Category Archive

8 days ago, I started my new job at Concur Technologies in Redmond. I am exceedingly thankful to my family and friends for the outpouring of support they have given me to get me where I am today. But in actuality, it is through them that God made it happen. I finally have a job that is using my talents in graphic design and it is exciting! But it’s not all easy, as I’m constantly facing new challenges daily, but I am eager to learn and really harness what I’ve learned from high school to today. Thank you for being on that journey with me.

I am currently in a short term contract working in Concur’s Marketing department. The staff are very warm, friendly, and helpful. I love it, and I’m not just saying that to kiss up (in case the powers that be are reading). I mean it! I hope to work hard and we’ll see where it goes from there.

Any further development on Slipstream will now have to wait until I return from my trip. I now must spend the next three days packing, help facilitate community group Tuesday night, and take care of other living details, like signing the lease to the new house. My new address is

316 NW Puget Drive
Seattle, Washington 98177.4843

Also, I finally sold out and started using Twitter. I resolved the fact that I’m utilizing it to engage that part of culture, as it is a very major driving force on net right now, so I’ve gotta pay attention to it at least for a bit. Don’t worry though, I’m not posting/receiving via SMS with it. That would just get out of hand too fast. Pownce is still my first message love, well second to Skype of course.

With the recent fear of giving out personal information over the web and simple ignorance of those who willingly give their information, it baffles me of people’s thought processes with a certain trend I am seeing on Facebook.

Often times than not, I have witnessed on the Newsfeed, or as I like to call it, the Gossip Wall, creation of certain events relating to loss of cellphone. This trend is running rampant like a plague.  The scenario is explained in the following. Those with enough friends on Facebook have probably seen this before or even participated, not knowing what you were doing.

Susie, through random happenstance, or for you Calvinists out there, was predestined to dropped her phone on the pavement… shattering its will to function and or chances of sentient life or future important SMS messages. (like omg!!!)

Susie, is disheartened. Her Chocolate/iPhone/Sidekick/RAZOR is gone forever! Data erased. All her phone numbers of friends and loved ones, gone forever in the aether. What is a girl to do?

Susie, through memory of what her friends have done in the recent past, recalls a quick fix. Facebook! Rather than go through all 2,342 of her friends pages and inserting cell phone numbers, dorm room numbers, former ex boyfriends’ numbers (so to not pick up when they call her, of course)… she creates an Event!

Susie is on a roll. She’s brilliant, she thinks to herself. Why, she’ll create an event called LOST CELLPHONE! And in the description she explains the predicament, possibly in all caps as well, after all CapsLock is CRUISE-CONTROL FOR AWESOME! In this she pleads for all her friends to post their phone numbers proudly and clear to see on the events page. Soon, the friends gladly/ignorantly help. They have minutes to spare. They were just Facebook stalking anyways.

Susie unfortunately, is clueless about the possible harm and repercussions this is causing on her fellow man. Let’s for a moment list a chain of people that this is affecting.

Susie’s immediate friends and family are now posting numbers, thus appearing on their Newsfeed.

One of Susie’s friends, Anna, has now posted her number on the Event page. Anna also has a large amount of friends, two people of which happen to be Carl and You. This event appears on a select amount of Newsfeeds on Anna’s friends list, depending on varying slider settings of those friends and influx of feeds draining onto their Newsfeed at any certain time. Guess what? Both Carl and You are two of those people.

Susie does not know Carl. You do not know Carl. Anna knows Carl, though only in passing. He was this shady guy she might have said hi to in Algebra back in high school. She really doesn’t remember him all that well. “But hey, he went to Generic Public High School with me, I’ll add him. No harm done right?” Wrong. Carl, for this story, is in fact, a danger to this internet community, triggered all by Susie’s thoughtless act of omission. Carl (not to mention You) can now see in full view this event and every public response to said event, i.e. their precious digits. Some of these people, while they thought only allowed a certain number of people access to their private phone number on their profiles, now have it exposed for the Carl’s of the world to see. The implications, awkwardness, and any other problem this causes is scary. Thankfully, because of reading this blog entry, You know better and won’t publicly post your number. Because if You do, Carl has your number now. Way to be Susie, way to be.

