A few small changes...
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
As a note, I've gone and made the old slide shows bigger so that you can actually see and appreciate the pictures. Thought I'd let you know.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
So it's time for the weekend update!
Last Tuesday, we went on a hike up Badger Mountain. One of the higher peaks around, but not all that big. But we went at sunset. Got some very cool pictures. It was very windy. To the point that my lip was flapping in the wind. I could lean back and let the wind hold me up. But it was so cool.
This past week was my birthday. I'm sure you didn't forget. I love my birthday, so I probably have told you all several times. 22. Such an odd age. I haven't decided if I like it, but it certainly makes me feel older, more like a grad student.
If there was ever a good way to spend one's birthday at work, Friday was it. I didn't do squat. Friday morning was a jet boat tour with my internship program. A nice man took a bunch of us out on his jet boat and drove us up the river. We got to see the Hanford site again (and I got to take pictures of the reactors this time!) and we got to see lots of wildlife and cool scenery. It really made me appreciate this area. I'm all for nuclear energy, but the government really screwed up when it decided to keep that area from the public for so long. I know, I know, that's necessary when one is dealing with national security. It's more that I know it will be a long time before the area is cleaned up and open to the public. If ever. At least the river is open. Beautiful area. The ecosystem is rather unstable. But very fertile if you give it water. Which is actually part of the problem there. There are serious erosion issues on the cliffs you'll see in the pictures. After the fantastic boat ride, we had lunch and headed to work.
At work, there were lovely flowers for me from my lovely family (kudos to mom despite the fact that her name was left off of the card). I handed out red velvet cupcakes to my fellow co-workers and then it was time for the APEL cup. Our office building (APEL) hosts an annual fundraiser putt putt tournament. The employees build holes however they want, then people play putt putt. So yeah. There was a hole where you had to ramp into an inner tube. This caused the balls to hit the wall of my office quite loudly. There was one called the black hole. You had to putt up a curved ramp onto another level, then the ball went into the motorized vortex and either spit out into the hole or out the backside and you tried again. There was a water hole: your ball either went straight down a ramp and into the hole or you ended up chasing it around the loading dock to get it into the hole. There was one that was rather elaborately built and involved banking a ball off of a concrete chicken. Then there was the hole that ended up a ramp and into a crucible. The next hole was a long piece of black corrugated pipe that you had to putt your ball into and pull up a string so that it would roll around and into the fishing net. Then there was my personal favorite: the tic-tac-toe. The directions were a bit hazy on this one, so we concluded that you didn't actually add any points to your score, but if you got it into the bucket with the X you got a point off your score. Good deal in golf, right? What you did was bank your ball up a ramp made of poster board and it had to land in one of nine trash cans that were in a tic-tac-toe pattern. The next hole required you to bank your ball over a gravel area (otherwise you destroyed your putter) and into a dog house. The final one was like croquet. Except with apples that had holes missing out of the bottoms. Although I'm not sure how legit our scoring methods were, our team did fairly well and had a fantastic time playing. This left about an hour of work, which I used to fix a diagram for my paper.
After work was baseball. The Tri-City Dust Devils once more. This time, I managed to get a picture of just how creepy Dusty is. There were lots of interns there, and we had a blast. Saturday were Hydroplane races. The Tri City Water Follies. Fast boats! 146 mph I heard at one point. There was also an F-16 flyover, which I got plenty of pictures of. It was hot, so we found a spot by the starting line and stood in the river to watch the race. I would like to take a moment to express pity for the Tri Cities in that they rarely are discussed individually. They are Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco. Now you know. Everything here is "Tri Cities this" and "Tri Cities that."
After the boat races, I took a nap that lasted until Sunday morning. I went to Richland Church of Christ for church, then went to Target and poked around before I went home. Ben and I decided to go down to the park by the river and lay out/read and just generally chill. So we did. We were there for several hours. My tan enjoyed it thoroughly. We could see the smoke from the boat fire at the hydroplane races (wasn't a hydroplane. a private boat that was watching the race ended up catching fire from its barbecue grill.) and we could see the C-something cargo plane come by as well as the F-16 show again. And my book was excellent and the weather was amazing. We ended the day with dinner at PF Chang's. A nice relaxing day, in all.
It's dinnertime, so I am out. There are two parties this week, so hopefully I will get some pictures of all the fellow interns for you.
Last Tuesday, we went on a hike up Badger Mountain. One of the higher peaks around, but not all that big. But we went at sunset. Got some very cool pictures. It was very windy. To the point that my lip was flapping in the wind. I could lean back and let the wind hold me up. But it was so cool.
