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I’ve pretty much been in high-gear since Thursday night. I checked out that pool hall and didn’t get home until late. Then I got up and flew back to Chicago (that 4-hour flight always wipes me out) and went out on the town with a few friends since I won’t be around for a while. That was, of course, a late night. Then Saturday was a wonderful Champagne tasting where the party went late into the night again. Combine that with the fact that I’ve been magically rising around 6:30am every morning and my batteries are running low. I flew into Seattle last night (again…that 4-hour flight is an ouch) and got into my apartment around 11pm. I unzipped my two suitcases but didn’t make it much past that as I took care of some things on my computer and laid down on the couch to rest for a bit while watching some non-descript movie. Next thing I knew it was 5am and my eyes were crusted shut (gross, I know…but it’s true!). I stumbled into the bedroom, crawled into my comfy bed and after an hour-and-a-half of sleep felt good and rested and ready to go stare at source code all day! Even though it was tiring, I had a great weekend back in Chi-town which is good since I won’t be back for a while. See ya then!

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. ...

So if you pass a variable as a reference... hehe…yep, there’s some geeks walking around this town! ;-)

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!

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

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. ;-) ...

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. ...

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!

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: ...