While randomly walking around in Tacoma me and my sister ran into these older people lawn bowling at Wright Park. They invited us to play and taught us the game and stuff. I thought it was pretty silly that they were all dressed in all white clothing and stuff, but then again it was super hot that day. This could be really fun with a bunch of people and some beer.
I have finally gotten all the data that I need, so now writing the paper is all up to me. I have a huge incentive to get it done ASAP since the only way I will be eligible for a promotion at my internship is if I finish the paper and get the degree. But dang, the summer is nice in Seattle, so there are numerous distractions.
I just began a new internship where the office happened to be located on Vashon Island, which is only accessible via ferry.
So each day I have been getting up super early to make a 7:35am ferry from Downtown Seattle headed to the Island. On most days I’d catch an express bus a block from my house, but I was able to bike there too which was funner. On the boat since it was in the reverse direction there were at most 7 people in the morning compared to the 100+ coming to Seattle. The boat was kinda loud, but had nice seats and tables where I got a lot of work done on my new laptop. Unfortunately that boat wasn’t wifi-equipped like all the other ferries.
Once I got to Vashon Island, a bus would be waiting for us passengers making the transfer really convenient. All in all I’d probably leave home at 6:50am and get to the office at about 8:30am, which could be the equivalent time that it would take to drive to the Fauntleroy ferry terminal and all.
On the way back the bus would always get there early and more people (sometimes as many as 20) would go back to Seattle. The scenery was amazing on this commute as I would see downtown Seattle from Elliott Bay each day, and all the other vessels from huge container ships to small sailboats and even a submarine one afternoon.
I’ll miss this commute, however I won’t miss the cost. Each ferry ride was about $7.50 round-trip and then I’d have to pay extra for the buses too. Starting next week, our company is moving their office to Tacoma, so I’ll have the option now to take the commuter train, although it is also really expensive ($4.75 each way) and leaves way too early in the morning from Seattle at 6:10am.
One evening during my trip to Europe as I got back to Křivoklát I could hear some rock music coming from somewhere. Feeling in good spirits I decided to go investigate what kind of shenanigans were happening. I originally thought it was fairly close, but as I started walking towards the sound, it became apparent that the music was coming from Roztoky, an entirely different village about a mile and a half away.
I knew that it was going to be some raging party so I went back home and told my family I’d be out late. My Uncle Milan told me that he thought Brutus was playing.
Brutus as my Dad tells me is a legendary rock band in the Czech Republic. According to their website the band has been performing in some way, shape or different band name since the 1960s.
I started walking down towards the music and because of the terrain and winding roads it became perhaps a three mile long walk as the music got ever louder. I eventually got to the main stage at a park in Roztoky at maybe 22:30. They were no longer charging an entry fee of 150 Kč (about $10) and good thing since I only had about 45 Kč on me. The beer sales were going strong with two beer booths from local breweries and another place that seemed to be selling some harder alcohols. There was also a foodstand too.
There must have been at least 500 people at the concert. And although most of them were younger, there were a lot of middle aged people and I also saw a kid who couldn’t have been older than 10.
On the stage, Brutus was playing with perhaps a nine member crew: a drummer, a few guitarists and bassists, a singer or two and a keyboardist. My Dad knows the keyboardist since I believe that they played together in a band while in high school. The keyboardist was perhaps the most energetic of all the members even though he had a gray beard and gray hair going just past his ears.
The band had it down and seemed to play in a certain cycle of songs. They would be playing some moderate song and then a faster song up to a mosh pit pace and then right after that transition into a slow song where lots of couples suddenly started forming for that song.
I couldn’t comprehend any of their Czech songs, except for one where I could understand the chorus. The keyboardist introduced the new song by saying a bunch of Czech words and then what I thought was “Al Gore!” with the crowd enthusiastically cheering. Confused and feeling silly I shouted back, “Yeah! Al Gore!” They started up their song and sang the chorus which actually went: “Allllll-Ko, Allllll-Ko, Alllllll-Ko, Al-Ko-Hol!!”
The band played with only a few slight interruptions usually consisting of the keyboardist riling up the crowd for a minute or two in-between songs. They kept on playing and eventually stopped at 1:50am and ended with a fireworks show that lasted about 5 minutes. After seeing the fireworks show I knew I hadn’t missed out on anything by being in Europe on July 4th.
The band was no longer on stage after the fireworks and the crowd very slowly started dispersing. People were still buying beer after all this and as I walked home I passed that kid and his dad. As I neared Křivoklát I could hear some people behind me singing some Brutus songs while walking very slowly. This was quite the party for being out in the Czech countryside.
Well, I did accomplish the overall goal of being uninjured, but I feel like I still didn’t perform my best in both of these events physically. Even so I’m glad I was able to function.
