Seattle, WA

Woops, forgot to hit the 'post' button. Well here it is... Sunday, July 8th. Last trip at Motorola. Is this the end of the blog? Maybe I'll keep posting when I take personal trips. I think I'll make a new blog about grad school. Maybe I can make a book deal out of it some day... 'Grad school: How to spell PhD." or "Why I should never have gone to grad school" if it ends poorly :P Anyways... my last trip is to Seattle Washington. A city I have never been to but have wanted to go to for a while now. My old roommate Suraj lives here so hopefully we will be able to hang out. Actually, Tully and Erica are visiting him right now. They fly out on Monday, I'm going to meet up with them later tonight if they aren't in a food coma. Also, Fi's bff from high school is in Seattle for the summer so this should be a fun trip. And since I don't have to worry about feedback from the field team I can skip all of the boring field team dinners. I'm hoping to hang out with a lot of good friends on this trip. So Fi dropped me off at O'Hare. I stopped by Rick Bayless's restaurant and had an open face sandwich. Made it to the gate just as boarding started. This super muscular dude sat next to me and immediately took over the armrest which was annoying. I was here first bro! Squatting rights. What streets did you grow up on? Then he starts dipping some tobacco chew before we even take off and spitting it into an empty water bottle. Its freakin disgusting. When I start thinking I hate this guy he starts playing Pokemon on his phone. The original black/white Pokemon which means I can't hate him. He can't be totally bad if he is rocking Pokemon on his droid. To my right is a nice older lady who has napped most of the flight. She seems nice. She made sure her arm wasn't on the adjoining arm rest and said 'I respect the middle seat rule'. Apparently there is an unwritten rule of flying that the middle person gets both armrests. Now 90% of the time I am sitting in a window/aisle seat but I waited to book the ticket so I ended up with a middle seat. Luckily I was able to grab an exit row seat so tons of legroom. I never knew about this middle seat rule though. I wonder if fellow travelers have thought me rude by not abiding by this rule... sorry middle seaters! I didn't know. But back to my point. This lady seems nice. This morning I was watching a twilight zone where a plane flew back in time to the 1920's. So hopefully that doesn't happen. And if it does no one will probably ever read this because the government will cover it up. Ahhh, another pointless post. So the week started off well, worked 8-4:30 Monday - Wednesday. But then stuff hit the fan and we ended up working till 8pm Friday, I had a conference call Saturday which I skipped to go on an underground tour of Seattle with my friend Kate, then we had to go into work at 2am Sunday morning. But hey, at least I got to see Seattle. I like it a lot as a city. Also we had sunshine almost everyday which apparently is unheard of. So looks like I got lucky with that. After this trip I have zero reservations about leaving Motorola. This late night work and having to deal with city governments is not worth the paycheck. City governments literally work like 'Parks and Rec' except there are no Leslie Knopes. There are only less loveable Andys and Toms.

Auburn, CA

So Auburn, CA. Not much in this town. But I did get to see my parents and brother over the weekend and got to see my dad on his 70th birthday. That was a lot of fun. The drive down was beautiful. Also, I got to see Jason and Nora's new place which is pretty awesome. I think he was made for the San Fran tech scene. Oh ya, I also saw my old roommate Suraj. He flew to San Fran with some friends because one needed to buy a suit for his internship this summer. He's nuts. Went to a Karaoke bar that was run by 'mama candy'. That was fun. I have some pictures but I've got to leave soon for an early flight so I don't think I'll get them up. So this may be my last trip. I received an assistantship at UIC and will be starting in August with some prep work before that. This system isn't live so it should have been easy and non-stressful, but it was very stressful. Mostly because I've mentally moved on. But it's over now! Finished in just over a week. Today basically just checked in and did some clean up then hung out by the pool. I read a few chapters in 'Sirens of Titan'. Re-booked my flight for tomorrow instead of Wednesday. Shoot, still need to send out a final report. My flight is at 5:45am because there are only two flights out of Sacramento and the afternoon flight is booked. Well, hopefully parents won't want to travel at 6am and there won't be any sleeping babies. I took a nap at 5pm, woke up at 10pm for dinner at in-and-out burger, and now I'm staying up all night because there is no use in trying to sleep now. I caught the end of 'Manhattan'. Now it's time to pack. Later California, it was real.

Plano Texas

First week in Texas is over. Started off a little hairy. On Tuesday Tornadoes ripped through Eastern Texas.



and this




Pretty standard work stuff. Not too much going on in Texas besides the Tornado. It was pretty crazy being 30 miles from multiple tornadoes and hearing the FM DJs talking about evacuating towns and what not.

Fi is flying in tonight. Her friend from college just got engaged and she lives in Dallas, they are going to show us around town this weekend.

I checked into my hotel at about 2:30 today. Right in the middle of a leadership through Jesus convention. I'm literally surrounded by Christians, maybe like a thousand of them. Half of them are kids.

Also for some reason there is a whole hallway dedicated to Mao. The Chinese communist leader Mao. Its a little weird. Especially in Texas.



Also there is a Buddha statue. Which seems a little odd because China and Tibet don't really get along.