This past week was my birthday. I'm sure you didn't forget. I love my birthday, so I probably have told you all several times. 22. Such an odd age. I haven't decided if I like it, but it certainly makes me feel older, more like a grad student.
If there was ever a good way to spend one's birthday at work, Friday was it. I didn't do squat. Friday morning was a jet boat tour with my internship program. A nice man took a bunch of us out on his jet boat and drove us up the river. We got to see the Hanford site again (and I got to take pictures of the reactors this time!) and we got to see lots of wildlife and cool scenery. It really made me appreciate this area. I'm all for nuclear energy, but the government really screwed up when it decided to keep that area from the public for so long. I know, I know, that's necessary when one is dealing with national security. It's more that I know it will be a long time before the area is cleaned up and open to the public. If ever. At least the river is open. Beautiful area. The ecosystem is rather unstable. But very fertile if you give it water. Which is actually part of the problem there. There are serious erosion issues on the cliffs you'll see in the pictures. After the fantastic boat ride, we had lunch and headed to work.
At work, there were lovely flowers for me from my lovely family (kudos to mom despite the fact that her name was left off of the card). I handed out red velvet cupcakes to my fellow co-workers and then it was time for the APEL cup. Our office building (APEL) hosts an annual fundraiser putt putt tournament. The employees build holes however they want, then people play putt putt. So yeah. There was a hole where you had to ramp into an inner tube. This caused the balls to hit the wall of my office quite loudly. There was one called the black hole. You had to putt up a curved ramp onto another level, then the ball went into the motorized vortex and either spit out into the hole or out the backside and you tried again. There was a water hole: your ball either went straight down a ramp and into the hole or you ended up chasing it around the loading dock to get it into the hole. There was one that was rather elaborately built and involved banking a ball off of a concrete chicken. Then there was the hole that ended up a ramp and into a crucible. The next hole was a long piece of black corrugated pipe that you had to putt your ball into and pull up a string so that it would roll around and into the fishing net. Then there was my personal favorite: the tic-tac-toe. The directions were a bit hazy on this one, so we concluded that you didn't actually add any points to your score, but if you got it into the bucket with the X you got a point off your score. Good deal in golf, right? What you did was bank your ball up a ramp made of poster board and it had to land in one of nine trash cans that were in a tic-tac-toe pattern. The next hole required you to bank your ball over a gravel area (otherwise you destroyed your putter) and into a dog house. The final one was like croquet. Except with apples that had holes missing out of the bottoms. Although I'm not sure how legit our scoring methods were, our team did fairly well and had a fantastic time playing. This left about an hour of work, which I used to fix a diagram for my paper.
After work was baseball. The Tri-City Dust Devils once more. This time, I managed to get a picture of just how creepy Dusty is. There were lots of interns there, and we had a blast. Saturday were Hydroplane races. The Tri City Water Follies. Fast boats! 146 mph I heard at one point. There was also an F-16 flyover, which I got plenty of pictures of. It was hot, so we found a spot by the starting line and stood in the river to watch the race. I would like to take a moment to express pity for the Tri Cities in that they rarely are discussed individually. They are Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco. Now you know. Everything here is "Tri Cities this" and "Tri Cities that."
After the boat races, I took a nap that lasted until Sunday morning. I went to Richland Church of Christ for church, then went to Target and poked around before I went home. Ben and I decided to go down to the park by the river and lay out/read and just generally chill. So we did. We were there for several hours. My tan enjoyed it thoroughly. We could see the smoke from the boat fire at the hydroplane races (wasn't a hydroplane. a private boat that was watching the race ended up catching fire from its barbecue grill.) and we could see the C-something cargo plane come by as well as the F-16 show again. And my book was excellent and the weather was amazing. We ended the day with dinner at PF Chang's. A nice relaxing day, in all.
It's dinnertime, so I am out. There are two parties this week, so hopefully I will get some pictures of all the fellow interns for you.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Or perhaps I should title it "Sleepless on the way to Seattle." See, on Thursday of last week, we had an intern picnic after work with the best tacos I've ever eaten in my life. Really. Served by real mexican people too, of course. Then I got 10 minutes to breathe before we went over to a friend's house and watched Batman Begins. See, someone hadn't seen it yet and needed to see it before we went to see The Dark Knight that night at midnight. Which we did after that movie. We went and sat in the theater for two hours and played cards or read various books (I went with Harry Potter) while we waited for the movie. Totally worth the wait and the sleepless night. A-mazing. Went to bed at around 3:15 and got up at 7-ish for work. We worked until 2, then Bem, Sara and I headed out for Seattle by 3-ish.
