richpurcell.com

A lot’s happened in the past few months. One of the biggest things is that I’m officially a citizen now. Yes I know, I totally sold out to the MAN, but now I get all the cool privileges of being a dual citizen. Roughly translated, I get to keep my foreign born snobbery without the danger of being deported. It was a long time in the making but finally over. It took me all of 13 months to get it done.

Before the ceremony they told us we could use the restroom. I got back just in time to hear the speaker concluding “…and this concludes the explanation of how things really work in America.” Every one was congratulating one another and commenting on how life would be so much easier now that they knew the secret of how things really work in this country. I kept asking for someone to explain it to me, tell me what did I miss. But no one seemed to notice. I guess they were too busy thinking of what saps they all were for not understanding before.

Oh well that’s life…

So for the past few weeks I’ve been a vegetarian. I know, I know I’m skinny enough as it is. You’re probably wondering why I’d wanna stop eating meet for. Well it’s mostly about will power. In the past I’ve had days where I would avoid meat dishes, but I was never able to extend any of those times past the one-day period. This time I’m giving it a try. I made a deal with myself that I’d try it for about a month to see how it feels, if I’d really want to exert the effort. So far it’s been going well, but it does take effort. Fortunately a co-worker told me what to expect. Very few restaurants have more than a few vegetarian dishes. So whenever I get lunch at work I usually have to pour over the menu searching for the one or three dishes without meat. And sometimes even when a meal looks like it may not have meat in it you still may have to ask the waiter if it really is vegetarian. On the second day since becoming a vegetarian I had to send back a dish that was in the vegetarian section of the menu because the chef prepared it with chicken. And going out with friends can be a challenge, because I don’t like being the one that every one else has to bend their tastes for. Also since starting my vegetarian thing I haven’t had any one over for a meal. Of course if I have friends over I would cook a meat dish for their benefit but I’d be concerned about cooking enough of a variety of vegetables so that I could also enjoy a decent meal.

At this point I think it’s important to say that I’m not doing this because I don’t want for an animal to have to die so that I could eat. That’s not my reason. So at any time I could decide to change my mind and go back to eating meat. Animals not dieing for me to continue eating is just a nice side effect. But it is a challenge and so far I’m living up to it. At this point I think its also important to mention that I’m not going vegan. Yes I do eat eggs, but that’s about as far as I’m willing to go right now.

So far I’m enjoying it. However I can’t quite decide if its because of my latent desire to be different than the crowd. I mean, what if everyone went vegetarian, would I want to start eating meat then? I don’t know its too much for me to think about now. I’ll cross that bridge it it ever comes.

Just last week I discovered that one of my good friends here in Seattle was a vegetarian for about eight years. She gave me the “Best Vegetarian Cookbook Ever”. There are so many recipes and I want to try so many dishes just based on the pictures in the book. Yes, “I like da pretty pictures.”

The best thing is that I haven’t lost any weight. I’m still holding to the same weight I was in High School. Yes, I’m still a bit of a bean pole but hey skinny is in… Right? Any way I’m pretty happy with the amount of energy I’ve had in the last two weeks. I mean come on two blogs in one day? That has to be a record for me.

Wow I don’t believe they gave it to me! I just got back from the DOT where I had my address changed on my license. Not only did I get my address changed, I also got the Corrective lenses restriction removed and my motorcycle endorsement.

Last month I took the motorcycle safety course and I’m still surprised that I passed the test. Most of you are probably aware that in every class there is a “screw-up” you know the one person in class who gets everything wrong and it usually takes him twice as long to learn anything. In my class that person was me. I still can’t believe it, I dropped the bike (a big No-No), I did horribly on the double U-Turn (basically a figure 8 turn). I swear it wasn’t all my fault either. On the first day of class I got stuck with the shortest bike. It felt very uncomfortable. Since this was my first time on a motorcycle I wasn’t sure how it should feel. Even the instructors told me, during the second half after they gave me another bike, that the previous bike wasn’t my size. What can I say, it was the only bike that wasn’t taken. Once on the new bike things started rolling. Even then it still took me longer to learn the exercises. And again I can say it wasn’t all my fault, I mean most of the class was made up of people who had previous motorcycle experience. One guy rode dirt bikes and now wanted to get his street bike endorsement, at least three other guys already had bikes and just wanted to get the endorsement also, and one guy already had his endorsement and just wanted to get a refresher since he hadn’t ridden in about a year. And incidentally all of the other folks who were taking the course to learn how to ride scooters (the Red Bull Team) went to another practice range.

A co-worker suggested that even though I was taking the course to learn how to ride a scooter, I should just take the full motorcycle course, that way if I ever wanted to upgrade later I’d already be familiar with riding a motorcycle. It seemed to make sense to me. Halfway through the course I wanted to drop out. I felt really bad about being the one guy who was always the last, always the “screw-up” but I toughed it out. At the end of the course when it was time to take the exams I told my self “well someone has to fail and it’ll most likely be me”. I took the written test and aced it, no surprise there. However I was dreading the skills test. Again I told myself “someone has to fail” So I took the test completely messed up the double U-turn. However something one of the instructors said stuck with me. Since the double U-turn was to be executed within a rectangle she said “Think of the box like Vegas. What happens in the box stays in the box.” Since I knew I could only lose so many points in the box I decided to focus on passing the rest of the test. And to my amazement I actually passed the test. Not as high a score as the written test but enough to pass. Wow, they must have been really feeling generous that day. Whatever it was, I don’t care cause I got my endorsement.

