Back in Kirkland

My flight back was pretty uneventful. It took about an hour to get my bag in Seattle because they were short staffed because of the weather. So I didn't get home till 3pm PST. The roads were pretty clear except for the few places the road was shaded.

Ok, lots of work email to catch up on and I need a nap.

Delayed in Madison

My flight from Madison to Chicago was delayed enough to make it impossible for me to make my connection. Then everything else was booked up till Tuesday morning. I could have spent tomorrow sitting in the airport hoping to make it on a flight standby. However I didn't feel like cramming myself into whatever seat they would happen to find for me tomorrow.

So now I'm on the 7am flight out on Tuesday. I'll just work from here tomorrow and I'll have my apartment manager check on the cats.

At least I didn't get stranded in Chicago or Denver. I'm also currently winning the weather game (50 and raining in Madison vs 34 and snow in Kirkland). I will not miss trying to drive the 911 in the snow.

Cell phone unlocking legalized

The Library of Congress ruled on some new copyright rules. The big one is that you can now legally unlock your cell phone. This means you can take your phone from Cingular and use it with T-Mobile, just swap the SIM card. Not sure about Verizon and Sprint since they use different technologies.

Wanna see where I work?

Scoble visited our offices a few weeks back. Here is the video.

Casino Royale

I give it a thumbs up. Best one since GoldenEye.

Its not a secret that poker is an integral part of this one and that makes this one much more approachable than the original with baccarat.

My only real criticism is there are about three endings in the movie. Each time they manage to bring up one more twist. Its fine since its all good stuff, but it just feels a bit weird.

Anyway if you like Bond go check it out you won't be disappointed. However you might be fighting the crowds, took me four tries to get tickets.

It wasn't me

I would just like to preemptively state that I was nowhere near Washington County during my last trip back to Wisconsin.

Back in Kirkland

I'm safely back in Kirkland.

My trip back was pretty uneventful, the flight from Madison to Denver was a little late, but I had a long enough lay over in Denver that it didn't matter. I like flying thru Chicago better , less time on the small plane, but Denver works in a pinch. Denver also has the advantage of not having to change go all the way from C to F concourse like I do every time in Chicago.

The weekend was good, the Badgers could have played a bit better, but they are young so I'll cut them some slack. It was also very nice of Wisconsin to welcome me back with a snow storm. Reminds me of why I'm in Washington :-)

Time to get to work.

Moving the goalposts

Dear United,

Your flight isn't actually on-time if you just change the arrival time on the board to the time that the plane is going to show up, not when it was supposed to show up. You aren't fooling anyone. We all have the real time printed on our boarding passes. Knock it off.

Sean

In Madison

I'm safely in Madison.

I decided to mix it up and take the city bus to the airport for my first class flight (burned some miles for the upgrade). It worked pretty well, but I ended up on the local instead of the express bus and got there about 10 minutes later than the express.

First class was nice. Not worth actually paying for over the economy plus, but definitely worth spending some miles on the upgrade.

Flight into Madison was only about half full and on time. So just dropped Jen off at her class and now its time for a nap. Hockey tonight!

It's Official

Allen concedes the Virginia Senate race. So the Dems take both houses. This is gonna get interesting.

Go Vote!!

Enough said. I mailed in my ballot a week ago.

Flooded falls

Check out this video that one of my teammates shot of Snoqualmie Falls. Make sure to look at the Wikipedia link on there to see what the falls normally look like. BTW its still raining.

There is no substitute

From My 911

Ever since I got rid of my 944 I've been regretting it and been plotting my way back into another Porsche. I figured the Cayman was my shot since it was much closer to my price range than a new 911. I finally had a chance to sit in a Cayman at the Seattle Auto Show and quickly concluded there was no way I could fit in out without losing an arm. As usual leg room was fine, but the car was just too narrow for my shoulders.

Having ruled out the Cayman as a possibility left me with either going back to a 944 or finding a 911 I could afford. I don't really have the right setup right now to keep a 944 running. They frown upon doing oil changes in my apartment's parking garage and hauling my tools in and out would be a pain. So I started researching 911s.

I did some very detailed budget projections and figured out what I could truly afford and worked that into a price range then went hunting for cars to look at. In Bellevue I found a nice 2001 911 Carrera with 65k miles. The colors weren't quite right (light gray interior) and the car was a bit dinged up, so I kept looking.

Turns out across the street is a place called Park Place which I fear will forever have a hold on me. They only handle used high end, collectible, and sports cars. They are a new dealer for Lotus, but there is no way I'll ever fit in one of those. They had exactly what I had been looking for a 1999 Black/Black Carrera 2 in my price range. It only had 45k miles and was in perfect condition. Not even any swirl marks in the paint. It also has the manual seats which seem to give you a bit of extra head room over the powered seats. I need every fraction of an inch I can get, but there is just enough space and I can drive it very comfortably.

To do my due diligence I checked out a higher mileage car at another dealer in Seattle, but it again was the wrong color (silver exterior). I figure if I'm getting my dream car it needs to be perfect. So I headed back to Park Place to see what kind of deal they had come up with while I was out. After a couple of round of back and forth we basically agreed they would give me what I owed on the lease on the Mazda and I'd pay sticker price for the 911. I signed the papers and drove away with my new(-to-me) 911.

I love it so far, I haven't had too much of a chance to really push it since its been raining so much. The only real downside is that I am now limited to only having one friend at a time since the backseats are a joke. Either that or I need to start befriending smaller people :-)

Rain, Rain Go Away

The last few days have been how most people think the weather is like in Seattle. Constant real rain, however this isn't normal and even has the locals a bit freaked out. Also the fact that there is flooding shows this isn't ordinary.

The modern economy amazes me

I bought one of the new iPod shuffles to take to the gym. It is so tiny you can clip it on your shirt and not worry about it while you are working out.

This little tiny piece of plastic started out in China, flew to Alaska, then flew to Indiana to clear customs, and now it will fly back to Washington to get delivered to me. Its just amazing that they just sent it 2500 miles past its intended destination just to clear customs.