Olympic Ventures

The last week and a half have been rather adventurous. I decided in November to finally have Lasik surgery. After getting a consultation and finding out I was a good candidate I had to wait about 2 months for the surgery. As of Thursday February 11th I am glasses free and now have 20/20 vision.

The surgery itself was quick I was in the procedure room for only about 10 minutes, each eye took no more than 1 minute. The longer process is the recovery. A week in and everything is healing nicely, I can see but things sometimes go blurry and my eyes have been getting very tired by around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. They say this will get better over the next 6 weeks, my next check up is 3 weeks from now.

My dad was kind enough to fly to Seattle to drive me and take care of me ( I didn't need much taking care of it was mostly driving as I was not allowed to drive for 24 hours). As a special treat for dad (and me) I was able to get tickets to the Vancouver Opening Ceremonies. Right after my 24 hour check up with the eye doctor we hit the road and drove to Vancouver - crazy. I was very worried about the traffic heading up to BC but thankfully there wasn't any.

The Opening Ceremonies were amazing, there is so much energy and action, a lot of this doesn't come across in the televised version and the parade of countries typically seems to drag on forever. In person this didn't seem to be the case, almost every country seemed to have people cheering for them. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Dad and I got to the arena early as I wanted to get some shots of BC Place before it got mobbed with people. We were required to be in our seats by 5 PM to rehearse for the audience participation portions of the program. While the effects of the lights probably look very interesting on television by watching the guides and the prompters you actually miss what is happening. I was more interested in watching the performances than waiting for my cue to turn a light on or off. What's more important everything looking good for 3.5 billion people or me?

I did record the ceremonies on Tivo so that we would be able to see what we missed there was so much that was happening on the stage and in the audience I wasn't sure where to look at times. I finally sat down on Thursday night and watched the recording. There are definitely things that are happening on the stage which are for the benefit of television as you can't see the effects from the seats. For example the stage the orchestra and performers were on was beautiful when seen from the front the large ice columns however completely blocked the view for us as well as everybody in probably 4 or 5 other sections. I was OK with not seeing as there was plenty of other stuff to look at.

One of the things that surprised me was leaving the ceremonies as well as walking around the next day, when you stopped a volunteer to ask for directions they had no idea. I could understand no knowing where some obscure things were but we were asking for directions to the cauldron and they didn't know where that was. I'm very glad I got the opportunity to go to Vancouver and that my surgery went well and I could see everything.

Once In a Blue Moon

Yes that's how often I've been blogging lately, and my apologies for not having kept up with this. I have no good excuses and it isn't that my life has been uneventful lately. I'm not making any promises but I will try and do a better job of blogging in 2010. Wow it's hard to believe that 2009 and another decade is behind us. When the year started I wasn't sure if I would be staying in London or moving back to the US, now I can't believe that I've been in Seattle for 6 months!

I am feeling very settled although I'm not quite sure if Ithis is "home" I still miss Boston and now I miss London (luckily I'm going back to visit in 9 days). I've managed to figure out the bus system here and can get myself around with ease. Of course it helps that there are websites out there to help you plan your journey, and I can't believe I'm going to say this but none of the sites compare to TFLs journey planner. Next year I may actually buy a car again, I have my eyes on a "fun" car and not anything practical.

With the move I am doing less travel so I didn't quite hit my goal of 100K miles this year oh well. I'm still trying to work out what my goals are for 2010 - I'm thinking Alaska and The Grand Canyon (I can't believe I've never been).

Money Makes The World Go Round

I have definitely been doing my part the last few weeks to stimulate the economy. Bad things happen when I am given a car for a week and can do all the shopping I want. A quick trip to my favorite store - Costco - there's no way to get out of there without less than spending $300. If I had avoided the wine section I might have been able to do it, but what fun would that be.

As of this week I have officially paid off all my final bills in the UK and have closed my UK bank account, HSBC is supposed to be sending me a cheque for the 40 quid that was left in the account. The last bill I had to pay was the UK tax bill, I was a little surprised that I actually owed money. I wonder what would have happened if I didn't pay it, but I wasn't about to find out. It's actually rather bitter sweet to know that everything is now officially closed out in the UK.

