R.I.P. Kevin Schutz

We always called him little shitter, Jason was shitter and Ryan was big shitter, but now Kevin is gone. I will never forget his enthusiam, everytime he said anything to me, I could feel his energy for life. Carrie Shelly and I would always say the he would be the cutest, and he was. R.I.P Kevin Schutz, you will be missed. Everytime I visited, it was always a special treat to be graced with your presence. You were a little brother to all of us.

Tacoma

For the second day in a row, I finally dragged myself out of bed much later than I should have. Knowing that this would probably happen, I made sure to have almost everything packed last night. I was like a ninja getting ready and I still had time for a quick breakfast and crappy coffee, I'm awesome. We drove 20 minutes to Tacoma, WA where we met up with the jobber that I would be working with all day. He was very energetic for 9 a.m. and stoked about getting to show off the corporate truck to as many of his customers that time allowed to visit.

The first stop we made was just what I needed to wake me up from my normal morning haze (that and my fresh cup of coffee). He took me to a Garage called Classic Reflection Coachworks. Basically they take brand new Corvettes and gut them.



Then they rebuild them with a classic body style, in this case a 1965 vette.




I'm not sure how many of you know about my thing for corvettes (the 72 stingray is my dream car) I was in awe. I'm talking mouth dropped, tongue hanging out, drooling action. I talked about it all day, I felt privileged to get to see this operation.

The we made about 18 more stops by 2 p.m. then met back up with Brain to head to Portland. I drove the truck almost the whole way. I think I'm ready to start taking over for the city driving, maybe.

I got more work done in the hotel in Portland, we went out to dinner (seafood again) and that's about it.

Last full day in Seattle

Getting up for work today was a struggle. I had 4 alarms set (3 on my cell and an alarm clock) and a wake-up call and I still got up 30 minutes after I should have. Luckily I am low maintenance so I got ready as quickly as I could so I could still have time to grab something from the breakfast buffet and some of the horrible, but highly caffeinated coffee that is served with it.

I did the work thing. I was on my own for lunch today, luckily I found a cute cafe among the suburban sea of crappy fast-food joints. The chef / owner came to talk to me to see where I wandered in from. I guess they don't get a lot of eat-in customers. Usually it's annoying for someone random to strike up a conversation while eating but today I welcomed it.

He discussed the problems with organic food growers and how they label themselves organic when only 25% of their produce may be certifiable. After leaving me to finish my lunch, he returned with a sample of his new salad concoction, spinach with feta and bacon tossed in a raspberry vinaigrette. It's making me hungry again just thinking about it.

After we finished our workday calls I did a little more work at the hotel. While talking to Sara on the phone, I made my way to the mall across the street in search of a long pink dress for Hillary and Endo's short notice wedding. I hit every department store, nothing. I walked another 4 blocks to David's Bridal to see what they had. Nothing in my size apparently. Guess I'll just have to try in the next city.

After I walked out of David's I decided to meander around some other stores in the strip mall. No matter how much shit I talk about hating these overgrown shopping complexes, I'm still shopping there, it just doesn't seem right. I got over that while I was in Best Buy gawking at all the toys I want but can't afford. I spent a good chunk of time walking slowly from TV to TV. I had about six different people try to help me. I don't know if that's because I looked truly interested in buying or just because its Best Buy. I think it's more the latter.

I started getting a little depressed because even if I could afford new toys, I have no place for them. By bags were full when I left Cincinnati; I don't even know where to put the few things that I've purchased over the weekend. Luckily I'm getting a better idea of what I need and what I can live without. I still miss my shoes.

Now I'm back at the hotel again trying to figure out where I'm going to get my dinner. I'm craving some of Steve's burritos with eggs and salsa but even if I wanted to try to make it for myself, I'm shit outta luck. I think my choices are Applebee's or Outback... I think I'll just starve.

Sunday

Sunday I ventured to downtown Seattle to see a few more areas of the city. I roamed around Pioneer Square, the old city, and went on the Underground Seattle Tour. Basically, back in the day, most bars and store fronts were underground because the streets were built up after the buildings were already in place.



