Lathe26's Journal

Leaving Microsoft

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:21:34 GMT

My last day at Microsoft was yesterday. After 11 years at Microsoft and 10 years in Microsoft Hardware, I decided it was time to leave. My feelings are currently mixed in that they range from excitement of upcoming possibilities to sadness in how Microsoft has changed over a decade.

My upcoming plans are to take a month off to decompress and then spend the next couple months refreshing my coding skills in preparation for interviewing with small local software companies.

Car broken into

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:00:23 GMT

Not a good month for me and my car. Sunday night, someone broken into my car parked in front of my apartment building. Fortunately, no damage was done to it (no broken glass, etc) and the only thing stolen was one of those "car cigarette lighter to 110V outlet" adapters (worth $30). They appear to have quickly gone through every compartment and left stuff strewn about inside. They even went through the emergency roadside kit. Sigh.

In a car accident

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:16:37 GMT

I was in a car accident Tuesday night. Short version: I got rear-ended on SR-520 at about 8:30pm at night (traffic stopped, so did I, heard squealing tires, bam).

Myself and the other driver are all right. I have some muscle soreness but don't think I have any serious damage, though I have a doctor's appointment on Monday just to be sure.

My car is mostly ok. The bumper is in one piece but is scraped and cut up, the passenger rear lights are broken, and there is some paint scuffs on the trunk. However, nothing structural is broken. I had to get new license plates since my rear plate was lost in the accident (and the mounting mechanism is broken). His vehicle front is all mangled up but only cosmetically (grill is gone, bumper all bent up, etc).

I took Wednesday off from work because I was so stressed, shaken up, and tired from lack of sleep. People have been understanding at work for this.

FaerieWorlds and Camping

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:09:04 GMT

Last weekend, DeMonika and I went to FaerieWorlds in Eugene, OR (think of a fairy themed ren-fair) for 2 days and went camping at Oregon coast for 1 day. Camping was great (DeMonika's and my own first camping in decades, we're itching to do it again) and FaerieWorlds was worth the trip.

My photos are posted at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lathe26/sets/72157621843906509/

You can check out more of FaerieWorlds at http://faerieworlds.com/

Coming out of our hidey-hole

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:58:15 GMT

Ok, DeMonika and I know we haven't been out much the past pew months and that is because we've been taking on some big projects that sucked up our weekends.

I painted 5 dressers for months on weekends (I was almost ready to set fire to them by the end)
We moved out of our rented garage at ActivSpace and into a smaller and cheaper Puclic Storage space (ActivSpace is a great place, simply wasn't using it, may rent again sometime)
We spackled/painted/cleaned our ActiveSpace
I fixed up the car a little
We cleaned up months of backlog at the apartment
We dealt with DeMonika's mother's poor health and passing away
etc

Oy! That's a lot of stuff. Talk about feeling relieved.

So anyways, come July, everyone will be seeing more of us out and about. Yay!

Odd Quiz

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 05:19:46 GMT

Your result for What Gender do you Think and Feel Like?...

Tough as Nails

Male Heart, Female Brain

Your feelings are male, but your thoughts are female. Such combination can make you tough and fiesty.This test is not about physical sex, but gender, which has nothing to do with what body you were born into or what your sexual orientation is. However, you express yourself in a very balanced way.

Take What Gender do you Think and Feel Like? at HelloQuizzy

Are You A Lady?

Thu, 21 May 2009 19:33:01 GMT

You Are 48% Lady

You're part lady, part modern woman.
Etiquette is important to you, but you brush aside rules that are outdated or silly.

Are You A Lady?

Vampire's Masquerade Ball photos

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:59:48 GMT

I thought I'd share my photos from this year's Vampire's Masquerade Ball in Portland, OR. Enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lathe26/sets/72157616152724604/show/with/3400177751/

"Underworld : The Rise of the Lycans"

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:09:47 GMT

We're going to see the movie "Underworld : The Rise of the Lycans" on Sunday 2:35pm at the Meridian 16 downtown. Who wants to join?

