Summer in Seattle - Part 5

This week has included a little more introspection and a little analysis of if I really want to move up to Seattle post-graduation.

Contemplation- I love Seattle, at least in the summer. I've heard so much to fear for the winter. People get used to it, but I don't know if I can survive months without sun and weeks of continuous rain. On the other hand, people here are obnoxiously nice, at least compared to most placed I've been. The cars will wait for the pedestrian even though they could have cleared the junction before the pedestrian even gets there. They will be perfectly willing to take a picture of you if you ask. And they graciously answer any question on directions and the such that you may have.

In general, everyone seems to be more introverted and simply not care about how other really percieve them. I would say they are trying to make a statement, but they really just don't care. They have a long skirt/kilt store...only for men. And they seem to be straight men as well. Just an example of what you will see, only in Seattle.

Although there are 2 distinct reasons I do NOT want to live here. Many many smokers. Most importantly, streets/freeways are horribly labeled and I can never figure out where I am going. I've talked this through with Drew as well, we've decided its utterly rediculous.

back to the lighter side

August 26- the day before I put my name in for 2 tickets to the Mariner's game that night. I didn't win but somehow it worked out that my co-worker gave me his for the next time, the 26th. So I called up Drew and he said yes. We got there, got a bomb hot dog outside for $5, got inside and got some amazing garlic fries. Garlic-y enough to make Peter proud. Mariners beat the A's 5-3 and the game went by a lot quicker than it does on TV. it worked out great for getting free tickets 7 rows behind 1st base.

August 29-30- Saturday was a very relaxed day. That morning I finally went to play basketball with the roomates. And that day there were some impressively good ballers at the court and we got some good games in. Juliane also came over and we hung out with the roomates for some time and watched South Park and a movie. "I love you, man" is definetly a good movie to watch, if anyone asks.

Sunday I got some more touring in. After waking up nice and late, getting some Hawaiian for lunch and taking a nap we finally set out for downtown. First we saw the Seattle Underground Tour. That was awesome, especially for a budding geotech. So many soil problems on the old downtown. The whole city was built on mud flats that had excess saw dust thrown on top. For some reason this was not a good idea. But a fateful fire in 1879, decievingly close to the one in Chicago, let them reset the city. the most interesting part is that (this is where I left this post as a draft for a week and half and forgot what I was about to say)...But the tour was amazing and I learned a lot from the cynical tour guide. We then headed over to the Space Needle. Sadly enough, it took me this long to finally ride the iconic tower but it was well worth the wait. The view was astounding (where pic is from). A great 360 degree view from where I could see my house, lots of the Sound, the sports arenas and all of downtown. Epic view like no other. We then went our seperate ways and went home. A sight-seeing filled adventureful weekend came to a close.

September 5-7 - Labor day weekend! Thank god the construction site I'm working on is closed. If they were in any more of a rush they would have worked Saturday and Monday, which would mean I would have had to go out too. That's something I'll have to remember when I start full time, stuff like that will come up and I will be relied on to get it done. Anyways, this was the first weekend in ohhhh almost 6 months where I did absolutely nothing. I mean without a doubt nothing at all useful. I spent Saturday in Issaquah with J. Sunday we hung out around U-district. Monday I literally sat on the couch and watched football and cooked turkey patties for lunch during the week. I used the light drizzle outside as an excuse not to be productive, worked well. Oh, we were supposed to see Bruce Lee's gravesite, yea its in Seattle, but it was raining that morning so we decided to just cook a big breakfast and be lazy, that was a good idea.

September 8 - Drew got back from his weekend sabattical to LA, so we decided to celebrate with Taco Tuesday. I forgot how good homemade tacos are. Either way, after that we got to the theatre just in time for Inglorious Bastards. For the whole night starting on a recent whim, it worked out amazingly well in terms of timing, as always with Drew.