I roamed around downtown taking pictures with my 35mm and then hit the waterfront for another round of seafood.

After being lazy in the hotel for a while, I walked forever to the cinema to catch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I couldn't help but compare it to the older movie version but I still liked it. I can't give a true analysis because I've never read the book, but maybe I'll just have to see if Aaron will lend me his copy so I can do so.

After the movie I called a cab so I could go to one of the convenience stores to get some smokes. I thought they were convenience stores for a reason but in the burbs it's only true if you can drive there. Reason #1023 why the burbs suck. I surprised that I could actually get a cab in under 20 minutes.

mmm.. Seafood

We started towards downtown around noon with no plans of what we were going to get into. We got a map as soon as we got down there and headed to the Pike Place Market. We were able to see the famous fish throwing but I was unable to get any good pictures of it.
We headed across town to Seattle Center to check out Experience Music Project. We picked up the headphone info sets and spent a couple hours exploring the history of music in Seattle and the history of guitars. I couldn't get any pictures on the inside but got a couple of the building.





We headed to the waterfront to get an early seafood dinner. We unintentionally went to one of the top US seafood places, according to some magazine. We both had the problem of deciding on one type of underwater creature so we got some of everything. Check it out for yourself...



I tried one of the little things with the eyes but I had to have Brian peel it for me. Even then I still couldn't eat them, lucky for Brian.




After dinner we headed back to the hotel. I'm going to hit downtown again tomorrow to get some good pictures with my 35mm camera. I'll probably be the nerd taking pictures in both 35mm and digital.

Finally in Seattle

Thursday was a day to forget, with the exception of the beautiful scenery. The actual work day was good but when we finished our business stops, we were off to Seattle not knowing exactly how long it would take us to get there.

There is no great route to get from Boise to Seattle, as least as far as we know, so we took a semi-suggested scenic route that consisted of two lane state roads winding through the mountains. I got to drive the truck for the first time. I think Brian was impressed with my performance except he said I drove a little too fast. I guess it's time to get my lead foot under control.

Twelve hours later we were still over two hours from Seattle, but we found our way to Interstate 90 and a Holiday Inn.

Before checking-in to the hotel we hit Denny's for beers and breakfast food only to return in the a.m. for another round but without the beers. It was time for round two with the truck but this time on the highway. I got a little nervous here and there but I'm getting the hang of it.

I talked to my boss a little today and found out that I will be visiting our Ohio factory in September. If this works out the truck might be making an appearance at the parents house that is if there is enough room to park it.

Since getting into Seattle we haven't really done much. I went to the mall across the street to find a charger for the digital camera so it wouldn't be useless. I talked to the employees at Hot Topic for a minute and got some tips on the Seattle scene. One of the girls invited me to meet them at a show on Monday if I wanted to go but not by myself. She said I would be able to meet her friends (so she says) who are playing, also known as GWAR. I'd really only be interested in meeting them if I could take Steve with me, he's a fan, hardcore.

Tomorrow is tourist day so I should have some good Seattle pictures then. I did get a picture of downtown when we drove past. Also, here are some pictures from our long haul (Thursday).

Driving Idaho

Today was uneventful for the most part. We drove from SLC to Logan, UT for a stop with a potential client and then headed towards Boise. I think is was around 300 miles but I can't say for sure.

My co-worker let me play my I-pod for the entire drive so he could discover some new music. So far he's discovered that he likes the Dandy Warhols and is intrigued by Blond Redhead.

We are actually staying about 20 miles west of downtown Boise so there is nothing interesting to do by a cheap taxi ride except to visit one of many cinemas we passed along the highway. I think I am going to try to see Willy Wonka tomorrow since we will be here another full day.

Here are some pictures I took along the way today. Hopefully I will have more interesting things to say in the days to come.

Salt Lake City

After getting up just after 6 a.m. eastern time and sitting on a three and a half hour flight that I almost missed, all I wanted to do was nap. With no coffee in my system, I made it through the first day in my new position. Tomorrow I'll make sure coffee is involved.

