jfin is here…

Just when I start shooting my mouth off about how much more relaxed my work life in corporate America is, I end up having a frantic week.  10 hours on Monday, 10 on Tuesday, 18 on Wednesday .. thankfully today is quieter.  Quite looking forward to going back to my own bed in San Jose for the weekend.

The company I’m working at is huuuuuge.  The scale of their operations completely blows away anything I’ve seen back in NZ.  Having a number of different IT teams spread out over different states between the east and west coast (and timezones) can make running a job somewhat challenging.

It’s funny sometimes, the response I get when I’ve got my “auditor” hat on.  Some people are very friendly and helpful, others are very blunt and answer the question but nothing else, others try to help but are just too busy and constantly distracted, and with others getting access to information is like getting blood out of a stone.  So when I find those helpful-and-friendly people, I definitely try to make the most of it.

Listening to : Neil Young - Rockin’ In The Free World

This is my cousin Lucas. He’s generally a very energetic young lad. Spent the weekend down in San Diego (photos) hanging out with him and his parents and sister Grace, who were all up from Peru on holiday.

Grace was very shy when she first saw me.. apparently, after I’d left, she said “I thought he was going to be a small cousin!” Her only other experience of a cousin is a 3 year old so I guess that’s understandable… I am very big and scary.

One of the great things about having an uncle who’s only 4 years older than me is that Finny and Susie are more like friends / brother / sister to me than ‘older and wiser’ uncle and auntie. Plus, it makes a great talking point.

They might be wiser.. hmmm, who knows? :-P

Spent Saturday at Seaworld, and then today relaxing before having a rapidfire tour of San Diego from the very hospitable Mr Hicks (friend who my family were staying with). The beach suburbs (Mission Beach, Ocean Beach..) are very cool, they haven’t been redeveloped yet and still have that kinda old school feeling.

Back in Seattle now.

Was sitting at my desk yesterday and figured out that I needed a bit more cash in my New Zealand bank account to pay my last mobile phone bill. Hmmm. Flick the bank a quick email asking for details and find out what their Chips UID is.

Log in to my American internet banking site, choose to do an international transfer, insert amount, destination bank and Chips UID, and destination account details. Submit those details, and (as requested) follow up with a telephone call to my American bank customer support line to confirm the transfer.

12 hours later (the next working day) I log back into my NZ internet banking account and there it is, my thousand dollars.

Log into my mobile phone company’s website and check my account balance, then back into my NZ internet banking to make the payment. Easy!

Friday night .. finished work, packed car, drove into Seattle, picked up a few goodies from outdoor store, and then went down to the waterfront and waited in line for the ferry. Caught the 9pm (mmmm, sunset!) sailing over to Bainbridge Island where I had planned on camping but they were full so drove on to Chimacum near the top of the Olympics.

Saturday .. meandered through Port Townsend, ferry to Whidbey Island (enjoying views of Vancouver Island and Puget Sound), drove the length of the island stopping at various spots and then out over the bridges at Deception Point. Through to Bay View State Park, setup camp, and relax on the beach for the evening. Finished reading ‘Speaker for the Dead‘, by Orson Scott Card - the sequel to ‘Enders Game‘. Another great book.

Sunday .. drive east from Bay View into the middle of the North Cascades National Park. Will have to come back with more time and hiking/climbing gear sometime. Some amazing mountain views .. again, stopping at various spots, took the loop road back out to the I-5, south and back to Seattle / Bellevue.

The two ferry trips were probably the highlights .. there is definitely something very relaxing about cruising slowly through nice calm open waters. Can this somehow be used to give a metaphor of enjoyment of non-turbulent periods of life? :)

Photos here.

… but to sulphuric acid it’s lactose and sucrose. C12H22O11. Disaccharides. The acid will react with the sugars to form an elemental carbon and a thick gummy residue. It should be enough to clog up that rupture temporarily at least.”