Trailers viewable here: http://www.entertheunderworld.com/

Vampires Masquerade Ball in Portland

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 02:14:14 GMT

Who's going to the Vampires Masquerade Ball? Vendors, music, and dancing.

We just bought our tickets today.

It is Saturday March 28th in Portland, OR with tickets at $25 now and going up to $30 on Feb 23rd. There is a meet-n-greet event the night before (separate tickets unfortunately) that we also plan to go to.

Details available at http://www.vampireballpdx.com/

-Chris

Divorce / Alimony Poll

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:40:33 GMT

Ok everyone, my last alimony payment, after 5+ years, is January 30th. Given that I am not feeling vindictive about this (i.e. the Stranger Valentines Day burning is a bit much), I'm taking a poll.

To celebrate my last alimony payment, what would you do?

It begins...

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:43:03 GMT

"Billionaire kills himself over financial crisis"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28522036/

SNOW!

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 04:45:20 GMT

It's SNOWING!!!

I don't know whether to cheer or go on a rampage.

If I go on a rampage, I'll do it in my nice, warm, grey, East German winter coat... oh wait, I remember how the last one ended up in UW.

If you are going to Northgate Mall...

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 04:13:29 GMT

If you are going to Northgate Mall and decide to go to Best Buy, Target, or any of the other places across the street...

DO NOT PARK IN THE PARKING STRUCTURE

I just spent 30 minutes getting in and and 1.5 hours getting out for all of 15 minutes of shopping. Park in the mall's parking lot or even the Park-n-Ride lot and just walk over. In the parking structure attached to Target, Best Buy, etc it was a madhouse because of the Xmas shopping, compounded by the weather, compounded by people having accidents in the parking structure itself, and further compounded by security staff that don't know how to direct traffic (left the 4th floor loop folks on hold for 30 minutes while waving everyone else past).

Normally, I like snow and ice...

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 01:54:18 GMT

Normally, I like snow and ice, but this time around it is MOTHERFUCKING PISSING ME OFF!

The main reason is that I am on vacation and am working on a long project to sand, prime, and paint 5 bedroom dressers. Since I can't do this in my apartment, I am doing it in the limited space I have available in my ActiveSpace unit in Ballard (sort of like a garage space you rent to do projects in). Because of the weather, I have been unable to travel up there and now, even though I had 3 weeks to do the work, time is running out fast for getting the work done. If it weren't for this, I would be a happy-go-lucky guy enjoying vacation time, taking all kinds of photos and enjoying my time off. Instead, I'm trapped in my apartment stewing over the stuff I want to do but can't. Grrrr....

Yet another new LJ icon

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 20:31:30 GMT

Here's a new LJ icon I just created for myself (from an old web site called www.EvilHamsterDance.com). I had nothing better to do on yet-another-snow-day. :-)

Thanksgiving

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:29:11 GMT

So... what are people doing for Thanksgiving?

Obama wins, Gregoire wins, pro-mass transit wins

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:17:12 GMT

As everone knows, Obama won, Gregoire won, and pro-mass transit won! Yeah!

I'm stuck in Los Angeles, CA for Microsoft's WinHEC conference. Interestingly, my hotel happened to be one of the official Obama celebration locations. I'm not sure what specific group it was, but the crowd was very strongly African-American. It's one thing for me to think that I've been waiting 8 years for an election like this (just to get Bush out), but after talking with folks you really realize that some other people have been waiting a lifetime for an election like this. That really put things into perspective.

Amusingly, my own happiness when Obama won was muted because I was still scared that Rossi was going to win. When ABC news called that Gregoire won, I let out a health "Hell, yeah!" with my fists in the air. I was the only one doing it at the moment and some people looked at me a little odd. :-) Feeling literally relieved, I relaxed, ordered a stiff drink from the bar, and settled into some great chats with my nieghbors at the bar.