This reminded me of how much I miss being in LA around a lot of people I know. I've always had the opportunity to do something fun/exciting at any point in the day or night but never really took advantage of it. Not having those people in close contact, meaning not having more than 1 friend who I can randomly call and do something with, made me realize how much I appreciate it. And more importantly, it helped me think about how it would feel to move away for good after I graduate. Following up on an earlier conversation with Drew, it's really hard to move away at least initially. We really miss having so many close friends around. But sacrifices are often made. If the opportunity is good and everything seems worthwhile, then you just have to try your best to make friends in the new places. I think, if I had moved here permanently this summer it would be a very different experiance. More importantly, if I was 21 it would be much easier. Not because I could drink, but because it is at bars/clubs that you meet so many people. Even getting to know people at work and making friends requires you to meet them at the local bar afterwards. They all congregate at this local watering hole to just relax and end up really getting to know each other a lot better. Well, in a couple of months I guess I'll find out. Although, I won't need to while in college, there are much cheaper options of meeting people in college.

Summer in Seattle - Part 4

This update will include 2 weekends that were both highly entertaining though completely different.

August 15-16: I decided, from word from a few people from work and roomates, to go to Hempfest (no I do not, have not, and do not plan to smoke). It's a rally to legalize weed that takes up a huge portion of the waterfront next to downtown; it includes hundreds of performers from bands to comics to inspirational speakers. It was pretty interesting in general. The first day I went with a roomate, Brad, his friend and his friend's girlfried. The other guys decided to drink before and the girl was a general downer so I didn't really interact with her. I drove Brad's friends car down there and talked alot with my roomate. He finished writing a book and is working on a second and really likes to talk, especially when tipsy. So we talked about everything from politics to religion to the fallicous natures of each. Because none of us smoked we just walked through the area continuously. I hear there were easliy 120,000 people there. So it was a bit crowded but we easliy walked 4-5 miles just talking and looking. btw, they have the coolest bongs/pipes that I wanted to buy just to put up as artwork. I wanted a souvenior so I decided to buy a shirt. I'm not sure how that'll work out if I try to wear it around LA, but I guess I'll find out.

Almost forgot, that night the girls next door had a party for some birthday. We played some pong before, which I won, went over. Met a bunch of new people, who were all surprisingly nice. Played some more pong, which I won. Did my first kegstand. Helped Brad climb a ladder to get to his own window (he friends girlfriend locked him out of his own room) to try to get his friend out and party. Unsucessful, no injuries, just didn't get him out.

On the second day, Brad asked if I wanted to go at around noon because he had other friends around that hadn't gone. I said sure, I had nothing better to do. These friends, 3 girls and another guy, all smoked. So we did a lot more sitting. Which was nice as well because I got to relax on the waterfront and get some good pictures. Anways, everything was the same and we walked the same distance too cause we got a ride back with them and they forgot how to get to the car they parked, surprising?

August 22-23: I've been looking forward to this weekend for a while (where pic is from). The drive was only 2 1/2 hours and Drew picked me up at around noon. I had cooked some spicy turkey speghetti for the drive which worked well for the long border passing wait. We got to our hotel and walked around Granville street and Robson street for some time and walked over to Stanley Park. The place was massive, we took a tram ride around it, 45 minutes! Its really cool to see all the people running/biking/walking around. I really like the atmostphere where everyone loves to be outside and just do random things. Vancouver is really good for...really anyone. They have a lot to do and lots to enjoy, although the beaches are kind of dissapointing, but thats okay. We then got dinner at a sushi place. For $12 a head the meal was really really good and pretty darn filling. We then picked up some mugs for memory and for use, we got an immediate return out of it. We then consumed some liquid courage and discovered an amazing game, flip card. Ask me, I'll teach you. We then went out to the clubs. We had talked to a few of the bouncers while they were setting up (lesson learned, always do this) and got some info out of em. So we went to the place that had a sampler set up, got in for free and got our sampler then headed out. We then went to a swankier club, waited in line, and got it. The place was pretty cool and pretty crowded. Loud good music, I was happy. We then ended the night with some pizza, worked out well.

The next day we woke up at 10 or so and walked down to the beach. On the way we picked up some breakfast crepes which worked out pretty well. It was cooler that day and the beaches were not crowded but I did see their outdoor heated pool. It was nice and quiant with a capacity of 2,894 people! friggin massive! We then headed back for home/Seattle.

