Well my parents are leaving in a couple days. Today they did a bunch of touristy stuff in the center of the city. Then, they met us at our apartment and we went to Kerry Park. After that, we went to the locks and then went out to dinner for seafood. The weather was alright so we were able to eat outside.

I'm not sure what they're going to do tomorrow without a car, since it sounds like they did everything they wanted to do pretty quickly today. However, tomorrow night we'll make dinner for them and then we have some ideas for the rest of the evening. I'm taking the day off of work on Wednesday, though unfortunately I had a job interview scheduled for that afternoon, so I won't be able to spend all day with my parents. But, I think we'll be able to find things to do.

I just wish it was more exciting for them. Seattle is a touristy place, but I guess that a lot of stuff is appealing to people with children or people who love the outdoors. I hope the other ideas we have will be enjoyable and hope it doesn't go by too fast.

It was very hot in here Sunday. It got kind of cool last night and this morning I used the fan to bring in as much cool air as possible, however it was back up to 80 degrees in here in the afternoon. It seems like it's cooling off, though, so hopefully tomorrow it won't get as warm in here. We haven't gotten to spend a lot of time here with my parents because it's been so warm.

Ever since we got here, we've been wanting to subscribe to a magazine about Seattle or the Pacific Northwest or something similar. We didn't know which one to get, so a few weeks ago when we went to the public library, we read quite a bit of the May issue of the Seattle Metropolitan and Seattle Magazine. We decided that we liked the Seattle Metropolitan more, so we sent a subscription card in about 6 weeks ago. We just now received July as our first issue. I'm looking forward to reading it every month and finding new things to do and new places to eat in Seattle.

There was a big gay pride parade downtown yesterday. I had no idea that this was going on, but my parents were downtown and told us about it. When we met them downtown for lunch, the parade was still going on and there were tons of people lined up to watch it, including some children. It was totally different from anything that I'd ever seen in D/FW. As Lesley and I walked along the parade looking for somewhere to cross, what I noticed in the parade more than flamboyantly costumed individuals of unidentifiable gender, were lots of messages of peace, love, and tolerance and even a church marching with signs welcoming everybody.

I'm sure there may have been some protests somewhere, but I can't imagine something this elaborate going on in Texas without considerable protest. While I've noticed several small examples of how it's more "progressive" or more "liberal" here, this parade was probably the biggest difference. While I can understand that the parade would be unappealing to a lot of people, I am glad that people here seem more tolerant of the fact that everyone's different, right or wrong, and less interested in judging other people's sins.

There are tons of outdoor activities to participate in here in the Pacific Northwest and kayaking is one of them. We kayaked once in Hawaii and it was fun, so we decided to go kayak sometime here in Seattle. I had heard about this Mexican food place called Agua Verde located on Portage Bay between Lake Union and Lake Washington that also rents out kayaks, so I figured we’d go there sometime. Then, the young adults group at our church decided to make our monthly event in June a kayak event at Agua Verde, which was pretty convenient for us.

So we met everyone this past Saturday to kayak on Portage Bay near UW. We had to wait in line for about 40 minutes despite getting there when they opened at 10am. I made sure we put on plenty of sunscreen since it was going to be sunny and hot all day Saturday. We finally got in our double kayak and headed for the Washington Arboretum, which didn’t seem that far away until we started paddling. Sometimes it was hard to steer the kayak because other bigger boats would pass by us and create waves. We kayaked for a little over an hour and I was so sore once we got back. My upper back and arms were really tired. The seat wasn’t very comfortable either, which made my lower back hurt too. The group stayed to eat lunch at Agua Verde, but we had to bail out on lunch since Troy’s parents came into Seattle earlier than we thought they would. But at least we were able to kayak with the group. It was fun to get out on the water and get some exercise and do something we hadn’t done much before.

We spent yesterday afternoon and most of today with my parents. We drove them around some and went to a park with them yesterday. Today, they took us out for a nice meal at McCormick and Schmick's and then we rode the ferry to Bainbridge Island. They were pretty tired, today, though, so they went back to the hotel early. I think they've had a good time so far. We have a few more things planned and I'm looking forward to spending more time with them and I really hope they have a good time here.

We've been attending Seattle First United Methodist church pretty regularly since we moved here and aside from the great people we've met, one of the things we've liked most about the church has been the senior pastor. His sermons have been some of the most relevant, motivational, interesting, and entertaining sermons I've heard from any pastor. Unfortunately, he was only an interim pastor, and this weekend was his last weekend. We were able to attend his last sermon, but we will miss him.

As we've mentioned before, our apartment doesn't have air conditioning. It's a pretty new building, but apparently they didn't feel like air conditioning was a feature worth installing. That's pretty common here, for some reason. But, today and yesterday were among the hottest days of the year. And, since our apartment faces the afternoon sun, it has been getting pretty hot in here. What makes it worse is that my parents are in town, so we can't really spend any time here. I'm looking forward to the cooler weather over the next few days.

After some uncertainty earlier in the week, my parents are arriving today for a visit. They'll be staying until Thursday and they'll actually be here quite a bit earlier than we expected. We have a few ideas in mind for what to do while they visit and really hope that they have a good time.

Texas has a good state flag. I'm not a flag waving kind of guy, but it's a nice-looking, classic flag that I can be proud of.

However, I can't say the same thing about the Washington flag. In fact, I'd say it's probably one of the worst flags in the United States. It's just a picture of George Washington's head on a green background.

I know the state is named after George Washington and all, but couldn't they have come up with something better than that?

I think their first mistake was naming the state after Washington. He was a good general, first president, and dollar bill, but there's already a Washington in the United States, did we have to create another? That's just unoriginal.

But, one thing I've realized is that these Washingtonians love them their George Washington. This guy's face is everywhere.

There's a park downtown and one of the sculptures is a 360 degree profile of George Washington (see picture to right).

And the symbol for state highways here is the highway number on top of a white silhouette of Washington's profile. I guess that might be better than the shape of Washington state on the signs, but come on, the state's named after him, isn't that enough? Does he have to be everywhere?

I guess it's not really a big deal, I mean, at least they don't have murals of him here, as far as I know.

This Tuesday, driving while talking on a cell phone will become illegal in Washington. The police will only be able to pull someone over if they're breaking another law, but after that, they can be ticketed for talking on a cell phone.

I rarely drive now, and when I do, I rarely talk on a cell phone, so I don't really care too much about this new law. Plus, I've been careful enough (or lucky enough?) to not get pulled over for anything ever, so I don't think I'm going to do anything differently.

Whenever I tell people where I'm from, I say that I'm from Dallas, but I'm really not sure if that's true. While I did grow up in Fort Worth and have spent a lot more of my time there than in Dallas, I spent most of the past 6 years of my life in Dallas, and that is the last area where I had a residence. So, in that sense, I am most recently from Dallas (or at least Dallas and its suburbs). It's also just easier to tell people I'm from Dallas, since it's a more popular city. I do slightly feel like I'm betraying my Fort Worth roots, since in many ways I'm more a Fort Worthian than a Dallasite, but I'm really not sure what to say, or if there is a right answer.

I've commented before about how we've been riding the bus here more than we ever did in Dallas or Fort Worth. Riding the bus here is pretty popular and most of the buses we've ridden on have been pretty full. However, while the buses are used much more than DART in Dallas or The-T in Fort Worth and our location in the city makes them more accessible to us, I can't say the system itself is that much better.

While many of the buses we've ridden on have been full, too many of them have been packed full, requiring us to stand. This hasn't been during rush hour or after a special event, it just seems that the route that goes by our apartment is always full. We can see the bus pass by from our window and it's often crammed with people. And, they're not even regular-sized buses, they're double-length buses with an accordion-style section in between to allow the bus to turn. However, that bus only runs every thirty minutes, I think, and it's just not frequently enough considering the number of people who ride it.

