Friday, June 30, 2006

Punching Myself in the Face



For those of you who don't read my MySpace Blog, here's a little nugget for you:

You would think that after being transferred to a location that is in the central hub of all that is Microsoft, I would be prepared to answer a few simple questions if, lets say, a RECRUITER came into the store and overheard my conversation about wanting to get a job?? You would think that wouldn't you? But no, I'm a freaking retard, worse even.

In my defense, there was a line of people, and I was unable to break away to properly talk to this woman. So instead of asking for her number or something clever like that, I tried to squeeze in as much information about myself into a ten second time period before she walked away. I don't even remember what I said, I was sputtering out this and that and have no idea if it even made sense, but I was out to try to impress her anyway I could. After finding out that I was in search of a position within the Xbox Division, she kind of left the conversation, due to the fact that she worked in a completely seperate division.

Even so, I should have been more prepared than this! I didn't move my ass all the way out here to make a fool of myself. I'm Derek Bigelow dammit! I went to college, paid my dues, sacrificed my life to Gap for 5 years, and for what? So I could stand there and make an ass of myself in front of someone who had the potential to turn my life around? ARGH I AM SO PISSED!

I Burn You



I would really help me out a lot if I knew who was actually reading this site. I made it so that you don't have to register to comment (I think), so feel free to leave some comments. So far I only know of two people who read and visit frequently, If there are any more out there, raise your hands!

Monday, June 26, 2006

Alki Beach






So Saturday I went to Alki Beach with some friends from work. It lies on a peninsula across from Seattle, which gives great views like the ones above. Unfortunately for me, it's pretty far away, seeing as how I live in Bellevue, but completely worth it. The top picture is actually the beach itself, where we were, and the bottom picture is about a mile away up the beach. These aren't my pictures, if you haven't guessed, only because I didn't have my camera with me.

The beach as a whole is awesome. There are shops and restaurants cradling the beach, with a great view of the mountains on one side, and a spectacular view of Seattle on the other. When you guys start visiting, I'll be sure to bring you here.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Dirt Trackin'



So the other day we go to see some rrrracin' at the dirt track in Skagit, WA, about an hour and a half north of Seattle. I've seen a few sprint cars before, but nothing like this! This was the last night of a three-day sprint car event (the name escapes me) where the winner will be crowned at the end of the final heat. It was definitely interesting to watch. For some reason, I never found myself watching the leader, I always followed one of the cars in the back, seeing how he would respond to being so far behind. Meaning, would he change his lines, or would he just mosey about and play some strategy? Who wants to watch the leader anyway?

The cool thing about this race was that Kasey Kahne won it in 2002 and 2003 which propelled him into the Nascar Bush Series, and eventually Nextel Cup. Awesome. Oh and a crappy tasteless cheeseburger was $5. Yay.

By the end of the night, we were all covered in dust from the cars averaging 95-100 miles an hour on the 3/10 mile track (yea we figured it out mathematically because we're awesome!). I left with only one thing on my mind...

I WANT ONE!

Behold! The Space Needle!



Ah, the Space Needle, Seattle's finest attraction. It looked pretty tall walking up to it. I tried really hard to compare it to the CN Tower in Toronto that I saw when I was in 6th grade, but couldn't remember how tall it was. Alex, however, informed me that the CN tower was quite taller than the Space Needle, intriguing. Anyway, $15 later, I was at the top of the beast, looking upon my new kingdom with eager eyes. I should note that the elevator girl was a Broncos fan, after seeing my hat, she let everyone know that the Broncos were the best football team, and that I was proof of that fact. Looking around everywhere was pretty cool, but not quite the thrill I was seeking. It was actually more interesting trying to get there for the first time than actually being there. All in all, it was a good day.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

The Move: Rushmore to Seattle



This picture is of the most interesting part of our journey, the mountains in Montana, or at least the beginning of them. Montana was wierd though, it would rain for 10 minutes, stop for 10, then start again. This happened almost the whole time we were in Montana and into Idaho.



What's cool about the mountains is that once you get to a certain elevation, roughly 5500 feet, rain turns to snow! YAY SCIENCE! We didn't realize this however, and were startled that in a mere 2 seconds, we were in the middle of a snowstorm. But when we started going back down, it turned back into rain, awww. I wanted to show everyone my Buffalo snow driving expertise, but then realized I had everything I currently own in the back of my truck.