Just something to think about the day your cell phone falls in the toilet.

As described in this post, I am leaving Seattle for a few weeks for family vacation, a sister’s graduation, and participating in a wedding. I am now leaving on May 21st instead of the originally mentioned May 24th. This may result in hurting future job leads until I return, but I hope it will not cause major problems. I will be returning to Seattle no later than Thursday, June 5th.

Interestingly enough, when I return, I will also be returning to a new home, as my roommates and I are selecting a new house to live in. This also means the weekend prior to vacation, I will be packing up my room considerably into boxes and ready for the roommates to transport them. Its all kinds of excitement this summer.

I just nailed down some specific dates for this summer today. On (EDITED from original May 24th) May 21st I’ll be leaving this fair city to fly down to Orlando. I’m meeting with my family and we’ll be staying in Daytona Beach (I believe) for a week. During that time I’ll be visiting with friends from Crusade (possibly), the Kandel’s, and friends I originally met through the interwebs itself (Craig, Marty, Brian and Christy). On the 30th, I will be returning to Evansville with the family in time to participate in the wedding of my best friend Matt as he gets married off to some girl named Michelle. I guess she’s cool :P. And as of today, hence the post, I moved my return time from June 1st to June 5th, the following Thursday, to spend time seeing friends in Evansville. It should be a good two weeks of rest and relaxation. I’ll be ready for work (wherever that may be on Friday, June 6th.

Also when I return from said trip, I’ll most likely be living in another house. My roommates and I are unsure of where, but we would like to find a new place, as this one, well… it could be better. No doubt, its in a perfect location and the rent is absurdly great, but we would like a place to come home to that doesn’t depress us just by looking at it. You know? We’d like to welcome guests and not feel ashamed of the cracking and peeling of the walls. So until then, that is the game plan. The lease ends in the end of May, thus our considering moving.

:[]:

As an errata, my brother Jeff and I have nailed down weekend passes for Penny Arcade’s PAX08 convention here at Seattle’s Washington Convention Center. The event is August 28-30, 2008. Jeff will be flying out to visit and hang out with his little brother for some fun of the geek variety, our personal favorite. I’m pumped, as I had a blast going last year. I’ll post links with more info once Penny Arcade’s site is up, which appears down as of this writing.

My computer system is obviously not down at the moment, thus I would not write this. I was purging old emails just now when I came across my newegg reciepts and I remembered that I was going to post the specs of my computer build in order for those of you who were interested and may know something about my crashes with the info provided.

So here’s the lineup in no particular order:

• ABIT IP35 Pro LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard
• Western Digital Caviar SE WD5000AAJS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
• XFX PVT73GUGF3 GeForce 7600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Supported Video Card
• Thermaltake TR2 W0070RUC ATX 430W Power Supply
• OCZ Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2P8002GK
• Speeze 80mm Front Case Fan w/ 3 & 4 Pin Connector (S457-1007)

Feel free to leave comments or contact me. I’m pretty tired of dealing with this.

The following is an attempt to update you on the last two weeks in short bits, as I’m too tired to sit down write full thoughts about each, we’ll just breeze through them so I don’t stress about it anymore.

- Bus Accident
This past Monday, I had a minor bus collision involved with one small car intelligently pulling in front of a double long bus on the freeway at 60-70mph. The bus of course could not slow down enough and hit the back of the car, with only minor damage to both. However our bus was packed to the brim with the aisle completely full of people standing. Meaning that a slam on the breaks causes everyone to fall over on each other resulting in bruising and some back pain from the fall for some. I was thankfully one of the lucky ones sitting down. It caused about a half hour delay getting home, but thankfully it wasn’t as bad as it could of been. Excitement on the Metro.

- Costco
This next week, my roomies and I will be stocking up nuts for the winter, among other things with the aid of my new membership to Costco. Special thanks to my amazing aunt and uncle, Deena and Dan of Nashville, for helping out in this endeavor.