Stupid DMV

I left work early today to go and get my WA state driver's license. I read through the site and thought I had everything that I needed. As you can guess that wasn't actually the case. The web site says you need to bring the following:

1) Proof of Identity
2) Proof of Washington state residence
3) Social security number

As it turns out my MA driver's license did not count as proof of ID as required. As my license was out of state they require 3 forms of identification that have my date of birth and photo, or if I had my passport that would be accepted. Since I moved back to the states I have stopped carrying my passport with me at all times. Quite frustrating. So what this means is that I now have to go back another day to get my license, and of course they aren't open evenings or on weekends so this means either heading there over lunch one day this week or leaving early again. I am so not happy about this.

Steps to Becoming a Seattlite

This weekend I took a couple of steps towards becoming a true Seattlite. I attended Bumbershoot on Saturday and registered to vote. Bumbershoot is a music and arts festival that takes place Labor Day Weekend at Seattle Center - bands, comedy shows, food, and more. I ended up leaving before the evening bands took the stage as I was exhausted after being there from when the gates opened. I think in the future I'll go a little later in the day.

While I was at Bumbershoot I finally registered to vote. King County board of elections was there and I got myself registered. I noticed that there was no place to register for a party which I liked. I also found out that all voting is done by mail no need to go to a polling place you can vote in the comfort of your own home.

All that's left now in my transition to a west coaster is to get my WA state drivers license. I was informed by a friend last week that you have 30 days upon arrival to get a license since I've missed that deadline I may have to retake my driving test - yuck. I'll be going to the DMV on Tuesday to see what needs to be done.

One Month In

First off my apologies for not blogging in the month of August, it isn't that nothing was happening in my life I just wasn't feeling up to writing. I've settled into my new place quite nicely. The first few weeks I went on a spending frenzy buying all the necessities - grill, chairs for the deck, stereo speakers, receiver, DVD player, bedroom furniture, a spare bed, a bike (OK so the bike wasn't a necessity for the house but for my health).

During the month I've re-acquainted myself with Craig's List as I realized I had stored all kinds of stuff that I no longer wanted - it's amazing what happens when you put things in storage for almost 3 years. The one thing I haven't done yet is sort through all the files and paperwork, I'm sure a lot of it can be shredded and recycled but that's a project for a rainy day.

I also hosted my first dinner party in my new place for some out of town co-workers. I realized that evening that I need to get some extra chairs for my dining room set. In my previous places I always had to put the table against a wall due to space limitations so I only had 4 chairs now that I have more room I can get 2 extra chairs. The trick will be finding chairs that will match. Pottery Barn just sent me a coupon for 10% off any purchase as a new homeowner and I'm thinking I can find 2 nice chairs there.

I'll try to do better about keeping my blog up to date during September.

Settling In

After about 20 hours of unpacking, moving, trips to the shops, etc the condo looks somewhat inhabitable. The movers did a great job and almost everything was unpacked and set up when they left after 4 hours. While items were out of boxes they still needed to be put away which takes time especially when I kept getting side tracked. I would go into one room to move something I would get distracted by what needed to be done in that room.

I took a break from all the unpacking at about 4 to do some shopping. A quick trip to the market to get essential cleaning supplies and a little food, I was shocked when the bill came to $250 and I'm sure I still need to buy more. Next to the most important item on the list - bolts to put my table together. Somehow in the move from Boston they went missing. I took a leg and measured the table and was on my way or so I thought. After getting back from the hardware store I found out that the guy helping me had given me 2 different sizes and the smaller ones wouldn't work so it was back to the store to get 8 of the same size. Imagine my frustration when I got back home to find that even the ones that were measured didn't work! At this point I have returned the Zipcar and figured I would walk to a different hardware store in the morning.

The hardware store is a mile from my house which isn't a problem except I was carrying a wooden leg with me. Of course I realized when I got there that I should have taken a bolt with me to make sure the new ones were bigger. Oh well - I got the largest bolt they had and luckily they worked. If that wasn't hard enough I then had to lift this rather heavy piece of glass onto the table without breaking it. Using the table as a lever I was able to get the glass up with no breakage.

The remainder of the day was spent running up and down the stairs to put boxes and winter stuff in my storage unit. I think by about 4 pm I have things mostly where they belong and put away. I've also find a few things that I need to sell. Very glad I paid to put them in storage and then move them across the country :)