Heck yeah, it looks like I’ll be able to complete every single goal I had on my list of things I will do differently in Grad School! I’ve just set up an interview with a company that almost exactly matches my career interests in the transportation field. I’m excited to start too.
Each quarter during in my classes I had at least one big project in at least one class where I had to work with classmates to get the job done. It was challenging of course since we were all still learning the material in the class, yet in the end we got the stuff done.
However, I still don’t think I really learned how to perfectly coordinate with a group to efficiently get everything done. It seemed like each group had a different style of getting stuff done, sometimes I was the unofficial leader, other times a minion. In the future in the working world, I sure hope that I can figure out how to efficiently work with others because I just dread having to do things over because of poor group coordination.
For a whole three weeks, numerous trips to bars, and several offers of beer I have managed to avoid alcohol for the three weeks prior to finals. I think that it helped me stay focused on academics and also forced me to be more social while not being intoxicated which is challenging.
I’m drinking again now, but it seems like I’m drinking less than before and I’m choosing a little higher quality beer such as Fosters over PBR. Overall, I think that staying below drunkenness is a better way to experience life anyways since the experience isn’t altered and since no raging hangover awaits you the next day.
I’ve decided that since I’ve been a lifelong resident of Washington State with most of that time in Seattle, I have become an excellent avoider of puddles and water. A second summer is approaching with this goal being incomplete, but I’ll probably eventually dread all this sun and crave some puddles to avoid and maybe even jump into one for joy when it pours rain again in Seattle.
I was on my way to an interview last Friday and was planning on catching a bus to downtown. I was all dressed up in the suit and tie. I had my bicycle with me, but I wasn’t about to pedal to downtown to be all sweaty for the interview.
I rolled up to the bus stop about a minute before the bus was scheduled to arrive feeling cocky about how awesome I am at arriving just before the bus is scheduled. Only this time, the bus didn’t arrive on time. It pulled up 10 minutes late and I got on to the standing room only bus (which is actually normal for that route, so no big deal (to me at least)).
The bus took off and made its way up to the University Bridge, which was wide open. We waited for this barge for something like 4 minutes. I saw one of my biker friends pass the bus as we soot still. The bridge went down and then the bus was off at pace fast enough to hit a red light just after the University Bridge with all the bicyclers long gone down Eastlake.
The bus was moving fine now along Eastlake, but all hopes of the bus gaining back any time was wiped away as some dude on the bus broke out into a seizure. The driver stopped the bus and called in a medical emergency. I could tell that at this point the bus wasn’t going to get me there on time, so I asked the driver to let me off and he did. Now, the guy with the seizure, I don’t know what happened with him, but I do know that I have no place being in the medical industry and was of no use to anybody on that bus, perhaps I was even an obstacle in this situation.
So with no regrets and less than 30 minutes until my interview I took my bike off the bus and started pedaling through Eastlake towards downtown (in my suit). As I got onto 2nd ave I unbuttoned my suit hoping to air myself out. I rolled up to the building, locked up the bike, took off my helmet and gloves in the elevator and was 10 minutes early. After this ride I can understand why some people have their worries about buses.
Thanks a bunch to all of you for your happy birthday wishes. I did have fun on my birthday: I worked a bit on my website and rode my bike around Seattle in a group, going to a bar and another party and consumed at least 4 glasses of water and no alcohol.
Happy birthday to me!
In fact I’ll be eating the eggs I bought over at the farmer’s market. I went over there on the 80+ degree Saturday this last Saturday. The market was actually a bit smaller than usual since there was also the U-District Street fair. But it was still pretty cool with a whole bunch of veggies that I still don’t have a clue what they are, some pastry booths and some salmon booths too.
As I entered, I looked at the second booth and saw that they were selling eggs, whereas I had just consumed the last two eggs in the fridge (bought from Safeway). Well naturally I bought them. They were $5.50 for a dozen which is definitely more expensive than the buy-one-dozen-get-another-dozen-free deal (total ~ $4.00) I’m used to seeing at Safeway. It was also pretty convenient because that booth was able to take a credit card.
I haven’t cooked the eggs yet, but am looking forward to friday morning when I usually have enough time to do so.
This quarter I couldn’t have it worse for finals. I’ve got 3 finals all on the same day. Furthermore, the beginning of the 3 week period starts a day before my birthday. I’m not sure how well this goal is going to go.
Lately I’ve been realizing that the current Mayor and Councilmembers of my hometown Seattle are already fairly pro-parks and pro-transit.
Just today I sent an email to all city councilmembers supporting a renewal of a parks level that’ll expire this year. However, one of the councilmembers replied back already saying that they’re already working on it and seeing how it can get done. Also, Mayor Nickels is the new chairman of the Sound Transit board and is a big proponent of extending Seattle’s light rail system (as well as another Seattle councilmember).