Oh, and the buses are never on time. Unless you're late, in which case they arrive early. Whenever I wait for a bus, I look at the posted time and add ten minutes to it to have a better approximation of when the bus will arrive.

Plus there is no light rail system (yet). A small section of light rail will open next year, but I can't believe it's taken so long.

There are a lot of bus routes, but the problem is that I think that there are too many routes and there doesn't seem to be much difference between them. The 66,70-74, and several other bus lines all go between Downtown and the University District but they have different numbers for some reason. Plus, what makes things worse, at least for people not familiar with the bus system, is that there isn't just one bus system. There's King County metro, which operates within Seattle and the rest of King County, but there's also Sound Transit, which provides bus routes between Seattle and many of its suburbs. The Seattle Streetcar is operated separately as well.

Then, there's the ticketing confusion. Sometimes you pay when you get on, other times you pay when you get off. Sometimes the bus costs $1.50, other times $1.75 (during peak-hours), other times $2.25 (two-zone peak-hours), unless, of course, you're a senior or a child and then it's all different. And sometimes it's free downtown but sometimes it's not. And there's a special bus that goes downtown after Mariners games and it's $1 and stops at different places each time we've ridden it.

A lot of people buy a monthly pass for the bus, since they use it all the time, but since we only use it occasionally, we buy a booklet of tickets. However, you can't buy a ticket book on the bus, you can only buy it at certain stores. But, we can't pay with credit card, we have to pay with cash. The tickets come in a confusing variety of options, depending on what type of tickets you want ($1.50, $1.75, etc.). Since we normally travel outside of peak hours, we got a booklet of $1.50 tickets. However, if we ever want to travel during peak hours, we have to carry around a quarter with us, which kind of undermines the point of buying a booklet of tickets.

These nuances of the bus system may not be much different than many other cities, but for a city in which so many people can and do ride the bus, it's disappointing that the bus system doesn't make things friendlier for everyone, especially considering that Seattle is a tourist city and the bus system is full of complexities that only a local can understand.

Still, it's a viable alternative to driving that we can take advantage of in the city and I'm appreciative when I can ride the bus and avoid having to waste gas and search or pay for a parking spot.

As I mentioned last week, this week is rather active for my job search. I had an on-site interview yesterday, actually three interviews for three different positions, and I feel that they all went pretty well. Two of the positions sounded especially appealing, but I'm not sure if I did as good of a job in the interview for the job I want more. I'm optimistic about how things will work out, but I'm kind of anxious about hearing back.

I'm probably more anxious about hearing back from this company than I've been about any other interview I've ever had. That's probably because this job search has been the longest and most time-consuming job search I've ever had. It's probably also because I feel this job(s) and company are a better fit than the majority of jobs and companies I've applied to so far.

Even though I'm optimistic that I will get an offer from this company, I haven't slacked off and am still working hard on finding other opportunities. I have a phone interview set up for tomorrow and a meeting with a recruiter set up for Thursday. However, I will be very glad and relieved when this job search is over.

I'm not much of a baseball fan, though taking road trips to several major league parks and watching more playoff baseball has helped me to enjoy the game a little more than I used to. Still, I don't think I'll ever be a passionate fan of any team. But, I do enjoy going to baseball games on occasion and rooting for the home team. Most of my life that meant going to the Ballpark and rooting for the Rangers, but now that I'm in Seattle, I'll root for the Mariners, I guess, even though they're terrible this year. Walking around town, I've noticed a lot of people in Mariners caps and I figured that since I'd be going to some games, I might as well get my own Mariners cap. The Mariners team store downtown had several options, but I found a fitted cap that I liked. It's the first fitted cap I've ever had, but I really like how it looks. If I ever live somewhere else, I'll probably adopt their home team, but for now I'll casually root for the Mariners, but more importantly, I'll enjoy my cap.

It's been really nice outside the past week and it looks like it'll be nice the rest of the week and this weekend. Mostly sunny with highs in the 70s. It's so pretty here with the water and the mountains and all the trees. Man, I love it here. I wish I could just take off work the rest of the day and go outside all afternoon.

Troy & I have been together for 7 years as of today. That's a pretty long time, but it doesn't seem like it's been that long. It's hard to believe that we've been together since we were 17. We've done so many things together and gone to so many places. I'm looking forward to spending many more years together.

We just had the longest day of the year this past weekend. The sun has been setting around 9:15pm and so it doesn't get completely dark until about 10pm, so for a few weeks, we've been going to sleep when it's still light outside. It's the first time we've gone to sleep when it's light outside since we were like 8 years old. It's kind of weird that it stays light for so long and then the sun rises again around 5:15am. I'm really glad we got some curtains to block out the light, during the afternoon and at night when we're going to sleep and in the morning also. They do a good job of keeping out some of the heat. But anyway, it's just crazy that we have like 16 hours of daylight now.

When we went to eat at the Space Needle last week, we also took some video of the scenery. We had several minutes of footage to pick from and we had to figure out what music to put with it. I took all the video myself and Troy did most of the editing work. So, here's our video footage from the Space Needle, enjoy:

One fairly significant difference between Seattle and Dallas/Fort Worth is that Seattle is a city of neighborhoods. Dallas and Fort Worth have areas, like Wedgwood, the Park Cities, and Fort Worth's Cultural District, but none of these are really neighborhoods in the same way that Seattle has neighborhoods. Many of Seattle's neighborhoods were actually once their own towns that became annexed by the city so the neighborhoods all developed somewhat independently when they were young and were kept strong through streetcar connections. Even now that those individual towns are part of Seattle, they still maintain their own unique identity, made up of their own churches, stores, farmer's markets and festivals. From what I gather, people tend to shop, eat, and spend time in their own neighborhoods and don't go to different parts of town as much, which seems to develop a greater sense of community, from what I can tell.

This neighborhood-centric attitude extends to how people think of places. In D/FW, when giving directions, something would be off of a certain street, ("it's off of Hulen near Central Market") or near a landmark ("it's over by Ridgmar mall"). But here, when explaining where something is, people are much more likely to first tell you the neighborhood, then the street and cross street ("It's in Capitol Hill, at Broadway and Madison").

I can't say that our neighborhood (South Lake Union) has a strong sense of community, but when anything is happening in our neighborhood, it's referred to by neighborhood first, before the streets or landmarks are mentioned. This hasn't been a big adjustment by itself, but it's just kind of an interesting difference.

This weekend was quite a good weekend. On Friday, we were looking for something to do, so we went to a soccer game. Seattle is getting a team in Major League Soccer (MLS) next year, but the city currently has a team, the Seattle Sounders, that plays in the United Soccer Leagues, which is a more minor league. The weather was fantastic on Friday, so we decided to drive out to the game, which was about 20 minutes away. Tickets and parking cost $35 total and attendance for the game was 2,500. The seating area wasn't that big, though, so a good portion of the seats were taken. The game was fairly entertaining, especially in the second half, when the home team had several good scoring opportunities. Unfortunately, there were no goals in the game, which was a bit of a letdown, especially considering how well the Sounders played. We probably won't go to another game this year but are planning to go see the MLS team next year.

On Saturday, the weather was pretty nice, so we went on a nice long hike. We ended up hiking for about two-and-a-half hours. We walked by an old coal mine, which had been grated over. We also walked by a waterfall, which was pretty cool. We dipped our fingers in the water and it was pretty cold. The air around the waterfall was a lot cooler than elsewhere in the park. I could've kept hiking for a while longer, but it felt like good exercise afterward. That night, we went out to eat at a Thai place in Belltown. The weather was nice, so we ended up eating outside, which was pretty enjoyable, plus the food was very good. We also watched Gandhi that day, which was a very enthralling, educating, and inspiring film.

