it still felt good to be back there.

Work is getting ridiculous. I sit at my desk for 8-9 hours a day, simply staring at manuals and going through "example" problems that are supposed to teach you how to use OTIS, and you'd think that after a week of doing this, I'd be at least marginally proficient with the program, but you'd be wrong. It's so frustrating. I think I need to talk to my mentor/boss about working on something else, at least for part of my time. I'm going insane staring at my computer screen all day, especially when I know that the other interns get to do much more exciting stuff, like taking trips to Home Depot, welding, and testing sensors. *sigh* I feel like I'm trying to keep all of my unhappiness about this work and my previous job stuffed in a box, at least for the time being, so that I can ward off a quarter-life crisis. Yeah... stay tuned to hear how that goes.

For Gavin:

Somewhere in northern Oregon, on the second-to-last day of the roadtrip to Seattle, we stopped at a Burger King for dinner and discovered that Darth Vader was deflated (asleep?) on the job. However, all was not lost because Josh and I did win a free small order of french fries in Burger King's Star Wars scratch-off giveaway.

Today has been another absolutely beautiful day in Seattle, and another day that I spent indoors. I have a co-worker who's one of those people who gets to work before I do and leaves after I do (you know, the sort that generally makes you feel like a giant slacker), but he goes for a 30 minute run before lunch or plays basketball, then often goes out to lunch instead of slurping last night's leftovers at his desk, like the rest of us. Over the years, I've met a lot of people who do some sort of exercise on their lunch hour instead of doing it after work, and being one of those who does it after work, I'm not sure I'd want to make the switch. I'd have to bring extra clothes to work to run in, plus shower stuff and a towel, and then I'd have to sit around with wet hair for the rest of the afternoon. Plus, I really don't like being at work until after 6pm every day. However, when it's 2:30 in the afternoon and I've been staring at code continuously since 9am, a two-hour lunchtime break starts to look awfully nice.

Keeping on the topic of exercise though, I think I've rediscovered why I love to run. Running in Houston was, honestly, drudgery. It was always either too hot or too dark, there were no good running areas near my apartment (i.e. sidewalks), and I so often came home from work just wanting to crawl into bed instead of doing anything productive. Here though, the summer weather is perfect, there are tons of bike & running trails all over the city, tons of people out using them, and I'm not depressed all the time. Plus, I discovered Seattle Pacific University's track this afternoon while I was out running, and it doesn't look like the fence is too high to jump over, so maybe tomorrow I'll go back and pull out some hurdles. Man, I miss being part of organized sports.

Unfortunately though, I am horribly out of shape. Horrendously. So much that I'm afraid to go downtown on Tuesday nights to run with the Niketown running club because I might pass out halfway through the run. So... maybe in a few more Tuesdays, but definitely not tomorrow.

My new home

View of downtown Seattle from GasWorks Park

GasWorks Park, as I was pleasantly surprised to discover, is only about a mile down the street from my apartment in Fremont, and it has incredible views of the city. I would like this picture more, however, if the blue-ness of the water didn't wash out the skyline so much. Ah well... I guess I'll have to go back to the park. :)

Okay, quick summary of the roadtrip:
- Houston to El Paso: boring, except for the giant windmills that are in west Texas
- El Paso to San Diego: boring
- San Diego: nice, although California absolutely sucks at providing road signs. However, the Zoo and SeaWorld were a lot of fun.
- San Diego to San Francisco: Highway 1 is the best invention ever
- San Francisco: Not really a stop, although we got some pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge
- San Francisco to Seattle: Took longer than planned, because we took Highway 101 almost the whole way.
- Oregon coast: Absolutely gorgeous. Highway 101 is the second best invention ever.

Quick summary of work so far:
Blue Origin seems like it's going to be a neat place to work, although my particular job might not be as exciting as I had hoped. Lots of trajectory analysis. Best line heard so far at work:

Mike: "Hey Mark, do you have a ruler I could borrow?"
Mark: "No, but I have some digital calipers - would those work?"

Plus, it's a college student's dream: lots of free food always sitting out on the lunch table, sometimes lunch is provided, and there's a dishwasher in the kitchen.

More later...