Sunday, February 25, 2007
My friend Alissa (pictured above - another shot is here) has a crepes brunch at her house today. It was simply delightful! I got to meet a lot of her friends, as well as hang out with my old recruiting buddy Ron for a while. Everyone brought a crepes topping and we all talked, took photos, and played Settlers of Catan for about four hours.
After the brunch I had Mike and company over for some video games, bad movies, and pizza - all in all a very satisfying end to my weekend. We played some Crackdown and watched the worst movie in history: Mazes and Monsters.
Speaking of Crackdown it’s a fantastic - if not short - game. I beat the final boss today and discovered it’s twist of an evening. I kind of wish they had delayed the launch slightly and added more content - but that can’t be helped. It was well worth the money I spent on it to get a week of fun running around on the rooftops causing chaos.
“Sultry Alissa 02” by sparktography
A is for age: 25
B is for beer of choice: Pyramid Ales, Apricot Amber
C is for career right now: Program Manager out at the big borg
D is for your dog’s name?: Skype!
E is for essential item you use everyday: My cameras
F is for favorite food: Steak, steak,steak!
G is for favorite game: Oblivion
H is for Home town: Walla Walla, WA
I is for instruments you play: A loooong time ago I played the flute
J is for favorite juice: Odwalla
K is for whose butt you’d like to kick: George W. Bush’s
L is for last place you ate: Red Robin
M is for marriage: and the horrific legal ramifications it stands for
N is for your full name: Sparky
O is for overnight hospital stays: Several pneumonia related incidents as a child
P is for people you were with today: Brien and a bunch of co-workers
Q is for quote: “Kill all humans” - Bender
R is for Biggest Regret: Not quitting my job at Greythorn years earlier
S is for status: terminally single
T is for favorite TV show at the moment: Battlestar Galactica
U is for underwear you have on: Calvin Kline boxer briefs
V is for vegetable you love: Avacado
W is for worst habit: Smoking more nicotine than I should
X is for x-rays you’ve had: Chest, head, mouth, and chest, chest, chest
Y is for yummy food you ate today: Banzai Burger at Red Robin
Z is for the zodiac sign: Leo
Thanks Phil!
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Yesterday was a cleansing day - no nicotine, no caffeine, no meat, no sleeping aids- nothing but 128oz of water and some veggies and I feel great for it. I had been feeling tired for a while so I thought giving my body a day to get itself back up to speed was in order. I can tell I needed sleep because after dinner I got tired at 7pm. 12 hours of sleep later I feel great!
Today involved much good food and relaxation. I went to the Taj in the University district with Scot for lunch and got a healthy dose of chick peas and pannier. On the way out I stopped to snap a few photos of the mural they have outside their parking lot and managed to snag the above dreamy shot.
Dinner was sushi (after several traffic and timing aborted sushi missions in the last week) at Blue C with Brien. Getting there was still trouble (why does getting to Fremont insist on sucking so much?) but we were rewarded with a bounty of delicious mercury laden fish!
“Mural of India” by sparktography
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
I hate blogosphere memes, but this one sounded interesting. I still refuse to “tag” people. Here are 5 things you might not know about me:
1: I grew up in Walla Walla, WA - a town of less than 40,000 residents in Eastern Washington.
2: My first computer was an Apple IIGS that my parents dutifully bought when the school district suggested that I might be good in this “new computer field”. It came with 512K of RAM (!) and was later upgraded to 4MB to accommodate multiple programs resident in memory at once.
3: While growing up I spent nearly two years at the Morning Star Boys Ranch in Spokane, WA. Not exactly the most glamourous part of my life, but it sure was important looking back at it. I doubt I would be where I am today if not for it.
4: I have a guilty habit of buying too many books that look interesting and letting them pile up around the house unread. I would estimate that I have 40 un-opened books (and at least as many movies) laying around the house. Someday I’ll get around to them all!
5: My favorite spirit is Vodka, with my drink of choice being the illustrious Greyhound. When not drinking Greyhound’s I go straight for the sugar and like Pina Colada’s. When not drinking spirits at all I always am up for a nice red wine - the richer and more cloying the better.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
After slowly draining my house of every drop of liquor I had been reduced to drinking “Condo Gin”. I call it condo gin because it’s the remainder of the bottle of nasty gin that came with my condo. After a few weeks of being a bad booze host I decided to drop by the liquor store on my way home from work and “stock up”.
In other news today was a good day! I’ve been slammed at work, but it’s being recognized: my contract got signed for another 6 months, and I managed to get a raise out of it. I may get down from time to time because my job can be so draining, but I have to keep reminding myself that I’m on the career path I want, and it’s 100x better* than recruiting!
Drink to celebrate anyone?
“POTD 12/13/06 - It’s booze time!” by sparktography
*Better in this case means more interesting, more technical, good for the world, and for the love of god I feel like I have a soul again!
Friday, November 24, 2006
Thanksgiving was good this year - 2 days with the whole family in Eastern Washington can be fun. Between Janet, Dave, Mom, Dad, Skype, and myself it was a pretty full house for the Toews family.
There were some great memories made over the holiday: dad burning the turkey, Skype getting a giant beef bone with real raw beef still stuck to it, watching Monty Python with the family. I gave my old Powerbook to my parents (an early Christmas present) and was quite pleased to see how much use my dad got out of it in even the first day - I think it’s good to see them getting more into technology.
I took the following picture while driving back with Skype today:
I’m glad to be home and have an actual weekend ahead of me. I have a little work to do, but hopefully it will be for the most part a chance to simply lay around and relax - something I have not done in far too long.
“Return from Eastern Washington” by sparktography