All in all, Vancouver was an amazing time. The theme of the weekend seemed to be, it worked out. We got one of the last trams at Stanley Park, found that cheap sushi place, thought we missed the freeway but found it. And we made a vital discovery for all of you US natives driving in Vancouver. The flashing green light means left turn is allowed at that time at that intersection. It took us 26 hours to figure it out, but after many hours of confused civil engineering concentrating on an issue, we figured it out. Also, I trust this is my introduction to club life, drinking age in Vancouver is 19 so the clubs are open to 19+ year olds. So come November I hope to be hitting up the famous clubs in hollywood/suset area. And more pictures are available on facebook, I will upload them now.

Summer in Seattle - Part 3

So these next posts will go by a lot quicker, I'll just be going through what I've been doing on the weekends.

July 24-26. On friday night I met Julieanne (one of Susi's friends that I met in downtown on the July 4th party) and we went to hookah. The place was kinda pricey and had a bunch of black people (rare, because I expected at least like 2 or 3 middle easterners). And they kept playing infomercials instead of the usual music videos. But it was a good time. We ended up missing the 1:20 am bus so we walked around, found a rock concert that was ending, and finally found a bus stop and took the 2:20 am bus. The next morning we went to Elie's place (went to her place for the July 4th party) and had a pool party/BBQ. One of the guys, he was in the military and based around here, loved cooking and BBQing. So he prepped pounds of chicked, pork, beef - the chicken was amazing! We hung out and played in the pool/jaquzzi for a few hours and watched the SeaFair parade as it was passing by. Then I luckily got a ride home from Reza, not my TA, he alse works for Microsoft. The next day I just did some laundry and relaxed, recovering/relaxing from the weekend.

August 1-2. That Saturday I met Julieanne (I'm so happy I found someone to explore Seattle with. Unlike Chicago, where I was unfortunately not able to find someone to just go out and visit the sights. Having someone to go around with makes life so much easier) and we went to Pike Place market. It was my first time there and it reminded me a lot of San Fran's Fisherman's Wharf. The cool thing was that it is actually a lot bigger than it looks and at one point it goes down 4 stories deep. I got my souvenier shot glass there! Oh, and I saw Starbucks FIRST store there. Then we went on to see the rest of downtown, we ended up at the Library. Reminiscient of Cerritos Library, except 10 floors tall and amazingly massive. I don't have a pic of it, but being inside made it look pretty epic. We then ended up at the pier and just overlooked the water for some time, bunch of boats going by with the other side of Seattle across the way, also a bunch of really wierd people walked by - I swear the definition of Seattle, just wierd. We then got lunch at a sushi place, which I expected more out of since it was Seattle and they fish so much.

But we then met DREW at EMP/SFM (Experiance Music Project/ Science Fiction Musueam). This place was really cool. There was a Jimi Hendrix exhibit and a Jim Henson (the guy that did the Muppets) exhibit. Henson was a genious, and I didn't realize it until I saw that. But there were also things about music from the northwest, like Hendrix, Quincy Jones, and a lot of contemporary stuff. We spent at least 3 or 4 hours there, which was great cause we got in for free (work gave me 4 free passes) and got the ipod tours for free too (also from work). After that we got some Mexican food in Udistrict and Drew went back home. Julieanne and myself went back to my place, played some pong with the roomates, and rented Amelie (the parts I was awake for were good).

That Sunday (yea, Saturday was long) Julieanne took a direct bus back to Issaquah and Drew called to see if I wanted to go sailing. Of course I said yes. We decided to take out an FJ (a two person boat) but he had never tried it. So with the directions he go online we took some time to rig it. Then we had to capsize it in from of the dockmaster so we could show that we could right it ourselves. Unfortunately I lost my sunglasses at this point, but it was a lot of fun.

August 8-10. On Saturday I went to the Soils Classification Class offered by work. It was 8 hours on a Saturday, but it was just amazing. I learned so much (got a really useful booklet with everything a new geotech needs) and got to interact with some really expeianced geologists. That was actually the conclusion of a 58 hour week. Once I got home I didn't do anything really and just kicked back.

