Week 23: 05/31-06/06

Week 23

     05/31 - I'm fairly certain that on this day we actually just chilled, super chilled. I got some work done at the apartment, nothing noteworthy or interesting. Sorry for the boring post haha.
     06/01 - Today I made banana bread and I will eventually put the recipe on here. I make it all the time so I don't really understand how it isn't on here yet....hmmm...I also made a second visit to the Space Needle souvenir shop to get more postcards. I've send a lot of them lately, so I ran out. While I was there, however, I picked up a sweeeeeet keychain:

Oh yeah, very sweet

     06/05 - FUN FRIDAY! So KPFF does this awesome thing once a month where people get together and have a few appetizers/drinks at Rock Bottom Brewery on a Friday after work. Well the kids table (yes, I call the younger employees/interns the "kids table") was a fun time and I also got to meet several people within the company that I wouldn't normally work with directly. This was the start of a rather adventurous evening....

     So the tale goes as follows: At Rock Bottom Ryan and I ate a ton of food, I mean, it was free. We also drank four beers each, also free and non-inhibiting due to all the food. Afterwards, we went home and made dinner (why? I don't know). We ate dinner (with a beer) then, fully stuffed to the gills, we decided it might be fun to go to the bars. We headed up to Rhein Haus, an awesome German-style bar (for details see the Seattle page). At said Haus, we ordered 1L beers (a delicious hefeweissen)....now, we weren't overly intoxicated at all, but we were completely full. I struggled to actually drink the beer because I had so much food in my stomach...After eventually finishing the colossal brews, we wandered the streets of Capitol Hill, one of Seattle's neighborhoods that has a lot of young hipster types and many many bars. After a long walk we got home safely and slept off our massive stomachs.

     06/06 - Today, Ryan and I ventured out to Alki Beach (pronounced Al-Kai, don't say it wrong or they will give you a hard time lol). We took a water taxi over to West Seattle then a bus or two to the actual beachwalk area. It was a really cool area to visit, fully equipped with a ton of unique restaurants and a lively beach. We went to a lighthouse that was manned by three old-school Coast Guards. I like to think of these old dudes as the first line of defense against the Russians. We ate dinner at a Mexican place called Cactus that was very delicious and moderately priced, I will definitely try to stop by there again.

Alki Beach

A patriotic Seattle shot

Week 22: 05/24-05/30

Week 22

     05/24 - Today was the last day of my dad's time in Seattle. It was really great that he got to spend a few days here to help get me settled and see some cool stuff. For the last day, we headed out to Seward Park, a 300-acre park in the city equipped with walking and biking trails. It was a cool place and had some really tall trees, I think they are cedars. The park is a peninsula that sticks out into Lake Washington and has a view of Mt. Rainier. Unfortunately, my dad never got to see the mountain because he was never here on a day that was clear enough. If it's cloudy at all, the mountain becomes and invisible giant.
     05/25 - This have finally slowed down here in the Emerald City. Today is Memorial Day and instead of going out and doing crazy vacation-y stuff, we're finally taking a day to just chill out. Ryan and I got our stuff figured out at the apartment, unpacked and everything. We ran out to Target downtown and grabbed a couple more forgotten essentials. Today was also monumental because we figured out how the street names work; a first step in starting to act like a local.
     05/26 - Today was my first day at KPFF Consulting Engineers and it was great! The company is very large and very professional. I work on the 16th floor of a central downtown building, which is pretty neat. The staff are all very friendly and many of them are fresh out of their master's programs or have been working for only a few years. It should be a great job. My team leader took me and some other team members out for lunch as a sort of introduction. We went to a delicious Italian place called Il Fornaio, which I'll probably go to again sometime.
     05/27 - So, work is officially a thing so all of the crazy Seattle activity is gonna die down now a bit, which should let me catch up on this blog haha.
     05/30 - Sunny Saturday! Today I joined some people from the office (and Ryan) and we went paddleboarding at Green Lake. It was a lot of fun, I had never been paddleboarding before but it wasn't difficult at all to pick up. Green Lake park was cool too, there's a great bike/walking path around the lake as well as other park stuff.
     When we got back to our apartment we took full advantage of our rooftop grill, making some sweet food decisions in life:

Our view of Rainier from our roof!

