A View From My Office

Where were we? Ah, yes . . .

I have to apologize for the lack of updates. I was a little bummed that I had not yet found work (note the past tense teaser), and wanted to avoid the keep-your-chin-up comments you would feel obligated to provide. As I am about to reveal, that is no longer an issue. In the past couple of weeks I've received a lot of encouragement to continue updating, and so now I shall.

I'm going to be working at Cancer Research and Biostatistics (cleverly abbreviated to C.R.A.B.) as user support technician. I'll be one of three providing desktop support for a staff of about 85. The organization is a non-profit but is very well funded. They've got a huge inventory of cool technology. Being part of such a small team will offer a lot of chances to get experience with all of the systems. They stressed that they don't have experts of certain domains of knowledge and try to spread it out across the team.

The office is located on the 19 and 20th floors of the Metropolitan building. There they have a deck which offers a grand view of the Seattle skyline, the bay, and the Space Needle. Even better, they're a seven minute walk from our apartment. Some how we've found an apartment that is within walking distance of both our jobs and almost exactly in the middle.

Some other happenings I'd like to keep you apprised of:

1) Elizabeth has worked two days in the hospital as a doctor. She already has a lot of stories, but I'm still in awe every time I hear, ". . . and as I was writing a prescription for Tylenol. . . " Even the mundane parts are just too cool. When you, dear friends, get a chance you should ask her about her very first solo decision. It involves a mysterious-sounding "CODE GREY" for which she was the only physician to respond, and how she dealt with the very psychotic 70 year-old attempting to walk out of the hospital a few hours after his surgery.

2) We had a dinner with one of Elizabeth's friends from MUSC who is an anesthesia intern at the University of Washington in Seattle. We prepared a meal of salad, salmon, green beans and rice. It was really tasty, if a bit cold, largely due to the fact that we started cooking a 30 minute meal about two hours before he arrived. I could blame this on Elizabeth's desire to be early in everything she does, but truly it was my desire to hide my inadequacies as a chef.

3) We went to the tallest building in Seattle, the Columbia building, and saw the most amazing view. Our weather has been very cool (highs in the low 70s) and we're having more clear days than overcast. We picked a good one, though and could see for miles and miles.

4) We followed this up to with a trip to Safeco Field to watch a Mariner's home game. We played the Cincinnati Reds (an interesting rematch of sorts from the days finalizing our residency Match rank list) and won. We had cheap seats in the left-field bleachers, but they still gave us a great view. The pitcher, the soon-to-be traded Cliff Lee, threw a complete game shutout 1-0. In typical M's fashion it was a low scoring affair, but at only a bit over two hours, it suited Elizabeth just fine. Well enough even that she might go back again at some point.

The Post Dedicated to TG's Dad

We went to the park yesterday with Copper. He has a good time.

A Look in the Past

Getting Our Assess Out of the Apartment

We went to our branch of the public library yesterday. It's incredible. 10 stories, crazy architecture, coffee shop, RFID enabled self-check out. It would certainly be on my list of places to visit when the deluge of visitors (hopefully!) come and visit later this year. Elizabeth pointed out that they have a lot of books, too.

Elizabeth just noticed an embarrassing misspelling in my resume's cover letter. You know, the one I've sent to a few dozen prospective employers. ". . . to asses and repair unruly technology." The blame lies solely on Copper, who proof-read that three times. We need to do something about your dang illiteracy, Little Dog.

Update to the Latitude Badge

Originally, I intended the location badge at the top of the blog to let you follow along while we drove. The vector of displacement is now zero, and thus it's time for modification.

For now, I've decided to make the map showing our location a little smaller and more finely detailed. It's going to show us at Minor Ave quite often, but if we're out and about in the city, it should follow us around too.

The Pledge™ Pledge

We're starting to formulate a routine. Of course, it'll be thrown out as soon as E begins work, but for the moment we're both enjoying our time together.

If you visited us in Charleston, chances are good you just caught us in the midst of one of our cleaning binges. The house wildly vacillated between cluttered-but-straightened to a state of all-out disarray. We've made two pledges to change that here in Seattle:

1) If we don't love it, we won't spend money on it. I think we were both buying things that were a little bit cool, but not planned for. We ended up with a lot of stuff that was thrown away or donated during the post-match purge. Sure, the Mario paper-craft models were neat, but I don't think I got $6 of enjoyment from them. Our mantra is "purposeful spending." We're going to try our very best to just not buy a bunch of impulse stuff. This is natural for Elizabeth but not so much for me. I am excited to have nothing but things that are seriously useful or bring me lots of pleasure, though.

