adam @ 404

Last weekend I flew out to Indianopolis for work. I went out a few days early and met up with my Coworker Eric who had finished up his work and was going to head back Sunday. Events included racing SCAA Spec cars, paintball, a great dinner and hitting some bars/clubs downtown Indy.

All in all, it was pretty fun, if not a little expensive. Indianapolis is good for one day of adventure, then its charm (if you want to call it that) seems to wear off, especially during the time you’re hung over. Favorite moments include taking an accidental extra lap and driving straight off the course, the staffer at paintball telling me to shoot the opposing team of 13 year-olds “all [I] want” since the owner’s son was on it, and asking the girls in the VIP if they were going to stay up there all night or come down and dance with me (of course they wanted to stay in the VIP).

After the weekend was over, Eric headed back to Seattle and I headed up to West Lafayette for the fall career fair at Purdue. It’s my first time doing anything like this, and was definitely a great experience and chance to really learn how to talk a lot. And I mean a lot. Software developers aren’t known for their social skills for good reason. We don’t get much practice in smoozing, but over the course of 2 days I easily talked to over 200 students about my work, and what each one was doing, along with talk to some faculty.

On monday I was put on a corporate panel to talk about the company a couple minutes before it started. Ingen, the recruiter, waved me up to the front of the lecture hall to tell me that they had unknowingly put us on the panel. I said a couple things about the company and answered a couple questions about what types of problems we work on (ie. distributed systems) and the work environment we have (lots of email lists, and a young culture of activity). Overall, I think I did a good job given my small prep time.

After the career fair was over, I headed back to Indy for the night and got out of there early next morning. As fun and intense as the few days were it was really nice to be back in Seattle. I’m not made out to be a traveling professional. Hopefully the next time I travel it will be for a holiday.

Got some Japanese at a relatively nice place out in Bellevue with Ariana, Andrew and the rest of da crew on Friday night. The soba was mediocre. It’s a wild ride when we all get together in public. Like the kind of wild ride where we’re obnoxiously loud, probably busy teasing Sterling about her eating habits or some other habits picked up during her home schooled childhood. It’s the only way to dine.

After sushi destruction, I thought my night was over. Fat chance. I called Al to see what he was up to and he informed me that “shenadigans” had already begun in Belltown. How am I supposed to turn that down? I met up with Al (or more accurately in Michigan accent, Ale), and peeps and we shenadiganned our night at all the best douchy clubs on douche row. At our last bar stop of the evening, we ran into Eric , my current office-mate, and his whole posse. What’re the chances?! Al was my last office-mate, and it felt alittle like running into your girlfriend, when your out cheating on her with your ex, oh man, for real, it did. Ok, I have to come clean, it only made the party that much more rawkawwwws - bring the NOIZE!!! Eric’s peeps had a rooftop party going on after the bars closed that ended the night.

Fast forward though my Saturday at Bumbershoot. Notable notes? Pretty good performances, mix in some sweet mediocrity. Most notable moments: girls in rollerskates hitting each other, girls hitting each other in rollerskates and Al’s rooftop overlooking the bay. Keep fast forwarding through Sunday for Nora’s b-day at Garage Bowl, where records were broken, primarily the record for earliest afternoon drunk on 5 whiskey sours currently held by Katie. Sunday night was like a Neil Young young track about being lonely in a big city in your twenties. You can imagine.

Today, The Labor Day, I managed to head out before noon down to Capitol Hill. My errands run was thwarted when the bicycle shop was closed, and also by the fact that I can’t figure out the difference between E. Pine and Pine St. It’s actually pretty annoying. You’d think that the continuation of the road would be W. Pine, but no, its not. So my attempt to get lunch at the Baguette Box on Pine St. was unsuccessful. I ended up eating Burritos and calling Dad to see what was going down in W. Mich. I informed him of my plan to get on a boat that day to see the water and views. So began my journey down to the docks…

The Washington State Ferry system is impressive once you get on one of the ferries - They’re gigantic allowing for cars and trucks to load on and move really fast for their size. I took the earliest ferry to leave the docks to Bainbridge Island. To see the city from the boats is pretty inspiring, as in any city that affords you a view from the water. Anyone who says the space needle should be torn down in crazy, it adds way too much character to skyline to be removed.

Unfortunately, beyond the great views and fun ride, the trip didn’t elicit much excitement. Bainbridge is more like Borebridge. It’s understandable since I felt like I had been transported from a bustling metropolis to downtown Saugatuck, Michigan. It was a very quaint town. My time there lasted a short hour and a half then it was back on the next ferry and over to the tough streets of Pioneer Square where I considered scoring some H just to get the images of handcrafted jewelry and earthen pottery out of my mind.

Okay, so why do I keep hearing people on the phone use ‘Late’ as a farewell? Is this West coast or am I witnessing the beginning of a disturbing national trend.

When I tell someone that I work at Amazon, some people will take the opportunity to give me some sort of feedback about their customer experience. I’m sure I’ll tire of the experience, but for now, I’ve totally been drinking the Kool-Aid and believe that we really are the most customer-centric company in the world. I mean, I can just pass the feedback along, right? Like when my Mom told me that she should be able to browse shoes by size… I passed it along. Easy enough.

Recently, A few people have told me that they can never find a way to contact customer service when they have problems with their order. Each time, I would usually squint a bit and say, “I’m pretty sure theres an easy way to call or email customer service.” I’ve never had to contact CS, and not being able to definitively answer the question bothered me (I’m on my second quart of Kool-Aid). So now I must find out…

Unless, I’m horribly mistaken, the steps to contact (or be contacted by) customer service is to go to your favorite Amazon website (mine’s www.amazon.com) with your favorite web browser, select/click on the ‘Help’ link on the menu at the top of the page, select/click a Help page link like ‘Shipping & Delivery’, then select the Contact Us By Email or By Phone buttons on the right-hand side menu and follow the directions on the subsequent page.

