spending habits

bicycle benefits

This is really a "note to self." Apparently there is a discount program at bicyclebenefits.org that I should have been taking advantage of the past few years. I could be getting:

• 1/2 off classic chocolate bars at Theo
• 10% at Auto Battery
• 2 for 1 admission at Central Cinema
• A free t-shirt at evo

Those are only the places that I go to with some regularity. I could also have been rocking it at these other spots I hit up periodically:

• $1 off beer at Arabica Lounge
• A free topping at Bluebird (maybe I should finally go there)
• 15% off at Liberty
• 10% off at Louisa's Cafe
• Something at Pie (what that something is? they don't say)

In other words, I could have saved an extra $30 or so over the course of a year. Nothing to cry over, but that's extra play money.

this sandwich tastes like death

Feedback to Microsoft Dining Services:

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I ordered the special ex-Yugoslavian sandwich (in café 86) figuring it would be good to try something new. I like it when there are new things at the cafeteria, but this time it was a big mistake. The sandwich is dripping in grease – both from the cheese as well as the seemingly deep fried super salty sausage. The sausage would be fine in moderation, but there is a generous portion of it. Sorry about rambling. Here’s a more orderly list of feedback.

The good:

• Variety! I like the introduction of new items
• Generous portion of meat/sausage
• Onions were nice and fresh and tasty
• It’s super filling. I walked in hungry since I skipped lunch this morning. I ate half of this sandwich and I’m full.

The bad

• Sausage was too salty and greasy… and I love salt. It’s right below the threshold of what I can tolerate. But given the generous portion of sausage, it’s too much. I decided I needed a break from the sandwich so I can process the salt and grease. I’m using that break to write this email. This email is getting long because I am still recovering and my taste buds aren’t quite ready for more.
• Overall grease level is super high – the cheese melts into more grease. See attached photos. The grease has soaked through the pita, soaked through the paper tray, and soaked through a bunch of napkins. I can feel it soaking through my fingers and back out through my pores while clogging my arteries and stopping my heart along the way. After writing this, maybe I shouldn’t finish this. I don’t want to die sitting here.
• Visual appeal – lacks color. Brown sausage, pita, and white cheese and onions isn’t very visually stimulating. Some tomatoes or greens would make it seem more appetizing, although I don’t know if that’s straying too far from the ex-Yugoslavian recipe. For better or worse, the grease makes it glisten.

day 4

Today was another good day. Got bus and train tickets for St. Catherine and Aswan. Funny thing is that this is the third day in a row that we walked by the bus station. We came across it the first day while wandering, came across it yesterday while lost (but we got unlost the moment we saw it), and today we were actually seeking it out. Oddly, we had no idea it was a bus station until today.

We spent the rest if the day exploring the length of Islamic Cairo. Hit up a few mosques, climbed a few minarets, and had some great street food. Got some fantastic falafel. At $0.20 a sandwich, we had two each. Sure, there may have been some cleanliness concerns, but we haven't gotten sick yet, so who cares it he used his bare hands to smush the falafel, wiped his hands on his dirty sweater, picked up the tomatoes from the bowl surrounded by flies, and then used those same hands to grab us change while he left our bills on the food prep surface? All we know is that it was damn good.

So for dinner, we may either have more falafel ($0.30 for a sandwich near our hotel) or get some koshari for once.

more about my phone usage

So over the past week I've gotten incredibly adept at killing my phone's battery almost at will over the course of a few hours. And no, it hasn't been from me calling tons of people to keep in touch - it's been through liberal web browsing and music listening.

Yep, it's a new phone. Allegedly it has much better battery life than the Samsung Blackjack that I was hang before, but I guess I'm using it a lot more. For example, I'm using it right now to write this blog entry while sitting in bed listening to it play music. So although I guess it has terrible battery life as a phone, I could look at it as a laptop that's incredibly portable that also has decent battery life. After all, that's how I am using it, right?

And yes, there are definitely some quirks. Like how I can check e-mail in landscape mode, how it doesn't know how to automatically insert the apostrophe in "it's" when appropriate, etc. But then again, I'm using it for obscene things like this (which I never would have done with my Blackjack) so I suppose it's definitely good enough. But then again, I did find a few easily correctable usability flaws regarding consistency... Yeah, I'd rather it be perfect. (-:

And Merry Christmas! Let's go eat some Chinese food!

food

You may have wondered where I've disappeared to recently. Um... I've been eating. Here's a summary of the exploits:

Weekend #1
Friday, July 13 - Dinner - Benihana
University, right by the I-5 on-ramp, Seattle, WA
Benihana is meh as usual. I only go to these places when there is a group going and I feel like socializing. I suppose the prices are reasonable, especially with the Prime Card discount (courtesy of Microsoft), but I would really much rather either somewhere else. If I want to eat steak or fish, I can do a better job doing it myself. If I want a cooking experience, then I'm not Paul Ip. I just want good food. Atmosphere, entertainment value, etc. take a back seat.

