Settled and sleepless in Seattle

Day 3: It’s day three of my workterm in Seattle and I’m enjoying Seattle already. The weather may not have been that favourable yet, but it’s what I expected from Seattle. All the comments I made previously from my Microsoft interview trip still hold (everything’s so green, the air is so crisp, etc.). And with that, I’ll just head into a jumble of unorganized observations and points from leaving Toronto to getting settled in here.

• I pretty much packed everything in a last minute fashion in the last two days. I reformatted my computer the night before I left, attempted to do a massive Windows update at about 1am on Saturday, and then got a blue screen. Luckily a quick repair from the Vista install DVD reverted any major issues.
• Arrived at the airport about 1.5 hours before the flight only to realize I had forgotten to print off anything with my US address on it. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wants to know where you’re staying while in the US, and so I was stuck. Having ditched all my Canadian currency except for a $50 bill, I had to use my credit card to call home to get my address. Pearson Terminal 3 doesn’t have unsecured wireless to steal off of like Terminal 1 did back in December, 2007.
• DHS Customs processed me in like 5 minutes without any questions, so my previous concerns about being detained at the border for free thinking were unwarranted. Then again, I do have my skin colour to thank for that.
• I flew a Canadian Regional Jet from Toronto to Minneapolis-St. Paul, where the Republican National Convention is being held. It was also weird to see signs for public transportation and other areas of the airport subtitled with Chinese. There’s a large Chinese population in Minneapolis-St. Paul?

• I had a two hour layover and not having installed VLC or Xvid made the movies I brought with me useless. I caved and bought some wireless Internet with Boingo at the airport. That was the slowest piece of shit ever. I couldn’t upload more than one photo to Facebook without it timing out constantly. I definitely regret buying that for about $8 USD, but I did get VLC and Xvid… and Daemon Tools and Flash 9…
• The flight from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Seattle was on a Boeing 757. I chose a window on the second last row because it was empty at selection time, but the airplane was fully booked by takeoff. I had a trio of pre-pubescent girls behind me gabbing and pulling at my chair the entire flight. I also had a fat ass in front of me that made his chair recline another 3-4" whenever he sat back in his chair, hitting the top of my laptop which I was using in my already restricted space. I shall rant about fat people at another time. I did land Seattle just in time for the most amazing sunset though. That’s a nice consolation prize.

• I got assigned a Jeep Compass for the weekend here. I thought it was a decent choice until I got to the house where PK, a housemate, had received a Mercury Milan Premier V6 decked out with Microsoft Sync and leather trim. Later on Sunday I would learn Miron, my other housemate, got a Nissan Altima Hybrid. Good thing I opted for the bike plan, otherwise my Compass would feel inferior.
• I chose the second living room / third bedroom for my stay. It’s got a convertible couch / pull-out bed. It’s firm enough and the added benefit is that there’s a 24" or 27" TV in this room with a DVD player I will never use. The room is fairly generous in size but that should be expected for what I’m paying. When the landlord said everything is included, she literally meant everything (pots, pans, dishes, linens, etc.). I’ll create a Synth of this place later.
• This being my third day here, it’s the second day of waking up at about 6am. Jet lag… It’s Labour Day so everything should be closed. Don’t know exactly what we’re going to be doing yet, though PK and Miron want to go to IKEA to pick up desks for their rooms.

Work, rather training, starts tomorrow. I’m excited.