2) A clean house requires a million little decisions. Mom, I know you have spent many, many hours telling us to put things back when we're done. I know you may think this message, as self-evident as it seems now, was lost on me. Hopefully, I still have time to show you I was listening.

The house is still clean. Frankly, this is a little embarrassing to write as a 26 year-old married man, but I wanted to openly state our goals so that we might feel we owe it to you, our dear readers.

Settling In

Elizabeth and I have spent the week actually living in our new city. We are past the stage of running to Wal-Mart trip for a shower curtain so we can clean ourselves. We've got the basics down and it no longer feels like we're living in a hotel.

Here's a few excerpts:

On Tuesday, we went to a concert. It was the best. We saw mc chris and two openers, MC Lars and MATH the Band. It was certainly more of my scene than Elizabeth's, but I have it on good authority that she enjoyed the show.

We got our Washington state drivers' licenses which was much easier than anticipated. After all the preparation, the law governing what was required changed on June 1. We were allowed to submit our old SC licenses as proof of identity and were in and out in a few minutes.

Elizabeth has been stalking used bookstores to fill up our new bookcases. We've been to three and found another eighteen or so to go to. Finds include a dozen new Agatha Christie mysteries she's never read, and even better are the Holmes pastiches and Nero Wolfe novels she's missing from her extensive collection.

We found an off-leash dog park a few blocks over. It's friendly and populated by a lot of cultured and urban dogs so Copper feels a little out-classed by the shar peis and pugoodles. Unfortunately it isn't grassy; it's this loose gravel-stuff which reminds me of walking around in a giant litter box. This may indeed be the point. I'm going to reserve judgement for a second trip.

Coming up, we were considering celebrating Caroline's birthday (6/18) by going to a Mariners game. Incidentally, they're giving away Griffey and Ichiro best-buds bobbleheads to the first 30,000 fans. Now that we have our drivers' licenses we look forward to such mundane activities as getting a library card and registering to vote! Stay tuned for those exciting stores in the near future.

Potential Dinner Party?!?

Uhoh - we're in trouble! I invited the program coordinator to a meal, and it's turned into a dinner party for four people!

We have only three chairs, so that's not great.

Here's what we're thinking for the meal:

- Artichoke and spinach dip (thanks, Mom!)
- Simple salad (spinach, carrots, turkey, cheese, balsalmic vinegar)
- Chicken breast
- Flavored rice
- Green beans or steamed broccoli
- Some sort of cobbler for dessert.


Where's the fourth chair coming from? What serving dishes will we use? What's her husband like? Is Copper going to behave?

To say nothing of the potential ramifications of a bad dinner party with the surgery department.

It's the Small Things

I don't notice much different in the day to day life here. It's the same people, the same stores (though the name 'QFC' really trips me up), the same food. The really weird quotidien thing that I notice is that the radio says 'Northwest' instead of 'Southeast'. It comes up more than you'd imagine.

I'm officially hooked on Mario Galaxy 2. It's a good thing, since addictions will be disallowed starting on June 17.

Alec is in bed after a late night playing computer games with friends.

Just A Typical Wednesday Night

We're headed out to the rooftop deck on the fifth floor to see exactly how correct the pitch was:

How 'spectacular' is the view?
Are there a million of our fellow apartment dwellers up there?
Is there really a hot-tub?

I have also finished 'Salem's Lot, so I feel a lot more confident about exposing myself to the potential vampires out there.

Quiet Afternoon

We went on our first major shopping trip to the QFC (similar to Publix) about four blocks away. Surprisingly wide variety, though hot sauce is regrettably scarce here. We found a decent thrift store about five blocks down, and while their books are way too expensive ($4/book my ass!) their clothes are very reasonable. Alec has his first pair of non-threadbare shorts in years!

We watched a documentary on the serial killer HH Holmes (no relation to my idol, though they did debut in the same decade) and are heading out the door to Seattle Center, to see the Space Needle and the Science Fiction Museum. Pictures to follow!

From Goodwill to IKEA

Slow Down!

Completed:

Bed + night-stands
Couch
Living room chair and ottoman
Three bar chairs
Two bookcases
Two end tables
Coffee table
TV table

This morning we completed Alec's desk, and right now he's happily setting up his many CPUs. I'm drinking coffee and looking over our itinerary for this morning, which involves Pike's Place Market for some used books and produce.