On Sunday, I met up with Susi, Nina, and Erica (the german, fin, and swede) and we went to a concert at local gasworks park. It was an old refinery that they decided not to take apart completely because it would be cheaper and look cool. It was a surprisingly hot day, too hot to wear jeans like I did, but the performance we saw from a soloist Aussie was pretty cool. She had a really good voice, but the girls were bored/hot so we left. To cool off we decided to see the Hangover, myself and Nina hadn't seen it. Yea yea, I JUST saw the Hangover. It was epic, so amazing, I need to see it again (and I haven't said that since Remember the Titans). Then we hung out at my place until we decided on dinner. After an hour we still had not consensus. We checked out Thai Tom's but the line was too long so we ended up going to Pam's Kitchen - Trinidad-Caribean cuisine expecting Carribean cuisine. We walk in and see 3 indian waiters and look at the menu...naan, curry, yogurt, aloo...yea Pam was an Indian who lived in Trinidad for some time. They ended up with indian food with Carribean spices. It was really good, kinda pricey, $12, but was easily 2 meals, my favorite kind. Then the girls left and I tried resting some before the next week.

At this point I had been going into the field for a week (and will continue to do so until I finish up here). Now, I get to see everything that goes on at a construction site (where this pic is from). Even though my job is not very difficult, I push a metal rod into the ground and see how far it goes, it gets hard when something goes wrong. I learned, contractors are your friends until something goes wrong. I have to tell these guys (who have been working these jobs for over 20 years) that they did somehting wrong and need to re-excavate and re-compact to get the proper ground stability. They really try to cheat you our of your job and tell you false information sometimes. I asked one if I had probed a trench, that he was in, yesterday and he said yes. I checked my log and saw soemthing wrong. So I asked, when did you dig this trench. He said this morning. The prick didn't want to me to probe it. Reasonable, if it wasn't to spec I have to tell them and they have to move some huge machinery into place to compact it. Overall, a great learning experiance though.

Oh yea, on that Monday Drew called again to see if I wanted to go sailing, this time it was a race. It was really laxed but a good experiance, except for the lack of wind, the cold, and the rain. haha, but we learned a lot, the people out there are really nice and had a lot of advice.

Today, I'm planning on going to the Hempfest concert (no, I don't smoke), I heard it is a great people watching experiance and wanted to see a little more of Seattle. I'll update you about this next week.

Summer in Seattle - Part 2

There are a few other general topics I wanted to talk about...but I forgot them by the time I got back to this. When they come up I'll write it up. Until then here is how the rest of my freetime went:

Week 3- July 9th (thursday night) I flew out to North Carolina for my aunt/uncle as well as parents 25th anniversary celebration and my cousin's (Anusha, 16) arengatrum- dance graduation. I'll give you a quick run through of what happened. Firstly, great time overall, without a doubt one of the best times of the year...on par with the cruise with the Yerra's in 06. I got in about 1/2 hour before my family landed at the airport and met Murali babaya there. We went to his house for about and hour and then took the 5 hour drive to the boonies, Roanoke Rapids. When we got there we saw so many cousins and aunts and uncles. The mehendi night/lunch/dinner was amazing. I met a bunch of people from Long Island, they were kind of wierd but interesting none-the-less. That night we spent the night at the hotel, first time I've stayed at a hotel while in a city with family. I know it was necessary for accomadations, but it was definatly kind of wierd at first. Either way, on saturday morning we had the renewal of the vows, a mini-wedding, and a lot of spicy indian food for breakfast. From there we fit 6 people in a carolla to get to chick-fila and wal-mart. Somehow that was the first time Poonam akka, somewhere in her early 30's, went into a wal-mart. That night we had the reception which was a lot of fun (where the picture is from. Included are 12 of 13 cousins on the Atyam side). In usual Atyam fashion we danced until the hall closed, only 1 am this time but I think it was impressive enough for not being a real wedding. The set-up was beautiful topped off with an ice sculpture and a tree of strawberries. Me and Deepak had a little speech/slide show for my parents to celebrate their anniversary which was this February.