So as soon as I get through paying for the shutters for my new place I’ll be looking seriously into buying a scooter for getting around West Seattle. Oh yeah guess what I finally bought a house. A townhouse in fact. But somehow that seems to pale in comparison to getting my motorcycle endorsement. Sometimes its the little things that count.

Today I received an email from a coworker in Spokane asking if everything was business as usual, here is my reply:

“Business as usual?” True, if “business as usual” means going home with head aches because you are learning more stuff each day than you can stand. All in all I’m doing fine. Don’t be alarmed by my ranting. “New experiences?” Last week I ate at not only a Vietnamese place but also a Mediterranean place for lunch. Did I mention this is a neat little city?

 

Glad to hear that everyone is still operating within normal parameters. Wow, I had no idea I would miss everyone’s little distinguishing quirks. I can just see it now, Mark is ranting about some new or old intolerable situation, Jarom is teasing you and Debbie, Kirk and Brent are looking at the latest interesting video, and making funny sarcastic remarks about Mark’s ranting. All that you need is a dweeb sitting in the cube next to Mark banging away at some script with a few spare coins sitting on the cubicle divider and the picture is complete :-)

As you can tell I’m loving it here. I find myself sitting in a coffee shop on Sunday evenings, sipping some great brew and reading a novel or some technical book for work. All that I need now is an eco friendly vehicle and a neat looking townhouse and I’ll be an official Seattleite.

Wow, it’s been a while since I last blogged. All in all everything has been going pretty good. We’ve settled into our new place. It’s really nice. It has three bedrooms and two baths. It’s in a brand new apartment complex on the ground floor. Oh at last on the ground floor again. I hate lugging furniture up stairs. We’re just about through unpacking and things are shaping up pretty good.

Work this past week has been really exciting. Well exciting if you’re into geeky tech stuff. You know, I think I’m pretty close to doing the type of electronics work I’ve wanted to do since getting out of tech school. It seems like all that time I spent preparing to be the test engineers right hand man is finally paying off.

The area that we live in is quite picturesque with mountains in the distance, pine trees and smooth river stones. As beautiful as it is, it’s not very ethnically diverse. I look around and find that I’m the only black guy in the area. But that’s ok, I walk around like I don’t see the difference. So there I go around wearing my all black trendy New York garb. You know, the black slim cut Zara jeans, black turtle neck sweater and black Kenneth Cole’s acting like it’s perfectly natural out here in the boon docks. It’s funny sometimes it seems like the difference between fitting in and not is just your attitude. Not that I’ve fit in or anything. I guess I’ve just found a way to feel comfortable while doing it.

Music: Toad the Wet Sprocket, “Windmills”

Do you ever get the feeling that your life is on pause and you’re waiting for someone to press the play button? ‘Cause I’m feeling like that right now. We’ve finally gotten the apartment thing figured out. At least now we know where we’re going to live, but our stuff is still back east. So now I’m just waiting… Waiting to get our stuff to Washington state.. Waiting to start my sweet new job… Waiting to make more friends out here. Well in the friendship department we’ve made some progress. We’ve met a couple really cool families. One family, after we met them for the first time, invited us to join them for lunch at a really neat restaurant downtown. They are a riot. Just Super cool. Another couple, whom we found out also likes to shop at Ikea, has offered to help us unload the moving truck when we get back. I’ve already invited them to dinner as soon as we get our stuff setup in the new apartment.

You know it’s really something special getting to know new people. Each one is almost like a new adventure. There are twists and turns and new discoveries around every corner, some good, some interesting. But then again sometimes it’s what I live for. Because often when you least expect it you find one that turns to gold. I’ve been really fortunate in that respect. Somehow in the muddle that is life I seemed to have amassed the coolest bunch of friends a person could have.

Now the only problem I have is trying to get them all in one place. Earlier today I was talking with “E” and lately he has been reminiscing about all the good times our group enjoyed and how it seems most of us are now on the West Coast. Wouldn’t it be great to have a community filled with all of your best friends and their friends. A place where everybody knows your name… And they’re always glad you came…

Please tell me I didn’t just say that.

I must be getting tired. The brain is starting to slip.

Music: Paul Woolford, “Essential Mix 2005.10.02″

Well, they say the first time is always special, so I guess this must be a really special time for me. With my first blog and everything. Wow, I feel like such a man now.

I am so stoked. I feel like I’m on the top of the world. I’ve got great tunes playing in the background, I’ve just switched to Mac from my life of PC enslavement. I’m discovering so many new things I can do easily with my Mac. It’s funny, I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with computers, now I feel like I’m falling in love again. You know things are not so bad on the other side.

Music: timo Maas. Feat Brian Molko, “First Day”