Settled in Seattle? No.

I’m getting lots of questions on how I am and how life is in Seattle. Well: great and great!  I’m putting together this little extension of kotaraindustries.com to keep you all up-to-date on what’s happening in my new life.  (Queue theme song from Alice, aka “There’s a New Girl in Town.”)  Here is an expanded FAQ on my general status since moving…

Are you settled yet?

I am nowhere close to being settled. There were too many little things that needed to be done before I could really unpack (installing extra clothes rods in the closet, figuring out the best way to arrange all the furniture, etc). My buddies Matt and Chris came over on Saturday for some much-needed “man help.” Pretty much everything in my house elicited this response from Chris: “My mom has that exact thing in our cabin!”

They helped me get the essential stuff taken care of so I can finally unpack all my clothes and stop wearing the exact same outfit on a three day cycle. I also got a new cascading magical powerflow showerhead to replace the evil schizophrenic one that came with the place. 70% of it spat out mist, which was cold by the time it hit me. The remaining 30% was a concentrated stream of scalding hot water. But now I have perfectly balanced and pressurized beads of plump water hitting me at a consistent rate and density.

I’m honestly having trouble finding time to work on my house, because there is way too much to do here. I don’t want to turn down any invitations to go sight-seeing or beer-drinking or tennis-playing!! My Tuesdays are about to be taken up by tennis lessons that start next week. My Thursdays will be taken up by going to a local bar in my neighborhood that plays old-timey country and has Tater Tot Thursday. Other various days throughout the week will be spent on Matt and Chris’s porch. My downstairs neighbor AND the random guy I knew from when I went to Spain 10 years ago are up for tennis. Jackie wants to go rollerskating. And this week?? I love this week! See:

• Monday - square-dancing at a mythical establishment called the Tractor Tavern.
• Tuesday - Taco Tuesdays at Bimbo’s Cantina, where the Mexican food is completely bland and therefore perfect for me.
• Thursday - Country night, followed by karaoke.
• Friday - Riverboat Gamblers are in town right after I get here!?

How is the new job?

This requires categorization:

• Actual work - Once I get a clue, it’s going to be great. It’s a very slow, laid-back initiation…so I really haven’t done much yet, which has been wonderful. At the old job, I typically had 4 hours of meetings a day, somewhere between 50-200 emails a day, and guaranteed interruptions approximately every half hour with some emergency that had to be addressed. Now I’m one of many people who has the position I’m in, and we split up the work. I’m getting maybe one legitimate email a day, it’s so awesome. I’m sure it will pick up soon, but for now I’m just riding the new-girl wave and enjoying a stress-free life. The work itself is pretty much going to be EXACTLY what I wanted to get into, and for you web analytics dorks out there (hi, Sonia!) who have any idea what I’m talking about…I’m so excited the client I’ll be working on has a full-blown implementation of Omniture with Discover! And these people know the shit out of Excel, so I don’t even think I’ll be throwing down the Excel gauntlet because I’ll lose! I was seriously in a meeting last week where we talked about “standard deviations” and “binomials” and I was in heaven even though I had no idea what was going on.
  
  
• Inside Environment - There are doggies everywhere! This office has an open dog policy, which will be excellent for curbing my desire to get a doggie of my own. There is an adorable little black pug named Pearl on my floor. And one of the guys in my group has a fluffy white dog who loves to be petted, and I like her a lot…except her name is Hallie. I’m not excited about potentially getting my name mixed up with a dog’s. Particularly a dog’s whose name came from “halitosis”. A dog whose breathe was once so bad the only solution was to pull all her teeth except her two bottom fangs. In addition to the doggie policy, the other awesome thing is that there is a bar here. IN the office. BEHIND the receptionist’s desk. There was an official happy hour on Friday afternoon, although it sounds like that’s a weekly occurrence. Around 4:30 they paged everyone to leave their desks and come up to the bar. The company pays to have a fully-stocked bar, complete with cold beers and a Jaeger machine.
  
  
• Outside Environment - I work in a weird old v-shaped building downtown that’s on a weird dissected intersection where 3 roads come together. I take the bus to work, and it drops me off just a couple of blocks from the front door. Downtown Seattle is pretty busy-body-ish, and there is pretty much every kind of shop imaginable within a 5 block radius of the office. (Which means about 25 Starbucks.)
  
  
• People - Everyone seems very smart and very friendly. For example, Christina just brought me a banana! This proves she’s smart (I mentioned last week that bananas were my favorite fruit) and nice (the banana was unsolicited).

How much has it rained so far?

Only on one day, suckers! The weather has been beautiful and sunny and temperate. I know it’s just a matter of time before it gets icky, but even then it will be okay because I’m going to buy these cute rainboots:



Seattle has changed you, we don’t know you anymore.

No it hasn’t, Lindy.