We didn't do a whole lot Sunday, but walked to a local hardware store to replace a lightbulb in the kitchen. Then we walked to nearby South Lake Union Park and just relaxed in the grass for more than an hour. I'm not big into sitting and relaxing, but it was nice to relax and see all the sailboats on Lake Union, airplanes landing on the lake, people walking along the water and relaxing at the park, and the pretty lake. Anyway, overall it was a pretty enjoyable weekend.

I really wanted to go back with Troy the last time he went to Texas for his job because my grandfather had died recently and I hadn't gone back since we moved to Seattle. Unfortunately I didn't have any personal time accrued at work yet and plane tickets were going to cost a lot on such short notice. This time though, Troy planned his last trip back for work early enough to where I could ask for the time off in advance and get plane tickets at a reasonable price. Plus I didn't feel like being left in Seattle by myself again for a whole week. So, I'm going to fly back to DFW on August 8th and stay there the rest of the time Troy is there. It'll be nice for us to spend time with my parents over the weekend and to see some of our friends. We plan on eating at Cousins, Abuelos, El Fenix, Perrotti's, and possibly Wing-Stop. Oh and maybe the Great Outdoors. So, that'll be nice to see my family and get to eat Tex-Mex and BBQ again.

I've planned to go into the office for the last time from Thursday, August 7 through Wednesday, August 13. I figure by then I'll have a job lined up or at least some strong possibilities. I think it's better to start planning on the end of my job now, especially now that a replacement has been hired, so that way I can work on transitioning everything by then rather than just leaving everything up in the air. That way I'm in control of the situation and there is no more lingering uncertainty. I'll probably book my plane tickets sometime next week.

Pike Place Market is a very old farmers market and also a major tourist attraction here. We've gone there a few times after Lesley gets off of work and went last night. We bought some flowers, fruit, fish, and it was all so fresh. We also got some very good frozen macaroni and cheese, which we haven't eaten yet. There is a wide variety of things available at the market, and I'd like to go more often.

I have been getting more calls and emails lately from people (mostly recruiters) with positions available. So, my resume is getting out there. I'm meeting with one recruiter next Thursday and I am taking the day off of work on Monday to go to a career fair and for an on-site interview for two positions. I have been spending several hours every week finding companies to contact and browsing posted jobs, so I will be very glad when this process wraps up.

Texas is one of few states in the country that regularly builds access roads (also called frontage roads, service roads, or feeders) alongside its freeways. When I lived in Texas, I found them quite useful and even indispensable for getting around, wondering how people in other states could get around nearly as easily. However, now that I live in Seattle, I've started to realize how Texas' access roads have heavily influenced the state's development patterns, not only along the freeway but everywhere. This influence has caused access roads to be integral to Texas' transportation network and have affected the role of freeways themselves. In Seattle, since access roads have never existed, the land has been developed differently so that not having them doesn't seem like much of a loss.

In Texas, development is very car-based, so businesses build where they can be seen - along the major thoroughfares, and freeways are in many ways just a faster version of an arterial street in Texas. Due to the power of access roads and the convenience that they pose, businesses have been pulled toward the freeway. This makes a pretty big difference in how land is developed, at least from the vantage point of the freeway. Development in the Metroplex has made good use of access roads, allowing you to drive along them for miles, looking for somewhere to eat or for the next shopping center - you can cruise along and anything you want is just off the freeway. However, here, to go somewhere, you don't just drive along the freeway to find what you want, you kind of have to know where things are. Here it's much harder to build right along the freeway, because the lack of access roads means that just because you can see something from the freeway, doesn't mean that you can get to it.

Let me use this example from the Metroplex to help illustrate the difference that access roads make. There are three east-west freeways between Dallas and Fort Worth: 183, I-30, and I-20, but they have significant differences between I-35W and I-35E. Along I-20, which is the newest of the highways, I believe, there is a lot of commercial development right near the freeway including 3 malls (Hulen, The Parks, and Southwest Center Mall in Duncanville). Along 183, there is also a lot of development, with a ton of restaurants on both sides of D/FW airport and 2 malls (North East Mall and Irving Mall). However, I-30 has no access roads, and despite being the oldest freeway in the Metroplex, I-30 has less development along it than both I-20 and 183. The major point of development along I-30 is in Arlington (which is partially served by a two-way access road). In fact, there are no malls along I-30 either. How strange, there are 5 malls on the freeways with access roads and 0 malls on the freeway without access roads.

Now, that's just one example, but I think it helps convey how things are here. With no access roads, you just don't see as much commercial development along the freeway - I can't think of a sign for a single business that I can see right off the freeway, at least not in the city. The lack of access roads here has made a pretty big difference in how the cities have been developed, which means that the lack of access roads doesn't make that big of a difference on a daily basis, it just means that we use the freeway less. In D/FW, there's not much difference between a major street like Hulen or Greenville and freeways, except the freeways are faster and have fewer places to get on and off. Here, though, since there isn't as much development along the freeway, we don't need to use it as much. We still use it to go to the mall and a few other places, but otherwise we can pretty well ignore the freeway. The freeway here just has a different role than the freeways in Dallas, and I think that's a neat little difference between D/FW and Seattle.

I don't think we've ever posted video of our apartment in Seattle, so here's a video that Troy took as he walked around the apartment and talked about each room. It looks small on video and in pictures, but it's enough space for us right now. If the bedroom area was a little bigger and we had room for a kitchen table it would be almost perfect. I really like our green curtains and the fact that we have a washer and dryer in our unit. The kitchen also has nice new appliances and nice flooring. Not to mention our awesome view. Hope you enjoy this video of our apartment.

A few years ago when we first started talking about moving somewhere, we spent a lot of time thinking about where we might want to move to. While it might just seem like we moved as far away from Texas as possible on a whim, a lot of analysis went into choosing Seattle.

At the time, we knew we were bored with D/FW and wanted to live somewhere different, but we didn't really have any preconceptions about where we'd like to live. We both wanted better weather and I wanted to live somewhere I could walk, but we were pretty open to options. So, we decided to look at quite a few of our options, gathering statistics from Sperling's Best Places (bestplaces.net) on 46 different cities. This information was divided into different categories, like population, including city size, and density, race, family (married, single, divorced, etc.), economy (unemployment, job growth, taxes), housing (home cost, rent rate), crime, climate (average temperatures and precipitation), education, transportation and commuting, cost of living, religion (percentage of people in each religion), and voting (democratic, liberal, etc.).

From there, we figured out which stats were most important. Many of the stats we gathered weren't used, but all of this was done in a spreadsheet and most of these stats were weighted slightly and contributed somewhat to our final results. We determined the most important statistics to be the percentage of people commuting by mass transit, the average high temperature in July, the population density, and the temperature comfort index.

From here, since some categories, like temperature, had multiple statistics to consider, whereas we only considered one statistic in the commute mode category, each category was averaged and then weighted individually. The three most important main categories were transportation (mostly including the percentage of people using mass transit), health/climate (mostly focusing on climate), and people (including density - the higher the better - and size - the more the better).

The point of all this wasn't to have the numbers tell us which city to move to, but to guide us in identifying some potential cities that we might like. We tinkered with our weights for each category a few times, but one of our top eleven lists included:

1. San Francisco
   
2. Washington DC
   
3. Boston
   
4. New York
   
5. Philadelphia
   
6. Chicago
   
7. Seattle
   
8. Newark
   
9. Pittsburgh
   
10. Oakland
    
11. Portland

For what it's worth, Dallas appeared 20th in our list and Fort Worth appeared 44th.

