me

My half-mile walk from where I work to where I have to catch my bus home at night takes me through Pioneer Square. Pioneer Square is a nice district south of downtown with lots of great restauraunts, book stores, and art galleries. A great place to hang out during the day.

But on weekday nights it gets a bit sketchier. There are a number of homeless shelters in the area, so theres this huge influx of homeless people looking for dinner and a place to sleep for the night. The majority of them don’t give me any trouble, but occasionally you encounter one that is kind of strange.

Like the fellow I ran into tonight. I was on the phone with my bank (my bank card was accidentally swapped with somebody elses at the bar last night) while walking to the bus stop. All of a sudden this big pissed off homeless guy comes running out of nowhere yelling gibberish, chases me down, and roundhouse kicks me square in the ass. Then he walked away yelling more random cuss words at me.

And thats my random Seattle story for the week.

Since I recieved a lot of very helpful tips from friends before starting my trip, I’ve decided to archive some of my own suggestions here so other people can benefit from them.

Since I was backpacking and trying to travel as inexpensively as possible, most of these tips are directed at younger people like myself. But I hope everyone else will find them helpful as well.

• London is expensive! Don’t plan on eating or drinking out a lot if you don’t want to end up broke.
• If you’re doing the hostel thing, stay at The Generator. Only 12.50£ a night for a dorm bed, free linens, and a pretty friendly staff. They also have their own bar with 1£ beer specials every night and huge cafeteria-style meals for 3.50£. They also put on a damn good party…
• Definitely go to the British Museum and the National Gallery. I thought the National Gallery was actually more fun than The Lourve in Paris. Smaller and more densely packed with good art, they have tons of more contemporary works by artists like Monet.
• Probably the best way to see the city is to take one of those open-top tour busses. I went with the “Original Tour” and was glad I did. Its kind of pricey at 16£, but you can hop on and off as much as you want for 24 hours, they have great guides that tell stories about the city, and it also includes a river boat tour down to Grenwich. I know I know, its extremely touristy but it really is worth it.
• Marks & Spencer. You’ll invaribly find that you didn’t pack enough underwear, shirts, etc. Marks & Spencer is a great place to pick up some cheap store-brand clothes that are actually quite nice. And the Marks & Spencer “Food Court” (in the basement of most stores) sells a ton of cheap M&S-brand food that is a great value.
• If you’re looking for cheap Internet access, there’s a place on Charing Cross right near the Leister Square tube station that is 1£ for as long as you can sit in one place. Not exactly the nicest, cleanest, or safest Internet cafe, but its cheap and you can usually find an open station.

Yes. That there about sums it up. I’m done. Done with my Masters degree. Probably done with my college career for awhile.

Its a weird feeling. I celebrated it by coming back to my apartment and packing for about six hours. And now I’m celebrating with a nice rum and tonic. Still strange though. I had to run some errands around Oakland and I was assaulted by visions of “college life”. Students sitting on porches with acoustic guitars and beers on a Monday night. I’ll miss college.

Well, here’s to what’s next!

You know what sucks?

Have you ever had one of those days when you realize that there are forces in the world that refuse to make things easy for you?

… Well I just had one.

I was called in earlier tonight to help get some work I did for Red Team earlier this term as we get ready to deploy and test our part of the system. I had my laptop sitting on the hood of the vehicle (a robotic Humvee) while I worked and I stepped away for a moment.

Just about then one of my teammates ran by to hop up on the robot to fix something and inadvertently knocked my laptop from off the hood about 5 feet to the hard concrete floor.

I have less than a week before my practicum project (effectively my masters thesis) must be completed.

The screen, as you can see, is absolutely destroyed. The lid is actually bent enough that it does not close without being forced.

But the machine boots and the disk checks cleanly. If that’s not a testament to the quality of IBM Thinkpads, I don’t know what is.

I’m not angry at the teammate who knocked it off. We all make mistakes. Insurance should cover its replacement (hopefully I’ll get a Powerbook out of the deal). Its just an extremely inopportune time to lose full use of my laptop.

Like horses in their stables

This past weekend I got the chance to go back to Michigan and race with some old (and new) friends on the Mumm 36 “Vanguard.”

Great race. Extremely fast and relatively uneventful besides a few dozen sail changes. Many a record was shattered this year. I beat my personal best by about 10 hours by finishing at 3AM on Monday morning.

I’ve set up a Flickr photoset with my photos from Boat Night and the island.