When we got to town, the traffic was bad, but the weather was beautiful. Not to hot, not too cold. We were attempting to go to the baseball game, but we got there 10 minutes before it started and the cheapest tickets were $30 for the upper deck with an obstructed view. So I met up with Josh, the friend from Clemson who now lives in Seattle, and we all got back in the car and headed to Fremont, where Josh lives. He was kind enough to let us stay in his living room for the weekend, so he gets mad props for that and a blog shout-out. Anyway, for those who know anything about Seattle, he lives litterally around the corner from the Fremont Troll. You'll see the cool troll dude in the pictures. That night, we went to dinner at a greek place within walking distance and wandered around Fremont for a bit, seeing all the strange things there are to see there.
Saturday started bright and early with the waffles that Josh promised a large crowd of people back around New Years. They were delicious. We hopped on a bus and headed into downtown Seattle. First stop of the morning was the City Center. The area around the Space Needle. Allow me to stop and comment on the use of the word "space." If you were to add "space" to the front of a lot of words, it would make it so much cooler. I mean, think about it: needle? no, that's lame. space needle? woah! how cool! I want to see that!
Okay, I'm back on track now. So yeah. It costs $14 to go up the space needle. Obviously, we didn't submit to this extortion. Instead, we took cool shots of the skyline from all over town. It's always cooler to have the space needle in your photo, if you ask me. We took pictures of all sorts of stuff and goofed around until we decided to wander over to Pike's Place Market. The market is down in the pier area, of course. Somehow, we missed the original Starbucks on the walk down there and didn't make it back up to see it. Oh well. If I can go to Starbucks in Nebraska, it's no longer cool. The market, on the other hand, was cool. I'm afraid I did not catch a fish flying through the air in my pictures, as everyone there didn't actually want to buy a fish. Although their smoked salmon samples were absolutely delicious. Made me want fish. So, after wandering through all the little junk shops in the market and looking at the beautiful flowers and produce (I really wish I could have shipped some of this food home, but it wouldn't be fresh. Might as well buy it a BiLo at that point), we walked a few more piers down and went to Ivar's, this seafood place that serves fish and chips. It was quite delicious despite the wait (it's rather famous and popular) and the seagulls trying to get your food if you eat outside.
After a very fresh seafood lunch, it was on to the public library and a nice loop around town. The library was so stinking cool. And a little bit strange. The level that was entirely red was creepy. The highlighter yellow escalators were very cool though. We got lost once. We were trying to find out how to get to this level we could see from the ground floor, but we missed it by accident. After playing in the library and wandering around town a bit, we went to the ferry pier and caught a boat over to Bainbridge Island. This is where all the rich people live around Seattle, or so it seems. We went there for their ice cream. Mora has the most amazing combinations of flavors ever. I had an absolutely delicious green tea ice cream. We wandered the little town, then went to catch the ferry back. The ride wasn't bad, by the way. I actually think Amy could handle it. We stopped into Nordstorm Rack (obviously the girls' choice), then headed over to Capitol Hill to have dinner with some other guys from the lab. We ate at a place called the Garage that had bowling, pool, and delicious french fries and burgers.
Sunday, we took our time getting up before heading to the Gas Works Park for a while. The park is located on Lake Union and has a fantastic view of the downtown area. They have a sundial that you stand on to get the time. It had directions. I think it was wrong. By an hour. But it was still very cool. The park used to be a coal gassification facility that manufactured oil for heating and lighting use in the area. They buldozed most of the buildings and piled them up before covering them with earth to make the hill where the sundial is. The old equipment is still there. Big rusty tanks and stuff, some concrete arches that used to hold pipes, and this barn full of equipment that they painted to make it kid friendly. I think it's a death trap, but that's Butch Burka coming out there. We walked back into Fremont and visited the Lenin statue. Apparently some dude mortgaged his house and went to slovakia to get it. Now it has no home and is currently for sale to anyone who wants to diplay it in the way the dude wanted. It's quite cool and I think Fremont needs to keep it. It's is also supposed to be the only known statue in which Lenin is neither reading a book or waving his hat. In this one, he's walking, with waving objects behind him that are supposed to symbolize guns and fire. Very cool. We ate lunch next to Lenin, then walked for a bit more and took a picture of the "Center of the Universe" sign, not to be confused with the sign I saw in Portland. Fremont is the official center of the universe. Bet you didn't know that.
Last night, we went on a sunset hike that I got some pictures of. Expect to see some of those in next week's blog.
Last but not least. There are 182 awesome pictures in today's post. They all have captions and I didn't want you to miss any, so I did not set the slide show to start automatically. You'll have to actually press play. Enjoy!
