I guess I'll start by saying I spent 4 hours on the bus today... or a least in transit...
I got up and left the house at 8am.... then proceeded to walk to my bus... ride from 8:15 till 9:53, and walk in to work about 4 minutes early.
Then I worked for 10 hours... rigorously playing video games... killing and willingly being killed... digging up potential bugs... I even submitted my first bug report... and then left work...
Waited from 8:00 to 8:18... rode to Bellevue and waited 20 minutes... rode to Renton and waited 15 minutes... kept going to Kent and waited 15 minutes... took the bus up the hill and walked from my bus stop...
oh the glory of public transit. but it was pretty cool when my Volt ER got me a cup of coffee and a snack at Star Bucks for my welcome meeting...
Now I'm here... I still haven't put my spare tire on the Van yet... and I really don't know if I'll get around to that tonight... maybe one of these nights, or some time really soon. who knows... at this rate I don't know when I'll drive my car again. (I bet you're happy mom ;)
so... I love the job... it gets better every day... I get free drinks and snacks... free coffee... Bungie Studios is right in down town Kirkland... which is a really nice area to be... and after 6:30 we are allowed to drink beer at work... actually, the direct Bungie employees get to drink beer all day... but we lowly contractors don't get any of their free stuff...
The only thing that is kinda annoying at work is the ever clear presence of a hierarchy where the Bungie people are on top, and the contractors are on bottom... we get free snacks, coffee, and drinks... they get all our stuff and free meals, beer, and better snacks... Plus they get to tell us what to do. It's like each person who works at Bungie has a team of contractors to work for them... I guess I'll just have to get one of their jobs.
it's kinda cool when I'm on the bus people see my MS badge and ask me what I do... and I get this whole feeling like I'm a politician saying "I'm working my way around to figuring out how I won't answer that" every two seconds... everyone has questions... are there new this and that... did you read about this online and what are you gonna do about it... It is really fascinating to hear all the questions...
James was finally able to start answering some of the questions I had for him about his project... it turns out that all this time he's been working on a project called Microsoft Surface... which is this really cool idea of the coffee table/cash register of the future. It's designed to integrate a table, computer, cell phone, PDA, credit cards, and any other wireless device all together...
Check out the web site, it looks really sweet! Straight out of Sci-Fi. I even want it... and I hate almost everything Microsoft (not including companies owned by Microsoft) makes!
anyway... once I got home I was happy and sad to have an empty house... Evelyn went with Maninther to Bellingham to pick up a load... and because she baby sits Jaani at the house, she took him with her... which is kinda nice because she will take him to the vet for me tomorrow, and keep him company while I'm at work... but this will be the first night since I got Jaani that he won't be sleeping in my bed... it kinda makes me sad... even to think about it... but it's for him.
unfortunately he seems to have some sort of skin thing going on right now... he keeps itching, and we can't find any fleas... that hot spot stuff works for a little while, but I think he might need something more. I hope it doesn't cost too much, but at least I have a care credit card to pay for it... that way I won't get any interest... plus it is actually a great supplement to insurance because I can use that to pay any co-pay, dental, or Rx... even though I will have dental in July.
well, between getting a flat tire, and all my other bills money will be really tight until the 8th... but I just may have automatic deposit available by then, which means I'll actually get paid on the 7th... and I should be getting a little more money than I was originally expecting. so from that point out things should be good. after all, with this bus pass, I have a far smaller chance of getting unexpected bills, and that pesky thing of the car being really old and it could just die at any moment... it really is unfortunate that cars don't have a 3 second re-spawn rate... heck, even a 30 second rate would be sweet... the car dies and a new one just reappears... the garbage collection just making the old one vanish without a trace.
So... yea, that's what's up today. I hope I entertained someone...
that's it for tonight. g'ngiht
Later,
SteveO