The next week was just kind of a jumble of things we did, I don't rmr when we did what. We played Bocchie ball for the first time, which was surprisingly fun. We watched Harry Potter at the midnight show, which was horrible because apparently people from small cities have no sense of common curtesy and won't shut up and because the air conditioner was broken and constantly clanging and making noise. One of the really really good days was Thursday when about 13 family members went to the National White water Training Center. We went white water rafting (class 3/4), zip lining (1/4 mile long), rock climbing, some went kayaking, and we all hung out in the sun. I was very surprised to see all the parents go zip lining, especially my parents and the adults from India. I'm really proud of them for being able to overcome their fears and go have fun like that. Our white water raft was awesome too, the guide was great, but I almost fell out twice, both times trying to make sure Navya didn't fall out. Also, the boys played soccer for a few hours outside (the girls remember this well because we chased them down and gave them all hugs).

Wednesday night we traveled to Charleotte but on the way we stopped at NC State to check out the campus, which Donovan was gracious enough to show us around. I'm pretty sure Deepak wants to go there now because their aerospace program is really strong, but the campus uses waaay too many bricks. Look it up, you'll see. Then we went to UNC- Chapel Hill. Yes, the disgusting rival of UCLA basketball. Don't worry true Bruins, there is nothing to fear. the campus reminds me a lot more of UCLA, but it is smaller and more compact. But their student center is pretty sweet, that is the only pro I could see over UCLA. Still, I would rather be a Bruin Basketball fanatic any day over any other school. Then we finally got to Neeli's house. I already explained thursday (white water rafting) and on friday we went to the mall for a few reasons...I think. Anyways, that night we stayed and Sreya and Ro's house (my mom's best friend from college who she's kept in contact with). They have a siiiick house. They lived in Tokyo for some time and have all these cool old artifacts, in addition to a pool table, media room, sweet kitchen, they just need thicker walls. But we got all the 6 of us cousins there and played apples to apples and hung out. Saturday's preformance by Anusha was amazing. 1 1/2 hours of pure dancing and I didn't even nod off. Truely an accomplishement if you know me at all. The dinner after was also awesome, except that we were told to help serve as we expected to. But when we got there all the adults thought we were useless and relegated us to useless tasks. These adults didn't understand how much experiance we had in the field and that we did not feel right at all to eat before serving everyone else. So we fought our way into releiving some from their duties. then we ate and then took some hundred picutures right outside with any combination of cousin/new friends we could make.

That night stayed up late, real late, slept for 45 minutes then Neeli and Sneha woke up to give me a ride to the airport. too bad when I got into the terminal I realized I didn't have my cell phone (in the car), my charger (finally ended up in deepak's bag), or my toilletries (at Sreya's house). I got home safe, took 2 hours to get to my house by bus in Seattle, but it was fine. The ensuing week without a cell phone was actually quite releiveing. It felt really good not to be tied down and obligated to respond immediately to phone calls and communication. The only downside was trying to make plans of facebook.

...And I'm done for the night. after a 58 hour work week I'm going to sleep in tonight. I'll catch up more later. gnight

Summer in Seattle - Part 1

I created this to make sure I don't forget what I've done so far in Seattle and the Summer of 09 in general.

The backset is a strict daily weekday routine. Work (usually 10 hours a day), bus both ways - Seattle has an amazing bus system, 2 buses will take you anywhere around Seattle and they run so often-, gym at the really local YMCA, cook for the night and lunch the next day, and then study for the GRE/slack off and talk online and read my book.

In terms of books, I finished Gang Leader for a Day really quickly. Good book, and worthwhile read if you like/are around the Chicago area. And now, I am almost done with Colin Harrison's The Finder. Interesting, kinda slow at first, but now its getting real enticing to finish it up as quickly as I can. I had to force it down so that I could write this.

Where to start? hmmm... well the house I'm staying at is a 9 bedroom house that seems to be specifically made for college students. Not very clean, surprisingly spacious (enough for a ping pong table in the little lounge outside my room, and generally empty. I guess its the archtypal college housing, I'm just not used to it because my apartment back in LA is definately more home-ly, organized and cleaner, the way I like it. But back in Seattle...its less than a mile to UWashinton campus, about 1/2 mile to University Ave, which I may dare say is better than Westwood, and a 20 bus ride to work. Also, funny thing, I live literally a rock tosses distance to the 5, yup, the same 5 freeway that streches through Cerritos. The kitchen is not oft used, I definetly use it 3-4 times more often than everyone combined. Again the prototypical college students that eat out and eat canned/frozen food all the time. At least I got to experiment with my cooking skills and I must say that they have improved/expanded a bit - Deepak would be proud.

