Swing high, sweet ivory thrones

My new office building has some construction going on nearby (this can be said about a lot of office buildings in Western Washington; apparently, out here we have the most construction cranes west of the Mississippi), and I can see some of the action through the window of the guy across the hall from me (I'm in an interior office). The other day, I did a double take when I saw a crane lifting up a pallet of Honey Buckets! Yes, portable outhouses! There were probably six or seven of them, and they were being pulled up so fast that I didn't even have time to whip out my cameraphone. I was able to get the attention of a guy kitty-corner to me with a window, and he also had a good laugh at the sight before the cargo was up, up and away and out of sight. It was one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen! My guess is that they were going atop one of the taller under-construction buildings, so the workers don't have to go all the way down to street level. I'm not able to see onto the roofs of any of those nearby buildings to check, though.

The swimwear saga

A month or so ago, the bug in my head about trying to get back into swimming (see below blog) got really loud, so I began the arduous task of trying to find a swimsuit I'd feel comfortable in. I do have a simple Nike suit that I bought at least five years ago, but I have no idea where it is post-move (though said move was 2.5 years ago), and I was looking for a suit that would require less....maintenance (to put it nicely) on my part. I live close to this swimwear store in Northgate called Sylvia's Swimwear; I was driving past one day when I noticed this cool "unitard" type outfit in their window -- it was basically a tank top with shorts attached. I put in a call to Big 5 to see if they had anything in that style, and the woman said no and then suggested I try Sylvia's. So...I tried Sylvia's. They do indeed have a TON of stuff in there, but I only had eyes for the unitard. When I asked the saleswoman if the outfit in the window would be suitable for pool use, she immediately said "No," and showed me where they had the only type of more mainstream unitards -- they came in only navy or black (only black in my size), was lower in the front and back, and was by a brand I didn't recognize (the unitard in the window was by TYR). So.. I tried on the black unitard. It looked fine, and though I gulped a bit at the price ($58!), I went ahead and bought it.

Over the next few days, though (and especially after each time I drove by that fabulous TYR suit), I started becoming a bit less excited about my black suit. I did some research online, and realized that the reason the lady dissuaded me from the TYR suit was because it was a triathlon suit -- intended for all the stages of the event, and perhaps not suited to consistent use in a chlorinated pool. Soon after this revelation, I was thumbing through a recent REI catalog, and voila! They were advertising a triathlon suit they billed as being perfect for race day *and* training use. You know me, I'm nutso about REI, and I have such peace of mind buying anything there due to their 100%-satisfaction guarantee. The price on the REI suit -- $100!! -- made me gulp even more, but I bit the bullet and bused down there to check things out. I got confirmation from a salesdude that the suit would indeed be fine in chlorine (I have the guarantee to fall back on if it doesn't), so I went ahead and took the plunge. The style is much more sporty than the simple black suit from Sylvia's, so I feel less self-conscious in it in that I figure most people will just think I'm training for a triathlon (an idea my triathlon-minded swim buddies keep trying to impress on me :o)). To try and somewhat balance out the cost of the suit, I went to Target to get my cap and goggles.

Anyway, the real story here is that once I bought the second suit and decided to return the first (which I'd of course never worn), I couldn't find the frickin' receipt!! I vividly remembered putting it on top of my dresser, but though I turned my bedroom nearly upside down, it was nowhere to be found. I became so stressed over the thought of being out the $60-something, even if they gave me store credit (I really don't need any more swimsuits!). Luckily, I did remember reading on the receipt that they had a 30-day return policy, so on day 30.. I slinked (slunk?) back into the store. I told the woman I hadn't been able to find the receipt. She said "Well, are you in our computer system?" I had given them my info when I bought the suit, so I answered, "Yess.." with a slight glimmer of hope. Wonder of wonders, she was able to pull everything up on the computer, and then credit the money back to my credit card! Man, I tell you, I was so relieved! I immediately drove to Dick's for a cheeseburger and fries to celebrate!!

Anyhow, I mainly wanted to write this to say that though I wasn't too impressed with the "modest swimwear" options at Sylvia's (as a caveat: looking back, I realize that even if the woman had said "Yes" on the TYR suit, I probably would've still gone with the REI one anyway), I highly recommend it for all your swimwear needs. The fact that they have computerized records -- that they're fine with hitting up when customers lose their receipts -- is just mind-blowing to me. The only other place I know of that does that is REI (surprise). I doubt I'll be shopping at Sylvia's for another suit anytime soon, but I definitely will be periodically stopping through for various accessories -- shampoo, suit cleaner, etc.

Oh, and here's the suit from REI that I've now used twice and am really digging (photo courtesy of the REI Web site):

Whoa, that was a long blog about swimsuits. But it's been some time since I posted a good story, so there you go!

Quick notes from the past several weeks

Whew! I can't believe it's been over a month since my last post. Nutty days right now. Some highlights:

* My team at work moved from the serene boonies of Redmond (a suburb of Seattle) to the downtown area of a nearby city. Talk about culture shock! Plus I also parted ways with my officemate of nearly five years (to add insult to injury, he's three floors away!). Yes, I have my own office, which is often the dream at Microsoft, but being all alone really makes time crawl!

* Seattle had a lovely 29-day streak without rain. Yowsa! We even had a couple 90-degree days a few weeks back, which was just WAY too hot for most Seattleites (including myself). We live here for the milder weather! We had rain Friday of last week, but we're back to sun now.

* Saw "The Hangover" -- hilarious! Later this week I'm off to "Public Enemies," and then the much anticipated "Bruno" on the 7th.

* Turned 31, which for some reason was harder than turning 30.

