Most of you already know. Those that don’t, this will be news. I posted the cute little map a week or so ago, but what it really meant is that there are a couple changes coming up in my life. I recently found a new tenant for my apartment in Chicago. I will be in Seattle this weekend looking for a place to live.

That’s right. I’ve decided to pull up my roots and move out west. Something I never thought I would do, at least not to the extent that I am.

As many of you know, I spent about 5.5 months out of this year in the Seattle area for work. Turns out I absolutely loved it. Between Rainier, work, and that whole dancing thing…I created a whole new life for myself out there. It felt good. And I’m taking a risk and moving far away from friends and even further away from my family (as I write this, my sister is in the process of moving back east). There’s one friend I’m moving a little closer too…and I’m very happy about that. I miss that guy! It’s funny. I’ve always believed things happen for a reason and I was originally very upset about having to spend the entire summer out in Seattle. Turns out…It’s reminded me of the things I love most in life. Is it far from friends? Yes. Is it farther from family? Yes. But what’s a couple extra hours on a plane - I’ll still go home for the holidays, it doesn’t matter where I am. What matters is living life and doing what you love. So that’s the news. My last day at my current job is tomorrow. I’ve got an awesome new job out in Seattle with an awesome group. I can’t wait to get back out to the mountains. And I can’t wait to get back to the wonderful Bellevue studio (the Chicago studio has treated me quite well in the meantime, tough). And I can’t wait to immerse myself in my job and the Seattle culture. Don’t worry, Dad…I won’t become a wacked-out liberal! I will miss Chicago. I will miss my friends, but that’s why I hope to find a place where they can crash when they come visit me. I will miss my family, but I’m no closer than I was in Chicago. I will miss my new friends I’ve met even in the past couple months since I’ve been back in Chicago…you know who you are. A couple of you only work a half-mile from me. There’s a lot I will miss…but there is a lot I am looking forward to. Quality of life. Mountains. Hills. Camping. Hiking. Biking. Dancing. Security. Skillz. P1r4t3z. Etc. Seattle offers all this. Chicago offers quite a bit, but there are so many things I reconnected with when I was out there that I simply can’t stay away.

So that’s it. A little over one week and I’m headed out. Thanks to all my friends here - you will keep me coming back, and I hope you come out to one of the best places in the country to visit me. And if I call you in the middle of the night next week…it’s just because I’m on the road and need a little love and some conversation to stay awake on my trek out West. When I get there…I will have driven across the entire country on Interstate 90. Live…love…and…as always…hack on.

I’ll miss you Chicago.

D

I laughed out loud when I saw this:

It’s a reference to the recent iPod virus issue.

For all one of my readers that faithfully listens to This American Life (TAL) on NPR, TAL is now available as a podcast!  I’m pretty pscyhed because I usually only happen to catch snippets of it while I’m running around doing Saturday morning runs to Home Depot and the grocery store.

Other favorite NPR shows (dorky, I know…):

• Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz - acclaimed artists and up-and-coming performers as they share music and memories with their legendary host, Marian McPartland.
• Car Talk - The “Tappett Brothers” diagnose your car over the phone…and make fun of you.
• A Prairie Home Companion - Something of a live stand-up comedy show.
• Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Know? - Another fun quiz show with celebrity guests.
• Wait Wait – Don’t Tell Me! - Fun news quiz show.
• Jazz with Dick Buckley - plays rare recordings and shares his personal stories of the greats of jazz.

That’s the short list.  Most of these are on Saturday and Sunday mornings/early afternoon and it’s a favorite tradition of mine to make a purpose to be either in my car or in bed when these come on so I can thoroughly enjoy them.

This evening, a few friends and I went to a restaurant called Timo, formerly Thyme.  This place is right up the street from me and I’ve passed it dozens of times and have always wanted to check it out.  I must say - one of the best dining experiences I’ve had.  Ironically enough, the outdoor garden patio is rated as one of the best in the city, but being that winter has come early that was not an option.  Regardless, the food more than made up for that.  Service was excellent with sneaky waiters finding a way to continuously refill the water without being noticed and folded napkins in the event that you left the table (which we did to check out the garden patio).

For dinner, I chose the pork shank - other options at the table included a halibut special, sea scallops, and a steak.  The pork shank was absolutely amazing and truly fell off the bone - no knife was needed.  All of the other dishes were spectacular too - I would order any one of them.  Dessert, as well, was amazing.  I had a trio of creme brulee that was easily some of the best I’ve had.

I simply can’t say how good this meal was.

I know where I’ll be next thirsty Thursday!  Only so many Thursdays left…

Just to further illustrate the point made in my last post…

This is fall in Portland, Maine:

And this is fall in Chicago:

Yup…that’s snow.

That’s right - a low of 32 degrees this evening. Welcome to fall in Chicago…

I’d like to take a moment out of my normal ramblings to wish a Happy Birthday to my Grandmother.  It’s days like these I wish I could be closer.  Happy Birthday from thousands of miles away (and soon even a couple more thousand! ;o))

I’ve been obsessed with listening to music lately.  Check out my Last.fm page for what I’ve been listening to.  I only turned Last.fm’s recording feature back on tonight, so it’s not too extensive but I’m sure there will be a lot of tracks on there that you won’t recognize.  But why am I so obsessed lately?  I’m on a mission.  A mission to find new, interesting, passionate music that I can incorporate into the dancing world.  Funky stuff.  Groovy stuff.  Stuff with feeling and passion that hits home and makes me want to jump up and stop working and start moving.  I even spent almost eight hours this past weekend searching for methods, algorithms, and software to catalog all my music into different dance genres, however the best I could find were research papers on the subject - it seems it’s still a difficult task.  Pretty cool stuff, though.  If F. Gouyon and S. Dixon have any of that software available in the public domain, I’d love to get my hands on it and run my entire collection through it.  It doesn’t seem they’ve released anything concrete, however. One place I like to go for new funky music is the Mercedes-Benz Mixed Tape - I’ve found some pretty cool stuff on there.  I’ve also been making use of iTunes’ new “Just For You” feature which recommends songs based off of previous purchases.  I really enjoy that feature and it has resulted in me spending money I probably wouldn’t have otherwise…just what Apple intended.

…who wants to go for a drive?