SeattleCasbah.Com

Man on Fire!

I've come to believe that one of the most frustrating sensations in life is seeing something so comically genius with the full knowledge that it was a fleeting, once-in-a-lifetime event and you will never have any ability to fully relay the experience (like the midget-brothers get rich quick infomercial I had on my "keep until I delete" on Tivo). A "you had to be there" moment, but times 100 since you are trying to describe the funniest thing you've ever seen and you KNOW its not going to translate well ahead of time. But its in my head so I gotta try.

Last night, I'm watching TV and come across the opening intro for "Inside Edition". SCREEN: THE IMAGE OF BARBARO PULLING UP LAME DURING HORSE RACE Voiceover <The horrible accident that all the morning news shows were talking about!> CUT TO CLIPS OF VARIOUS MORNING NEWS SHOWS DISCUSSING THE TRAGEDY. Voiceover <We speak with the first doctor on the scene!> CUT TO CLIP OF DOCTOR EXAMING HORSE. Voiceover <And the amazing surgery that might let him walk again!> CUT TO CLIP OF HORSE IN OPERATION ROOM Voicover <But this isn't the first horrific experience this hero doctor survived - he was part of this horrible plane crash> CUT TO CLIP OF PLANE CATCHING FIRE AS IT LANDS, CUT TO INTERVIEW WITH A SURVIVOR OF THE PLANE Voiceover of woman being interviewed <He's a true hero!>. Voiceover <That's tonight on Inside Edition! Plus...Man on fire!> CUT TO SHORT CLIP OF A MAN ON FIRE, BEGIN SHOW GRAPHICS

You see, its hard to convey. I just thought it was the weirdest, most completely out of context moment - "MAN ON FIRE!!!". That's the big hook they've identified with the demographic to get them to stay after they milk the horse ankle to death. Its coined a new phrase for me. Anytime someone tries to convince me of something and the mere attempt ends up being so mind-numbingly lame that its insulting and funny at the same time, I'm going to call it a "MAN ON FIRE!!!" moment.

Yesterday the market continued to drop like a rock, 60 people were killed in Afghanistan, a guy got stabbed in Seattle, a HUGE new transportation tax package was announced; all this, but the lead story on the 10 O'clock news last night was about 5 puppies mistakenly killed at a dog shelter. Remember the "Terror Alert Level" that so mysteriously dissapeared? Your drunk buddy at the bar who is trying to cockblock you by bringing up an embarrassing story? The guy at your work who is trying to play politics but its sad, obvious, and clumsy?

MAN ON FIRE!

p.s. by the way, I checked technorati and of the 40.7 million sites being tracked, I'm now one of the few special ones to blog the words "Inside Edition". And yes, I'm going to pull my fingernails out.

Interleague Play

The M's won a series! Holy cow, its good to see them get their swing on. A friend from Baltimore asked me how we ended up with San Diego as our interleague rivals. Its simple. We're the MLB's bastard step-children up here. There is no geographical rivalry, so they give us left-overs. Seriously, it'd be like if Maine had a team. Who would their rivals be? (Knowing MLB, probably the Pirates). Personally, I'd like to see Brewers-M's, since the Brew Crew used to be AL and well, there's no other reason except that the last M's-Brewers game I went to was at County Stadium, Bobby F'in Ayala assaulted his girlfriend the night before, and Chris Bosio threw us his chewing tobacco. That's the kind of thing that builds rivalries.

Good news is that their recent run has gained at least one new fan out there.

lost phone

Hey everyone - I lost my phone yesterday and all the numbers I had in it. If you can shoot me an email with your number or give me a ring, I'd appreciate it!

Another interesting site

Jenna at Microsoft's recruiting blog had an interesting thing to say today about working with recruiters - namely, she'd prefer that a candidate for her positions stick to working with one recruiter. It does help keep down the confusion and maybe that's the best thing for a small to mid size company, but its surprising to see that at a large sized company. How can one recruiter best represent me for all 5,000+ positions open there? The recruiters there are mostly arranged by product groups, so would a recruiter with Visual Studio really shop me around to groups like xbox or MSN? Or (most likely), would they forward your resume and let you hope that your resume is picked up by the other group?

My 2 cents is that there are a lot of positions out there. I would best be served by working with as many recruiters as possible. Sure, its a little bit of work keeping track of things on their part. But for me, I'd rather have ten people working to find me a job than just one. Then again, I'm in a completely different sphere of business (and I do not work for MS). I just know that if I were to try that particular approach, candidates would be exposed to far fewer job opportunities that they were qualified for. I just assumed that every candidate I was working with was talking to 10 different recruiters - it just made me work that much harder.

MyMicrosoft

So interesting news out of the Mothership this afternoon. Turns out that after a couple years of cost-cutting news, Microsoft is starting to reinstate and reinvest some of its previously cut bene's. Scobelizer has a pretty ecstatic take on it and I'll have to quiz some of my buddy's to see if its as good as it looks, but so far response has ranged from quite happy to well, Micro-Envy. (Towels as a waste of money? You think its in response to Google that they provided towels? Really? How many 767's does Bill Gates own?)