Profound Thought: "It's much easier to remember thoughts in the moment, not two weeks after the fact"

Week 21: 05/17-05/23

Week 21

     05/17 - Today was my final day at the University of Illinois. I am a college graduate. It's very surreal. Last night I stayed at a hotel with my mom and brother, and today they and my dad and grandma attended my graduation ceremony. Before all of that, I attended Melissa's ceremony and got to watch her graduate with the College of ACES. At UIUC, the various colleges have separate ceremonies due to the large college size. The College of Engineering is so a large that they even split it up into two separate ceremonies, so, of course, I wasn't until Sunday night at 7:15pm. The weekend was extremely frantic and exhausting. I basically wore a suit for three days straight during the most humid weekend of the year, yikes. I'll be sure to get that dry cleaned before I leave Loves Park lol.

     I will never forget the people I have grown close to over my four years at UIUC. They have become like family to me and for that I am forever thankful. I'm going to create a Google spreadsheet with everyone's contact info that we can all keep updated. I hope this will help us keep in touch over the years and give us an address to send postcards! I love them all. I'm going to miss them a ton, hopefully I can manage to drag them all out to Seattle to visit.

     05/18 - After the craziness of graduation weekend it feels good to be home. Now it's time to pack strategically. When I packed up my room at school I made two separate piles for clothes, one for Seattle and one to keep at home, so clothes should be good. Otherwise, I have to make sure I have things like kitchen knives and my hammock. All a man needs, right? Hit the bank and yes, I got the suit dry cleaned, thank God.

     05/19 - Packed and ready to go! I will be taking two 45lb checked bags and a carry on bag to Seattle, plus a laptop. I was originally only gonna bring one large bag and Mail myself a box of goods, but it turns out it's cheaper to check that second bag. I'm excited for tomorrow's trip and hope everything will go well. Also, I made that spreadsheet I talked about, now I have to get people to fill it out.

     05/20 - SEATTLE Bound! The day has finally arrived to fly out to Seattle to begin my internship. My dad and I had a 7:00pm flight out of O'Hare. We got to the airport early and ate some Macaroni grill (lasagna). I am currently at 10,000ft up looking down on possibly The Badlands or something, everything looks rocky, hilly, and desolate, maybe we are already at the foothills of the Rockies. There are very few cities and lights below....Currently looking down on mountains! Finally!

     When we land the plan is to get out rental car and get to the hotel. My new roomie Ryan is already in Seattle at the apart,net, but we'll join him in the morning. UPDATE: Capt. Just came on intercom and said we are above Montana, so there we go. 1.5 hours left.

Where they throw fish!

     Made it safe and sound to the hotel, too tired to do anything so goodnight Seattle!
     05/21 - Took full advantage of my first day in Seattle! We visited the apartment and met up with/picked up Ryan there. It's a nice place! First we walked down to the building I'll be working and checked that area out. Apparently KPFF is in the hub of shopping so that's convenient. Next we visited the Space Needle, which was really neat and not too expensive. Afterwards we walked on over to the famous Pike Place City Market where they throw around fish and put gum on the wall. We didn't actually see the gum wall yet but the market was sweet. It's only a few blocks down the hill from where I'll be working so I'm sensing fresh fish and veggies in my future. I'll just eat like a European and get my daily dinner each day on the way home from work!
     For lunch we grabbed some food at Anthony's Fish Bar, which was pretty decent fast seafood, though I know there will be much better fare in the city elsewhere. After the market we decided it would be good to get some essentials for the new apartment. Thanks to Melissa, I have a handy pocket notebook to keep track of my day and make the all-so-important "to do" lists that I've become a slave to. Using said notebook, I jotted out a list of items we needed to turn the apartment space into a home. We decided that the 'burbs would be the best place to get all our stuff, so we headed out to Rentfort, WA, first stop: Goodwill.
     So, at home and anywhere I'm a pretty big Goodwill junkie. I thrive on buying seemingly (and actually) useless items to clutter up my living spaces with the idea that it's just junk so if it gets thrown out, no biggie. What I've found about Seattle is that the Goodwill stores here are HUGE and loaded with treasures, real treasures, not just junk. It's a good thing I don't have a car here because that could become dangerous. Anyways, we went to Goodwill and got enough stuff to turn an empty apartment into a ten-week home. each of us got a plate, cup, coffee mug, and chair and we also picked up necessary pots, pans, and utensils...and a narrow table.