We left the furniture in "Beta", our name for the spare room, for last, but we did the desk this morning and are planning on doing the Visiting Parents Futon this afternoon.

The walk to Swedish is as unintimidating as expected - four safe blocks up the hill. I've decided that a bicycle here is not as big a priority as it was in Charleston. I am going to start my running routine again, though - I've planned out one, two, and three mile routes. These hills are killer.

We'll post another video of our sweet digs tonight.

Bonus Photo #1

Ikea: The Aftermath

IKEA update and Plans

Thanks to all who were concerned, I'm feeling 95% now. I think fatigue played a major part, but ceasing the eight servings of McDonalds a week diet is also largely to thank.

To follow up Elizabeth's post: Everything we expected appears to have arrived intact from IKEA. The bed frame is assembled and usable, but we bought these nifty nightstand attachments which require screwing a mounting bracket from underneath. It would have been useful to know that before the 27th step. :-/

Elizabeth ended up getting bored watching me insert #101350 wooden dowel connectors and started working on the couch, which looked to be almost all done. After opening the package all sorts of couch innards spilled on the floor as if she'd eviscerated it. Fearlessly, she pressed on and it's starting to resemble a living room sofa.

To do: nightstands, sofa, living room chair, living room ottoman, living room TV stand, two living room bookshelves, three bar chairs, office computer desk, office futon, and closet shelving for clothes storage.

We're going today at noon to meet Elizabeth's surgery program coordinator, Sandi Pettit. She's apparently one of the sweetest people and has learned a great deal about me from Elizabeth from times even before we were engaged.

WA state requires two items with your address and name to prove residency, and three items with your name and birthdate to prove identity. We went in with just our lease agreement which is in the "unacceptable" documents category and is worth exactly diddly. Through a stroke of luck, I actually have an out-of-state drivers license, birth certificate and social security card. I've set up a Comcast bill in my name, which with any luck will establish residency for me. Elizabeth, poor girl, doesn't have any of this. We're hoping Sandi can provide her with some advice this afternoon.

To IKEA and Back Again

An extremely frustrating little voyage today. Actually, two frustrating voyages. The first was to get valid driver's licenses from the apparently hard-nosed state of Washington. We realized that, in addition to bringing our entire bank vault into the DMV, we'd need to wait about thirty days 'til we got a utility bill. Awesome.

We walked away from the DMV empty-handed, and headed off to IKEA to furnish our barren little apartment. They deliver same-day if you buy everything by 3p, so that was our goal. We arrived at the store at 11:15, so we figured we'd have a leisurely, fun shopping trip.

It was chaos - too many people, too much stuff, too many rooms. I felt the haze of shopping almost immediately. Thank God that Alec was feeling super-duper patient.

We were there from 11:15 - 3:05, and we were completely done shopping at 12:56. The delay of our departure was due exclusively to the unhelpful and frankly lazy-ass employees.

To top it off, we discovered that a) we were charged for an extra chair and b) a lamp shade had been stolen from a box.

Arg.

Alec is putting together the TV that we bought (a really, really nice plasma screen) while I alternate between tidying clothes and wishing I could find a SuperCutz for a cheap haircut. Copper, of course, is napping on the newly mated duvet and pillow set.

Possible Ways to Repurpose http://longasstrip.blogspot.com

Long Ass Trip:


1) Epic Failure While Descending Stairs
2) Schematics of Really Large Circuit Breakers
3) Descriptions of Recreational LSD Use
4) Tales of a Newly Married Couple in a Brand New City

Cast your votes now!

Video Tour Time!

We Made It!

Copper and I are sitting outside of Peet's Coffee and Tea in Fremont, while E is inside getting us three some coffee. She drove five of the seven hours we had to do today, and I know she is really interested in finding a place to sleep.

Since we arrived early, we're a day before our apartment will be ready. We're both a little disappointed, but know it's only a temporary set back. The apartment manager did agree to let us temporarily store our stuff in a storage unit for free, which is pretty awesome. We got to see the place, which is bigger and nicer than I expected.

The view out of the window is sadly just another building's roof, but the decks have really nice skyline views. The neighborhood appears to be awesome. The street is very quiet and so, so close to downtown. When the camera and SD card are unpacked, expect a ton of photos.

In the meantime:

Not Noisy in Boise

As far as I am aware, I have had the privilege of being Elizabeth McKeown, M.D.'s very first patient. I awoke at midnight here with serious stomach pains. After some quick palpations and very friendly bedside chat, she concluded that I've had a nearly zero-fiber diet since before graduation, and it's finally catching up to me. She then ran to a Wal-greens about a mile away, bought Tylenol, fiber supplement, and laxative and delivered it back to me. When I was done medicating, she gave me the most gentle kiss. This must be the future of concierge medicine.