It's kind of interesting that Seattle was 7th on our list but we moved there anyway. However, we looked at each city individually to see if there was anything that might be significant enough to rule it out. For example, while San Francisco rated very well in transportation, climate, and city size/density, its high cost of living and secular culture (while not weighted heavily by us) were undesirable enough to make us want to look down the list. Boston might have been nice, too, but the cold winters ruled it out.

All of these other highly-ranked cities had significant flaws. We looked at the lowest-rated categories of each city, and it turned out that Seattle was rated well in every category. Whereas San Francisco's cost of living earned a 25% in our arcane rating system and Pittsburgh's economy/crime earned a 16%, for example, the lowest rated thing in Seattle was 52%, which was for the cost of living. So, there wasn't really anything to push us away from Seattle. It's size and density weren't as high as I would've liked and the percentage of people using public transportation was second lowest in our top 10, but our statistics combined with the details we'd read about online, including the many things to do outdoors and the scenery made Seattle sound like a good fit. When we visited in Seattle, we both liked it in a way that we hadn't liked any other city. Since Portland also appeared somewhat high on our list (it was hurt mostly by its small size), we visited there too, since it was near Seattle, and really liked it as well. After this, we had made up our minds to move to one or the other.

While there may have been some flaws in our analysis, we think looking at the details first really helped us to find a livable home city that we really enjoy. So far what our research told us has been true, and thinking about the other options that appeared, I don't think there's anywhere I'd rather be right now.

After visiting Seattle twice and living here more than 3 months, we finally went up in the Space Needle for the first time last night. My parents gave us a gift card for Sky City, the restaurant that slowly revolves around the top (it takes 47 minutes for one complete rotation). On Sunday we looked at the forecast and saw that it was supposed to be sunny with a high of close to 70 on Monday, so we decided to try and make a reservation. The only opening they had was at 8:45, so we decided to take it. The sun doesn't set until 9:15, so we thought that we'd have plenty of time before dinner to see the view during the day and then be able to see the sunset and the view at night. Unfortunately they don't allow you to go up to the observation deck until 15 minutes before your scheduled reservation, so we didn't have as much time to take pictures and video with daylight as we would have liked. Also, a lot of the mountain ranges were already hidden by light cloud cover, so we couldn't see them that well by the time we got up there. But the view was still very beautiful and we got some good pictures before we were called to go eat.

We sat at a table right by the window and started out with a view of Lake Union and then the restaurant continued to slowly rotate clockwise. Our waiter was rather slow and forgot our bread, so we had to ask him for it. We waited almost 15 minutes for our bread from the time we sat down to the time he brought it. Anyway, I ordered the honey and peppercorn crusted smoked king salmon and Troy ordered the Jidori chicken. My salmon was cooked pretty well, it just had too much pepper on it. Troy's chicken was a little dry, but his asparagus was pretty good. Overall the food was okay, but the view made up for it. Most of it was free to us, so that was very nice of my parents.

After dinner we went back down to the observation level and took some pictures and video at night. Going to the Space Needle was cool and it was nice to finally do that since we hadn't done it before. The view was great and it was something we'll certainly remember for a while.

Distance in Seattle is different from distance in Fort Worth. No, we don't use the metric system here, but miles just seem longer. Of course, Lesley and I do walk more and take the bus more, so it can take longer to get as far here. And, since the city is denser, we often don't need to go as far to get to where we need. Still, it's just kind of interesting how we so rarely travel as far as we used to travel regularly in Dallas.

For example, we used to drive between our apartment in Irving and our parents' houses in Southwest Fort Worth once or twice a month, and while it was far, it didn't really seem that far. From here to Tacoma is about as far away, but it seemed like a pretty long drive. From our apartment in Irving, we also used to go to NorthPark Center in Dallas on occasion. In Seattle, Lesley driving me to the airpot was the longest we'd driven in a long time, and it still wasn't as long a drive as it was to NorthPark. The most striking example to me is that Lesley walks every day to work about half a mile, which seems like a decent walk and passes quite a few intersections and buildings. However, walking that far from my parents hosue wouldn't even get us out of the neighborhood.

I guess a lot of this comes back to how we just don't drive as much, but it also means that we don't have to drive as far, which seems to make distances feel a little different.

One of the things I love about Seattle is that I can walk so many more places and it feels like a much more active city because there are always people out walking around. However, along with the high number of people walking to work, to eat, or to the store, there are also quite a few people asking for money, digging through the trash, or sleeping on a bench. You can't really walk downtown without being asked for money and seeing several homeless people. However, since there are so many other people walking around, you're never alone on a street with a beggar. In fact, there are probably more regular people walking around per homeless person than in Dallas or Fort Worth. And, unlike some agressive homeless people in other places, like Chicago, the people here won't give you a hard time if you don't give them money. And, while there are more homeless people, there are also more street performers, homeless or not, which makes for a more enjoyable street scene. And that's how it is, homeless people here are just part of the fabric of the city. People don't feel like they have to avoid them or feel uncomfortable around them, they're just a part of every city.

One of our friends goes to college in San Francisco and we've been wanting to go visit him while he's there for a few years. So, we finally made plans to go see him in a few months at the end of August. We'll be there for 5 nights, from Wednesday the 27th to September 1st. We got a really good deal on airfare and hotel and we won't be renting a car since the public transit system is pretty good there. Since San Francisco is a lot closer to us now, the airfare doesn't cost as much as it would if we were flying out of DFW and we're actually flying into Oakland instead of San Francisco, which saved us about $75 a person. Our total airfare was $170 a person roundtrip. Driving there would be very scenic and cool, but it would take up too much time - almost 13 hours to drive over 800 miles.

I'm really excited, it'll be my third trip there and I haven't been in 10 years, so it'll be nice to go again now that I'm older. We'll probably do a few touristy things, but we'll also spend time with our friend and hang out with him and do the things he does around his neighborhood. I'm looking forward to going to the Marin Hills, Ghirardelli Square, and riding a cable car. We also got tickets to a Giants game in the relatively new stadium, AT&T park. The last time I was there, the Giants played at Candlestick Park (3COM, whatever), so it'll be fun to see a new stadium. I think AT&T park has a great view of the bay. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to our trip, San Francisco is a beautiful city.

I've talked at length before about how much I like walking, but as walking has become a regular part of our lifestyle, I haven't mentioned it as much. However, we probably walked more than we ever have this past week. After getting back from Texas on the 6th, I wanted to try to get some more exercise. While Lesley doesn't like to walk as much as I do, she put up with it this past week and especially this weekend.

During the week, I met Lesley after work tree times, which was at least a mile walk for me each time. On Wednesday after work, we walked up a steep hill nearby for me to get my hair cut and then walked around that neighborhood for a little while. On Friday, I met her for lunch, which was a few blocks away from her office. Then, after that, I walked down to the library and then back to the apartment. That night, we walked a mile to a movie theater up a steep hill and then later that night we walked half as far up the same steep hill for dessert. Yesterday, we walked all around downtown and up to another movie theater and then back to the apartment. Then, today, we went to a park and walked two-and-a-half miles there.

In total, we probably walked more than 20 miles over the past week. I don't think we'll keep walking at that pace, and I don't think Lesley would want to, but it feels good to have spent so much time outdoors getting exercise.