Over lunch we discussed the Mormon life and some history of the religion with a practicing member. The center of the Salt Lake City street grid is the Mormon temple. It is a beautiful granite building that took over 40 years to build.



The mountains surrounding the area are no way near as impressive as the alps but are still nice too look at



Lucky for me SLC has a light rail system. We are staying in the burbs and with out the public transport, I wouldn't have been able to see much. I had just enough time to take the train down, run around the city for an hour and take the train back in time for dinner.



Being easily amused, I thought the look signs painted on the streets at intersections were great, especially for us stupid people. They reminded me of similar signs in Dublin, which were necessary for those not used to cars on the wrong side of the street.



Tomorrow morning we are heading to Logan, for a stop on our way to Boise. As for Salt Lake City, the scenery is nice but it is too small for me.

2229 Victor Street Girls

it's been fun !!!

packing lite is never easy

I finally cut down my wardrode to fit in my little suitcase. As long as I can fit my soes in somewhere I'll be ok. I'm sad because my new Pumas had to stay behind. At least I have a key to my sister's apartment so I can get stuff out of storage whenever I'm in town if she's not there.

The weekend had been fun but it went too fast. Friday we went to Christy's and Saturday we drove to cleveland for the All Go Signs event. We the main reason I wanted to go was to see Infinite Number of Sounds, a Cleveland based band that incorperates video with their live tunes, fucking awesome. Steve was invited to spin during INS's Cleveland CD release party on August 12th. Hopefully I will be able to fly into Cleveland on time, since it is on a Friday.

Today has been pretty uneventful. The drive back to Cincinnati was bearable but we were grateful to get out of the car. I still have some packing to finish but for the most part I am ready to go. My flight leaves at 9 a.m. and I will be in Salk Lake City around 11 a.m. mountain time. I hear it's been over 100 degrees, and all I have are long sleeve work shirts. Not looking foward to that.

friday :-)

I'm writing this blog through email since I can't seem to get to the
blogger site, hopefully this works. It's my last day of training in
Chicago. I am thrilled that starting Monday I will no longer sit at a
desk in a cube, even though it will be a pain not having a permanent
work space. I got paid today and already spent most of it.
I have over $1400 tied up in expenses right now so hopefully I will
have it in my account by next week. I'm a little nervous because I
booked my flight from Boise to Cincinnati but not my flight from
Cincinnati to Seattle because I didn't have enough funds. If I can't
get a flight by early next week, it will be a wasted ticket.

What makes me even more nervous is the possibility of not having
enough funds to pay for my hotels and food. It would have been much
easier for me if they would've just given me a company credit card.
Easier but dangerous.

I have a lot of downtime today waiting for people to finish up
meetings so they can meet with me. What makes this even worse are the
problems with the network. I could loose my connection at anytime. It
happened earlier and was down for over 30mins. Now that's boredom.

Last night I attempted to pack a suitcase for the next week (possibly
two), not an easy task. I may only have enough room for one pair of
shoes and it would have to be my work shoes. I could upgrade to a
bigger suitcase but I can carry on the smaller one, saving time at the
many airports I'll be visiting. I guess that once I get to the truck I
will have personal storage space if I want it.

As soon as I am done working with the product manager today, I get to
head back to the Nati. Luckily for me, he is a busy guy and doesn't
have much time to for me. I'm hoping to be out of here by 3 at the
latest but we'll see.

today's horoscope

this is my horoscope for today, I think it's fitting.