Next, work. I really love work and I don't mind staying there 10 hours a day. So far I've literally just been playing with dirt for the whole day. Meaning, I'm in the lab running tests on them. It's hard to beleive almost 5 weeks of the same 6-7 kinds of test can still be entertaing. I attribute it to my co-workers. While the set-up is constantly changing, there is currently 1 other intern plus 3 full time guys. The other intern is awesome, he's a crazy mormon (doesn't remind me of Reed at all). He doesn't drink or party much, but he has the most interesting life. He fixes cars (really nicely) and sells them for a decent profit, has worked as a yacht/sailboat driver person, drives everywhere (seattle to LA for the heck of it like 3 times, only 14 hours), and generally lives and entertaining life. You can see I'm kind of jealous, also his girlfriend is Russian and he's going to Russia to hang out and see Russia, lucky punk. The 3 co-workers are really entertaining. They're all quirky and love different types of music. The best part of the lab might be that we get to blast music all the time, its awesome. They are all really young and are definately going places. It seems like the lab is where all the big shots start out. The current president for ALL Shannon and Wilson's came out of the lab, as well as a couple of the VP's, and the 3 people who have been with the company for the longest period of time. Also couple of really cool things. First, Neil Kirkland, works in the lab, is the drummer for Leon Hendrix (little bro of Jimi). And, Neil showed me the original copy of the research report written by Mr. Wilson and Mr. Casagrande (one of the founding fathers of the current geotech profession) on creating the triaxial test. Pretty damn amazing.

In addition, I went with one of my co-workers, another intern, to meet the Udub geotech professors. Dana, co-worker/masters student, was nice enough to introduce me to them and have all of us sit down and talk about geotech and admissions. I met Professor Arduino and Professor Kramer (who I also saw at his talk at the Queen Mary and the annual CalGeo conference). They told me to say wassup to the professors back at LA. I am always so surprised at how well connected they are with each other. They also told me other good places to apply which I thought was very polite of them. People in this profession always seem to be helping others and they never seem greedy or horde talent/skill for themselves. They are never full of themselves and are very humble, even the famous ones, I usually just gawk in awe.

Now, the entertaining part. I can't go into full detail about my weekends for a couple of reasons, but mainly because it will take too long and I still need to get up for work tomarrow morning.

Weekend 1- flew in, got picked up by roomates (that was really nice of 'em). They had a small party that night, at which I learned a lot about them and seemingly seattle people in general. Let's just say Nelly Furtado had a song...started with a P...that describes them well. I wanted to go around sunday but i just went grocery shopping and got prepped for work.

Weekend 2- went to Ramkrishna mamma's house. Met Neil (brave/couragous/outgoing 3? year old) and Chirag (who is an amazingly gifted artist without a doubt, esp at the age of 8). Ramkrishna mamma and Chitra atha are doing well, in a really nice house in a quiant suburb in Issaquah. there I met their aupair (wikipedia the program). She is german and 20 years old. I was really lucky to find someone my age to hang out with. I stayed there friday night (july 3rd/day off where I worked half day and took 2 buses from work). Saturday I went home and went to downtown because the aupair, Susi, invited me to a 4th of july party there. It was a very gracious offer, especially for me who knows NO ONE here, so I accepted and showed up. There I met more aupairs, another german, one finnish and one swedish (all girls) and met probobly 4 people that work for Microsoft. As stereotypical Seattle and Microsoft is, it is so true, everyone works for them. Everyone there was very nice/really cool. And i got a ride home that night, didn't have to wait for the morning and a bus ride. And, if I remember right that Sunday Drew (genious ucla grad, CIVIL's BABY!) called me up to go sailing. We ate at Thai Tom's, sooooo good, and then went sailing at a place he knew. That was by far the most outdoors fun I've had in a good long while. Good foundation of a weekend to start up on.

that's all I can write in one night. I still have plenty to write about and I should have it up soon. But until then I'm looking forward to my first field oversight project tomarrow and more cooking!

Have a good one,