My parents will be visiting us in two weeks and this will be their first visit to Seattle. I'm looking forward to getting to spend time with them again and hope that we can do a good job of showing them around the city. There are plenty of things to do here, so I want to make sure that they get to enjoy a lot of things while spending plenty of quality time with Lesley and me. Since we'll be working during the day, we only need to worry about planning what to do in the evenings and just provide a few suggestions for things my parents can do during the day.

My parents asked about day trips they could take around here. They were interested in going to Vancouver for a day, but that was a little far. I'm sure there are plenty of places nearby that they could go to during the day. I thought that they could go to Snoqualmie Falls, which isn't really that far away. Another good place for them to go would be where we went for our anniversary. Deception Pass is beautiful and I think the small towns of La Conner and Anacortes are popular with tourists. They might also enjoy going to Tacoma to the glass museum, though I don't know what else there is to do there.

As for things to do in the city during the day, they want to do the popular things, like go to the Space Needle and ride the monorail. I'm going to recommend that they go to Pike Place Market as well and check out the shopping downtown. Visiting Pioneer Square would be a good idea, too, though I'm not sure if the Underground Tour that we took would be worthwhile to them. Aside from that, there are other things they could do during the day, like go to the locks, visit UW, or maybe go to Gas Works Park. I don't know what else they could do, though, since they don't like parks as much as we do. I'm not sure if they would want to take a tour bus around the city. Like any other city, there's a zoo, an aquarium, and art museums, but I don't know if that would be that worthwhile. Maybe there are some other things that they can do that I haven't thought about.

As far as things to do during the evening, I think riding a ferry would be a pretty cool thing to do. We could also go to Kerry Park and check out the view. I don't think they'll want to do a lot of walking in the evenings, but we might be able to go to a nice park, like Volunteer Park, and take a stroll. We could also drive them around the city, showing them different parts of town and places we've been.

I'm also not really sure where we'll eat dinner since we haven't tried enough places to have good recommendations of all types of food in all parts of the city. So, hopefully we can find some good places to eat.

I'm sure they'll have a good time here, but I'm going to see what other ideas I can come up with of things to do and places to eat so that they have an even better time.

Update: I posted about this topic in much more detail in my How Expensive it is to Live in Seattle post.

One of the most annoying differences about Seattle and Texas is that things here are more expensive.

For example, our apartment costs 64% more than our apartment did in Irving. Of course, we also get in-unit washer & dryer, a spectacular view, getting to live in an actual city, and the convenience of not having to drive everywhere, but that's still a much larger chunk of money to have to go toward rent each month. And it wouldn't be much better if we decided to buy a condo - $300,000 is where the least expensive condos seem to start, and home prices start in the same range.

While our rent cost has added more to our monthly expenses than anything else, it's not the only thing that has gone up. We've been eating out less than we used to and we're spending a little more than we used to each month. Restauarants just seem more expensive here. Sure, there are fast food places and other inexpensive chain restaurants whose prices are about the same, but you don't find as many restaurants where entrees are under $10. On top of that, things are more expensive at the grocery store, too. Surprisingly, milk is cheaper than it was when we left Texas (we pay $2.69/gallon, rather than the $4 we were paying in Texas), but that's the only bargain we've found. Things like Dr Pepper, which we could find on sale for $2/12-pack are never on sale that cheap, the cheapest we've found is $2.75/12-pack. Oatmeal was occasionally $2/box in Irving, but we hardly ever see it for less than $4/box here. A lot of things are priced pretty similarly to what we paid in Texas, and things don't cost twice as much here, but we've been spending about twice as much money on groceries since we've been here.

Of course we do save some money on automobile ownership. While having only one car hasn't saved as much in insurance costs as we'd hoped, we save a lot of money by driving so much less. In Texas we paid more than $150 per month for gas, now we pay less than $50 per month, and that's with gas prices going up by 1/3. Plus, driving less means that we don't have to get the car serviced as often. Sure, we have to pay $125/month to park at our apartment, but that's about what it cost Lesley to park at work in downtown Dallas.

So, overall, we are spending a bit more than what we were spending in Dallas, with the biggest increases coming from rent and food. But, in this case I believe that it's true that you get what you pay for.

I noticed quite a few differences when I visited D/FW this time. Click here to view my previous post about things I noticed when driving around. Below I talk about some climate differences and some of my thoughts:

Weather

• I noticed flying in that everywhere in the west part of the county has mountains. Then, suddenly, somewhere in New Mexico it gets really flat. Texas has hills, but it's a big change from the landscapes west of there, which have tall mountains in the background.


• The weather was in the 90s in Texas. I don't like hot weather, but I managed to get through a week of temperatures in the 90s in Texas without much discomfort. Still, it sure was great to come back to the refreshingly crisp, clean, and cool Seattle air.


• Since it is so green here and there are so many lakes, I tend to think of Texas as dry and brown, but it was a pretty time of year for me to visit; all the trees were green and I noticed more lakes and rivers than I expected. With the abundant sunshine bringing out the bright green in the grass and trees, it was kind of pretty. The difference is that nobody goes outside to enjoy the outdoors in Texas. There's lots of land in Texas, but not many parks.


• It was super duper windy in Texas for the entire week I was there, windier than I can remember, blowing the car and gusting against the hotel building.


• The warm weather in Texas means that there are more bugs. I had one crawl on my leg when I was outside last week. I don't miss that.

Other

• I had forgotten how professional and sterile my company office is. Everything looks so plain and corporate. Every office is so "nice" looking and nobody really has anything very interesting on their walls. Each office has its own boring plant, and everything's just so standard and office-y looking. I'm sure a lot of places are that way, but it would be nice to work somewhere more fun and laid-back.


• The people looked more Texan than I had noticed before. There were makeup-laden blondes and people dressed more Texan, somehow.

Thoughts

• I feel bad traveling so much because it's so wasteful. It's not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but I just don't like being wasteful. It's nice to visit D/FW, but each time I fly, even though it's free to me, it's not free to the Earth. Jet pollution not only contributes to global warming, but is also just more pollution in the air that we have to breathe. Also, hotels waste a lot of things by replacing my individually-sized soaps before they have to be and washing the sheets and towels prematurely.


• It felt kind of sad when I was leaving D/FW. D/FW is where I grew up and have made so many good memories, and it is also where most of my family is. D/FW is always going to be a special place and I'm always going to have a connection to it. Plus, it's hard to leave family when they want to see me and I want to see them. It was very nice being back and I do miss Texas. But, I definitely don't miss the lifestyle in Texas and I have been very happy here so far. I was happy to be returning to Lesley and to Seattle, where I can walk places, live healthier and more sustainably, and have so much to do. But, I am torn about it all.

One of the big reasons why we moved here was so that we would be able to walk more, and we definitely can walk more than we did in Irving. Seattle is a pretty walkable place overall, and today a list of Seattle's Most Walkable Neighborhoods was released. Here's a snippet from the article in the Seattle Times:

A new Web site, walkscore.com, today is releasing its first ranking of 77 Seattle neighborhoods, according to how close residents are to stores, restaurants, schools and other destinations.

Not surprisingly, more densely developed neighborhoods rank higher than less dense ones, with seven of the top 10 most walkable Seattle neighborhoods in or near downtown.

"Freedom is not having to get into the car," said Mike Mathieu, founder of Front Seat Management, a Seattle company that developed the software program, Walk Score.

According to that list, our neighborhood was the 7th most walkable (out of 77) in Seattle, which is pretty good. I was originally interested in moving to one of the neighborhoods ranked 2nd, 3rd, or 4th on the list, but I'm happy here for now. If you go to the Seattle's Most Walkable Neighborhoods page, there is a very cool interactive map that shows how walkable different neighborhoods are.