Rocky Mountain high.



This is the second mountain we went over, I forgot the name of it though. It too had snow capped peaks and......trees. Quite majestic isn't it?



I like fog rolling down a mountain ok? and powerlines.



I thought these rocks were cool, I think this is inbetween Montana and Idaho somewhere. What you can't see is the giant gorge to which we were trying not to skid into.



Can you see the deer's ass? Alex took this one ok...I know it's not as good as my rock pictures, but he didn't take photography in high school like I did.



Idaho. This is pretty much it.



This is the practice shot for when we made it into Washington, we were gonna get a shot of the welcome sign. Unfortunately, we didn't realize they placed the sign in the middle of the road, and not on the right hand side like every other state in the country. Needless to say we drove right past it, so just pretend that this is the "Welcome to Washington" sign.

This is pretty much the last picture I have. I didn't take any of Seattle, because we didn't pass it the night we made it into Bellevue, which is where I live. Seattle lies just to the east of Bellevue, on the other side of Lake Washington (get out your atlas!). We went there the next morning though, to the famous Pikes market and we eventually made it to the Space Needle ($15 elevator ride, pshtt). It was cool though. I've been downtown a few more times since then, and yes, I've gotten lost, but only becuase I don't know the streets that well. I'm pretty good now though. Downtown Seattle is a lot more friendly than Buffalo, I feel a little better going down there than I ever did in Buffalo, and Seattle is twice the size. Oh well. I hope you liked the pictures, and I'll try to update more often from here on out.

Monday, June 12, 2006

The Move: Mount Rushmore



This is probably one of the best pictures I've ever taken. Ever.



Alex, a man among boys. Brave enough to ride with me to Seattle so my Mom wouldn't kill me.



HAH! That big monument doesn't look so big now compared to me!



The trip up here was a lot cooler than I thought. For about $8 you get to see a national treasure and wonder what it would be like to climb up into their noses. We may never know, sadly they have no nostrils.



The three GOOD presidents. Lincoln, psht. You know what I heard? One of the locals said that if you stare at Jefferson long enough, he'll wink at you. Know what else I heard? Washington's eyes are really gaint lasers that were put in place to shoot down alien spaceships if we were ever invaded. I think laser eyes make up for the whole cherry tree thing.

The Move: New York to South Dakota



First off, sorry everything is descending (the pictures should be in reversed order), by the time I realized what I was doing, I didn't feel like going back and changing everything. Besides, nobody reads this anyway, right?

These are the black hills of South Dakota, which is what I think they're called, at least thats what the Beatles sang about in Rocky Racoon. Anyway, I didn't take any pictures of them, but there were at least 5 million billboards lining the 90 through South Dakota. They all wanted me to stop and have coffee and pie or see some prehistoric fossil, or better yet, petrified wood. While I did resist the urges to stop and have some delicious South Dakota pie, I did manage to snap this picture, what a beaut.



I took this picture of "The Diner" in Murdo, South Dakota. It's website is more extensive than the town itself. We only stopped because of our desperate need for gas. To bad "The Diner" wasn't open

http://www.wcenet.com/~murdosd/

It's about dusk when I took this picture, we were halfway into South Dakota and had just gotten out of Minnesota. At this point I had had about 4 hours of sleep in the past two days. YAY!



After getting out of Chicago's second rush hour, which is by far the most traffic I had ever dealt with previously, we were off to Seattle again. This picture I believe was while we were still in Illinois. Isn't it pretty? This is what the rest of the ride looked like until you get to Montana, although South Dakota wasn't too bad.



Entering Chicago. You can't see much mostly becuase it was really hazy out. I had been following this stupid van for what seemed like forever. I know it looks like there's no traffic here, but just before taking this picture, I hit Chicago early morning rush hour and was sitting around for a good 45 minutes. Still, with traffic and everything, it really only took me 8 hours to get to Chicago (if you include the time difference).



Cleveland at night. I tried really hard to get some good pics while driving, which often proved to be difficult. This was around 3 or 4 in the morning. I don't know if anyone knows, but Cleveland is a beautiful city to drive through at night.


My last PB&J in NY. I took this right before I left around midnight.