   


     Next we hit up Target for misc supplies to round-out our adventure. Finally, we ate at a sweet Rock n'Roll themed restaurant called The Rock: Woodfire Pizza and Spirits. The burgers were massive and the beers were delightful. That about rounded out the first day. It was exhausting but a lot of fun and I looked forward to the next day's activities.
     05/22 - Today was another adventurous day. We took the ferry to Bainbridge Island to check out what was over there. We found a quaint little town with some cool small shops. We went on foot but next time it would be good to bring a car. We stopped at a cool bakery called Blackbird Bakery. They had good treats and coffee. We also took a short nature walk along the water. I would highly suggest taking a ferry ride if you come to Seattle, it's the best way to see the Seattle skyline!
     When we got back to the mainland we visited Top Pot Doughnuts, it was really good. (ASIDE: Note that you can always find more details about Seattle in my other page). For dinner we hit up Pike Place Brewery, which I hope to return to enough times to try all of their in house brews. After that we went to Owl and Thistle Irish pub and listened to a pretty cool musical duo play some folksy songs. Finally, we ended the night at Fado Irish Pub around the corner and listened to some live music by a live Irishman...Long day...Wait, just kidding! After Fado we went over to the Triple Door to find out about live music in the area and ended up staying for a bit, listening to yer another live musical act. It was a fun evening and I'm glad I got to bar hop with my dad.
     05/23 - Day 3 of Seattle had less rushing around, but we still did some pretty awesome stuff. First we took the Seattle Monorail to the Folklife festival in the Seattle Center, followed by a walk through the EMP Museum (literally just walked through, didn't want to pay to see exhibits). The Folklife festival was pretty cool, there was tons of music to be found and a bunch of food/stuff vendors. Apparently this festival is completely funded by donations, making it the largest donation-funded festival in the country.
     Later in the day we decided on a whim to try and drive up Mt. Rainier. We didn't really think it through, and being cloudy it was not the greatest day to go. We started towards the mountain and took the wrong route (thanks Google Maps). The route DID take us the shortest path but it wasn't to the entrance of the park, just a random side road. Anyways, it was super cloudy and foggy as we got up into the foothills, so it didn't really make a difference, we couldn't see a thing. We did have a really fun time though driving through the fog. We got out a few times to breathe in the fresh mountain air and listen to the sound of silence. I took this picture that I thought was pretty neat:

Week 20: 05/10-05/16

Week 20

     05/10 - I've decided that this week I'll do away with any presumption that the only posted pictures are the weekly selfie. I like pictures I want to post several as they are required. Good day.

     05/13 - Update on my life: finals week sucks, but honey roasted peanuts are good. I've basically been living on naught but peanuts and coffee for three days, I may be insane.

     05/14 - FINISHED MY LAST FINAL EXAM AT UIUC!!! ....and it was awful. I was literally hot and bothered. The exam room was very warm, I was in a sweater, and it was tough, couldn't have been a worse last exam, but I'm DONE! It's Thursday. Time for the Illini Inn!