The company that provided this list of walkable neighborhoods in Seattle also lets you type in your address at WalkScore.com and it will tell you how easily you can get by without a car, considering the number of restaurants, stores, and other establishments within walking distance. So far, Seattle is the only city that has neighborhood-by-neighborhood analysis of walkability, but it would be neat if they did one of D/FW someday.

I always liked going to the symphony at the Bass Hall in Fort Worth and the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas. We went to several symphonies, usually for a special occasion like Valentine's Day or our anniversary. Sometime soon I'd like to go see the Seattle symphony at Benaroya Hall in downtown. Maybe they'll have a series on Mozart sometime, he's my favorite classical composer.

I like cool weather, but Monday it was in the 50s, very windy, and very rainy. It was the coldest first week of June in the history of Seattle. I don't mind the wintry-like weather, but it would be kind of nice if summer would get here.

Last time I visited Texas, I noticed a few things that I hadn't really noticed before. This time, since I'd been gone for longer, I noticed even more differences - so many that I'll have to split it up into two posts. Below is a list of things I noticed when driving around:

• There are so many more big neon signs for restaurants and stores in Texas. There are also tons of billboards, especially advertising home developments and fast food. I hardly ever see big neon signs signs and billboards in Seattle.


• I forgot how prevalent drive-thrus are. I never did use the drive-thrus much when I lived in Texas because I didn’t like spending the gas and polluting the air, but since I was driving a Prius this time, I went through the drive-thru at Taco Bueno. I usually get water wherever I go, but it was easier to get the combo meal this time (and they gave me such a big drink). With all the drive-thrus and fast food areas, I can see why D/FW is considered one of the fattest parts of the country.


• I’ve also never before noticed how many Whataburgers there are in Texas. They’re all over the place.


• Almost everything in D/FW that I saw from the freeway was a chain restaurant or chain store. I saw so many chain restaurants in Texas that I haven’t ever seen in Seattle. When I drove down Camp Bowie in Fort Worth, I noticed a lot of small shops that I always used to ignore on my way to some chain place. Seattle, though, is made up of a lot of those little shops and much fewer chain establishments.


• There are so many gas stations in Texas, they are all over the place.


• There are also so many car dealerships along the freeway in D/FW.


• I haven’t seen that much asphalt and concrete in ages - two months to be more exact. D/FW probably has three times more square feet of asphalt per person than Seattle does. There was also a ton of grass. I noticed that they were always mowing or watering the grass in Texas. It’s as if everyone in Texas can’t shake their farming heritage and they take care of grass as if it were a crop. I guess there are lots of trees here so people don’t pay attention to grass, but I just thought it was remarkable how much concrete and grass there was.


• I forgot about the problem of trying to get to places. When I wanted to go to Taco Bueno, I had to figure out which driveway to turn into, and then when I wanted to get to the street, I had to figure out how to get back - whether I could drive half a mile through the enormous parking lot or if I would have to go back out on the access road. I can’t say I’ve had that problem here, but I remember it being pretty common in D/FW.


• All the types of buildings are so segregated in D/FW. I guess it’s like that in any suburb, but I’d kind of gotten used to Seattle where you’d see an apartment, a restaurant, an office, a condo, and a hotel all next to each other.


• Another thing about the suburbs is that every building is isolated by a moat of parking lot and grass, whereas here you can just walk up to it and it’s right along the street, but it’s kind of crazy that almost every single building outside of downtown is surrounded by parking lot, which is then surrounded by grass, I guess that’s just a specific example of how D/FW is designed much more for drivers than Seattle is.


• Some buildings and stores in D/FW look pretty, with bushes, fountains, and rocks, making for a nice composition, but it’s just to look at, it takes up a ton of space, which isn’t used; you can’t walk around it or interact with it. It just seems to me that buildings there were made to be looked at whereas buildings here were made to be used.


• There are so many traffic lights in D/FW that change for no reason or stay red for too long. I haven’t noticed that as much here.


• It wasn't that late when I flew into Dallas, but when I was driving around looking for food, there was almost nobody out. I drove down a wide three-lane road and I was the only one. It happened multiple times on the trip that I was on a wide road along with very few other people. D/FW is a much more populous metropolitan area than Seattle, but it never really seemed that way since I saw so few people driving around.


• Whenever I saw people out walking in D/FW, it was kind of strange, because walking is commonplace here, but in D/FW, anyone who is out walking is either exercising or assumed to be poor.

I'll post again later with more differences I noticed and some thoughts from the trip.

This past weekend was really fun because Troy had gotten back from Texas and it was nice to be together again. We didn't do much Friday night, but Saturday was pretty cool. We woke up fairly late and walked to Noah's Bagels on Capitol Hill for breakfast. Then we got a few groceries from the nearby QFC and walked back to our apartment. We had been wanting to go to Tacoma for a little while and so we decided to go Saturday afternoon. We went to the Museum of Glass and saw several pieces of really cool looking glass art. It's amazing that the artists can make so many different shapes and use so many colors and patterns. It made us wish we had a piece to display in our apartment. The Museum of Glass also has a glass making facility fully equipped with furnaces that get as hot as 2,400 degrees. The facility itself is in the shape of a lop-sided cone for ventilation purposes. We were able to watch an artist make a piece of glass artwork that took more than an hour. There was also a small theater in the museum that was showing a film about the artist whose work is on display and how he made some of the pieces. There is also a bridge over the freeway that has glass art in it. Anyway, the Museum of Glass was really cool, we're definitely glad we went.

After the museum we drove around looking for food in Tacoma. We couldn't find much at all in downtown, maybe we were just in the wrong area, but we ended up eating at a sports bar pizza place and it was pretty good. The bread sticks were really good and the pizza was filling. After that we drove to Point Defiance Park and drove on 5-mile road, which winds around through the heavily forested area. It was really pretty going through the shaded forest. We'll have to go back and walk through the park.

Tacoma is about the same distance from Seattle as Fort Worth is from Dallas, but it seems farther away now than Fort Worth did when we were living in Dallas. I guess that's because we don't drive long distances much any more. Tacoma seems a lot less crowded and more suburban than Seattle. We hardly saw any people in downtown and it was a Saturday night, which seems odd. It reminded me of how downtown Dallas was on the weekends - deserted. I also noticed a lot of really old buildings that seemed like they had been there since the 1800's. So, it was an interesting old city, but not that exciting and not nearly as big as Seattle. After seeing the Museum of Glass, I don't see much of a reason to go back except to walk through Point Defiance park sometime.

Click here for pictures from Tacoma:

Since I mentioned this in my previous post, I should probably go into more detail about the career management company that contacted me. I originally got a call from someone there about a month ago and she wanted to meet with me. She explained that her company helps people in their job searches through counseling on self-marketing, interview skills, by their connections with employers, and by helping me negotiate better to get a better fitting, better paying job. I knew that services like that would cost money that I probably wouldn't want to spend on something like that, but she said that meeting with her was free with no strings attached and that I might get some resume tips out of it. So, I figured, why not, it couldn't hurt.

So, I met with her that first time and spent some time filling out a questionnaire and she asked me a bunch of questions about what type of job I was looking for. Then, she read a spiel off of a piece of paper about what their company would do for me. I wasn't really interested, and I was a little disappointed that we were running out of time and she hadn't really offered any feedback or resume tips, but I was also a little curious, so I asked if she could give a rough idea of what these services might cost. She hesitated to give any kind of estimate, wanting to save that for the next meeting. I just wanted a rough idea, and she gave some kind of estimate, but said that they'd work with me to come up with an affordable package, but that wouldn't be done until the second meeting. Okay, whatever, I knew I didn't want to work with them and I didn't get any resume tips either. She kept pressing me to set up a second meeting, but I didn't want to waste any more time with them. I didn't really think about it at the time, but I don't think she ever had any intention of giving me resume advice, she just wanted me in the door.

