…beyond nice.

Ever have one of those days at work where you end up doing a whole lot of nothing by accident? Then at the end of the day, all you can do is sigh and leave. I just had one of those joyful days; I can only hope that tomorrow when I return, I will write code to a game that will make small children cry in a state of confusion between joy and fear. Yeah, I’m not fully thawed yet. For some reason or another, my project was in a state of broken for most of the day. In the end, I only checked in a few lines of code change…which made me want to embellish my check-in email with: Fixed a bug, wrestled a bear to save a small fawn from being mauled, oh and stopped an accidental demolition of an orphanage. How the hell else could I explain the little I’ve done in the last eight hours? Nope, sorry, just one bug fixed.

A customer rep for Dell called me this morning around 11 to ask me how I’m loving my Dell and asked me if I would like to jot down some phone numbers that are handy to have.  I told her no.  I think that confused her, so she moved on to telling me how I should navigate the Dell website, at which point I had to interrupt her and tell her that I was at work and that she caught me at a bad time.  She apologized but then said in an accusing voice, “Well, this is the only phone number I have for you.”  Well…yeah, I only use my cellphone.  I’m not sure what most reps expect when they call people at 11 on weekdays.  Did she expect that I was just sitting on my ass at home, having a toke and waiting to take down phone numbers in case my brand new computer blows up on me?  I would hope that more of our good citizens are actually trying to make a living during these hours.

I’ve been laying low for the last couple days, which is nice. I love how a good backpacking trip could lay my spastic ass down for a moment to enjoy a book or two. I’ve been reading An Anthropologist On Mars. It’s good if you dig reading about people and their neurological disorders.

One major reason I tend to lay low for at least a day after a grueling trip, aside from the “gruel” part, is gear maintenance. During this last trip, I think I hauled home at least 5 lbs of stowaway frost…which of course melted into water and got all over my stuff. Used to be, when I was younger and we go on little car camping trip, I would be super lazy about stuff like properly unpacking soon as I get home. I would drive along a week later, notice a dreadful smell and wonder which nasty beast was trying to pickle cabbages in my car. Of course that nasty beast would be me, pickling some soggy swimsuit. No big deal…yay, new bikini! Backpacking gear on the other hand would cost over a grand to replace. Sure, I could always suck it up and just sleep in a small enclosed space that smells like rot and mildew - I’m sure that would give some people the true feeling of being home away from home but it just doesn’t quite cut it for me. It would take that and a dray of squirrels throwing a rave on the roof top to properly simulate my home for me.

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As I sit down to write this, I can feel a slight chill in my room and my brain is trying to shut down so that it can start whining about the cold. Shut the fuck up, brain! I suppose I will write with my lymph nodes today, because they’ve been very good and haven’t complained one bit despite constantly have to battle every damned virus known to man that somehow makes its way to my office. Apparently game programmers and artists are dirty monkeys and they just keep getting sick.

Now back to a little recap. Saturday morning started nicely, we gathered and carpooled to the trailhead in my car. The beginning part was like any other trip, we got on the trail without snowshoes since the beginning parts were well stamped down and hustled along to look for a decent campsite. When we got to the first decent camp, we decided to move onto the next spot because the hike out had been wimpy at best. Most of our packs were 40lbs+ but because the hike was pretty flat, we felt a little robbed of good work-out.

When we got to the second site, we declared it awesome, dropped our packs and started setting up shop. Before we started, Fraser took off his shirt and told us how nice the sun feels. I was thinking he’s nuts, normally I would give him a run for his money on being the first to go shirtless because backpacking is some sweaty nastiness, but it was too cold for that. Then Jason took his shirt off and said the same thing…next thing Daniel, who never takes his shirt off, took his shirt off and declared the sun equally wonderful. At this point, I was thinking my buddies were lying their asses off, I figured soon as I took my shirt off, they’ll all put on their shirts and tell me I’m nuts just to fuck with me (hey, they are my friends, I wouldn’t put it past them to be an asshole like me)…but the sun did look warm and inviting. And god damned it was nice. We all worked on setting up without our shirts except for Sto, whose arm was tucked in a splint with a shirt underneath. The sun was so damned nice that while we were standing around chatting, we didn’t even face each other, instead we were spaced out and turned like rows of solar panels facing the sun while making our own heavenly chorus sound effects to go with our goofiness.

After camp was set, we set off to explore the area in snowshoes. We wandered around for a while, but didn’t manage to find any safe spots for some elevation gain so we basically followed the creek and crossed this bridge created by an avalanche because that’s obviously the safest path.

When we got back, we piled on all the clothing we had to hang out. I lucked out in picking up a nice down jacket right before the trip with my buddy Jason, who when I was torn between two jackets, one that’s super light and will compress to nothingness or a slightly heavier jacket with a nice big hood, told me to always go for the hood because that thing will keep you warm. Since I was still obsessing over getting my pack as light as possible, I was a bit dubious about the choice. That was the best advice anyone could give for a newbie snow camper because when I randomly decided to push my hood back for reasons known only to someone that completely lacks any common sense, my warm swaddled snuggly world turned straight to dry humping witch’s teats.