Now I’m assuming that once you follow through and submit your request, all will go well. But if you get the desire to email me telling me that it didn’t work… well, I just stopped drinking the Kool-Aid.

Is the west coast the best coast? Well, yes it is (in my warped and perverted mind). I lived one of the things I never imagined doing a couple weekends ago- surfing. Surfing USA, in fact. Greg, a coworker of mine picked up surfing out here about a year ago. When he asked me about directions to the pickup soccer game, I told him I’d tell him if he took me surfing with him sometime. He agreed and we went that weekend…

The drive out to the coast takes about two and a half hours, so its definitely a weekend trip. We drove to Grayland, but I could be wrong - I wasn’t driving. When we got to the town, I rented a wetsuit and a board and we headed down to the beach. The beach on the weekend is basically overrun by surfers. It’s washington so there aren’t as many people just catching some sun, because you can’t really swim without a wetsuit. When I first entered the water is was damn cold but I have to thank whoever invented the wetsuit, cos it warms up right quick.
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Last week Tuesday, rather than walk straight home, I kept walking straight down 5th Ave to gawk at buildings and the general downtown surroundings, and happened upon the Seattle Central Library. It is truly a spectacle. Designed by none other than world renowned architect Rem Koolhaas, it’s worth a visit if you’re in town. Ya.

I didn’t end up checking out any books or even get a library card. There were plenty of other people there staring and snapping photos.

Seattle/Library

This weekend I’ve been housesitting for Ariana and Andrew, who are away in Coeur d’ Alene for the weekend. They just got sod put down in their backward so it needs to be watered alot. I’ve been spending my afternoons sitting on their back deck so I get to overhear the neighborhood.

There’s got to be something about coats and moms. Within 2 minutes of one another two cars pulled into different driveways in the back and side of the house, with both moms lecturing their kids about their coats. Strangely, the first mom was telling her son that he should have had his coat on while the second mom was yelling at him about wearing his coat too much. C’mon moms, pick one and go with it.

I talked with Mullett earlier and found out that Ben and him are in a punk band together in Portland and apparently they’re touring in a couple months. Who knew?!

I went to REI’s flagship store and it’s freakin’ huge. There’s a waterfall and woods in front of it… in the middle of Seattle. I bought myself a sleeping bag and accessories for backpacking. This whole Pacific Northwest thing is coming full circle.

The mobility lady thought I was crazy when I didn’t want to take a flight out to Seattle. Everyone I talked to said it would take us, at the minimum, three days to go from Michigan to Seattle. Well, I ain’t crazy, but my Dad and I combined are. Amazon took care of shipping my belongings, but we decided to take a roadtrip together to get me out there. You know, one of those father-son bonding things.

We left last week Wednesday morning from Spring Lake, MI and arrived on Friday at 4pm in Seattle. Most of the trip was straight driving (we drove 14 hours on Thursday). In total, it took us about 56 hours with stops. There were points in the trip where we got to head off the beaten track and do some touring. In South Dakota we hit The Badlands, Wall Drug and Mt. Rushmore. I recommend all of those stops for anyone driving on I-90. Rushmore was a lot more impressive than I had expected - sculpture in a mountain!

The trip was a good chance to hang out with Dad, something I hadn’t done in a while since I lived and worked on the other side of the state. We only tried to kill each other once, with me probably actually trying it and him thinking about it. When you spend that much time with a parent you start to notice how much like them you are, as scary as that sounds. I obviously am the better half of both my parents, and their parents, and so on… obviously.

After our arrival it was a weekend of touring around Pikes Place Market, the SpaceNeedle, Amazon HQ, a great dinner at the Oceanaire, and we caught an exciting Mariners (vs. Padres 6-3) game with Ariana and Andrew. Early Monday morning I took the Old Man out to SeaTac Airport, and bid him farewell… After, I went back to get ready for my first day in my temp housing downtown apartment (that I couldn’t afford otherwise). I’ve linked some roadtrip photos…

travel/seattle

I think the saddest part about leaving UM will be that I’m going to lose my Umich IT account, and with it, the uniquename that I got almost ten years ago as a college freshman (although for records purposes, it will probably stay with me for some time). That sounds a bit cheesy since most people that go to school at UM eventually lose theirs as well. Most all of my friends from school have long since lost theirs. But I went and got a job at UM after I graduated, so I kept it and it has grown on me.

It was my first computer account of any type, and the assigned name ‘adamjk’ was too catchy and easy to say to not use for almost every other account username (except maybe when ‘adam’ was available). Adam Just Kidding. The name stuck with some people. UM is where I started computers, now it seems to be strange leaving it. Typing a-d-a-m-j-k has been ingrained in my physical memory like riding a bike or swimming. These things stay with you because they were learned during formative years, as a kid.

I really learned to type during my freshman year. I was a blank slate when it came to personal computing. Many nights were spent hogging Jeremie’s PC keyboard when I should have been studying. Jeremie rightfully kicked me out of his dorm room a few times. That year it was mostly IRC, ICQ, Quake, HTML and CGI. And I can’t forget the Chupacabra in ‘96 presidential Web campaign. My GPA suffered, but I don’t blame Jeremie and Ben’s Room of Procrastination. In fact, I should really thank them for starting my insatiable interest in making all things electronic. I didn’t even own a PC.

I don’t know how long I’ll consider myself an Engineer. For now, I like it. I like to create things that work. But interests change. Maybe I’ll be a Planner or Scientist one day - maybe a fast-food worker. One things for sure though, I’ll always be adamjk.