Brock in Seattle

Blog change

2008-07-06T16:21:00.000-07:00

My new posts are now going here.

Sunny days are here again

2008-05-07T23:34:00.000-07:00

So as some of you may have heard, I am moving back to the San Francisco bay area to work for an awesome startup company. To hopefully answer your burning questions, I will give you a pithy lil' FAQ:

You are going to have to rename your blog, huh?
I think I will just start a new one and link it off here.

What's wrong with Amazon?
Nothing. I loved working for them and learned a lot.

Why move then move 840 miles for a new job?
I always wanted to work in a startup atmosphere and make a huge impact on a brand that I can be proud of. I really feel that my work will touch millions of people and that means a lot. If I get to do that and at the same time report directly to one of the founders (who is a great person, by the way) and work in the mecca of the computer industry, what could be better?

Was this an easy decision?
Nope. I took about a month to decide. It's not easy leaving the comforts of the home you just bought and the town that you were just getting the hang of.

Isn't housing and gasoline ridiculously expensive over there?
Yes.

Holy Ants

2008-04-08T23:58:00.000-07:00

I saw a few ants in our tub and decided that their doom would come earlier this year. I set out our deadly ant crack house (aka Grant's Kills Ants) at the edge of the tub.

They came a' marchin...

Lessons learned:

Put the trap close to the hole
If you failed to do #1, don't move the trap or they will scatter all over the place :)

Click to see the gory details

New song: Untitled

2008-03-10T22:27:00.000-07:00

I have started to work on my next album. "Untitled" (I may name it later) will be the first song and is available for your listening pleasure on the Bjukebox. Most of this song came to me at work (of all places) and I recorded most of the tracks within the same day when I got home. It's about leaving behind the place you are at and starting a journey full of unknowns. That is sort of the concept I am aiming for, anyway.

Speaking of starting a journey, I have been trying to gather feedback on what direction others feel I should go based on what they heard from me before. There is a survey on the right-hand side of the page to you an opportunity to speak your mind. Of course, I may totally ignore what you have to say. We'll see :)

First taste of IE8

2008-03-10T20:34:00.000-07:00

Has any one tried out the IE8 beta? I was eager to try the Acid2 test since I have a couple of friends that have slaved away on ensuring it will pass. After installing and restarting Windows, IE now instantly greets me with this:

I will see if IE8 passes Acid2 after it passes the Don't Crash The Instant It's Opened (tm) test.

B is for Bowling

2008-02-19T19:05:00.001-08:00

B is for Bowling. We went to the ACME Bowl in Southcenter and bowled together for the first time. Neither of us did very great.

A is for Amazon post-holiday party

2008-01-27T14:30:00.002-08:00

Layla and I decided to do something for each letter of the alphabet in 2008. So here is our activity for the letter "A."

Last night we went to the Amazon post-holiday party. We don't do anything special during the holidays since it's the most hectic time of year for retail, and that includes e-tail. The event was held in Seattle's own Frank Gehry work of blobitecture, the Experience Music Project/Sci-Fi Hall of Fame. I enjoyed walking around and looking at the exhibits (seeing Jimi Hendrix's cream-white leftie guitar in particular) but the main event for me was the fuzz rock band Presidents of the United States of America (singles include Lump and Peaches, as in "millions of peaches, peaches for me...").

PUSA is great because they are one of the few alternative bands from the 90s that rock hard but don't take themselves too seriously. Throughout their performance, for instance, they called out Jeff Bezos to come up and stage dive ("c'mere little jeffy! c'mon JB!"), although Jeff never came out. We were treated to new songs and old songs alike, including a super-extended versions of Video Killed the Radio Star, Kitty, We're Not Going to Make It and Kick Out the Jams. After finishing, the band genially shook hands with many-a-Amazonian.

The band playing Kitty with a special guest meower from the crowd

The guitar nerd that I am, I had to steal a shot of lead guitarist Dave Dederer's pedal board. I was really impressed by the throaty, creamy, fuzzy tone that the band had. Of course, a lot of their tone also comes from their unsual instruments (a basitar and guitbass).

After the concert Layla, Alan (a co-worker) and I roamed around the museum seeing what other people were up to. We watched some clinically drunken karaoke in front of a projected montage of classic sci-fi movie scenes. We also watched some people playing Rock Band, a game akin to Guitar Hero.

After waiting an hour and a half in the coat check line, we headed back to our car. Layla and I reflected on the evening and decided that seeing PUSA was our favorite part. As we were walking to our car and talking about what we liked about it we realized that none other than Chris Ballew, the lead singer and basitarist, was walking behind us with his date. Our cars were also parked in the same remote corner of the parking lot across the street, so I wished him a safe drive home and thanked him for the music.

Pasta Freska

2008-01-19T21:02:00.000-08:00

Layla and I went to Pasta Freska on Friday for a friend's birthday dinner. The most striking thing about it is that there is no menu. The chef comes to your table, talks about what you absolutely will not eat, and decides what he will make for you. What followed were a series of curious but delicious courses from eggplant, salad, spaghetti, stuffed chicken, and halibut. The chef came over to sing happy birthday to our friend Matt and told him to blow out the candle. Right as he began to blow, the chef mischievously covered Matt's mouth with his hand. Imagine, if you will, a Greek Tom Selleck look-alike clamping your mouth.

As we pulled into Renton to take our friends home we saw a street fight in the middle of the street by Fred Meyer. All I saw was a big Asian guy in business attire sparing with a younger guy in gansta attire and someone's white SUV several feet away with the doors wide open. I kinda ducked as we drove by hoping no one was packing heat (luckily it was just fisticuffs). You gotta love this place.