Aquarius
Movement isn't just something you enjoy. It's something your restless sign absolutely craves. And since you insist on it, why would you want to argue when the universe provides it? Get on the plane, hop on the train or climb into the car. Regardless of which it happens to be, you've got someplace to be, someone to take you there and someone to welcome you once you arrive. This hardly seems like it could be a problem.


horoscope provided by Astrology.com

yesterday (tuesday)

The point of getting a training schedule was to make sure that my time would be used effectivly. Unfortunately, it has completely changed this week and I feel that I am wasting my time. Today I have nothing scheduled. I am supposed to do internet research on competitors, I did a lot of that yesterday. It is now 8:53 a.m. and I am not scheduled for anything else until after lunch, around 1 p.m.
Yesterday I spent the most day in customer service, boring. It's hard to observe a customer service department when you can only hear one side of the conversation so it wasn't as informative as it could have been. But everyone was very nice and I know they will be very helpful once I am on the road.
After work I kept myself entertained while waiting for Gina to get home by running around and taking pictures. The rain had just stopped and the sky was a mixture of sunshine and gray clouds. I wasn't able to get great reflection pictures off the glass buildings, but I'm not into those pictures a great deal anyway. I took just over two rolls so hopefully some of them turned out. I'll have to try to get them developed over the weekend since I can finally afford to do so. I need to find my box of used rolls and start getting those developed, I'm sure I will find some great stuff.

After dinner, Gina sent me to the grocery store since she had a lot of work to do. The worst part about grocery shopping in Chicago is trying to carry everything back to the apartment. Luckily we have a grocery store in the complex and they offer a delivery service for a small charge depending on the amount of groceries purchased. I probably looked stupid walking to the apartment with a guy pushing a shopping cart but it would have been worse if I was carrying them myself and dropping shit all over the hallway.

After doing a little work myself, I got to watch some Aqua Teen Hunger Force on Adult Swim. I forgot how much I enjoy watching it, it's been a while.

Heopfully I can make it through today with much less boredom than yesterday, but we'll see.

It's now week 2 day 2. I have a minor hangover after a night of sake and beer, I should have known better than to mix. I went out for Sushi with my sister and one of her co-workers. We tried a new place on Randolph which proved to be the best I have had yet in Chicago. I would never be able to afford a dinner like that on my own, I think the bill for three of us was around $230. They're big whigs so they can expense those kind of things. After dinner we stopped at Dylan's for another round and then back to the apartment. My sister has already planned for us to go out again on Wednesday night but I'm not sure if I can handle it. I don't do well in the morning after a night of drinking especially when work is involved. For the first time ever I can truthfully say that one of my older sister's is a bad influence, who ever thought that would happen.

I was close to beating my record travel time of four hours between Cincinnati and Chicago, but it went to shit right after I crossed the Sky Bridge into the city. I finally walked into the apartment just before midnight Eastern Time, about five hours after getting in the car in Clifton. It was the last chance I had to try to break the record since I am driving to Cleveland next weekend before going back to the Nati. Michelle visited Chicago for the first time over the weekend. I tried to get her to come up a couple months ago but she always had other stuff going on. As expected she had a great time and is now disappointed that I am no longer moving here permenently. I don't think she fully realizes that she is allowed to stay at the apartment whenever she wantes, as long as she can arrange to get a set of keys. It's weird for me to have no solid living arrangements. I was asked for my address while making a purchase at micro-center and I laughed a little before I told the sales guy that I didn't have one. I guess I could have given him my parents address but I don't think they need to get any more junk mail with my name on it. ALong with shopping at micro-center this weekend, Steve and I also went to 3 curcuit city's, a best buy and HH Gregg all in search for the Palm Pilot I need for work. I didn't get one until we got back to Steve's and I found what I wanted on the internet. Apparently no one carries a decent stock of Palm Pilots Just because we couldn't find a Palm doesn't mean we didn't buy anything. Steve got some new toys including a digital camera. Since he got a new one I inherited his old one and he also hooked me up with some portable speakers so I can actually listen to music without being right next to my computer. We didn't really do much else this weekend, which was good because seven hours of shopping was enough to kill all our energy. Tomorrow it's back to work for week #2. I'm excited to get through this week and to actually start in my position, eventhough it will still be training for a while. Anyway it's late and I'm tired.