Not really sure what they are going for there but I hope at night they come alive and fight each other like in Night at the Museum.

other side of the world

Check it out. I'm almost officially on the other side of the world!


So it has been another super busy week, but we did find time to go to a soccer game and a cricket match!

The soccer game was played at AAMI stadium. It was the last qualifier for Australia and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis needed to win to clinch a spot in the next round.

AAMI stadium


ME!



It was a good game. Australia scored, then it was called back for offsides. SA scored. Then Australia scored. Then SA scored. 2-1 at half, Saudis lead. Then Australia scores to even it up, but NOOOOOO, off-sides again! SA almost scores to seal the win, but they miss. Then Australia comes back and gets 3 goals in 3 minutes to win 4-2. Great game.

Friday was also a national team match for Australia, this time it was in cricket. The Aussies had made it through on points to the finals but Sri Lanka needed to beat them to go through, where they would play Australia again for the cup. Don't ask me what cup. It wasn't a world cup, some other tournament. Anyways, we walk up to the Melbourne Cricket Grounds and we are told our gate is on the exact opposite side. So we walk around all of these empty gates to get to ours. There are probably 200 Sri Lankans coming and going out of this game because at this time its ~7pm. The match started at 2:20. Everybody is drunk. I guess thats what you do for 8 hours at a cricket match. So we push our way through and find our seats. This guy Andy we have been working with got us the tickets. We sat down net to his friend who just happened to be from Austin, TX. He moved here 9 months ago for work. Him, his wife and two kids. So that was cool. We got to complain about how everything isn't like it is in America. Here are some pics.



Well A pic. The rest are on my camera. I'll post them later.

So we learned some rules and I think I 70% understand cricket now. Mike started falling asleep so we left at ~9:30. There were 10 over left and the score was something to something else. Turns out it was actually close. I can never tell in an 8 hour game whether its close or not. We checked the next morning and Sri Lanka won by 9 runs! like 245 to 236. So this week they play each other 3 more times for the Cup.

Oh here is a picture of the guys I am down here with. Arif, my manager on my right, Mike, other engineer, on my left.



If Arif looks especially happy its because he just made $30 playing roulette at lunch. Don't know if I mentioned that. Australians LOVE to GAMBLE. There is an entire fox sports channel dedicated to race betting. Every other bar has horse races on in the other room. As Arif says 'we bet on anything that moves'. OHHHHH Australia... I'll never figure you out.

St Kilda

St Kilda



So I am officially an international criminal. We hopped the tram down to the beach. The only problem was the automated ticket machine was broken. Now worries, we will buy a ticket on the tram right? Nope, tram ticket dispenser only takes coins. So we illegally rode the tram for free! Woops! We didn't get caught though, so that was good.

Then we found a resturant named 'Donovan's' on the beach.



Oh ya, I got a free hat too. There was a Greek Fest going on down the street from our hotel so we stopped by for a few minutes.



I can see why Melbourne is the skin cancer capital of the world. IT'S HOT. REAL HOT. So hot people bring tents to the beach. I didn't get sunburn though so I was pretty proud of myself for that.



You know those funny looking hats with the flap in the back? People wear those here. It seems like half the people are really concerned about skin cancer and the other half could care less because their skin looks 30 years older then they are. Also I would say half the people down here smoke. So basically 3/4 of the population are most likely going to get some kind of cancer. Like Mic Dundee said 'That's not cancer, THIS is cancer'

We bought a Bocce ball set and played that for a while, then walked down to a restaurant and ate some food. When we were walking I saw the pier that Fi and I walked down two years ago when we were there.... Memories

Then I went back to the hotel and fell asleep at 9pm because I'm an old man who gets winded from playing bocce ball on the beach.

:)

Aussie words

So they talk a little funny down here. These are some colloquialisms I noticed.

Aussie words:
Not bad - means good. It takes a lot for an aussie to same something is good or great.

Keen - means you like it

Ya a'right - means ok. also means you are all right. also sometimes used as a compliment when you do something well: 'you know Brock, sometimes ya alright.' But there is always a 'sometimes' put in front of it when used as a compliment.

Using the word Theory to describe things, especially when things aren't actually theory's, such as 'The theory is if you have more lanes, there is less traffic'. Or, 'The theory is you use the straw to transport the water from the cup to your mouth'

No worries - your welcome. Or Don't worry about it.

Land down under

I have been super busy with work but I'll try to post more pics soon!

On Sunday we took a stroll down by the Yarra River.


After work on Friday we went out and had some beers. I tried Coopers which is a beer from Adelade. It was pretty tasty.




Then we played some locals at ping pong and I played one of them at this really weird version of pool. The balls were all 2/3 size and there were only two colors, red and yellow. Maybe it was billiards? There was still an 8 ball though. This Aussie, he must have been 19, beat me two games in a row and as we were about to start a third game his parents walked in. I guess in Australia you drink with your parents on Friday nights. Anyways he yells out, 'Mum, dad, I'm beating an American at pool.' His dad yells back, 'good job son, just like the presidents cup in '96'. What is the presidents cup? Apparently we lost to Australia at it in the 90s and they are still riding high on it? He was so excited, it was like the Olympics for him.



