I’ve just returned from my first Washington surfing adventure and, despite its best efforts, the ocean didn’t manage to kill me. But I think I’ve caught the bug. Any sport in which beer drinking and campfire making is so integral is a winner in my book.

Update: I’ve also uploaded my first YouTube video… a short clip of the break from this morning.

In case anybody noticed my extended absense, I was racing in Whidbey Island Race Week, an annual regatta on an island (Whidbey Island, in fact) in northwest Washington. I was racing on a Choate 27 I often crew for named Allegro Con Brio. By the skin of our mathematical teeth we managed to earn ourselves a third in our class.

I’m slowly adding photos to a photoset in my Flickr account

So I held off on blogging for a week or two. Partially because I was busy/lazy, and partially because I was waiting to hear back from HR about Amazon.com’s blogging policy.

But I finally heard back from them. I think they created a blogging policy simply because I asked. As such I’ve added a disclaimer to the sidebar of my blog reminding you that although I work for Amazon.com, I don’t speak for them. And don’t expect me to give away any deep dark Amazon secrets… that would certainly get me fired.

What I can tell you is that my group builds the tools that medium-sized third-party merchants use to sell products on Amazon. So when you buy an item thats sold by that mom & pop shop in Wisconsin, you’re dealing at least a little bit with my group’s code. Amazon is an awesome place to work and I’m very excited about the directions in which we are going.

Other than that… I love Seattle. Its an awesome town. I found a great apartment on Alki beach with an old housemate from college and I’m settling in nicely. Now I just need to find a boat to race on…