As a recruiter, my opinion is you make your own bed. There's no such thing as a company having too great of benefit's for their employee's. If you want it, go get it! If you're not happy with your own, find another job. But don't knock MS employees because their company takes care of them.

151 miles left...

9 miles were shaved off the goal this weekend, courtesy of a trip up north to Oyster Dome with Kathy and her friend, Angela. Great little hike that just loves to climb up and up and up. With the weather as nice as it was, I fully the trail to be packed, but instead found it to be only moderately crowded (That's the thing with beautiful Washington weather - there's just so much to do that you don't have to worry so much about crowds. I guess it also helps to pick a trail a couple hours away from Seattle). On our way down, we took a detour to check out Lake Lilly, a nice little lake that provides a much needed  break from the Up and Down Oyster Dome hike. Great day!

I do want to note that the fate of Oyster Dome and Blanchard Mountain is currently up in the air, as the area has been selected for logging. Many folks are split on the issue, as some of the timber proceeds have been earmarked to help out local school districts. On the other hand, the area is extremely popular with hikers, cyclists, runners, and even hang-gliders. It would also marr the otherwise beautiful Chuckanut Drive. Its a difficult issue, to be sure. I encourage you to visit the Friends of Blanchard Mountain website to lend your support on the issue.

Foul

I play on a basketball team every Thursday night through the city of Redmond. The team is composed of coworkers and friends and the fact is, we aren't very good. With the exception of a couple good seasons, of late we've finished on the bottom of the standings chart. We're competitive, just not good.
Tonight a bit of that frustration boiled over (I'm not proud of it - embarrassed is more like it, so hopefully this entry won't be taken as bravado. However, as the point of this whole site is to share bits and pieces of my life with friends far and wide, I think it necessary). Anyway, the game was near over and it was clear we weren't going to win. On the way down the court, a player on the other team tripped up with one of our guys and my friend Zach tumbled down. The refs though didn't call the foul and the guy didn't even bother to apologize, so my temper got the better part of me and I let it be known. It wasn't until after I was standing over him and the ref blew the whistle did I realize that I outweighed him by 70lbs and he had absolutely no idea what he had done. He knew that he had tripped someone, mind you; he just didn't know how to play basketball. He didn't know that you shouldn't put your arm in someone's back when they go up for a rebound or that you shouldn't make contact with another player running down court just to try and get ahead of him.
I fully expected the rest of his team to tackle me, but rather surprisingly, I walked back to collect my bag unharassed. Maybe they were as shocked as I was. I'm a pretty calm person and like to think that I excel under pressure, but when it comes to basketball, I just don't have much patience. Especially for people who play recklessly without even realizing it.

My Dad's Married

My father was married last weekend in a small ceremony in Lakewood, Wa last weekend. Third marriage for my dad and its no secret that I had my doubts about it (I even told him that this was now the third wedding of his I was at...took him a while to get that one). However, as the best man I was perhaps the only person close enough to hear Gail whisper "thank you" to my father after they wed. To hear how much my dad meant to her affected me; more than just needing to be needed, they needed each other. I was glad to see them both happy. More pics on the way...

Closet Remodel

Closet space is at a premium in the Casbah, so after five years I decided that it was time to organize a little bit. All told, the project lasted 8 hours, cost $130, and only had one big surprise: I removed the previous work inside the closet and discovered that the plaster was an ugly green color. Having not much paint, I decided that even though it wasn’t the right color, white paint would be much less noticeable than a puke-green stripe.

While not dramatic, I'm proud that I didn't screw it up somehow. This is only my second "do it yourself" project (first being building shelving into my storage closet - so I'm a closet/shelving expert, I guess), so its a big deal for me. :)

0wned.

Its 12:30am. I just finished playing soccer and by all rights, I should be in bed. Instead, I'm wrapping up a night of police reports, insurance claims, and photographs. Word to the wise - if you are going to hit a parked car and run, make damn sure the car's owner doesn't have neighbors WHO ARE TAKING PICTURES WHILE YOU ARE DOING IT.

Oh my friends, you read the caps right. A tow-truck from Lincoln Towing in Seattle was called in to move an illegally parked car behind my own. It was while he was moving the car that the tow-driver hit my car. Not only hit it, but hit it once, got out to look at it, hit it again, and then left. No note, nothing. Just drove off. I was lucky my neighbors were sitting outside enjoying the sunset. After the guy hit the car the first time, they decided to pull out the camera and start snapping away (I owe these guys a dinner...).

The officer was pretty excited with how the photo's turned out and this seems to be a pretty clear case of hit and run. Personally, I'm feeling more relieved than angry.  Accidents happen. When they do, step up and take responsibility. Leave a note. What should have been a simple call to the insurance company will now lead to at best, getting fired (at worst, getting arrested!).