Then we made our way back to our hotel which is by China Town. And walked on down to a hole in the wall place called the 'Super Inn'. Arif loves the place, Mike hates it. But Mike is too nice to say no so we went.





It was pretty good. It seemed real authentic. I judge something being authentic by how weird of dishes they have. Super inn has: jellyfish, suckling pig, some skins i think. It was a weird menu. But they had chicken and stuff too. I liked it. He said he can't see what they're doing so he doesn't trust their meat. He ordered vegetables.

Ok, hopefully I am motivated and keep blogging and don't procrastinate until the last few days I'm here.

Marriott Melbourne

We finally landed in Melbourne Saturday morning. Picked up our car, drove to the hotel and settled in. Here is my room!



I was able to stay awake until about 4pm, slept untill 11pm, ate some dinner, went back to bed until 6am this morning. Then I discovered there is an awesome espresso machine in the hotel.



I may have been a little too excited for it. Tripple shot espresso wasn't a great idea.

This afternoon I went walking and saw a bar that Fi and I went to when we were here!



Its called the elephant. Makes me miss Fi!

So tomorrow it is off to work. Which is going to be hard because customer meetings are the worst. Lots of questions, being overly nice and making small talk. But hey, I'M IN AUSTRALIA!

Lets find some warmer weather

Did you know Rick Bayless has a restaurant in Ohare? I had a chicken sandwich. It was pretty tasty. Also, I saw Liv tweet about being in gate C but when I tried calling her her phone went to voice-mail. Oh well.

Flight from ORD to LAX was fine. I sat next to my manager Arif and watched 3 episodes of the wire. I was planning on being productive, writing songs or reading those books I've been meaning to read but traveling just makes me want to do the least strenuous activity. I get a lazzzyness that wont go away and I just end up napping or watching movies. Mike, the other Motorolan I am traveling with was sitting across the aisle next to a guy who had no joke 7 gin and tonics on the flight. We laughed about after we exited the plane.

So guess who I was sitting next to on our flight from LAX to Sydney? Yep, gin and tonic guy. But he didn't seem drunk which means either those drink were real weak or he is an alcoholic. So anyways, the guy sitting next to me is named Greg, he works for food processing equipment manufacturing company in Demoins Iowa and loves Jin and Tonic. He had 3 more on our flight from LAX to Sydney. I asked for an OJ and it came with champagne, because I guess everything in business class comes with champagne?



One thing I learned on the trip was do not fly United international unless you are flying business or first class. When Fi and I flew to Australia two years ago we flew Air New Zealand and coach on there was way better then what i saw on United. Maybe its just the plan i was on but coach couldn't choose what they wanted to watch. On Air New Zealand we had like 20 movies to choose from. Also I have heard Qantas is good.

I was able to pick up some Vegemite when we switched planes in Sydney.



Check out my golf score.

Da Bulls

Fi and I went out to the Bulls game on Monday. 100 level seats! They played the Nets. Or I should say they beat up on the Nets. Here are some pics.


Fi and I


Benny!


Big Three

And a video...

2012 trips

So its a new year which means new trips! The first trip of the year I'm really excited about. Australia!



Melbourne to be exact. It is 4 weeks long though which is a while to be away.


After that is Plano, Texas.



Not as excited about this one. However Fi's friend Kathy lives in Dallas so hopefully Fi flies down for the weekend to hang out. After that it is pretty open. I am scheduled for a Wyoming trip and a Washington trip but I don't think those are final yet. So we will see.

Scacophony

I had some free time this afternoon so I did this. Please excuse my off beat drumming, 1 take! Also it hasn't been EQ'd. Writing, recording, making the video and blog post took about 2.5 hours so you get what you put in. Or you get what I put in I guess...





As a New Years resolution I am going to write 1 song a week. I might put it up here, I might make a separate blog/tumbler for it. We'll see. A few rules.

1. Song must be at least 60 seconds long.

2. There can be as few as 1 instrument, but I can't use the same instrument / instruments two weeks in a row. For example, if I use guitar + harmonica in week 2, week 3 I need to either add/subtract an instrument (guitar + harmonica + drums) or use a different instrument (synth).

3. Cannot do an instrumental track 2 weeks in a row.

4. Re-mix does not count as a new song (unless I mix together at least 3 different songs of my own).

Cool, there's some ground rules to keep it interesting. I know it is cliche to make New Years resolutions. I'm probably going to end up being no better then guy who says 'I'm gonna go to the gym once a week and lose 20 pounds this year' then wastes $200 on a gym membership and has completely given up/forgotten about it by March. But the thing is I already spend more then $200 on instruments so I should probably use them. And you know what, New Years resolutions don't bother me. The people who make the same ones every year and go out of the way to tell people about it do. But not the actual resolution. So there, in order to not be the guy I hate I will have to write a song a week.

The good news is I already have about 10 songs I've mostly written but never recoded so that should get me to at least March.

California trip

So it took a while but here are some pics from our San Jose trip.



EMERAL ISLE


FI AND ME!


HOTEL


BROOOOOOOS



TAHOEEEEE



DAN