* Got back into the swimming pool after about 18 years (I don't count the one season of diving I did in high school). I got a fancy triathlon suit to address my modesty issues (it has shorts attached, kind of like a unitard thing). I'm hoping to go swimming for just over an hour every Tuesday night with some friends; tonight will be my third outing. I'm happy to report that my body knew exactly what to do once I got into the water (I was forced through lessons from about age 4 to 13 and HATED them). I spent this past Tuesday doing laps of breast stroke and freestyle the entire hour, though I had to take a little breather between each lap.

* After cleaning my freezer and discovering at least 8 cartons of ice cream (some little, some medium), I bit the bullet and bought an ice cream maker at Costco. My first batch, which was coconut-pineapple ice cream, was so-so; I tried to be healthy and use low-fat coconut milk, which meant the ice cream didn't freeze properly and became hard as a rock after spending a few hours in the freezer. I made batch two last night -- avocado! -- and it turned out really good, though very rich. There's not even any heavy whipping cream in the recipe; it's just the avocados themselves that make it so creamy and rich.

* I just finished the fifth and final season of "The Wire." So good!! (Though as a heads up, if you watch it, be sure to turn the captions/subtitles on, or else you miss a lot. I finally had a light-bulb moment after rewinding/replaying for the third time during the first episode, trying to figure out what folks were saying.)

* Got an answer to an unasked question I'd had about a boy for a few years. Not good news, but at least now I know!

The problem with sunshine in Seattle

Being the native Seattleite that I am, I, along with my fellow Seattleites, really treasure seeing the sun out and about here in the city. Though we are wrongly accused of being the rainiest city -- Mobile, Alabama, gets this honor, and no Pacific Northwest city shows up until Olympia at No. 24; click here for proof -- it definitely is gray and gloomy for a lot of the year. This means that whenever the sun pops out on a non-summer day, the entire mood of the city lifts, and there's a collective "Ahhhh!" However, the downside is that one then feels a huge amount of pressure to take advantage of the weather, by getting out of the city for a hike, going on a walk, playing tennis, what have you. Sometimes, though, I just want to sit on my living room couch and catch up on "The Wire" or something!

Anyway, this feeling is thankfully alleviated once summer comes around and we have stretches of days of nice weather, but from Sept. to June, after any nice weekend, one can expect questions like "What did you do during the nice weather this weekend" on Mondays..

By the way, on a random aside, I'm watching "The Amazing Race" finale as I type this, and for at least the third time this season, the contestants are in swim suits or something similar (they've also been in leotards and their skivvies). Do they have a waxer on hand for the ladies to use or something?? Certainly, if they ever had a female Indian contestant in the Race, a waxer/threader would get a lot of work..

Black Tuesday

Well, it's tough times here at Microsoft. As was reported in the local news yesterday, Microsoft had another round of layoffs. The last time around (I think January?), our team escaped unscathed. But this time we weren't so lucky, and unfortunately, three of my friends here were let go. Thankfully, all of them have a pragmatic view of the future, and are taking the news very well. I think I'm more bummed than they are!! One of my co-workers even drove to work yesterday instead of busing, just in case he needed to take home his belongings (he didn't -- whew). Anyway, my immediate team and I made it through this round in one piece -- a good thing, since there are only three of us! Hopefully the economy will continue to slowly improve, so we won't have to go through this again. I was a bundle of nerves all day yesterday, as were a lot of people on my hallway. Now that we're on the other side of things, I may need to go get some bubble tea tonight just to help myself recover!!

Online-stalking frustration

Argh, I'm trying to get the scoop on someone on whom I have a mini-crush, but he's nowhere to be found online! I don't get how in 2009, there are still people who are basically invisible to Google -- they don't belong to any social-networking sites, don't have a personal Web site or blog (the former is understandable, though; not many people do) or have never been mentioned in an article or piece that's been put online. I mean, there's an article that mentions me in it that's from my senior year of high school, which was like 13 years ago!!

Anyway, I periodically waste time Googling people I know or used to know to see what they're up to, and usually I can make some sort of headway, but this one person.. nada!

New baby No. 2

Finally got my new laptop, and she's beautiful! When I was researching what to get and settled on Sony, it was quite a nice bonus to discover that I could get the laptop in one of my favorite colors, a dark red -- at no additional cost! It's probably the second "cutest" thing I own next to Buster, seen here checking out his competition:

One of the main reasons I went with this VAIO -- on top of brand loyalty and trust with/in Sony -- was for the keyboard. The keys are spaced apart a bit like on a Mac laptop, which makes typing much more comfortable for me with my man hands.

When the IT guy came in to set everything up for me, I had him go ahead and install the Windows7 Beta on it so I could give 'er a whirl. I've hardly used Vista (due to lack of compatibility testing/support between our tools and Vista, we were told to stick to XP), so I can't really compare it to that, but compared to XP, anyway, I'm really liking 7. It's very slick and sharp, and has a lot of cool new features. Definitely helps that my new machine is rocking 4 gigs of RAM!

One (other) big downside of my old laptop spontaneously dying is that I had to wipe all the music off my iPhone to re-sync it with the iTunes on this new computer. Had I known my old laptop was about to bite it, I would've backed up all the music and then deauthorized that iTunes, but alas, I had no warning. Most of the music was duplicated on my iPod, but I unfortunately had a couple albums I'd bought off Amazon that I'd stored only on my dead laptop and my iPhone. So I'll have to shell out again for those.

Finally, one other cool new thing I've figured out how to do -- transfer TV shows from my TiVo to my laptop to my iPhone. As I ride the bus a lot, it's going to be so great to be able to spend the morning commute watching last night's "Rescue Me," "Real Housewives" or whatever. It took me several hours to figure out the whole process (getting files from my TiVo to the laptop was easy -- but time consuming -- using TiVo Desktop; then I had to use two additional programs to convert those files for viewing on the iPhone), but figure it out I did!