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Me, thinking about the person on the bus next to me:

Dude, there’s no reason to be smelling bad at 7:30 in the morning. And yet, here you are.

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 during my lunch break the Google Street View vehicle caught me at least three times while mapping the streets near my office. The first time I was on the way to get a haircut. It caught me again after my haircut on my way to the French bakery for lunch. And as I left the bakery on my way back to the office, you guessed it, it caught me again. This of course means I’ll be checking Google Street View constantly for my mug =)

I overheard this at the bus stop today.

Guy #1 to Guy #2: “What you have 2500 viruses on your PC!”

Guy #3: “Man… that’s a lot a porn”

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.

Well after a year in Spokane we are finally in Seattle. We are all moved into our new apartment, well at least we only have a handful of boxes left to unpack. I’m getting settled into my new job and I’m pretty fortunate that I’m working with some really good people. I’m learning lots of kool new stuff. And, actually I’m surprised that no one has yelled at me: “No, no, no, that’s all wrong”… yet. You know this is really a neat little city. There is so much to see and so much to do, I’m trying not to walk around gawking like a country bumpkin, bein’ I done moved to the big city from Texas and all. So far, we have found Indian restaurants, a Caribbean restaurant, and Mexican restaurants. There are so many choices here that I don’t know what to do with myself. I guess at heart I really am a city boy. the weather here isn’t so bad. I’ll tell you it sure is a lot warmer than Spokane. Anyway got to run now, I’m about to check out the movie Breach, hope that it’s good.

Music: Nina Simone (Verve Remix), “Black is the Color of My True Loves Hair”