Macgyver is awesome. An ingenuitive fearless intelligent gentleman. Nothing like the current breed of new-fangled hippity-hop gun-slinging action heros with no respect for the ladies. Could anyone else get away with that mullet?

I remember sitting in front of the TV - with Mum and Dad, “late” on Sunday nights (I think it was Sunday nights..), having been allowed to stay up and watch - completely absorbed in what Mac was going to do next to save himself. The theme song still makes me feel a little on edge…

(I went to Fry’s this evening and bought the Series 1 DVD boxset. Just watched the first episode … memories!)

Listening to : Anathallo - Genessaret (Going Out Over 30,000 Fathoms of Water)

Back in Seattle. I’m told that one thing is true in this life … if you take a flight with Alaskan Airlines, it will be delayed. And my flight last night was. Finally got in to hotel just after midnight.

Worked today, then went for a drive up to Redmond. Couldn’t find Bill Gates. Ate dinner at Fatburger (quite possibly the worst burger I’ve ever had), then drove back down the eastern side of Lake Sammamish with a slight detour up Inglewood Hill just for kicks (Inglewoooooood!).

It’s kinda sad .. a beautiful lake, quite large, but next to impossible to get access to the shoreline .. all private property, except for the boat ramp I found at the south end. No Queens Chain here. There were a few boats and skiers / boarders blatting around out on the glassy water, looked pretty amazing.

Avis upgraded me to a Ford Explorer. Drives a little softer than the pimped out sik ‘bru. I’m a soccer mom, yeah!

Listening to : David Crowder Band - Come Awake 

Great final .. the French (Zidane) scored from a spot early on, and Italy quickly responded with a great goal of a corner kick.  Rest of the game and extra time were scoreless, with the Italians taking the penalty shootout 5-3.

Italian defense was strong.. in extra time they dropped back so far it looked like they were playing 7 at the back.  Threatened on a few corner kicks but as they got tired stopped pushing forward.  For the French, Henry looked good running with the ball but never got close enough to goal to make his mark.

Red card to Zidane near the end of extra time, deserved after he head-butted Materazzi in the chest.  This picture says it all .. leaving the field, without even looking at the trophy.  He didn’t come back out to the field for the shootout.

.. swimming pools quite jealously.

I don’t know why … I think it’s just a kinda funky skill to have. Plus I wanna be one of those cool dads who can do crazy stuff like flips off the side of pools. So the other day, making good use of a pool after a hot few hours hiking, I decided to figure out how.

Not really much to it… just jump, put your head down, kick your feet up and over, and let ‘er rotate. It hurts quite bad when you land flat on your back. Hurts less if you don’t bounce so high off the board, and even less if you cork your flip a little .. but then it doesn’t look as classy.

Never quite made it all the way around, but hey .. good things take time. (Thanks for the photo, Kristy.) Next step, trying it on a wakeboard or a snowboard…

.. is that you can’t sue for personal injury.

This story is interesting… a young American died on a South Island skifield in 2004 after losing control while skiing at speed, going off-trail and into a creek bed.  His family were attempting to seek compensation, but New Zealand law only allows for punitive or exemplary damages.  Definitely not the millions-of-dollars verdicts that are often awarded over here.

The questions the family asked in their statement show quite a difference in mindset .. “Were there no warning signs or out-of-bounds markers? Was there no local representation from the resort to visually describe the runs and their peculiarities?”

The Kiwi perspective in this case would place more emphasis on expecting the person to take responsibility for their own safety, rather than being reliant upon warning signs or some kind of visual description of potential hazards.  If you are injured the government will look after you to a certain point, but there is not the same degree of liability assigned to a service provider or operator.

http://www.careerbuilder.com/monk-e-mail/?mid=11393693

http://www.careerbuilder.com/monk-e-mail/?mid=11393856

http://www.careerbuilder.com/monk-e-mail/?mid=11394187

http://www.careerbuilder.com/monk-e-mail/?mid=11393975

The possibilities are limitless (as long as they are no more than 200 characters).