Another month, another post...

Just went to the Cinerama in Seattle for the first time today, to see The Brothers Grimm. The movie wasn't too spectacular though, and the story so-so. With the death of Star Trek Enterprise, I've picked up watching Stargate (SG1 and Atlantis), and Battlestar Galactica, so a few Friday nights, including yesterday, have been spent watching it with a few friends. I've stopped playing Friday night warcraft this summer because of that and also because I don't particularly enjoy that game too much (probably related to the fact that I suck at it). With that last vestige of socializing with co-workers outside of work gone (as watching Apprentice died after the show began to really suck), I feel more distant than ever to my immediate co-workers, but at the same time, solidifying friendships from other places.

A few weeks ago, I went kayaking down in the San Juan islands ostensibly to see some whales up close and personal, although it was not to be. (Whales move faster than kayaks, so you could only hope that they come towards you). Our guide was updated through radio, so we kayaked towards that general direction, although the whales veered off quickly. It was the first time in the back of the kayak for me, doing the steering with the rudder and it was rather amusing (perhaps vexing to my partner) as I kept on confusing the fact that pressing the left pedal turned left. My model was backwards, perhaps from games (fire the left thruster to turn right), so there were some close calls with other kayaks.

A few weeks before that was the annual Company Picnic. Somehow it has gotten less spectacular over the years (this is my fourth, including the two times during my internships). This year was mostly a go-there-and-eat-free-food deal, and less of the games. It might have been a function of the people I went with this year, who weren't as inclined to wait in line for things.

This year, I offered to lead the MS recruiting's Puzzlehunt working group for CMU, even though I vowed not to take any leadership positions so soon after sometime-taxing experiences at CMU. It's certainly different: recruitment is almost absent (while at Circle K, this was one of the top priorities), I'm directly accountable to someone (Stacey, the school recruiter), and things could really fall apart and fail (as in the event not happening), whereas in Circle K and the orchestra will still be around even if I had messed things up royally. Of course, politics always seem to be a constant. I'm happy to say though that things are going well at this point, and that we have almost all the puzzles already, so everything looks good for us to be back in Pittsburgh sometime in October or November. Which got me thinking that I really don't know anyone living in Pittsburgh anymore as puuj and yente have moved on to greener pastures, and wondering whether I'd be going back for Carnival next April.