The other caveat is that I used to work at one of these places. As a result, nothing came as a surprise (well... mostly). The performance was OK. Nothing fantastic. Actually, the onion volcano thing went poorly. I'm not sure if others picked up on it, but it just wasn't done right. The soup and salad were exactly like I remembered it. The food was overcooked. The shrimp sauce was not as unhealthy as it used to be, which is a shame, because it used to be good. Anyway... the highlight was the sushi bar. $1 hand rolls. Cheap!

Saturday, July 14th - Breakfast - Mee Sum Bakery
By Pike Place Market
Even though we dropped by at 8am, they had no pineapple buns (or whatever they are called in English). Disappointing. Their pork buns are pretty good. The curry beef buns are just OK. Highlight? The baked pork buns (and the location). Lowlight? In three attempts, I have never been able to procure a pineapple bun. Damn it!

Saturday, July 14th - Lunch - Shanghai River
Westminster Highway, past No. 3 Rd, Richmond, BC
Good place. We were lucky to get a seat in this place. Their food was excellent as usual, although the Xiao Long Bao were a bit smaller than I prefer. Overall, solid. We ate other stuff too, but obviously this one item was the highlight. Highlight? Xiao loong bao. Lowlight? Whatever Alissa ordered.

Saturday, July 14th - Dinner - Richmond Sushi
Off No. 3 Rd, towards Bridgeport, Richmond, BC
We gorged ourselves. I forgot to mention - it's all you can eat. Not the highest quality, and I didn't really like the color of the tuna, but overall passable sushi. Plus, they have other items that you can get - like chicken wings and the like. $180 for six people (before tip) is pretty good for unlimited sushi and some drinks. The unagi was pretty decent, the tuna seemed sketchy, and no ika. Overall, I'd go again if I was with a group of people crawing massive quantities of raw fish. Probably not cheaper than getting some crazy sashimi at 5888 Cambie, though. Highlight? Gorging opportunity. Lowlight? Not *that* cheap and seems like they can have sketchy quality.

Weekend #2:
Thursday, July 19 - Dinner - Kau Kau BBQ
My parents wanted to go to the International District. I should have been stronger with my warnings. It sucked. Despite the rave reviews on yelp, I have to say that I have never been so disappointed with an "authentic-ish" Chinese meal before in my life. The Chinese Broccoli was chopped in ways the made no sense. My only explanation is that they had some that was beginning to turn and they chopped off the parts that have spoiled. The roast pork was the fattiest I've had. Not that I don't like fat, but this was like eating bacon is char sui sauce. I like bacon, but it's prepared a bit different. The cooking overall was pretty poor. The plate of vegetables and the pan fried noodles (chow mein... the real kind) were very meh. How meh? Those are two dishes that I've prepared myself before, and I have NEVER done such a crappy job with it. Not even on my first attempt where I was basically winging it. To add insult, the service was poor, we had to wait for our crappy food, and it wasn't even cheap. Bottom line: don't go here. Highlight? Leaving. Lowlight? Not being able to come up with a plausible reason for why the food is so terrible.

Friday, July 20 - Lunch - Noble Court
140th St, across from the Safeway, Bellevue, WA
I don't need a well appointed interior. I don't need a place to be super clean. I just want good food. That's why Noble Court works for me. Great food. The stuff that comes out on trays seems to be for a different audience (if you know what I mean), but if you avoid that, it's fine. The kitchen did a fantastic job keeping up with business that day and the food just kept coming out. The flow of lunch business also made sure that the food stayed fresh. A good combination, in my book. Highlight? They have a great variety of good dumplings. I like. Lowlight? A little pricey considering the dinginess of the place.

Friday, July 20 - Dinner - Umi Sake House
1st Ave, Belltown, Seattle, WA
I'm almost always happy with this place. This time was no exception. It's one of the rare occasions where I actually like a place that has a nice interior and service and everything - not to mention a good looking staff. (-; So we had four people, and we ordered $50 of sashimi, $30 of sushi, and $22 in rolls. About $25 a head, which is only a tad more than the $23 a head at the all-you-can-eat place in Richmond. Only difference here is that the quality of the food is fantastic, and we got some pretty good stuff. The great thing about this place (aside from what I've already mentioned) is that the platters aren't just filled with cheap stuff. So far they have always featured uni, which is some of the most expensive stuff out there. This time we also got toro and some shrimp sashimi. Good stuff. In the end, I was stuffed. I suppose I'd take this over Richmond Sushi. Yum! Highlight? The sashimi and the wait staff. Lowlight? Can be pricey if you don't get one of their huge special rolls to fill up (that's the trick).