Anyway, so I was done with them. I was curious, though, so I looked up information about them online and found quite a few complaints about them. But, then, Lesley encouraged me to go ahead and set up the second meeting with them to make sure that we were exploring all of our options. So, I emailed the lady last night and she called me today to set up another meeting. When I got there, she skimmed another piece of paper to reiterate what their company would do for me. Then, she mentioned that it would cost $5,400 and set down a contract and almost asked me to sign it before she gave me a book of previous clients and left the room to give me a few minutes to read it. I probably should've just walked out then, but decided to stick around. I was a little surprised that when she came back in the room she didn't push me too hard to sign the contract. I said that I'd have to talk it over with my wife (a polite way of saying "hell no").

Anyway, I was glad to be out of there. I'm sure that kind of service would be useful for some people, but it wasn't worth that kind of money to me. Plus, it just seemed a little shady to me, with her saying that she'd work with me on the cost, then suddenly at the second meeting the cost was a fixed amount. Well, whatever, I don't really regret meeting with her, it's just another experience to have.

All the electricity in the building turned off today. In fact, the outage affected a few blocks around here. It had been quite a while since I had to deal with a power outage. Fortunately the water stayed warm enough so I could finish showering and the batteries on my electric razor and toothbrush were charged enough to work for me. After a few minutes, I figured the power wasn't coming back on anytime soon, but I had a phone interview coming up and didn't want to go anywhere.

After my interview, though, I went across the street to a cafe and coffee bar to have lunch and to use their wireless internet. I normally just work from home, but I've been wanting to work somewhere else, so I'm thankful that the power outage finally made me do that. While working and enjoying my lunch, I got a call from a career counselor type company. They invited me to meet that afternoon, so since I didn't want to hang out in the coffee shop all afternoon, I set up a meeting with them.

I went back to the apartment to change. Before I ate, on the way out of the building, the stairs were lit up by some auxiliary lighting. However, the lights were out when I went back up. And, since I didn't bring a flashlight with me, I had to get around with my cell phone light. That was actually kind of fun because I couldn't see anything at all and I still managed to find my way to our unit. The meeting I went to took more than an hour of my time, and once I got back I was just about to head out again to have my hair cut when the power came back on.

I think all of our food is okay, so it wasn't a big deal. It was kind of funny that the power was out, since it took a few times of me trying to turn on a light or thinking about using the microwave before I realized that I couldn't do a whole lot without electricity. I'm also really glad that it got me out of the house to visit the cafe across the street.

Today I realized, about halfway through my mid-morning shower, that electricity is really nice to have. Perhaps it was the lights going out that paradoxically illuminated the importance of electricity to me. Or, maybe it was the fact that I was unable to do pretty much anything since the electricity went out. At least the sun didn't go out, so I could still see, but everything else I tried to do was quite difficult. I wanted to make some hot tea, but I couldn't really do that without a working microwave or oven. My desktop computer turned off, but fortunately my laptop stayed on. I was just going to browse the internet for a while, waiting for the electricity to come back on, when I realized that the DSL modem uses electricity. I wanted to walk into the kitchen and check the time, but, right, yeah, the oven and microwave weren't working still. So, I sat, unable to do much of anything, except wait for a phone interview and try to figure out where I would go afterward so I could do work on my computer. But, after a few minutes, I realized it wasn't so bad not having electricity. I could still eat a banana. And I realized what a luxury it is. I mean, sure the bathroom is dark, but it just took a few moments of fumbling around to find whatever I needed. I could go without electricity for days if I had to. But, it sure is nice to have. And I'm definitely glad that it's back on now.

I think it's interesting that the vast majority of people we've met here aren't native to the area. It could be because we're living in a redeveloping neighborhood and going to a church in the middle of the city where more people are moving to, people who are more likely to be new to the area than people living in more stable areas. I don't think that explains all of it though. The first people we met here moved here from Indianapolis. We've hung out with a group of about 10 people from church and only 1 is a native Seattlite. Of Lesley's 4 close co-workers, only one was raised here, and just over half of the 30 people in her office are native to this area. The guy working at the nearby auto service place was also from Indiana. In fact, it seems like only the tour guides are strictly Seattle natives. It seems like there are a lot of people here that have moved here. Of course when I lived in Texas, I wasn't really paying attention to that, and I think that a lot of people in Frisco, for example, are not Texans. Still, it's kind of interesting that the vast majority of the people our age that we've met aren't from here.

The reason for my trip, again, was because my job asked me to come back. They didn't give me much notice this time, emailing me about 11 days before they wanted me to be in town. While Lesley was originally thinking of flying back with me, her lack of time off of work and the cost of airfare prevented that from happening. My job actually wanted me to come in the office for a full week, like I did, and for Monday and Tuesday of the following week. However, they really didn't need me there that long and I didn't want to be away from my new home and from Lesley for that long, or have to block out my interview calendar for that long in case I had any requests for interviews. So, I ended up booking my return flight for Friday.

I was actually needed at work this time, moreso than I was needed last time, as one of the people working on a project with me was out of town and since they did not want to let the project stall for a week, they wanted me to come in and work on-site doing some things I couldn't do remotely. That part went okay, and while the first part of the week started slowly, it got busier toward the end of the week. I got a decent amount of work done and enjoyed seeing some people and saying goodbye to a friend whose last day was on Tuesday.

However, it's been time for a while for me to find another job. I've learned alot, had some accomplishments, and gained a lot of valuable experience, but all of that has been much reduced since I've started working from home. The things I've been working on haven't been the same things I've been working on for weeks, and none of it is particularly interesting. I'd much rather work somewhere else where I could learn more, be challenged, and actually get to see people during the day. Plus, considering how poorly my company plans things and how understaffed we are, while I've been relatively unaffected by the numerous major crises and issues in the office during my stint working from home, I expect to be pulled into some more stressful crises if I keep my job for too long. While getting free trips back to see family and friends is a very nice luxury to have, it doesn't warrant me trying to hang on to this job as long as possible, though it does put me in a good position so that I don't have to accept the first job offered to me. My boss has already mentioned that he would like me to come back next month. Aside from the fact that there's no good business reason for me to come back, I don't like leaving Lesley alone so frequently and keeping myself from fully settling into life in Seattle. I don't know when I'll end up going back for work next, but I intend on it being the last time.

One of the coolest things about flying back to D/FW this time was that I got to rent a Toyota Prius, which is the most fuel-efficient car in North America. It's a gasoline-electric hybrid, which means that it has a lot of neat technology not found in other cars.

When I first got into the car, I had a hard time figuring out how to start it. The fob to unlock the doors doesn't come with a key, so once I got in the car I just stuck the fob into a slot in the car. Then, to start it, I just pushed the power button. Unfortunately, though, it wasn't as easy as that, at least the first couple times I drove it. After I pressed the start button, the car still wouldn't go. I kept trying over and over, trying to figure out how I could possibly be pressing the start button incorrectly. I was about to go back to the rental car counter and tell them that it didn't work, but then I somehow got it to start. The next time I stopped the car, I had the same problem, but I figured out that I had to put my foot on the brake when pressing the power button so that the car would be ready to drive.

The car isn't really that much different than other cars, except it has an electric motor in addition to a gas motor. At low speeds, the electric motor powers the car and the gas engine stays off, so the car can be almost silent and use less fuel. While coasting or braking, the electric motor regenerates electricity that is stored in the car's battery.

