想い出は遠くの日々

Went up to Vancouver last weekend to meet up with some of my old co-op Japan friends. Since they did come down to Seattle in July, Brett and I paid back the favour. Wakeboarding is sure fun…

Being dragged through the water 14 times before finally getting how to surf isn’t my idea of fun. Also, I was not too thrilled with drinking that much lake water. On run number 1, I failed to get up at all.

On run number 2 however, I finally figured out what to do and got to do some wakeboarding on my first try. When I got up, my friends were cheering but I was yelling at them to take a damn picture before I fell back down. Of the 9 times I got up, I face-planted into the water 9 times. My friends would think that face-planting is my preferred way of stopping.

Finally, some more time to blog. Last week was a rough week at work with more 9 to 9 action. One would say that it’s difficult to leave when your boss is helping you to debug a problem in tandem.

Last weekend, my friend Alice came over from San Francisco to pay me a visit. To put some backdrop into this story, I’ve been trying to convince my friends to pay me a visit in Seattle once I settled down. Since Alice was doing a co-op term in San Fran, Alice and I made a bet that we would visit the person with the largest place. To my surprise, her place in San Fran is far larger than my 750 sq ft apartment here in Seattle. Regardless of the fact that I lost the bet, she was nice enough to come over – to my surprise since I only had a one day notice.

(I’m sorta mad that I lost the blurb below to wordpress draft saving… grrr, retyping)

So for one of the days Alice was over, we visited Mount Rainier. Mount Rainer could be easily seen in the Seattle skyline on a clear day, sorta like Mount Fuji on a clear day in Tokyo. We drove up the mountain and embarked on a good 3 hours of hiking, photo-taking, and mosquito-feeding. In hindsight, I should have bought some repellent since standing still to take pictures resulted in swarms forming around us. Alice ended up with 6 bites and I had a modest 4. We ended up hiking on a trail that brought us very close to the mountain glacier and I was quite surprised to hike through snow covered hills. Just hiking through the mountain trails reminded me of the time I climbed up Mount Fuji, except this was much more gentle. Pictures will do the talking again:

Anyway, I’m very glad that Alice was able to visit me. I’m always happy to host people at my new place.

For the past week or so, I’ve been working 9 to 9 to make my deliverable possible. Some people might think that is rather ridiculous but for me, it doesn’t matter how long it takes me to finish something – as long as I deliver on time. Though this time around, I think my team used this project to test my abilities and I am not one to disappoint. But in short, my team is hardcore and I feel dwarfed by their abilities. Now that I submitted my work, I can breathe a sigh of relief.

Now for some fun stuff and updates in my life here in Seattle:

I furnished my place and it’s now in a decent condition. I am still waiting on my tv though which will be delivered on Monday. I’ll entertain with some pictures.

The past weekend was quite fun… my friend Brett and I did kayaking on Lake Washington. I realized how out of shape I am and I am determined to work out with my free club membership at work.

All in all, things are good. Just a bit tired.

It’s not that I don’t want to blog… I’m a bit short on time these days with all the moving I’m doing lately. I’ll get to it sometime next week.