February 25, 2010

Biking to work

Filed under: Cycling, Microsoft, Personal, Seattle — spiro @ 6:16 pm

I finally bought a bicycle last weekend, after roughly a year of thinking about it. Monday was pretty nice here in Seattle, so I bailed out of work early to go ride a bit around Kirkland. Not only did I enjoy the ride, but I ended up doing 10.5 miles going to Juanita and back, then all the way to South Kirkland P&R (see route). So the logical conclusion from that is that I should be able to get through the 6.1 miles to work right? But unfortunately the weather would not cooperate this week, until today.

So here’s the route to work:

bikeroute

bikeroute

So I made it, the only big surprise is how I was exhausted climbing the hill west of 405, and a strong southerly wind, which should both help me on the way back :)

April 30, 2009

Ignite Seattle

Filed under: Seattle, Technology — spiro @ 2:01 pm

Yesterday I attended Ignite Seattle (warning, website sucks a bit), a special kind of conference where it starts off with a “make” project where you form a team and create something, the tallest paper & tape tower in yesterday’s case, and then it’s followed by a series of short-paced talks where the format is each speaker talks for 5 minutes, presents 20 slides, 15 seconds each slide. It’s hosted at the King Cat (6th & Blanchard) and it’s free!

I thought it was a pretty innovative conference format. Of course 5 minutes isn’t enough to go in-depth on a topic, but it provided an overview that will inspire you to dig more into it if you’re interested. All this provided you can get passed the high-on-java-compulsively-twittering-on-their-iPhone crowd :)

They promise to be back quarterly now. I think it’s definitely worth checking out! I’ll post a link to their videos/slide decks if/when I find them.

February 25, 2009

Seattle Survival Guide

Filed under: Seattle — spiro @ 6:42 pm

Many people coming in the Seattle area ask me about things do do around town, so here’s a compile.

Things to See

Kerry park in (Seattle – Queen Anne) the best seattle view
Space Needle (Seattle)
Ride the ducks – amphibian vehicle Seattle tour (Seattle)
Underground Tour (Seattle)
Pike place market (seattle’s main attraction)
Green Lake (Seattle – North) Nice park
University of Washington (Seattle – U-District) One of the prettiest campuses in north america
Boeing factory tour (Everett) If you want to see the 787 :)
The seattle waterfront (Downtown Seattle) It’s nice, lots of docks to walk
Marymoor park (Redmond) if u like parks
Bellevue Downtown Park (Downtown Bellevue) Pretty park
Aquarium (Downtown Seattle Waterfront)
SAM – Seattle Arts Museum (Downtown Seattle) If ur into museums, they have nice stuff
Tech City Bowl (Krikland) Best bowling around

Shopping

Seattle shopping District (Downtown Seattle – Pine & Stewart)
Redmond Town Center (Redmond)
Westfield Southcenter (Tukwilla – Near the airport) Biggest mall around here.
Northgate (Seattle – Northgate) Not much.
Seattle Premium Outlets (Marysville) Outlet mall, about 1hr drive north
Fry’s (Renton) The best electronic store, ever.

Eat

Yanna (Downtown Bellevue – Galleria) Really good Japanese
Tap House  (Downtown Bellevue – Galleria) Awesome beer selection, steak is good
Rock Bottom  (Downtown Bellevue – Galleria) GOOD beer
Celtic Bayou (Redmond) Cajun cuisine, irish beer
King & I (Downtown Bellevue) Thai
Mediterranean Kitchen (Downtown Bellevue) If ur really hungry
Can Am Pizza (Bellevue-Crossroads area) Best Pizza!
Red Hook (Woodinville) Brewery, a little far, hard to find, but nice!

Gyros 2 Go (Redmond) Good gyros.
Mehfil (Redmond Town Center) Indian Buffet Las Margaritas (Many locations) Mexican.
Wilde Rover (Kirkland) Irish Pub
George’s place (Kirkland) Diner

Jade Garden (Seattle – Intl district) Chinese
Stumbling Monk (Seattle – Cap Hill) Belgian Beer pub – Be sure to ring the doorbell!
Boom Noodle (Seattle – Cap Hill) Noodles
Jai Thai (Seattle – Cap Hill) Thai
Broadway Grill (Seattle – Cap Hill)
Elysian (Seattle – Cap Hill) Brewpub
In the bowl (Seattle – Cap Hill) BEST NOODLES EVER!!!!!
Tavolata (Seattle – Belltown) Good italian fare, crappy service if it’s full.
Chapel (Seattle – Cap Hill)
Garage (Seattle – First Hill) Good food, good bowling
Pink Door (Seattle/Pike Place

Fast food: Pagliacci Pizza, Qdoba, Baja Fresh, Red Robin

For bars, very little happening on the eastside (Bellevue/Redmond), mostly located along pike street, east of Broadway, in Cap Hill and in Belltown.

Clubs: War Room, Trinity, Neighbors (gay) – I don’t go clubbing, so i cant tell u much.

Ski: Snoqualmie (closest), Steven’s Pass

Bars close at 2am, usually last call is 1:30. U can get beer/wine at grocery stores, liquor stores look shady. You *WILL* be carded at bars, so bring ID. Strip clubs: not much in Seattle, best I hear would be DejaVu in downtown.

February 22, 2009

More layoffs in March

Filed under: Microsoft, Seattle — spiro @ 3:01 pm

Fellow Microsofties, I’ve got not so good news for you.

I was reading some blogs and stumbled upon one that mentioned that 872 layoffs were coming in March. Intrigued by such an exact figure, I dug deeper.

There’s apparently a WARN act, which stands for Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which obliges big companies to notify states, labor unions and cities of a big layoff coming. Turns out that Microsoft did file one of these which can be seen on the state’s web site.

The useful data from there is that there is to be 872 layoffs starting on March 23. So with January’s 1400 that would bring the total to 2272, with 2728 more to go. There are many other Seattle-area companies planning layoffs. Times are really bad…