- A Mini OSP Seattle Reunion
This past weekend I hung out with friends Terri, Yugo, Demelza, and Casey [along with wife Christiane (pardon spelling- request for correction)] McCracken. Also along for the weekend festivies and hang out was Casey’s old friend from the Seattle area, Natasha. We all went out Friday for dinner at a pub in Capitol Hill. On Saturday afternoon we attended Fremont’s Red Bull Soap Box Race. It’s one of those crazy annual things you just have to try at least once while in Seattle. It was a blast seeing all these weird karts fly down the hill… or meander depending on their push. The winner I believe was a guy dressed as Murdock, driving an awesomely designed Kart/van inspired by The A Team. It was hilarious and when interviewed at the bottom of the hill, he proclaimed “I love it when a plan comes together.”

- Instant Oatmeal in the cold dark morning
It is the best, second to mom’s cooking breakfast on Christmas morning. I just picked up 4 boxes of the stuff from the local QFC for $8. Can’t say no to that.

- Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Not releasing till this week, I was able to pickup the new Zelda game for Nintendo DS from the company store on Thursday. It’s a beautiful game! They did a fine job on this installment. I’m hoping to trade in about four of my old titles pretty soon to get some money back. I just have too many I don’t play anymore. Such is the way of life and gaming, I suppose.

- Scripture reading
I’ve been doing my daily reading on the bus in the morning and in a mini break room when I get the time. I simply read as much as I can. No set limit other than what is alotted to me. I would like to read more, but my day simply does not allow for it. In the afternoons on the way back from work, I usually need that time to rest my eyes from reading anything from looking at screens all day.

- Glasses
This week, I’m going to attempt to visit some lens places around town and hopefully pick out some brand new specs. I’ll try to have a picture up as soon as I can to show ‘em off.

- Bottle Rocket
We are finally getting a Criterion Collection version on DVD! Our petitions and hopes were not in vain! For those who don’t know what this is, don’t worry about it. For those that do, I say ka-kaw, ka-kaw!

I have an 8 to 5 job. I have a place above my head. I have cheap transportation, which due to the company I work for, will be free next month and the following month after that, and… yeah I’m content with life right now.

Yesterday, I got up early [for a Saturday that is] and walked down to a nearby bank to put in my second paycheck and open a checking account. After that, I got my hair cut at a the local Baseball Barber Shop. Yes, it’s really called that. And it’s just a woman that owns it. She really likes baseball I guess. Afterwards, I left with Scott and Brant and I made my third visit to IKEA to return my LACK shelves. A few days ago, I made the decision that the wall I wanted them hung on was not sturdy enough and just not worth the effort. So I now have a box with a new black-brown bookcase sitting outside my door, laying against my door frame, ready for assembly. Thank you Billy. Also while there, I had some extra in-store credit. So I picked up a much needed dark grey waste basket, a candle, and some junk boxes for receipts and misc. papers that just don’t require folders. You know what I’m talking about. Office space mess.

So back to the work subject, as many of you are sending me emails asking what it’s like. Nintendo is a cool place to work. It’s surreal working in a place just 10 paces from the area Nintendo Power is written up. Or how there is a sweet walk through museum with every system, yes every system they ever released. I cannot say what project I’m working on, other than it is not released yet. Basically these countless teams of men and women spend all their day scouring every inch of these games looking for and reporting bugs to our supervisors, who then prepare them for the Master Bug Log, which is read by the developers of the game, sometimes just a few buildings over in Digipen or the Area 51 areas that are so secret, most don’t know how to find them. That write up we put together is also translated into real-time for devs in Japan even. So the work we do is important to the very essence of the company and getting a quality product, at least one with no bugs, to the public. They take that golden seal on the back of the box seriously.

Lastly, last weekend I went to see 3:10 to Yuma. A very fine western. Dad would enjoy it a lot. It’s a remake of the original which changes little in the story except elaborates on the actual trip to the train station. It’s certainly the best western I’ve seen since Open Range or Serenity, if you count it as at least half a western.

Friday night, I said my goodbye to Chad and his family as they visited Washington for a two week vacation. We met up at The Triple Door to see Over The Rhine in concert. This was my second time seeing them and certainly not my last. Every show they do is a real treat. They know how to make an audience quake in the knees and beg for more. True entertainers to the highest degree. And yes, I picked up The Trumpet Child in vinyl. This brings my collection up to 12 since starting this Spring.

Okay, with that, time to get that bookcase up before church.