While we made dinner, some of the boys decided to build an igloo, without a top because that apparently required more skills than a bunch of clowns stacking uneven snow bricks, who would have guessed.

Still it was great, we had a nice wall and enough seating for all of us. We had food and of course booze (only for the purpose to keep warm and not to get shit-faced, because we’re a bunch of little angels) in there.

As we got more shit-faced, the guys started singing at the top of their lungs. Then after we got even more plastered, we decided to run up the mountain and do some glissading (for those that don’t snow hike, that’s just a fancy term for sliding on your ass down a snow covered mountain). The guys started sliding heads first face down, then moved onto sliding heads first on their backs. Lying on your back and sliding down heads first sounds suicidal, but it’s not (it’s only slightly idiotic). It’s actually one of the more peaceful feeling things you can do. Just sit back and watch the moon and stars as you drift back…unless your down jacket happened to be slick and you catch air and hear all your buddies go “Ooomph!” as you land. We worked off a good amount of drunken energy running up the mountain and sliding back down.

After we simmered down, we had more food and bunked down for the night. I boiled some hot water, pour it in my water bottle, tucked that in my sleeping bag with me and had a warm cozy night’s sleep. The next morning was a whole different game. I woke up and as I peeked out of my mummy bag, I noticed there was a layer of frost on my sleeping bag where I was breathing on at night.

Everything was cooooold. We tried to make breakfast, but our gas canisters got so cold the gas in there wasn’t expanding enough to want to escape. I had my canister in my tent so it wasn’t completely frozen over, and I managed to boil some water which became quite the bragging rights in camp. Look, I boiled wah-ter! I rule! In the end, everyone had to tuck their canisters in their jackets until it warmed up enough. We tried to pack up, but the cold made moving very very slow, so we decided to just wait till the sun hits to really work. Sto checked his thermometer at some point and said it was 18 degrees, so we guesstimated that it had to be below 15 during the night. The moment the sun beamed across our camp, there was instant warmth and joy to be had.

We quickly packed up and left to get some real food at the Snoqualmie Pancake House.

Photo set here (same as slide from previous entry).

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I’m alive. I happen to still have all my fingers and toes, although the toes felt like there were some close calls. I’ll write a proper post about the trip when my thoroughly frozen heart thaws out, which will be never, so maybe whenever I feel like talking about how much more awesome my weekend was than yours. I seem to have mentioned in my last post that I went camping in 26 degrees weather like that’s cold or something, just because my cup of water froze overnight. Feh! The weather was 18 degrees in the morning and if you happened to be holding a cup of water, you can watch that thing freeze right before your eyes. Overall the trip was amazing but I won’t lie and tell you that I didn’t notice the cold because there was too much fun to be had. We’re hoping to get at least one more snow camping trip in before the season ends. Must sleep.

In the mean time: slide of the trip here.

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Today was milestone day for my project, so needless to say, I was stressing it a bit at work for the past few days. I’ve been half-heartedly looking forward for the weekend because there hasn’t been much in the ways of new snow in the mountains which means I will be snowboarding on a sheet of ice. As much as I enjoy snowboarding, having my tailbone crunched up to my neck isn’t always the delight it sounds to be.

Seattle has been suffering from some strange weather lately, we’ve had a couple snowstorms (hey a couple inches of snow qualifies as a snowstorm) and that crazy huge windstorm that scared the shit out of all of us. It’s funny how prior to this last windstorm whenever I hear about windstorm I laugh and say, “What? They have a bit of wind? What’s the big deal?” Windstorm just sounded like…you have some gusty wind and maybe some rain, but until they call it a hurricane or tornado, that’s just wussy stuff. Now, when I hear about somebody flying into some city where a windstorm is approaching I tell them not to go, because holy hell, that shit could kill you. My house didn’t have power for two days after that last storm.

I don’t deal well with the cold. My brain ceases to function except for the part that whines. I hung out in downtown Seattle a lot during the powerless cold days. So a couple days ago, my buddy, Sto emailed me asking if I wanted to go snow camping with him and the guys…and my reply: Fuck yeah! I don’t make sense to even me sometimes.

The first time I’ve even heard about snow camping was a few years back when my sister was with her ex and she mentioned that he was going snow camping. We spent the next hour talking about what a crazy white-boy she was dating and how he must be allergic to a nice cozy warm house or something. He could have been spending quality time with his sweet Asian gal eating chicken feet.

Since we’ve been working frantically to get that final polish into the game, I was a bit worried I wouldn’t be able to make it for the trip after all – mostly because while I own backpacking gear galore, I don’t actually own winter camping gear. I have a sleeping bag that’s rated for 15 degrees but when I took it up to Enchantments, the temperature dropped to 26-27 at night (it was so cold my cup of water froze to a solid chunk overnight) and it still nips through the bag a bit. Luckily, we got our build ready and sent out by 6 so I was able to get some last minute shopping in.