Saturday, July 21 - Lunch - HKYK
No. 3 Rd, across from the Acura dealership, Richmond, BC
This place is solid as usual... and packed. Very good dim sum. Their har gow wasn't as good as some other places, but definitely good. They also had some good xiao loong bao. Why is that important? It's important because it means that by eating here I can get my xiao loong bao fix along with the dim sum fix. That's a good thing! You know what else is a good thing? Discounts for orders before 11am. Highlight? The food. Lowlight? Smells like natural gas (it's a hot pot place at night).

Saturday, July 21 - Dinner - West Lake (literal translation from Chinese)
Victoria and 34th, Vancouver, BC
Pretty new place it seemed. They had decent food. My dad wasn't particularly impressed (probably because we didn't order enough seafood), but I was happy. The salt and pepper shrimp was decent, but not the best I've had. You could eat the shell most of the time, but not all of the time. The rest of their stuff was decent, especially the veggies, fish and chicken. The pork n' mayo thing wasn't incredibly popular with our group. Highlight? Um... no lowlights. Lowlight? No highlights.

Sunday, July 22 - Lunch - Neptune yada yada
No. 3 and Ackroyd, Richmond, BC
This place is great. Some of the best har gow I've had outside of HK. Getting a table is a pain though. You basically need reservations, even if you get in at 10am. Why? The stuff is dirt cheap before 11am. The good thing is that the place opens up at 8am. I'm not sure if you need reservations then, but it certainly is good news to have a place that opens early. It opens up the door to having dim sum for breakfast. Followed by? Maybe dim sum for lunch. This place also has loong har gow (the lobster version of har gow). $2 per dumpling, but they're pretty good. Should be tried at least once. Highlight? The har gow. Lowlight? The xiao loong bao here sucks.

So what now? In a bit I'm off to try a wonton noodle place in the International District. I hope to finally have a good experience there. So far it's been sucking... a lot.

thoughts on microsoft

So far it's been great, and I'm not saying that just because I think people working here might also be reading this blog. (-;

Good people, relatively free reign over my project, and lots of freedom over how I want to work, dress, live, etc. I love it.

That being said, there's a lot of work, but it's fun work. I've been spending a lot of time going crazy with Web browsing getting myself up to speed on what the competition is doing in all the related spaces, and that's a lot of stuff. Thankfully, I'm already addicted to facebook, flickr, and various mapping things, but there's just a ton of stuff out there that I haven't toyed with yet. For example, mobile services. I just got a new phone today with an unlimited data plan, so that's something that I can take a peek at. So as I said, it's work, but it's fun.

Also, some other random notes for a bit of flavor. The cafeteria here is great. Choice of sushi, Indian, Italian, Mexican, burgers, sandwiches, salads, stir fry, etc. I've noticed that I'm mostly gravitating towards two places. The Indian for sure, and then the place upstairs. I think tomorrow I'll change it up and get a sandwich of some sort. Those tater tots have been teasing me...

The other thing is that the facilities here are beautiful, but also goofy. The campus here is really nice. Great landscaping, nice rhododendrons and even a waterfall by the outside eating area. On the other hand, the hallways here are death traps. They're not very wide, there are tons of blind corners, and there's carpeting so you can't hear if anyone is coming. End result is a lot of people almost running into each other. Typically a little annoying, but potentially catastrophic. I'm fearful every morning as I exit the kitchen area with my (complimentary) cup of hot tea of coffee. The other thing is that the toilets don't flush very well. I'll let you use your imagination about how I've determined that.

i like food

So a typical Sunday for me here in Seattle.

9am - Wake up (thanks, Alissa!)
11am - Play basketball with the interns
2pm - Go to the market and buy some mix of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy, and bread. Then go home and eat half of it and save the remainder for the rest of the week.

So I love the market. Aside from the throngs of tourists who want to take photos of everything, it rocks. Huge head of good quality romaine lettuce for 99 cents. Fresh french bread for under $3 a loaf. Huge quality apples for 99 cents/pound. And always an awesome selection of fancy fruit like cherries, strawberries, and even lychee. The meat there is pretty good too. Got a special of Angus NY Strip steak for $8.99 a pound. Plus I got some sausage there. The first time I've ever had sausage that isn't bursting with oil and fat. Good stuff. And of course, the fish there is excellent, although a bit on the pricey side.