I spent so much time at the bar talking with folks that I didn't get into the dance area until very late and all the T-Shirt vendors had left (there were some cool Obama T-shirts I missed out on). Oh well. A small thing in the grand scheme of things.

One of my co-workers was stuck at another hotel where the McCain party was going on. Needless to say, the party was less... enthused... there. :-)

Party went great

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 19:17:52 GMT

DeMonika and I had our "House Reheating Party" last night (we'd previously already had a House Warming Party) and it went very well! Thanks to everyone who came (too many people to list).

DeMonika and were doing some scrambling the first hour of the party (we had WAY too much food left to prepare) but fortunately almost everyone was on Goth time so only 1 person was stuck sitting and watching the 2 of us run around like chickens with their legs cut. cyclpath, we promise next time that the party will be ready on time and we hope you didn't get too bored before other people started showing up.

Here's what we had for food:

Guacamole with and without Tequila, served with corn chips
Chocolate Fondue, served with lemon snap cookies, strawberries, nectarines, dried apricots, dried pineapple
Two hummus (should the plural be hummii?) with different bean bases, served with pita bread
Black Squid Ink Pasta with pesto sauce, red peppers, and sun-dried tomatoes
Green Veggie Pasta with Tofu, peas, and marinara sauce
Chocolate mousse
Vegetables with onion dip
Gravenstein applesauce
Pineapple soaked in Vanilla Stoli
Blueberries soaked in Vanilla Stoli
Tangelos soaked in Cranberry Stoli
Strawberries soaked in Vanilla Stoli
Raspberries soaked in Chocolate Vodka
Pretzels (shaped like cat heads)

We have LOT'S of leftovers. The only thing we think we'd probably do next time is have larger servings of fewer food items.

KFC

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:07:06 GMT

Make your own KFC sign at KentuckyFriedCruelty.com

Bat Walk

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:29:22 GMT

Last night, DeMonika and I went on a "Bat Walk", hosted by Bats Northwest (a small non-profit group).

Not really so much a walk, the guide aimed the talk at a general audience, though it was fun to see him mention that the Fall breeding season is like a "bat party... more of an orgy" with kids around. After the talk, we watched Big Brown Bats and later a Silver-Haired Bat (pictured below) swoop over our heads at up to 5 at time in the small clearing we were in. Rather than spend the whole evening craning our necks, we laid back on the grass and gazed skyward. He even brought along a "bat detecter" which is a device that simple converts the bats' ultrasonic calls into clicks we can hear, including the "feeding buzz" the bats make just before an insect strike.

If you have interest in this, it happens every 2 weeks at Green Lake. Details are posted at http://batsnorthwest.org/events.html

We also had free entertainment from a nearby homeless man with a flute (playing badly) who stared at us most of the night and made weird noises.

Word of the day: "Thunderbucket"

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 05:29:24 GMT

Anthony Bourdain (of the TV show on the Travel Channel called "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations") taught DeMonika and I a new phrase.

After he ate some good local food at an outdoor restuarant in rural India, he said that while food can often taste fantastic in the evening, time has taught him that sometimes the next morning "you have to spend quality time on the THUNDERBUCKET."

Say that one aloud a few times.

I'm suing because they made me lose weight...

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:11:40 GMT

"An inmate awaiting trial on a murder charge is suing the county, complaining he has lost more than 100 pounds because of the jailhouse menu."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24350725/

I guess this guy can't live on 3000 calories a day. How sad...

Goth at work

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:54:04 GMT

Amusing story: I have a fellow who works for me who also has an adult son. A while ago, the son was planning to visit his father at work.

Father: "Now Chris is Goth, but he seems ok and is extraverted."

Son: "Yeah, there are a few Goths like that. They do the PR work for the rest of them."

:-)

My new LJ icon!

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:57:33 GMT

What do people thing of my new LJ icon?

I just created this from a Capital One credit card commercial. He he