So, here’s to wishing I don’t get eaten by bears. Here’s to wishing I don’t get frostbites on my sorry little bad circulation ass.

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I’ve recently discovered the ultimate game programmer’s crack. It’s called VPN and it allows me to log onto my work computer and code my game at any damned time. Yes, remote desktops is obviously necessary because programmers are just always partying their life away…without still more computer time, these programmers just might get out and come in contact with another human being. I know it’s dorky, but I actually enjoy writing snippets of code during my free-time, it’s like working on a fun puzzle. For some odd reason, working on that same code at work isn’t nearly as fun, because…well, that’s work, but coding from home – whew talk about living the rebellious life. I’m dangerous!

Last night a girlfriend of my sister and mine, Estella, threw a lingerie fashion show at Ibiza Dinner Club. It was a show combined with the Seattle Sonics and Denver Nuggets After Party, so it was a bit of a strange baller crowd. I took a few pictures throughout the course of the night, but I stopped at some point because it looked like the pictures kept coming out blurry. I checked the pictures today and found most of them turned out pretty good, I guess it was my sorry drunk ass that was blurry. I’ve just uploaded the pictures and as usual with my Flickr account, I’ve posted pictures of nature and mountains galore but pictures of girls scantily clad always win the random stray clicks.

Slide of of the show here.

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This weekend was the first weekend in a very long time in which I neither hiked, nor snowboarded. I’ve made up my mind that for this year, if I get invited to do something I’ve never done, even if it conflicts with existing plans, I will make every effort to go do whatever the new thing is. I’ve snowboarded on Sundays for weeks pass, this last Sunday my buddy, Jesse, invited a bunch of us to his place to watch his team the Bears play. Football…whatever…hanging out with the guys…meh…but Jesse offered to cook us homemade pizza from scratch. I’m there!

Being that I have so many guy friends, you would think that I would have done the whole sitting around with a bunch of beer, scratch our crotches while watching football ritual. I think I might have done so a good few times back in the days, but it’s usually when I was too hungover to care and it was usually a spillover party from the night before. These days, most of my buddies are backpackers and we’re usually scratching ourselves out in the woods, while the guys belt out operatic anthems about their nutsacks.

I have to say, it’s nice to watch a good game (by good game I mean the team that I happened to be cheering for won) with people that cares about the game. Jesse made some mean pizzas and the guys made endless jokes about how much they love his sausage. It’s a good thing my friends are so mature because as you all know, I’m a klassy gal – and that’s definitely with a “k”.

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Here’s something you don’t hear everyday that causes a reaction… So we were out partying tonight at Trinity and Shawn Kemp shows up as one of my sister’s guest at the club.  Being a basketball player and all…the guy is obviously not a midget, but I never really thought about how damned tall these players are.  When you see players on TV with other players, they look like normal sized human beings, but in a club, this guy stands a good head taller than the tallest bouncer who is already a good head taller than the ENTIRE crowd.  It’s not even like he’s only longer limbed, but he’s like a normal person but super sized so he’s proportionally wide all around.  At one point while we were heading to the VIP lounge, I had to turn around and warn him to duck under a low ceiling spot.  This makes me wonder if the guy gets claustrophobic from constantly having an inch of clearance from the top of the room.
I haven’t heard too much about this guy, but he seems like a really sweet person.  People flocked to him asking to shake his hand and to take pictures with him and he took it all in strides.  Some people just came up to touch him without knowing who he is, because they seem to think they’re petting Big Foot or something.
When we got to the VIP lounge he ordered a nice bottle of champagne for our group.  After the champagne my sister suggested we go back out to dance.  I couldn’t help but wonder how the hell are we supposed to dance with him?  My sister is about my height at five foot nothing…we’re going to look like angry chihuahuas bumping his knee caps.  While I was wondering about this strange dilemma as we headed for the dance floor, out of nowhere, the DJ goes, “This goes out to RainMan, the Seattle Sell-Out.” And he walks right out the door along with the crew.  It was late far as we were concern so we called it a night. Sometimes people just want to have a decent night…and perhaps nice is not always against some people’s agenda.

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I just noticed today that my bathroom is starting to look like some dude’s bathroom.  I don’t own a lot of makeup so my bathroom is kind of bare like most men’s bathroom to begin with.  Now, my hair is starting to grow out, just enough that I’m noticing my shedding…and it look like some guy just shook his head all over my bathroom.  Is it wrong to be a little unnerved by your own shedding?

I just can’t remember the last time I had hair shorter than shoulder length.  Also I’m just so used to being able to randomly run my hand in the circle motion over my carpet and come up with a Mini-Me-Hairdoll.  That only sounds gross.  It’s actually way awesome.  If I still had long hair, I would send you one with googlie-eyes glued to it so you can create a shrine of me with it.  You know you want one.

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I finally got off my very lazy ass and created my new blog site.

Thanks for all those wandering by from my old blog.  Good to see you again.

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