Everyone thought the car was really neat, and it was. I ended up driving around 5 people at work, 4 family members, Lesley's dad, and 3 friends for a total of 13 different people, and all of them were fairly impressed. It was definitely a neat car and it goes a lot farther than any other car does toward polluting less, saving gas, and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. It does still use gas, though, so it's not the answer to all of our problems. But, I got 48 miles per gallon, and it shows the kind of progress that automakers can make when they try.

I flew into Dallas Sunday night on Southwest Airlines and after a short walk to the shuttle and a short shuttle ride to the car rental place at Love Field, I figured out how to start my Prius and then picked up some dinner at Taco Bueno and ate it at my hotel in Irving. I arrived close to 9:00, so I didn't have much time before bed. That was the night I couldn't sleep, but I wasn't too tired the next morning.

I worked a little later each night this week than I did the last time I was here, but was still able to see plenty of people after work. Monday after work, I went to visit my parents. They made dinner for me and we hung out. I took them for a drive in the Prius and we went to Dairy Queen for some dessert. After that, I hung out with my friend Adam for a little while and played a video game with him and his brother. The next night, I met my parents at Uncle Julio's for dinner and then visited Lesley's parents. We talked for a while and then I headed back to my hotel. On Wednesday, I went to my grandmother's house for dinner and chocolate pudding with whipped cream for dessert. After that, I visited my friend Andy and his girlfriend, who was visiting, and we got some ice cream and then drove around and checked out some of the new construction in Fort Worth. The next night, I visited my parents, who picked up Cousin's Barbeque for dinner, which was very good. We hung out and played some games and I talked to my mom for a while. After that, I met my friend Bryan for milkshakes.

Anyway, I'm really glad I got to see so many people while I was back. It didn't seem like quite as big of a deal as the first time I came back, and I didn't wear myself out as much trying to spend so much time with people, but I still got to spend a lot of time with people and ended up driving 450 miles back and forth between Irving and Fort Worth. It's nice coming back to visit people and I'm glad I could do it.

I made it back safely and have been enjoying being with Lesley again. She had made me lasagna and cake for me when I got back yesterday. I'm going to post a few posts about my time in Texas.

I've been wanting to eat at KFC for a few weeks since we drove by one close to our apartment. So, since Troy has been gone this week, here was my chance to go eat at KFC. He basically refuses to eat at chains, although he's never actually said he refuses, he really does. So, I left the apartment last night expecting to return with some yummy fried chicken and potato wedges. Unfortunately, in a matter of weeks, the KFC we drove by has closed. Since I didn't know where the next closest one is, I just gave up and drove home. Actually I got gas first because the light was on and I got about 12.5 gallons for $54, which is about $4.35 a gallon. Man, am I glad we don't drive nearly as much as we used to. Anyway, the point is, KFC should still be open so I could have a chance to eat there. Instead I went to Taco del Mar to get some food. So, I'm sorry Troy, but I'm afraid you'll have to go with me to the next closest KFC when you get back.

I guess Troy's trip to Texas is more than halfway over. I guess it hasn't been too bad for me here. I've had a chance to watch the commentary for all three LOTR movies and I watched Rocky Balboa tonight. I've had a chance to talk to some family members on the phone, which is nice. Tomorrow I'm going to Woodland Park Zoo to see a National Geographic photographer talk about his experiences with snow leopards and how he photographed them in their natural habitat last year. I'll have to pick up a copy of the June 2008 issue of National Geographic Magazine because some of his photos will appear in a 24-page snow leopard expose.

Anyway, I've also had a chance to do some cleaning around the house and play some video games. I'm really glad that he's coming home soon, because it's pretty lonely here by myself. I've missed him even more this time.

A few weeks ago Troy and I decided to go to McCormick & Schmick's to use the $50 that guy gave us when we went hiking. It's a pretty expensive place, so we probably wouldn't have gone there any time soon if we had to pay for all of it ourselves. It was really nice inside with dim lighting and nice furniture. We got some crab cakes for an appetizer (for like $12) and they were really really good. Some of the best I've ever had. Then the main course came and oh man, it was so good. I got salmon stuffed with baby shrimp, crab meat, and some kind of cheese sauce and it came with garlic mashed potatoes and buttered green beans and carrots on the side. It was one of the best meals I have ever had. The salmon was cooked perfectly and flaked apart really easily. The stuffing was really good too and the veggies and mashed potatoes were awesome. My main course cost like $25, but it was well worth it. Troy got coconut Mahi Mahi, but I think he was jealous of what I got. After tax and tip, we ended up spending about $25 of our own money, which wasn't bad at all for what we got. If you're ever in the mood to spend money on a nice meal, you should definitely give McCormick & Schmick's a try. I would definitely go back.

Last week Troy and I went to see the new Indiana Jones movie at the Seattle Cinerama in downtown. It's a really old theater at 4th & Lenora, originally built in 1963 and renovated in 1997. It was going to be torn down for something else to be built, but Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, saved it from demolition. It's close enough to where we could walk there from our apartment, which was nice. It is currently one of only three movie theaters in the world still capable of showing three-panel Cinerama films. There are 808 seats, including a balcony and the screen is a gigantic 90 feet long by 30 feet high. There are stars on the ceiling and a huge lavender drape that covers the screen. The sound system was really good too. I knew it would be crowded, so we bought tickets a few hours ahead of time and then we arrived at the theater about 35 minutes before it was supposed to start. If we'd gotten there any later, we would've had a hard time finding a good seat. We'll probably go again soon if The Dark Knight is showing there. If you're going to see a movie in Seattle, you should definitely see it at the Cinerama, it was an awesome theater.

I flew into Dallas today and checked into my hotel. I had a good flight. I flew on Southwest Airlines because there weren't any non-stop flights available from any other airline during the times I wanted for a price I felt my company should pay, plus I like Southwest as a company, so I decided to take them. There were a couple stops on the way, but the last flight was probably the most enjoyable flight I've ever had, as the main flight attendant was hilarious. He was making all kinds of jokes about the flotation device and the aircraft and even took a couple shots at D/FW airport and American Airlines. So, that was a good flight.

At the car rental counter, I decided to rent a Toyota Prius. Since I figured I'd be doing a lot of driving during my trip, I wanted to try to help keep everyone's air a little less dirty by getting the most fuel-efficient car available, plus I just thought it'd be a cool car to drive. Well, it took me five minutes to figure out how to start it, but it's a pretty cool car.

I picked up some Taco Bueno on the way to the hotel, since that's something I can't have in Seattle. The hotel I'm staying at is in the middle of a renovation, which is kind of weird because it looks like it's under construction, but it's no big deal really.

Anyway, just like the last time I flew back here for work, I can't sleep on my first night. I guess it was a fairly exciting day and I'm excited to be here, plus it's only 10:41 right now in Seattle (though I would still be in bed now), but I still can't fall asleep.

Troy had to go back to Texas today for work for the second time in less than 3 months. He'll be coming back home this Friday afternoon. Less than 2 weeks ago, his work told him he'd have to go back for a project that's going on, so they didn't give us much notice at all. It's kind of disappointing that his work keeps making him go back. It almost feels like we haven't really completely moved here since Troy isn't working for a company in Seattle. Hopefully that will change soon though when he gets a job here so he won't have to keep leaving me so much by myself. It's not much fun being here by myself and this time it's made worse by the fact that I have a cold that started yesterday. I just wish I could go back with him every time he goes back but I don't have the vacation hours to do that and plane tickets aren't cheap. I wish I could have gone back this time to spend time with my parents, especially my mom since her father died recently and the sister of one of their friends also died a few weeks ago. Hopefully the next time Troy goes back for work will be the last and maybe I'll be able to go with him, because being here alone for more than a day or two just really sucks.