I'm having a Halloween party at my place tonight---"Moohaha Brewhaha" Come join in the festivities if you're in the Capital Hill area! I'm dressed up as a vampire this year and got really into my costume since I'm actually hosting a party for once. I wore the crazy Wildfire contact lenses I bought last month to work yesterday. I'll be wearing them again tonight. Man oh man--I don't know how people with contact lenses deal with wearing these every single day of their lives. It's a total pain. My eyes, fortunately, have adjusted fine. It really tops off my costume--quite spooky. I'm so excited to see all my friends dressed up tonight!

The last Lunar Eclipse before 2007 takes place tonight from about 5pm to 8:45pm PST.

I completely forgot to mention what I did this past weekend, which was so incredibly fun. So..last Friday, Ajay (who works at Vulcan) gives me a call and says "Whatcha doin' tomorrow night? Cuz' I just got invited to fly down on Paul's plane to check out the Trailblazers game--wanna come?" Hell yes. I can't believe I even hesitated (I had to cancel some plans). On Saturday, we drove over to Boeing Airfield to the Vulcan Flight Operations hangar and boarded Paul's private 747. This was my first time on a private plane and it was just an incredible experience. It's exactly like what you see on TV--there was a bed, shower and loungy couches everywhere...so incredibly comfortable. Within 25 minutes, we were in Portland and getting whisked off to the Rose Garden Stadium. We entered through this back entrance where we got to see some of the player's cars parked (and they were all pimped out--Escalades, Rolls Royce, etc...chrome wheels, everything). We headed up to the Owner's Suite and got some food and wine and then got seated for the game. Ajay and I scored by having COURTSIDE tickets. We were literally sitting right behind the Trailblazer girls the entire time. So sweet. What an amazing experience it was. The Trailblazers won (yay!) and we headed back to the plane right afterwards. All in all, I flew to Portland, watched a game and flew back in about 5 hours. Incredible. I'm working for the wrong company. This was a nice perk.

Surprise visit from good friend, Jon Pak, at Amazon. Jon started a month after I did at the company and was one of my first really good friends here in Seattle. He left for med school in Philly over a year ago. It was great to see him again! 

Finally got a hookah. It made for a very chill evening.

Matt just passed this on to me: Lookout: An addin to Outlook to quickly search all of your e-mail, contacts, calendar, and filesystem. Pretty cool. It's indexing now and I can't wait to start using it.

Yahoo and OMD Unveil Findings of Internet Deprivation Study



Despite the fact that they may need to call friends to make arrangements or read the daily newspaper to find out news, participants expressed that they looked unproductive and lazy to their colleagues when engaged in these activities using traditional means. The Internet helped them conceal these activities and helped them do it much faster.

I guess it would make a difference seeing my officemates surfing Google News versus kickin' back and reading the Seattle Times. In theory, they're the same activity.



I would like to think that my life doesn't evolve around the Internet too much aside from basic communication with friends using Email and Messenger. I've only had DSL hooked up at home for about a year now barely---before that, I only relied on dialing up with my work modem if I wanted to access the Internet at home. I figured I was online enough at work that it was silly to spend $50/month to be hooked up at home. The little ways that this has now changed my habits at home in this last year:

I pay my bills online now instead of writing checks and mailing them

I don't buy as many stamps as I used to

I'm starting to download music again (I basically stopped once I left college)

I don't necessarily plan my evenings from work as much because I can look up restaurants or movie times or print out directions to a party from home now without it being a hassle. Before, I'd print all this out at work and end up staying at work a bit longer just to take care of personal errands.

Now that I can be on Messenger at home in the evenings, it's a lot easier to just ping someone for a last minute movie or something.

I'm updating my website at home instead of at work. I used to burn photos I wanted to upload onto a CD and bring it into work since the connection was fast.

I don't go through as many blank CDR's as I used to

I'm getting friends to email me on my personal email more than my work email.



Interesting.

My friends Debbie & Saevar visited me from NYC last weekend and we had the most amazing time together. We were fortunate to have gotten some absolutely beautiful weather and I think I was able to convince them that Seattle is one beautiful city. They had a chance to meet my friends, eat good food and just see so much of Seattle. Below are a few photos capturing their time here. 

eating lunch at amazon.com pacmed 

Saevar at Snoqualmie Falls 

Debbie in the elevator at the Seattle Library 

Debbie & Saevar at the first Starbucks 

video projection on the fremont troll