     05/16 - Today begins graduation weekend at UIUC. This morning I went to the large convocation ceremony at Memorial Stadium. It was cool to see just how large the graduating class is and how the difference colleges compare in size. In the afternoon I went over to Melissa's graduation party at her family condo. Her family is loads of fun and they apparently turn every event into a tailgate, which is pretty baller. My mom and brother picked me up from there and we hung out to make up for a distanced Mother's Day. Even though we tried to make it about her, she ended up buying US a bunch of new shirts and food and things, thanks Mom! now I have a bunch of fresh dress shirts for my new job. Later we hung out at the Shack one last time with the Mass family and the gang. Sure gonna miss that place :'( I ended up staying with my mom and bro at the hotel they rented, they'll be attending the CEE stuff tomorrow.

Commencement at Memorial Stadium

Week 19: 05/03-05/09

Week 19

05/09 - Unfortunately, this was the only picture taken of me this week. Also, I'm not exactly sure of what transpired this week. There was a lot of HW to finish up due to it being the final week of actual classes. Steel II was a great class but man did it have some rough HW at the end.

Profound Thought of the Week: "Try your hardest to be photogenic. I have some pretty bad pictures out there in the ethos."

Week 18: 04/26-05/02

Week 18

     04/26 - So today my parents came down to CU to pick up most of my stuff. The rug is gone that tied the living room together, so that's weird. Also most of my bedroom is pretty stripped down. I packed up my large quantities of Murphy's logo glasses, a very large box. I finally took my parents to Black Dog with Melissa and it was a hit. If you don't know about Black Dog, you should. I would argue it's one of the best restaurants in the state of Illinois, definitely the best in town.
     04/29 - Murphy's Pub. I can't remember if I've talked about Murph's before, but I ought to. Every Wednesday for the past year I've gone to get their "Logo Glass" special. Basically it involves purchasing a branded glass of a different beer each week and getting cheap refills. The best part is you get to keep the glass! There have been a few flops, but many have been very cool. Some favorites are the Capitol Supper Club glass, a Stella glass with stem, a Two Brothers stemmed Domain Dupage glass, a Shiner Bock glass, a tall Budweiser glass, and a Revolution can-shaped Rebel IPA glass. Many of the beers themselves were crafty and wonderful. It's a cool tradition that I'm glad to have been a part of here. Many of us go regularly, but only I went enough to get every glass and the T-Shirt that was earned.  
     05/01 - We finally got to implement the big Aubra surprise party. After several weeks of designating tasks, gathering materials, etc., the kegger was thrown and it was a wild success. It was my first kegger and it was great. I did a keg stand, as is my right. We tried to help Dwi do one but he wouldn't hold himself up so it turned into waterboarding (beerboarding). Nobody died or got sick so that's a plus. This week we'll finish off the last quarter of a keg.

Profound Thought of the Week: "where did all the Sour Patch parents go?"

Week 17: 04/19-04/25

Week 17

     04/19 - I think I had an undeclared rule that I would only use true "selfies" as my weekly photo. Well as it turns out, I didn't take one this week, not a single one. BUT I did take this photo with this beauty. "Who is this person?!" you might ask. Well folks, I have a confession. I am dating Melissa. I have been basically sort of for a while (we never actually put a date on when it started). This is the very same Melissa I have referenced in the past, she who shares an interest in blogging. Anyways, spring break happened aaaaaaaaand long story short, the cards fell nicely into place :) Now I don't think this the the proper medium by which to pour out all my feelings. I know a lot of people do that in blogs but they ain't me. I'll leave you with this: I'm happy, we're happy, life is good.
     04/24 - Today is my good friend Aubra's birthday! 22! ... We've been in the process of planning an awesome surprise birthday party, but we can't implement said party until next week. I'm not afraid of this spoiling the surprise because honestly these words were not written on 04/24 but on 05/04. Yes, I'm behind the game when it comes to updating this blog.

Profound Thought of the Week: "There's no such thing as poor timing. Life is all about those moments in the present, and nothing is ever timed the way you hope or expect."