When we got to town, the traffic was bad, but the weather was beautiful. Not to hot, not too cold. We were attempting to go to the baseball game, but we got there 10 minutes before it started and the cheapest tickets were $30 for the upper deck with an obstructed view. So I met up with Josh, the friend from Clemson who now lives in Seattle, and we all got back in the car and headed to Fremont, where Josh lives. He was kind enough to let us stay in his living room for the weekend, so he gets mad props for that and a blog shout-out. Anyway, for those who know anything about Seattle, he lives litterally around the corner from the Fremont Troll. You'll see the cool troll dude in the pictures. That night, we went to dinner at a greek place within walking distance and wandered around Fremont for a bit, seeing all the strange things there are to see there.
Saturday started bright and early with the waffles that Josh promised a large crowd of people back around New Years. They were delicious. We hopped on a bus and headed into downtown Seattle. First stop of the morning was the City Center. The area around the Space Needle. Allow me to stop and comment on the use of the word "space." If you were to add "space" to the front of a lot of words, it would make it so much cooler. I mean, think about it: needle? no, that's lame. space needle? woah! how cool! I want to see that!
Okay, I'm back on track now. So yeah. It costs $14 to go up the space needle. Obviously, we didn't submit to this extortion. Instead, we took cool shots of the skyline from all over town. It's always cooler to have the space needle in your photo, if you ask me. We took pictures of all sorts of stuff and goofed around until we decided to wander over to Pike's Place Market. The market is down in the pier area, of course. Somehow, we missed the original Starbucks on the walk down there and didn't make it back up to see it. Oh well. If I can go to Starbucks in Nebraska, it's no longer cool. The market, on the other hand, was cool. I'm afraid I did not catch a fish flying through the air in my pictures, as everyone there didn't actually want to buy a fish. Although their smoked salmon samples were absolutely delicious. Made me want fish. So, after wandering through all the little junk shops in the market and looking at the beautiful flowers and produce (I really wish I could have shipped some of this food home, but it wouldn't be fresh. Might as well buy it a BiLo at that point), we walked a few more piers down and went to Ivar's, this seafood place that serves fish and chips. It was quite delicious despite the wait (it's rather famous and popular) and the seagulls trying to get your food if you eat outside.
After a very fresh seafood lunch, it was on to the public library and a nice loop around town. The library was so stinking cool. And a little bit strange. The level that was entirely red was creepy. The highlighter yellow escalators were very cool though. We got lost once. We were trying to find out how to get to this level we could see from the ground floor, but we missed it by accident. After playing in the library and wandering around town a bit, we went to the ferry pier and caught a boat over to Bainbridge Island. This is where all the rich people live around Seattle, or so it seems. We went there for their ice cream. Mora has the most amazing combinations of flavors ever. I had an absolutely delicious green tea ice cream. We wandered the little town, then went to catch the ferry back. The ride wasn't bad, by the way. I actually think Amy could handle it. We stopped into Nordstorm Rack (obviously the girls' choice), then headed over to Capitol Hill to have dinner with some other guys from the lab. We ate at a place called the Garage that had bowling, pool, and delicious french fries and burgers.
Sunday, we took our time getting up before heading to the Gas Works Park for a while. The park is located on Lake Union and has a fantastic view of the downtown area. They have a sundial that you stand on to get the time. It had directions. I think it was wrong. By an hour. But it was still very cool. The park used to be a coal gassification facility that manufactured oil for heating and lighting use in the area. They buldozed most of the buildings and piled them up before covering them with earth to make the hill where the sundial is. The old equipment is still there. Big rusty tanks and stuff, some concrete arches that used to hold pipes, and this barn full of equipment that they painted to make it kid friendly. I think it's a death trap, but that's Butch Burka coming out there. We walked back into Fremont and visited the Lenin statue. Apparently some dude mortgaged his house and went to slovakia to get it. Now it has no home and is currently for sale to anyone who wants to diplay it in the way the dude wanted. It's quite cool and I think Fremont needs to keep it. It's is also supposed to be the only known statue in which Lenin is neither reading a book or waving his hat. In this one, he's walking, with waving objects behind him that are supposed to symbolize guns and fire. Very cool. We ate lunch next to Lenin, then walked for a bit more and took a picture of the "Center of the Universe" sign, not to be confused with the sign I saw in Portland. Fremont is the official center of the universe. Bet you didn't know that.
Last night, we went on a sunset hike that I got some pictures of. Expect to see some of those in next week's blog.
Last but not least. There are 182 awesome pictures in today's post. They all have captions and I didn't want you to miss any, so I did not set the slide show to start automatically. You'll have to actually press play. Enjoy!
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