Like usual, Elizabeth has the first shift today. I feel much better, but still a little frazzled. I didn't sleep very much and I still feel achy. I hope my bowels don't prevent us from arriving at our destination today, but we'll stop in the forests of Oregon for the night if I am not up to driving my part.

The Plan For Tomorrow.

Part of the Vast Emptiness of Wyoming

Evanston, WY - The Town that Spring Forgot

Boise or Bust

We're in Campbell, ID, a suburb on the far side of Boise, ID. Our tripometer reads 2511 miles. Seattle tomorrow.

We're going to eat dinner now. More when we get back.

Cheyenne, WY

This is a cold, windswept, treeless, desolate land. "It ain't flat from here on," warned the hotel clerk, who spoke with a drawl that rivaled a Cajun's for incomprehensibility.

Our room was cheap and comfortable and there's another continental breakfast, so I can't complain about this La Quinta. I can complain about Wyoming, though. I feel cheated; for some reason I pictured a constant sunset, with young, handsome horse-back riders more populous than cars. Instead we find hard, unhappy men and no horses.

Google Latitude Tracking Is Inaccurate

Please don't stress if you see us driving to Canada or Mexico or something equally crazy. I'm not sure why the location reported by my phone is so inaccurate, but if you think we're on the wrong interstate, we're probably not. Our Garmin, trusted by two trips to Colorado, is taking care of us. We still like getting phone calls, though, so you don't have to cut that out. :-)

Off to Idaho

At best, we'll make it to Boise, ID (738 mi, 11:26 h) today. We can be happy if we reach Salt Lake City, UT (439 mi, 6:53 h) or Twin Falls, ID (616 mi, 9:36 h).

If you're ever in Cheyenne, you could do worse than the La Quinta where we stayed. Their breakfast starts at 6:00am, which suits me a lot more than 7:00. We're not going to get the benefit of the time zone change to Pacific time today, so we should get in around 6:30pm after stops. The good news will be the 8 hour trip from Boise to Seattle tomorrow, which will give us an hour back. We'll be arriving around 2:00pm, which is only really, really exciting.

Buttes, LOL

We made it to Cheyenne (1758 mi total), which is about as crummy as a state capital could be. Three interstate exits, dozens of anti-meth ads, and zero trees. It's grim.

On the other hand, the drive has become quite beautiful. We saw the flat plains of Nebraska make way to the green tables of land revealing striations of rock.

Alec: What's been your favorite state to drive through so far?

E: Hmm. . . Surprisingly, I kind of liked Missouri because of the radio stations. (ed. note: Surprise!)

Alec: I liked last part of Nebraska. The approach to St. Louis and the arch was really pretty.

E: That was nice, I guess. I didn't care for the construction.

Alec: How about least favorite?

E: Cheyenne, and St. Louis.

Alec: Can you elaborate?

E: Cheyenne can be seen entirely from the interstate. Just hideous land. St. Louis was just super dirty.

Alec: Yeah, Cheyenne is a real shithole, but I like STL.

We're ahead of our plans by more than a day. The gleam of arriving in four days is starting to seem possible. We're planning to get to Boise tomorrow, leaving an eight hour trip to Seattle the day after. I cannot wait to arrive, and feel that this travel blog may end a good deal sooner than we anticipated.

50 Miles to Ogallala, NE

We're in the middle of Nebraska, approaching the Mountain Time zone change. Our two previous goals are a few hours behind us and we're well on our way to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Mile 1550 of our trip means we're over halfway to Seattle, but have yet to reach the Rocky Mountains-sized hump of the trip, I'm afraid. We think we might have dropped a day, which is pretty encouraging, though.

We're getting confident in our driving abilities and have yet to get sick of each other or our respective radio choices. E's fishing around the radio stations like mad but is only finding church services anad country. What she wouldn't do to get some Jason Durullo I don't want to find out. I'm about halfway through Moneyball, by Michael Lewis. It's a book about baseball statistics that I read quite a while ago. It's still very interesting, but I mainly use it to ensure Elizabeth sleeps when she's not driving. We're also listening to Storm Front together. It's the first novel in the Dresden Files. As I was told, it is indeed pretty poorly written, but the concept isn't bad.

P.S. As I finished writing this we changed to MT. It's only 5:00pm now. A whole extra hour to drive!

