Backpacking in the Mill Creek Wilderness Area
A photo entry follows the jump…
Continue Reading 2 comments August 29th, 2007
Posts filed under 'vacation'
Vacations are officially AWESOME.
One of many happy and touristy pictures taken in San Francisco with my best girl! I’ll write more about it and post more pictures later. And now, back to work…
3 comments January 3rd, 2007
Recent Pictures…
It’s been a while since I’ve posted any pictures, so here’s a poorly-thought-out selection of pictures.
Continue Reading 8 comments December 11th, 2006
Places I’ve been…
Obviously, I haven’t done too much traveling, especially compared to some of my friends. I’d like to change that. Where have you been?
6 comments November 27th, 2006
Add to list of vacations to take:
Go to Finnmark, to catch and eat some tasty Giant Russian Crabs.
I’m all for sustainable and non-farmed seafood, so this sounds like a damn good time. Who wants to go and battle creepy alien sea spiders with me?
2 comments November 15th, 2006
Pending Layoffs != Productivity
So, the rumor mill collectively thinks that today is the day for layoffs. So far, nobody has done any work, since the entire company is on edge. The company is 25% of the size is was when I joined, and yet, this is supposed to be the largest layoff yet. Also, nobody has been laid off yet (that I’m aware of).
I’ve sent a few emails and thoroughly perused my to-do list, but nobody is responding to emails. Instead, everyone is clustered up in small cliques around cubicles gossiping about where, when and how the axe is going to drop.
This is killing me. I like my job, and I’ve been through many layoffs here. I really wish the evil HR drones would just make the cuts that are going to be made and be done with it. That way everyone can either begin licking their wounds or get back to work - myself included. This has happened before, and the company nearly shut down for a week while everyone was waiting for the layoffs.
Of course, if I get the old pink slip, I’ve got plans. First, I’m going to get drunk (it’s more of an obligation than anything else). Second, I’m going to take a nice vacation while pondering my options. I could sell out and land a management gig somewhere, or I could try to continue writing. Management probably means decent money, and writing probably means a lot less. Going back to school isn’t out of the question either. Nonetheless, I expect a good severance package and nice vacation. Things could be better, but they could also be a hell of a lot worse.
5 comments October 24th, 2006
SOLV beach cleanup!
Finally… After a year’s abscence I made it back to another SOLV beach cleanup. Since I wasn’t planning on staying at the beach, I got up at 6:30 (AM!) on Saturday morning and drove out to the beach. I arrived at 9:30, about a half hour early, but the SOLV guy was already ready for volunteers; plastic bags and gloves in hand. I so I grabbed a bag, declined the gloves and went to work. The beach was relatively free of large items. I saw no netting or giant plastic trays or any of the other stuff that’s obviously boat-borne detritus. Having done this before, I know that there are two types of beach trash. There’s the stuff that the oceans spits up onto the beach, and then there’s the stuff that Oregon’s beach visitors have left behind. I chose to walk along the wash lines of the tide on the beach, where the most of the trash has been deposited by the last high tide - you get more interesting crap like that. All in all, it was a big year for cigarette butts and plastic end-caps for from spent fireworks. I picked up tons of little bits of closed-cell styrofoam, and quite a number of plastic bags too.
For the rest, click “Continue Reading”!
Continue Reading Add comment September 18th, 2006
Cape Blanco - Fishing in Alaska
Here’s another picture I snapped in Alaska. This is also just off of Cape Addington, though quite a bit further out than the sea lion rookery. I’m not sure why I snapped a picture of this particular commercial fishing boat, when there were scores of them nearly everywhere - but I like the picture anyways. This was taken with a 400mm imae stabilized lens that I rented for the trip. I only figured out how to use it somewhat correctly a few pictures before this. Nonetheless, I’m still pretty happy with the results of my first week using a DSLR (and doing so on a tiny boat rolling around in the ocean).
Add comment August 14th, 2006
A return to happy news
It has occurred to me that my happy little blog has turned ugly with posts of political nature. I fall into the overly-political trap a bit too often. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in disgust of the lunacy of our maniac leaders. See? - there I go again. I’m gonna try to return to somewhat of a gadgety and fun blog. Since I have to get back to work now, I’ll start by posting a picture of some sea lions that I took in Alaska this July. This shot was taken at Cape Addington, about an hour outside Craig, Alaska.
Sea lion rookeries smell incredibly foul. It’s like an elephant exhibit at a zoo - if it was never cleaned and housed several dozen elephants living on delicious burritos and Chinese food.
2 comments August 11th, 2006
Israeli Tourism Is Savaged by War
Surprisingly enough, Israeli tourism is savaged by war.
In other news, Lebanon’s tourism industry has also been negatively affected.
1 comment August 11th, 2006
Traveling Plans!
Well, my old department is going to India. No, it’s not some sort of mega-awesome company sponsored field trip for being the only department to consistently meet sales and service goals in the last few years…. My old group has been successfully scapegoated for problems created and perpetuated by others, and is being outsourced.
I narrowly avoided it, but have been folded back into that neck of the woods a bit (as far as my new manager, the 9th in five years)… By my calculations, I’ve got an 85% chance of being employed through the end of the year. In 2007, the likelihood of remaining employed here drops 15% per month. If this estimate is correct, I’ll be scheduled for the first “summer vacation” I’ve had in quite while come May-June of 2007. Of course, it’s all just guesswork. We could make a fantastic comeback, Real Soon Now. It could happen (I’m serious).
Now that I think about it, I left my old group in a leadership and training position. Maybe someone will send me to India in order to train others and perhaps write documentation (fits my new job too!), perhaps for a knowledge base. I might get to write some of the silly sounding scripts that some of you may eventually have to listen to…
I don’t like seeing a good group of people outsourced for the wrong reasons, but I’ll still take a trip to India – and they would too.
Add comment July 20th, 2006
I’m back!!
It’s been a month since I’ve posted, and over two months since I’ve posted regularly, but it seems like a year has passed. Let’s “rap”, as the kids say, about what’s been going down.
Continue Reading 4 comments July 19th, 2006
Back at work.
Vacation is over, unfortunately. While out, my lovely girlfriend and I visited Vancouver B.C. for a few days, and then came back to Portland in time for Christmas and vegged out for the rest of my vacation. Vancouver was awesome. We saw two hockey games, visited Stanley Park and the very awesome Vancouver Aquarium, went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge, had dinner at some revolving “Top of Vancouver” Space Needle-like restaurant, saw the Steam Clock, and did other touristy stuff, like shopping and getting a little lost (but not much!). Vancouver really is a nice city. In fact, I would be willing to say that it’s one of the only two cities I could ever see myself moving away from Portland for (Bend, Oregon is the other city.).
I can’t wait to take another vacation.
Add comment January 4th, 2006
Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea..
Vacation rules. Fuck you, work. I saw whales.
Add comment December 19th, 2005
A picture.
Add comment July 26th, 2005
Vacation
So, it appears as though I didn’t follow up very well on my upcoming vacation plans and now things are a bit up in the air. I can reschedule, but my friend billyboday can’t. I have two more avenues to follow before I give up and drink myself into oblivion.
It should be pointed out that intoxicating myself into oblivion was the plan the whole time, it’s just that I wanted to do it in a clean house with a nice yard far away from the random calls of work and family. I may have to settle for being on call, and in a small messy house with an embarassing yard. So it goes.
Add comment July 20th, 2005