I've never been much of a morning person but today took the prize. I had the TV programmed to turn on at 6 a.m., my three cell phone alarms were randomly set for times between 6 and 6:30 and the actual alarm clock was set for 6:35 exactly. I finally woke up closer to 7 a.m. with everything going on full blast. Difficulty sleeping is to blame. More specifically, it's the orange lighting that creeps through the blinds, I'm used to sleeping in complete darkness. I'm sure that my attempt to shut out the light by covering my head with all the blankets muffled any sound that was determined to interrupt my much needed slumber. Luckily I half-way prepared my morning coffee before hitting the mattress, having to just add water and hit the switch before my quick shower. I am grateful that I have easy attire requirements for work otherwise I would have been late for sure. Day two showed to be much more interesting that day one. I spent the morning reviewing current and previous promotions to gain a better understanding of some of the marketing efforts. I also approved a proof for my business cards (I HAVE BUSINESS CARDS) and picked out my permanent supply of work shirts. I wasted time looking into computer bags and PDAs while I waited for one of the sales guys to finish a meeting so he could take me out to lunch and then to some of the big local distributors whom I will be working with in the near future. There was much excitement that a female is taking over the role as product specialist, I am the first. Once I arrived back to the apartment, I changed and headed downstairs to pick up the pound of Flor azul (I spelled it "Flora" yesterday) that was not available when I bought the rest. I stopped by the hair place to see if they had any openings but discovered it was $35 for a wash and cut and walked out. I'm not forking that over for a minimal trim. If I had a good pair of scissors I'd do it myself, but I don't. My plan was to take it easy for the evening but after having dinner at the sports bar I ended up staying and having a video crack challenge with a guy from Italy who was also dining alone. His game of choice was movie trivia. Hands down, I lost, big surprise. The only would have had a chance if I had Steve on the phone while I was playing (and this guy was from Italy!) At least I was somewhat entertained. They bar downstairs is nice because the majority of the people there are there alone so it is easy to strike up a conversation. I have found that most of the people that go there are in Chicago for business and live (temporarily) in the complex, great place for networking. Too bad I don't have my business cards yet. Now it is 11:49 exactly and I want nothing more than to crash but I still have to pack for the weekend so I can avoid as much downtown traffic as possible when I am done for the day.

I made it through the first day of the new job with little excitement. I discovered that whoever made my schedule for the week over estimated on the time it would take for information sessions with the different departments. I got to take the plant tour twice and was guided through the socket process at least three times. At least I got it down. I got my work computer today which I have verified is just a little smaller than my personal. Now I just have to figure out the easiest way to carry around two laptops. Luckily for me my old laptop case, the one with the broken strap, is still in my sister's apartment so I don't have to go out and buy another one until I decide what kind I want. I made it back to downtown without encountering any slow traffic, surprisingly. I expected it to be much worse. I quickly changed out of my work attire and headed in search of a fifth third so I could deposit my expense front and get cash to make it through the next couple days. The location I am familiar with did not have an ATM willing to accept deposits. I figured someone was too lazy to refill the envelopes it dispenses. Luckily I was able to locate another location via the customer service line. FYI if you're in Chicago and need a Fifth Third there is one in the Sears Tower, I never would have found it on my own. I was expecting to head to Wrigleyville to meet up with Shawn and Brent soon thereafter but they called and postponed until later this evening so I went to H&M to kill time. Luckily for me they are having a big sale this week. I then hit the Nordstrom Rack, the discount stuff, where I found some awesome shoes. Navy blue Pumas for $20, I wasn't strong enough to walk away. I grabbed a cup of coffee on my way back to the apartment thinking the downstairs coffeeshop would be closed. I was wrong so I quickly finished the coffee I had and went in to buy some by the pound. I had a sample of the Flora Azul, the excellent medium roast that just finished brewing but they were out of whole beans until tomorrow. I ended up with a half pound of the Organic Brazil Cachoeira and a pound of the highly recommended Bean Addiction (also the name of the Coffeeshop). I'll probably still go back tomorrow and get the Flora Azul. Since I have never had one of their famous lattes and since I was such a good customer, they made me one for free. Mind you I chugged a cup of coffee right before I walked in the door. Who is highly caffeinated? I think it's me! I'm still waiting for Shawn and Brent to call but I think I'm going to start towards Wrigleyville just because I can't sit still.