richpurcell.com

A couple days ago I received a voicemail from a friend in Germany. Wouldn’t you know it, the one day that I accidentally have my phone on audible ring while listening to music on my headphones I get a call that I’ve been waiting for. Well it was good to hear from him anyway. Yeah I’m talking about you E =)

Anyway if you read this soon call me man.

You know this just could be the motivation for me to get an iPhone. Right! Like I need any motivation to get another pristine, beautifully designed, Apple product.

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 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 =)

A co-worker just introduced me to http://xkcd.com. Geek humor, what’s not to love?

No matter how many breath mints I put in my mouth its never enough to overcome the chronic halitosis of the person on the bus next to me.

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”

A couple days ago I got this card:

Thankyou once again for all your hospitality you’ve shown us during our west coast visit. [We] had a great time with you all - memories that we will hold dear…

“As apples of gold in silver carvings is a word spoken at the right time for it.” The really cool thing about this card is that it wasn’t bought at a store. It was hand made. I never thought it would feel this good to have someone take their time, energy and their skills to make something personalized just for me. Its amazing the effect we can have on one another.

One day I’d love to have a Bead and Breakfast. I find that I really like having friends over. I like sharing the really cool things about this city with friends from other parts of the country. Of course while I’m at it one day I’d love to have a restaurant and I’d like to learn how to play the guitar and I’d like to learn how to apply differential equations to solve common problems…

And the list goes on.

Well that’s it. I’ve finally done away with my old desktop PC. I’m at the verge of being an all Mac household. Whew, and its about time too. The old desktop is probably the oldest computer I have ever had. I acquired it way back in ‘99 when the startup I worked for at the time finally went under. It lasted through a few upgrades some not so graceful yet it persisted. So as at any solemn occasion we should observe a moment of silence in respect for the dear departed PC… OK lets party!! Did I mention that I love Mac’s. “Everything just works” Actually today I got rid of two PCs. The other was an old laptop that was as old as dirt. Yeah, yeah, I went through all the security measures, I wiped the hard drives, removed the ones in the desktop for later disposal, the whole shebang. The only PC I have left in the house is a Gateway laptop I got back in 2001. And its gone as soon as I can convince myself I’m not getting rid of something that is still useful. Well I should be able to do that already, I almost never use it. And why should I? Since installing VM Ware on my Mac, I can run any Windows programs I need to with Windows XP running inside a window on my Mac. As ironic as it is, my Mac is the fastest Windows machine I have ever worked on.

I finally decided to get my own domain name. So if this is your firs time here, Welcome! After years of sticking with earthlink just so I could retain the same email address I decided to get something that would be a bit more permanent. Not that anything really is, but I’d like to maintain the illusion of permanence. This marks a new era for the richpurcell blog, a new domain-name + a new blog tool = a new look. I decided to join the ranks of most serious bloggers and use a tool that is widely used and engenders a more mature looking blog. Not that I, by any means, have attained a more mature outlook. So if you like the new look, hate it, or just want to say hello be sure to use some of the new features and post a comment, search for a phrase, view the photos, or listen to some music. It’s all here, and yeah, it’s all good.

Music: The National Bank, “Hello, My Name is Fread”