Cities We Won't Be Retiring To

Lebanon, TN

Knob Noster, MO

Morning from St Louis!

It's a continental breakfast with free coffee! Come on!

Anyway, we had an okay night except for my neurotic paranoia, which led to me getting up a couple of times and checking on our sweet little filled-to-the-brim car. We had been considering a cheaper hotel, but after reading comments on the web that read as below, we decided against it:

"I was on a trip cross-country and stayed here because it was $46/night. My car was broken into and my life was stolen from me. DO NOT STAY HERE"

So, there you have it. I was terrified enough to consider driving all night in shifts to get the hell out of Missouri, but Alec's sanity prevailed.

We're setting out after eating some awesome free food, so we'll be one day closer soon. Our 'reach' goal is Cheyenne, and our sane goal is Grand Island, NE.

Setting out on Day Two

I've been convinced to wait an hour to start driving to take advantage of our complimentary continental breakfast. We're due to set out again in about forty five minutes with a reassurance that a day spent driving isn't as bad as imagined.

Originally, we wanted to take photos of the signs of each of the states we entered. When NC, TN, and KY snuck up on us, we decided to give it up. We packed E's camera about a month ago, but we're vowing to take more today. Wish us luck!

St Louis, MO

Writing you, my friends, from a decent hotel room in the flat, bland city of St Louis. At least this side of it is, any way.

I'm road-weary and scared about the next few days, so I'll sign out.

Coming tomorrow: continental breakfast report and the Copper Pic of the Day.

Here's the one from today!

Took the Car Out of Clarksville

We found today that we arrived at Clarksville well before we were ready to quit driving. As the Mariners have been winning recently, we want to hurry up and get in before they start choking again. In a revision to our plan, I suggested we pick three targets that we could shoot for depending on our mood. We're significantly ahead of schedule and the thought of shaving a day off our trip sounds super appealing. We'll see how we feel after tomorrow.

Our goals for 5/22:

St. Louis - >

a) Lincoln, NE - 7:31 hours, 446miles

b) Grand Island, NE - 9:04 hours, 539 miles

c) Cheyenne, WY - 14:16, 885 miles

West Frankfort, Illinois

Day One, Hour Twelve:

Communications are broken, and hostiles are apparent in the mists around us...


Just kidding! We're having a great time here in the McDonald's in Illinois. We're mainly here for the free WiFi. Across from our table sits the oldest, most dessicated of the billions served. Actually, it's not clear she's a customer, she just sits playing a Tiger Electronics Tetris clone playing the same monophonic 15 second loop of Type A music. There is no one with her, and no meal before her. One of the various Road Mysteries we've encountered.

We've made one unexpected stop at a Sherlock's Book Emporium in Lebanon, TN, which turned out to have neither a large selection nor a hint of class.

We're on our second tank of gas and Alec assures me we're making excellent time. I just keep seeing yellow dashed lines and straight white lines.

Copper continues to be an ideal lap dog; he has woken up exactly three times, at each of our three stops.

We will continue to update from our expected stop at St Louis, Missouri. We'll arrive at about 9 pm EST.

On the Road

Charleston is behind us. Elizabeth, caffeinated to the gills, is at the wheel. And I'm on the computer. This is the natural order.

The alarm woke us at 5:30a. I remember groggily asking E, "Is this it?" Of course, it was. Our friend Saye called and asked if he could take us to breakfast. This was a greatly welcomed act of kindness for what was expected to be a hug-free departure.

It's about 9:30a now, and we are forty miles from NC and TN shortly afterward. E thinks it's sad that we'll not take the well-worn I-26 to Rock Hill or Simpsonville anymore. Copper and I say good riddance.

Copper is in heaven. He hasn't gotten this much lap time since the couches were sold what feels like years ago. E will be at the wheel until noon when we'll trade off. We're due to arrive in Clarksville, TN at 3:18PM (that's after one time zone change). Check back, my friend, to see how far we can get today.

Our Trip

We are going on an adventure from Atlantic to Pacific, from East to West, from sweet tea to coffee.

The travelers are:

Elizabeth, a cocky morning driver and exceptionally grumpy evening driver;
Alec, a sincere but foggy morning driver and competent evening driver;
and Copper, a dog who sits and (hopefully) sleeps constantly throughout both morning and evening.


We will travel across thirteen states, over 3060 miles, in six days. We have nothing but the clothes on our backs and a little computer equipment to get us set up in Seattle.



This is our story.