It’s good to know that the city is pro-transit right now, but it still feels like we’ve got an uphill battle against the state and county to get this shit done.
After this recent slew of bicycle injuries I’m getting a bit worried. There are two events coming up that require me to be physically fit. The first is Ski to Sea in just a few weeks and I’m scheduled to be the cross country skier. And then in Europe I’m slated to help do a bunch of house repairs on the family house.
I realy want to be in my best shape so I won’t let down my Ski to Sea team and shoulder more work onto my family while in Europe. It sucks that I’m injured and I want to stop it, but getting in bike crashes is too easy. I don’t want to stop riding bikes either, but it looks like I will be riding much less than usual until I’ve gotten back from Europe (and until I get a job w/ good health insurance too once I’ve graduated).
This was certainly an epic Greenlake race for me. I had just put on new tires and a new back wheel onto my trek which I hadn’t ridden for a while. Immediately I could tell the huge difference as I headed down to a party in Wallingford. As it neared midnight about 7 of us left the party for the race at Greenlake.
At the race I could tell that it would be slightly more competitive than last month’s race of 3 contenders. We had the winner of last year’s Race of Champions and a semi-pro biker known for being an excellent sprinter. We started off at an already faster pace than the previous three months (possibly combined).
As we made our way around the lake, there was a final pack of maybe 6 or so racers. I was 4th just behind the sprinter guy. I knew that he would probably make a sprint past those two guys. He made his move just before the final curves and I drafted off him ahead of the two. But I had some extra inertia and was able to accelerate past him just before the final curve. I was cruising very fast and could tell that I was going to win it. I shook my fist in the air as I rode past the finish line at probably 25mph or so.
But then, as I brought my hand back down, I made contact with a guy on my left and went down HARD. Me and my bike skidded for a good 20 feet on the pavement after stopping in some gravel. I got up and started checking to see if everything was still working. I had road rashed my entire left side and my shoulder couldn’t really do the full range of motion. I started putting on the bandages and wiping off the wounds for a good ten minutes or so. The rash was so bad that I didn’t have enough bandages to cover up everything.
But I had just won and wasn’t about to let this crash mess with my evening. So after the race I put my track jacket back on, took my winnings with me and headed back to the party and danced the night away!
The next day I went to the ER and they concluded that it was just a bunch of bruises with no broken bones. So after all that I’m on the disabled list for biking for another week or so. And as I type this my shoulder is telling me that I should probably ice it.
So, I think that the last 3 Saturdays in a row I have actually been on a bus passing right by the U District Farmers Market either a few minutes before or during when it was open. I was in a hurry each of the times, so I didn’t stop, but I was actually up and awake while the farmers market was open.
But the challenge-worthy aspect of this whole thing is that I’ve told myself that I would actually buy something from the market before my birthday. So there. I’ve also got a feeling that I’ll enjoy food that much more knowing that the proceeds from my purchase won’t be shipped of to some distant land as a lot of other food is shipped from distant lands. Seriously, Atlantic Salmon in Seattle? What gives?
Everytime that I’m in downtown Seattle, my brain is whirling about trying to figure out what bus route out of the 5 or 6 that I could take will get me home fastest.
Luckily I was downtown at 10pm this time, so only 2 really made sense, either the 66 or the 73. Well the 73 wasn’t coming for another 15 minutes, but the 71 showed up while being followed closely by the 66. Since both of these buses hit up Eastlake, I figured that since I needed to go to the bathroom that I would hop on the 66 and see if it would beat the 71 to the Zoo where I would relieve myself.
I hoped on the 71 and saw a regular driver and I told him “I’m going to race you to Eastlake on the 66”. I got off at the next stop which was 3/union and then ran to 3/pike to catch the 66. The 66 however, stopped at nearly every stop along the route and hit reds at 4th, 6th, Boren, Stewart, and Republican. By the time I got to Eastlake/Lynn the 71 was nowhere in sight either behind or in front. I figured that I had lost the race!
Well, I went into the zoo and had an el jefe which I thought was a pretty bad weizen and then I went back out to catch the 73 once the glass was empty. Transit is so much fun!
This was a decent bar. They had $12 pitchers of averagish beer. The decor was nice, maybe too nice for Georgetown. The floors weren’t even creaky.
So I decided to keep my other recently bought bicycle in its current configuration. Yet when I was just browsing around Recycled Cycles they had a $20 frame exactly like my other Centurion except that it is maroon. Well that was too good of a deal to pass up, so I bought it!
However, I still think that it’ll be a while before I start building it up because I’m so poor being a college student and all. Hopefully once I’m making more money at a job then I’ll be able to build it up.
