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2005-06-30

 

To Many Web Searchers

Dear Web Searchers:

Please stop coming to my blog by searching for "ass obsession" or "ass poking." This blog is not what you are looking for. Please go away.

Thanks for your cooperations.

Worst regards,
twngan

2005-06-28

 

Seattle Bus

Unlike Houston's bus system, the one in Seattle is actually tolerable. It has a Trip Planner web interface that, although not very convenience to use, makes it easy enough for outsiders like me to find bus routes. But with so many Google Maps hacks, it is just a matter of time for something more handy to show up. And it has. Welcome to Seattle bus monster, all you need about bus riding in Seattle. It has some small problems, like the maps are loading more slowly than in Google Maps (and sometimes not loaded at all), but hey, that's already good enough. And most interesting of all, the author works in Amazon Web Service...

 

Intern Raft Trip

By now, you must be very interested in the intern activities I mentioned (if not, too bad, but I get to decide what you want to read here). It was a raft trip on the Skykomish River by Wave Trek. Great for me, since I haven't done any exercise other than walking the hills since arriving to Seattle.

After a pretty funny safety video, we spent the whole afternoon rafting on the river (not in the river :), which is about 10 miles. The rafting was typical, just physical and tiring afterwards. Maybe there would have been more fun if our guide concentrated more on guiding us rafting rather than bashing Bush or helping people on other rafts.

When I got home I realized that my whole back became red and itchy. The safety wet-gear was too tight :(

2005-06-24

 

Annoying Tech Interns

Tech-Intern is a mailing list for, as you would expect, technical (Software Development Engineer) interns here in Amazon. Since we spend most of our time inside cubicles, the list is the single most important window to our colleagues. But my impression to them is mostly... annoying. The list has gone up to more than 80 mails per day. Right, it is probably more than the number of technical interns we have.

The content of the mails are getting worse and worse. It used to be just some random chitchatting of things you want to know around (like how suck it is to deal with the people in Cendant Mobility, our relocation company). The mail volume suddenly doubled when someone decided that the mailing list should also be used for posting puzzles and answering them. Then they would just write something like "I'm bored! Let's do something down the fountain." Do they need to work? Do they know that other people might possibly need to work? And when other people suggested, just suggested, that it might be for the best for them to look for alternative communication media, or just tag their spam for easily filtering, they would just make cruel, insensitive jokes and continue their inconsiderate behavior.

I thought educated people are better than this.

And the worst part is, we can't just unsubscribe or ignore the mailing list. We are expected to subscribe and read the mails, as there would be opt out activities for interns. I will talk about those activities later.

Certainly I don't like those people. It also makes you wonder how much it is worth to work in this company in long term, if it is composed of jerks.

No, I'm not writing this when I'm outrageous. It's been weeks.

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2005-06-22

 

More on Gabbs Pole Line Road

Remember I mentioned this interesting road in Nevada on the route from Las Vegas to Reno? Someone came to my blog after searching for this term in Yahoo, made me interested in it again. A bit of searching uncover this:
[Gabbs Pole Line Road] was listed in Adventure Magazine as part of the Canada to Mexico route on dirt roads. I took this before that was published. It is an amazing road; you do not see another person for three hours. You can go as fast as you want and it does not matter. The road is minimum maintenance and mostly dirt so you cannot go faster than 50, but it is worth it.
How about that! And people usually travel that road to see dune like this, this, and this. Maybe if I weren't so scared and rerouted, the adventure would have been even more interesting...

2005-06-15

 

Income Tax

I have to be glad that I'm coming from a state like Texas. Both Texas and Washington have no state income tax, which means I have to pay none and would not have my money withheld. It makes me feel like getting a higher paid than many other interns.

2005-06-08

 

Employee Discount

Probably this is the most interesting topic about my internship for some people. Yes, we do have a 10% employee discount. And the best part is, I can have the items sent to my Houston address, meaning that I can enjoy the discount without even paying the WA sales tax. And then getting 3 points for each dollar spent by using Amazon Visa card. Plus if it combines with A9 Instant Reward to get additional 1.57% off...

But no, don't beg me to buy anything for you. After getting my Mac Mini, I would have already spent more than half of the limit, which would then go for accessories.

2005-06-04

 

Pike Place Market

On my first weekend here, I decided to check out around. The first and obvious choice is the famous Pike Place Market. A total disappointment, though. Other than the fact that there are a lot of people around since it is a Saturday, all you can see is some crazy fisherman yelling around and throwing big fishes to each other. There are many people selling small stuff, but you can find those at any flea market anyway. It made me lost my interest to go to other places here...

2005-06-02

 

Life Sucks

(Man, it's so hard to keep this blog up to real time! Even when I don't have a life here!)

So what more can I say about here? Seattle is a place that you can actually walk (or bike) around, as long as you are athletic enough to go up hills all the time. This is so unlike Texas, where your life is definitely miserable without a car.

The bad part, though, is where I live. I live in a small house with 15 bedrooms (imagine this!). There is only one small common kitchen, making cooking so inconvenience. I end up eating out all the times, which is really expensive, since it is not in Texas anymore, and I even find eating out in Texas expensive :(

Another bad thing is about its Internet connection. It claims to have wifi. Turns out it is a horrible MSN connection with 256kbps upload and download speed. Keep in mind that it is shared with other 14 rooms. (Anyone remembers 14.4kbps dial-up?) But this is still not the worst part. The connection is so unstable and stopping all the time, you can't use it download a small file or ssh. Working by cvs over ssh is totally out of the question. And it is still not that bad if it doesn't have the random down time every other day and lasts for a whole day...

What I don't get is, why can this place I'm living charge so much, yet every single room is rented out now... I am definitely going to move to a cheaper, nicer, closer to work, and more private place at the end of the month.

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