"Say its alright...Have a good time
 'Cause it's alright
 Whoa it's alright"
    Huey Lewis & The News, It's Alright

I'm just coming to terms with the fact that I have an assload of work I need to have done by Monday at noon. However, I just can't seem to feel stressed out about this. Actually I'm having a hard time feeling anything but happy recently, and that includes the time I spent yesterday placing a collect call to God on the Great White Telephone. (Seattle Internation Beer Festival + President of Vice = World of Hurt, don't worry: I had the forsight to take the bus.)

My date Friday was wonderful! Oh sure there were the usual applications of Murphy's Law, but nothing we couldn't handle. The street in front of the place we were meeting was completely torn up and blocked off for about ten blocks in either direction, but we still both got there on time. The bar someone recommended to me was a smokey dive, but we wound up founding a nice place two blocks up the Demiliterized Zone instead. We went to see some Improv Comedy, and that was just excellent. All in all a fabulous evening.

Where do things go form here? On a second date, I hope. :-) Man I wish yall could meet Lisa! I can't quite put my finger on what it is about her, but you should see how people brighten up when she's around. She's something else.

Alright, enough grinning like an idiot. I've got work to do. Have a fabulous week!

"The world was moving she was
 Right there with it
 And she was..."
    Talking Heads, And She Was

Random facts about Scott's recent past.

• I rode the Short Bus to Issaqua on Monday.
• Carl has roto-tilled our entire yard so we now live on a large patch of dirt. This makes us the most white trash people in the neighborhood.
• I am the perf fairy.
• To dance West Coast Swing correctly you must remember this: ankles in, tuck your butt, shoulders down, chin up.
  
  And the grand prize winner:
  
  
• I have a date with Lisa on Friday

"You always double down on eleven."
    Vince Vaughn, Swingers

So yes... the casino. I had never been to a casino before so my expectations are largely based on movies. I would say the low roller table from Swingers was the closest to reality. Oh the humanity! I went with four guys I work with and we pretty much stuck to five dollar blackjack the entire night.

We rubbed elbows with rednecks and drunk thirtysomething women. We bought our drinks from a 6'3" cocktail waitress with very broad shoulders and a blackbelt in Speaking With A Board Monotone. She came buy about once every hour and a half, but no one complained because it would no one wanted to have the crap beaten out of them in front of their friends.

Other than the fact that we didn't discover the non-smoking section of the casino until we were leaving the night was a success. All five of us wound up making money on the venture. The low man was Matt who finished up $20.00 while Dave was the big winner walking away $180.00 richer than he went in. Damn Canadiens...

Personally I learned that I like playing games like blackjack and Pai-Gow that you can play for a long time without really winning or losing any money, I learned that people who play slot machine probably have no idea how sad they look while they are playing them, and I learned that its really surreal riding in a jeep with the doors taken off.

And now we dance... :-)

"You wore our expectations like an armored suit, uh-huh
 I couldn't understand
 You said that irony was the shackles of youth, uh-huh
 I couldn't understand"
    REM, What's the Frequency, Kenneth?

Ugh... geek burnout...

I've put in some laaate nights this past week, and I'm glad its over. The work isn't exactly finished (Not As Such is the official Scott Status of the project, actually), but in some ways a geek's brain is like a major league pitcher's arm: after a tough game it needs a few days to rest.

So tonight some of the devs on my team are going to a casino to blow off some steam and probably a little cash as well. Call it a warm up for our Thanksgiving trip to Vegas :-). Personally I've never been to a casino so I'm exicited just to see what its like.

Also on the Lighter Side: after two weeks of (almost) no dancing I'm finally getting a chance to overcorrect. The Seattle Lindy Exchange is this weekend! Dance the sun down and then (if you're so inclined) dance all night as well.

Have an excellent weekend!

"Must it take a life for hateful eyes
 To glisten once again
 And so we find ourselves in the same old mess
 Singing Drunken Lullabies"
    Flogging Molly, Drunken Lullablies

Oh my lord... here's a blast from the past. It seems my old friend Jay from my intern days never throws anything away. I looked at his site today and... well you'll just have to go see it for yourself:

http://www.jayandkay.net/~jay/ScottAssasination/index.html

"He sometimes thought that if life had a plot it would be so much better."
       Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis

This morning I thought that was a pretty good thought, but by midafternoon I thought better of it. If life had a plot it would probably prevent us from enjoying simple things like napping on the bus and finding some really good stuff at the library :-)

I'm sitting outside the library right now (ain't technology grand?), looking out over one of those little skateboarding parks that has all sorts of random concrete surfaces and iron railings for people to do tricks on. These parks are a real mystery to me: they're always full, but I have never once seen anyone actually complete a trick. Ever. They all just keep going push-push-push-JUMP, and then their board goes tumbling and they wind up landing on their feet in a drunken stagger. It seems like the world is full of people who are TRYING to be skaters, but the real ones are few and far between I guess.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled absence of plot :-)

"Call all my friends on those cheap nightly rates,
 Sure was good to talk to the old United States
 While the lights of St. Thomas 'bout 20 miltes west
  I see General Electric's still doin' their best."
       Jimmy Buffet, Manana

Sometimes coming back to your working routine after a good vacation is just as good as the vacation itself. It’s nice to come back to the baseline so you can appreciate how good things were.

Today overshot that mark a little bit. I got into work around noon to find a huge pile of nasty bugs that sure as hell weren't there on Thursday. Ah well...

So the weekend was great. It was so cool to finally get to explore the Olympic Peninsula (pictures pending).

The coolest place we went had to be Rialto Beach. Partially because I had never seen the Pacific Ocean before, but mostly because it was just so friggin’ cool. It was a lot like the coastline from Goonies where Mikey matches the island, the lighthouse, and the rock with the holes in that stupid doubloon. :-)

Anyway, Alissa thank you so much for making the trip out here. It was wonderful to see you. I hope you finally got a glimpse of Mt. Raineer on your flight out.