Now that I'm finishing up with my late lunch, I'm going to see if I can do some random shopping downtown at a drugstore, and maybe Old Navy. Hopefully they'll have some good long sleeve tees.

After that, game 2 of the NBA finals. Go Cavs!

live from seattle

The long awaited rambling update... I promise that it will be disjoint and random. If the paragraph bores you, skip it and move on to the next one.

So right now I'm at work. I arrived in Seattle on Sunday, May 27 and I spent a few days hanging out in Seattle before starting work on Wednesday.

Working in my office is kind of like working in the Hall of Mirrors at SOM. I share the office with someone, which is fine with me, considering that at Progressive I didn't have much personal space to myself, though I do admit that I enjoyed hanging out with Steve and Colleen for many hours each day. The reason my office reminds me of the Hall of Mirrors is that usually it's relatively quiet, but there is a fair amount of traffic. Then about once or twice a day there's a loud gathering somewhere near here that's loud as hell. But it's OK. I'm used to working in the Hall of Mirrors. Only issue is that I am still in the habit of leaving my iPod in the car. I need to change my ways... especially with the amount of research that I'm doing.

So what am I doing? I'm trying to come up with a vision for a product. Right now it's a lot of competitive analysis - going and looking at different competitors' offerings and capabilities. I'll also be looking into trends both from a user standpoint as well as from a technology standpoint. It's very much like the sort of thing I did when I was doing research for my Comp Strat paper, so I feel like I'm pretty prepared for it. The only "issue" is that there is so much material internally to review that it's a bit overwhelming. I think I'm getting a pretty good handle on it though. I'm going to spend the next day digesting what's here, creating my own stuff, and then I'll reach out to a few more people to get some more brain dumps from people involved in two other affiliated projects. Good times.

So my apartment. Yes, I promised I would jump around a bit. My apartment is sweet. I'm sharing a 2BR with another intern in downtown Seattle. Heavily subsidized by Microsoft. We get a fantastic view of Elliot Bay and downtown Seattle. On a clear day I can see Mt. Rainier from my bedroom. Awesome. I'll put up some photos shortly so you can see for yourself. Better yet, drop by for a visit. We have a couch and plenty of floorspace. The other great thing about the apartment is that it's close to a bunch of stuff. I'm within a 5 minute walk of the Pike Place Market, which is a great place to pick up groceries (and flowers). I can get everything from produce, meats, milk, cheese, fresh bread, to asian and latino groceries. There are also a ton of little eateries around the market, from oysters to russian to chinese to greek to turkish. Good stuff!

The only two drawbacks to where I live: it's far from good greenspace and the commute kind of sucks. It takes 8 minutes to get to the highway in the morning. It can take over an hour to get home in the evening if there is a Mariners home game. I'll need to figure something out. Maybe I'll take the bus those days.

Oh yes. We get free bus passes for working here. I like.

You know another thing I like? The cafeteria here. Today I had Indian food and sushi. Granted, it's not the best quality I've ever had, but it's passable. Plus it offers variety. The only problem is that it seems like I want the Indian food every day. I have this bad feeling that I'm going to overdo it like we did Aladdin at SOM. Wish me luck. I intentionally got something else yesterday just for a break. The good thing is that they mix up what dishes they have each day. So is it really repeating?

So social stuff. It's been cool hanging out with the mix of people that I know here. High school people, b-school people, and Microsoft people. Give me a few weeks and I'll mix in some other peeps that I know here (from CMU and other).

My car. Ross and I have formed an alliance. An alliance to work on our cars. We both own 4th generation Honda Accords. He has the local knowledge. I have the tools and experience doing random stuff with my car. It will be fun. We will save enormous amounts of money. I'll probably save $300+ doing the radiator by myself. $100+ for the oxygen sensor. Driveshaft I may wait till I'm back in Cleveland. Ross will likely save a ton on his car as well. I like.

So what did I miss.... Photos! I just got internet access yesterday at home. I'll try to start uploading some stuff in the next few days. Not just so that you all can see pics from the cross country trip, but also so I can take more photos. I think I almost managed to completely fill 12GB worth of memory cards.

Oh yeah... I got invited to a party at Bill Gates' place. I hear he has a nice house.

So so far:
7 sunny days
2 rainy days
Had Japanese, Russian, Mediterranean, Mexican food.