Being that I’m out of town for an extended period of time, I have to fend for myself most of the time when it comes to the food department. I’ve never really been a fan of cooking, and it’s especially difficult when it’s just a meal for one. There’s so much prep that has to be done and there’s of course the cleanup. I don’t mind cleaning up so much, it’s mostly all the prep stuff.

But with a Whole Foods just barely half-a-mile away, it’s been very easy to partake in their “oven-ready” selection as well as their other wonderful food bars. So once again tonight, I rolled over there after a nice run to grab a bite to eat. This time it was pork chops and the guy behind the counter recommended that I sear it first before popping it in the oven. “No problem”, I thought…I can handle that!

Well here’s a crash course for somebody who’s never seared before. Don’t let the pan get too hot (medium - medium high should do) and don’t put in too much oil (just enough to coat the bottom - don’t forget that some of it will displace when you put the chop in). Not only did I do both, but I also tossed the pork chop into the pan like I was pitching horseshoes. Mayhem and oil erupted all over the place! wa_apartment/IMGP2483

oops! If you look closely at that picture, you’ll notice something under my feet. Yes, those are paper towels. Yes, it’s because the oil even got on the floor. Yes, I made a gigantic mess. And yes, it was absolutely ridiculous and I laughed out loud. Regardless, the pork chop came out pretty darn good and was a nice treat when combined with the Chinese chicken salad and a little light jazz and some mood lighting from my laptop (Fn-PgUp for you ThinkPad folk).

And of course, for your culinary viewing pleasure: wa_apartment/IMGP2484

I was able to snag some pictures of my new place in Bellevue as well as the downtown park I mentioned. You can check ‘em out in the new Bellevue album in my gallery. The apartment’s not too shabby and there is a Whole Foods close by that is gigantic! As you can see, I’ve already partaken in their wonderful selection: wa_apartment/IMGP2469

After being there for a week and exploring a little bit, Bellevue doesn’t seem like a bad place. There’s new construction going up all over the place (usually a good sign…) and I’ve already found a couple nice places to hang out.

Here’s one of my favorite pictures from the Bellevue Downtown Park: downtown_bellevue/IMGP2478

So if you pass a variable as a reference…

hehe…yep, there’s some geeks walking around this town! ;-)

Chicken vindaloo and the Taj Mahal of beers A word that opens all kinds of doors David Gray - This Years Love “Small ensembles in big ensembles assemble” buffer overflows DoS and EoP frankness spring exercise the new 2125 soccer cleats! hiking shoes! friends family Love

Well…if I ever tire of hitting up the outdoors, it looks like I have a place to kick back and relax here in Bellevue.

Parlor Billiards and Spirits - Where the pool tables are plentiful, the plasma screens are big, and the martini list is long. Oh, and they have free wifi…w00t!

OK, Pacific Northwest…it’s just you and me, buddy. What do ya got for me??

As I’ve mentioned prevoiusly, I’m in the Seattle area (specifically Bellevue) for a little while. It’s starting to get very nice and spring-like out here. After the most boring 5K of all time on the treadmill last night (I literally watched the seconds tick by…I need an iShuffle), I was excited to come back home early enough for it to still be light out and a brisk 60-degrees. Not wanting to waste any time, I rushed inside, unpacked my computer, signed onto the Internet, got on instant messenger, checked my e-mail, browsed the web for a little bit and then quickly threw on my shorts and running shoes. ;-)

Sticking with my usual tactic of running in the city, I went whichever way the little white man on the crosswalk signs told me to go. Amazingly enough, I managed to end up at the Bellevue Downtown Park - a beautiful 20-acre spread where it seems everybody else goes to run, walk their dogs, and play frisbee, catch, and soccer! It’s still pretty chilly, so it wasn’t too busy but I can only imagine what it’ll be like in another month.

Good start, Pacific Northwest…good start.

I needed a free PDF printer recently and came across PDFCreator. I downloaded, installed, and it works great! Gotta love open-source.

Hello from Seattle again! You’ll be hearing that a lot lately…

I got in a little early today because I wanted to go to the client and put in a few extra hours. The office is right down the road so I decided to take advantage of the brisk weather and walk on over. On the way over I passed this one company whose office is set deep in a wooded environment. I’ve been a bit stressed lately, so I took a little detour and managed to end up in the middle of several tall firs. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and felt my brain let go. I leaned back and opened my eyes to see the tops of the firs mixing with the sky. Man, do I miss the woods! It felt great to get outside and walk around.

Speaking of the woods, I’m looking forward to my upcoming stay in Seattle. There are so many things here that I can’t wait to do and I’ve gotten a lot of great ideas. There’s obviously the great hiking, camping, etc of the northwest and I hope to be able to get out and do a lot of that. But there’s also Vancouver, an awesome bike park just half a day’s drive away, Seattle’s Underground Tour - I had no clue about this underground city thing, but my bro mentioned it to me when we were talking last week. Somebody also mentioned that the San Juan islands are pretty cool to check out. And then I’d love to hit up some of the old-school alternative scene…you know go check out where Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden, etc. got their start…if it’s still around, that is.

And then, of course…there’s Mt. Rainier. All 14,410 ft of that sucker are going to tease me every time I go back to the airport and I see it looming in the distance.

I can’t wait for it to get warm so I can get out and do all this stuff! It should be a good few months. And since I’ll be out here for a while in corporate housing, this is also an open invitation for anybody that wants to get away for a while and join me in the back country! Come on…you know you wanna hit those 20 ft drops on your mountain bike at Whistler. ;-)

A couple years ago at an RSA conference, I saw Oracle’s CSO Mary Ann Davidson give a presentation called “Confessions of a Process Junkie” about software engineering and the culture surrounding coding. She had a very good argument regarding the qualificaitons and certifications required of civil engineers vs. the standards and (lack of) qualifications and certifications surrounding software engineers. For example, here are some of her examples of if Civil Engineers built bridges like developers write code:

• “We can add some rebar later, so what if the concrete has set?”
• “The bridge has crumbled? Sorry, I can’t reproduce that problem here.”
• “But it wasn’t designed to have so many trucks on it.”

I think you can start to see the point. Well, as is usually the case. A picture is worth a thousand words. errata/hacked09mar06 from SecuriTeam

There’s so much that can be said about this topic, but I think the image above says enough by itself. I wonder if software will ever reach the point where it can be relied on to drive mission-critical systems as this certainly isn’t the case today.

The UConn Huskies played the Washington Huskies tonight. Last-second three pointers to tie the game, overtime, turnovers, and 47 UConn free throws made for quite the exciting game. My poor mother (HUGE UConn fan) must have been falling off the sofa with anxiety. But UConn pulled through in the end and won. Time to hit the sack for me - busy day tomorrow…but first, time to rewind and watch a few highlights on my HD DVR!